DISCLAIMER: Okay, they don't belong to me

DISCLAIMER: Okay, they don't belong to me. I have no idea who they do belong to, I have no permission to write this but I say to hell with you. I'm in a bad mood and I took it out on Jules fair and square. Reviews are welcomed. (And just think, if I can do this to my favorite character, think of what I could do to someone I don't like). Have a nice day. Don't forget to read and review. J

Jules woke slowly, in stages. He first regained his sense of hearing. There were voices in front…? No, behind him, muttering something he couldn't quite understand. He caught a snippet, about something being dangerous? He shook his head and immediately regretted it. His head was pounding to the beat of his heart. Instinctively, Verne tried to bring his hand up to it, but he couldn't. Jules opened his eyes but couldn't see anything except for a bright light directly in front of him. He tugged experimentally at his hands and quickly discovered that they were fastened to whatever furniture he was occupying. In fact, he couldn't move at all.

"Ah, Mr. Verne! I see you are finally among the living," a voice rumbled nearby.

Jules blinked his eyes against the light, but he still couldn't see anything.

"My apologies," the voice continued. "Monique! Turn down the lights so Mr. Verne can see his new accommodations."

The light dimmed and Jules could finally see where he was…sort of. He had no idea as to where he was, but he could at least see what nowhere looked like.

Prison. Or something very close to it. It was a large, fairly empty room, with no windows and the walls were made or either iron or metal. This was unsettling enough, but what really worried Jules was the machinery in it. Most of which were the likes of which he had never seen, and secretly hoped he would never see again. Verne tilted his head back to see behind him and he saw what looked remarkably like some sort of screen. Now that he thought about it, it resembled some weird laboratory or perhaps a hospital room. The thought did nothing to comfort him.

Jules glanced down at his hands and discovered they were not the only part of him strapped down. His legs, chest, and shoulders were also fastened to the table he was lying on. Verne couldn't move at all.

"Sorry for the restraints, but you see…" the voice went on, "but sometimes people do not appreciate my hospitality. They try to get away from me."

"Can't imagine why," Jules muttered under his breath.

A hand immediately clamped down around his throat, cutting off his air.

Jules gasped, but couldn't do anything about it.

"Never talk back to me, boy! Or this will a whole lot worse than it already is," the person ordered. "Understand?"

Jules nodded meekly.

"Good." The hand relaxed its grip and removed itself from Jules's throat. Verne gasped as he was allowed oxygen back into his lungs.

"After all, I am the one that stitched up the bullet hole in your side, though I probably could redo it better. It looks like it might be infected. Is it painful?" the person asked, using his gloved had to jab at the fresh wound.

Jules inhaled sharply. Oh, God, that hurt!

"I see. Well, Mr. Verne, perhaps I should reveal myself." The person stepped into the light and Jules recognized him as the man Rebecca and Fogg had been talking to that evening.

"You…" he accused.

"Yes, my name is Duke Roi Lafayette, employee of Count Gregory and the League of Darkness. And you Mr. Jules Verne, have a fascinating mind," the duke explained, bending over Verne.

Jules recoiled from Lafayette. "I don't think my mind's all that great actually."

"Well, the Count does, and that's all that matters. I say, what is it like, being able to envision the future?"

Jules stared up at him. "What?"

"What is it like to see the future?"

Jules glared at him skeptically. "I can't."

"What about those drawings that you drew? The Mole and the others…what about them? Are you telling me you just made them up?" The Duke pressed, unbelievingly.

"Yes! They're just random drawings that I see in my head! They're imaginary!" Jules shouted back at the disillusioned Lafayette.

"We'll see about that." Lafayette nodded to someone beyond the shadows and a woman stepped forwards, dressed in the same type of uniform that Jules donned for a short period of time when he served aboard the Prometheus.

"Prepare the machine. It's time Monsieur Verne knows that we mean business," Lafayette ordered. He walked around behind Verne and grabbed the young writer's head, straightening Verne's neck and tilting it back slightly so Jules was looking up into the Duke's face. "Would you care to simply tell us about those fantastic ideas in the remarkable brain of yours? Or do we have to go through with the unpleasantries?" he asked.

Jules stared defiantly and clamped his mouth shut.

The Duke sighed. "If that is your wish…" he indicated to the woman with a nod of his chin and she moved a large object forwards so Jules could see it clearly. Verne still couldn't really figure out what it was for.

It was large and metal, with sort of a screen in front of it, and a round piece of wicked looking metal ring on a hook next to it. Several wires ran around and seemed to hook into the sides. Jules could see little other details.

"This, Monsieur Verne, is a Sounmager. It uses electric currents to open the dormant areas of the brain and stimulate flow of information. It has proved very effective on the other subjects, though the information we got was pitiful. No use to anyone, I imagine. But yours, yours will make it all worth while. You see, this amazing machine's capability does not stop there. Using ultrasonic sound waves, it can actually touch your thoughts. It's sort of like echo location. It bounces off of the imprints of your mind and shows a copy of it up here on this screen. Clever, isn't it?" the Duke boasted, saying all of this in sort of a sales pitch.

Jules was frozen. He'd had experience with sound waves when he first met Phileas and the League of Darkness. The experience had almost killed him the first time around. This time it wouldn't be his body that would sustain the abuse. It would be his mind. All he could do was numbly stare at the horrid contraption as the Duke went on about the fine details, and perhaps, under different circumstances, he would have found it interesting.

"Monique. Prepare him for the commencing of the project. I will be back when he has been tested properly," Lafayette instructed, bringing Jules out of his reverie.

"I thought you said it worked?" Jules said automatically.

"It did, but that was on lesser minds. I want to make sure that it does not damage you permanently." The Duke grinned sadistically at the writer. "Would be a shame to turn you over to Count Gregory and discover that you were useless, would it not?"

"Oh yes, horrible shame. So you intend to use my mind for…?" Jules was actually surprised at himself. Usually, he would've been frozen with fear, but for some reason, he couldn't help himself at being sarcastic. For a brief moment, he understood Fogg a little better.

"Oh really Mr. Verne, you can't possibly so thick as to not know the answer to that, could you? Look at what we did with the Mole? Imagine what we could've accomplished with you out of the way, and those infernal friends of yours. We would've killed the Queen and destroyed the peace talks for good. We'd have war up to our eyebrows and that, Jules Verne, is what we are about. Death, destruction, and mayhem. We sell to each side the weapons you can show us with your imagination and soon enough, Paris and the rest of the world will bend to our every whim," Lafayette explained, a distant glow in his eyes that Jules was positive he didn't like the look of. "Feel free to begin when I have left the room, Monique." Lafayette looked back at Verne. "I can't stand the screams."

With that, the Duke turned and promptly marched out the door and it slid closed behind him.

Before Jules could blink, Monique had taken off the ring that Jules had seen on the screen contraption and had all but jammed it on his head. Jules winced as he felt several points penetrated the flesh on his head. Several rivulets of blood trickled down his face.

"Our apologies Monsieur Verne for any discomfort you will be experiencing in a few moments," Monique apologized, though it sounded no more like an apology that a rat's hiccup.

Jules shut his eyes in horrid anticipation of the sensation of electricity surging through his brain, and he didn't have to wait long. He followed the sound of Monique's footsteps until they were somewhere next to him. Abruptly, there was a slight 'click' and fiery agony lanced through his head. Jules's eyes shot open, but he bit his lip so hard that the coppery taste of blood quickly filled his mouth. He refused to scream, instead staring above him trying to think of something else. It was not possible. The screen was flickering like the picture wheel that Passepartout was playing with that morning, though Jules could see what he saw whenever he closed his eyes. The fruits of his imagination alive and flickering on the screen, the Mole, a flying machine, a strange sort of…Jules did not complete the thought, or at least, he didn't see himself complete it. Monique had twisted a nearby dial and suddenly the agony seemed to double in his tortured mind. He couldn't bite his lip against it anymore, having already bit through it so as he teeth touched each other, and screamed.

Lafayette watched from one of the portholes as the young inventor writhed on the table, his small frame jerking and spasming with every volt of electricity surging through it. A smile played across his lips as he watched the screen, making metal notes of what was worth keeping and what to keep it for. He turned from the porthole, the man's…wait…no, boy's screams of pain becoming too loud for him. Roi had always had sensitive hearing, and he knew that the images on the screen were being carefully preserved by a photosynth-is-thingy that one of his researchers had developed. Paper that would instantly copy the pictures when shown through the light from the screen. Very clever indeed. Roi marched briskly down the corridor of the subterranean laboratory and out into the sunlight. Roi blinked against the brightness after being underground for so long. The Duke pulled the hidden hatchway back over the opening to keep unwanted nosy rescuers away from the lab and the things in it. Or, people. He sighed as he looked at the sun. Undoubtedly, the Foggs would be searching for their missing comrade by now. Roi swore under his breath when he realized that he was to be having lunch with them in a few hours.

"Confounded english," he muttered to no one in particular as he headed for his manor.

Phileas, Rebecca and Passepartout were past being worried for Jules. They had been searching for the entire night with no sign of the aspiring writer except for his blood in the alleyway. No one had seen or heard anything and Phileas was sure that they didn't care one way or another if something had happened to Jules.

"We have been going over and over these streets, master! And no Master Jules! I am thinking it is hopeless…" sighed Passepartout as he collapsed in an exhausted heap on the arm chair aboard the Aurora.

"No, Passepartout! It is never hopeless…" Rebecca assured the valet, even though she was thinking the same thoughts.

Phileas was pacing up and down the length of the Aurora, a flask in one hand and his cane in the other. "It is only a matter of knowing where to look," he reasoned. "What do the Secret Service know about the whereabouts of the League's Headquarters?"

Rebecca sat upright and blinked slowly a few times. She was exhausted. "Phileas, they don't know anything about the League at all, remember? And I'd doubt they'd care enough about Jules to start looking now."

Phileas began pacing faster. "Do we know anything about the locations of the League's Headquarters?"

Passepartout answered tiredly, "No master. All we is knowing is that the Prometheus has been crashed over America."

Phileas finally sat heavily in the chair opposite his man servant. "I can't believe Verne could just be kidnapped right from underneath our noses! Who could orchestrate such a thing?"

Rebecca and Passepartout nodded sleepily.

"Perhaps we should retire for the evening. We can all function better when we've had a good rest," Phileas suggested as he watched Rebecca and Passepartout collapse against each other for support as they drifted off.

Phileas simply shook his head and headed towards his own quarters for some much needed rest. However, sleep evaded him. Every time he closed his eyes he would envision some horrible torture that the League of Darkness was now inflicting upon his young friend. Phileas shuddered at the thought of the young man being hurt in any way. And what the League had proven so far was that it felt no mercy, no pity, and would do anything to persue its desired goal. Phileas reflected wryly about his first encounter with Jules and smiled to himself when he realized he must have scared the living daylights out of Verne. And how quickly Jules had gained his trust. Phileas fell into a fitful sleep, plagued by what he would do if Jules was not to be found.

Roi had wandered back down to his laboratory around midday and smiled in grim satisfaction at the unconscious and prone form of Jules on the table. The young man had been unconscious for almost an hour after the two and a half hour session with the Sounmager. The blood from the perforations that the metal conductor rods had made when they had entered Verne's skin contrasted darkly against the pale color of his youthful visage. Actually, Verne's skin had taken on a slightly yellowish-green tinge. Roi vaguely wondered if that indicated that the boy was becoming sick, though the Sounmager had never had that effect on the other subjects. He rifled through the papers that now held the physical manifestation of the most creative mind in history. And the power that he could attain with such thoughts was amazing…Roi shuddered, not because of the sense of guilt that any normal human would feel, but because the air around him was quite chilly. Perhaps that is what was making Verne sick.

As he thought this, he noticed that Verne's eye lids were beginning to flutter and soon they blinked open, the soft brown eyes somewhat glazed and glassy looking. They stared unseeing upwards at the ceiling, until Jules finally summoned the strength to look at the Duke.

"Ah Mr. Verne, you've awoken at long last…tell me…how do you feel?" Roi asked curiously.

Jules seemed to have difficulty making his jaw work and his reply was so quiet, that Lafayette leaned closer to hear him.

Jules waited for the Duke to lean close enough and with his last ounce of strength forced himself as far off the table as he restraints would allow and latched onto Lafayette's ear lobe with his teeth. The Duke reared back in sudden, sharp pain and Jules once again tasted the coppery flavor of blood in his mouth, but had the deep satisfaction of knowing it wasn't his. It was Lafayette's, and Jules turned his head aside to spit out the piece of flesh he had just managed to rip from the sadistic Duke's left ear. He smiled briefly with requital.

Lafayette grabbed at his bleeding ear with his left hand and felt the red, sticky liquid ooze over his fingers. He would not stand for this, especially from a low-life, broke writer! In fury, the Duke marched up to the Sounmager and slipped the switch, and spun the dial as far as it would go. Verne's screams were so loud he was almost worried that the neighbors several miles away might overhear them. But the satisfaction of watching the young boy writhe in utter and total agony of which he could do nothing about was too tempting. He grinned when he realized he could actually see the electric charges traveling up and down the small frame on the table.

Phileas, Rebecca and Passepartout had not forgotten their previous engagement with the Duke made the night of Jules's disappearance. They had managed to arouse themselves before they were too belated to be considered fashionably late and around noon, they arrived at Roi Lafayette's manor. The butler showed them in.

"Mr. Lafayette is having very nice rooms in his house," Passepartout noted, walking around the parlor. It was indeed a beautiful room with expensive furniture and original masterpieces of artwork on the wall portions that weren't covered by books.

Phileas was sitting in and easy chair, leaning with his chin on his hands against his staff in a very un-gentlemanly position. Something was not right here, but he couldn't put his finger on it. The sensation was almost tangible, yet frustratingly hard to grasp. He finally stood and began to pace, though, not for very long.

"I'm going for a short stroll. Rebecca, please tell Roi where I have gone," Phileas announced and turned on his heel to march out the back door.

Phileas strode briskly across the yard, going nowhere in particular, but somewhere in back where he couldn't see anyone else. As he walked, he heard a tiny voice shouting, as if in terrible pain. But it was so faint, he dismissed it as a forgotten memory. But it kept on, and became louder the further he walked until it began to fade again. Phileas turned around. The voice was not gone, simply quieter. He backtracked a few steps and it became louder once more. Phileas tapped experimentally in the grass and was surprised to find that he heard the resounding clang of metal. Phileas pushed aside the turf and found a hatchway underneath. The screaming seemed to be coming from below the hatch. Without hesitation, Phileas flung it open and stepped quickly down the stairs.

He was in a metal corridor that went straight until it hit the dead end side. Along it, however, were a door and two porthole windows. Cautiously, Phileas approached one and peered inside. What he saw he knew he would see in his nightmares forever.

Jules was strapped to a metal table so as he could barely move, and Phileas could see he was spasming and convulsing in agony, a metal ring with wires attached was around his head, set firmly just above his eyebrows and ran entirely around his head. It was Jules that was screaming, Jules's cries of pain that he'd heard. And Phileas didn't wait a second longer.

Lafayette didn't know what hit him. One moment he was standing over Verne, enjoying his torture, and the next he was on the floor with a bullet hole in his chest. Phileas standing over him with a look that could kill. Phileas nastily kicked Roi in the chest where he'd shot him and flipped the Sounmager off. Verne's screams promptly died and his tormented body lay still, except for the occasional 'after shock'.

Phileas looked down at horror at his friend. He was a sickly pale yellow-green, dark circles surrounded his eyes, which seemed to sunk back into his skull. Where the restraints had been were red and bloody chafe marks, and blood was dried in rivulets down his face where the ring had been around his head. His lower lip was also cleanly bit through, blood still running down his chin and neck to stain his shirt collar. Afraid to touch him for fear he would cause him more pain than he had already suffered, Phileas touched his fingers to Jules's neck, feeling for a pulse. There wasn't one.

I'll bet you thought I was going to finish it, eh? HAH! I enjoy getting feedback from you and leaving cliffhangers seems to be the only way. I was also writing this at 2:51 AM in the morning after being awake for almost three days.