AN: Well, a nice long chapter for you guys. Hope you enjoy it!

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Chapter Thirty-Seven: Not the League's Day

Need I say again? Still in M's Fortress

Sawyer scrambled backward as Sanderson Reed's dagger came down and slashed repeatedly on all sides. Reed's accompanying thin laughter sounded like breaking glass.

The young agent swayed, bent, and twisted like a willow tree on the banks of his own Mississippi, evading the deadly point. His Winchester lay across the hall, where it had fallen after the unseen killer sent him sprawling.

Seeing no other choice- and intent on avenging his murdered friend Huck, the American lunged forward and grabbed the sharp dancing blade itself - the only part of his assailant he could see. Although his hand stung and bled, Sawyer never wavered. It was just like teasing snapping turtles back home.

Sawyer struggled with the invisible bureaucrat in a savage pantomime. He kicked out at thin air and sent Reed stumbling backward into the wall, stunning him for long enough that he could scramble over to snatch up his rifle.

Holding the Winchester out in front of him, he backed away from the invisible Reed. He shot in the direction of the unseen killer, managing only to strike the wall and shoot a few tapestries. Reed's footsteps pattered down the hall toward a closed door. Sawyer ran after him, firing repeatedly. The murderous Reed already provided an uncertain target- judging by the sounds, he knew he had missed each time.

His rifle clicked empty.

The moment the agent stopped firing, he heard the sound of footsteps and saw the floating dagger streak back towards him. Sawyer swung his Winchester around to block the main force of the knife as it slashed him once, twice, leaving nasty cuts in his arm.

Hissing with pain, the young agent swung wildly with all his strength, as if the rifle were nothing more than a crude club. The Winchester's stock made a loud and very gratifying sound as it connected with the invisible attacker. Sawyer pressed his advantage and drove him backward.

Reed's invisible body crashed through the door into a chamber filled with documents, parchments, and ancient writing supplies. Still reeling, Reed staggered, senseless, into a low shelf full of ink powders.

Bottles and containers broke open and spilled around him, dumping their contents of lampblack and dried tints onto his transparent upper body and head. Groggy and injured, M's assistant struggled back to his feet. However, now that he was smeared and dusted back to partial visibility, his advantage was gone.

Sawyer stood at the parchment room door with a look of determination. No scrawny little bureaucrat was a match for him. Even without bullets for his Winchester, he could still take Sanderson Reed.

Without warning, a fireball erupted, splashing heat and flames like a wave of lava crashing against the wall next to the parchment room. With a yelp, Sawyer flung himself to the side, barely escaping getting crisped by another gush of flames, A few loosed documents in the room ignited, and Reed himself scuttled away like a half-dissolved shadow.

Sawyer glanced up, spluttering. "Now what?"

With heavy clanking footsteps, a second one of Moriarty's ironclad tank men advanced toward him down the corridor like an angry dragon. Instead of a Gatling launcher, though, this one had been rigged with a flamethrower.

Sawyer dove out of the way as another fiery river exploded toward him.

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Circling and slashing, Dorian Gray and Mina Harker fought on wearily- rather like an old married couple- but with knives and swords. Each blow and slash may only have had a temporary effect, but they still kept at it.

Eyes flashing and fangs exposed, Mina managed to back Gray into the bedroom, much to his apparent delight. "The bedroom, Mina- does it give you memories?" He smiled as he swung his cane-sword again. "Or ideas?"

She seemed to consider that for a moment, then leaped at him, whirled, and pushed off the wall with spiderlike agility. In a flowing movement, she ducked Gray's slash with his rapier and plunged her knife directly into his groin. "Ideas."

Naturally, he screamed, face going white. "If that had been permanent," he gasped weakly, "I'd have been very upset."

A substantial explosion from the lower factory floors shook the whole room. The floor bucked and heaved, and dust showered from the ceiling. Shouts and screams reverberated through the fortress.

Mina's momentary distraction gave Gray the perfect opportunity to skewer her in the chest. His long cane-sword thrust through her bodice, straight into her vampire heart.

Mina gasped for air, her green eyes wide with shock and disbelief. She clutched ineffectively at the sword that had sprouted from her chest and out her back. Choking on words, she gave Gray one final glare of hatred and collapsed upon the bed.

Gray frowned down at her lying there. His expression was almost a pout. "I'd hoped I'd get to nail you again, dear Mina. Didn't think it'd be literally."

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Inside the cluttered high keep, Quatermain and Moriarty continued their battle to the death. M clumsily swung his makeshift sword, making up for any lack of finesse with sheer unbridled violence. He slashed and parried against the old hunter's Bowie knife.

Moriarty poked viciously at his opponent's gut, but Quatermain blocked and twisted the flat iron bar aside. His move, however, gave M the opening to kidney-punch him repeatedly. With his bony knuckles, Moriarty hammered his opponent in any vulnerable place.

Fortunately, Quatermain was tougher than that. Gritting his teeth together with a wordless roar, he backhanded the gaunt mastermind with his Bowie knife, slashing at M's face. "I'll give you a real scar or two," he growled. "Make you want to wear that mask again."

But Moriarty's crude metal bar blocked the knife with a resounding clang, and the impact sent both weapons clattering off into the darkness among the ancient torture paraphernalia.

M lunged after him like a madman, and Quatermain found himself on the defensive. Tripping through the clutter as he retreated, he used anything he could get his hands on, grabbing at books, lamps, iron tongs, anything. But Moriarty was unrelenting and drove him back.

Finally Quatermain saw an opening. He managed to grab Moriarty's wrist and wrapped his other arm around his throat. Pressing closer, he squeezed, trying to choke the life out of his enemy.

"I hope I have your fire when I'm your age," M wheezed through a constricted windpipe.

"You won't live beyond today. That's a promise." Quatermain pressed his angry face so close he could have bitten off M's ear.

Then from outside the chamber came a challenging roar- a voice that sounded like Hyde's. The impacts of a furious battle shook the whole room, along with a series of piercing shrieks, one set of which Quatermain recognized as Daria's battle-scream. He couldn't even hazard a guess as to what the other shrieks belonged to. The racket gave Moriarty the chance to twist free again and suck in a huge gulp of air. He head-butted Quatermain, who shook it off and returned the favor. Moriarty staggered briefly, stunned and reeling.

Then they were both at it again.

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Dante and his group vanished into one of the many corridors. Hyde, turning away from the mess he'd cheerfully made of the ironclad, leaped over the pit that separated their side of the mezzanine from his and prepared to chase after them. A sharp voice, however, caught his attention, drifting from the stairway that Daria and K'Wah had disappeared into. The voice was male, and sounded all together too final for Hyde's or Jekyll's liking as it said in clear English, "Then you are against us."

Daria, Jekyll said, sounding horrified. Edward, quickly!

Hyde charged up the stairs and burst into the room above, bellowing furiously. If that Tau'ka dared lay so much as one finger on Daria, there would be Hell to pay, Jekyll informed him. Hyde fully agreed with that statement. There weren't many females who could handle him- he wasn't particularly interested in losing this one.

He skidded to a halt just inside the room to take stock of the situation. There were Daria and K'Wah, balancing precariously on the enormous conveyor. As if that wasn't bad enough, Daria was unarmed, with the tip of her brother's blade at her throat. Hyde froze, fearing to provoke the male Tau'ka.

K'Wah turned, his blade not wavering. His mouth curled in a cruel smile as he looked Hyde over. "Tell me, Daria," he said, his voice a cold purr. "Who is this? Your boyfriend?"

Daria blinked in surprise, looking from Hyde to K'Wah and back. She grinned slowly and sent a brief mental "Thanks" to her would-be "rescuers". "Yeah. Something like that."

The taken-aback expression on K'Wah's face indicated that those words were not ones he'd expected to hear. Before he could turn back to Daria, she'd taken advantage of the distraction by dropping into a crouch and kicking his legs out from under him. K'Wah tumbled off of the conveyor and into empty space. He grabbed for Daria's leg, knocking her into the air as well.

"Daria!" It might have been Hyde who yelled, it might have been Jekyll. Afterwards, neither really knew who had screamed her name. For all they knew, it may have been both.

There was a rushing sound, as if of enormous wings. A bronze gryphon swooped up and landed on the floor of the observation platform.

Are you alright? Jekyll demanded as Hyde hurried forward.

Daria bobbed her head. "I'm fine," she said hurriedly. "You go help Nemo. Quickly."

Another large shape flew up to their level, this one a sullen red-and-black. The new gryphon was much larger than Daria, more cat-like, with a heavier, more powerful build reminiscent of an eagle rather than a falcon. He landed a few yards away from Daria and Hyde and roared. The sound was like that of an angry lion, raising echoes in the cavernous room.

Daria whirled, snarling at the other gryphon.

Hyde, go! she snapped in thought-speak. I can handle this. By our rules, I have an advantage- this is MY shape, and he can't shift out until I do. K'Wah's mine now.

She lunged at K'wah, slamming into him with all claws extended. Hyde waited for a moment, but she seemed to have things well in hand. He turned to leave the snarling, shrieking pair of aliens.

Wait, where are you going? Jekyll demanded in protest. Edward!

She can take care of herself. We need to go help Nemo. Hyde raced through the door and back down to the mezzanine.

K'Wah disentangled himself from his sister and took to the air. She followed, nearly close enough to pull feathers from his tail. Their battled continued, more furious now with claws and beaks then it had been with the blades. Daria shot up to near the roof and dove back down like a falcon stooping on prey. K'Wah dodged, more quickly than she'd expected. He wheeled and closed, lashing out with long talons, scoring a new set of lines on her flank. She shrieked in a combination of pain and fury.

It quickly became clear that her technique would be of limited use in the relatively cramped conditions of the factory. While it seemed large to a human -or a Tau'ka- it became much smaller when a pair of creatures the size of horses were flying through it. This called for either a change of strategy- or of location.

Daria twisted in mid-air and shot upward toward the large glass skylights with powerful wingbeats. There were two ways to use telekinesis. One way was to use it like a pair of invisible hands to manipulate small objects. The other way was cruder- imagine the result of swinging a cricket bat into a window. This was how she used her power now.

The skylights shattered very spectacularly, sending shards of glass showering down. She deflected them away from herself as best she could and let the rest fall down on her pursuer. K'Wah shrieked and stopped to hover for a moment, shaking splinters from his face and feathers.

Daria shot into open air and arrowed for the sky as swiftly as she could. A minute late, she was on-station three hundred feet above the fortress and circling, waiting. K'Wah obliged her by flying out of the hole in the skylight. He paused for a moment, trying to figure out where she had gone. She folded her wings and dove again, shrieking rage and defiance, wind whistling through her feathers.

K'Wah looked up just in time to see the bronze missile plummeting from the skies and scrambled out of the way. She missed him by less than a yard and snapped open her wings, pulling up sharply in a defiance of inertia. Speed was traded for height and she was soon nearly high enough for another stoop.

Her brother didn't appear to be interested in giving her another chance at it, however. He flew away from the fortress as fast as he could, each wingbeat propelling him further and further away.

She gave chase, angling her long wings to follow him southward. K'Wah twisted his head around to look up at her and snarled again. But it wasn't quite his usual snarl of anger- it actually didn't appear to be a true snarl at all.

It was a smirk.

Daria hovered, trying to figure out what he was up to.

A sound like thunder reached her ears, but unlike thunder, this noise didn't fade after a few seconds. It went on, and on... She knew that sound.

A small starship flew out from the thick clouds above, a golden, pyramid-shaped craft. It was the source of the ongoing thunder as it came to hover over where K'Wah was flying. Daria identified it as an el'kinshe- one of the small scout/transport ships commonly used by the Tau'ka. A beam of intensely brilliant white light shot down from the el'kinshe's underside. K'Wah was squarely caught in the center of the beam.

So sorry to interrupt this little spat, dear sister, K'Wah told her. But I'm afraid I have to leave. Koor and I have other matters to take care of, now that things here seem to have 'gone south' as they say here.

The beam of light vanished, and so did K'Wah. The el'kinshe flew upward and vanished to Daria's eyes and ears. It was gone, and with it, the two traitorous Tau'ka.

Daria screamed her fury as her prey escaped and reluctantly turned back towards the fortress.

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Hyde returned to the mezzanine in time to meet Dante and his remaining henchmen. M's lieutenant saw the oncoming behemoth and whirled to face his men, ordering them to resume their attack. "Use your bare hands if you have to!" he shouted. "Would you rather face the Fantom?"

Many of the men clearly would, but they hesitated and came back. Then, gathering courage, they swept together, yelling as they charged forward in a concentrated charge against the brutish man.

Hyde eagerly picked up the discarded iron door and swung it like a ton-weight cricket bat. He swatted away the first wave of henchmen, sending them flying like rag dolls over the mezzanine ledge and into the ruined ledge area.

Nemo had gathered the terrified hostage scientists and pushed them out the barred laboratory door, where they were met by his surviving crewmen. Behind him, Hyde's latest victims crashed spectacularly into the shattered glassware, utterly destroying the few scientific implements that had survived Nemo's battle with the guards.

Hyde hurled the metal door in front of him, crushing two of M's henchmen, then stalked forward to the remaining few. His heavy feet trod on the iron plate, under which the trapped henchmen stopped squirming and started oozing. When he reached the last scrambling henchmen, his blows sent battered victims flying in every direction.

Finally he faced Dante, the last man standing.

Seeing his doom approach in the form of a scientist's unleashed evil, the Fantom's lieutenant scrambled backward, trying to find shelter as Hyde stormed in for a killing blow. Dante fumbled in his pockets, frantically searching... He found it: an unbroken vial of Jekyll's potion, which he had kept for himself from the leather satchel he'd delivered to M. It was a desperate ploy.

With Hyde looming over him, Dante pried off the stopper and gulped down all the liquid.

"God, no!" Hyde howled, realizing what the man had done. "Not the whole thing!" Not even Jekyll in his weakest moments had ever consumed so much of the elixir at once.

Too late. Dante glared hatefully at him and wiped the last drops from his lips. Suddenly he writhed and screamed as the transfigurative chemical took hold.