Author's ramblings…

So here I am with a new chapter. Got a lot of helpful hints from the rewievers.

Changes:

Have re-submitted every chapter (except this one, of course) since graymoon74 said it was something wrong with them. Better?

Prologue:

No, Jones doesn't feel a thing. I want him to be a nut.

Chapter 1:

Changed a little about the intruder and made Nemo's line shorter. Hope that his talking is better now.

This chapter is VERY long. Must be because I didn't want it to end too soon. Or because I'm afraid of the following chapters…

- - -

The members of the League sat around the dinner table. Only Nemo and Skinner knew what had previously occurred and was about to break the news. Jekyll had a cup of tea in front of him. Tom Sawyer took small bites off an apple with a tired look on his face. It was still early morning. They all looked at Nemo curiously. Nemo sat still with his hands clenched in front of him. His face was a mask of cold anger and his eyes were sharp. He looked around on everyone and took a deep breath.

"Nautilus was breached this night." He said shortly.

"What?" Tom asked, surprise clear on his face. "Someone came in? I thought you said no one could get onboard without your guards noticed."

"My crew did notice, and that saved all our lives. An assassin came into my cabin, apparently seeking my death before destroying my ship. I have been told that he killed a young guard and stole his clothes, using this as a disguise to get onboard. My guards found the young man's body and raised the alarm, just in time to save us all."

"Even if he had succeeded, how could he have destroyed Nautilus?" asked Mina. "One man can hardly do much harm to her, can he?"

Nemo's eyes flashed. His hands trembled slightly, but beyond that he showed no sign of being so angry. Knowing that he wouldn't be able to say anything for the moment, Skinner answered.

"He had enough firecrackers to blow half of England to smithereens, so to speak. It was more than enough to at least sink Nemo's beauty."

Mina frowned and glanced at Nemo. He still seemed to concentrate on not turning the table over and destroying the furniture of the room.

"So he was after us? Do you know anything about him?"

"No…" Skinner continued hesitantly. "I'm not sure. I checked his pockets to see if I could find anything, but I just found a key."

The sleeve of his coat moved to his side and the pocket bulged out. A key hovered out of it. He tossed it on the table. Mina reached out and took it.

"It seems to be a hotel key. Did you not find anything else?"

"Nothing but some change, and I took the liberty of keeping it, heh."

Mina shook her head and slid the key to Jekyll's place. He picked it up and looked at it. He frowned.

"I recognize this. I can't recall where I have seen it, but I know I have. But you are right, Mina, it must be a hotel key."

"Then I guess we'll have to check the hotels to see if we can find out anything more about this assassin." Tom said and sighed.

- - -

Nemo walked back and forth in his cabin, staring angrily at the furniture. He didn't blame his crew or the dead young man, but still he couldn't understand how the cursed man had so easily slipped through the nets they put up. He grumbled curses. This… murderer had not just only dared to kill one in his crew and enter both his ship and his cabin, he had also planned to destroy her. Nautilus! His Nautilus! He swore to himself that when they found the man who ordered this, he would kill him with his own hands.

- - -

Tom and Jekyll were assigned the mission to find the hotel where this assassin had been staying. Leaving the Nautilus after lunch, they thought they could split up and lessen the time of their search. But since they had only one key and wouldn't be able to keep track of which hotels the other had been to, they stayed together. They entered the first hotel they laid eyes on. It was an old fashioned place, old but charming in its own special way. The walls were in a sickening shade of red. A middle aged man who was working on getting fat approached them with a smile.

"Good day, gentlemen." He said with a broad but obviously faked smile, stuck after years and years of endless smiling. "Do you want a room?"

"Maybe. Is room 8 taken?" Tom asked. The man went behind a counter in the end of the room and looked in a large book. He shook his head.

"No, it says here it's available. Has someone recommended it to you?" the man asked with a heartier smile. Tom smiled back and showed him the key.

"Is this one of your keys?"

The man took the key and looked at it.

"Couldn't be, I'm afraid. Guess it belongs to someone else. Are you sure you don't want a room?"

Jekyll, whose eyes strained from the terrible colour on the walls, quickly declined his offer and made it clear he wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.

The next hotel was worse. It smelled strongly of tobacco and the air was hard to breath. A fat woman yelled at someone upstairs between what she said to them. She only grunted and left them when they showed her the key.

- - -

And so they went, from hotel to hotel, but no one they visited seemed to miss a key. They went into a bank once to ask if it was a key that could belong to them or any other bank. When they had made clear it wasn't, they went on. The sun eventually set. Tom groaned, stretched and scratched his head.

"Well, this was a waste of time." He grumbled. "We should get back to the Nautilus and make something useful of the rest of the day."

He turned around, but was stopped by Jekyll.

"Look over there." He said. Tom glanced over his shoulder and saw a house that looked like a café. It seemed to be a very nice hotel. "Mirrored Sun" it said on a sign above the door.

"Should we try a last one?" Jekyll asked. Tom didn't want anything more than to just go back, but he agreed. It couldn't hurt. They went to the Mirrored Sun and were met by some chaos. All over the entry, there were men running, some shouting out orders or moving things. Jekyll had to take a quick step to the side to avoid collision with a man carrying a chair out of the door. They looked around, surprised.

"What is happening here?" Jekyll asked no one in particular. Tom shrugged.

"Beats me."

He stopped a man that didn't seem to be as stressed as everyone else.

"Hi, we're looking for a room, and…"

"I'm very sorry, but I cannot help you right now. I am very busy; I will try and find someone else. Maybe… Adria? ADRIA!"

The last word was shouted. Someone shouted a reply in the other side of the room.

"What?"

"We have guests!"

"But I have two days of work and I have to finish this first! Carl can take care of them!"

"Just get over here!"

The man turned to Tom and Jekyll again.

"She will be over any second. Have a nice stay!" he said quickly and hurried away. They saw a short woman with reddish blond hair come towards them. She wiped her hand on her brown skirt and hurriedly fixed her blouse while muttering something to herself. It seemed she had been working with something; most likely something dirty, since her hair and face was covered in dust. She brushed a strand of hair out of her face and smiled, most likely out of routine.

"I'm sorry about all of this; we're having some… trouble. Nothing that will have any effect on you though! So, do you want a room?" she said. Tom shook his head with a slightly confused look.

"No thanks, but we're looking for a special room. Is this your key?" he asked and gave Adria the key. She took a quick look on it and nodded.

"Yes, it is. It belongs to Mr. Gilding in room 8." She said and frowned. "Where did you get it?"

Tom searched for words, but came to the conclusion that she probably could take some bad news.

"We got it from him, Gilding is dead."

She looked up on Tom with a surprised look on her face.

"Dead? Aw, what a shame. And he was such a good chess player." She said, sighed and took a look at the key. "Now who's going to pay the tab?" she said out into the air and put her hand over her mouth when she realized what she said. She was just about to explain when Tom interrupted her.

"Could we take a look in his room?"

She hummed and looked at him thoroughly. She also took a quick look on Jekyll, who was looking on all the chaos in the room.

"Well… Yeah, I guess. Normally we don't allow it, but I guess he won't complain. Right this way." She said and walked towards the stairs. Tom poked Jekyll on his shoulder and motioned towards the stairs. Jekyll followed them up. Adria looked down on them.

"I never got your names. Mine's Adria."

"I'm Tom, this is Dr. Jekyll."

Jekyll nodded, as if he confirmed it was true. Adria smiled at him and turned to the left in the corridor at the end of the stairs. She stopped outside a door with the number 8 on it.

"I don't think you'll find anything strange though." She said when she opened it. "He was very orderly and never made any fuss about anything."

They looked around in the room.

"Well, at least he cleaned up before he left." Jekyll said. It looked like the room had never been used. They first took a look around to see if there was anything strange that they could see without actually looking. Nothing at all.

"I hope you do not mind if we open drawers and so?" Jekyll asked. Adria shrugged.

"Go ahead."

Tom went to a large desk and looked for things there. He found a small drawing of a boat that was strangely alike the Nautilus, but nothing proved that it was that. Jekyll checked the end tables by the bed. Tom left the desk and opened a large cabinet with a sigh. His eyes widened in surprise when he realized what he was looking at.

"I think I have found something interesting." He said to Jekyll and took up something from the cabinet floor. Jekyll turned around and stared at the containments. The cabinet was full of rifles.

"What have you found?" Adria asked and looked. She took a step back.

"How did he get this in here? He couldn't have! We would have noticed! How did he…?" she blurted and stared. Tom looked on the knife in his hands. It was one of the largest knives he ever seen, and probably not used for stealthy things. There were more strayed over the cabinet floor, covering some papers. He looked at the papers and sighed.

"Someone got their hands on maps or blueprints of the Nautilus." He said and handed the paper to Jekyll. Jekyll skimmed through them quickly and shook his head.

"Well, then we know it was him living in this room. Try and find something about his employer." Tom said and, for some strange reason, began looking for clues in his bathroom.

Adria took a hold on Jekyll's arm and stared him in the eyes.

"You tell me what is going on. What is the Nautilus and what have Gilding done?"

Jekyll glanced at Tom, but he was busy in the bathroom. He made Adria ease the grip of his arm and sat down on the bed. Adria sat down beside him.

"Have you seen the large ship in the docks?" he asked.

"The large one with all the armed men in front of it? Everyone has. Is that the Nautilus?"

Jekyll nodded.

"We, agent Sawyer and I, some of our friends and the crew of course, live on that ship."

"That sounds like a whole lot of people. But, it is a very large ship. But what have Gilding got to do with that?"

Jekyll wondered whether he should tell her or not. But he couldn't get away with not telling now.

"Gilding snuck aboard Nautilus. He killed one in the crew and used his clothes as a disguise. He tried to kill our captain. Had he not done that, though, we would all have died. He tried to destroy Nautilus with explosives."

Adria sat and stared in front of herself. She looked sad. Jekyll wondered is she mourned Gilding.

"Was he a friend of yours?"

She looked up at him.

"We used to play chess now and then. Nothing much. But he was nice. I can't believe he could've done something like that. Or tried to do."

"Did he have many visitors?"

"Hm? Oh, yeah. All the time. Some of them looked really freaky too."

Jekyll had to fight to keep a victorious shout down. She might tell them everything they had to know.

"Would you recognize them if you saw them again?"

 "Heavens no. There are people around here all the time. I talk to them and then forget them. Sorry."

She got a worried look on her face and leaned closer to Jekyll.

"I heard that you called him agent. You won't tell anyone about your find?"

Jekyll shook his head. She looked relieved.

"Because if we would lose the hotel… I don't know, I'd end up on the street and uncle would probably die."

Jekyll couldn't help it, but he was deeply moved by the thought of her on the street. He impulsively placed his hand over her.

"I won't tell a soul that can do something to your hotel." He assured her. She gave him a glad smile. He couldn't help but think that her warm smile and almost shining eyes made her beautiful in a classical way. His thoughts were distracted by a crash from downstairs that could be heard through the closed door. Adria frowned.

"I better go check that out. Just leave the key at the desk when you're done in here, ok?"

"Actually, we'd rather keep the key. Just in case, you know?" Tom said from the bathroom. Adria nodded hastily.

"Oh, keep it then. I really have to go." She said halfway through the door.

Jekyll remembered something and quickly took her hand to stop her from leaving. She turned around and looked at him, surprised.

"If anything happens or anyone talks to you about this, just tell us. We'll be back in three or four days."

She smiled nodded and quickly jogged down the hall. Jekyll looked after her for a while and listened to Hyde's voice that suddenly began to mumble in his head. He turned around and closed the door to continue his search.