Disclaimer: I own the idea of the Shark, but I don't own his real identity,
nor do I own the League.
Feedback: I'll still write this if I don't get any of it, but I would like it.
funyun: Good point about the guns; Skinner would have grabbed them but he was just too occupied with the criminal to remember them.
Resurrection
"Uh... what hit me?" Sawyer asked, wincing a little as he opened his eyes. He quickly examined his surroundings; he was in some kind of cave, but it had several pieces of furniture in it. Well, not where he was; the part of the cave where was right now was just a moderately sized chamber, may ten feet wide and eight feet high. The only sign it was actually used was a candle on one wall near him, that cast a very comforting light on the whole place.
He noticed several guns lying down on shelves in a large chamber just outside his one, and a couple of wooden chairs in front of him. However, that didn't really serve to distract him from the pain he was feeling in his head. "I feel like I was blown to Mars and back..."
"You know, that is a very intriguing suggestion," a voice said, from somewhere off to Sawyer's right. "Maybe I should think about sending you there; I've heard that you thwarted the efforts of the Martians to take over this planet, and they probably wouldn't be too pleased to see you."
Glancing to his right, Sawyer looked at the man who'd been speaking to him. He was a tall man, maybe around Hartdegen's height, with dirty brown hair hanging down at the back of his head. He was dressed in a simple black suit and a long black cloak, carrying a silver-and-black stick. The cloak had a slight trace of fur around its edge, the fur being light grey with some spots of black in them, and reached down so far that a little bit of it was dragging along the ground.
However, the most distinctive thing about the man was the mask he was wearing; a silvery colour, it stretched all the way around his head, leaving only the mouth and the right eye showing. The eye looked fairly normal, but the left side of the mouth forced downward slightly, as though something were pulling on it. Sawyer noted that the man's left arm was slightly lower then normal, as though whatever was pulling his mouth down was forcing his arm down as well.
The man's mask had a few small points around the mouth, along with a tiny fin sticking out of the back and some small lines scratched into the side, giving the man a slight resemblance to a shark.
"I wouldn't recommend it," Sawyer replied, looking the man in the eye.
"Recommend what?" the man asked, casually leaning forward with his cane.
"Sending me to Mars," Sawyer replied, trying to sound better than he felt. "The Martians don't really like humanity in general; they'd probably kill whoever you sent with me as well."
"I'd be prepared to run that risk," the man replied, crouching down to look Sawyer in the eyes. "Believe me, if you knew who you were talking to, you'd really be scared of what I might do to you." Then he punched Sawyer in the stomach.
Hard.
Sawyer gasped briefly at the pain, and he noticed a small speck of red appear on the man's mask. It must have come from his mouth, which meant he was more hurt then he'd guessed.
Looking down at himself, Sawyer noticed that there were a couple of spots of red on the right side of his shirt. It didn't look like they'd connected with any major organs, but he'd definitely like to have someone take a look at them soon.
Looking up at the man, Sawyer decided to get the most obvious question out of the way.
"Who are you?" he asked.
The man smirked. "I have a real name, but you would recognise it instantly, and I'd rather save it for a better moment. For now, just call me... the Shark."
"'The Shark'?" Sawyer asked, in a mocking tone of voice. "You've gotta be kidding me; 'the Fantom' was lame enough."
The Shark growled and kicked Sawyer in the stomach; Sawyer gasped again, and this time the blood from his mouth hit the floor. Glancing at it, Sawyer noticed there was slightly more of it than there had been the last time, but it still wasn't a massive amount.
The Shark leaned towards Sawyer, and spoke to him in a voice that was remarkably like a growling dog.
"The Fantom was only the herald for a new era of villain, Sawyer," he said, sounding like he wanted to yank Sawyer's head off. "I am the second of his kind, and I will not fail where he did." Then he spun around, flaring his cloak out in an overly dramatic gesture, and walked out of the room.
Groaning a little, Sawyer looked up at where the Shark had left his prison. However, there was nobody anywhere near him; there were a couple of guards about four feet outside his prison's door, but that was it. Evidently nobody considered him worth close attention; after all, he had only had two pistols on him when he was captured, and both of those had run out of bullets. He wasn't really that much of a threat right now, chained up, wounded, bleeding from the mouth...
"What the hell did they do to you, kid?" a voice suddenly whispered to him from the side. Sawyer didn't even need to look up to know it was; only one man had that accent and could get this far in without being caught.
"Skinner?" he asked, looking at where he hoped the invisible man was. "How'd you get here?" The he mentally kicked himself for asking such a stupid question; getting into this place was no issue at all for an invisible man. "Come to that, where is here?"
"Some cave off at the edge of your town," Skinner whispered, as he moved over to the chains and apparently started tugging at them. "Big, but what I've seen of these guys suggests they only moved in recently. They've taken your pistols, and I noticed my stuff lying on a table with them as well."
"Caves..." Sawyer grumbled to himself, not really paying attention to Skinner's comment about the coat and guns, before looking in Skinner's direction with a gleam of hope in his eyes. "Get back to the League, let them know where I am, and then get Becky."
*****
"Becky? Sawyer, no offence intended, but is dragging your ex along really a sensible idea?" Skinner asked, as he tried tugging on Sawyer's chains again, hoping against hope that they'd be a little looser now. "If nothing else, how happy would Mina be about it?"
"Skinner, I know where I am," Sawyer hissed to the thief, signalling to him to stop tugging on the chains and listen to him. "I'm in these old treasure caves where Becky and I once got lost as children and found some gold. Apart from me, she's the only person here who really knows her way around these caves. Threaten to shoot her if you have to, just get her here!" he said, hissing the last sentence in Skinner's general direction.
Skinner nodded and patted Sawyer assuringly on the shoulder. "Check," he whispered to his friend. "Hang tight, buddy; the League will be here soon."
Then he turned around and hurried out of Sawyer's prison and through the cave as fast as he could without making any noise. He had no idea how long he'd have until the Shark dropped in on Sawyer again, but he got the impression that he didn't want to be too late.
If no other reason worked, there was the fact that Mina would probably kill him for letting Tom die.
He was out of the cave, and quickened his pace.
*****
"Well, that was mostly pointless," Hartdegen groaned, as he and Terry finally arrived at the Nautilus after spending nearly two hours waiting for something to happen. Eventually, they'd been contacted by Mina, who'd told them to leave the tower and rendezvous back at the submarine to discuss another strategy.
Looking around, Hartdegen noticed that Hyde and Nemo were already back, although Hyde was looking on edge and annoyed, in a manner that Hartdegen recognised as being his usual attitude before his formula ran out. However, Mina, Sawyer, and Skinner were conspicuous by their absence, although admittedly, in Skinner's case, just because Hartdegen couldn't see anything didn't mean he wasn't there.
"Ah, good, you're here," Nemo said, glancing over at the teacher and the machine. He and Hyde were currently sitting outside the Nautilus with a few large sticks laid out in front of them. When Hartdegen got closer, he realised what they were playing.
Noughts and Crosses.
"How long have you been waiting for us?" he asked the Indian, as Terry came to a stop behind him.
"A while," Nemo replied, as he and Hyde put down the sticks they had been using to draw in the dust for their game. "Evidently, either Mrs Harker isn't as fast a flyer as we think, or Mr Nator is simply not as fast as Mr Hyde."
"Well, that's life," Terry replied, shrugging a little. "Where are the others?"
"We don't know right now," Hyde grunted simply. "Mina said she'd find them, but if she hasn't shown up by now, maybe it's time to get worried... worri... wor... wor... AARRGGHH!" Hyde yelled, as there were several small explosions around him and he began to shrink. His muscles contracted, his bones got smaller, his hair grew longer... A few seconds later, the familiar form of Doctor Jekyll was standing in front of his three team-mates, trying to hold his trousers up and looking in a slightly embarrassed manner at them all.
"Well, at least that's that done," Hartdegen said, shrugging a little at the others.
"Pardon?" Nemo asked, looking over at Hartdegen.
"Well, at least his formula ran out now, rather than while he was hanging around on the rooftops of this place," Hartdegen explained, Jekyll nodding a little in agreement. "Now, we just need to wait for mina to get back with Skinner and Sawyer, and we can start thinking of a better plan."
At that moment, several bats flew in to gather beside Terry. As soon as the bats had landed, they turned into the familiar form of Mina Harker.
"Ah, you're back," Nemo said, standing up and looking at her. "How long until we can expect the company of Mr Sawyer and Mr Skinner?"
"I don't know," Mina said, looking at the four of them with a slight edge of fear in her eyes. Even before she spoke again, Hartdegen knew what she was going to say; only one thing could put that much fear into the eyes of this woman.
Fear for the life of the man she loved.
"You couldn't find them," Jekyll said, beating Hartdegen to it.
"No," Mina sighed, looking at them all anxiously. "I was hoping that they had simply returned home of their own accord, but if they aren't here now..." She sighed.
Just then, something ran smack into Jekyll, knocking him over. The League quickly spun around to see what had hit him, but relaxed when they realised they couldn't see anything.
"Skinner, you're back!" Hartdegen said, grinning in Jekyll's direction as the doctor got up and dusted himself down. At the same, a human shape right beside him, visible only through the dust that now covered it, began to scrape off its own grim.
However, before Skinner could finish the job, he found himself grabbed around the throat and hauled into the air by Mina.
"Where. Is. He?" she hissed at the thief, holding him close to her face and bearing her fangs.
Skinner shivered. "Well, y'see, Mina, that's a long and interesting story..."
"Make it shorter," Mina whispered to him, digging her nails into his neck slightly. The other three just watched the scene in front of them; they knew how Mina could get when the subject came up of Sawyer being in any kind of danger, and the only thing to do when she got in this kind of mood was leave her alone.
"Basically," Skinner said, sounding slightly panicky and on-edge, "we found the criminals, Sawyer got shot and captured by the criminals, he's being held prisoner by the boss, guy who calls himself 'the Shark', they're in some caves nearby, and he wants us to get Becky Thatcher to help us because she's the only person available who knows the caves well, and could you possibly drop me before you break my neck?"
Mina let go of the thief, and Skinner dropped to the ground. Fortunately, his feet had been fairly close to it even when Mina had been holding him above her head, so he was generally in good shape, apart from being a little shaken.
Mina looked over to the others. "Everyone get organised at once; we have to rescue Tom," she said, looking more angry than anyone could remember seeing her.
Then again, this was the first serious trouble to happen to Agent Sawyer since the two of them had become involved. Mina had every right to feel angry, and nobody was going to try to calm her down.
*****
Mina snapped out even more orders. "Doctor Jekyll, get a shirt and jacket on and grab a new phial of your formula. Nemo, you, Skinner and Hartdegen get us all some weapons. Terry, you're with me; we have to pick up Miss Thatcher."
"Are you sure about that?" Terry asked, looking at Mina with his usual blank expression, made even more prominent by the dark glasses he'd recently purchased to replace Skinner's borrowed pince-nez (Not that it made much difference; Terry's eyes never showed emotion, and, no matter what else he learned from the League, probably never would.)
"Honestly? No," Mina replied, looking over at the machine. "But we need help if we're going to get Tom out of those caves alive, and if he thinks that Miss Thatcher is the best person to guide us through the caves, we need her assistance."
"And if she doesn't want to come?" Terry asked, as the two of them began to walk away from the Nautilus.
Mina's expression hardened and she flexed her fingers. "We'll make her."
*****
Becky couldn't sleep.
She'd managed to catch a couple of hour's sleep upon arriving home, but after that she'd been woken up by the sound of activity in the hall outside her door. She'd taken a peek outside and had seen that it was none other than Tom and all his... teammates? Friends? What was the correct term for his relationship with those guys?
Then it had occurred to her.
Family.
They were his family. The way he acted around them was enough for that to be clear to someone who'd known Tom for so long, and she was one of the few who qualified these days. He regarded all three of the people who'd come with him as his family; Hartdegen was like a cousin to him, Jekyll a kind uncle, and Mina, well, that one was obvious to anyone.
He loved her.
And she loved him.
Becky couldn't decide what to feel about that. She'd told herself that she'd gotten over Tom ever since the death of Joe Harper all those years ago; they'd drifted part after that, and when Becky had ended up with another man she cared for, David Garcia, she'd basically pushed Tom to the back of her thoughts. Even after she'd ended things with David, anything she'd heard about Tom had been acquired from Huckleberry Finn, Tom's oldest friend. She'd learned about the two joining the American Secret Service, about all their various missions, and even about the man known only as the Fantom.
Then Huck had died.
From there on in, she'd just completely lost touch with things where Tom was concerned. She'd heard about a couple of rumours from Jim that Tom had joined a rather unique group, but had dismissed it as just that; a story.
Now he'd returned home with that very group.
And he was romantically involved with another woman.
And Becky was feeling insanely jealous. She wasn't even sure what qualities the woman possessed that allowed her to work with the others- come to that, she wasn't even sure what the others could do that made them extraordinary. She thought she recalled reading about Hartdegen in a paper sometime- some physics professor in New York, had odd theories about time travel if she remembered correctly- but Jekyll was a bit of an enigma to her, to say nothing of Mina.
What qualities did she have that made Sawyer prefer her to Becky?
Did I just think that? Becky asked herself. I mean, she'd always felt like she had some sort of feelings for Sawyer even after their break-up, but actually feeling jealous about his current lover? She'd never felt that before, despite what she'd heard from Huck about some of the things Sawyer had done on his missions- a couple of one-night-stands to get information, never anything serious-, but, then again, maybe that was because he only even touched them because he needed to get information.
But Mina... he was actually in love with her.
And the problem was... Mina loved Tom back, while she, Becky Thatcher, was also in love with him.
And she wasn't sure what to do about it.
Suddenly, her thoughts were broken into by a sharp knocking on her door.
Shaking her head to clear it, she got out of her bed, shrugged on her robe, and opened the door.
Standing outside it were Mina Harker and a tall, muscular man who she didn't recognise.
The two of them walked into the room without even paying attention to Becky's state of undress. The man just stopped right in the middle of her room as though he was a statue, while Mina walked right over to Becky's wardrobe, tore it open, pulled out one of Becky's dresses, and thrown it over to her.
"Get dressed," she said simply, as Becky caught the dress and stared at it. She looked up at Mina.
"Is there any particular reason for this?" she asked the mysterious woman.
"Yes," Mina replied, turning around to look at the woman. "Tom is being held captive by the criminals we came here to find, and their headquarters is some old caves outside this town. According to Tom, you are one of the few people who knows their way around the caves, so we are going to need your assistance to get him out."
Becky raced over her options in her head. She could refuse, and leave the League to get Tom out of this situation by themselves. It was tempting. After all, what was he to her? Just some old boyfriend, who'd shut himself off from her after a friend had died, who'd never bothered to come in contact with her since...
And whom she still loved, in spite of everything. That simple fact made up her mind for her.
"I'm in," she said, nodding at Mina. "Let me get dressed, and I'll be right with you."
Mina nodded. "We'll wait for you outside," she said, as she and the man walked out of the room.
*****
What's this guy trying to do, BORE me to death? Sawyer asked himself, as he hung from his chains in the cave, looking around himself as he tried to get a better idea of his surroundings. He hadn't seen any sign of the Shark since Skinner had left, and he was starting to wonder if anything was going to happen, or if the Shark intended to leave him to starve to death.
Actually, that wasn't a very entertaining prospect, not that he thought about it.
Just then, he heard a slight swishing at the entrance to his prison. Looking up, he saw the Shark walking into his prison cell, a gleam in his eye and a smile on the right side of his mouth.
"Ah, you're still awake," he said, grinning at Sawyer with a gleam in his eye that reminded Sawyer of Dracula. "Good. I wanted to let you know, your friends are coming to help you- not that it will do you much good. I have almost fifty men at the entrance to this cave, waiting for them to arrive, and even assuming they can get past that, they still have around twenty men to stop be fore they can get to you and I." Then his expression grew harder. "By that time, I doubt you'll still be standing."
Sawyer just smirked at him. "You talk the talk, Shark, but can you walk the walk?" he asked mockingly, using a phrase he remembered Hartdegen mentioning once. "Your guys only took me down because I ran out of bullets; what makes you think they can handle the League?" Then a thought occurred to him. "Come to that, what's with the dumb mask?"
The Shark raised one fist, as though to punch him. Then he gave another grin under his mask.
"Why not?" he said, smirking a little. "After all, you might as well know why I want you dead."
Turning around, he pulled at the part of the mask that was at the back of his head. The back part of the mask instantly swung upwards, exposing the man's scraggly brown hair, rather like Sawyer's own.
The man pulled the rest of his mask off, and then turned back to face Sawyer.
He had a young face, maybe only a year or so older than Sawyer, with brown eyes and a slight tan. However, only the right eye gave any impression of colour, since the left was badly scarred, by a long line that stretched from the man's face down to the corner of his mouth (Which was the reason for its unusual appearance), and appeared to line up exactly with his hanging arm. Based on how badly the arm appeared to be damaged, Sawyer guessed that the man had been shot from above with a large rifle, maybe a Winchester or something similar, at fairly close range, and the power of the shot had torn down his face to end in his shoulder.
However, even with the scar, there was no mistaking the rest of the face.
Sawyer felt his blood run cold. It couldn't be....
But it was.
"HUCK?!"
Feedback: I'll still write this if I don't get any of it, but I would like it.
funyun: Good point about the guns; Skinner would have grabbed them but he was just too occupied with the criminal to remember them.
Resurrection
"Uh... what hit me?" Sawyer asked, wincing a little as he opened his eyes. He quickly examined his surroundings; he was in some kind of cave, but it had several pieces of furniture in it. Well, not where he was; the part of the cave where was right now was just a moderately sized chamber, may ten feet wide and eight feet high. The only sign it was actually used was a candle on one wall near him, that cast a very comforting light on the whole place.
He noticed several guns lying down on shelves in a large chamber just outside his one, and a couple of wooden chairs in front of him. However, that didn't really serve to distract him from the pain he was feeling in his head. "I feel like I was blown to Mars and back..."
"You know, that is a very intriguing suggestion," a voice said, from somewhere off to Sawyer's right. "Maybe I should think about sending you there; I've heard that you thwarted the efforts of the Martians to take over this planet, and they probably wouldn't be too pleased to see you."
Glancing to his right, Sawyer looked at the man who'd been speaking to him. He was a tall man, maybe around Hartdegen's height, with dirty brown hair hanging down at the back of his head. He was dressed in a simple black suit and a long black cloak, carrying a silver-and-black stick. The cloak had a slight trace of fur around its edge, the fur being light grey with some spots of black in them, and reached down so far that a little bit of it was dragging along the ground.
However, the most distinctive thing about the man was the mask he was wearing; a silvery colour, it stretched all the way around his head, leaving only the mouth and the right eye showing. The eye looked fairly normal, but the left side of the mouth forced downward slightly, as though something were pulling on it. Sawyer noted that the man's left arm was slightly lower then normal, as though whatever was pulling his mouth down was forcing his arm down as well.
The man's mask had a few small points around the mouth, along with a tiny fin sticking out of the back and some small lines scratched into the side, giving the man a slight resemblance to a shark.
"I wouldn't recommend it," Sawyer replied, looking the man in the eye.
"Recommend what?" the man asked, casually leaning forward with his cane.
"Sending me to Mars," Sawyer replied, trying to sound better than he felt. "The Martians don't really like humanity in general; they'd probably kill whoever you sent with me as well."
"I'd be prepared to run that risk," the man replied, crouching down to look Sawyer in the eyes. "Believe me, if you knew who you were talking to, you'd really be scared of what I might do to you." Then he punched Sawyer in the stomach.
Hard.
Sawyer gasped briefly at the pain, and he noticed a small speck of red appear on the man's mask. It must have come from his mouth, which meant he was more hurt then he'd guessed.
Looking down at himself, Sawyer noticed that there were a couple of spots of red on the right side of his shirt. It didn't look like they'd connected with any major organs, but he'd definitely like to have someone take a look at them soon.
Looking up at the man, Sawyer decided to get the most obvious question out of the way.
"Who are you?" he asked.
The man smirked. "I have a real name, but you would recognise it instantly, and I'd rather save it for a better moment. For now, just call me... the Shark."
"'The Shark'?" Sawyer asked, in a mocking tone of voice. "You've gotta be kidding me; 'the Fantom' was lame enough."
The Shark growled and kicked Sawyer in the stomach; Sawyer gasped again, and this time the blood from his mouth hit the floor. Glancing at it, Sawyer noticed there was slightly more of it than there had been the last time, but it still wasn't a massive amount.
The Shark leaned towards Sawyer, and spoke to him in a voice that was remarkably like a growling dog.
"The Fantom was only the herald for a new era of villain, Sawyer," he said, sounding like he wanted to yank Sawyer's head off. "I am the second of his kind, and I will not fail where he did." Then he spun around, flaring his cloak out in an overly dramatic gesture, and walked out of the room.
Groaning a little, Sawyer looked up at where the Shark had left his prison. However, there was nobody anywhere near him; there were a couple of guards about four feet outside his prison's door, but that was it. Evidently nobody considered him worth close attention; after all, he had only had two pistols on him when he was captured, and both of those had run out of bullets. He wasn't really that much of a threat right now, chained up, wounded, bleeding from the mouth...
"What the hell did they do to you, kid?" a voice suddenly whispered to him from the side. Sawyer didn't even need to look up to know it was; only one man had that accent and could get this far in without being caught.
"Skinner?" he asked, looking at where he hoped the invisible man was. "How'd you get here?" The he mentally kicked himself for asking such a stupid question; getting into this place was no issue at all for an invisible man. "Come to that, where is here?"
"Some cave off at the edge of your town," Skinner whispered, as he moved over to the chains and apparently started tugging at them. "Big, but what I've seen of these guys suggests they only moved in recently. They've taken your pistols, and I noticed my stuff lying on a table with them as well."
"Caves..." Sawyer grumbled to himself, not really paying attention to Skinner's comment about the coat and guns, before looking in Skinner's direction with a gleam of hope in his eyes. "Get back to the League, let them know where I am, and then get Becky."
*****
"Becky? Sawyer, no offence intended, but is dragging your ex along really a sensible idea?" Skinner asked, as he tried tugging on Sawyer's chains again, hoping against hope that they'd be a little looser now. "If nothing else, how happy would Mina be about it?"
"Skinner, I know where I am," Sawyer hissed to the thief, signalling to him to stop tugging on the chains and listen to him. "I'm in these old treasure caves where Becky and I once got lost as children and found some gold. Apart from me, she's the only person here who really knows her way around these caves. Threaten to shoot her if you have to, just get her here!" he said, hissing the last sentence in Skinner's general direction.
Skinner nodded and patted Sawyer assuringly on the shoulder. "Check," he whispered to his friend. "Hang tight, buddy; the League will be here soon."
Then he turned around and hurried out of Sawyer's prison and through the cave as fast as he could without making any noise. He had no idea how long he'd have until the Shark dropped in on Sawyer again, but he got the impression that he didn't want to be too late.
If no other reason worked, there was the fact that Mina would probably kill him for letting Tom die.
He was out of the cave, and quickened his pace.
*****
"Well, that was mostly pointless," Hartdegen groaned, as he and Terry finally arrived at the Nautilus after spending nearly two hours waiting for something to happen. Eventually, they'd been contacted by Mina, who'd told them to leave the tower and rendezvous back at the submarine to discuss another strategy.
Looking around, Hartdegen noticed that Hyde and Nemo were already back, although Hyde was looking on edge and annoyed, in a manner that Hartdegen recognised as being his usual attitude before his formula ran out. However, Mina, Sawyer, and Skinner were conspicuous by their absence, although admittedly, in Skinner's case, just because Hartdegen couldn't see anything didn't mean he wasn't there.
"Ah, good, you're here," Nemo said, glancing over at the teacher and the machine. He and Hyde were currently sitting outside the Nautilus with a few large sticks laid out in front of them. When Hartdegen got closer, he realised what they were playing.
Noughts and Crosses.
"How long have you been waiting for us?" he asked the Indian, as Terry came to a stop behind him.
"A while," Nemo replied, as he and Hyde put down the sticks they had been using to draw in the dust for their game. "Evidently, either Mrs Harker isn't as fast a flyer as we think, or Mr Nator is simply not as fast as Mr Hyde."
"Well, that's life," Terry replied, shrugging a little. "Where are the others?"
"We don't know right now," Hyde grunted simply. "Mina said she'd find them, but if she hasn't shown up by now, maybe it's time to get worried... worri... wor... wor... AARRGGHH!" Hyde yelled, as there were several small explosions around him and he began to shrink. His muscles contracted, his bones got smaller, his hair grew longer... A few seconds later, the familiar form of Doctor Jekyll was standing in front of his three team-mates, trying to hold his trousers up and looking in a slightly embarrassed manner at them all.
"Well, at least that's that done," Hartdegen said, shrugging a little at the others.
"Pardon?" Nemo asked, looking over at Hartdegen.
"Well, at least his formula ran out now, rather than while he was hanging around on the rooftops of this place," Hartdegen explained, Jekyll nodding a little in agreement. "Now, we just need to wait for mina to get back with Skinner and Sawyer, and we can start thinking of a better plan."
At that moment, several bats flew in to gather beside Terry. As soon as the bats had landed, they turned into the familiar form of Mina Harker.
"Ah, you're back," Nemo said, standing up and looking at her. "How long until we can expect the company of Mr Sawyer and Mr Skinner?"
"I don't know," Mina said, looking at the four of them with a slight edge of fear in her eyes. Even before she spoke again, Hartdegen knew what she was going to say; only one thing could put that much fear into the eyes of this woman.
Fear for the life of the man she loved.
"You couldn't find them," Jekyll said, beating Hartdegen to it.
"No," Mina sighed, looking at them all anxiously. "I was hoping that they had simply returned home of their own accord, but if they aren't here now..." She sighed.
Just then, something ran smack into Jekyll, knocking him over. The League quickly spun around to see what had hit him, but relaxed when they realised they couldn't see anything.
"Skinner, you're back!" Hartdegen said, grinning in Jekyll's direction as the doctor got up and dusted himself down. At the same, a human shape right beside him, visible only through the dust that now covered it, began to scrape off its own grim.
However, before Skinner could finish the job, he found himself grabbed around the throat and hauled into the air by Mina.
"Where. Is. He?" she hissed at the thief, holding him close to her face and bearing her fangs.
Skinner shivered. "Well, y'see, Mina, that's a long and interesting story..."
"Make it shorter," Mina whispered to him, digging her nails into his neck slightly. The other three just watched the scene in front of them; they knew how Mina could get when the subject came up of Sawyer being in any kind of danger, and the only thing to do when she got in this kind of mood was leave her alone.
"Basically," Skinner said, sounding slightly panicky and on-edge, "we found the criminals, Sawyer got shot and captured by the criminals, he's being held prisoner by the boss, guy who calls himself 'the Shark', they're in some caves nearby, and he wants us to get Becky Thatcher to help us because she's the only person available who knows the caves well, and could you possibly drop me before you break my neck?"
Mina let go of the thief, and Skinner dropped to the ground. Fortunately, his feet had been fairly close to it even when Mina had been holding him above her head, so he was generally in good shape, apart from being a little shaken.
Mina looked over to the others. "Everyone get organised at once; we have to rescue Tom," she said, looking more angry than anyone could remember seeing her.
Then again, this was the first serious trouble to happen to Agent Sawyer since the two of them had become involved. Mina had every right to feel angry, and nobody was going to try to calm her down.
*****
Mina snapped out even more orders. "Doctor Jekyll, get a shirt and jacket on and grab a new phial of your formula. Nemo, you, Skinner and Hartdegen get us all some weapons. Terry, you're with me; we have to pick up Miss Thatcher."
"Are you sure about that?" Terry asked, looking at Mina with his usual blank expression, made even more prominent by the dark glasses he'd recently purchased to replace Skinner's borrowed pince-nez (Not that it made much difference; Terry's eyes never showed emotion, and, no matter what else he learned from the League, probably never would.)
"Honestly? No," Mina replied, looking over at the machine. "But we need help if we're going to get Tom out of those caves alive, and if he thinks that Miss Thatcher is the best person to guide us through the caves, we need her assistance."
"And if she doesn't want to come?" Terry asked, as the two of them began to walk away from the Nautilus.
Mina's expression hardened and she flexed her fingers. "We'll make her."
*****
Becky couldn't sleep.
She'd managed to catch a couple of hour's sleep upon arriving home, but after that she'd been woken up by the sound of activity in the hall outside her door. She'd taken a peek outside and had seen that it was none other than Tom and all his... teammates? Friends? What was the correct term for his relationship with those guys?
Then it had occurred to her.
Family.
They were his family. The way he acted around them was enough for that to be clear to someone who'd known Tom for so long, and she was one of the few who qualified these days. He regarded all three of the people who'd come with him as his family; Hartdegen was like a cousin to him, Jekyll a kind uncle, and Mina, well, that one was obvious to anyone.
He loved her.
And she loved him.
Becky couldn't decide what to feel about that. She'd told herself that she'd gotten over Tom ever since the death of Joe Harper all those years ago; they'd drifted part after that, and when Becky had ended up with another man she cared for, David Garcia, she'd basically pushed Tom to the back of her thoughts. Even after she'd ended things with David, anything she'd heard about Tom had been acquired from Huckleberry Finn, Tom's oldest friend. She'd learned about the two joining the American Secret Service, about all their various missions, and even about the man known only as the Fantom.
Then Huck had died.
From there on in, she'd just completely lost touch with things where Tom was concerned. She'd heard about a couple of rumours from Jim that Tom had joined a rather unique group, but had dismissed it as just that; a story.
Now he'd returned home with that very group.
And he was romantically involved with another woman.
And Becky was feeling insanely jealous. She wasn't even sure what qualities the woman possessed that allowed her to work with the others- come to that, she wasn't even sure what the others could do that made them extraordinary. She thought she recalled reading about Hartdegen in a paper sometime- some physics professor in New York, had odd theories about time travel if she remembered correctly- but Jekyll was a bit of an enigma to her, to say nothing of Mina.
What qualities did she have that made Sawyer prefer her to Becky?
Did I just think that? Becky asked herself. I mean, she'd always felt like she had some sort of feelings for Sawyer even after their break-up, but actually feeling jealous about his current lover? She'd never felt that before, despite what she'd heard from Huck about some of the things Sawyer had done on his missions- a couple of one-night-stands to get information, never anything serious-, but, then again, maybe that was because he only even touched them because he needed to get information.
But Mina... he was actually in love with her.
And the problem was... Mina loved Tom back, while she, Becky Thatcher, was also in love with him.
And she wasn't sure what to do about it.
Suddenly, her thoughts were broken into by a sharp knocking on her door.
Shaking her head to clear it, she got out of her bed, shrugged on her robe, and opened the door.
Standing outside it were Mina Harker and a tall, muscular man who she didn't recognise.
The two of them walked into the room without even paying attention to Becky's state of undress. The man just stopped right in the middle of her room as though he was a statue, while Mina walked right over to Becky's wardrobe, tore it open, pulled out one of Becky's dresses, and thrown it over to her.
"Get dressed," she said simply, as Becky caught the dress and stared at it. She looked up at Mina.
"Is there any particular reason for this?" she asked the mysterious woman.
"Yes," Mina replied, turning around to look at the woman. "Tom is being held captive by the criminals we came here to find, and their headquarters is some old caves outside this town. According to Tom, you are one of the few people who knows their way around the caves, so we are going to need your assistance to get him out."
Becky raced over her options in her head. She could refuse, and leave the League to get Tom out of this situation by themselves. It was tempting. After all, what was he to her? Just some old boyfriend, who'd shut himself off from her after a friend had died, who'd never bothered to come in contact with her since...
And whom she still loved, in spite of everything. That simple fact made up her mind for her.
"I'm in," she said, nodding at Mina. "Let me get dressed, and I'll be right with you."
Mina nodded. "We'll wait for you outside," she said, as she and the man walked out of the room.
*****
What's this guy trying to do, BORE me to death? Sawyer asked himself, as he hung from his chains in the cave, looking around himself as he tried to get a better idea of his surroundings. He hadn't seen any sign of the Shark since Skinner had left, and he was starting to wonder if anything was going to happen, or if the Shark intended to leave him to starve to death.
Actually, that wasn't a very entertaining prospect, not that he thought about it.
Just then, he heard a slight swishing at the entrance to his prison. Looking up, he saw the Shark walking into his prison cell, a gleam in his eye and a smile on the right side of his mouth.
"Ah, you're still awake," he said, grinning at Sawyer with a gleam in his eye that reminded Sawyer of Dracula. "Good. I wanted to let you know, your friends are coming to help you- not that it will do you much good. I have almost fifty men at the entrance to this cave, waiting for them to arrive, and even assuming they can get past that, they still have around twenty men to stop be fore they can get to you and I." Then his expression grew harder. "By that time, I doubt you'll still be standing."
Sawyer just smirked at him. "You talk the talk, Shark, but can you walk the walk?" he asked mockingly, using a phrase he remembered Hartdegen mentioning once. "Your guys only took me down because I ran out of bullets; what makes you think they can handle the League?" Then a thought occurred to him. "Come to that, what's with the dumb mask?"
The Shark raised one fist, as though to punch him. Then he gave another grin under his mask.
"Why not?" he said, smirking a little. "After all, you might as well know why I want you dead."
Turning around, he pulled at the part of the mask that was at the back of his head. The back part of the mask instantly swung upwards, exposing the man's scraggly brown hair, rather like Sawyer's own.
The man pulled the rest of his mask off, and then turned back to face Sawyer.
He had a young face, maybe only a year or so older than Sawyer, with brown eyes and a slight tan. However, only the right eye gave any impression of colour, since the left was badly scarred, by a long line that stretched from the man's face down to the corner of his mouth (Which was the reason for its unusual appearance), and appeared to line up exactly with his hanging arm. Based on how badly the arm appeared to be damaged, Sawyer guessed that the man had been shot from above with a large rifle, maybe a Winchester or something similar, at fairly close range, and the power of the shot had torn down his face to end in his shoulder.
However, even with the scar, there was no mistaking the rest of the face.
Sawyer felt his blood run cold. It couldn't be....
But it was.
"HUCK?!"