Disclaimer: I don't own Ross, Rachel, Chandler, Monica, Joey, Phoebe, or ANY of the League.
Feedback: I'd appreciate it.
Elenrod: Glad you liked the chapter (Oh, and I WON'T kill you for not liking 'Friends'- different folks, different strokes, after all). But, glad to hear you'll be checking the story out; I could use all the reviews I can get.
Sean Malloy-1: Hope I didn't keep you waiting
Queerquail: Nah, you didn't pressure me too much for the update- or, if you did, I didn't notice it. Don't worry; as you can see, I'm not going to leave the story hanging there.
elven-emma: Glad to hear you're enjoying this fic, but if it's too much to take in late at night, do yourself a favour; go to sleep and read it in the morning. I'm not going to mind whether you read it all in one go or if you take your time about it.
Krisian Rose: Eh, so long as you realise I updated, I'm not particularly fussy about when you review this. Glad you liked the 'zip-doodly-squat' thing, and I'll keep the college comment in mind. Oh, and I ASSURE you the guy attacking the shopping centre here is not a random criminal like in your fic; he's connected to the organisation that attacked the League in the first place. Oh, and it's good to see that the Tom/Rachel thing is working out well.
galabalesh: That is putting it mildly.
AN: Just wanted to make sure everyone's clear on something; when I jump from one group of people to another, I'll be starting when each separate group of people heard the gunfire that was at the end of the last chapter.
The One Where They Help Save the World
As soon as the gunfire started, Chandler grabbed Rachel by the shoulders and pulled her down off the bench, kicking the bench in question onto its side as he dived down. It wasn't much, but it provided them with some much-needed cover from the gunfire for the immediate moment.
Rachel looked down at Chandler, who'd somehow ended up underneath her in the middle of the roll, and was now looking remarkably like a deer trapped in the headlights.
Deciding to try and lighten the mood, Rachel smiled and rolled off Chandler, landing on her back beside him.
"Easy, stud," she said, looking over at him with a smile on her face. "Grateful as I am, you're married, remember?"
"Hey, don't stop on my account!" a voice said from behind them.
Raising his head slightly, Chandler saw the white-headed form of Rodney Skinner lying beside them. He was dressed in black chinos and shoes, a dark grey shirt, and his customary pince-nez. His jacket was lying behind him, which suggested that he'd shrugged it off before crawling over to join them.
"Nothing happened, Skinner," he informed the invisible man casually. Then he raised a curious eyebrow. "And how did you get out here anyway?"
"Oh, the three of us left the changing rooms just a minute or two before the gunshots started," Skinner replied. "Last I saw of them, Mina had jumped up onto the roof, and Hartdegen had ducked to the side to try and find Phoebe and Jekyll." Just then, a thought occurred to him. "Hey, you wouldn't happen to know where Nemo and Sawyer are, would ya?"
"We do," Chandler replied. "Last time we saw Nemo he was checking out the electronics department; Tom headed off after him."
Before Skinner could reply, a voice suddenly boomed out over the clothes department.
"ATTENTION SHOPPERS!" a male voice called out, apparently coming from a megaphone rather than the shop's speakers. "HAVING ATTRACTED YOUR ATTENTION, WE SHALL NOW ISSUE OUR DEMANDS. YOU SHOULD ALL CONSIDER YOURSELVES HOSTAGES UNTIL THESE DEMANDS ARE MET; NOBODY MAY ENTER OR LEAVE THE BUILDING UNTIL WE HAVE WHAT WE WANT. WE HAVE MEN ON EVERY FLOOR, SO YOU CANNOT SNEAK DOWN TO ANOTHER EXIT WHEN WE ARE NOT LOOKING; THE REST OF OUR MEN WILL FIND YOU. YOU MAY LEAVE IN SAFETY, SO LONG AS YOU HAND OVER THE GROUP WHO CALL THEMSELVES 'THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN'! IF THE LEAGUE FAILS TO RESPOND TO THIS COMMAND IN HALF AN HOUR, WE AND OUR OTHER GROUPS IN THIS BUILDING SHALL START KILLING OUR HOSTAGES UNTIL THE LEAGUE TURN THEMSELVES IN. THAT IS ALL."
Chandler, Rachel and Skinner looked over at each other in horror.
"They know you're here?" Rachel hissed at Skinner. "How?"
"Well, these guys have mastered time travel; who's to say they didn't hack into security cameras of the clothes shops of New York?" Chandler pointed out. "After all," he said, turning his head to look over at Skinner, "they must have known that you guys would need modern clothes if you were going to stand a chance of blending in; it was more a question of when rather than if."
"Well, as good as that is, we need to cover the obvious question; what the hell do we do now?" Rachel asked, looking around at her two friends. "I mean, we can't let the League hand themselves over, but we also can't let anyone die."
"Right," Skinner whispered, as he took his glasses off, pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, and rubbed his head all over with the handkerchief while remaining as close to the ground as he could. Eventually, his head and neck were totally invisible, and he started undoing his shirt buttons.
"Um... Skinner?" What are you doing?" Chandler asked.
"What does it look like I'm doing?" a voice said from the area which appeared to be Skinner's head. "We know for a fact that some of the people holding us hostage are near us, so I'm just cleaning my head up so I can look and see if I can get an approximate head-count. Once we have that, our next move should be easy."
As he spoke, he stuck his invisible head over the top of the bench, ducking down again after only a couple of minutes.
"Three men, each wearing what looks like a sock over their heads and dressed all in black," he informed Chandler and Rachel. "They're carrying some rather large guns at their sides, but each man only has one gun each; doubt they were expecting much resistance."
"They're not going to get much anyway!" Rachel hissed. "The last time I checked, Tom was the only one of you guys with a gun on him, and nobody else will be able to get in close enough to those guys before they shoot you!"
"Never say never," Skinner smiled, as he began to undo the last buttons on his shirt. "Just let me get undressed, and then..." He smiled. "They're going down."
When the gunfire started, Sawyer was about halfway to the electronics department, and had only just seen the distinctive blue of Nemo's turban. However, once he heard the sounds of bullets flying towards him, he did the only thing he really could; he dived down to the ground and whipped one of his Colts out of its holsters.
Looking around, he heard all the demands made by the gunmen, and groaned. All this effort, all the terror they were inflicting on innocent people... was just to find the League?! Whoever they were dealing with here, the League must have really ticked them off!
He quickly decided that he had two options as to what his next move could be right now; he could either tackle the gunmen on his own and hope for the best, or he could track down Nemo and then make a plan as to what to do next.
He decided on the second. After all, one was good, but with Nemo helping him, at least they'd have a slightly better chance at tackling these guys. Besides, he'd probably need Nemo's help in working out the capabilities of the weapons these guys were packing; he wasn't much good at the science aspect of things.
With this in mind, Sawyer, crouching as close to the ground as he possibly could, began to slowly make his way towards the electronics area, his eyes constantly scanning the ground for any sign of Nemo's distinctive brown leather gold-tipped boots.
"So, Henry," Phoebe asked, as her unexpected new friend changed in a cubicle she'd managed to find for him, "how's the outfit?"
"Oh..." Jekyll replied, as though he'd almost forgotten that she was outside. "Well, it's, um, comfortable enough, but I feel a bit, well..."
"Awkward?" Phoebe asked.
"How did you guess?" Jekyll asked.
Phoebe smiled. "I'm psychic, Doctor J.," she replied, smiling a little at the nickname she'd just given him off the top of her head. "I can guess what anyone's thinking under-"
Then gunshots tore through the air. Phoebe screamed and dived to the ground, as she heard a door open and someone fall to the ground beside her.
Glancing in the direction of the thump, Phoebe saw that it was Doctor Jekyll, dressed in jeans, black trainers, and a dark blue long-sleeved shirt. She briefly found herself thinking that he looked rather cute in that outfit, but shook that thought off; if she didn't focus on the topic at hand, her only chance to flirt with him would be in her next life.
"Did you see anything?" she asked Jekyll, indicating the approximate direction that the gunshots had come from.
"No," Jekyll replied. "I'm sorry, but-"
"Sshh!" Phoebe hissed, as a booming voice began to sound over the top of the clothes racks. It sounded like someone was issuing demands...
After only a few minutes, the voice had stopped speaking, and Jekyll looked over at Phoebe, fear and horror scrabbling for dominance on his face.
"They're looking for me..." he whispered.
Phoebe shook her head. "They're looking for the League," she stated simply. "You're just part of the package." She looked around herself, trying to decide on a plan, before glancing towards Jekyll. "Any chance you could just, I dunno, Hulk out and attack these guys?"
"What out?" Jekyll asked, confused.
Phoebe looked confused for a few seconds, and then shook her head.
"Sorry; I forgot you're not all that aware of pop culture in this era," she said. "The Hulk's a character from comics in this era, who's basically a mass of muscle that turns into a normal human whenever he calms down. I was just wondering if you could turn into Hyde for a few minutes so we could handle these guys?"
Jekyll blinked briefly, and then shook his head.
"No, I can't," he explained. "I don't know what you know of me from fiction, but I can only turn into Hyde if I drink my serum- if I don't have it, the best I can do is allow Hyde a little more freedom to control my body than he has normally." He looked around himself, trying to see if he could see any of the other League members crawling around the ground. Seeing nothing, he looked over in Phoebe's direction.
"We'd better try and find some of the others," he whispered, glancing around the coat- racks as though he expected the gunmen to jump him any second. "Right now, we don't have that much of a chance by ourselves; the more of us there are, the better."
"OK then," Phoebe said, looking around herself as well before lowering her voice and whispering at Jekyll. "On my word, crawl along the ground towards the changing rooms over there; that was where the rest of you guys were changing, so we should run into them there if we're going to find them anywhere. Once we have them, we can come up with a plan, right?"
Jekyll nodded and turned around to face the pathway towards the changing rooms.
Phoebe crawled up alongside him, looked over at him, and then, to Jekyll's surprise, kissed him lightly on the cheek. When Jekyll looked over at her in surprise, Phoebe just smiled at him.
"Just for luck," she explained simply. "I read it in a book once."
Jekyll blinked a little in surprise, but then smiled and placed a hand briefly on Phoebe's shoulder.
"Thank you," he said.
Then the two of them ducked down and ran through the clothes-racks all around them.
Mina stretched a little as she opened the door of her changing room after finally picking her outfit for the modern day.
She still wasn't quite comfortable with it- it was remarkable how much women's clothing had changed since her time- but it certainly gave her room to manoeuvre. She was wearing a pair of jeans, O'Neil trainers, and a long-sleeved shirt with a low neckline.
She looked over to her right, and saw the familiar forms of Skinner and Hartdegen standing outside their changing rooms as well. Skinner was dressed in black trousers, a grey shirt, and his customary glasses, while Hartdegen had selected a dark blue business suit with a light blue shirt for his attire in this modern day.
"Hey, Mina; niiiiiiiice outfit!" Skinner said as he noticed her, smiling broadly as he looked her up and down. Mina smiled slightly at the thief's almost boyish attitude; he may be a bit annoying at times, but his sometimes childish enthusiasm was a great relief to her.
"Thank you, Mr Skinner," she said, nodding at him in reply. "The two of you look god yourse-"
As the familiar yet unfamiliar sound of gunshots tore through the air around her, Mina responded to the problem on instinct; she leapt up onto the ceiling and grasped it with her long claws, glancing down as she gained a good grip.
She noted with relief that Skinner and Hartdegen had both managed to avoid the gunshots; in fact, Skinner had already run into Chandler and Rachel, and Hartdegen appeared to be heading in the direction of Jekyll and that Phoebe woman. Looking in the direction of the gunshots, she noticed with relief that there were only three of them down there, and was about to attack them before she saw one of them raise a large device that looked like a horn to their mouth.
After the man had issued his group's demands, Mina went over her options. She could tackle the three of them by herself- she certainly had the power to do so- but, if their demands were to be believed, they had men on every other floor in this place. The other League couldn't hope to take all the groups out before the half-hour time limit was up...
But Mina could manage it.
At least, she'd manage to take down a couple of other groups by herself. She was fairly certain that the League would tackle the groups on the upper floors after they took down the group here; going up would give them a better chance to scan the area before any of the gunmen spotted them. Therefore, she'd need to deal with the groups on the lower floors as fast as she could, otherwise someone could die.
She would never allow that.
Focusing for a few brief seconds, she turned herself into a dust cloud- an ability she was still working on, but her ability to achieve this state was improving- and drifted towards the stairs down to the next floor. If anyone saw her, they'd only see some particles of dust, if anything. There was no reason for anyone to think that this was a sentient being.
If she'd been capable of it at the moment, Mina would have smiled.
The time had come for a fight with their enemy on his home ground.
Except, this time, their foe had made the mistake of threatening innocent lives.
When that happened, the League got angry.
And these gunmen wouldn't like the League when they were angry...