Disclaimer: I don't own Ross, Rachel, Chandler, Monica, Joey, Phoebe, or ANY of the League.
Feedback: I'd appreciate it.
Krisian Rose: Yeah, funny coincidence that, isn't it? You can put the stick away; Skinner isn't going to die right now. And, yeah, I do enjoy cliffhangers; what good writer doesn't?
Sean Malloy-1: I don't respond to threats, Sean. You could threaten to stick me in Hiroshima before they dropped the bomb, and I STILL couldn't guarantee I wouldn't end this chapter on a cliffie...
INMH: E: I will, I will. Just... calm down, OK? Soaring Falcon: A little, but we were all there once, weren't we?
wolfbeaver: Calm down, wolfie, I'm going to write more...
The One Where They Help Save the World
Skinner blinked.
He was still alive.
The shot hadn't been fired at him.
But then, who...?
He looked up, and saw what had happened.
Somebody had shot one of the gunmen pointing their weapon at him in the head, knocking him off his feet, and his gun had been knocked out of his hand to strike the other gunman in the face, knocking him off his feet and sending him straight to the floor.
Looking at the collapsed forms beside him, Skinner took note of the bullet wound, took a quick guess as to where the bullet had been fired from, and glanced in that direction.
The familiar form of Agent Tom Sawyer, formally of the American Secret Service, was staring down at him, a Colt pistol in his hand, and jeans and a dark brown leather jacket on the rest of him.
And he looked remarkably annoyed.
"Skinner, don't try something like that again, OK?" Sawyer asked the thief, as he slipped the Colt back into its holster and crouched down beside where he thought his friend was lying. "Nemo and I had everything under control, and then you come charging in and nearly get yourself killed."
"Geez, no need to sound like that, I'm doing my best..." Skinner groaned, as some creases in the gunman's clothes vanished and a couple of vague imprints appeared on the floor.
Sawyer sighed. "Skinner, get some clothes on, OK? I'll get Nemo and we can discuss our next move when you get back."
"Check," Skinner said. The imprints on the floor vanished, to be replaced by other, briefer imprints on progressively further- away areas of the floor.
Sawyer sighed and glanced down towards where he'd seen Nemo earlier. "You can get up, Nemo; Skinner dealt with the situation," he said, before looking back in the direction that the invisible man had gone. He looked down at the three unconscious men in front of him. "Too bad he knocked them out..." he muttered under his breath.
"Pardon, Agent Sawyer?" Nemo asked, as the regal figure of the Indian captain walked towards the casually dressed American spy.
"Nothing," Sawyer sighed, before looking over at Nemo. "We need to find the others. Hartdegen and Mina were at the changing rooms last time I checked, Jekyll and Phoebe were picking out shirts, and Rachel and Chandler were just... just..."
"Over here," a female voice said.
Glancing around in the direction of the voice, Nemo and Sawyer saw Rachel and Chandler walking towards them from the very direction that Skinner had walked off in.
"You were with Skinner?" Sawyer asked, as Rachel and Chandler joined the two League members above the dead, unconscious, and wounded bodies of the gunmen.
"Well, he dropped in on us when the gunfire started, got friendly with Rachel, and one thing just led to another," Chandler smiled casually.
"What?" Sawyer asked, looking in a baffled manner at his unusual new friend. "Are you saying...?"
"NO, he's not," Rachel said, sparing a brief glare at Chandler before turning around and smiling at Sawyer. "It's just Chandler; he occasionally makes little jokes like that. Trust me, you'll get used to it."
"Ah," Sawyer said, as he crouched down to look at the bodies of the would-be gunmen. Suddenly, he noticed something hanging on the belt of one of the gunmen. It mostly stood out because it was the only thing on any of them that Sawyer recognised straight away...
"A radio?" he asked, half to himself, as he reached over and picked it off the gunman's belt.
Nemo glanced over at the machinery in Sawyer's hand, and nodded.
"You are correct, Agent Sawyer," he said. "It is not quite as advanced as the radios that Professor Hartdegen supplied for us, but it still appears to be remarkably high-tech for this time period."
Rachel blinked. "What?" she asked, crouching down beside Tom to look him in the eyes. "How do you guys know what a radio is?"
"Oh, Hartdegen picked us up a couple to let us keep in touch with our American and British government contacts in the event of a crisis," Sawyer said, as he picked the radio up and started to examine it. "Now then, where's the 'on' switch...?" he asked himself, as he turned it over and over in his hands.
"What's up here, guys?" Skinner asked, as he strolled over towards the gathering in the centre of the room, now dressed in his earlier outfit of black chinos and a dark shirt, along with gloves and his pince-nez.
"Nice outfit," Sawyer commented, only half-paying attention as he continued to study the radio. "Anyway, I'm-"
Nemo clapped a hand over his mouth.
"Mmm?!" Sawyer asked, looking up at the Indian.
Nemo jerked his head over in the direction of two nearby coat racks at opposite ends of the small circle that surrounded them. They were both twitching slightly, as though someone was crouching behind them...
Looking up at Nemo, Sawyer nodded slightly. Nemo tilted his head in acknowledgement, placed his finger to his lips in a 'be quiet' gesture to ensure the others got the message, and then crept towards one of the twitching racks.
He reached out, grabbed one coathanger, pushed it aside as he thrust his sword forward...
"Geez! Point that thing somewhere else, why don't you?" Phoebe asked, looking at the blade as it hovered inches from her face.
"N-Nemo?" Jekyll asked from behind her, his finger stretching out his shirt collar in a manner that made it look like he was sweating. "What's g-going on?"
"Wait a minute..." Nemo said, as he turned around and looked over at the other coat rack. Walking over, he pulled it apart, to reveal....
"Ah, Professor Hartdegen," he said, sheathing his sword and nodding at his friend. "You can come out now. Mr Skinner and Agent Sawyer have attended to the gunmen; they are, at the immediate moment, no threat to us."
"Really?" Phoebe asked, as she and Jekyll clambered out of their clothes racks. "Well, good to hear that; where are- OH MY GOD!" she yelled in horror, her hands flying to her mouth as she saw the dead bodies of the gunmen.
"Yeah, sorry about that, but Skinner kind of forced my hand," Sawyer said, as he stood up and looked over at Phoebe with a sympathetic gaze in his eyes. "He knocked one of them down and cracked the guy's skull, and the other two would have killed him if I hadn't fired first."
"We-we-well... that doesn't make any difference!" Phoebe cried, looking at Tom with the beginnings of tears in her eyes. "Yo-you could have done something o-other than k-kill them, but n-noooo, you had to kill them!" Then she turned around and, before anyone could react, she'd collapsed into Jekyll, her arms around his neck as she sobbed uncontrollably into his shoulder.
Sawyer looked over at Chandler and Rachel in confusion. "Not that I don't understand her reasons for it, but why's she having such a massive breakdown about what I did?"
"Oh, she has a thing about violent or unnatural death," Rachel explained, as Jekyll put his arms around Phoebe, apparently unsure what else to do while she cried into his new shirt. "I always attribute that part of her to her mother's death; she's a vegetarian as well."
"Ah," Sawyer said quietly, as he got back onto his feet and looked over at Phoebe. As she continued to sob and shake in Jekyll's arms, Sawyer walked up behind her and coughed slightly.
"Um, Phoebe?" he asked, sounding a little uncomfortable. "I, uh, I know this probably won't mean much in the long run, but I'm... sorry about what happened back there, and I'll... try not to kill anyone while I'm here... unless it's absolutely necessary. OK?"
Phoebe stopped crying, turned around, and smiled at Sawyer brightly.
"Of course!" she said, before turning around to kiss Jekyll on the cheek. "Thanks for the support, Doctor J," she whispered in his ear. Jekyll blushed slightly at the kiss, which wasn't helped when Skinner gave him a congratulating thumbs-up; he always embarrassed easily.
"OK, so, now that everyone's calmed down, what do we do about the gunmen?" Chandler asked, looking around at his strange collection of friends, sensing that Jekyll didn't want to make a big deal about Phoebe's kiss.
"Good point there.... Chandler?" Hartdegen asked inquiringly. Chandler nodded, and Hartdegen continued. "How are we going to stop these people before they hurt any innocent people? We can't take them all down in this amount of time, no matter how good we are."
"Oh, that should be easy enough to deal with," Sawyer smiled, as he held up the radio and began to look at it again. "Let's see, how do you talk into this thing...?" he asked himself, as he studied the radio.
"What, you've got a plan?" Skinner asked his friend, forgetting the Jekyll thing for a while.
"You bet," Sawyer smiled at the invisible man. "See, it occurred to me that this radio is probably here to allow the gunmen to keep track of the situation on the various floors; I mean, how else are they to know whether or not somebody else has found us? So, all I need to do is send a message to the others to meet us here, and then..."
Hartdegen finished the sentence for him. "And then we take them down all at once?" he asked.
"Exactly," Sawyer smiled, as he gave Hartdegen a congratulating wink. "And, for those that get away, they'll probably be caught by Mina-"
"You know, that reminds me; where is Mina?" Skinner asked, as he looked around the small group.
Rachel realised he had a point; everyone else was there, but their resident vampire was conspicuous by her absence. She glanced over at Tom, and was puzzled to see a small grin on his face, as though he was hiding a little secret.
"What?" she asked, looking curiously at the attractive young man. "What's the joke?"
"Oh, nothing much," Tom smiled, looking over at her with a bright smile that gave his face a certain appearance of almost childish glee. She briefly found herself thinking how good he looked like that, but stopped that train of thought; this wasn't the time. "Just, if I know Mina- and I should think I do- I think I can safely predict that we don't have to worry about the gunmen on the lower floors in this building."
"What do you- ah, I see," Nemo said simply, nodding a little as inspiration dawned in his eyes. "You are of the opinion that Mrs Harker has gone down to attend to the safety of the civilians on the lower floors, correct?"
"Exactly," Sawyer smiled, as he looked over at Rachel. "Remind me, how many stories are there in this building?"
"Eight," Rachel replied automatically.
"OK then," Sawyer said, as he adopted a more professional expression as he glanced around at the others. "Now then, we're currently on the fifth floor, if my memory's accurate, so that means Mina's going to be dealing with the majority of the remaining guards; it's our business to take out the other gunmen before anyone else can get hurt. Until further notice, we'll assume that each floor has three gunmen like they do here, OK?"
"OK..." Hartdegen said, curious as to where his friend was going with this.
"Therefore, I think our best chance to take these guys out is by luring them all to a location of our choosing," Sawyer explained, as he looked back at the bodies lying beside his little group. Then he crouched down, grabbed a couple of large guns from their belts, and tossed them over to Hartdegen and Chandler.
"What the...?" Chandler asked, as he automatically grabbed the gun and stared at it. "What are you talking about?"
"What does it look like?" Sawyer said, a half-grin on his face as he picked up another one of the weapons and looked it over. "You two are going to be helping me take these guys down."
Chandler looked down at the gun, blinked a little, and then looked up at Sawyer with a shaken expression.
"Um, my doctor says I suffer from bad grip when it comes to holding any metallic objects, along with a terrible condition that makes me feel ill at the mere sound of bullets, and I'm therefore excused from shooting weapons." He opened his hands and the gun fell to the floor.
Rachel caught it and held it back out to him. "Chandler, take the weapon and get to work, OK? If you're not going to pull your weight, then we have a problem. Besides, something tells me everyone else already has a part to play, right?" she asked, as she glanced over at Sawyer.
"Correct," Sawyer said, as he studied the gun. "Rachel, you're with Nemo and Skinner; you three will be responsible for dealing with any gunmen that try to get away from us. Try to take them by surprise, OK? Jekyll, Phoebe, the two of you try and find a phone or something similar so we can call for official assistance; just make sure you don't reveal why they're after us, OK?"
"Check," Phoebe smiled, her hand automatically going for Jekyll's at the news they'd be partnering up. He blushed a little at the contact, but didn't do anything about it. "Anything else?"
"Not that I can think of," Sawyer smiled at her briefly, before his face lost all its light-heartedness and he looked around at his friends again. "We've got around fifteen minutes before they start killing their hostages, guys. Let's go."