Sapphire & Jasper
By: Aubrie1234
"Hey, Jurassic."
"Rawk!" Zon said quietly, not trying to attract attention. Doyle had spotted her quickly and had landed on a branch beside her. One of Zak's shoes was hanging from a branch point, but Doyle wasn't going to ask. A small distance from them was an abandoned bunker, the kind from WWII, but it certainly wasn't abandoned right now. In fact, there were guards stationed in front of its entrance, as well as a black van.
"See another way in?" The pterosaur shook her head, "Then I guess it's time to call in a favor." Zon watched as Doyle took out his phone and opened the back, where the batteries were. Instead of seeing them right away, a folded piece of paper covered them. The redhead took out the paper, closed the compartment, and unfolded said paper. Inside were numbers and beside them names, but only single words, like 'Ben' or 'Wolf.'
"Let's hope this works." Doyle muttered as he chose a number and typed it in. It rung twice before it was answered.
"Who is this?" asked a gruff voice on the other side.
"I'm Doyle, a friend to Alex."
"The Doyle?" the gruffness was gone, replaced by stiff, slightly angered amusement, "The one that left Alex?" Doyle winced.
"It was a misunderstanding. Anyway, you're Ben, right?"
"That I am. Alex said you would call if there was an emergency, but that was years ago. How'd you get this number?"
"I kept the list he gave me, just in case."
"I REALLY need to change my phone..." Ben mused to himself.
"Anyway, I need help." Doyle continued, "Alex is in danger."
"What kind of danger?" Ben's voice now had a serious tone to it.
"I don't know, but the group that grabbed him has the symbol of a silver scorpion."
"...Shit." he cursed, "How long ago was he captured?"
"At least half-an-hour. He was also badly injured before that."
"Okay, I've got an idea, but you'll need to get inside to where he is. He taught you how to sneak around, right?"
"Yeah, a bit."
"Good. I'm going to pull up an extraction team, but someone needs to be inside to keep an eye on Alex and make sure he doesn't get killed until they get there." Doyle grit his teeth. Alex could get killed by these guys, he knew, but Ben saying it out loud forced him to think about how much danger he was in.
"How long until then?"
"Don't know. Could take up to an hour from where you are and we don't have that kind of time."
"Do you know-"
"I know exactly where you are, Doyle. Now, get to work." The connection was cut, leaving the man to stare at his phone.
"Alright..." he sighed, tucking his phone away, then turned to Zon, "Stay and tell the family when they get here. Thanks for the help, but I've got to do this on my own." She watched as he took off his jetpack and climbed the tree, worry filling her as she wondered if things would go according to plan. She wasn't dumb, she was just like her cryptid brothers, but she knew if she tried to help, she would make things worse. She only hoped neither Doyle nor Alex would die.
"Gah..." Abbey moaned, massaging her ears and eyes. Slowly, both senses were coming back, though she wished they weren't. She would get reprimanded for this failure, she was certain.
She had been hired to grab Alex, and though they had cautioned her on his tricks, seeing he was injured had made her think it would be easy. She had let her guard down and he had taken advantage of it. She had to admit, though, that Doyle had good taste. Up close, despite the injuries and bandages, Alex had looked wonderful. She had seriously thought he was going to kiss her, until he pulled the veil over her head by arming one of her grenades. He would have been a man after her own heart if it wasn't for the fact that her heart was ruled by her greed. But Abbey also wanted to take her vengeance out on him for taking Doyle away from her. She knew Alex had done this because her employers told her.
They knew practically everything about Alex and were willing to pay any price to get the blond into their clutches. They also hated him. A lot. They hated him so much that when she was given a tour of the facilities shortly before going after Alex, Abbey saw them using his picture for shooting practice with machine guns. There were also dartboards with his face in the recreation room. And his face was on punching bags, as well as other dummies. They hated him that much. It was like Alex was their mortal enemy, as strange as it sounded.
Blinking her eyes, Abbey found she could see a little more than before and her ears weren't ringing like crazy. Sitting in one of the chairs in the recreation room after being taken there, she wondered what was going to happen to her. Suddenly a man walked in and, with his mask off, Abbey saw his face and remembered that he was the head of the group. He sat in a chair beside her.
"Ms. Grey, your payment has been transferred to your account electronically." he said, "And if you would like to play with Alex a little, that would be fine with us." His voice was a bit muffled, but Abbey understand what he was saying.
"Why? Why did you still pay me, even though I didn't do the job?"
"We paid you half your fee because you still brought Alex to us, in a way. To us, that's all that matters. And if you won't take the offer, then you may leave." Abbey's eyes narrowed.
"No, I'll take that offer." she stood, "I want to make him pay for being the object of Doyle's affection for so long." The other man nodded and stood as well.
"Then follow me." He led her through the hallways of the building, deeper and deeper into it. Originally, the building had been an abandoned WWII bunker, but had been heavily modified when the group that had hired her moved in. They went down several levels until they came across a row of shiny new cells. The man gestured to one, where Abbey looked in. Chained to the wall was the blond that had given her so much trouble, where it seemed he was starting to wake up.
"Make sure not to kill him." the man told her, "The rest of us want our fair share of revenge." Off to the side were torture tools, where Abbey grabbed a whip.
"Don't worry, I won't." She went into the cell after it was unlocked, giving a dark smile to the blond below her and closing her mask.
Alex hated feeling weak, especially now. He could feel the heavy chains on his wrists and his head was light, yet heavy at the same time. He could barely lift it, yet it felt as light as air. He hated how the blood loss made him feel, but at least he wasn't dead yet.
Struggling to look up, he saw the blue boots of a certain woman come into the room and two clicks, one from the door and another just above him, probably from Abbey's mask closing or opening. That meant he hadn't blinded her or made her deaf, at least. She knelt down to his level and he saw a whip in her hands, making his stomach churn. He had been whipped before, but it was never a pleasant experience, especially if the whip had a metal or stone tip. Stone tips were even worse, as they had a chance of infecting him, if the tip wasn't already poisoned. He had faced a poisoned whip once. It hadn't been pretty, as Alex had to stay in a hospital for nearly a month.
"Hello, Alex." Abbey purred, "You were quite troublesome man to catch, you know."
"What do you want?" Alex croaked, just talking was tiring to him.
"I want revenge. I love Doyle, I gave him affection after you left. You don't deserve his forgiveness." Alex smiled.
"Neither do you." His head snapped to the side after she slapped him. Pain in his injuries reignited as she had slapped the right side of his face, the damaged side.
"At least I didn't abandon him."
"Are you delusional? Of course you did." She slapped him again on the other side.
"You have no idea how much I care for him!"
"You left him for money. I left him for his safety. Besides," Alex gave her a hard look, "I gave him something you've never given him, will never be able to give him. He may have had affection for you, but part of it was because he wanted to start over. And because you abandoned him, he may never find someone to love again."
"Yet he still loves you."
"You would still love your ex too."
"I've had a lot of ex-boyfriends and I've never loved them like I've loved Doyle."
"Then that might mean you're obsessed. I wouldn't want to get on your bad side if you are." Abbey huffed and stood, stretching out the whip.
"You already are." CRACK! Alex winced as the whip struck his chest and cut through his clothes like paper, aggravating his ribs as well. It was going to be a long day.
Despite Ben's instructions, Doyle wasn't sure how he was supposed to get in. If he made a sound or movement, the men would most likely shoot. And if he got hurt or died, it wouldn't be good for Alex. So how was he supposed to get rid of them? He couldn't just go up to them, they would still shoot him, and he doubted he would be able to take them out in hand-to-hand combat. Suddenly, he had an idea. Aiming his blaster, he took down a tree branch, causing commotion. As it was a distance away from the bunker, he hoped the guards would take the bait. They did and, with a smile, Doyle ran inside.
He quickly had to duck into a closet when guards walked down the hall, though. They weren't taking any chances, were they? And that reminded him, just who were these people? What did they want with Alex? Had they sent Abbey to capture him and when the distress signal went off, they came to get rid of them both? Shaking his head, Doyle noted to think about it later. Now, to figure out where they were keeping Alex...
Alex grimaced as he held his bleeding chest. He had to dislocate his wrist (his sprained one no less) and then relocate it so he could stop the blood flow. If he lost much more blood, he was sure that even his luck wouldn't be able to save him. Talk about being a 'black cloud.' When the door opened, however, he found himself looking into an unknown face but one that seemed eerily familiar.
"Long time no see, eh?" Alex studied the man's tanned face, but nothing came to mind.
"Do I know you?" The man smiled, his dark eyes twinkling.
"Yes, but I suppose it's been a long time. I was one of the trainees at Malagosto when you were there." The blond's eyes flashed in recognition and some fear. Malagosto could only mean one thing, and Alex didn't like it. He didn't visibly show his fear, though, he wasn't going to give the man any satisfaction.
"The scientist, right? You were good at chemicals and machines, especially poisons." The man nodded.
"That's right. And now that Abbey is done with you, my friends and I wish to get our revenge." He opened the other chain holding Alex and quickly grabbed the able wrist, preventing Alex from fighting back too much. He dragging the spy with him, out of the cell and up a floor until they reached an experimentation room.
That's the only word Alex could think of for the room, as there was some sort of tube-like chamber in the middle of the room with a few control panels around it. Thick wires like vines were connected to it from the sides and spread out around the room. Also in the room, besides Alex and the man, were two other people trying to keep a cage closed. Inside the cage was a pink cat as big as a puma with six legs that looked pretty mad. It was hissing and trying to scratch the eyes out of the people around it.
"That's a Wampus Cat." the man with Alex smirked, "A cryptid, something that has no scientific evidence to exist. And the chamber over there is able to create cryptids."
"Then what do I have to do with it?"
"An experiment." Before Alex could fight back, he was shoved into the open door of the chamber. And with a yowl, so was the Wampus Cat. The door was closed on them and Alex could hear the chamber humming. For once in his life, he hoped the experiment finished soon, before he got clawed to death by the angry pink cat. But as the chamber lit up, began to spin, and pain filled his body, he wondered if he really wanted this to happen. He screamed as the pain increased, his scream being joined by the Wampus Cat's, until he blacked out.
Doyle's heart almost stopped when he heard the scream, Alex's scream, and it completely terrified him. The guards (who were once again doing their rounds) chuckled.
"I wonder if that's the experiment Keith was telling us about." one said.
"If it works, we can torture the spy until he breaks. It could also earn us a lot of money and get Scorpia back on the top of the terrorist list." said the other, "But is it a good idea to combine the greatest spy in the world with an giant angry 6-legged pink cat?" The first one shrugged.
"Only one way to find out." As the two went on their way, Doyle remembered something Zak had told him. During the time the redhead was away, the family had gone down to Louisiana because of a message from Doc's deceased mentor, Dr. Lancaster. All in all, things hadn't gone well, where Zak had been combined with Fisk and Komodo into a 'Zakermodo,' but thankfully the three had been separated and the machine, as well as all the data on it, had been destroyed. So, if the guards were right, the machine had somehow been recreated and Alex was getting very close to a Wampus Cat. But Doyle had thought the 'Zakermodo' incident was just a story, so was it really possible for two beings to be combined?
Looking up, the ex-mercenary spotted a vent. Deciding that it would help him find Alex faster, he opened it and climbed in. His stomach churned when he heard Alex's scream again and his growled lowly to himself. Alex was hurting, hurting worse than any time Doyle had seen before, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Waking up, Alex felt confused and hurting, but not as much as he had before, surprisingly. He also had more energy, allowing him to lift his head and look around. The man was there, as well as the two who had guarded the Wampus Cat. The cat was beside him and on the ground as well, groaning and holding its head. Pushing himself up, Alex found that his wrist didn't hurt anymore, as well as his head and leg. His chest still hurt, but looking down, there weren't any injuries.
"Like what you see?" sneered the man.
"What happened?" Alex slowly moved one of his hands to a pocket before remembering he had left his jacket at the Saturday house, forgetting to put it on when Abbey had come after him.
"We combined you with the Wampus Cat, then reversed the process. As I had guessed, your injuries have mostly healed." he rubbed his hands together, "This will let us torture you as much as we want!"
"What did I ever do to you?"
"You destroyed our livelihood. You brought Scorpia to the bottom and made us laughingstocks. Now we are going to get our revenge, not just on you but also on the rest of the world. Scorpia never forgets, Scorpia never forgives." Alex decided to make his move and got to his feet, running for the exit. However, there were two guard, who caught him. Feeling the strong grip they had on him, he didn't fight, knowing he had to save his strength for what they had in mind. They took him back down to the previous level with the first man following behind, bringing him back to the cell and chaining his hands again. The first man then came in with a bucket of cold water and a malicious smile.
"You may call me Keith." he said, "And you will wish you were dead once I'm done with you."
"A lot have people have said that to me. Who thinks you'll be the first?"
"I don't think, I know." Keith took a wet cloth out of the bucket and put it over Alex's face. The blond frowned and tried to control his breathing. He understood what Keith was trying to do, but he wasn't going to let the terrorist get what he wanted. Waterboarding wasn't going to affect him, not after he had to go through it a lot. Waterboarding, which is what Keith was doing to Alex, caused the recipient to feel like they couldn't breathe and panic, where they would then reveal something or give in. But Alex was used to getting waterboarded, so he knew how to beat this.
He had to resist the urge to scream and gulp in air, though, when a knife was shoved into his chest, near his heart and almost on top of his bullet scar. Tears leaked out of his eyes at the pain and he hoped that someone was coming to save him, because he wasn't sure if he was going to be able to get out on his own this time.
"Okay, the tracker isn't far, so now we have to land." Drew said.
"Why here? Can't we get closer?" Zak asked.
"Not unless we want to be noticed." Doc answered, "Now let's get going. We've got a lot walk ahead of us." Zak and his brothers groaned, but followed the older Saturdays out of the ship. Not long after they were met with resistance. Out of nowhere a group of around a dozen men appeared and had them cornered, blocking them off from the air ship. With guns pointed at them and only a fire sword, an energy glove, and a stick ("The Claw isn't a stick!" "Who's writing the story here?" "Okay, okay...") to protect them, the Saturdays had no choice but to surrender, unless they wanted to get hurt. They lowered their weapons but kept them in hand when a man walked out of the group to meet them. He seemed to be in his 50s or so, with black hair that was slightly gray at the temples. He was dressed like the rest of the men around them and had a gun in his hands, but still gave them a smile.
"You're the Saturdays, right?" he asked.
"Yes, we are. Why?" Doc asked. The man waved his hand and the rest of the guns were lowered and put away.
"Sorry about the precaution, thought you might have been with the other group." he said, "I'm Ben, by the way. Ben Daniels. You can also call me Fox, but that's only if we're in an unsafe place."
"How do you know us?" Drew was suspicious, as usual.
"Alex. After his next-to-last mission, when he didn't come back to London, I put a tracker on his handgun shortly before he went on the next one. He went to someplace on the West Coast, near the Oregon-California border. Did some research and found that's where you live. So, why are you here?"
"To help Alex." Zak crossed his arms.
"Sorry, but you won't be able to." Before Zak could protest, Ben went on, "Scorpia isn't someone you want to get on the bad side of, like Alex is." The Saturdays masked the surprise they felt. They had used the code Francis had given them to access MI6, but the agency had such tight security that they hadn't been able to get far. The only organization they could find that was tied to Alex was something called 'Scorpia,' but they hadn't been able to learn much about it because of the barriers.
"Doc and I are semi-qualified to be in a military operation." Drew shot back.
"You are, but your sword and glove can't block bullets, now can they?" When the two adults didn't answer, Ben continued, "As it is, my team and I need to get to where they are and relieve Doyle from his duty." Ben rubbed his face, "As much as I hate to say this, I had no choice but to send him in when I learned who had captured Alex."
"So you sent him in, but you're not sending us?!" Drew was incensed, both at the fact Ben wasn't letting her go after her brother and the fact that said brother was in immediate danger.
"I had no choice. Plus, he lived with Alex, so he knows how to survive pretty well. But there's always the chance that he could get caught, so I need to go get him. Stay. Here." Ben gave them all a glare before he and his retrieval team ran off. Fisk muttered something to Zak, where the boy translated.
"...We're going after them, aren't we?"
"And we're going to beat them there if we can. C'mon!" Grabbing Doc's wrist, she dragged him along behind her as the family began running to the location as well.
Doyle is never going to live down the part where he left Alex, is he? Anyway, here are some notes from the story:
'Black clouds' and 'white clouds' are terms about probies (new firemen) that mean different things. 'Black clouds' seem to attract every fire while they're on duty while 'white clouds' keep fires at bay. I learned that from a documentary I've been watching. In this case, Alex is applying the terms to his luck, which most of the time he tries not to acknowledge. It tends to make things worse if he does.
I imagine Ben to being around 20 to 15 years older than Alex. He was described in Snakehead as being 23 or 24 to Alex's 14, but I imagined him a bit older than that. I also think that, being one of Alex's only friends at MI6, Alex would have told him almost everything. Including how Doyle was the one to leave him, so it's understandable that Ben would be both angry and amused that Doyle happened to call him so many years later. Why Ben's also a little amused about this, I'm not quite sure...
Remember the numbers referenced in one of the memories, the numbers on the fridge? Yeah, Doyle kept those in case of emergency, though he didn't realize that he was very lucky to have been able to contact Ben. In fact, Ben should have gotten rid of his phone a long time ago in case enemies tried to trace it, but if he had, Alex would probably be in Scorpia's clutches longer.
During WWII, with Japan as our enemy, a lot of security was put on the West Coast of the US in case of attack. I don't think bunkers were actually a part of it, but as writers have artistic licenses, I added it in. Of course, Scorpia revamped it completely when they moved in.
I think that the Saturday house is along the West Coast somewhere, and I imagine it to be near the Oregon-California border, mostly on the Oregon side. Why, I have no idea.
As for where I got the name of Keith, it sort-of came from an Alex Rider fanfic. I can't find it now and I don't remember all the details, but the summary (I believe) is that Yassen kidnaps Alex and protects him from Scorpia, but when Alex runs away, the kid gets cornered by Scorpia thugs and this one guy he trained at Malagosto with (that I think also started with a K). A very vivid part I remember is Alex beating most of the thugs before using a gun at the end of the fight and Yassen killing K-guy before he could shoot Alex with his own gun. Of course, I don't remember to title or even if the fanfic is still on Fanfiction .net, but if you happen to find it (I believe the fighting part was in a later chapter), please tell me!
I haven't seen the Ghost in the Machine episode in a while, so I had to look a bit of this up on the Secret Saturdays wiki. I hope I got it right, and we're going to see Alex-Wampus Cat later on, as well as another cryptid-human combination.
Alex has been waterboarded before, back in Scorpia Rising. It's happened many times since then, so he's used to controlling his panic and breathing. He was also given a new shirt and pants to wear after Doyle bandaged him, in case I didn't mention that in an earlier chapter. Also, even though I have never had a broken, dislocated, or sprained limb in my life (lucky me), having to dislocate a sprained wrist seems like it would be infinitely painful.
Special thanks to HunterHQ for researching and telling me in a review about how Abbey could survive the blasts of her own flash-bang grenades. You didn't have to, but thanks anyway!
If I've missed any notes, please tell me and I'll add them in. As it is, I hope you like this new chapter, so please read & review!
