Disclaimer: None of the League here are mine, and Eilidh, Fiona, Sarah, Kate, and Gash belong to themselves and their names are used here with their permission.
Feedback: Much appreciated
Sean Malloy-1: WAAAAY ahead of you, Sean; I've got three sequels planned for this story, and a couple of crossovers with my past League, including one where they meet the Fellowship of Extraordinary Men as well...
Felicia Angel: The Kryptonite thing shall be answered soon enough, but right now, here's a little hint; think of Superman's old foe Metallo... By the way, what do you mean by 'got at him'; who knocked him out, or who made him think Clark's evil? Anyway, I assure you that butt-kicking will be involved in Clark and Whitney's encounters, but talking sense into him? You'll have to wait and see...
Hiril Moon: Yes, the League do need some aid, but it's NOT Mina; check my own LXG series for an extra little hint...
By the way, glad the Riley thing's been cleared up.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2004
Clark barely even had time to blink before the figure in question had held out one hand to him. Automatically, Clark gabbed the offered hand and hauled himself back onto his feet, only then taking the time to acknowledge his saviour...
And staring in surprise.
It was a man, around six feet tall, dressed in black leather trousers and a jacket of the same material, with a black T-shirt on underneath the jacket and dark sunglasses covering his eyes. His body, underneath the jacket, appeared to be very muscular, and his hair, although brown, was flecked with tinges of grey around the temples...
Clark blinked as he focused on the man's face.
He knew this guy...
"Mr Schwarzenegger?" he said, confused. What was the governor of California doing here looking like he was filming the new Terminator movie...?
"I'm not Arnold Schwarzenegger," the man said, smiling at Clark. "Who I am is... complicated. I shall explain later; for now, let me just say that I am a friend."
"A friend?" Clark asked, as he clambered back onto his feet and looked the man in the... glasses. "Why are you even here? How did you know about this situation? And how-"
He never finished his sentence. The man charged into him, knocking him back onto the ground, just in time to grab Whitney's wrists before the young man hit Clark.
"Go! Help the League!" the man yelled, evidently straining to hold Whitney in place. "I'll hold him down here!"
Clark briefly paused, unsure whether he should do as the man said or try to help him, but when he managed to throw Whitney to the ground, Clark decided to follow his advice; he definitely seemed capable of handling himself.
"Come on, put your back into it, Miss Wilson!" Gash yelled through his wolf's muzzle as he slashed out at the floating psychic in front of him, who constantly only managed to stay a few inches out of range. "You're good, I grant you, but at this rate you'll never be able to do any damage in a fight!"
"She's still better than you."
Gash barely had time to react to that statement when he suddenly found himself flying through the air, lacking even the time to use his wings to regain his balance. He struck a wall and a loud crack was heard throughout the street; something was broken.
"What the..." Eilidh asked, glancing in the direction that Gash had gone flying from.
She saw Clark standing there, his right fist still outstretched in the punch that had knocked Gash into the wall. He looked up at her and shrugged. "Honestly, some people never keep their eyes out for trouble."
"Thanks for the save," Eilidh asked, as she landed back on the ground and looked around at the other League members. She looked back at Clark. "Get to the others. We have to show these bastards why we're the League."
"Agreed," Clark said, as he quickly glanced around at the other League member. "You go for the Doctor; I'll help Gwen."
"Check!" Eilidh said, before the two of them dived off in separate directions.
"Shit..." Bullseye commented, as he found himself flat on his back for a couple of seconds before he leapt back onto his feet, looking over at the Doctor. "Where the hell did you learn that?"
"Venus, around three million years ago," the Doctor said, tossing his scarf over his shoulder as he looked over at Bullseye. Despite his cumbersome clothing, he was proving more than a match for the lethal assassin, and had already managed to leave Bullseye with quite a few bruises. "You might find using force on me a bit more difficult than you'd expect, Mr Bullseye."
"Well then..." Bullseye said, as he slowly reached into his pocket, "try... THIS!"
And he threw a long metal rod at the Doctor. The Time Lord only just had time to register that the rod was aimed right between his hearts, in a position where it would do some serious damage to his lungs no matter what else happened...
Then something grabbed the rod in mid-air, turned it around, and threw it back towards Bullseye, impaling him in the shoulder.
"Don't touch my teammates," Eilidh said as she walked towards Bullseye from behind the Doctor. "You won't like me when I'm angry."
"Thank you for the assistance," the Doctor said to her, before turning back to look at Bullseye. "Go to sleep," he said.
He punched Bullseye in the face.
As the assassin slumped to the ground, the Doctor looked at his fist. "I've always said that violence is never the answer, so I shall simply call that one of those exceptions that proves the rule."
"Fair enough," Eilidh shrugged. "So what now?"
"Well, I think it would be best if the two of us got the League-mobile up and running as soon as possible," the Doctor said, glancing over in the direction of the aforementioned vehicle where it sat, fortunately just out of range of the mortal combat between the League and the Syndicate. "It has some weapon systems that I installed on James's request, in the event of us getting involved in a struggle like this one. If nothing else, we might be able to distract some of the more powerful fighters here."
"I'm with you on that one," Eilidh said, as she reached out one hand. "Grab on; I've bee waiting to try this trick for ages."
Shrugging, the Doctor took her hand.
Eilidh leapt into the air, hovered for a second or two, and then dived down towards the League-mobile, letting the Doctor go a couple of inches above the ground before landing herself.
"I've hovered a couple of inches above the ground before, but I've never tried actually flying before," Eilidh explained, as she and the Doctor headed towards the car's door. She looked back at the combat raging in the street, noting with relief that everyone appeared to be holding their own, if nothing else.
She just hoped that somebody didn't take it upon themselves to cheat before she and the Doctor could do anything...
"Bloody hell, will you just QUIT IT, you nutcase?!" Gwen yelled, as she threw another electric blast at the leaping vampire in front of her. No matter how many she threw at Drusilla, the female vampire still managed to get out of its way, apparently unhampered by her long dress. Honestly, give a lunatic superhuman strength and agility and the basic laws of motion didn't appear to matter anymore...
"I won't give up," Drusilla said, smiling as she looked up at Gwen. "You work with the man who took away my Daddy from me. Now I shall take you away from the world, and have Daddy's killer follow you there."
"No, actually," a third voice said.
Instantly, Gwen found herself staring at Drusilla as she lay on the ground, with the youthful form of Clark Kent standing over her.
"You're the only one here who's going," Clark added, as he looked down at the deranged vampire. "Whether by your choice, or because we beat you into dust. Personally, I'm not bothered."
Drusilla grinned.
"You think you can stop us, little blue man?" she asked him, as she licked her lips. "You have no chance."
She launched a punch at Clark's head, throwing him into a nearby wall with the force of the blow.
"What the...?" Clark asked, looking up at Drusilla in confusion; he'd taken harder blows than that and barely even flinched. How could she do that much damage to him?
"Surprised, Kal-El?" Drusilla grinned, as her face shifted into its vampire countenance and she grinned, her eyes flashing. "I know something you don't know; magic hurts you. Even the weakest of spells makes you feel like you're as weak as a kitten." She grinned again. "And I enjoy the occasional kitten."
"OK, you are really, really sick, you know that?" someone said from behind Drusilla. "Try this; maybe it's start your pathetic excuse of a heart."
And a powerful blast of electrical energy struck Drusilla right in the back.
Shrieking in agony, the vampire flew forward, to be met by the oncoming fist of the last Kryptonian, knocking her back and into a nearby wall with the concussive force to cripple a normal human. Before Drusilla could get up again, Clark leapt towards her, grabbed her head, and twisted it sharply to the left. Although he didn't twist it far enough to break, the loud crack that was heard as a result of it made it clear that she wouldn't be getting back into the fight any time soon.
Clark looked back at Gwen, and shrugged casually.
"They just don't make the bad guys like they used to, do they?" he asked.
Gwen shrugged as she looked around at the other League members. In the majority of cases, they all appeared to be coping with their opponents fairly well, but she noted that Gash appeared to be currently lacking in that department...
And he was getting up!
Gwen looked over at Clark in a brief panic.
"You take Gash; I'll help Fiona!" she yelled, tearing towards the invisible woman before Clark could fully process her last demand. He blinked briefly as the former thief dashed past him, but then saw Gash starting to wake up and thought better of it.
There would be time to talk later.
Right now, he had a deranged part-werewolf to take down, and he could only hope that it wasn't magical enough to hurt him as badly as Drusilla had.
Charging towards it, he launched two powerful punches at Gash's head, driving the assassin back before he even realised what was happening to him.
"What the...?" Gash grunted, as he looked up at the tensed form of Clark Kent.
"Simple," Kent stated as he looked at Gash. "Either you give up now and quite while you still have a head attached to your shoulders, or I see just how much damage I can do to an opponent when I feel like it. Which one do you want?"
In answer, Gash spread his wings and roared at Clark, his claws bared as though he was prepared to tear through anything in his way.
"Your choice," Clark said, shrugging slightly. Then he leapt forward, his fists flying as he launched punch after punch at his opponent, his superior speed preventing Gash from landing too many blows on him in retaliation.
If nothing else, he was keeping this guy too busy to worry about the other League members.
Now... could he keep this up?
He head-butted Gash on the snout, sending the deranged muscle-bound wolf stumbling back.
He had to.
"Knock it off, will you?" Fiona grunted, as she kicked the gun out of Kate's reach again. Of course, her opponent's invisibility meant that the whole thing was just a matter of guesswork more than anything else, but the dust that was gathering on her clothes from diving onto the ground now and again did provide a rough guess for Fiona to use. "When are you going to get the picture; you can't hurt me!"
"Care to go into a bit more detail on that?" Kate said from the ground, sounding a little like she was grinning.
"Oh God..." Fiona groaned, as she kicked out at a nearby floating cluster of dust. "It's simple, Kate; I'm practically invulnerable! You can't hurt me with fists!"
"Well then," Kate smirked, "it's a good thing I'm not trying them anymore."
And suddenly, the gun that Fiona had been trying to keep her opponent away from was hovering in the air, right in front of her face, just between her eyes.
"Infrared glasses," Kate said smugly, as Fiona heard a slight tapping sound. "They're as invisible as the rest of me, but they allow me to see you easily enough. I was just faking my confusion to give you more confidence." She grinned. "Now I have the gun."
"Oh yeah?" a voice said from the side. A powerful electric blast knocked the gun right out of Kate's hand, threw it into the air, and right into Gwen's hands. "Now I have the gun."
Fiona smiled, said a brief "Thanks", and launched a punch at where she thought Kate was standing. Kate yelped briefly in pain, and something thumped onto the ground, stirring up the dust in front of her.
Grinning, Fiona shifted back into normal form and winked at Gwen.
"Thanks for the save," she smiled.
"Hey; we're a League, Fiona," Gwen grinned. "If we can't rely on each other to save our butts, who can we rely on?" She glanced around at the others, noting that Bond, Elektra, Clark and Angel all appeared to be fairly evenly matched against their foes. She couldn't see who the other Syndicate member was fighting, but he seemed to be coping fairly well. "You see what you can do to get Elektra and Bond out of danger; I'll try and think of something to tackle the superhumans."
"Right!" Fiona yelled, as she charged towards the nearest fight- Elektra and Sarah's swordfight- and tackled the assassin to the ground, following it up with a quick punch to the face for good measure.
"Fiona?" Elektra blinked, as she realised her opponent had fallen. "What was that for?"
"What do you think?" Fiona asked, as she leapt back onto her feet- she hadn't even bothered to turn invisible, counting on just the natural element of surprise. "We don't have the time for this fight right now, Elektra; we've got to get everyone out of here, and fast!"
Precisely, a voice said in their heads. Then, louder this time; League... DUCK
The two women responded to it instantly, diving to the ground with a speed that made Clark look slow.
And speaking of Clark...
Glancing over in the direction of their teammates, the women noted that Bond, Gwen, Angel and Clark had also ducked, although the figure fighting Clark's former opponent didn't appear to be too concerned about it.
Instantly, a massive wave of energy burst out from behind the League, striking their opponents before they could even have a chance to escape. Gash and his associates all collapsed to the ground like their legs had gone missing, their eyes had shut, and they began to sleep; a couple of them even began to snore!
All but one.
The young man who Clark had been fighting at the start was still standing, trading punches with the mysterious figure who'd dropped in from nowhere at the last minute. The fight still seemed fairly equal, and neither man looked like they were going down any time soon.
Clark didn't hesitate. This guy had stopped Whitney from somehow killing him with Kryptonite; now he had to return the favour. As the wave finally died down, Clark leapt back onto his feet and charged towards Whitney and the Arnold lookalike, punching him in the side of the face before he could react.
It was only after Whitney landed on the ground that Clark noticed something about the damage that had been delivered. He didn't know whether it had been delivered by him or the stranger, but a large chunk of the skin on Whitney's face was missing...
Revealing a gleaming bloodied metallic skull beneath it.
"Oh my god..." Clark whispered, as he looked at Whitney. "You're..."
"Think you know what I am yet, Kal-El?" Whitney asked mockingly, as he got back to his feet, grinning through his damaged face. "Try your X-ray vision; you ain't seen nothing yet."
Clark blinked in confusion, but did as his former friend had requested...
And froze in horror.
Whitney's skin and outer muscles all appeared normal; there was even a red liquid running through his veins, although Clark doubted that the liquid was actually real blood.
It was what was underneath the skin that made Clark stare in horror. Whitney's entire skeleton, far from being a normal human structure of bone and ligaments, was composed entirely of metal, in the vague form of a human skeleton, much like what Clark had seen in the Terminator movies...
But no.
He wasn't totally a machine.
In his skull, far from being just a collection of circuit boards and computer chips, there was a genuine human brain!
"What the...?" Clark gasped, looking at Whitney in horror. "You're... you're..."
"Yep," Whitney grinned. "Our employer saved my life after I got shot in Indonesia. My body was in bad condition, but my brain was perfectly intact. In exchange for my assistance in taking you out, he supplied me with the strength and stamina I would need to take you down." He smirked. "Along with a certain... extra feature... in my chest."
"What the-?" Clark asked, as he shifted his X-ray vision down to Whitney's chest, and froze as he realised what he was seeing.
Kryptonite.
In Whitney's chest.
Acting as the power source for his twisted, mutated excuse of a body.
"Oh God..." he whispered.
"Yes, I agree," the man beside him said. "I had my suspicions, of course, but it wasn't until he took that skin damage that I realised what he was. The Kryptonite's new, and based on what I've heard I'll assume his brain is human, but otherwise, it's nothing unexpected."
"What?" Clark asked. "What are you talking about? Where have you met something like this before?"
The man grinned. "Explanations later," he said simply. Then his face hardened. "Right now, let's just stop this bastard."
And he leapt towards Whitney, hitting him in the head before the man- the cyborg- could react. A slight spark emitted from Whitney's damaged face, he raised his hands in a gesture of self-defence, and fell to the ground frozen solid.
The man blinked. "I wasn't expecting that," he commented, looking over at Clark. "Any ideas?"
Clark blinked, examined Whitney's head, and sighed.
"When you hit his head, it looks like his brain was jolted in its casing," he said to the man. "It doesn't look fatal, but he'll definitely be down for a while."
"Good," Bond said from behind the two men, as he walked up behind them. "In that case, I suggest that we depart from this city before they wake up, and... and..."
He blinked as he took in the new addition for the first time.
"Arnold Schwarzenegger?" he asked, confused. "What are you doing in Zurich?"
"He's doing nothing, because I am not Arnold Schwarzenegger," the man replied. "I shall explain who I am on the way to our next destination; in the meantime, let's go."
He turned around and started to walk towards the League-mobile, but stopped when Bond grabbed his arm.
"How do we know we can trust you?" he asked the man.
The man looked down at the hand on his arm, looked Bond in the eye, and smiled.
"Because if I wasn't on your side, Clark would be dead and you would all have followed him," he said.
Bond stared at the man for a few more seconds, and then released his grip.
"All right," he said, looking at the man. "You can come along with us. Just answer one question for me."
"Of course," the man replied, smiling.
"What's your name?"
The man looked at bond for a few seconds as he clicked his tongue, as though trying to remember something long ago. Then he smiled.
"My name is Nator," he said. "Terrance Michael Nator. Call me Terry."
Then he turned around headed towards the League-mobile, Bond and Clark only a foot or so behind him.
This mission is getting more and more complicated... Bond thought to himself.