Child of Two Worlds

Part 5

Summer soon drew to a close in the middle of September. Temperatures were starting to cool down too.

While it had been hot during the summer, aside from going swimming in Central Park at night, little Sil had also began swimming in the atrium beneath the castle. Brooklyn would even join him there for fun too. Having Sil here sure warmed Brooklyn's heart. He gave him a buddy to hang with.

Goliath also had both Lex and Brooklyn start to train Sil in the combat sense too. Some skills that were taught to gargoyle children, only without the gliding lessons since he couldn't fly or glide. During the day, Fox, David, and even Owen tried to teach him other martial arts too that went beyond basic gargoyle fighting. They just wanted Sil to be able to defend himself if he found himself outside the castle somewhere and if he was attacked. He needed to be skilled in all matters of self-defense.

"It's great that the humans are teaching you to fight too, Chamberlain, but you need to use those skills wisely. You only use those skills in defending yourself or protecting others. You don't use those skills to go about being mean to others. You could really hurt someone and then likely, those others would come after you. That wouldn't be a good thing." Brooklyn explained to him.

"But what if those same men come after me that made me?" Sil asked. He shivered at that thought.

"Then you have every right to defend yourself from them. And just remember that you can't always rely on artificial weapons like guns. Humans rely on guns too much for defense and not on their own sense of defense like we do. When I was little, my kind trained with maces, swords, and shields too. There was no such thing as guns back in my kid days. Of course, though, our whole bodies are weapons practically." Brooklyn explained. He even gave a demonstration.

Young Sil was impressed. He had four working arms too. He had sharp talons on the ends of them. Likely even someday, when his spikes grew in on his back, they could be weapons too. But his own teeth, feet, arms, and tail could all be good weapons in self-defense for the time being.

Little Sil was also joining the gargoyles more and more on patrols too. He was starting to get over his fear of the takeoff from the castle. But when there were crimes going on when they were spotted, for his own safety, whoever carried him dropped him off on a rooftop and told him to stay there so he wouldn't get into trouble.

The young Skeksis hated not being able to put his training to good use. "I want to put my new skills to use. How can I prove it if you won't let me fight?" Sil demanded furiously to Lexington one night, as that was who he was with.

"I know all too well what it's like to think that just because you're small that the bigger ones think they have to look out for you. But Chamberlain, you're also still a child. Look, one day, we'll let you in on the action, but you still have some more growing up to do." Lex explained, "Now I have to go get those bad guys." Then he jumped off the building to go stop a burglary.

Sil watched him from above. He was about Lex's size if a little smaller. If he could fight them, why couldn't he? "How can I get down there to help?" he asked himself. Then he saw the fire escape on the side.

He ran to the fire escape and climbed down. He ran across the street after looking both ways. He had been taught about traffic safety too. Lex was inside the jewelry store trying to stop five men. Sil couldn't hear the racket.

Two men ran out and saw a little creature. These were the first strange humans that little Sil was having an encounter with since his escape. He knew he couldn't back down now.

Sil put on his brave face and snarled at them, opening his mouth to bare his teeth and had his talons ready for a fight.

"Oh, look at this here. A little gargoyle trying to beat us too." One of them mocked him.