Author's note: I'm REALLY REALLY sorry about the delay in updating this fic. I have just come back from camp and am now finally writing again. Thank you for all your reviews, they are very much appreciated! Oh, and about Joan's nationality, you will soon find out in the next chapter!

Chapter 8

He moaned and gripped his head. He felt as though his brain had been pummelled to bits by a hammer as it was throbbing very painfully. The other three figures around his bed started in surprise at his sudden awakening and Mina quickly whispered out of the corner of her mouth to Tom and Skinner. "Shush. Not one more word about this matter. He's awake."

Jekyll noted with some surprise that someone had changed him out of his tattered clothes, and he was now wearing… wearing what seemed to him as a striped outfit of the thinnest material he had ever seen. It was completely buttoned up in front. His pocket watch and the rest of the things that were in his pants pocket now stood on top of the bedside table beside him.

"W-what happened? G-god, my head…" Jekyll tried to sit up on the bed he was in, but fell back with a groan. All his limbs and joints were aching terribly.

You are so weak…

Oh damn it Hyde! I don't want to listen to you! Just leave me alone! 

They're never going to forgive you after what happened… just look at their faces.

W-What? What are you talking about?

Don't tell me you do not recall what you did just now, you stupid numbskull.

Jekyll gripped his head again as he tried to get his scrambled thoughts back on track. What exactly did he do? Slowly, the pieces began to fall in, filling in the missing picture in his brain. He remembered the struggle with Hyde… Joan…

…and the attack on Skinner.

I attacked Skinner?!

You wanted the elixir so badly…

No, not I. It was you!

Don't you remember what happened? Or are you still deluding yourself, trying to hide from the truth that is staring right at your worthless self? YOU wanted me to destroy the League. YOU craved for me to end your misery, to end your sufferings.

Jekyll knew deep down that Hyde was telling the truth. But he wouldn't accept it. He couldn't accept it. That would break everything that he had been telling himself for the past few years, in the never ending quest of clinging on to his sanity that may any time slip through his fingers. Everything was all Hyde's fault, not his. He was the reason why Jekyll was in this state, a lonely spent shell of a man, a man who is caught in the raging conflict between good and evil with nowhere to go. No. He is innocent, free of taint. It was only Hyde who is guilty, not him.

You are evil and I am good! Enough of this!

Hyde snorted. Are you sure it is as simple as that? What is the difference between a good man and a bad man? You call yourself a good man? A good man indeed you are…creating me, and then blaming all your miserable shortcomings and weaknesses on your creation just because you are too scared to shed the 'pure' image that you hold yourself so close to. Don't forget, you are a mixture of GOOD and EVIL. You have never perfected the formula in the first place to create two completely different characters, the good and evil side of man.  What you received when you first drank the potion was a greater evil which is me, and a lesser evil which is you. 

Don't pretend to be oh so good and holy, you hypocrite. We are still the same person. You will never be separated from me, Jekyll, not until the day you die!

NO!

***

"Jekyll? Jekyll!" Skinner called out at the doctor, who was now hunched over his knees, hands covering his face and trembling slightly. Jekyll gave no sign of hearing him.

"He is not going to hear you I expect. He seems to be locked in another battle of wills with Hyde."

"This is so awful. Poor Jekyll… it's a wonder how he has managed to hang on to his sanity…Hyde never does leave him alone doesn't he?" Tom asked, half-way through cleaning his mud-encrusted gun.

Mina wrinkled up her nose at him. "Not that I am aware of. And anyway, you had better ask Joan to show you where the bathroom is so that you can wash up. You really look a rightful mess."

"Well, but Joan is not here now is she? I wonder why she is taking such a long time with the warm water though…Oh yeah, why aren't you following her, Skinner?"

Skinner shrugged and put his hands into the pockets of the black leather greatcoat that Joan had loaned him. "Mina here apparently doesn't think much of my spying skills," he answered, putting on a false air of great bitterness.

Mina cut in irritably. "It's not that I can help it… this is very urgent, and it is important that Joan does not know anything about Hyde. I need to hear Skinner's version of the events as soon as I can so as to make preparations… this is just a one time risk I'm taking, that's all."

"Well… Miss Joan doesn't strike me as the sort of girl who will sell out her friends…"

"What makes you so sure that we even count as friends?"

Tom looked at Mina straight in the eye. "Call it intuition," he said simply.

Mina rolled her eyes mentally. "I just hope you're right.," she said heavily. "Anyway, what do you all suppose we ought to do with Jekyll?"

***

In the middle of a dark and dingy room, a man leaned back in his chair, one hand grasping the top of his long and polished wooden cane, the other putting an empty wine glass down on a table beside him. The clattering of feet down the stone stairs leading to his hideout heralded the arrival of his helper. He smiled serenely as he toyed with the mask on his face.

The door soon flew open.

"Well?" He asked, without getting up from his chair to face his visitor.

"They're here." A breathless female voice announced. "Well, actually, they've been here for quite some time already but a lot of things happened and now is the only time I think it's safe to come see you."

"I know. I have heard them. Excellent." The silvery figure finally rose from his seat on the armchair and turned to face the excited brown haired woman framed in the doorway. "The League does not suspect a thing, do they?"

"Them?" The girl snorted unattractively. "They couldn't find their way out of a paper bag even if their lives depended on it."

"So they've not learned their lesson, I suppose? Really, I expected Mina to be much more alert…" he said, half to himself. "So what do you think of them?" The man then asked lazily, leaning casually against the armrest of his chair.

"Hmmm…. They're quite a diverse bunch. The ones that I think will cause us any problems are the vampire and the invisible man. They're good. Jekyll and Tom however, don't really strike me as very useful. Jekyll actually seems to me as the League's weakest link."

The man sneered. "Oh, you'll be surprised… I can understand your contempt against Agent Sawyer though, he's nothing but an ignorant young pup who only knows how to fire a gun and flirt. Jekyll, on the other hand… you'd best be wary about him."

"Why? From what I've seen of him, he's nothing but a scared whimpering little doctor!" The woman said incredulously, adjusting the red spectacles that framed her face. "He acts really strange, having frequent outbursts as though communicating with someone he alone can see." She shook her head. "I think he's probably insane." 

"You're very wrong in this point. The doctor has many tricks up his sleeves and is nothing as he seems. Jekyll is just a harmless facade… I don't care much for him. He can be very easily manipulated. It's his other side that I care very much about."

"What other side?"

"I am not going to tell you. It is for you to find out and for me to know. That's the beauty of the game, isn't it? I believe that you are smart enough to figure it out. Or are you not up to the challenge?" His voice was soft, taunting.

"Hahaha. Very funny. You know very well that I don't have a copy of the Jekyll and Hyde book in the house. I wish I could use the internet to find out more about the doctor…if only the stupid computer was in my room and not in the living room. It makes a damn loud noise when it starts and will most likely alert the League if I tried to do it in private."

"Then that is your own sad loss," he said coolly.

 "Oh, drop dead."

The man smirked. "Believe me, it would be very impractical and unwise on my part to comply with your wish, lady. Don't forget, you are working for me and I am the one who will decide what to tell you and what not to."

The girl waved a hand dismissively. "Fine, don't tell me. I'd sooner or later discover the truth anyway. It's my job as a geek to be as intelligent and curious as possible."

He looked up at her again, yellow eyes glinting.

"Then aren't you curious as to what my true identity really is?"

"I am," she admitted. "I am really dying to see your face and also find out why your eyes are yellow."

"Then why don't you ask?"

She laughed, but her eyes narrowed slightly and hardened. "Let's just say that I've seen how curiosity can kill the cat."

"How amusing. It was Mina, I suppose? I thought so. Anyway, the yellow colour of my eyes is just a side-effect of an experiment I made to make me even more stronger and powerful than before. My original eye colour was brown." The man said haughtily. He cast an amused gaze at the girl's sudden look of acute wonder.

"Wow… you engaged in black magic?"

"Well, you could say that."

The girl sighed. "Why do you always answer my questions without really explaining anything? I'm helping you, if you do not realise that. Without me, you will be totally lost."

The man laughed softly and scornfully. "Oh I would not think so. I've seen too much to be ever truly ignorant about the ways of the world. Even though it is now the twenty-first century, I can see that the people have not changed much. There is still much evil going on, fights, greed, deception…" He gestured at a pile of old newspapers on the grimy floor. "There's really not much difference between then and now except that the people, especially women, are much more uncivilised."

He looked smugly and indulgently at her.

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Just make sure you don't forget your part of the deal."

The man's curiously coloured eyes flashed suddenly. He silently produced from within the silvery folds of his cloak a plain looking old box and opened it. "I would not, my little helper," he whispered, showing its sparkling contents to her. "Serve me well, and all these will be yours as promised."

The woman's eyes gleamed with greed.

"Good. Then I had best be going now then, to find out what exactly the league is planning. Oh yeah, one more thing. Are you sure you want the tracking device to be updated? The co-ordinates will most definitely lead to your hideout. I can tamper with it if you want…"

"No. It is essential to my plan that the League find out where I am. I want to deal with them in my own way. But I need a bit of time though. Try to stall for time. I need around two days at the most," he said, tucking the box back into his clothes. He could feel the woman's eager eyes following the movement of his hand.

"Well then, before you depart, I want to tell you not come down here to see me anymore. It is too risky."

"Don't be ridiculous. I know this place like the palm of my hand…"

The man cut across her in mid-speech. "I said no, and you will do well to remember it. If you are seen and followed… my entire plan will be ruined, and you get nothing." He smirked as she blanched. "Anyway, I would not be here for long."

"Huh? Why?"

The man raised one eyebrow at her. "I do not think that it will be a great idea for the League to follow the co-ordinates and then find that they lead to your basement, my dear girl."

The woman flushed but said nothing.

"I will get out of here by the back door soon. I am just here to personally confirm that the League has properly settled in as planned. Of course, you will find out everything in due time. I am not telling you now as it is not yet the right time."

There was a small pause.

"All right, if that's all, you had best be going then."

The woman sighed. "Whatever. If anything crops up, I'll contact you using the hand phone I gave you or send you a message."

"Fine."

The girl turned to leave. But then suddenly, she stopped in mid-step.

"What is it now?" The man asked impatiently.

She turned around slowly, biting her lower lip as though wondering whether she should speak. "Well… I just want to know… if it is all right with you… what your name is. I mean, who, or what are you?"

The man smiled from behind his mask, although it was actually more like a leer.

"I am… complicated."

With that, he turned around and sat back down on his armchair, a clear indication that he was not going to entertain anymore questions.