"You wanted to see us, Colonel?" asked Maverick, as he, Raven, Siryn and Shadowcat came in to the director's office, after being summoned moments ago.

"Yeah," said Nick. "One of our people in Greece sent in some rumours of something we need to get involved with, or more specifically X-Force is gonna get involved with." He passed them some folders, and the team opened them up to look through them. "The group you're lookin' at are called the Death's Head Guard."

"They're aliens?" asked Shadowcat, who of all the team was the one with the most experience of extra-terrestrial encounters.

"Yup. Originally part of a peaceful and curious race that established an observation post on Earth, the Gnobians had the unbelievably bad luck to do so in the midst of fascist Germany during World War II. Coming into contact with Baron Von Strucker, the Gnobian Mother merged with him, becoming so tainted by the experience that her subsequent offspring were born with an intense hatred of yours truly, and a determination to set up the 4th Reich despite their intense revulsion for the principles behind fascism."

"Poor bastards," muttered North. "That's manipulation on a grand scale."

"Get's better," stated Fury. "Taking their title from Baron Von Strucker's slain personal SS troops, the Death's Head Guard targeted the planet's governments for take over, but were side-tracked by their involuntary and compulsive hatred of me, and it brought them in to conflict with SHIELD."

"So why us?" asked Raven. "Why not any usual SHIELD types, if you've faced them before?"

"Because of their metahuman similarities. Being Gnobians, the Death's Head Guard were all extremely empathic, and formed a collective intelligence. They could also float, teleport, and could even withstand bullets and laser blasts up to a point far beyond human endurance. What is inherent ability and what they owed to their advanced technology is hard to pinpoint. The Gnobian technology has been rumoured to be the basis for the advanced weaponry of both Hydra and A.I.M., but to be honest we've never proved that."

"So why are they back now?" asked Siryn. "It's been some time since anyone's heard of them."

"Yup," said Nick. "They killed themselves years ago, because they could see the error of their ways and knew they were genetically incapable of changing them. Death before dishonour."

"So what's the gig?" asked Shadowcat. "If they're all dead..."

"There's a group forming in Greece, from what intel's tellin' us. They're not happy about the resurgence of fortunes of Hydra, that they're not truly following the group's original ideas and purpose of Von Strucker. So they've resurrected the group, this time as the Death's Head Commandos - and they seem to have the same kind of powers as the old Gnobian version. Whether they're aliens or not is up fer debate, but either way somethin's brewin' in Greece. We're over Europe for a UN gathering thing anyway, so you're a go in two hours, get ready."

"Yes sir," they all said.

"Dismissed." The team left the room and Nick sat back in his chair watching them go, then turned his attention to a letter that had come in the mail, marked United Nations.

Jessica Drew opened her eyes to find herself on a beach, the surf washing around her and she stood up. Her arms ached from the effort she had made in swimming with the chains around her, and she hadn't known if she was going to drown or not, but she just kept swimming until she couldn't swim any more. She gotten lucky, for she must have been close to the shore when she stopped, otherwise she'd be dead for sure.

She was still shaky from her escape and she staggered a little as she walked on the sand, not seeing anyone about. There were no signs of civilisation as far as she could see, but there were trees and grass, which meant there would be food and fresh water, and that told her she could survive here for a while. She also knew that the Shadow King would be searching for her, and he'd be sending Hydra to recapture her. Evading them wasn't going to be easy, and she thought back to the man she had been forced to leave behind.

She gave a shiver at what they'd be doing to Pete as punishments for helping her escape, probing him for what he knew, hurting him. It wasn't something that anyone deserved, and the problem was if they let him, he could fight back, and if he used his powers as well as he kissed... She shook her head in amazement at the thought, but she couldn't help it. The man was good, and if they got out of this alive, she wondered if he'd be up for a date.

"Getting' ahead of yourself, Jess," she said as she went in to the trees, knowing full well there was a long way to go before that happened. There was the sound of machinery in the distance, and she turned back to see a helicopter in the sky and she somehow knew it was her they were after, and that Farouk must have found her while she was sleeping. "Damn," she said and started to run, wrapping the chains around her arms as she moved. Hopefully that would give her some protection later on, but she wasn't sure if they would or not. The island was large and she knew that the Shadow King was stretching himself these days, controlling many people and not having a proper host body to provide his true being and play host to his psionic energy.

Touch wood, she could keep the enemy at bay for some time, and it was a large island after all. A plan started to form in her mind and she smiled as she went further in to the tropical forest.

The team has set off sometime ago and Lydia was looking through the data that had been supplied by Pete through Kitty in regards to the traitor. It was down to her to get the information they had been looking for and she wondered if it would be easy enough to do. She was still not fully fit, which was why she wasn't with the team. Her active duty assessment was due in a few days and she needed the exercise to get up to speed.

To get the files she needed she would have to go the United Kingdom, which wasn't too far away. If the team could get to Greece from their current locale in a about thirty minutes, then her going to England wouldn't be that difficult. She filed a report to the medical section, requesting leave on health grounds and she knew they wouldn't refuse and she started to get ready to go. By the time she had packed and changed she had the authorisation she needed and she was on her way.

As she travelled she made a telephone call, as she knew that she wouldn't be able to go where she wanted without some help. Even her SHIELD credentials wouldn't open the doors she wanted, but a member of the club would. She made the appointment and would be seen by Brian Braddock, Member of Parliament for Critchley East.

"Welcome to Greece," said Maverick as the carrier landed on a small airstrip just outside of Saint Andalucia. "Let's go." The team gathered their gear and exited the aircraft to the tarmac below.

"So what do you want us to do, boss?" asked Raven, and Maverick shivered at that. He still wasn't used to the role of leader, except this was their second mission with him in charge.

"First thing we have to do is make sure the rumours are correct," said North. "Not that I'm doubting it, but how much force we use will be justified by the enemy we're fighting."

"Do any of you know anyone in Greece?" asked Kitty. "I don't but I figured it might be helpful."

"Not me," said Raven.

"Nope," said Terry.

"Same here," said David. "So we're on our own here. Did you get anything from your net searches?"

"Pulled a few references to the group," said Kitty, "but not a great deal. If we had a lot, we'd have been after them a while ago."

"Figures, the kind of luck we've been having with searches of late," sighed North.

"Maverick," said Terry, "over there." The team looked across the runway to see a man in a SHIELD uniform coming over. This was a UN airstrip, so it wasn't like he was conspicuous by the blue suit as if he were in the middle of Athens. "That must be Taggart." Taggart was their contact in Greece, the man whose section had called in the rumour, and more to the point the man who'd found out about it.

"Captain Taggart," said Maverick.

"Commander North," said Taggart, taking his hand. "And this must be the rest of X-Force."

"Lieutenants Pryde, North and Rourke," introduced Maverick.

"I read the reports of the work you did in Madripoor and co-ordinating the work in September. Very good work."

"We do what we can, Captain. That's why we're here. So the Death's Head Commandos?"

"Of course," said Taggart. "Please follow me across to our war room. It's not quite the Helicarrier, but it's good enough for our needs." Soon they were sitting in a small amphitheatre, with Captain Taggart in the middle of the room.

"As you'll have read in your files, there have been an amount of thefts of specialist equipment in the last few weeks, and SHIELD were called in to investigate. What we found scared the hell out of me, and my team." He pressed a button on a small keypad and a mountain range came on the screen, with one of them highlighted in red. "This is Mount Flaska, in the Kalymnos mountain range. Nothing very spectacular about it, other than the cave of the bottom of it, called by the locals the Cavern of the Nymphs."

In the backs of their minds, everyone heard Pete's voice chiming in about how he liked the sound of it already, but they repressed their smiles.

"Isn't there a set of springs that have low level radiation nearby?" asked Kitty. "I did a paper on it when I was at the Xavier Institute, though it wasn't that then."

"Yes," said Taggart. "There are."

"Could be a source of their powers, or a factor in the cause then," said Kitty.

"The waters are supposedly healing ones," said Taggart.

"I was taught to never discount the affects of radiation," said Kitty. "Even small doses alter genetic structures in ways that are too subtle to comprehend. I theorised that the healing effects of the water were in fact some small way of mutating the body and imbue it with a healing factor of some kind, but the doses of the water that were applied were not enough to sustain the effect for the long term, but it was also potential enough to mean that the x-factor gene was active now and there'd be a greater possibility of mutant children from people exposed to the water."

"Sound like one heck of a paper," said Taggart. "I wouldn't mind reading it."

"Did it work?" asked Terry.

"No," said Kitty.

"Did what work?" asked North, missing the point and beginning to wonder if having two Xavier affiliates was as good a thing as he'd once thought.

"A free trip to Greece, courtesy of Professor Xavier," the girls said.

"Ah," said North. "Figures."

"It was worth a try," replied Kitty. "And I got a B for it, so I was pleased with that."

"Okay," said Taggart, with a smile. "Back to the Cave." He pressed a button and the cave was brought up. "Myself and my partner James Tsang went to investigate as there had been a lead there and we found the cave was closed. This is a major tourist attraction on the island, and to have it closed was very strange. What we found was that the cave had been altered and it was now the entrance to a tunnel network that led down to series of caverns, and that it was the preparation area army being formed down there."

"How many were there in there?" Raven said.

"Ten," said Taggart. "Not much, but still too many. Normally two SHIELD agents can get away from ten people easily enough but these were special. They seemed to know what we were doing and did not have the limitations we did, as if they were flying. I only just got away. James did not, and they found his body floating in the Med a few hours ago. I was hoping he was alive, but..."

"I understand," said Maverick. "We've just lost one of our own as well, so we do know."

"Thank you," said Taggart. "I sent my report to the Colonel at the Helicarrier, and he put the pieces together from what I'd seen."

"Any connection you know of to Hydra?" asked Siryn.

"Not that we're aware of, except in the historical sense," said Taggart. "Why?"

"Just thinkin' out loud," said Terry.

"I see," said Taggart. "However, whoever they're affiliated with, the last time the Death's Head Commando's appeared, a lot of good men were killed before they were stopped. Our mission is to prevent that from happening again."

"Kalymnos, here we come," said Maverick. With luck this would be a simple search and destroy mission, however the team knew very well exactly who they were doing this for - and it wasn't SHIELD.

Jessica was hidden in the forest, waiting for whomever was after her. There was a distinct lack of noise out there, and she knew the helicopter had flown over head and not landed. That could have meant they parachuted down to the island, but the craft had been too low for that and so she was unsure of what was going on. Perhaps it hadn't been a Hydra ship anyway, just a tourist thing. The island they'd been held on seemed to be populated enough, and if the islands were like this, then it was a safe bet there were tourists about.

She had to admire the brass of it from Hydra's viewpoint, for who would have looked for a set of terrorists in a place populated by holiday makers, on the islands for sun, sea and sand. It played well in to public perceptions that terrorists lived in caves or backwater places, hidden from the world by their desolate natures. It was the same as if they were mutants - that they could be living next door to you, but whereas most mutants were not interested in anything other than living, terrorists were interested in the cause.

It gave her a shiver, as coming from London, she was no stranger to terrorist activities. The Irish Republican Army and the ilk had been terrorising the UK for a long time, and though that had stopped for the most part, there were elements that did not want peace, and those people had lived next door to her friends and family. Yes she had spent a long time away from the UK, living in America and Madripoor, but it still affected her.

"Jessica!" shouted a voice, shaking her from her thoughts on terrorists. She stayed silent, just in case. "JESSICA!" the voice shouted again.

"Pete?" she muttered. "What the hell?" His legs were numb, he'd said so himself and he hadn't been able to free himself from the chains, except he'd had a plan for her escape, so what if he a plan for his own? Was it a trap? She couldn't be sure and the voice called her name again. "Damn," she said. There wasn't a great deal she could do to determine whether or not he was on his own, if he was being forced to do this. If it was a trap it was clever, because there was an attraction between the two of them, she had felt it. He was handsome in a rugged kind of way, and from what he said he smoked and drank one hell of a lot, which she could get behind herself, living in Madripoor for that amount of time. She sighed, and made the choice.

"Over here!" she called, standing up. If push came to shove, she could take him out and he'd never know what had hit him.

"Jessica!" he said, his voice distant, but closer than it had been before.

"Pete," she said, standing her ground and soon he came in sight. She could see he was limping a little, as his legs were still not as well as they had been. He was beaten and bruised as well, and he looked as if he'd been in the fight of his life. "What happened?" she said hurrying over to him, her concern for him over-riding her better judgement.

"The guards weren't too happy with me over your escape the other day."

"Other day?" she said, wondering how long she'd been unconscious.

"Yeah, and the Shadow King took over three of them to beat the truth out of me. I've been beaten by experts before and these pillocks weren't even close."

"How'd you escape?" she said, looking at him.

"Helicopter," he said. "The guards thought it'd be easier to beat me if I wasn't hung in the air and they could kick me a bit, and cut me down. I guess their boss wasn't in charge at that point. After a while and the feeling was back in my legs enough. I made a break for it, and there was one leaving. I grabbed hold of it and I knew they were looking for you."

"Seems a little easy," she said.

"Easier to say than do," he answered. "I used my hot knives to get down to the island from the chopper. Guess they don't train them as well as they used to." At that point he fell towards her and she caught him. "Though I could do with the rest right now."

"God, look at you," she said, as she helped him to the floor. "You've taken worse than this."

"I'll tell you about my fight with Colossus another time," he said, closing his eyes. "Oh, bloody hell, this hurts. Guess I've no adrenaline left."

"Oh, Pete," she said, and looked at him. "Thank God, you've no idea how bad I felt about leaving you."

"Even after the kiss?" he said, and she flushed a little.

"It seemed the right thing to do, in the circumstances."

"Like this?" he said, and pulled her down towards him, their lips meeting again.

"I thought you were tired," she said after they broke the clinch.

"I suddenly feel better," he said, pulling her closer, and they kissed again, rolling on the floor in their passion.

"We should... be looking for... shelter," she panted between kisses.

"Later," said Pete and Jessica suddenly realised she was underneath him and he was pressing down on her.

"Pete, no," she said. "We need to get out of here."

"Don't know that concept," he said, pinning her down, and Jessica realised she was in trouble.

"Get off me," she said.

"After I'm done," said Pete, his hot knives flaring and melting the chains around her arms and she shouted out as the molten metal seared her flesh. With that amount of pain she knew she couldn't fight him off, and he knew it as well as he let go off her arms, reaching down and tearing off the shreds of clothes she had, ripping her panties from her body.

"Please," she said, pleading with him, as she felt him pressing against her thigh. She'd been abused many times before, but she'd never been physically raped.

"If it's any consolation," said Farouk, "he doesn't want to do this and he's fighting me like a demon."

"Oh, God," she said, realising it wasn't really Pete. She should have remembered he didn't have access to his powers and the error had cost her dearly.

"See, you're getting in to this already," said The Shadow King, kissing her neck, as he parted her legs. "Time for baby to take her medicine."