Author's Note: I know I have a lot of other stuff on my plate, but I wanted to write this for a while, and it's not like I had to even think up a mini plot for it, what with it being a relived excerpt from the movie and all ::winks:: Opinions always welcome. I also know it's not very long, but it wasn't intended to be. ::smile::
It was with a strange and notorious sense of curiousity that Captain Nemo watched the odd affection with which Mrs. Mina Harker stroked Agent Tom Sawyer's cheek, lifting a brow at her words as she spoke to the young spy, inspecting the small wound on his head. Nemo had always been intrigued by the actions of others, and had often liked to study them, as it were. What the subject of the study was – male, female, child, adult, scholar, tramp – did not matter to him, so long as he could further his knowledge of this strange mass called the human race.
On this journey, this mission, he had studied the actions and responses of the other members of this peculiar League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and catalogued them all carefully away into his organised mind, filing them separately to better construct a character for each person present. Mrs. Harker, Allan Quatermain, Agent Sawyer, Dr. Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde, Dorian Gray and the newly-discovered traitor, Rodney Skinner. At the thought of the fiend, Nemo's blood chilled… only to have that feeling shoot up several innumerable and unbearable levels at the sound of the agonised and strained voice that called to him.
"Cap'n!"
Ishmael…
Nemo, along with the others, turned his head at once, dreading what he would see. When his eyes met the weary, pained gaze of that of his First Mate, the regal Indian broke off towards the ramp at once, at a swift run unbecoming someone of his years. His weathered hand gripped the waving scabbard of his sword, and transferred to the silver hilt, even as Jekyll shot around him and up the ramp, towards the collapsing sailor. Jekyll's arms carefully wrapped under and around Ishmael's torso, and Nemo automatically lowered with the two of them to be at eye level with his second-in-command, and dear friend. He was in agony, Nemo could tell, but for the sake of something he clearly needed to say, he was fighting it back. Ishmael had always been brave, something that had first drawn Nemo to select the Englishman as a member of his crew, despite his hatred of everything British. Ishmael was the first and most important exception to this rule.
Looking down at Ishmael's chest and abdomen, Nemo could see three bloody; devastating gunshot wounds, and furrowed his brow with sadness and a hidden rage at once. Ishmael was dying…
Behind him on the ramp, stood Sawyer and Mrs. Harker, whom had both paused some distance back when they had clearly realised the drastic condition of the First Mate. Their faces had fallen into melancholy, an expression that Nemo had seen all too many times on the faces of his own victims before their ends, and the faces of those he had been forced to tell of loss. It grew less bearable with each experience, and he wished to see it no more.
He looked back into the already fading brown eyes of Ishmael, and prompted him with a gaze for him to tell his secret.
"It was Gray…"
A great rush of native curses flooded through Nemo's normally organised mind, overwhelming it with rage, sadness, disbelief and murderous, vengeful intent. His eyes – he knew – blazed with the revelation and its spoken consequences, and he felt rather than saw Mrs. Harker's slight shocked recoil at this statement.
"… Not Skinner." Ishmael wheezed for a moment, clearly feeling the blood flooding his lungs as he slowly and painfully was robbed of his life. "Gray's tricked us all."
The weight of these words rested heavily on the members of the League gathered, and a momentary flicker of guilt hit Nemo at that moment, for his immediate – at the time – suspicion of the invisible man, simply because he had been the easiest to blame of treachery. He should never had so easily trusted Gray… it had been his – and the League's – undoing, it seemed. Ishmael was paying the price, and with his life.
Nemo was robbed of his musings when Ishmael gasped and gave a slight choke, his eyes glassing over as he slumped gently against the doctor supporting him from the behind. The chestnut-haired physician gazed down at the body he held, and Nemo glanced inquisitively to Jekyll, who lifted his head slowly and sorrowfully, and shook it simply back and forth.
Dead.
Ishmael was dead.
In his mind, as a subconscious act more than realised, Nemo ran over a prayer for his lost friend. Over the time they had become acquainted, Ishmael had become a dear associate of Nemo's. The captain had trusted the man – quite literally – with his 'Lady' and his life.
Curse the day Dorian Gray ever set foot on this Earth… I will make him suffer with his last breath, immortal or otherwise… he shall pay.
It was at that moment, when all things seemed at their worst, that Nemo heard the noise. He was not the only one to catch the audible groaning and grinding from inside his magnificent Nautilus, and young Sawyer tentatively – and with a hint of fear – asked, "What is it?"
Nemo practically growled as he responded with the ferocity of an angered tiger, "The sound of treachery!" Though unwilling to simply leave the dead body of his slain friend, Nemo shot to his feet, and without breaking stride, ran through the hold of the Nautilus' belly, and to the other side, commanding the panel be dropped at once. His crew frantically followed his orders, seeing the intent in their captain's eyes, and Nemo only cared that they heeded his command. As the chains snapped into position to hold the panel horizontal, to enable supported walking upon it, Nemo stepped out onto it, with Quatermain, Sawyer, Harker and Jekyll behind and around him.
Nemo gazed upward in dismay and anger as the familiar half-sphere began to push itself out of the side of the submarine he called his pride on an extendable arm, supported by winches and cables, wheezing and hissing as it moved.
"What is that thing?" Sawyer called over the mechanical din, shouldering his rifle in his usual American gunslinger style, though for once, Nemo's level of caring was somewhere around nonexistent as he watched the accursed swine that was Gray steal another marvel of his creation. Oh yes… he would pay dearly.
"It's my exploration pod," Nemo responded clearly, gruffly and with fury burning in his dark brown eyes, usually so calm and stoic, his entire stance screaming out his indignation at the entire situation. If Gray had truly been attempting to incur Nemo's wrath… then he had certainly succeeded marvellously.
Spikes shot up around the vertical side of the pod, and with a clunk, it detached itself from the cabled arm that protruded from the Nautilus. It fell gracefully and swiftly to the water, perfectly balanced as it dropped, splashing down, though not with enough force or vehemence to splash the helpless, observing League. Nemo's rage bubbled at the surface, and for the first time in many years, he was close to boiling over and giving in to something that had caused him no end of troubles in the past. No… he would resist. He had a duty to perform.
The pod started to whir and kick into life, the spiked projections at the edge spinning and creating a motion as they cut through the water, causing it to move forward and towards its audience, even as the small lights in its hull blinked into life, and the large front panel slid in half, revealing Dorian Gray strapped at the controls, smiling smugly and infuriatingly handsomely in their direction.
Nemo would have liked nothing more at that moment that to throw himself upon that pod and attack it with all the fury Kali would bestow in his limbs, tear into it and rip it apart just so he could get at the treacherous pig that was Gray. The immortal even had the nerve to blow a mocking kiss in their direction. With that, he tugged on the steering column, and began to turn the pod away from them.
"We can track it," Quatermain pointed out with a subtle optimism that would have been more at home coming from Sawyer's lips. The hunter stood resolutely – inwardly angered, Nemo could sense – behind the captain, intending to console him.
Regardless of this attempt, Nemo growled once more, his eyes and hands showing his madness at this treason, and clearly cut through the noisy air with a yell of correction, "I intend to catch it!"
With all the pain of his personal attacks made by Gray upon Nemo, the captain turned sharply on his heel, stormed into the hold, and began to bellow curt orders to any crewmember that had the sense to listen.
Even if it is with my last breath, I will see that dog suffer for his crimes…