Washington, DC.

After going through various security check points after the helicopter landed on the front lawn of the White House, Cartier St. Croix, the distinguished ambassador from Algeria, finally walked into the Oval Office and saw President Robert Kelly behind his desk with his aide, the stunningly beautiful Helena Weaver close by.

The President gestured to the two secret service agents standing on the opposite end of the office, "Could you give us a moment alone?"

One of the suited men nodded silently as he checked his earpiece and led his partner just outside the infamous presidential workroom. Helena suspiciously glared at the two agents as they exited. Her emerald stare soon fixated on the ambassador as he grabbed a seat in front of the President's desk.

Cartier smiled slightly, never having fully congratulated his old friend for his new position, "So, my friend...what's with the urgent secret meeting?"

"Do you want to tell us exactly what that money was for?" Helena asked as she inquisitively arched her left eyebrow. "The money we saw you exchange with the President months ago? Well, before he was President, but still."

The Algerian man cracked a smile with a wrinkled dimple in his cheek, "I...don't know what you're talking about, Miss..." Cartier uneasily exchanged a glance with the former senator now commander-in-chief.

"Weaver," Helena responded before the 44th president could answer.

Robert raised his hands, "How did you know about that, first of all?" He ignored Cartier's visible opposition to having their cover blown and said as he looked directly at Helena, "Your job may depend on it, so speak up, lady."

"There's very little I don't know, Mr. President," Helena said. "I keep my ears close to the ground. It's all necessary. We don't want you to catch whatever George caught."

Robert finally spoke up as he turned to Cartier, "We aren't meeting because of the money. That's not what this is about." He looked at his aide and back at his old friend, "You can tell her."

Cartier rested his fist on his chin and nodded, "Well...the money was to ensure protection for my daughters, Nicole and Claudette, as they attended the Massachusetts Academy. Since Robert was a Massachusetts senator...and I didn't really care for the other guy...Ted Kennedy is it...? I offered a substantial amount of money to better protect them as they got their education here in America."

"The Massachusetts Academy has been shut down for a considerable amount of time," Helena said. "I have...informants who have stated the headmasters disbanded the school. And what of your eldest daughter?"

Cartier's countenance suddenly slumped and became emotionless.

Kelly scratched the back of his head, "I thought you said the money was just to protect Monet? I...thought you just had one daughter?"

Cartier grimaced as he shot a penetrating stare at his old friend, "What was all the rumors going on about you legalizing government sanctioned Sentinels? I gave you specific requests to protect my daughter from this blasted redneck-infested country and you do this to me...!? I fronted the cash as to not waste American tax dollars!"

"Well, I guess there's a little something each of us wasn't telling the other," Robert growled. "Tell us about your daughters."

Helena smiled, "Yes, let's."

Newark, New Jersey.

"I have a feeling something isn't right here…" Phoenix said as she telekinetically probed the last inch of the abandoned recycling plant, finding nothing. "I'm not finding any kind of entrance here to any sort of lower levels.“

“Cerebro still can’t pick up any of our teammates’ thought patterns,” Beast added as he moved about the dank and cold building slowly, keeping an eye on the screen of his portable Cerebro. “On top of that, this is only the apparent building for miles…”
"They could have been brought here and killed the moment they were captured," Storm dared to say, hesitantly and somberly, as she looked over the empty halls and stripped machinery. "Goddess, let's hope that isn't the case..."
 
"No, we were definitely played," Cyclops spat. He balled up a fist and slammed the side of it against a nearby, metal support beam, resulting in a loud bang that echoed throughout the entire building. "Emma was right," he said through gritted teeth. "We're in over our heads. Sean... he knows our weaknesses and has been playing off of them this entire time."
 
"Whoever has the Protocols can do just that, Scott," Beast stated as he approached Cyclops from behind. "We can't assume it's Banshee in particular trying to manipulate us. It could be anyone in the Byron Agency."

"So what now?" Rogue asked as she joined up with the four of them, almost as frustrated as Cyclops. "If this joint ain't bein' used as a front for th' Byron Agency's 'secret lair,' what other leads do we have?"
 
Cyclops began to pace about the room as the others pondered the question. They could go back to Massachusetts and pummel their captives some more before SHIELD arrived, but they had wasted enough time flying to New Jersey. For all they knew, Storm was right - their teammates were dead at the hands of the Byron Agency.

"What if I try to sift through the thoughts of everyone else back at Emma's?" Phoenix wondered aloud, gaining the attention of her teammates. "It would take some time, especially if there's been psychic suggestions implanted in all of them like there was Toad, but maybe we can try to narrow it down some more?"
 
"If the Byron Agency really is a legitimate force in the United States, then someone in the nation's government has to know something useful about it," Storm speculated, trying her best to think outside the box. "Why not just link up to the Cerebro unit in the Blackbird and read the minds of everyone in Washington, Jean? Rogue's absorbed her fair share of telepaths in the past. I'm sure she can help you."
 
"That's really not a bad idea at all, now that you mention it," Phoenix said, impressed by the X-Men's co-leader's plan. "I say we give it a shot."

"Are you sure you two are up for it?" Beast interjected, raising a brow and turning to Rogue. "You're not as skilled as someone like Jean or Emma, Rogue. I could only imagine that doing what Ororo’s suggesting... it could definitely tax the body and mind."

"Ah'm up for it if Jean's up for it," Rogue said with a shrug, looking Phoenix's way. The redheaded X-Woman nodded back to Rogue, who then said, "Let's do it."

"Alright then. Just don't push yourselves too much, ladies," Cyclops said sternly as he thought over the magnitude of what they were about to attempt. "While you're at it, we might even be able to find out what happened with the President. See if it really was 'mutant related' like the news has been saying..."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Phoenix said and Cyclops, Storm, and Beast spread out amongst themselves, giving the women their space to work. Phoenix turned to Rogue with a raised brow and asked of her fellow X-Woman, "Are you ready?"

"As ever," Rogue replied with the crack of her knuckles. Phoenix was the first to close her eyes, expanding her thoughts out to reach for the Cerebro unit on the Blackbird, and Rogue soon after closed her eyes, following her lead.

Sparkling pink psionic energy began to seep out of the pores of Phoenix's body, and in a similar fashion green psionic energy began to spill out of Rogue's. They began to rise from the floor of the recycling plant as the psionic energies sped and swirled around the two of them faster and faster, their minds linking together in a psychic rapport and reaching out together for those in Washington, D.C...

Cartier took a sip of brandy from the glass that Robert provided him. He sighed as he continued, "Monet was special. I knew she was a mutant like her mother. She was different. It seemed her abilities...were endless. One day, she could uproot trees, the next, she was flying unassisted, reading minds, running at superspeed."

"It isn't totally uncommon for mutants to have more than one ability," Helena said as she stood with her arms crossed, looking ominously out the window. She shifted her weight to the side and shook her hair out of her eyes, "Are you saying her powers were finite, or seemed to...manifest themselves on an as-needed basis? Like she was evolving?"

Cartier became weary of Helena's constant prodding. Robert seemed to notice it, as well, but he also seemed eager for the answers as much as his aide. Cartier continued regardless, "My eldest son, Marius, also seemed to have these abilities, but...there was something wrong. He was flawed. Whatever he had, it wasn't what Monet had. He killed her trying to attain her perfection; fed on her...and became something...hideous in the process. A wraith, feeding on mutants...we lost touch with him. There was nothing we could really do about it."

"And your younger daughters?" Kelly wondered.

Cartier smiled with a sense of irony, not happiness, "Monet was sort of a familial poster child of the St. Croix legacy. They saw and realized this...and they became her in order to cover up what happened to Marius. They actually merged together and fully became everything that their sister was...and is."

"And you think Nicole and Claudette have the same potential as Monet did?" Helena wondered. "I'm no geneticist like Dr. Moira MacTaggart, but it seems whatever powers they inherited from their mother, it was through the mitochondrial DNA of the female egg, as opposed to the sperm. That's why Marius had imperfections."

"Well, yes," Cartier said as he took another sip of the brandy, "and usually, the male passes on the mutant gene, but in the case of my wife already having it, my children subsequently inherited her mutant genes."

"Where are they now?" Helena wondered. "Or...she? She's still one person, correct?"

Cartier shook his head, "They've been separated. They were attending the Xavier Institute. I originally sent her to the Massachusetts Academy because I knew Xavier's people would be able to contain her if she ended up like Marius instead of Monet."

"You realize that Xavier's people, the X-Men, are outlaws?" President Kelly asked. "Could you really trust them with your daughter? Especially since they basically sent her...or THEM back to you...broken?"

"Perhaps," Cartier nodded. "But Xavier was a man of ideals. He worked closely with your government, before you were even elected to your state legislature, Robert."

"Well, Fred Duncan, Charles Xavier, and people of that 'carefree pre-9/11 era' aren't here anymore," Helena said. "The X-Men were always balanced by Xavier's wisdom. Now, they're quite possibly more dangerous than the Genoshans. And they're living among us!"

"Is this an argument of the mutant problem, Genosha, or the X-Men?!" Cartier spat. "Make up your minds!"

"This isn't some kind of military investigation, Cartier!" Robert shouted. "This is just me and you. Old friends talking. Nothing more."

"Bullshit!" Cartier growled. "This is Washington! Nixon had recordings everywhere!!"

"You're the one who isn't giving us a straight answer!" Helena exclaimed. "Where are they? Back home in Algeria?"

"What does it matter?!" Cartier demanded.

"It matters because I don't think you should be criticizing America for legalizing Sentinels again if your daughter or daughters aren't even directly affected by it," President Kelly explained.

"So, what is this...?" Cartier wondered as he flailed his arms in the air, "You're saying my daughters are banned from this country? They cannot get the education and protection they deserve?"

"No," Helena spoke up, "the twins are more than welcome to continue their education here in America. Our government has...many secret agencies dealing with situations such as this. Situations you don't want the public to know about. Such as...your eldest son and daughter?"

"What agency would that be?" Cartier wondered with suspicion.

"The Byron Agency," Helena said matter of factly. "They'd be completely cared for."

Cartier rubbed his chin in deep thought as Robert arched an uneasy eyebrow in the direction of Ms. Weaver. She exerted an unnecessary influence that he did not find to be comfortable, especially during his administration's infancy.

Cartier finished the rest of the liquor in his glass and with tired eyes responded, "Fine. Let's see what we can negotiate."

Helena silently exited the Oval Office and pulled out her cell phone. She dialed a series of numbers in sequence. When the ring tone picked up, she uttered, "Agent Cassidy, please."

"Argh," Rogue grunted in frustration. The bright pink and green psionic energies swirling around both her and Phoenix started to dissipate as the two lowered themselves back down to the floor. She shook her head as they touched down and said, "Not t' knock your skills, Jeanie, but ah think this is just about impossible."

"Eh... I wouldn't say impossible, but it sure is taking a long time," Phoenix confessed, rubbing the tension out of the back of her neck. "D.C. either has a lot of psychic activity or there's just too many psi-blockers in the air blanketing the area."

"I wouldn't doubt the latter a single bit, D.C. being the nation's capital and all," Beast commented as he finished typing in a series of commands into his handheld computer. "However, I do think I could come up with a way to use Cerebro to penetrate such psi-dampeners if they really are causing so much trouble."

"What did you have in mind, Henry?" Storm asked as she approached Beast, who bounded off of the machinery he was perched upon.
 
"A half hour or so of research using the Blackbird's onboard computer, I could analyze a similar sample of a psionic dampening device - Magneto's helmet, specifically - and find its weak points," Beast explained, pointing at a diagram of Magneto's helmet on the screen of his handheld computer. Storm folded her arms over her bosom and nodded her head, sincerely considering what the good doctor was suggesting.

"Then, all we would need to do is hack into the city's power grid and shut everything down," Beast continued confidently, making hand gestures the entire time as to illustrate his point. "That should give us enough time to break through the psionic dampeners and telepathically scan the city. With any luck, we should be able to find some person who knows the exact location of the Byron Agency's headquarters."

Phoenix glanced over at Rogue, who in turn glanced back at Phoenix. The two fell into a mixture of chuckling and giggling as they walked to Beast's side, Phoenix patting him on his right shoulder and Rogue hugging his left arm.
 
"Great plan, sugah," Rogue said as she shook Beast heartily, still half-giggling to herself. She added enthusiastically, "Ingenious, really!"

"I loved every bit of it, Hank," Phoenix said with the warmest of smiles. "It's just that in the time you were explaining it we had already contacted Emma telepathically, who had been spending the last hour peeling back layers and layers of subliminal messages in Toad's mind and found the real location."

"They're in Cedar Creek, Nebraska," Rogue added as she released her grip on Beast and gave him a playful smile. Beast slumped his shoulders down and hung his head low, mock-frowning to himself at the news.

"Do'h," was all he muttered in response.

"But can we really trust Emma?" Storm broke in, her demeanor and tone the complete opposite of Rogue and Phoenix's. "If I recall correctly, you couldn't properly read her mind, Jean. What makes you think she's telling you two the truth?"

Rogue and Beast fell silent at Storm's words, glancing at each other knowingly. Storm had an obvious distaste for Emma Frost and for good reason, as did many of the X-Men, however Phoenix seemed to believe her.

"Well, I'm not saying we should give her the keys to the Xavier Institute or anything like that," Phoenix said with a shrug as she looked the other woman in the eyes, unmoved. "But after everything in Massachusetts, I think we can trust her with at least helping to bring down the Byron Agency."

Storm was about to say something else in response, but Cyclops finally stepped forward and caught her attention. He had been hanging back since Phoenix and Rogue began telepathically searching through the minds of Washington, D.C. but there wasn't much time and he wasn't going to leave anything up for debate.

"If you trust her then that's all I need to hear," Cyclops said as looked at his watch, then snapped his fingers and pointed for the abandoned recycling center's exit. "Let's head out, team. We can probably make it to Nebraska within the hour."
 
Phoenix nodded to her husband and began to move for the exit with Beast. Storm hadn't been so quick to head for the Blackbird and she eyed Cyclops for a moment. It was one thing for him to trust the opinion of his wife, but the Phoenix and him were estranged for so long. Storm had thought that the things she had gone through with him made them closer, not just as co-leaders but more...

Apparently she was wrong.

"C'mon," Cyclops said to Storm gently and he nodded for the exit, explaining to her, "We don't need to waste any more time then we have." Storm sighed to herself and the two began for the exit, but a member of the team caught their attention.

"Wait up a moment, gang," Rogue spoke up and everyone turned around to face her before leaving. She closed her eyes and grinned mischievously as she began to concentrate on finding the right persona in her mind. "Ah think ah've got an idea better then using the Blackbird to get where we're goin'..."

In the center of an undisclosed location, there lay what appeared to be a break room of sorts - or perhaps a make-shift cafeteria - brightly lit by humming fluorescent lights. The room was made up mostly of about several sets of tables and chairs, bulletin boards on the walls painted with memos and reports, the occasional plant, and an array of vending machines lining the nearby wall.

And in the center of this room, a tiny, pinkish-purple tear in reality appeared. The tear began to grow larger and larger, forming that of a portal. Its colors became more and more brilliant the bigger it became, the multiple hues and colors swirling about the vortex. The portal cackled with energy as it reached its climax, seven feet tall and fifteen feet wide, and it was X-Men who stepped out of it.

Cyclops, Storm, and Phoenix seemed more or less unmoved, albeit a little unsettled from the experience. Beast and Rogue, however..

"Ahem," Beast cleared his throat as he regained his simian-like composure, his brow stiff and his yellow pupils scanning the room they just entered. His advanced senses were the most effected by the experience. "Never do I speak in the slightest offense to a lady, Marie, but uh... I'll take Cable's bodysliding over that any day..."
 
"Hate t' say it, being my portal an' all, but ah think that goes double for me..." Rogue confessed through dry heaves. She turned away from her teammates and took a few steps to the corner of the room, trying desperately to swallow back the lump in her throat. She couldn't fight it, though, and in moments she was on all four, vomiting.

"Always a great way to start an infiltration mission," Cyclops mused as he put his hands on his hips, squinting behind his visor in a mix of empathy and disgust for his vomiting teammate. "You going to be okay?"

"I think her physiology isn't used to using Blink's powers in the way she just did," Beast presumed as Storm knelt down behind Rogue and gently massaged the woman's back. "Mutant bodies are generally built to suit their powers, after all."

"Don't worry 'bout me, gang," Rogue abruptly said with a groan as she took Storm's hand and stood up on wobbling legs, wiping away a bit of upchuck from her lips with the sleeve of her uniform. "Ah should uh... be hundred-percent in a moment..."

"Take your time," Phoenix recommended as her eyes peered around the room, tiny flames sparking to life in the recesses of her irises as she concentrated. "Unless everyone's wearing a psionic dampener, this place seems relatively deserted..."

From the three entrances of the break room, dozens and dozens of armed men and women in gray and black jumpsuits flooded into the room. Each of them wore padded body armor and full face helmets, the eyepieces tinted black, and held large assault rifles. The X-Men were surrounded in moments as some of the fell to their knees in firing stances and others position themselves being those on their knees.

"You were saying?" Storm asked of Phoenix as the rest of the X-Men spread out as best as they could, her eyes narrowing on what seemed to be the Byron Agency’s security force. Phoenix shrugged her shoulders and bounced her head side to side.

Almost in unison, every armed guard pulled the triggers on their assault rifles and the guns each let out a resounding 'click,' but that was all. Some guards frantically tried pulling their triggers again, while others worriedly checked their safeties and magazines. Only the four other X-Men suspected it was their redheaded telekinetic teammate, Phoenix, who froze the firing mechanisms of their potential assailants' guns.

"Launch me, mudcakes!" Beast quipped as he leapt into the arms of his Southern teammate. Rogue had already tapped into the super-human powers of Carol Danvers, the former Ms. Marvel, and used the woman's extraordinary strength to throw her teammate into the nearest group of guards.

In this instance, the two's patented "Fastball Special" had a sort of bowling ball to bowling pins effect - with Beast colliding into the nearest group of guards and those guards being flung in all directions as if they were rag dolls.

Cyclops rushed forward to the nearest guard, jerking the rifle by its barrel from the armored man's grip and then slamming the butt of the rifle across his jaw. The guard fell to the ground and Cyclops dropped the man's gun to the ground, twisting around to face two guards charging him with batons in their hands. He instinctively fired a wide and thin optic blast at the flanking group of guards, forcing them back into another set of approaching guards.

Phoenix and Storm took a less… physical approach to the task at hand. Phoenix had gripped all of the nearby guards that she could telekinetically and repelled them into the with enough force to at least stun them and at the most knock them unconscious. Storm had given herself a safe distance from the nearby guards to launch bolt after bolt of electricity from her hands, using just enough voltage to subdue them.

With the combination of optic blasts, thunder bolts, brawling, and telekinetic force, the five X-Men had decimated their attackers in short time. The break room was left in tatters in their wake, tables and chairs shattered, vending machines battered and broken, and a mess of it all littering the floor amongst the fallen guards.

“Piece o’ cake,” Rogue said as she dusted her hands of the Byron Agency’s security force. Though she wasn’t quite the brawler she was when her powers were centralized around Ms. Marvel’s, she had become quite adept at using the powers inside her mental catalogue - most particular the physical strength of others.

"There's likely more where these guys came from," Cyclops said as he surveyed the various unconscious, or otherwise incapacitated, members of the Byron Agency security force. "We need to get to work - on the double."

"Not if I've anything to say about it, boyo," a familiar voice caught the X-Men off guard. However, before the five of them could turn around to face their new opponent, a horrid wail pierced their eardrums and drove their equilibrium off-balance.

The team of X-Men all collapsed to the ground immediately, crying out in pain and groaning loudly. Beast in particular let out an agonizing growl, his sense of hearing being the most advanced of the five. Even Phoenix was thrown to her knees in pain, gripping and covering her bleeding ears.

"Sean..." Storm groaned as he looked up to the screaming Irishman, who hovered in the room's next   . He wore a faded black, winter trench coat over a black suit with a white dress shirt and black tie.          

All around the team the armed guards - somehow unaffected by the former Banshee's cry, likely due to something in their helmets - began to groggily rise from their prone positions and pick up their rifles. Cyclops knew that the guards would be on the five of them in moments, but he could barely concentrate on standing.

"I've got a solid read on his mind," Phoenix was finally able to tell her four teammates through a psi-web spread out amongst them. She was trying to block out their pain receptors as well, but establishing the psi-links was hard enough with her concentration thrown. "Something's definitely wrong with his alpha waves.."

"He's being brainwashed?" Storm deduced, almost hopefully.
 
"That's just it..." Phoenix said reluctantly. "He isn't. Sean seems like the same person he‘s always been…"

"Forget about that now," Cyclops said firmly, trying to concentrate on his thoughts and fight the urge to lose consciousness. "Jean, I want you to forget about the rest of us - even yourself - and just focus on blocking out Rogue's pain receptors."

"I know what you're thinking, Scott, but what if...?" Phoenix started to ask, but she trailed off as she sensed Rogue about to speak up.

"Ah got it covered, Jeanie," Rogue said through the team's psi-web and she tried her hardest to concentrate in preparation for Cyclops's plan. "It might be our only chance."

While the conversation would have taken several minutes to take place if they were discussing the situation verbally, telepathically their thoughts and plans of action raced back and forth between each other in a matter of seconds. Phoenix focused on using her telepathic and telekinetic powers to adjust Rogue's

Rogue's eyes shot open as her pain receptors were turned off and a sense of clarity returned to her senses. Her eyes fell shut again, as she had to act quickly, and her body suddenly disappeared in a puff of black and purple smoke. Sean's sonic attack came to an abrupt halt as he saw Rogue vanish before his very eyes. Those same eyes grew wide in surprise, until what had happened occured to him.

Sean frantically spun around on the heel of his shoe as he realized what had just happened, but a similar puff of smoke and the stench of brimstone was already in his face, the teleportation effect's BAMF! sound piercing his ears.

"Too slow, sugah," Rogue said as she reached out of the smoke and grabbed Sean's face with her bare hands. Sean tried to expel a sonic boom from his throat to fend off his attacker, but the scream died in his throat as Rogue drained away just enough of his life force to knock him unconscious.

The Irishman fell limp in Rogue's grip. She let out a heavy sigh as the rush of using her powers on Sean subsided and then she dropped his body down to her feet. From there it was important for her to concentrate on sifting through the thoughts and memories of the persona she had just absorbed.

Meanwhile, the rest of the X-Men were up on their feet and back in the fight. The still conscious guards that had approached them were repelled with the telekinetic force of Phoenix, the optic blasts of Cyclops, the thunderbolts of Storm, and the brute strength of Beast, dropping as fast as they had recovered.
 
"Headache for headache, bruises for bruises," Beast mused in a cranky voice as he finished off the last of the guards by slamming his body full on into the wall. "It's poetic... in a Wolverine sort of way..."

Along with the others, Cyclops looked around the large corridors and then to Rogue, having noted what she did to Sean.

"Were you able to absorb anything useful from Sean's psyche?" he asked as he stepped over the slew of fallen guards to reach his teammate's side. Rogue shook her head to herself and turned away from Sean's unconscious form.

"Everything was so vague and fuzzy... ah think he may have had some psychic defenses put in his head to keep us out," Rogue said reluctantly. "Ah can't read his mind t' find anything but recent memories, either. Ah do got us a rough layout of this place, though, includin' where the protocols are bein' held."

"What do you think, Jean?" Storm asked, looking down to Sean with a mix of sorrow and contempt for the man in her eyes. "Can you break his defenses?"

"Depending on how good the person who implanted them was?" Phoenix suggested figuratively, crossing his arms and shifting her weight from one leg to another. "It could take seconds or it could take days. I'd have to get in there to tell you."

"We don't have time for that, anyway. Our main priority right now is to find our teammates and the protocols, then get out," Cyclops spoke up with the shake of his head and then turned his attention back to Rogue. "Marie, telepathically give us the layout information you have on this place so we can go from there."
 
Rogue nodded to the X-Men's leader and closed her eyes, establishing a rapport with her four teammates. Everyone tried their best to relax and open up their minds as to make it easier on her, and in moments the Byron Agency's entire complex was as familiar to them as the Xavier Institute.

"Alright then. Jean, I want you to save your strength and focus on scanning the area telepathically," Cyclops said to say to his wife as he took a collapsible headset out of a pouch on his belt. He motioned it to the rest of the team, emphasizing the next point. "That means no psi-links. Everyone stick to your radios.

"Hank, I want you heading for this communication room the protocols are supposedly in. We can't trust everything that's in Sean's mind, much like with Toad, but we'll give it a shot," Cyclops continued to say and Beast didn't give the order a second thought, bounding off to investigate. "Jean and Ororo, you two check out the cell blocks in the northeast corridors. Marie and I will check out the northwest. Any questions?"

"Did ah ever tell ya what a turn-on it is to have such a commanding an' forthright man in a girl's presence?" Rogue asked playfully as she put her hands on her hips, giving Cyclops a flirtatious wink. "Watch out, Jeanie."

"So not the time to mess with me," Phoenix retorted with an exhausted smirk and Cyclops cleared his throat, hiding back one of his own. "Let's head out."

Dr. Cam Sewkid took off his rounded glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose with his fingertips. The Byron Agency had insisted that the Xavier Protocols be examined twenty-four hours a day every day until they were finally decrypted, but at this rate it could be years before they finally crack the coding installed by some of the finest mutant minds in the world.

“Aaron?” Dr. Sewkid grumbled to his assistant, without looking his way. He simply continued to massage the bridge of his nose before his glasses back on. “Go get me some coffee from the cafeteria, will you?”

“Why do I always have to go for coffee runs?” Aaron T. Jensen asked in a bit of a whining voice as he rolled around in his swivel chair to face Dr. Sewkid. Sewkid let out a sigh and spun around in his swivel chair, his face bloated and red.

“Me doctor, you assistant!” Dr. Sewkid snapped, pointing a thumb to his chest and then his index finger at Aaron. “I say bend over, you promptly ask ‘grab my knees and cough, doctor?!’” Sewkid continued to belittle his assistant, and quite possibly only friend. He narrowed his eyes and pointed for the door. “Now get me some fuckin‘ coffee!”

Aaron hung his head low and frowned to himself as he stood from his chair, all the while secretly plotting the death of Dr. Sewkid in his mind, as his boss turned around and went back to work on decrypting the Xavier Protocols. Slowly but surely the smelly and portly doctor would get his. As Aaron moved for the metallic door and went to scan his keycard so he could get out, a thunderous bang echoed throughout the room.

Before Aaron could even register what was going on, the metallic door collapsed straight down on him, crushing his tall and lanky form. Dr. Sewkid spun around once again and there, weighing down on his assistant computer technician.

“Aaron!” Dr. Sewkid gasped, first noticing the wiggling arms and legs sticking out from underneath the metal door. Then he noticed the simian-like, blur furred man crouched low on the door, and he almost completely lost his own bladder control.

“I believe that doesn’t belong to you, kind sir,” Beast said, nodding towards the briefcase styled laptop behind the man on his console. It had various wires sticking out of it, connected to the room’s main computer, and on the room’s main monitor was a list of the Xavier Protocols’ algorithms and encryptions. “Gimme. Now.”

“DIE, FREAK!!!” Dr. Sewkid roared melodramatically as he reached for a handgun holstered underneath the console he was out. Though fumbling all the while, he quickly whipped out the firearm and let off several rounds at the X-Man. Beast propelled himself through the air at Sewkid and nimbly gripped the wrist holding the gun with one foot, directing it away from himself, and then used a free hand to grip Sewkid’s forehead.

“No! Don’t, please!” Dr. Sewkid pleaded as he fell back against one of the consoles in the corner of the room. Beast slid his foot down Sewkid’s arm, gripped the gun and threw it away, then eased in close to Sewkid’s trembling face, exposing his fangs and narrowing his cyan colored pupils on the defenseless man. “My mom never hugged me! My dad hugged me too much! I don’t deserve to d -- !!”

Dr. Sewkid didn’t have the chance to finish his plea as Beast’s other free hand came down on the side of his neck in a judo-chop fashion, the force of the blow rendering him unconscious. Beast released him from his grip and let him slump down to the floor.

“In the eternal words of Jim Morrison?” Beast asked aloud, rhetorically, with his brow arched and his fur ruffled from the assault. “People are strange, when you’re a stranger…” he said as he turned away from the unconscious computer scientist, leaping for the console Dr. Sewkid had been sitting at just moments ago. “Now, let’s see just what the Byron Agency’s best and brightest has been up to…”

"Shit," Rogue muttered as they ran into the last room at the end the northwest corridors, quickly noticing its stark and empty cells lining the wall. She looked over every corner and sighed. "It doesn't look like they're in here, either."

"This is the only holding area left," Cyclops said, biting his lip and balling up a fist as he looked over the empty cells. "Damnit! They must not be in this complex after all..."

{{ Beast here, }} a voice came into the ears of Cyclops and Rogue over their headsets. Cyclops motioned for Rogue to check the corridors and guard the door of the room, and he dropped to a knee and quickly pressed a button on his headset.

"Tell me something encouraging, Hank," Cyclops said through gritted teeth as Rogue scanned the hallways that had just came in from for security guards.

{{ How does 'I've got the Protocols and the encryptions haven't even been broken yet' sound? }} Beast asked rhetorically from over their headsets. {{ When we get back, remind me name a first born after the resurrected Forge for his ingenuity... }}

"Best news I've heard all day," Cyclops said with a sigh of relief. He turned his attention back to Rogue and nodded to her. "Rogue, get us all back to Newark. We're getting out of here before any more reinforcements arrive."

"Lucky thing ah got nothin' left to puke up..." Rogue muttered under her breath as she closed her eyes and concentrated. A large pink and purple vortex appeared in place of the doorway she was standing at, swirling and flashing with energy. Cyclops stood up from the corner of the room and followed behind Rogue into the portal. It promptly closed behind them.

A moment after the portal closed, Sean Cassidy had flew down the northwest corridors that Cyclops and Rogue had came from on a continuous stream of sonic waves. When he reached the last room, he stopped his scream and dropped to his feet. The doorway had been destroyed and he knew with one glance into the room - at the empty cells - that the captured X-Men were gone. But was it Cyclops’ team?

“Bang up job, Agent Cassidy,” a woman’s voice said from behind Sean. Helena Weaver clapped her hands half-heartedly. “Couldn’t have handled it better myself.”

"Where are they?" Sean demanded as he looked over the empty room and its empty cells. He turned to Helena and yelled, "They were to remain here under my watch!"

"Well, I’ve changed my mind," Helena growled matter-of-factly. "Tell me why I shouldn’t have? You lost the Protocols and let Emma Frost - of all people - slip through our hands! And for what reason did your Agency let her go? You never filled me in, that‘s for sure!”

“Damnit, Weaver!” Sean cursed and he balled up one hand into fist and pointed a finger in the face. “This isn’t jus’ some game ye can play! Not with th‘ Byron Agency and not with me!”

“I thought your Agency was more then capable of dealing with the X-Men?” Helena asked patronizingly, narrowing her green eyes on the Irishman‘s. “With all of the resources at your disposal, you couldn’t even keep Summers’ team from breaking into this complex’s cafeteria, let alone keep them from leaving it!”

“They surprised even me…” Sean replied, lowering his voice and unclenching his fists. “It won’t happen again. I can guarantee it to you.”
 
“I don't think I can trust you and your Agency at the moment,” Helena said, shaking her head and turning around. Before she walked out of the room, she said to Sean, “You'll just have to work harder to earn it all back."

With that she walked out of the room, her resources and connections, as well as Penance, going with her. The Byron Agency did indeed have a lot of power and influence the world over, but there was one thing they wanted from Helena Weaver and there was nothing they could do to get it besides go along with what she had in mind.

Sean Cassidy just hoped that the night’s failure hadn’t meant everything him and the Byron Agency had fought to accomplish.

The Xavier Institute.

Ever since SHIELD had arrived in Massachusetts and they had taken the Aurora back to the mansion, Bobby Drake and Emma Frost had found that they had been talking the whole night. It’s true that there had once been a certain tension between them - him openly being jealous of her limitless skills with his powers and her secretly jealous of the potential power he had that eclipsed even hers.

They had once gotten past that, though, and even found that they could have quite a time together despite their different backgrounds and views on life. Emma had gotten herself involved in some morally ambiguous activities once more and Bobby had resented her, much like the other X-Men did, for the things she was involved in and for their consequences. But unlike the others, Bobby had found his resentment quickly fading as he spent more time with her, much like it had faded after their first feud.

Since returning to the mansion, the two had found themselves in the briefing room waiting for Scott’s team to return, just talking and laughing… mostly about the stupidest things, or so Emma had observed… over drinks. A few hours had passed until the rest of the X-Men had returned.

At the doorway of the briefing room, the two metallic doors slid open with the sound of depressurizing air - a bellowing hiss. Hank McCoy, followed by Scott Summers and his wife, Jean-Grey Summers, walked into the room in full uniform. They had radioed ahead and said they were on their way back, but they made no mention of what had went down. Whether it was to keep the Byron Agency from intercepting their transmission or because the team was just too depressed to talk about it, Bobby and Emma didn’t know.

"What happened?" Bobby asked, concerned as he watched his three teammates and longest friends drag themselves into the briefing room. “What’s the story?”

“To put it simply?” Hank replied, defeat in his voice. “We suck.”

“Ororo’s checking on Marie in the medical bay, but it’s just a precaution after she had a side-effect to using Blink’s powers,” Jean said tiredly as she made her way to the briefing table, taking a seat and leaning into the table on her elbows. “We don’t know if the rest of the team were being held the same complex we were in or not.”

Emma appeared more distant then usual upon hearing what Jean had to say, and she reached for the flask her and Bobby had been sharing that night. As she took a drink, she watched Hank cross the room with a briefcase in hand. She squinted a bit from the stinging in the back of her throat, but swallowed back hard and asked with a risen brow, "And are those the Protocols?"

"Yeah," Hank said as he set the briefcase down on the briefing room's table. He then took a seat before the briefcase and popped open the locks, lifting the briefcase open. "After all of this time, they were just now breaking the encryptions and safeguards Professor Xavier, Moira, and Forge installed. It doesn‘t seem like they got much, though."

"I see..." Emma said as her eyes fixated on the suitcase that held the greatest and most proficient study of - as well as the deadliest and most unique weapon to - mutantkind the world over. "All's well that ends well, I suppose."

"I wouldn't quite put it that way," Jean countered, garnering a sharp glare from Emma. Jean, having noted Emma's curiosity with the Xavier Protocols, gave the former White Queen an even sharper, knowing glare. Before she could say anything else, the War Room's automated doors slid open and the X-Men's leader walked in.

"Debriefing time, gang," Scott announced tiredly as he approached the head of the briefing table, breaking the on-again off-again tension between Jean and Emma. He turned his attention to Bobby and Emma, nodding at them quietly. "What happened with that odd-ball strike team the Byron Agency sent after us?"

"The three of them that mattered were taken into custody by SHIELD a couple of hours after you guys left," Bobby replied, a bit more hesitantly as he continued. "After Emma scanned their minds, we uh... we decided to let Synch and Skin go..."

"While I didn't even try to step foot back in Deadpool's mind, reading Taskmaster and the others wasn't such the chore, despite all of the layers of psychic suggestions," Emma explained as she crossed her legs and leaned back into her chair. "None of them were particularly good for information on the Byron Agency."

"At the very least, was anything found in their minds good for understanding their motivations behind working for the Byron Agency?" Jean asked from the other end of the table, to which Bobby nodded his head firmly.

"Yeah. Like it turns out Toad was found an amnesiac by Sean and them after he broke out of some prison hospital," Bobby replied and he jabbed his thumb in the direction of the bombshell of a platinum blonde sitting at his side. "Emma says they convinced the guy into thinking he was a 'Special Ops' agent of theirs."

"Right. And naturally, Deadpool and Taskmaster were simply working for them out of greed," Emma added to Bobby's statement, not entirely impressed - nor surprised - at that particular revelation. "Taskmaster was paid a large sum of money to come out of retirement for this mission, but not Deadpool. He just seemed very obsessed with selling all of the X-Men's carcasses on eBay..."

"I think they may have tricked his ass into working for them," Bobby added with a sure and confident nod. "I mean, the guy is insane... and kinda stupid..."

"Okay, so what about Synch and Skin again?" Scott asked, digressing back to the point Bobby brought up at the beginning of the conversation. "You said you let them go. Were you ever able to find out what was up with them before that?"

"They were totally oblivious to the Byron Agency's true nature, man," Bobby answered in their defense, shaking his head with a tense brow. "Believe it or not, it seems Sean hired them to work for him as 'interns' or somethin' crazy like that."

"Everette was always a bright child, but he just couldn't pay for college on his own," Emma elaborated as Scott turned his attention to her. "Angelo wasn't favoring life in the Barrio like he used to, so they went to Sean for help," she continued to say, pausing before quietly adding, "Sean... he used them..."

"Yeah. So I uh... I suggested to Emma that we mind-wipe them and drop them back off at their old homes..." Bobby interjected, hesitantly, and much to the surprise of Scott. Before he could say anything, Bobby quickly continued to explain to him and everyone else in the room, "They were victims of circumstances and betrayal, man. We couldn't just let them throw their lives away because of that."

"Sure Emma's not just rubbing off on you, Bobb-o?" Hank asked with a bit of a suggestive and playful grin, though his eyes narrowed onto him precariously.

"Heh, oh yeah," Bobby snickered as he elbowed Emma lightly and shot her a quick, flirtatious wink. "She wishes..."

"You're so naughty," Emma pretended to observe and she flexed her fingers at him as if they were claws, scratching at the air between the two of them. "Hiss."

"Rawr," Bobby snapped in a high pitched voice, his nose scrunching up like the kind of puppy he imitated, warranting a lively chuckle from his partner in crime for the evening. Everyone else simply rolled their eyes, some on the edge of losing what little patience they had left that evening.