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: Your guess is right; Huck is stark raving bonkers. Then again, after being shot in the head, wouldn't you be a little screwed up?
Niani: Here it is, and it has a twist you probably WEREN'T expecting
Resurrection
Becky looked over at Huck, with a combination of anger and pain in her eyes.
"Why, Huck?" she asked, sounding to Hartdegen like she was about to cry, although he noted that she was still holding on to her pistols in a steady manner that betrayed no emotion at all. "Why are you doing this? Tom was your friend... your best friend all the way through childhood. This isn't like you..."
"It's the way I am now, Becky," Huck said, spitting out her name like it was a curse. "Thank Tom for that."
"Pardon?" Hartdegen asked, still pointing one gun at the soldiers. He'd slipped the other one back into its holster when Becky started talking, and his left hand was now in his pocket. However, none of the soldiers were firing; evidently, they were waiting for their leader to give the order. "What did he do?"
"He gave me this," Huck said, tapping the scar on his face. "Assuming you get out of this alive, ask him about it. See if you can condone his reasons for shooting his partner in cold blood."
"He wouldn't do that," Becky stated simply.
Huck sighed. "Shows you what YOU know about the man you love," he said.
"It also shows what you know about him," Hartdegen said, as his hand closed on something in his pocket. "You didn't even take into account that he may have a back-up plan for a situation like this."
"Pardon?" Huck asked. "What 'back-up plan' are you talking about?"
"This!" Hartdegen replied, as he pulled something from his pocket.
It was a small glass phial, apparently perfectly unremarkable save for its smallness; it looked like you could down its contents in one swallow. However, Becky recognised it instantly.
It was the phial that Doctor Jekyll had drunk before he turned into that... beast... that called itself Edward Hyde.
*****
Hartdegen moved his hand over the cork of the bottle and pulled it off. He raised it to his lips, and looked over at the man called Huck with a threatening glare in his eyes.
"I assume you've done some research on us, 'Huck'," he said, the bottle hovering over his lips in an almost threatening manner. "If you haven't then I'll fill you in; this phial contains the serum that transforms Doctor Jekyll into Edward Hyde, the massive creature that could conceivably tear right through everyone in this room in a matter of seconds, and is currently destroying your soldiers outside this cave." Then his face hardened. "And if I drink it, that's what I'll become."
He tilted the bottle slightly in his hand; any further, and he'd swallow it. "Let Agent Sawyer go, or I'll drink this. Whatever the result is, I'm sure you won't want to see it." Then he raised one eyebrow as a thought suddenly occurred to him. "Come to that, I don't want to see the results myself!"
"Then you won't drink it," Huck said, smirking in a very self-confident manner. "Bluff all you want, but if you're that scared of the results of drinking that formula, you won't do anything with it."
"There's only one way everyone can be sure of that," Hartdegen stated simply. "Let Sawyer go, and I won't drink this."
"I won't do that," Huck replied, smirking.
Hartdegen groaned. "This is all your fault," he said simply.
Then he swallowed the contents of the bottle.
*****
As soon as the contents of the phial had fallen down Hartdegen's throat, he dropped the bottle and screamed in pain, as his body started to bulge all over. One eyebrow burst out over his head, followed by his right arm and some random muscles all along his chest, and then he started shaking and twisting...
A few seconds later, before anyone had managed to do anything, a new creature was standing in Hartdegen's place. This new creature looked like Edward Hyde in the vital parts- the height, the muscles, the beast-like expression of rage on his face- but in the finer points, he wasn't quite the same.
This creature had Hyde's high head, but it possessed longer hair, reaching down to around its neck (The hair looked like it was caked with dirt), and actually had a small goatee. The face was slightly wider than Hyde, and the fingers, although still as fat as Hyde's, gave the impression of being more delicate than his. His skin was darker than Hyde's had ever been, and he had less veins popping out on his arms than Hyde did.
Panting slightly, the creature stretched, grinned, and turned to face Huck, who was just staring at the creature like he'd been lobotomised.
"Thanks," he said simply. "You have no idea how good it feels to be my own person for a change."
"H....Hartdegen?" Becky asked, walking towards the creature. It turned around to face Becky, and groaned.
"Of course not," the creature grunted, smiling at Becky. "Call me Joseph Seeqe, if you're going to call me anything." Then he turned back to the soldiers. "Now, get behind me and cover my back. These bastards are going down."
(A.N. Just to clarify, 'Seeqe' is meant to be pronounced 'Seek'- as in, 'Hide and Seek'. However, if you can come up with a better way of spelling it with the same pronunciation, feel free to let me know)
*****
Becky nodded, and spun around behind Seeqe, pointing her pistols at the soldiers. She noticed them staring at Seeqe with the same stupid expression that had been on Huck's face. Then again, Becky had to admit it would come as a shock to anyone who hadn't seen anything like Hyde before; she'd SEEN Doctor Jekyll transform, and even she was a little shaken.
Sliding back the hammers on her pistols, she raised them to around her eye level and aimed at the soldier's heads.
These were living men...
A part of her protested at what she was about to do. Unlike Huck and Tom, she had never held a weapon in her hands before now, and when she'd been fighting with the League, it had strictly been for survival, with little time to see who she was shooting at. Could she really kill a man in cold blood?
She looked back at where Tom hung from the wall, bleeding from his mouth and side.
The rest was easy.
She fired.
Two of the men dropped.
Instantly, the remaining soldiers snapped out of their daze and began to fire their guns. Just before the bullets could strike Becky, she found herself lifted right off her feet by a massive arm that took all the bullets without even bleeding.
"Seeqe?" she asked, looking back at the man mountain, who was staring at her with a concerned expression on its- no, his- face. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine," Seeqe grunted, as he placed her on the ground and covered her with his body, shielding her from the flying bullets. "My body's basically bulletproof, and even if anything does hurt me, I can recover fairly quickly. Good shot, by the way; Sawyer would be proud."
Becky looked over nervously at where she'd seen the young agent earlier. "If he's still breathing, I hope you're right," she said, as she pulled out a couple of extra bullets and slid them into her guns; she'd probably need them at this rate.
"He's breathing," Seeqe assured her. "I just hope we get the chance to show these bastards what we're made of soon..." he added, growling under his breath.
Several loud clicks sounded from around them.
Seeqe grinned. "They're out of bullets," he said, smiling at Becky. "When I say go, go. Go!"
And he leapt up onto his feet and charged at the nearest group of soldiers. As Becky got to her feet, Seeqe threw two soldiers into the wall of the cavern, and then grabbed a third by the arms and yanked on both of them. As the man fell to the ground, screaming in agony, Becky turned around to face the soldiers behind her, unwilling to witness Seeqe's murders.
As the other soldiers attempted to reload their guns, Becky launched off four bullets at them, striking four soldiers in various different places. Two of them died instantly, the third one fell to the ground with a fatal wound near his heart, and the fourth found himself with a bullet lodged in his upper right arm.
Leaving him to shake in pain, Becky spun around to see how Seeqe was coping. She noted, partly with relief and partly with revulsion, that Seeqe had taken out around six of the soldiers, who were currently lying on the ground in various disgusting stages of death and mutilation. One soldier appeared to have been strangled with his own intestines, another was lacking both arms, a third and fourth were bleeding profusely from their mouths, apparently deprived of their tongues and with nasty scratches around their throats, and the fifth and sixth appeared to have been beaten into bloody pulps.
Becky almost threw up as Seeqe finished with a seventh man, in a manner that consisted of twisting the soldier's head in one direction and his body in another. Then, just as he started to turn around to face the remaining three, Becky made her decision.
She raised her guns and fired.
Instantly, two of the remaining soldiers dropped like a pair of stones. Before Seeqe had fully processed what had just happened, Becky had fired two more bullets, and the final soldier dropped dead.
Becky walked over to the body, and spat on it.
"That was for Tom," she said simply, before glancing back at Seeqe, who was staring at her with a stunned expression on his face.
"You... you shot them?" he asked, sounding like he was slightly angry at her for doing that.
Becky stared Seeqe in the face, trying to quieten the urge to run away from this monster, screaming in terror. Whatever else he may have been, Seeqe was still Alex Hartdegen underneath all his muscles. She had to remember that.
He was on her side.
If only he didn't take so much pleasure in killing people for looking at him the wrong way.
"Yes," she replied, simply. "I thought you'd done enough damage to their friends already. No man should die like that, Seeqe, no matter what he's done. And I'll ask you not to be that harsh again."
"And what makes you think you can order me about like a dog?!" Seeqe asked, raising one hand like he was going to strike her. "Do you realise I could kill you without a second thought?"
Becky just stared at Seeqe. Maybe she could never have Tom again, but she could at least try to be his kind of woman in situations like this.
And Mina Harker wouldn't flinch when facing this... creature.
Becky may not be a vampire, but she wouldn't let that deter her from facing her fear.
"You could, but you won't," she replied bluntly. "Because, deep down, you are still Alexander Hartdegen, a physics teacher from New York with some interesting theories about time travel. And he would never kill a friend, no matter what he'd become or what they'd done."
Seeqe kept his hand held back for a couple of seconds. Then he lowered it.
"True enough, I suppose," he said, growling a little. Then he suddenly glanced behind him, and groaned. "Dammit! That Huck bastard's scarpered!"
"What?" Becky asked, terror gripping her heart. Huck was gone? "Any ideas where?" she asked Seeqe, praying Huck wasn't too far away.
Seeqe sniffed a little, and then pointed down a small path to the side of the cavern. "I can smell him. He's down there."
Becky sighed. She knew where that hole led; to a small underground stream that led out to the sea. Huck might be able to swim out of the cave from there and escape, but he'd need to get rid of his cloak and some parts of his suit, which would give her time to catch up with him.
"I'll take Huck," she said, glancing up at Seeqe. "You get Tom out of here; he needs your help right now." She glanced over at the cave where the man she loved was hanging. He looked like he was barely conscious; he probably hadn't even registered that he'd been saved.
"Right," Seeqe said, as Becky turned away and began to run down the path and after Huck. Whatever had happened to him, she had to stop Huck before he hurt anyone else.
He needed help.
Whatever it took, she'd see that he got it.
*****
"Uuuuhhhh..." Sawyer said, groaning a little as he felt something tug on his arm. What was happening to him now? Huck taking him away for more torture?
If so, he sent up a brief prayer to Mina, to remember how much he loved her.
"I'm sorry..." he gasped, coughing a little as he spoke.
"For what?" a rough voice asked from beside Sawyer. It sounded to Sawyer almost like Hyde's voice, but it had a slight touch of an American accent to it. Glancing to his right, Sawyer realised what had spoken; it was a massive creature, almost exactly like Hyde, but certain things were different. The hair was longer, the face wider, there was a small goatee on the chin...
Inspiration struck Sawyer.
"H-hartdegen?" he asked, half-hoping he was wrong.
"Well, that's generally who I am when I'm not like this," the creature replied. Sawyer couldn't bring himself to call it Hartdegen; after seeing what Hyde was capable of, he'd long ago stopped thinking of him and Jekyll as anything other than separate people.
Perhaps sensing the American's discomfort, the creature smiled a little. Of course, him being another Hyde, it seemed more like he was going to attack Tom rather than comfort him, but the gesture was kind enough.
"Call me Joseph Seeqe," he said, before turning back to the chain that held up Sawyer's left hand and yanking it off the wall. "Becky's after that Huck character, but right now I think we should give the League a little bit of help before we go after her. You?"
Sawyer groaned a little, as he went over his options. Becky could need his help, but right now he wouldn't be doing anyone any good by following her. Plus, Sawyer thought sadly, as he glanced at a hole in the side of the cave, he could barely walk by himself right now, and the hole looked too small for Seeqe to go in. They'd just have to leave Becky to her own devices and get back to the rest of the League.
"The League," he said to Seeqe. "C'mon, they've gotta be waiting for us."
*****
"Dammit!" Skinner yelped, as a bullet skimmed his shoulder as he tackled a soldier to the ground. He was starting to get sick of this; they'd been fighting for ages, and these bastards seemed very unwilling to quit. Their close proximity to the League members was preventing Mina and Terry from really hit anyone hard enough to do much damage, and Hyde was still desperately trying to reach the soldiers on the cliff-side. Nemo was still taking on at least two soldiers at a time by himself, and Skinner was still trying his old method of ducking down and ramming.
Suddenly, the thief noticed something lying on the ground beside the soldier he'd just knocked out.
The soldier's gun.
He could have kicked himself. He'd been so busy complaining to himself about not having a weapon on him that he'd forgotten to pay any attention to the idea of grabbing a gun from the downed soldiers.
What kind of an idiot am I? Skinner thought to himself, as he reached over and grabbed the gun. Spinning around, he aimed the gun at a nearby soldier, who was currently charging towards Nemo, and fired.
The soldier dropped.
Excellent! Skinner thought to himself, as he aimed the gun at some of the other soldiers and began to fire. Four soldiers fell at once, but just as Skinner was starting to get into the mood to take them out, the gun clicked on empty.
"Shit," he whispered, as the soldiers looked up in his direction. The rest of the League were still occupied, and right now, he had about five soldiers aiming their guns at him, and nowhere to dive to.
If this is the end, Skinner thought to himself, as he dropped the gun and shrugged his coat off, I'm going out the way I came in...
Kicking and screaming.
He charged forwards, desperate to stop at least one soldier before they could get off a shot.
But, as they raised their guns, he knew he couldn't pull it off. He may be invisible right now, but they could still guess where he was, and that might be enough.
They began to pull the triggers...
And suddenly, something large and muscular charged into them from the side, knocking them down like ninepins.
Skinner grinned. Only one creature on earth was that big and fast.
"Edward, old boy!" he said, turning to face the form. "Thanks for-" and he stopped, puzzled.
It wasn't Hyde. It LOOKED like him, but there were a couple of extras, such as the head being wider and there being less veins visible along the arms than Skinner remembered.
The form looked back, and Skinner noted that it had the half comatose form of Tom Sawyer in its arms.
Only one person could have picked up Sawyer and not killed him, as far as Skinner knew.
He looked at the creature with a combination of horror and awe. "H- hartdegen?" he asked, a slight stammer in his voice.
"Not quite," Sawyer smiled from the Hartdegen-Hyde's arms, looking in rather bad shape. "Call him... Joseph Seeqe... Skinner."
"Seeqe?" Skinner asked, looking at the massive creature.
Seeqe nodded, and passed Sawyer in Skinner's general direction. "Take him," he said simply, before he glanced over towards where the rest of the League were. They were so wrapped up in their battles that they hadn't even noticed Seeqe and Sawyer come charging in. "I'll help them handle this."
Skinner scooped the battered American agent up in his arms, before looking up at Seeqe.
"How was it?" he asked, as the large bulk that used to be a simple teacher tensed up to charge.
Seeqe looked down at Skinner, a puzzled expression on his face at first, but it brightened as inspiration dawned.
"Sore," he said, in answer to Skinner's question. Then he grinned. "But remarkably satisfying at the same time." He shrugged a little as he turned back to the soldiers. "Kind of like sex, in that regard; sore, but worth it."
He charged before Skinner could even get another word in edgeways.
The invisible thief glanced down at his charge. Sawyer definitely didn't look too healthy; they'd need to give him a blood transplant or something when they got back to the Nautilus.
However, no sooner had that thought crossed Skinner's mind, then he heard a wild roaring up in front of him. Looking up, he watched as Seeqe tore through the Shark's soldiers like they were a bunch of pins, knocking several of them down with only a few well-placed blows. Apparently, the other League members didn't realize that Sawyer was now safe, nor who had taken out the soldiers; Skinner assumed they thought it was Hyde, who had finally had the bright idea of jumping up at the soldiers while punching them. Only five of them were still standing, and they looked like they'd be going down fairly quickly at this rate.
Still, whether or not it was a different League member who'd saved them, it wasn't going to stop the rest from having fun. With the numbers around them having dropped to a more manageable number, Terry, Nemo and Mina were dealing out death to everyone near them. In roomier conditions, the soldiers didn't even have a prayer; they were dead in a few seconds.
*****
Mina took the last one down herself, stabbing him in the heart with one of her daggers.
"That was for hurting Tom," she said, as the soldier began to crumple onto the ground. "Nobody does that while I live."
"That's... good to know..." a voice said from behind her. Mina glanced around, and saw her lover, hanging onto something that couldn't be seen; evidently, Skinner had picked him up. However, he didn't seem to be in good shape; there were some ugly red patches on the right side of his chest, and his mouth was leaking blood.
"Oh my god..." she said, running over to him and taking him up in her arms, sparing a brief smile for Skinner as thanks. This couldn't be happening... he couldn't die on her, not now...
"It looks... worse than it... is," Sawyer gasped, patting her on the back. "Just a couple... of ribs hurt,... I think."
Mina sighed with relief as she loosened her grip on Sawyer. He grinned at her, trying to reassure her he was all right. "I'd... kiss you, but... well, the blood... and all," he said, shrugging.
Mina smiled at that. Trust Tom to find the humour in a situation like this. "They'll be time for that later," she assured him. "Right now, we just have to get everyone together and get you back to the Nautilus."
****
"Talking of gathering us all together, how did you get out of the cave?" Nemo asked, as he, Hyde and Terry joined the three of them, Skinner having shrugged his coat back on by this point. The three of them were looking at Sawyer in a concerned manner, but in Hyde's case he looked like he was almost analysing Sawyer.
"Him," Sawyer replied, indicating something behind them. The League looked around...
And their jaws dropped as they saw Joseph Seeqe. Mina had been too busy focusing on Sawyer to spot him earlier, and the others had been distracted by the battle and the dazed agent to spot him earlier.
"Hi," Seeqe said, waving a little at the League in a manner that was the most Hartdegen-like expression they'd seen on him yet. "Name's Joseph Seeqe; I'm the result of Plan J when used on Hartdegen. To answer any questions you may have, Skinner cleared a path for Hartdegen and Becky to get into the cave, and they found Tom being held captive by the criminal called 'the Shark' and some of his gang. Hartdegen drank his serum to fight them off, Becky and I took them out, and she went after the Shark while I got Sawyer out." He shrugged. "Hey, she can handle herself."
*****
"I did," a voice said from behind them. Glancing around, the League saw Becky standing at the cave's entrance, covered in dirt and with a small scratch on her hand. "Unfortunately, Huck managed to get out of the cave via a back entrance. He had a boat waiting for him, and I had to come back." Her expression changed to one of concern as she saw Sawyer lying in Mina's arms. "How is he?"
"Weak, but he'll live, according to Henry," Hyde grunted. "We should get him back to the Nautilus for a check-up; some people," and here he glanced harshly at Becky, "have some explaining to do about the Shark."
Becky nodded. The League started to walk back towards town, Mina passing Sawyer over to Seeqe while she walked; after all, the man-mountain was one of the best candidates, given that he'd done it already. However, as Becky tagged along behind the League, she found herself unable to get one idea out of her head.
Why did Huck blame Tom for his injury?
Feedback: I'll still write this if I don't get any of it, but I would like it.
funyun: Your guess is right; Huck is stark raving bonkers. Then again, after being shot in the head, wouldn't you be a little screwed up?
Niani: Here it is, and it has a twist you probably WEREN'T expecting
Resurrection
Becky looked over at Huck, with a combination of anger and pain in her eyes.
"Why, Huck?" she asked, sounding to Hartdegen like she was about to cry, although he noted that she was still holding on to her pistols in a steady manner that betrayed no emotion at all. "Why are you doing this? Tom was your friend... your best friend all the way through childhood. This isn't like you..."
"It's the way I am now, Becky," Huck said, spitting out her name like it was a curse. "Thank Tom for that."
"Pardon?" Hartdegen asked, still pointing one gun at the soldiers. He'd slipped the other one back into its holster when Becky started talking, and his left hand was now in his pocket. However, none of the soldiers were firing; evidently, they were waiting for their leader to give the order. "What did he do?"
"He gave me this," Huck said, tapping the scar on his face. "Assuming you get out of this alive, ask him about it. See if you can condone his reasons for shooting his partner in cold blood."
"He wouldn't do that," Becky stated simply.
Huck sighed. "Shows you what YOU know about the man you love," he said.
"It also shows what you know about him," Hartdegen said, as his hand closed on something in his pocket. "You didn't even take into account that he may have a back-up plan for a situation like this."
"Pardon?" Huck asked. "What 'back-up plan' are you talking about?"
"This!" Hartdegen replied, as he pulled something from his pocket.
It was a small glass phial, apparently perfectly unremarkable save for its smallness; it looked like you could down its contents in one swallow. However, Becky recognised it instantly.
It was the phial that Doctor Jekyll had drunk before he turned into that... beast... that called itself Edward Hyde.
*****
Hartdegen moved his hand over the cork of the bottle and pulled it off. He raised it to his lips, and looked over at the man called Huck with a threatening glare in his eyes.
"I assume you've done some research on us, 'Huck'," he said, the bottle hovering over his lips in an almost threatening manner. "If you haven't then I'll fill you in; this phial contains the serum that transforms Doctor Jekyll into Edward Hyde, the massive creature that could conceivably tear right through everyone in this room in a matter of seconds, and is currently destroying your soldiers outside this cave." Then his face hardened. "And if I drink it, that's what I'll become."
He tilted the bottle slightly in his hand; any further, and he'd swallow it. "Let Agent Sawyer go, or I'll drink this. Whatever the result is, I'm sure you won't want to see it." Then he raised one eyebrow as a thought suddenly occurred to him. "Come to that, I don't want to see the results myself!"
"Then you won't drink it," Huck said, smirking in a very self-confident manner. "Bluff all you want, but if you're that scared of the results of drinking that formula, you won't do anything with it."
"There's only one way everyone can be sure of that," Hartdegen stated simply. "Let Sawyer go, and I won't drink this."
"I won't do that," Huck replied, smirking.
Hartdegen groaned. "This is all your fault," he said simply.
Then he swallowed the contents of the bottle.
*****
As soon as the contents of the phial had fallen down Hartdegen's throat, he dropped the bottle and screamed in pain, as his body started to bulge all over. One eyebrow burst out over his head, followed by his right arm and some random muscles all along his chest, and then he started shaking and twisting...
A few seconds later, before anyone had managed to do anything, a new creature was standing in Hartdegen's place. This new creature looked like Edward Hyde in the vital parts- the height, the muscles, the beast-like expression of rage on his face- but in the finer points, he wasn't quite the same.
This creature had Hyde's high head, but it possessed longer hair, reaching down to around its neck (The hair looked like it was caked with dirt), and actually had a small goatee. The face was slightly wider than Hyde, and the fingers, although still as fat as Hyde's, gave the impression of being more delicate than his. His skin was darker than Hyde's had ever been, and he had less veins popping out on his arms than Hyde did.
Panting slightly, the creature stretched, grinned, and turned to face Huck, who was just staring at the creature like he'd been lobotomised.
"Thanks," he said simply. "You have no idea how good it feels to be my own person for a change."
"H....Hartdegen?" Becky asked, walking towards the creature. It turned around to face Becky, and groaned.
"Of course not," the creature grunted, smiling at Becky. "Call me Joseph Seeqe, if you're going to call me anything." Then he turned back to the soldiers. "Now, get behind me and cover my back. These bastards are going down."
(A.N. Just to clarify, 'Seeqe' is meant to be pronounced 'Seek'- as in, 'Hide and Seek'. However, if you can come up with a better way of spelling it with the same pronunciation, feel free to let me know)
*****
Becky nodded, and spun around behind Seeqe, pointing her pistols at the soldiers. She noticed them staring at Seeqe with the same stupid expression that had been on Huck's face. Then again, Becky had to admit it would come as a shock to anyone who hadn't seen anything like Hyde before; she'd SEEN Doctor Jekyll transform, and even she was a little shaken.
Sliding back the hammers on her pistols, she raised them to around her eye level and aimed at the soldier's heads.
These were living men...
A part of her protested at what she was about to do. Unlike Huck and Tom, she had never held a weapon in her hands before now, and when she'd been fighting with the League, it had strictly been for survival, with little time to see who she was shooting at. Could she really kill a man in cold blood?
She looked back at where Tom hung from the wall, bleeding from his mouth and side.
The rest was easy.
She fired.
Two of the men dropped.
Instantly, the remaining soldiers snapped out of their daze and began to fire their guns. Just before the bullets could strike Becky, she found herself lifted right off her feet by a massive arm that took all the bullets without even bleeding.
"Seeqe?" she asked, looking back at the man mountain, who was staring at her with a concerned expression on its- no, his- face. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine," Seeqe grunted, as he placed her on the ground and covered her with his body, shielding her from the flying bullets. "My body's basically bulletproof, and even if anything does hurt me, I can recover fairly quickly. Good shot, by the way; Sawyer would be proud."
Becky looked over nervously at where she'd seen the young agent earlier. "If he's still breathing, I hope you're right," she said, as she pulled out a couple of extra bullets and slid them into her guns; she'd probably need them at this rate.
"He's breathing," Seeqe assured her. "I just hope we get the chance to show these bastards what we're made of soon..." he added, growling under his breath.
Several loud clicks sounded from around them.
Seeqe grinned. "They're out of bullets," he said, smiling at Becky. "When I say go, go. Go!"
And he leapt up onto his feet and charged at the nearest group of soldiers. As Becky got to her feet, Seeqe threw two soldiers into the wall of the cavern, and then grabbed a third by the arms and yanked on both of them. As the man fell to the ground, screaming in agony, Becky turned around to face the soldiers behind her, unwilling to witness Seeqe's murders.
As the other soldiers attempted to reload their guns, Becky launched off four bullets at them, striking four soldiers in various different places. Two of them died instantly, the third one fell to the ground with a fatal wound near his heart, and the fourth found himself with a bullet lodged in his upper right arm.
Leaving him to shake in pain, Becky spun around to see how Seeqe was coping. She noted, partly with relief and partly with revulsion, that Seeqe had taken out around six of the soldiers, who were currently lying on the ground in various disgusting stages of death and mutilation. One soldier appeared to have been strangled with his own intestines, another was lacking both arms, a third and fourth were bleeding profusely from their mouths, apparently deprived of their tongues and with nasty scratches around their throats, and the fifth and sixth appeared to have been beaten into bloody pulps.
Becky almost threw up as Seeqe finished with a seventh man, in a manner that consisted of twisting the soldier's head in one direction and his body in another. Then, just as he started to turn around to face the remaining three, Becky made her decision.
She raised her guns and fired.
Instantly, two of the remaining soldiers dropped like a pair of stones. Before Seeqe had fully processed what had just happened, Becky had fired two more bullets, and the final soldier dropped dead.
Becky walked over to the body, and spat on it.
"That was for Tom," she said simply, before glancing back at Seeqe, who was staring at her with a stunned expression on his face.
"You... you shot them?" he asked, sounding like he was slightly angry at her for doing that.
Becky stared Seeqe in the face, trying to quieten the urge to run away from this monster, screaming in terror. Whatever else he may have been, Seeqe was still Alex Hartdegen underneath all his muscles. She had to remember that.
He was on her side.
If only he didn't take so much pleasure in killing people for looking at him the wrong way.
"Yes," she replied, simply. "I thought you'd done enough damage to their friends already. No man should die like that, Seeqe, no matter what he's done. And I'll ask you not to be that harsh again."
"And what makes you think you can order me about like a dog?!" Seeqe asked, raising one hand like he was going to strike her. "Do you realise I could kill you without a second thought?"
Becky just stared at Seeqe. Maybe she could never have Tom again, but she could at least try to be his kind of woman in situations like this.
And Mina Harker wouldn't flinch when facing this... creature.
Becky may not be a vampire, but she wouldn't let that deter her from facing her fear.
"You could, but you won't," she replied bluntly. "Because, deep down, you are still Alexander Hartdegen, a physics teacher from New York with some interesting theories about time travel. And he would never kill a friend, no matter what he'd become or what they'd done."
Seeqe kept his hand held back for a couple of seconds. Then he lowered it.
"True enough, I suppose," he said, growling a little. Then he suddenly glanced behind him, and groaned. "Dammit! That Huck bastard's scarpered!"
"What?" Becky asked, terror gripping her heart. Huck was gone? "Any ideas where?" she asked Seeqe, praying Huck wasn't too far away.
Seeqe sniffed a little, and then pointed down a small path to the side of the cavern. "I can smell him. He's down there."
Becky sighed. She knew where that hole led; to a small underground stream that led out to the sea. Huck might be able to swim out of the cave from there and escape, but he'd need to get rid of his cloak and some parts of his suit, which would give her time to catch up with him.
"I'll take Huck," she said, glancing up at Seeqe. "You get Tom out of here; he needs your help right now." She glanced over at the cave where the man she loved was hanging. He looked like he was barely conscious; he probably hadn't even registered that he'd been saved.
"Right," Seeqe said, as Becky turned away and began to run down the path and after Huck. Whatever had happened to him, she had to stop Huck before he hurt anyone else.
He needed help.
Whatever it took, she'd see that he got it.
*****
"Uuuuhhhh..." Sawyer said, groaning a little as he felt something tug on his arm. What was happening to him now? Huck taking him away for more torture?
If so, he sent up a brief prayer to Mina, to remember how much he loved her.
"I'm sorry..." he gasped, coughing a little as he spoke.
"For what?" a rough voice asked from beside Sawyer. It sounded to Sawyer almost like Hyde's voice, but it had a slight touch of an American accent to it. Glancing to his right, Sawyer realised what had spoken; it was a massive creature, almost exactly like Hyde, but certain things were different. The hair was longer, the face wider, there was a small goatee on the chin...
Inspiration struck Sawyer.
"H-hartdegen?" he asked, half-hoping he was wrong.
"Well, that's generally who I am when I'm not like this," the creature replied. Sawyer couldn't bring himself to call it Hartdegen; after seeing what Hyde was capable of, he'd long ago stopped thinking of him and Jekyll as anything other than separate people.
Perhaps sensing the American's discomfort, the creature smiled a little. Of course, him being another Hyde, it seemed more like he was going to attack Tom rather than comfort him, but the gesture was kind enough.
"Call me Joseph Seeqe," he said, before turning back to the chain that held up Sawyer's left hand and yanking it off the wall. "Becky's after that Huck character, but right now I think we should give the League a little bit of help before we go after her. You?"
Sawyer groaned a little, as he went over his options. Becky could need his help, but right now he wouldn't be doing anyone any good by following her. Plus, Sawyer thought sadly, as he glanced at a hole in the side of the cave, he could barely walk by himself right now, and the hole looked too small for Seeqe to go in. They'd just have to leave Becky to her own devices and get back to the rest of the League.
"The League," he said to Seeqe. "C'mon, they've gotta be waiting for us."
*****
"Dammit!" Skinner yelped, as a bullet skimmed his shoulder as he tackled a soldier to the ground. He was starting to get sick of this; they'd been fighting for ages, and these bastards seemed very unwilling to quit. Their close proximity to the League members was preventing Mina and Terry from really hit anyone hard enough to do much damage, and Hyde was still desperately trying to reach the soldiers on the cliff-side. Nemo was still taking on at least two soldiers at a time by himself, and Skinner was still trying his old method of ducking down and ramming.
Suddenly, the thief noticed something lying on the ground beside the soldier he'd just knocked out.
The soldier's gun.
He could have kicked himself. He'd been so busy complaining to himself about not having a weapon on him that he'd forgotten to pay any attention to the idea of grabbing a gun from the downed soldiers.
What kind of an idiot am I? Skinner thought to himself, as he reached over and grabbed the gun. Spinning around, he aimed the gun at a nearby soldier, who was currently charging towards Nemo, and fired.
The soldier dropped.
Excellent! Skinner thought to himself, as he aimed the gun at some of the other soldiers and began to fire. Four soldiers fell at once, but just as Skinner was starting to get into the mood to take them out, the gun clicked on empty.
"Shit," he whispered, as the soldiers looked up in his direction. The rest of the League were still occupied, and right now, he had about five soldiers aiming their guns at him, and nowhere to dive to.
If this is the end, Skinner thought to himself, as he dropped the gun and shrugged his coat off, I'm going out the way I came in...
Kicking and screaming.
He charged forwards, desperate to stop at least one soldier before they could get off a shot.
But, as they raised their guns, he knew he couldn't pull it off. He may be invisible right now, but they could still guess where he was, and that might be enough.
They began to pull the triggers...
And suddenly, something large and muscular charged into them from the side, knocking them down like ninepins.
Skinner grinned. Only one creature on earth was that big and fast.
"Edward, old boy!" he said, turning to face the form. "Thanks for-" and he stopped, puzzled.
It wasn't Hyde. It LOOKED like him, but there were a couple of extras, such as the head being wider and there being less veins visible along the arms than Skinner remembered.
The form looked back, and Skinner noted that it had the half comatose form of Tom Sawyer in its arms.
Only one person could have picked up Sawyer and not killed him, as far as Skinner knew.
He looked at the creature with a combination of horror and awe. "H- hartdegen?" he asked, a slight stammer in his voice.
"Not quite," Sawyer smiled from the Hartdegen-Hyde's arms, looking in rather bad shape. "Call him... Joseph Seeqe... Skinner."
"Seeqe?" Skinner asked, looking at the massive creature.
Seeqe nodded, and passed Sawyer in Skinner's general direction. "Take him," he said simply, before he glanced over towards where the rest of the League were. They were so wrapped up in their battles that they hadn't even noticed Seeqe and Sawyer come charging in. "I'll help them handle this."
Skinner scooped the battered American agent up in his arms, before looking up at Seeqe.
"How was it?" he asked, as the large bulk that used to be a simple teacher tensed up to charge.
Seeqe looked down at Skinner, a puzzled expression on his face at first, but it brightened as inspiration dawned.
"Sore," he said, in answer to Skinner's question. Then he grinned. "But remarkably satisfying at the same time." He shrugged a little as he turned back to the soldiers. "Kind of like sex, in that regard; sore, but worth it."
He charged before Skinner could even get another word in edgeways.
The invisible thief glanced down at his charge. Sawyer definitely didn't look too healthy; they'd need to give him a blood transplant or something when they got back to the Nautilus.
However, no sooner had that thought crossed Skinner's mind, then he heard a wild roaring up in front of him. Looking up, he watched as Seeqe tore through the Shark's soldiers like they were a bunch of pins, knocking several of them down with only a few well-placed blows. Apparently, the other League members didn't realize that Sawyer was now safe, nor who had taken out the soldiers; Skinner assumed they thought it was Hyde, who had finally had the bright idea of jumping up at the soldiers while punching them. Only five of them were still standing, and they looked like they'd be going down fairly quickly at this rate.
Still, whether or not it was a different League member who'd saved them, it wasn't going to stop the rest from having fun. With the numbers around them having dropped to a more manageable number, Terry, Nemo and Mina were dealing out death to everyone near them. In roomier conditions, the soldiers didn't even have a prayer; they were dead in a few seconds.
*****
Mina took the last one down herself, stabbing him in the heart with one of her daggers.
"That was for hurting Tom," she said, as the soldier began to crumple onto the ground. "Nobody does that while I live."
"That's... good to know..." a voice said from behind her. Mina glanced around, and saw her lover, hanging onto something that couldn't be seen; evidently, Skinner had picked him up. However, he didn't seem to be in good shape; there were some ugly red patches on the right side of his chest, and his mouth was leaking blood.
"Oh my god..." she said, running over to him and taking him up in her arms, sparing a brief smile for Skinner as thanks. This couldn't be happening... he couldn't die on her, not now...
"It looks... worse than it... is," Sawyer gasped, patting her on the back. "Just a couple... of ribs hurt,... I think."
Mina sighed with relief as she loosened her grip on Sawyer. He grinned at her, trying to reassure her he was all right. "I'd... kiss you, but... well, the blood... and all," he said, shrugging.
Mina smiled at that. Trust Tom to find the humour in a situation like this. "They'll be time for that later," she assured him. "Right now, we just have to get everyone together and get you back to the Nautilus."
****
"Talking of gathering us all together, how did you get out of the cave?" Nemo asked, as he, Hyde and Terry joined the three of them, Skinner having shrugged his coat back on by this point. The three of them were looking at Sawyer in a concerned manner, but in Hyde's case he looked like he was almost analysing Sawyer.
"Him," Sawyer replied, indicating something behind them. The League looked around...
And their jaws dropped as they saw Joseph Seeqe. Mina had been too busy focusing on Sawyer to spot him earlier, and the others had been distracted by the battle and the dazed agent to spot him earlier.
"Hi," Seeqe said, waving a little at the League in a manner that was the most Hartdegen-like expression they'd seen on him yet. "Name's Joseph Seeqe; I'm the result of Plan J when used on Hartdegen. To answer any questions you may have, Skinner cleared a path for Hartdegen and Becky to get into the cave, and they found Tom being held captive by the criminal called 'the Shark' and some of his gang. Hartdegen drank his serum to fight them off, Becky and I took them out, and she went after the Shark while I got Sawyer out." He shrugged. "Hey, she can handle herself."
*****
"I did," a voice said from behind them. Glancing around, the League saw Becky standing at the cave's entrance, covered in dirt and with a small scratch on her hand. "Unfortunately, Huck managed to get out of the cave via a back entrance. He had a boat waiting for him, and I had to come back." Her expression changed to one of concern as she saw Sawyer lying in Mina's arms. "How is he?"
"Weak, but he'll live, according to Henry," Hyde grunted. "We should get him back to the Nautilus for a check-up; some people," and here he glanced harshly at Becky, "have some explaining to do about the Shark."
Becky nodded. The League started to walk back towards town, Mina passing Sawyer over to Seeqe while she walked; after all, the man-mountain was one of the best candidates, given that he'd done it already. However, as Becky tagged along behind the League, she found herself unable to get one idea out of her head.
Why did Huck blame Tom for his injury?