SYNOPSIS

Guest Stars:  Mako, Raoul Trujillo
Screenplay by Gregory de la Doucette
Edited by Jean-François Bergeron
Directed by David MacLeod

Location of Aurora:  London, to Paris

Prologue: An Oriental man is being tortured on board the League of Darkness airship, the Prometheus. His interrogator demands from the man a potion, but the man explains that only one priest at any given time knows how to prepare the potion, and that the priest's name is Kajimori. When he won't tell them where the priest is, his torturers grab his hand and bring out a sharp pair of shears.

Rebecca and Phileas are in England on board the Aurora. Rebecca is on holiday. She is bored and is driving Phileas a bit crazy with her restlessness. She explains that she doesn't like being idle. A telegram from Japan arrives and informs her that her friend Amaratsu is traveling to Paris with her grandfather Kajimori. Rebecca persuades a reluctant Phileas to take her to meet her friend the next day.

On board the ship that is taking them from Japan to Paris, Amaratsu helps her grandfather prepare a special potion that he will use in some enlightenment ceremony. Kajimori has dreamt of the purifying one, he explains, and thinks the time to pass over to the other side is imminent. He drinks the potion and seems to find pleasure in its effects.

On board the Aurora, Phileas is very unenthusiastic about the trip, but Rebecca reminds him that they will be seeing Jules again. She adds that Amaratsu was a delightful girl when Rebecca served as her chaperone at Oxford. Several hours later they arrive, and Rebecca lets herself into Jules' garret to wait for him to wake up. She says that she has someone special she wants Jules to meet whom she thinks Jules will like, since this friend is another intellectual like Jules. 

The boat carrying Amaratsu and her grandfather arrives in France. As they prepare to leave the ship, a steward asks that Amaratsu bring custom papers to one of the ship's offices before they disembark rather than stopping at customs on the dock. He claims that this is a new French regulation. When Rebecca arrives, she finds that Amaratsu is still waiting at a deserted office on board the ship. Rebecca says that the office that her friend must visit is on the dock, not on the ship. They go down to the cabin and discover Kajimori is missing. Amaratsu says that he has gone because the purifying one has come for him and so she is not worried. 

The reason for Kajimori's absence from the cabin is that he has been taken on board the Prometheus, where his ring is taken from him. He is being interrogated about the potion. Kajimori explains that the potion will be useless to anyone who has not trained in their religion, that the truth revealed by the potion is beyond anyone else's' comprehension.  He says that he is prepared to die, but the interrogator suggests that Kajimori probably passed the knowledge on to someone else.

On board the Aurora, Phileas and Rebecca are discussing the disappearance of Amaratsu's grandfather when their guest joins them.  Jules Verne arrives. Jules and Amaratsu seem attracted to each other.  They wait for Passepartout to return from shopping and get lunch. But Passepartout is delayed at the boulanger, who invites him inside the shop for nice warm bread. It turns out the boulanger is the same man as the one who posed as a steward on the ship. He threatens Passepartout with a hot poker and sends him back to Phileas with a note and a box. 

Jules and Amaratsu decide to visit a museum that has a new steam power exhibit instead of waiting for Passepartout to return, and so they leave. Passepartout stumbles in a little while later with the box and note. The note demands that 5,000 francs be brought to a church in the Champs de Venus at midnight, with the statement that Kajimori "will keep the other nine" if this note is obeyed. Inside the box is a severed finger, with Kajimori's ring on it. 

Meanwhile, Jules and Amaratsu are having lunch in a bistro and finding that they are enjoying each other's company a lot. Amaratsu speaks of her missing grandfather, explaining that he was involved with misogi, the elevation to supreme consciousness, where purification of spirit is achieved. She explains that it is done after years of meditation. The final step involves taking a specially prepared potion.

Phileas and Rebecca gather weapons and equipment and prepare to go to the church where they are to deliver the ransom. They tell Passepartout not to tell Jules and Amaratsu where they really went. Passepartout is very nervous when the young people arrive on board the Aurora.  After Amaratsu goes to her bedroom to sleep, Jules stretches out on the sofa for a sleep while Passepartout nervously operates his steam ironing contraption. A little later, Amaratsu sneaks into the kitchen to prepare the last of the potion which she pours into a vial that she wears hidden around her neck. She mixes the final potion in one of the kitchen glasses, which she does not rinse after using. When she leaves the kitchen, she is surprised by the erstwhile steward/boulanger who grabs her. Jules, who was sleeping on the sofa, turns on the steam vent from Passepartout's ironing machine and shoots hot steam in the villain's face before he takes away the gun. Passepartout hits the other man and they tie them up.

Phileas and Rebecca stop by the boulanger where Passepartout got the note. They find that there is a crowd gathered at the store, where the real boulanger is lying dead on the floor. The next stop for the cousins is the church where they are to deliver the ransom. Rebecca and Phileas find the church dark and deserted, except for an Oriental man who has obviously been tortured. The man mutters that he has betrayed Kajimori and Amaratsu. Suddenly a large number of bad guys enter the church, and the cousins must face them fighting back to back. Phileas and Rebecca prevail after a lot of shooting. Before the torture victim finally dies, he reveals that Kajimori is on board a "big black bird".

On the Aurora after they tie up the bad guys, Passepartout goes into the kitchen to get some water and drinks out of the same glass that Amaratsu has used to prepare the potion. When he leaves, he suddenly blurts out the truth of the situation, that Kajimori has been kidnapped and that Rebecca and Phileas have gone to find him. Passepartout can't seem to say anything but the truth. They escape the Aurora, just as the baddies start to break free.  They are run down in a dark alley, where the bad guys grab Jules and Amaratsu. 

When Rebecca and Phileas leave the church, they see the Prometheus and realize that this must be the "big black bird" that the man was talking about. They follow the Prometheus to a building which seems to be a headquarters of sorts for the ship. While Jules and Amaratsu are brought in to the room where Kajimori is being held in this very building, Rebecca and Phileas enter with guns blazing and dynamite lit. Kajimori asks that Amaratsu be brought near him to persuade her to make the potion. Grandfather and granddaughter silently communicate and she opens the vial to let her grandfather drink of the final potion. The interrogator grabs the vial before it can be finished and drinks the rest himself. A light comes out of Kajimori's eyes, while the inquisitor becomes racked in terror and pain. The interrogator begins to shoot wildly with his gun. When he fires a bullet at Jules, Kajimori says the interrogator will now see the light and  the bullet stops in mid-flight. The inquisitor screams and disappears. Then Kajimori calmly walks into the light, just before Rebecca and Phileas enter the room to rescue Jules and Amaratsu.

Back on board the Aurora, Passepartout is still compelled by the potion to blurt out the truth, to the amusement and annoyance of the others. Amaratsu is distressed at having to return to her family obligations at home and Jules kisses her goodbye.

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