Title - Suffer Author - Spookysister7 Email address - spookysister7@hotmail.com URL - http://www.angelfire.com/theforce/spookysister7/index.html Rating - PG-13 Category - Jules Verne Spoilers - RRG Keywords - Adventure, T Summary - The Count is back, and Philias will suffer. Feedback - Please, oh please, oh please!!! I'm young, I'm stupid, I need help! Thanx! Post anywhere! Just keep my name and let me know. Disclaimer - Rebecca and Jules are not mine They aren't making me a dime Philias does not belong to me But if he did, I'd be filled with glee Just remember, morning glory They're not mine, now read the story -The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne: Suffer "Hello? Pastpartout? Rebecca? Jules? Is anybody here? A bloody warm welcome. I leave for two weeks and everyone takes off. Jules! Anyone?!" Philias called as he hung up his coat and looked around his dirigible. Strong hands grabbed him from behind and held him virtually motionless. "Let go of me! Who are you? How did you get on my ship?" He cried as he struggled to no avail. He looked back at his captor and froze. It was like looking into a mirror. An insidious smile stretched unnaturally across the false Philias' face. "What the devil?" Philias asked, bewildered. A sinister chuckle echoed from the doorway as a creaking metal throne came into view. "Count Gregory!" Philias hissed, enraged. "Where are my friends? What have you done to them?!" "I, Fogg? I have done nothing. It is you who have harmed your friends. It is you they will blame." "What are you taking about, you twisted metal monstrosity?" "My clone, Fogg, as you may have noticed, is perfect. He looks like you, he sounds like you, I dare say he feels like you, and, with a few of my improvements, he has double your strength, plus another little addition or two." "Why did you create him? What do you want from me, Count?" "I wish to see you suffer, and, after you see your friends, I'm sure I will get my wish. Start the machine!" A flickering tape rolled as a film began to play on the pale wall of the main room. "I wanted to record everything, so I could watch over and over again. Watch, Fogg, and you will learn what happened to your friends." Philias could only stand there and watch as Rebecca and his alter ego walked into the camera's view. "Philias, I don't understand what is so important! Why can't you just tell me what's going on?" Rebecca said, chatting innocently as the clone followed her into the room. The snap of the lock caused her to turn and call his name curiously. "Philias?" Philias watched, wide eyed, as his copy stroked her cheek. "You're so beautiful, Rebecca." "Well, thank you, Philias." "It's really a shame." "Philias? Philias, stop, you're hurting me. Philias, let go! Don't make me hurt you!" She cried as she struggled against the iron grip he had on her wrist. She punched him. He didn't flinch. She kicked at him. Reacting faster than he should have been able to, the faux Philias grabbed her leg in midair and threw her on the table. He held her down with one hand as he forced her wrists into the metal binds attached to the table. She fought and kicked as he forced her feet into similar bindings. Philias watched the film in horror, wanting nothing more than to leap into it and blow his doppelganger's face away. "Philias let me out! Why are you doing this? Philias! What are you doing? Get off of me!" she cried as he crawled up on top of her and hovered over her face. "Rebecca." He whispered with a lecherous smile. "Philias, what are you doing? Please stop. Please." He ignored her, hands roaming across her body. He ripped off her dress, revealing the leather outfit underneath. He tossed the dresses' remains away, and they fell across the camera, blocking the sight, but not the sounds. "He got a little overexcited at this point." The Count said, chuckling. A scream welled up in Philias' breast as he heard Rebecca begging him to stop. The sound of fabric ripping and the fear in Rebecca's voice made his face turn scarlet in anger. The logical part of him realized that everything he was watching had already happened, but his heart told him differently. "Philias, no! Help me! Help! Stop! STOP! Ahhh!" Rebecca screamed in agony, in chorus with Philias' own scream. "Rebecca! Rebecca!!!" He screamed, fighting and twisting against his clone. The tape stopped, and Philias still struggled, panting in effort. "Why?! Why did you do that to her? I'll kill you! I'll kill you all!" "I do that to her? Why, Philias, you know very well YOU are the one that..." "No! That was not me! That was your hideous freak of a man made to look like me!" "Ah, I know that, and you know that, but she doesn't." "I will kill you." "Hmm, threats, so ineffective. You still haven't seen what happened to your other two friends, have you? Turn the machine back on!" The dress had been removed and thrown over an unconscious Rebecca. Pounding on the door, loud and insistent, was Jules. "Rebecca! What's wrong? Rebecca?!" The false Philias straitened his clothes and ran a hand though his hair before throwing the lock. Opening the door, Jules flew in. "Fogg? I heard a scream. What happened?" He asked, peering around the towering form of his friend. He caught sight of the ravaged Rebecca and pushed past, running to her side. "Rebecca! Oh, God! What happened? Who did this? Rebecca!" When she didn't respond, Verne fought with the chains unsuccessfully. "Philias, help me get her loose! Who did this?" Jules asked, a horrified and sickened expression on his face. False Philias snorted. "Isn't it obvious, Verne? I did." Jules backed away, fear and confusion pervading his thoughts. "You did? You would never..." "I would and I did. What's the matter, Verne? Don't you want a turn, too?" Jules anger bubbled to the top at the irreverent way Philias spoke. "You son of a..." He cried as he leapt at him, hands encircling the faux Philias' throat, throwing them both on the floor. After a few seconds of struggle, Philias was on top, hands firmly in place around Jules' neck. "What do you say? Should I do you next, or would that be too much for that fragile brain of yours?" Jules' eyes widened and he fought harder, trying to push Philias away. For a moment, it seemed to work. Philias fell back. Then, as suddenly as Fogg had retreated, his fist returned, flying towards Verne, and Jules struggled no more. The real Philias had turned away, sickened at the thought of that monster 'doing' Jules as well. He turned back when the silence had lingered, only to see the clone locking Jules' unconscious body to the wall. Almost as soon as it was accomplished, Pastpartout's voice echoed down the hallway. "Master? Miss Rebecca? Dinner is prepared. Master?" Pastpartout said, coming into the room and looking around. "Master! What has happened here? Who has done this to Miss Rebecca and Master Jules?" "I'll tell you in a second, Pastpartout, but first I need you to stand right there." Pastpartout obediently moved towards the wall opposite of Jules. "Here, Master?" "Exactly. Now hold still." False Philias said as he clamped Pastpartout's arms into the clamps. "What are you doing, Master?" "You idiot! You want to know who did this to Rebecca and Verne?" Pastpartout watched wide eyed as Philias pulled a knife from his boot. "I did." He snarled as he plunged the knife into Pastpartout's stomach, ripping upwards and gutting him like a fish. "No! Pastpartout!" Philias screamed at the wall, sickened by the confusion and betrayal in his dead friend's face. "Master?" Pastpartout whispered as he passed away. Philias' head hung in shame, and he refused to look up at the mangled body of his loyal servant and friend. "Why did you kill him?" He moaned. "We didn't need him." The Count said smugly. "Keep watching, Fogg. We still have a use for the other two." Philias' head shot up, heart clenching at the thought of what his friends could be 'used' for. The film continued as the doppelganger attached some sort of mechanism to Jules' head. A flicker in the reel was the only indication that time had passed, but the next thing Philias saw were a very much awake Rebecca and Jules. The clone stood in front of a squirming Verne, bolts of electricity flaring from the metal helmet placed over his head. "If you fight against the mind drainer too long, it will kill you." "I'd rather die than have my thoughts used!" Jules grunted out. The fake Philias nodded thoughtfully and looked back at the still groggy Rebecca. "We'll see about that. You may just change your mind." The clone said, striding over to Rebecca and climbing up on to the table, hovering over her once more. She could feel his presence and opened her eyes to meet his. She screamed. "No! Not again! Please! Help! Somebody help! No!" She sobbed, pushing away from her cousin's body as far as she could. "Will you stop fighting now, Jules?" "Get off of her! I'll never stop fighting! You let her alone!" Philias ignored him and tore the shredded dress away from her, reaching down to undo his pants. "No! No! Not again! Oh, God! Help me, Jules! Stop him! No!" She sobbed, squirming and fighting against her chains. Philias' mouth covered hers and stifled her screams, lowering his body to pin her to the table. She whimpered and struggled to no avail. The real Philias turned away, pale and trembling. Jules could take no more. His heart cracking, he called out to Fogg. "Stop! I'll do it! Get off her and I'll do it!" The true Philias turned back to the film; a dim hope growing that Rebecca would be spared. The clone pulled away and let her breathe. He rolled off the table and fixed his clothes. "I'm off. Now give." Jules nodded and let his body go limp. For a few seconds, it seemed that nothing was happening, and then Jules' eyes snapped open and he screamed. The screaming continued for a few indeterminable seconds, until the clone flipped the machine off. "That should be enough, eh Jules?" He got no response from Jules and walked over in front of him. "Verne?" Philias lifted Verne's head and looked into the dull eyes, blinking stupidly. "Ah, maybe a little much then." He said blandly, letting Verne's head fall back down. He turned to Rebecca. "Now, where were we?" "No! No! No! No! NO!" Her shriek was abruptly broken by the end of the film. "I don't think we need to show anymore, do we, Fogg?" Fogg looked up, pale and sickened. "All this. All this just to make me suffer? Why couldn't you just kill me? Why did you do that to them? They meant nothing to you! Why did you have to torture them, kill them?" "Kill them? The only one that's no longer with us is the one you killed. The other two are very much alive. In fact, you'll be seeing them soon." With that, the Count nodded towards the clone, and Philias saw no more. He awoke being dragged down a dreary gray prison, water dripping down the walls and moaning echoing down the corridors. "Where am I? What's going on?" "The Count waits for you." One of the men dragging him responded woodenly, and, as they turned the corner, Philias saw the Count waiting outside two moderately lit prison cells. "Ah, Fogg. How good of you to join us." The two men dragged Fogg towards the cells and held him in front of Count Gregory. "See, I told you your friends were alive." Philias pulled away from his guards and looked in the first cell to see Jules drawing in the dirt floor. Crooked circles and lopsided squares were layered across the floor as Jules mumbled insensibly to himself. "Oh, God! Jules! Jules, it's me! Jules!" Verne did not respond, continuing to draw simple shapes across the floor. "I'm afraid we left the machine on a bit too long. He's rather simple now." "Oh, Jules..." Fogg said, moaning and leaning his forehead against the bars of the prison. A whimper from the adjacent cell caught his attention, and his breath froze. "Rebecca." He ran to the other cell and looked on in horror. Strapped to a bed, his beautiful cousin slept restlessly, but what caught his attention was the bulging of her stomach. "What did you do to her?" He asked in a whisper, turning towards the Count. The guards took a hold of his arms once again, and he made no move to fight them off, waiting for a response. "She's pregnant." "That's impossible! Even if she was, I've only been gone a little while and..." "Ah, well, that's one of the modifications I made to your clone. The child is mine. I created it to mature faster than normal so that, soon, I can be all over the world. Just think, she will be the mother of rulers." "You sick son of a..." One of the guards holding him punched him in the gut and knocked his wind out. "Take him to the bottom." Count Gregory commanded. Twenty four hours in the pit seemed like an eternity. The monotonous plop, plop, plop of water dripping into his dark dungeon was driving him slowly mad. The rumbling in his stomach was his only sign of life. Frozen in misery, Philias sat silently against the wall where he had been placed. All hope was lost. No one would rescue them, and, even if they were rescued, what awaited them? Jules was brain damaged, Rebecca scarred beyond repair, and himself, oh, he was either a murderer and worse, or the cause thereof. He might have considered suicide, if he had the energy. Instead, he waited for starvation and dehydration to do their jobs. "I'm sorry, Rebecca, Jules. Sorry I couldn't save you. I'm sorry, Pastpartout. You were never an idiot, and you were the most loyal and faithful friend I have ever had." A scream broke his self-recriminations. Rebecca's scream. Her long, drawn out wail pierced his heart and he sobbed. She fell abruptly silent and another voice took her place. The cry of an infant. Philias hoped she had died in childbirth, thus saving herself any more pain. As the cries of the child grew farther away, the silence of his dungeon reigned once again. Philias' soundless tears rolled down his unshaven cheeks. He awoke. In the beginning, he had fought against sleep, now he fought for it. An undeterminable time had passed in silence. Silence now broken by the cries of one most dear to him. Philias wailed at the sound of his cousin's desperate pleas. "Philias, no! Please! Philias!!!" She shrieked his name and he wailed hers. "Rebecca!" He rose and pounded on his door. "Rebecca! It's not me, Rebecca! It's not me! Rebecca!" He collapsed, sobbing as her cries stopped. "It's not me." He whispered. He stood, squaring his shoulders, his back to the door. In front of him lay a puddle of mud, inches deep, framed by a thin strip of dry ground. "Goodbye, Rebecca." He whispered as he let himself fall face forward into the mud. He lay there quietly, then jerked as the air left his lungs and was replaced by mud. Convulsing twice, his body finally relaxed and he floated face down in the mud. "Philias, wake up now." "Master?" "Come on, Fogg, open your eyes. There we go." Jules said, wiping Philias' forehead with a damp rag. Philias cracked his eyes open. "Jules? Rebecca? How did we escape?" "Escape, Master?" "Pastpartout!" Fogg cried, eyes opening wide in shock. "You're alive?" Philias said, grabbing his arm. "Yes, Master, I'm fine. What has happened to you?" "Yes, Philias, I'm quite interested in an explanation myself. We found you in the Seine a few hours ago. Quite a trek for a man deathly ill in a Belgium hospital." Rebecca said. "Sick?" "Yes, sick. If we hadn't come to visit you we would have never even known you were missing. We get all the way to the hospital, find out they have never heard of you, come back to the ship and find it in shambles, and now, after days of searching, we find you floating down the Seine. Where have you been?" "Miss Rebecca, slow down! Can't you see that Master is still sick? Are you alright, Master?" Pastpartout asked gently. "Are you telling me that everything I saw, I heard?" "You've obviously been restrained somehow, Fogg. You're undernourished, practically dehydrated, and I found traces of some sort of opiate in your system." Jules told him. "Drugs?" Philias muttered, shaking his head. He rubbed his eyes and looked up at Rebecca. "Rebecca." "Yes, Philias?" "If I ever... If there comes a time when I start to scare you or act odd, I don't want you to hesitate. Stop me, using whatever you can. Promise me." "But, Philias..." "Promise!" He whispered intently, clasping her hand. "Okay, Philias, okay." "Jules." "Yes, Fogg?" "You never give up. You hear me? Never, no matter what happens." "Okay, Fogg." Jules said, patting his hand. Fogg nodded. "Pastpartout." "Master?" "You are not an idiot." "Thank you, Master." "And another thing, it's acceptable to disobey orders sometimes, okay?" "Yes, Master." Pastpartout said, looking confused. "Philias, what's this all about?" "When I was... Wherever I was, I saw things. Things I never wanted to see. Count Gregory was alive. He made a clone of me, a twisted copy. Oh, Rebecca, he looked just like me! You trusted him and... I did horrible things to you. You were screaming, and I didn't stop, and..." Rebecca touched his wrist, breaking his thought. "He did it, not you, Philias. It wasn't you." "He looked like me, Rebecca. To you, he was me. You were calling for help, and, Jules, you came. He let you in, and you saw her. You never even suspected it was me. I was the only one in the room, but you never even thought! Do you trust me so much, Verne?" "Yes, I do. I know you, Fogg, you could never hurt Rebecca." "He told you what he did. Then you believed. You should have seen his face, Rebecca. He was so angry. The clone overpowered him quickly, he never had a chance. Then you came in, Pastpartout. I told you to do something, HE told you to do something, and even in the presence of such damming evidence, you followed his orders! And how did he reward you? He killed you. I will not tell you how. Even now I want to..." "It's okay, Master. I am not harmed." "Thank God, Pastpartout. Thank God." "Is that all, Philias?" "No. Not by a far stretch. If possible, it gets worse. He waits for you both to wake up. He put you in a machine, Verne, a mind reading machine. You fought it. I was proud of you. You fought him. But then he threatened to... hurt Rebecca again and she screamed. She couldn't help it. I screamed. And you told him to stop. You gave up, for her. It sucked out your mind, you were left a vegetable, dead to the world, and in vain! In vain! That's what finally broke me. As soon as you had succumbed, he returned to Rebecca and..." Philias stopped, shaking. "I'm fine, Philias. No one hurt me." "It was so real. Count Gregory took me to his lair. He had you both in prison, and Jules was drawing circles in the dirt, and you were, you were pregnant, Rebecca. You were pregnant with our child. Only, it wasn't ours. The Count had done something to it and it was a clone of him. It matured so fast, it looked as if you were almost ready to give birth." Philias refused to look up, dreading the looks on their faces. He continued. "I was thrown down into a pit and I sat there, feeling sorry for myself. I didn't even try to escape. I sat there in the blackness, and I heard you scream, and then I heard a baby cry. Rebecca, I actually hoped you had died when it was born." "Why, Fogg?" Verne asked curiously. Rebecca gave him a sharp look and he backed off, but Philias answered him. "I knew that if you were alive, he would use you again and again. I couldn't take that. I thought for a while you had died, and then I heard you scream my name. I knew he was back. I tried to answer you, tried to tell you it wasn't me, but you couldn't hear me. When your screams stopped, I looked around for a way to kill myself. I couldn't survive it again. I saw the mud at the center of my pit, and I drowned myself." "Oh, Philias." "Not the most courageous thing to do, I suppose, but what did I have to live for? My friends were either dead or as good as, and I was better off out of the hands of Count Gregory. But now that you tell me it was the drugs... I don't know what to think. Would I really give up like that?" Philias said, closing his eyes. "You would indeed, Fogg. You would indeed." Count Gregory said. Fogg opened his eyes to look in horror past his friends and into Count Gregory's soulless eyes. "Fogg?" "Philias?" "Master? Are you alright?" The Count dropped the envelope he had been holding and wheeled out of the room. "Did you see him?!" Philias cried, jumping out of bed. "See who, Master?" "Count Gregory! He was just here! He left an envelope." Philias picked up the envelope and brought it back to the bed. "Open it." Jules said, curious. Philias opened the letter and pulled out a photograph. A man lay on the filthy floor of a dim cell. His clothes were covered in mud, but his face had been washed clean. Wide blue eyes and overgrown sideburns framed a familiar face. "Rebecca..." Philias' voice said, quavering. He looked up from the photograph. "It's me." *Fini*