Disclaimer: I own the idea of the Beast, but his real identity is the property of his creator, as are the League.
Feedback: I would REALLY appreciate some of it.
LotRseer3350: Yep, Frank's someone you'd know; he's the Frankenstein monster.
Funky in Fishnet: To answer your question, Frank is the Frankenstein monster, as I mentioned above, and Terry is the Terminator; consult my earlier stories, 'Worlds at War' and 'Skynet Spreads' to find out how they ended up joining the League. Oh, and Hartdegen joined in 'War with the Future', just in case you want to know.
Sean Molloy-1: I'll probably use the comic versions, since I'm more familiar with them, but we'll see when the time comes.
AN: The following chapter contains later scenes of gore, just to warn you in advance. I've tried to keep it PG-13, but let me know if I overdid it.
Legacy
As soon as Logan had shrugged on his jacket and joined Hartdegen on the time machine, Hartdegen had hit the lever and started his machine on its journey into the next few seconds of history. As he moved one of the extra levers that allowed him to control the machine's movement, he reached into his left pocket and pulled out a small radio, which he passed to Logan.
"Push the red button," he said to the mutant. "It'll let you talk to Frank at once, so long as he's got the radio on him. Once he answers, just ask him for his current location. I'll take it from there."
Logan nodded, raised the radio to his lips, and spoke into it.
"Hello?" he said, hoping he wouldn't have to wait long; whatever this machine was travelling through, it was slightly disconcerting. At present, he'd like nothing better than just to get out of this stuff. "Frank? Can you hear me?"
A few seconds passed without reply. Then, "Hello?" a voice said on the other end of the radio. "Logan? Is that you?"
Hartdegen and Logan smiled at each other. It was Frank; that much was for certain.
"Who else would have this number?" Logan asked his friend. "Now, where are you at the moment?"
"Florida," Frank replied. "The outskirts of St. Petersburg, about ten minutes walk away from the town itself. I'll see you soon?"
"Fairly soon," Hartdegen said from over his shoulder. Looking around, Logan noted that the time machine had moved while he talked to Frank, and they appeared to be moving down towards Florida. "Logan and I are in my machine. We'll be joining you in a moment."
"Right then," Frank said, sounding fairly happy to hear that bit of news. "See you soon."
As soon as Frank had terminated the call, he heard a faint sound that he recognised as the sound of the time machine coming. Smiling a little, he took the few seconds that remained to him as a chance to take one last look around his rented house.
It wasn't that much, admittedly; just the basic essentials of human comfort and some old books he'd acquired from Nemo's library. However, it was home, and he almost found himself missing it even before he'd left.
Then the brass form of the time machine appeared in his hall, and the early pangs of homesickness vanished, to be replaced by a new feeling.
The anticipation of another adventure.
Oh, the battles with the Martians hadn't exactly been a barrel of laughs; Frank would never deny that fact. But, as he saw the familiar faces of Logan and Hartdegen look at him with smiles on their faces, he found himself glad that he would be working with the League again.
"Hey guys," he said, shaking the hands of his two friends, glad to see them again. "So, tell me, what's the situation?"
"Serial killer in London, from what Mycroft's told us," Hartdegen explained. "We don't know anything else yet, but if Mycroft wants us to bring you two in, it's definitely serious."
"Naturally," Frank said, as he stepped onto the time machine. "Then again, when is it not serious for the League?"
"Never, really," Hartdegen smiled, as he activated the machine and the surrounding house began to vanish. "Well, let's go; the League awaits."
The next day, Frank and Logan had been filled in on what little the League knew of the current crisis, and the League had loaded their usual supply of weaponry into the back of Nemo's car.
With the essential business out of the way, all nine members of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen- the seven regular members and the two reserve ones- were now heading down the long flight of steps that led to the secret wing of the British Museum, where Mycroft had said he would meet them.
As they opened the door at the bottom of the steps, Sawyer groaned a little as he saw that the lights were off in the underground hall. He groaned a little again as he saw the rotund form of Mycroft Holmes sitting at the end of the table; he really hated it when people tried to make things all dramatic; in Allan's own words, based on what he'd heard from Skinner, he wasn't impressed with theatrics.
"Mycroft, knock it off and get the lights on," he said to the large form at the bottom of the long table. "Not meaning to be rude, but we have a crisis going on here, based on what you told us."
"True," Mycroft replied, as he stood up and walked down one wall, turning the room's lights on as he went. "However, while you were coming, things took on a slightly more desperate edge; the killer struck again."
"What?!" Skinner asked, looking as though his eyes would be wide open in disbelief if anyone could see them.
"Yes," Mycroft replied, as the League moved to sit down around the main table to listen to their Government contact. "We have acquired the body of the victim, and he currently lies in the morgue of the dissection laboratory back at Military Intelligence headquarters, should you wish to see him."
"Believe me, we will," Jekyll said, for once letting his doctor's instincts speak despite his fear. "B-but in the meantime, could you tell us what is so deadly about this killer that you saw fit to call us about it?"
"Gladly, Doctor Jekyll," Mycroft replied, as he picked up a file that was lying beside him and passed it to Sawyer. The spy opened the file and looked at its contents; a few photographs of some ruined buildings.
It didn't look all that interesting at first glance, but when Sawyer looked closer, he realized that the damage done to the buildings appeared to match up to the shape of something that could almost be...
"Hyde?" he said out loud.
"What?" Jekyll asked, looking up from the photographs to look at Sawyer; the entire League had gathered behind the agent while he'd been staring at the photographs. "What about Edward?"
"Nothing about our Hyde," Sawyer explained, putting the photographs down and turning around to look at the doctor. "It's just that, while I may be overestimating the guy, this damage in these pictures looks like the sort of thing he might do, if he got mad enough and nobody was around."
The rest of the League looked at the pictures. Then, after a few brief moments, Nemo shook his head.
"That does not strike me as being the kind of damage that could be inflicted by Mr Hyde on his own," he said, looking around at his friends and teammates. "It reminds me more of the Fantom's Hyde; you remember, the one that battled Edward and I in the fortress?" he asked Jekyll.
Jekyll's face, if it was possible, grew even paler than it had been before. "Oh god..." he whispered to himself. "Could he have survived?"
"Unlikely," Mycroft put in from his end of the table. As the League looked around to face him, the large man continued to talk. "I am unaware of what, exactly, the Fantom's Hyde looked like, but it is unlikely to be him; glimpses have been caught of the killer, and the few details we have been able to gather suggest that this creature, whatever it is, is more like a reptile in appearance than a human being."
"Well, that's something," Frank said, trying to smile a little, but he abandoned the attempt after he saw the expressions on the faces of the other League members.
"Well," he said, trying to defend his statement, "all I'm saying is, if this creature isn't the Fantom's Hyde, whatever that was capable of, maybe it isn't quite as powerful in certain regards as that was? Therefore, shouldn't we be able to take it out with all nine of us working together?" He shrugged. "Hey; no way can one creature be powerful enough to last for long against all of us, right?"
Mina smiled a little as she looked down into Sawyer's eyes. "He has a point, Tom," she said to her lover.
"I agree," Sawyer said, as he shut the file in front of him and looked up at Mycroft. "OK then, Mycroft, let's get down to business. What about we have a look at that body you mentioned earlier?"
"Of course," Mycroft said, as he got up from his seat and began to walk towards the exit to the underground room, followed closely by the League. "I have a carriage waiting for me, so I shall simply follow on after you and meet you at Military Intelligence headquarters."
"Fair enough," Skinner commented, as the League left the room, Terry pulling the door shut behind him. "See you there."
After a drive of thirty minutes and nearly ten minutes of passing through all kinds of security checkpoints (Quite frankly, Jekyll wasn't sure how anyone could go through all of those checks on their first visit to MI5), the League and Mycroft finally arrived in the department's morgue.
"And people go through those things all the time?" Logan asked, flexing his fingers slightly from impatience. Of course, it wasn't like Jekyll didn't sympathise; he couldn't believe they'd actually had to have their fingerprints taken before they'd be allowed in any further, as well as fill out a questionnaire filled with some embarrassingly personal questions. Mycroft had informed the League it was to ensure that nobody could impersonate them to infiltrate Military Intelligence, but just because Jekyll understood it didn't mean he liked it. Sometimes, governments really got to him...
Who'd have thought it, Henry? You admit to a negative thing like hating the Government? Hyde asked him from inside his head, in a mocking manner.
Shut up, Edward, Jekyll replied, as Mycroft directed the League towards a table covered by a plain white sheet. You and I both know I have negative traits; I just don't flaunt them as much as you do.
Hyde didn't reply to that. He just slipped into his now fairly constant bouts of silence; ever since Jekyll had started to gain more confidence during his time with the League, he'd been able to force Edward to stay quiet for a lot longer than he would have been able to in the old days.
He sometimes wondered if he'd ever have the strength to keep Edward quiet all the time...
Then he snapped out of his musings and focused on the table in front of him. Mycroft had already started speaking to the League about it when Jekyll tuned in, but it wasn't too hard to pick up on what had been said.
"...site of the last attack," Mycroft was saying, looking at Sawyer and Mina while he spoke, from where they stood on either side of him. "Our best naturalists have been unable to determine what kind of creature would do this kind of damage; it doesn't match anything we know about. We're hoping that you nine will have seen something somewhere that matches the abilities of this creature; it may prove useful."
Sawyer shrugged. "Well, we've seen some interesting things in our lives," he said, as he placed one hand on the sheet covered the table. "Let's see what we've got now."
He pulled the sheet off...
And Jekyll nearly threw up.
He noticed that he wasn't the only one repulsed by what was lying on the table; Skinner and Hartdegen looked rather queasy as well, and the others, although more used to the sight of death then the others (Jekyll mostly withdrew into his mind whenever Hyde was killing his victims), were still shaken at the sight.
Then again, they had every right to be. The body in front of them had formally been a man of around middle age, but mutilated beyond almost all recognition. His head was twisted around so that the neck was slightly twisted, and Jekyll could see a long tear running down the neck that revealed the reason for that was that the man's spine had been torn completely out.
The man's clothes hung on his corpse in tatters, and his body was a combination of dark red and white wherever there was a tear.
However, Jekyll realised that this wasn't because the man was covered in blood with his skin showing through in places...
It was because his flesh had been ripped right off his bones.
The red things Jekyll saw through the tears were the man's muscles, and the white things were the man's bones, which had been apparently left totally unharmed by whatever had torn his skin away.
The man's head was missing several strips of skin as well, and his left eye had been torn out, exposing his brain. His thighs between the legs were dark red with blood as well, and, based on the disfiguring tear in the trousers, it looked as though someone had torn his groin out with its bare hands.
Sawyer pulled the sheet back over the corpse, looking like he was trying to restrain himself from being sick. "Who was he?" he asked, looking up at Mycroft.
"A young man called James Kilmep," Mycroft replied. "He had a fair amount of money available him, but often risked great quantities of it in high- stake games of poker. We have received information that he lost a great deal of money in a club near where his body was found, and that some of the people in the club overheard something going on outside later of the club. It is definitely the creature that we wish you to investigate, but we have been unable to determine what could do that kind of damage to a body. Do any of you-?"
Jekyll started talking before Mycroft had finished his sentence.
"I know," he said simply. "At least, I know something with a large enough mouth and a ferocious enough temper to do that amount of damage to a human body."
"Yes?" Mycroft asked, curiously. "What would that be?"
Jekyll swallowed. "If you gave him sharper teeth and nails... Hyde could do that."
"What?" Logan said, looking over at the doctor. "But I thought we'd agreed that Hyde couldn't do that kind of damage?"
"We'd agreed that my Hyde couldn't do that damage," Jekyll pointed out. "That isn't to say that something else could have done it." He groaned. "Dammit… if someone's modified my serum, we have serious problem."
The League looked over at each other, fear dawning in their eyes as that thought sank in. (Of course, no fear entered Terry's eyes due to his lack of emotions, but if he'd been capable of emotion, it would have been there)
An altered version of Hyde.
An almost certainly stronger version of Hyde.
A far more powerful version of their most powerful member was stalking London, and the League didn't even know what the guy in question was capable of besides just having great physical power.
Sawyer broke the silence that had settled upon the League at that statement. He pulled his Colts out of their holsters, spun them around his index fingers, grabbed the handles, and raised the pistols up to the height of his shoulders.
"Let's go," he said, simply. "We have a beast to hunt."