X-Force.

How that named goaded him, goaded him for many years since it was first created by the freedom fighter Cable, and he knew well enough that one man's freedom fighter was another man's terrorist. The Commission for Superhuman Activities had been formed with people like him in mind, specially appointed to operate under the direct command of the President of the United States and that has been charged with the task of supervising America's so-called "superhuman resources," or, in other words, American citizens possessing superhuman powers. Mutants were a high priority.

X-Force were one of many groups who took on their role with a zealous disregard for anyone, and had done more to alert him to how ineffective the CSA ahd become than anyone else, because they could not stop them. From the battle with the Juggernaut, to the assassination attempt on Charles Xavier, to breaking Cyclops out of the SHIELD Helicarrier, they did what they did without a care for the consequences and other groups had followed suit, taking them as an example of what needed to be done.

The original X-Force was dead and gone, but this new one was more of a danger than it had ever been. It was sanctioned, it operated with the blessing of the law and it got away with murder. The destruction in Madripoor, the havoc created a few months back, the sheer lawlessness with which they operated as law enforcement agents... they were in essence everything he hated and what made it worse was they were state sponsored mutants. SHIELD was using them, in a vain effort to bring them good publicity. Even the new Director was a mutant, though a well connected one.

He had never liked Forge. The arrogance of the man was masked by his humility, but he knew he was smarter than any of them in the room, and he could see it when he saw Forge's eyes. However his cleverness would be his undoing as now they had SHIELD technology to work with. The motorcycles that X-Force had brought with them would give him access to SHIELD in a way he had not gotten before. X-Force had made it possible and it gave him a measure of satisfaction. X-Force was as doomed to fail as the initiatives the CSA had put in place.

There had been many such projects - Freedom Force, Project Wideawake, X-Factor, but none of them had ever truly worked because they had never been allowed to use the full extent of their powers due to the lack of leadership from the Commander in Chief. The Mutant Registration Act had been a significant win, but that had been all it was. They were to take direct action against any super-human that was a threat to national security, but it had become limited, full of bureaucracy, and he had had enough. Operation Zero: Tolerance had done more damage to the CSA than any other organisation - formed to do what the CSA had been unable to do, it had gone too far and Senator Robert Kelly had shut them down, and so the CSA's operational procedures had been curbed so that it never happened again.

America needed clearing of these attitudes and those who supported them, and then an actual state they could make the system work.. The Avengers were useless, their rota and politics changed as often as the wind and the Fantastic Four were more a nuisance than a help. However there was a long way to go and he had done more in the last few months than the CSA had done in the years since Zero: Tolerance, but they'd been too good and they'd attracted attention. They were too good at what they did and the CSA were starting to look bad forcing them to go to SHIELD and they'd sent in Pete Wisdom and his strike-force and Wisdom was like a dog with a bone - he just wouldn't leave it alone. When the CSA had been first set up, he had met him, and the encounter had left everyone involved with a bad taste in their mouths. X-Force was what Wisdom had made them and he had created a monster.

He had watched as Wisdom had crashed the building and killed anyone he saw standing, swiftly followed by Shadowcat and Maverick of X-Force. His disregard for life was astonishing but that was nothing new. His body count numbered in to the hundreds. Wisdom was nothing more than a murderer with a badge, but his sledgehammer techniques were effective against those who were unprepared. The last time they'd met, they'd almost taken him out because he'd under-estimated them, but this time he knew what to expect and he was ready, though how they found him he would have to find out. That surprise had cost him lives but he had reacted instantly and watched as X-Force were attacked by the reinforcements and they almost had them, but then they vanished from the monitors and he slammed his fist down on the console. Wisdom had momentarily eluded him, but he would not get far.

"We have them, sir," said a voice as he watched the monitors. "They're in sector eight, in one of the storage rooms."

"Take them out," he said. "Ensure that this time they don't escape."

"Yes sir," said the voice.

Wisdom had been the rookie agent they had sent over to assist in setting up Project Wideawke, with his senior partner Scratch.. Shaw Industries had been involved in the construction of the sentinels, but Black Air had provided invaluable data at the start up, however they had an ulterior motive - they didn't want the American's to go too far in what they did and there were flaws that had allowed a security breach. Someone had hacked in and caused the sentinels to malfunction and the CSA had been forced to use the auto-destruct and the project was set back. It had been restated, but their were doubts in the minds of people and Robert Kelly had ensured that the mistakes that had been made before were not made again. Politics had meant that it had never lived to it's potential, but that was the story of the CSA all over.

Wisdom had ensured that the CSA had become limited and now he was free of their limits he had returned to haunt him. Even the threat on his sister's life didn't deter him, and he knew that Joseph Chapman had made a mistake in doing that. His pride had gotten injured when Wisdom had threatened him in the British Hellfire Club and Chapman had ordered him to deal with Wisdom in whatever way they could. If Wisdom ever found out, there would be real hellfire at the club, but that was his problem now. X-Force was trapped in their lair, three against three hundred and this time X-Force would not defeat him. He would look Wisdom in the eye before he gained a measure of revenge that had been years in the making. It galled him that they had ever met in the first place, but the National Security Advisors had needed help in creating an organisation like the CSA and the British had experience in that. Black Air were the only group that they could deal with and they had given them documents, information and other things culled from the other official groups that the British used.

First their was STRIKE, which was supposedly like SHIELD, but it had been destroyed by the crime lord Vixen, infiltrated from within and broken as an example to what could happen if an organisation became complacent, but it had been a lesson that had never been learnt as from the ashes of that organisation had come Black Air, a more sinister organisation whose exact origins were unknown, but it had been formed in a time when the United Kingdom had been under siege and there were no organisations to deal with it. The reasons behind the siege were classified, and those who knew the full story were few and far between, as somehow a mass amnesia had been placed across the country as a side-effect of what had happened. Even his current sponsors could not tell him what had happened and they had been there at the time.

There were two groups formed by the UK government- the Resources Control Executive and Weird Happenings Organisation, in an effort to deal with the issue of super-humans and mysterious goings on. While WHO was the public agency seen to be dealing with superhuman forces, RCX was a far more secretive agency but Black Air had been formed first and outside of any political concerns, backed by a mystery sponsor, and were as beyond secret as the RCX were beyond public. In fact Black Air had operatives in both organisations and contributed to the downfall of both.

With the fall of Alysdane Stuart, the Weird Happenings Organisation was discredited - thanks to the machinations of Black Air, and the RCX had absorbed them in to itself, and they had grown too big, too quickly and they saw an empire where there was none. The RCX had fallen because it went too far. They had taken on Excalibur before they were ready to do so, and they had been destroyed. WHO had returned, but they were never in control as Black Air had started to emerge in to the public domain, showing that they were the only credible alternative and they had the evidence to prove it. They had the backing of the Hellfire Club, they had helped the United States set up the CSA and they had enough power to become have global influence. But Black Air too had been undone. The Hellfire Club that had set them up failed them when they went too far, and it had brought them down.

Wisdom had been in that as well, starting to become a team-player in Xavier's ever expanding army. He had turned on Black Air and along with the other members of Excalibur they had taken down the Hellfire Club and Black Air. Ironically it had been that act that had made all this possible, because the new Hellfire Club made sure that they were players in the great conflict as they had seen what rogue super-powers could do. Each of them had lost something to it and they wanted to make sure that it did not happen again, but even now they were all cursed through Wisdom. He was a plague on all their houses and he watched as the strike team surrounded the room they had trapped the SHIELD agents in and they opened the door, only to be met by three of their own. It caused them all to pause a moment and then he realised that it was a weapons locker and that they were X-Force.

"TAKE THEM DOWN!" he ordered, but before they could do anything X-Force attacked, one of them wielding a chainsaw and hacking away at the agents in the room, as the others fired energy weapons. The moment's paused gave them an advantage and they were taking it and he could see anger reflected in the image of his face in the camera. It meant he was going to have to make some hard choices but these were the things he was not afraid to do, things that his former superiors had been. He looked at the men in the corridor and pressed the armour commands, freezing them all in place. Wisdom and Maverick were also frozen, but Shadowcat phased herself free as Maverick used his powers to break free. However he was ready for that and gas filled the corridor and in moments they were down. That just left Wisdom, frozen and trapped in place. He could see the armour rocking as he tried to get free and he allowed himself a smile as he ordered the Mandroids in to take care of them. They operated on a different frequency to the guardsmen suits - just in case. He put his own suit on and went up to ensure that X-Force were taken in to custody.

He walked out of the main office and looked at the holding cells, where they had many captured meta-humans and room for many more. Far beneath the streets of New York, where nobody would ever consider looking - that was where they were. The complex proper extended for several miles and he walked out where his people were working on the rehabilitation of the prisoners. Mind control techniques, shock therapy and in extreme cases experimentation and surgery to ensure they did not use their abilities to a detrimental effect. The bleeding hearts had never allowed such things to happen before, but it needed to happen in progress was to be made. They would save the world one way or another and he took the elevator to the fourth level where X-Force had been subjected to a neutralisation shot, taking their powers down. Wisdom had already been shot with a bullet designed to do that and he looked at him, seeing his eyes through the armour.

"Take the mask off," he ordered and one of his people did so, releasing him, to see a sweat filled brow, and eyes of anger. "We meet again, Mr Wisdom. I said you were shoddy in your work."

"Don't count on it," said Wisdom. "I have you right where I want you."

"Of course you do," he answered with a chuckle. "Your friends are out, the rest of your team is 3,000 miles away, you're trapped in a suit of armour and you have no powers."

"Exactly as planned. Where's Romany?"

"Safe, for now," he said. "While such practises are distasteful, they were necessary. A shame you did not take the hint."

"You cut her finger off," said Wisdom. "When I get out of here, you're a dead man. You and everyone in this complex."

"Take him away for processing," he replied, shaking his head. "Let him rant his delusions in a cell. He might make an excellent porter."

"Yer mine, asshole!" cried Wisdom as a Mandroid took him away. "I'll fucking have you!" He watched as Wisdom was taken away and then he looked at the other two. At least he had some respect for these two - they were professionals.

"Their powers?"

"Neutralised, sir."

"Good," he answered. "I think they need to see exactly what the cause they're fighting is. I think that given a reason they'll join us, as our cause is fundamentally theirs. They just lack control."

"Is that wise, sir?" asked one of the lieutenants. "I know of them, they're loyal to a cause."

"So were you, Mr Jones," he said. "It didn't stop Forge from firing you."

"There'll be payback for that," said Gabe Jones, making sure they were bound properly before the medics administered something to wake them up.

"Mr North, Miss Pryde," said the leader as he looked at them as they opened their eyes. "I'm sorry it has to be this way, but you've left me with very little choice."

"Where's Pete?" Pryde demanded.

"He's no concern," he answered. "Not now, not ever again. However you two are very important and I want to offer you a deal."

"Not a chance," said North. "Take your offer and stick it."

"Follow me," he said and two Mandroids pushed them forward and he escorted them down to the lower levels, where they went across the walkways. "As you can see, this facility is prepared to deal with any rebellious nature that you may have."

"This is barbaric," said North, fighting to restrain himself, remembering things like this from his days at Weapon X. "You cannot seriously think you'll get away with this?"

"We have for months," he replied. "Nobody's missed these people, and it's a lot more effective than the Vault. Anyone can just waltz in there..."

"What's the deal then?" asked Pryde. "We join you, or become test-subjects?"

"Something like that," he replied. "You see, with your help I would have access not only to SHIELD, but to the greatest single threat to the security of the planet - the X-Men."

"You want the X-Men?" said North.

"I want all mutants," he replied. "Tagged, numbered, whatever. I want to ensure that the clear and present danger they pose is nullified. Once the X-Men are taken and conditioned, then the rest of the mutant population of this country will follow suit. "

"You're mad," said Pryde. "You'll never get away with this."

"That is as it may be," he said, "however you'll forgive me if I try anyway. As I understand it, the X-Men are fragmented, and the only active team are those in Australia. Since the death of Xavier, they have fallen apart and the activities have become more violent, more protracted and I will see it end."

"It never ends," said North. "You'll not stop the tide, you can only put measures in place to control the damage."

"Impossible is not a word I believe in," he said. "The situation will be contained. A decision?"

"You'll have to break us before we work for you," said North, defiantly.

"And I'll die before I betray my family," said Pryde.

"I see," he said. "In that case..." But before he could finish speaking Maverick shoulder charged the Mandroid covering Pryde, who moved towards him. He took a step back as she leapt up and kicked him sending him sprawling to the floor and his mask went hurtling away, but before she could anything else the other Mandroid subdued her.

"Damn you," he said, picking himself up and he could see the shock on the SHIELD agent's faces as they saw him. "I don't know what's going on out there but you've seen too much. Kill them." North shook his head, as he heard the hum of the energy weapons powering up.

"I'll see you in Hell," but the rest of his comment was drowned out as alarms blared across the complex...