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Demona: Story
Demona was hatched in 938. By 971, she and Goliath had already begun to fall in love. At the time, she was known only as the “Angel of the Night,” or simply Angel, a name Goliath used with affection. She was close not only to him, but also to her rookery sisters, Desdemona and Hyppolyta. Even then, however, she was developing the fears and anger that would later shape her darker path.
When her rookery father, the Rhydderch of the Wyvern Clan, allied with Kenneth II and Prince Malcolm against King Culen, Angel and Hyppolyta disobeyed orders to stay out of the fighting. Their defiance led to the death of the Rhydderch’s mate, Verity, and to Angel’s capture. Imprisoned by Culen, she was humiliated and threatened before being rescued by the Rhydderch and Goliath. Shaken by the consequences of her actions, Angel swore never to disobey her father again and later attended the Wind Ceremony honoring the fallen.
Soon after, the Archmage approached her, promising power so she would never be helpless again. Hoping to protect herself and her clan, Angel accepted his apprenticeship. He taught her to read, and she in turn taught Goliath. Under his command, she retrieved a magical flute from the dragon Wyvern’s hoard and later stood beside Goliath during Shahrizad’s tale of the Three Brothers. Yet the Archmage ruled her through fear, and their relationship grew increasingly abusive.
In 975, after stealing the Phoenix Gate on the Archmage’s orders, Angel was confronted by her future self and an older Goliath. Taken to 994, she witnessed the aftermath of the Wyvern Massacre and the ruin she herself would one day become. Horrified, Angel rejected her future self’s call for genocide. Comforted by the older Goliath, she returned to her own time, hid the Gate, and claimed it lost. The Archmage cast her aside in fury.
At Prince Malcolm’s wedding, Angel broke the Phoenix Gate in two, giving half to Goliath and keeping half herself. She shared its secret with him, and that night they became mates.
Angel grew into one of the clan’s greatest warriors, fiercely protective yet increasingly embittered by humanity’s cruelty. In 984, she aided Goliath and Mentor in recovering the Grimorum Arcanorum, saving Malcolm’s life after the Archmage poisoned him. Soon after, Mentor stepped down, and Goliath became leader, naming Angel his second-in-command, a decision that fueled open conflict with Hyppolyta.
By 987, Angel and Goliath conceived a child, and in 988 she laid her egg in the Wyvern rookery, unaware of how deeply the future she had once rejected would still shape her destiny.
By 994, Angel had reached the limits of her patience. Princess Katharine, Prince Malcolm’s heir, showed the gargoyles nothing but ingratitude, and when the Captain invited them to dine, the princess responded with open contempt. Furious, Angel confronted Goliath. He tried to calm her, reminding her that humans feared what they did not understand and that their ways were not gargoyle ways. Though Angel seemed momentarily soothed, her anger remained.
Rather than let it fade, she betrayed the humans. Secretly conspiring with the Captain of the Guard, she agreed to deliver Castle Wyvern to Hakon and his Vikings. They urged Goliath to lead the clan away to confront the invaders, allowing Hakon to seize the castle in their absence. Goliath refused to leave Wyvern undefended and departed with only Mentor. Desperate, the Captain altered the plan, ordering a daytime attack instead.
Angel was horrified. The clan would be helpless in their stone sleep. As dawn neared, she sought out Othello and Desdemona but could not bring herself to warn them, fearing her role would be exposed. She fled to the shore, where the rising sun turned her to stone, a single tear frozen on her cheek.
That night, Angel awoke to devastation. The Vikings had slaughtered the clan. Overcome with grief, she hid when Goliath returned, unable to face him. When she finally emerged, Goliath and the few survivors had already been bound in an eternal sleep by the Magus.
Standing before her mate’s petrified form, Angel cried out in anguish. Grief curdled into hatred. She buried her guilt beneath rage, blaming humanity rather than confronting her own betrayal.
From above, she watched Princess Katharine, the Magus, and Tom flee with the rookery eggs. Unable to face them, she did nothing. She kissed Goliath’s stone form one last time, then glided into exile.
Angel soon came upon a nearby farm and raided a barn for food. The farmer’s young son, Gillecomgain, heard the disturbance and came to investigate. In a burst of fury, Angel slashed his face with her claws, scarring him, and declared that it would teach humans a lesson. The act was tragically futile. The only lesson learned was by Gillecomgain himself, who came to believe that all gargoyles were evil. He swore vengeance upon Angel, branding her a demon, and upon her entire race. In time, he would become the first Hunter, a relentless enemy of gargoyles everywhere.
Angel wandered Scotland for years, attacking humans who crossed her path and stealing food to survive. By 997, other rogue gargoyles, survivors of clans destroyed by humans, had joined her. Though ragtag, this group became a new clan under Angel’s leadership, turning to banditry. Learning from past disasters, Angel ordered them to sleep in separate locations so that the destruction of one cell would not doom the others.
Not long after Brooklyn arrived in 997, the entire Sruighlea cell of Angel’s clan was massacred by King Constantine and Gillecomgain. Among the ruins, Angel discovered a wanted poster for Mary and Finella and learned that they possessed the Grimorum. When True suggested honoring the fallen with a Wind Ceremony, Angel dismissed the idea, urging the clan to focus on vengeance instead. Brooklyn later approached her on behalf of Mary, Finella, and the Grim, seeking aid against Constantine. Sensing an opportunity to claim the Grimorum for herself, Angel agreed, secretly planning to destroy both sides and use the book to bring Scotland to its knees. During this time, Brooklyn became known among the clan as the Gargoyle of the Sword.
In battle, Angel praised Brooklyn’s fighting ability, and he credited Goliath as his teacher. Her demeanor hardened as she warned him not to trust humans as Goliath once had, insisting that betrayal and slaughter were inherent to human nature. When Brother Valmont unleashed a storm of magical arrows using the Grimorum, Angel seized the book to undo the spell, though not its consequences. After Constantine’s defeat, the Phoenix appeared and carried Brooklyn away. Knowing he could not allow Angel to keep the Grimorum, Brooklyn offered to safeguard it while she reached for her half of the Phoenix Gate, allowing her to believe she needed it to control the Phoenix.
As the years passed, Gillecomgain, now called the Hunter, became Angel’s most dangerous enemy and a dire threat to Scotland’s remaining gargoyles.
In 1020, after Angel’s clan raided a Dunsinane storehouse for food, guards threatened that the Hunter would soon exterminate all gargoyles. Angel killed them and shared the stolen supplies. When Second questioned why peace with humans was impossible, Angel violently silenced him. The Weird Sisters soon appeared, warning that the Hunter now stalked Castle Moray and urging Angel to ally with Clan Moray. She refused.
At Castle Moray, Angel first encountered Macbeth. Though she despised humans, she saved Macbeth and Gruoch, allowing the Hunter to escape. Twelve years later, fighting beside Macbeth, Angel finally slew the Hunter, and Macbeth saved her life in return.
In 1040, Duncan, fearing Angel’s alliance with Macbeth, disguised himself as the Hunter and attacked the gargoyles instead. Angel barely survived, fleeing with a handful of survivors and believing herself too worn to lead.
Forced into alliance with Macbeth, Angel accepted the Weird Sisters’ offer of rejuvenation. They exchanged her age with Macbeth’s, binding both in immortality and a spell that only one could ever destroy the other. With Angel and her clan’s aid, Macbeth defeated Duncan and took the throne. He named Angel his chief advisor and gave her a new name, Demona.
For seventeen years, Demona knew peace as her clan grew, and she eventually confessed her role in the Wyvern Massacre to Macbeth. That peace ended in 1057, when Canmore invaded Scotland. Overhearing Macbeth consider abandoning the gargoyles, Demona believed betrayal inevitable and fled Castle Moray on the eve of battle. Without her, Macbeth was defeated, and Demona’s clan was destroyed.
Demona later confronted Macbeth alongside Canmore. In the chaos, Canmore stabbed Macbeth as Demona collapsed, each believing the other dead. The Weird Sisters revealed the truth: as long as one lived, both endured. Confronted by Gruoch and unable to deny her guilt, Demona vanished into exile once more, believing herself the last gargoyle in Scotland.
By 1093, Demona had left Scotland and crossed into Northumbria, armored and hardened by centuries of loss. There she encountered a new gargoyle clan and found its leaders weak and complacent. Though a curious rookling took interest in her sword, Demona warned the clan to scatter before dawn. When they refused, she withdrew. By nightfall, the clan had been slaughtered, leaving only the rookling alive.
Finding the child weeping amid shattered eggs, Demona dismissed her grief, teaching her that survival mattered more than mourning. She took the rookling with her in pursuit of vengeance and soon encountered Canmore. Uninterested in ceremony, Demona killed him outright. Though Canmore’s son later inherited the Hunter’s legacy, Demona grew fond of the rookling, who followed her into exile and took the name Angelika.
For decades, Demona and Angelika wandered the world, through Iberia, across the Mediterranean, and alongside Viking forces, fighting in human wars for profit. Demona formed brief attachments and constant suspicions, particularly as Angelika began to bond with others. In Constantinople, Demona secretly stole the Eye of Odin, hoping to grant Angelika immortality. Angelika refused, choosing instead to live and die naturally. She cast the Eye away, affirming that Demona was her family not because of immortality, but love.
Eventually, they settled in Japan with the Ishimura Clan, where Demona experienced rare peace helping raise a new generation. Angelika aged, Magni died, and Angelika prepared for her own end. When a final threat arose, Demona destroyed another Hunter, only to return too late, Angelika had died.
Devastated, Demona rejected Angelika’s final words and renounced the Wind Ceremony. She buried their shared treasures and refused to take on another mortal daughter, driving away the rookling Angelika had prepared to follow her. Leaving Ishimura forever, Demona departed alone once more.
Between 1111 and 1994, much of Demona’s life remains unrecorded, though she likely witnessed, and perhaps influenced, numerous pivotal moments in European and American history. During this time, she roamed the world, relentlessly pursued by Macbeth and by successive generations of Hunters descended from Donald Canmore. As centuries passed, Demona’s bitterness toward humanity deepened, until she resolved that humanity’s extinction was the only way to ensure her survival and avenge her suffering.
Living in France by the early fifteenth century, Demona took her first decisive step toward genocide in 1495, stealing the Medici Tablet in Florence and the Fulfillment Spell engraved upon it. Though confronted by the Hunter Stuart Canmore, she escaped. His vow to hunt her until the last gargoyle died only amused her, reinforcing her belief that coexistence was impossible.
In 1920, Demona attempted to annihilate Paris by using the Praying Gargoyle to animate the city’s statues. She was thwarted by Fiona Canmore and Team Atlantis, though she survived thanks to her curse. While the Praying Gargoyle was destroyed, Demona salvaged its Atlantean crystal and placed it on holy ground to regenerate. What role she played during World War II is unknown, though the atomic bombings may have shaken even her.
By 1980, Demona returned to Notre Dame Cathedral, reclaimed the regenerated relic, and killed the Hunter Charles Canmore. His children pursued her into the Paris Catacombs, where Demona nearly killed Robyn Canmore before being driven off by Jason. Throughout these centuries, the Weird Sisters continued to watch over Demona and Macbeth, intervening at key moments yet to be fully revealed.
Sometime between 1980 and 1994, Demona was maneuvered into meeting David Xanatos, with Owen/Puck arranging the introduction. The two formed an alliance to awaken Goliath and his clan, Xanatos for power, Demona for vengeance. Through Xanatos, Demona regained access to the Grimorum Arcanorum and learned the Magus’s account of the massacre, while secretly planning to seize the castle and lead the clan into open war against humanity.
After Castle Wyvern was moved to the Eyrie Building and the spell broken, Demona helped manipulate Goliath, pretending she too had been frozen by the Magus. Exploiting his gratitude toward Xanatos, she aided in a raid on Cyberbiotics. During the mission, her true nature emerged: she dismissed human lives as worthless, nearly murdered security guards, and deliberately destroyed the Air Fortress to maximize casualties. Goliath, disturbed, began to see how deeply she had changed.
Back at the castle, Demona’s rage boiled over when Goliath chose to meet Elisa Maza. She denounced humanity, demanded blood for blood, and rejected any suggestion that humans could be trusted, unable to confront her own role in the Wyvern Massacre. When Goliath told her that centuries of hatred had hardened her, Demona understood their bond was broken.
She then conspired with Xanatos to unleash the Steel Clan, hoping to crush the gargoyles and take command herself. In a final confrontation, Demona confessed her betrayal at Wyvern, blamed Goliath for ruining her plan, and demanded he join her crusade against humanity. When he refused and confronted her guilt, she declared him her enemy and attempted to kill him. Elisa saved Goliath’s life, and Demona vanished after the battle, seeing Goliath’s choice as yet another betrayal.
From that moment on, Demona resolved that the gargoyles would either embrace her hatred of humanity, or be destroyed by it.
Following her break with Goliath, Demona launched a systematic campaign to either convert the Manhattan clan to her worldview or destroy them.
She began by targeting Brooklyn, saving his life during a biker assault and exploiting his gratitude and youthful doubts. Claiming she had never been frozen, Demona exposed him to humanity’s cruelty and persuaded him to help steal the Grimorum Arcanorum under the pretense of revealing a “truth spell.” Instead, she enslaved Goliath’s mind. Horrified, Brooklyn turned on her and broke the spell, forcing Demona to flee, but not before she stole pages from the Grimorum, gaining both knowledge and a new enemy.
She soon escalated, poisoning Elisa Maza to lure Goliath into a trap and later shooting him outright. When Hudson refused to join her, she nearly killed him, retreating only when sunrise saved Goliath.
Reuniting with David Xanatos, Demona helped create Coldstone, blaming Goliath for the Wyvern Massacre and unleashing the resurrected gargoyle in Times Square. The alliance fractured when Demona tried to kill Goliath outright; Coldstone sacrificed himself to save his rookery brother, and Xanatos forcibly carried Demona away.
Demona next sought absolute power through magic. Stealing Titania’s Mirror, she bound Puck and attempted to eliminate humanity outright. Instead, Puck twisted her wishes: humans became gargoyles, gargoyles became human, and Demona herself was cursed to transform into a human by day. When she saw her reflection, she shattered the Mirror in fury.
At Xanatos’s wedding, Demona manipulated Goliath into surrendering his half of the Phoenix Gate and used it to travel back to Wyvern. There, she confronted her younger self, attempting to forge a tyrant in her own image. Angel rejected her utterly, forcing Demona to confront that she herself had once made the same choice. History remained unchanged, and Goliath finally let her go.
Her first campaign culminated in the City of Stone. Demona deceived Xanatos into broadcasting a spell that turned New York’s humans to stone at night, allowing her to slaughter hundreds. When confronted by Macbeth, she mocked his inability to stop her without dying, until he revealed he was willing to do exactly that. The Weird Sisters intervened, forcing Demona to acknowledge her own culpability in every tragedy she blamed on others. Broken, she gave up the code, “ALONE.”
Moments later, Demona buried that guilt once more, renewing her hatred of humanity. As the Weird Sisters carried her away, Goliath realized the truth: Demona had learned nothing.
After the Weird Sisters seized control of Demona and Macbeth, they were forced to steal the Grimorum Arcanorum, the Eye of Odin, and the Phoenix Gate from the Clock Tower. In her cursed human form, Demona posed as a police officer escorting Macbeth, but Elisa Maza grew suspicious and followed them, only to be knocked unconscious. Demona was furious when Macbeth prevented her from killing Elisa and the sleeping clan.
After sunset, they reactivated Coldstone, allowing the Iago persona to dominate, and trapped the clan at Macbeth’s mansion. Demona then returned to confront Elisa directly, revealing her human form and setting a trap meant either to kill her or prove to Goliath that humans were worthless. Elisa willingly faced her and easily defeated Demona, who lacked experience fighting as a human. Othello regained control of Coldstone and saved Elisa, forcing Demona and Macbeth to flee.
The Weird Sisters soon reasserted control and transported Demona, Macbeth, and the Three Keys to Avalon. There, under the Archmage’s command, Demona and Macbeth attacked the Avalon Clan. Though Demona briefly resisted when Goliath reminded her that the Avalon gargoyles were innocent children, the spell held. Ordered to destroy her own rookery offspring, Demona was ultimately defeated by Princess Katharine, her hatred of Elisa overriding even magical compulsion.
After the Archmage’s defeat, the Weird Sisters lifted their control and erased Demona and Macbeth’s memories of their enslavement. Goliath sent them away from Avalon, cast once more into the outside world, free, but unchanged.
Avalon delivered Demona and Macbeth to Paris, where Demona awoke first and fled. There, she met Thailog and quickly fell in love. Pooling their wealth, they devised a scheme to expand their power: Demona, in human form as Dominique Destine, would marry Macbeth, fake his death, and inherit his fortune.
The plan nearly succeeded. Dominique seduced Macbeth, and they became engaged within weeks. However, the Avalon World Tour brought Goliath, Elisa Maza, and Angela to Paris on the eve of the wedding. Demona married Macbeth, then revealed her true form and imprisoned him, but Thailog betrayed her, freeing Macbeth in hopes the immortal king would kill Demona and end them both. During the ensuing battle, Elisa shot and temporarily killed Demona. When Demona revived, she first encountered Angela, though she did not yet know their connection. Thailog carried her away, hiding his betrayal.
Back in New York, Demona learned from Dr. Sevarius that Angela was her biological daughter. Determined to recruit her, and build a new clan, Demona allowed herself to be captured by the Manhattan Clan. While imprisoned, she and Angela spoke often, and despite herself, Demona began to genuinely care for her daughter. Still, she continued plotting, arranging the cloning of Hudson and the Trio and working to undermine the clan.
Thailog eventually freed Demona, and together they captured the Manhattan Clan using the clones, mockingly named Brentwood, Hollywood, Malibu, and Burbank. As Thailog prepared to execute the captives, starting with Angela, Demona finally broke. When Angela denounced her manipulations, the words wounded Demona deeply, but when Thailog aimed his weapon at Angela, Demona physically stopped him.
Thailog then revealed his final betrayal: he had created a replacement for Demona, Delilah. Realizing she truly loved her daughter, Demona turned on Thailog, freed the clan, and urged Goliath to “save our daughter.” The two villains battled atop a burning roller coaster, which collapsed, leaving both their fates uncertain and Angela haunted by what she had said.
Soon afterward, Demona used her resources at Nightstone Unlimited to complete Operation Clean Slate, the plan she had begun centuries earlier with the Medici Tablet and the Praying Gargoyle. Employing Dr. Anton Sevarius, she created the CV-1000 carrier virus and sought D/I-7 detergent from Xanatos Enterprises. After hired thieves failed, Demona stole the compound herself, violently battling the Trio and Bronx.
Under her human alias, Dominique Destine, Demona prepared the final components, CV-1000, D/I-7, the Medici Tablet, and the Praying Gargoyle, while deceiving Robyn Canmore, who gradually uncovered the truth. When Demona attacked the Hunters’ airship, she was captured alongside Goliath, Brooklyn, and Lexington. In captivity, she revealed her history with the Hunters and briefly allied with Goliath, encouraging his growing rage after learning of their attempt on Angela’s life. Though they escaped together, Brooklyn distrusted her completely.
On the night of the Hunter’s Moon, Demona enacted her plan at St. Damien’s Cathedral. Using the Fulfillment Spell, she merged the virus and D/I-7 into a global plague meant to exterminate all intelligent life, while the Praying Gargoyle would shield gargoyles alone. As battle erupted between the Hunters and the Manhattan Clan, Demona nearly succeeded. Brooklyn was wounded trying to stop her, but Goliath intervened at the last moment, destroying the Praying Gargoyle and daring Demona to complete her genocide.
Enraged and thwarted, Demona hurled the vial into the air in a final act of defiance. Goliath caught it, preventing catastrophe, while Demona escaped into the chaos. The plan was ended, but Demona survived.
On Halloween night, 1996, she returned to the cathedral ruins to reclaim the Atlantean crystal from the shattered Praying Gargoyle, already planning what would come next.
After Robyn Canmore was exposed as a Hunter, Demona withdrew from public view, temporarily abandoning Nightstone Unlimited while continuing to exploit its advantages. Through Antoinette Dracon, who became fanatically loyal to her, Demona manipulated a gang war among New York’s crime families. By exploiting Dominic Dracon’s mental decline, she ultimately gained control of the city’s underworld. At the same time, Coldstone, disillusioned with Goliath’s leadership, secretly pledged himself to her cause.
In 1997, Demona resumed her long-term plan to acquire the Three New Keys to Power. She stole the lancehead of Gungnir in Buenos Aires, traded control of Nightstone to Thailog in exchange for the haft, and orchestrated an attack on the Eyrie Building to steal Puck’s flute. She briefly hesitated when Coldstone reported Angela still hoped for reconciliation, but pressed on. During this period, Demona also reclaimed her long-lost locket, a memento of Angelika, injuring Angela in the process.
When Antoinette finally secured Cleopatra’s Necklace, Demona united the Keys and enacted her new vision, not humanity’s extinction, but its enslavement. Using the Necklace, Gungnir, and the Flute, she enchanted humans across Manhattan, compelling obedience to gargoyles under her rule. She forced Elisa Maza, David Xanatos, and others to kneel before her, presenting domination as a “compromise.” Goliath rejected it outright.
At LaGuardia Airport, Demona’s control collapsed when Angela and Goliath together challenged her, Angela appealing to love, Goliath confronting her with the Wyvern Massacre. Their resistance weakened her grip long enough for the Keys to be torn away and destroyed. Demona escaped, defeated but alive.
Yet the night was not a total loss. Earlier, under enchantment, Elisa had been ordered to steal Egwardo, the Manhattan Clan’s egg. Antoinette delivered it to Demona, who fled with Coldstone at her side. Holding the hatchling, Demona vowed to raise him as a “true gargoyle,” devoted to hatred of humanity and contempt for any gargoyles who opposed her, leaving the Manhattan Clan broken and grieving.
Beyond her recent defeats, Demona remains consumed by bitterness and continues to plot humanity’s destruction, still determined to reshape gargoyle society in her own image. Though Angela will persist in trying to redeem her, success is doubtful.
When Earth is invaded by the Space-Spawn in 2198, Demona faces a threat greater than humanity itself. She accepts Samson’s invitation to join the Resistance, contributing her magic, cunning, and daytime human form. Distrusted by her allies, and unsure she can truly fight on their side, this conflict may represent her final chance at redemption…or her ultimate opportunity to eradicate humanity.
Demona will ultimately experience an epiphany, recognizing her own role in her suffering, leading to a profound transformation, possible madness, or both.