New Mexico,
Location Unspecified.

"What is the meaning of this, Essex?!" Ororo Munroe, co-leader of the X-Men as Storm, demanded as she struggled against the techno-organic tendrils that confined her.

"I should be asking you the same, Ms. Munroe," Nathaniel Essex, the revered Mister Sinister, countered with a scowl on his face and acid on his tongue. "You and your teammates were the ones who infiltrated my labyrinth, after all."

"Your labyrinth?" Bobby Drake, also Iceman, said in disbelief. "There was a teleportation signature from Helena Weaver's apartment that led us here."

Sinister glanced away from Storm and over his shoulder towards Iceman, pausing for a moment as he realized what had happened. He could tell that the rest of the X-Men were already beginning to put it together as well.

"You're workin' with Weaver and the Byron Agency, aren't ya, Sinny?" Marie Charleston, the incorrigible Rogue, spat as she strained against her restraints. "Ya sonuva bitch!"

"Don't you see, Rogue?" Storm spoke up, the first to fully understand. "Sinister is Weaver!"

"He's the one who ambushed us back at Emma's old school!" Wolverine, otherwise known simply as Logan, barked out suddenly. He gritted his teeth, exposing his sharp canines, and he growled lowly, "I remember now..."

"The weakening of your healing factor an all too intimate sensation, Wolverine?" Sinister asked with a wicked smile as he turned to and slowly approached the X-Man, an eyebrow quirked up suggestively. "Familiar is the horrified and frightening sense of mortality?"

Wolverine flung his weight towards Sinister and pulled at his organic restraints madly, causing Sinister to flinch slightly. The restraints didn't give, though, and Sinister knew that they wouldn't, but that didn't stop Wolverine from struggling against them with all of the strength and defiance that he could muster.

"I'm gonna rip off your head and shit down your throat when I get outta here, Essex!" he snarled. Sinister swiftly closed the space between them and grabbed Wolverine by his jaw, applying enough pressuring with his thumb and index to force Logan's mouth open.

"And I'm going to have to cut out that nasty tongue of yours this time," Sinister remarked as he twisted Wolverine's head to the side, narrowing his beady glowing red eyes on the X-Man. He cocked his head to the side with a malign curiosity. "If I put it in a jar, do you think - based on the nature of your healing factor - that the tissue would wither away and die, or grow until a whole new you appeared?"

Emphasizing his point, Sinister shot his hand into Wolverine's mouth and clenched a hold on his tongue, slowly yet firmly rolling it out of his mouth for a closer inspection of the muscular tissue. "Perhaps with the right stimulus..."

Though Wolverine tried to clench his jaw shut, he was no match for Sinister's exceptional strength, especially in his current state. A suppressed groan of pain began to gurgle in the back of Wolverine's throat as Sinister used his might to slowly tear the X-Man's tongue from his mouth, but a voice stopped him.

"Enough of this, Essex!" Storm shouted, catching his attention. "This only a misunderstanding. If we had knew that this was your lair..."

"You would have brought more of your comrades," Sinister finished her sentence. He released his grip on Wolverine's tongue and slowly tapped a finger on the side of the X-Man's face, apparently deep in thought for a moment. Finally, he pushed Wolverine's head to the side and walked away from him, looking to Storm. "Yes... I believe you..."

"Then release us so that we can talk this over calmly, rationally," Storm said, her eyes narrowed onto Sinister. The scientist grinned widely, not out of humble obedience or amusement, but out of his own cleverness.

"As you wish, Ms. Munroe," Sinister said with a slight bow. He snapped his finger and the slack in the tendrils holding up the X-Men loosened gradually, lowering them all to the floor of the control room slowly. "Better?"

Storm touched feet to the floor and the tendrils unraveled from her limbs, slithering back into the walls surrounding them all. She took hold of her wrist with a hand and massaged it gently, her eyes still narrowed onto Sinister.

"Quite better," she deadpanned. "Thank you."

It was then, when the X-Men were free, that the sound of metal sliding against metal and flesh tearing echoed behind Sinister.

*SNIKT!*

"You're dead now, Essex!" Wolverine growled, clenching his fists and pointing a finger at Sinister. The exit wounds left by his adamantium claws were bleeding profusely, signifying that his healing factor hadn't yet returned to him, but he didn't care.

"Hey-ey, chill out, man!" Iceman said suddenly, rushing to Wolverine's side.

"Now ain't the time, sugah," Rogue insisted as she did the same, holding her hands out in front of her to block him. Neither Iceman or Rogue could stop Wolverine in their current states, but they needed him calm during the situation at hand.

Sinister, unimpressed, rose a brow as he watched Iceman and Rogue usher Wolverine out of the doorway on the other side of the room leading into a corridor outside. He looked back to Storm and that same sportive grin returned.

"You'll understand if I choose not to return the abilities of you and your teammates just right, I take it?" Sinister asked, but Storm didn't dignify the question with a response. He put a hand to her shoulder and then gestured towards the doorway leading into a corridor opposite of the one her teammates excited, cocking his head to the side as the two began to leave the room. "Please, Ms. Munroe. Walk with me, talk with me..."

Not far away...

"Okay, let's sit down and figure this all out," Iceman said as he and his two teammates stopped walking a ways down the corridor outside of the control room, distancing themselves from Storm and Sinister as they talked. "I think we're all in agreement that Sinister's working for or with the Byron Agency, yeah?"

"The blue tendrils, the energy blasts, the power negating..." Wolverine nodded his head with fury in his eyes as he bit his lip. "Memory was all fuzzy for a while there, but now I'm sure Sinister was the one who ambushed us back at Frost's old academy."

"But let's get real," Rogue interjected. "Essex ain't the type to work for anyone but himself, even back when he was Poccy's wannabe minion."

"Yeah. I bet he's getting, was getting, or already got somethin' out of their partnership," Iceman suggested, furrowing his brow and crossing his arms. He looked to Wolverine. "If the Byron Agency let you guys escape so easily, then it was probably M..."

"He must have been the one to turn her and her sisters into those monsters," Wolverine deduced, still clenching his fists. He loosened up his hands and finally retracted his claws, a small pool of blood gathering at his feet. "Why them instead of Sam, Jubilee, Domino, or me? It don't make any sense..."

"Maybe it has to do with their bloodline or genes," Rogue thought out loud, putting her hands on her hips and curling her lip to the side. "Nicole and Claudette were able to impersonate M for the longest time, right? They must all be similar enough for Essex and the Byron Agency to manipulate the same way..."

"And now Sinister and the Byron Agency have themselves not one, but three mutant weapons of mass destruction," Wolverine concluded, shaking his head. "We can't let those girls be used like that."

"There's just one thing I don't get, though. The reason why we're here, actually," Iceman spoke up. "Val Cooper said that when the President woke up from his coma he accused Weaver-slash-Sinister of being the one responsible, but what would Sinister get out of screwing with politics like that?"

"And was the President wakin' up just Sinister's shitty luck or did the Byron Agency turn on him?" Wolverine asked, looking from Iceman to Rogue. "Get what they want from him, manipulate Kelly into office for whatever reason, and then stick Sinister with the bill?"

"Gah, my head's startin' to hurt," Rogue sighed and began rubbing her hands over her face. "Ah mean, all this makes sense and everything, but how can we know for sure? We could have it all ass-backwards."

"You're right..." Wolverine said, looking down the corridor back towards the control room. "Just gotta wait until 'Ro and Essex get done with their little chat, I guess."

Washington, D.C.,
Back at the White House.

"I'll be speaking with you again soon, Mr. President," Val said, waving as she began to take her leave from the Oval Office.

"Thank you, Val," President Kelly called back sincerely, sitting back down and collecting the paperwork before him. "Have a nice evening."

As Val began to walk out, a light on the intercom on the President's desk lit up and a beeping noise sounded. President Kelly pressed a button on the intercom.

"Go ahead," he said as he began to look over the agency briefings before him.

{{ Call for you on line one, Mr. President, }} President Kelly's secretary relayed on the intercom. {{ It's Ambassador St. Croix. He says it's important. }}

"Put him through, Lisa," President Kelly said casually, pressing a button on the phone base next to the intercom and turning on the speaker phone. "Cartier?"

{{ What have you done with my children, you son of a bitch?! }} the voice of Cartier St. Croix raged on the speaker phone. Val couldn't help but stop at the door on her way out and turn around suddenly, her attention piqued.

"Calm down, Cartier," President Kelly said with a somewhat nervous laugh, his eyes shifting side to side.  "What are you talking about?"

{{ You know damn well what I'm talking about, Robert! }} Ambassador St. Croix shouted, cursing even. {{ You and your Byron Agency -- ! }}

President Kelly hit a button on the base of his phone, silencing Ambassador St. Croix's furious rant. He couldn't help but look up to Val, who was standing at the doorway with a startled but inquisitive expression on her face, but he quickly looked away and picked up the phone and put it to his ear.

"Why don't you just calm down and tell me what's happened?" President Kelly suggested.

{{ I received a phone call from a man calling himself Agent Hodges, saying that Nicole and Claudette arrived at this 'school' in Nebraska safely, }} Ambassador St. Croix explained, tried to remain calm. It wasn't working and his level of frustration merely shot up again as he recounted the story. {{ But that was weeks ago! My children never contacted me, not even an e-mail or a letter, and the number he left me was disconnected! }}

"I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for this, Cartier," President Kelly tried to reassure the Algerian ambassador, but it wasn't enough to reassure himself. "Why don't you come by the White House and we can talk this over rationally, quietly?"

{{ The local police, the FBI, not even your goddamned Secret Service have ever heard of this supposed school in Nebraska, Robert! And now, with all of these things I'm hearing about the Byron Agency in Europe...! }} Ambassador St. Croix shouted over the phone. President Kelly heard the ambassador groan and sigh, exhausted. {{ I'm done playing these games. If I don't have my children back by the end of the night I'm going to the media and blowing this all wide open. Goodbye, Mr. President. }}

"Cartier...!" President Kelly yelled, but the line went dead. He slammed the phone down and began fuming. "Damnit," the President cursed, clenching a fist. He was lost in his thoughts for a moment, but then his head shot up suddenly and he looked to the door where Val had been standing only moments ago.

The door was open and she was gone.

President Kelly jumped out of his seat and hit the button on his intercom back, calling his secretary. "Lisa!" he yelled urgently. "Alert White House security and tell them not to let Val Cooper leave the premises! Have her escorted back to me NOW!"

"As you and your teammates have discerned, I've been working with the Byron Agency under the guise of Helena Weaver," Sinister admitted, though not without having to correct himself. "Well, I should say that I was working with the Byron Agency. Helena has since been relieved of her duties."

"Whatever you and them did to the President was undone by them," Storm deduced as they walked down a vast maze of corridors. Sinister was leading the way by a foot step. "Then they double-crossed you when they were finished with you."

"Quite the contrary, Ms. Munroe," Sinister answered, proudly. "I betrayed them when I was finished with them. Still believing that I was Helena Weaver, they woke the President up so that he could identify me as his attacker and then, I assume, they attempted to assassinate me by bombing Helena's apartment."

"Do you believe that they were trying to lay the responsibility of the conspiracy totally on you, then murder you so that there would be no leads back to them?" Storm suggested, a brow raised inquisitively.

"Precisely," Sinister remarked.

"Why are you telling me this?" Storm demanded of him, unable to discern his motives.

"Because I need you and the X-Men to help me, Ms. Munroe," Sinister answered matter-of-factly. "You owe me, after all. If it wasn't for me, your teammates would have never been freed from their imprisonment at the hands of the Byron Agency."

"You were the one who freed them?!" Storm said in shock, never breaking eye contact with Sinister as they walked.

"I was contacted one evening while "at work" as Weaver and told that Wolverine was awakening and freeing himself from one of his cells," Sinister confirmed with a modest, sure nod as they continued to walk through the corridors of his labyrinth. "He freed your teammates and they had fought their way through the complex in an attempt to escape, so I instructed Sean Cassidy to experiment on your friends with our newest weapon.

"You should be a thankful, however," he continued. "The attempt at an experiment was merely a ruse, though I must admit that my master pieces were quite proficient in their pursuit of your teammates. I teleported your teammates out of the Byron Agency's complex just as our newest weapons were about to deliver the killing blow, essentially freeing them after I was finished with them."

The two grew quiet as they continued down the corridor, eventually coming to the end of it and into a large laboratory of sorts. Storm didn't like those last few words, but she knew it was how Sinister and the Byron Agency saw her teammates; as guinea pigs and as a means to an end. Sinister took delight in this.

"I also attempted to teleport the weapons I helped manufacture for the Byron Agency out as well and at first I thought that I did, but the Byron Agency had safeguards in place that I was unaware of," Sinister broke the silence, his lips twisting into a hardened frown. "I was unable to bring them back to one of my labs as I originally planned."

"Them," Storm parroted, decoding Sinister's ambiguities as they came to a stop at the end of the room, near a walling lining several stasis tubes. "Monet and her sisters. You turned them into these 'weapons' you speak of, didn't you?"

"Not exactly," Sinister countered mischievously. He pressed a button on the bottom side of his gloved forearm, causing the four stasis tubes that they stopped before to light up. Four female bodies appeared within them, completely nude, and with various cables and instruments attached to their sleeping forms.

"Goddess," Storm gasped at the sight of the young girls in stasis tubes alongside the real Helena Weaver.

"As you can see, Monet, Nicole, and Claudette are actually here with me," Sinister explained, looking over the stasis forms with a twisted sense of admiration. "They, like your teammates, were able to be teleported out of the Byron Agency's complex and returned to me, where they rest alongside the authentic Helena Weaver. The weapons? They are merely genetically engineered and altered clones of the St. Croix sisters."

Stormed turned her head to Sinister and couldn't help but clench her fists in anger. "This is madness, Essex! You have to free them!"

"Oh, but I will, Ms. Munroe," Sinister said, grinning malevolently as he turned his attention back to Storm, narrowing his eyes. "On one condition..."

Later...
The New Mexico Desert, USA.

The Blackbird jet was soaring through the skies on its way to the destination Cyclops, Phoenix, and Hank McCoy - the brilliant scientist known as the Beast - had tracked their teammates to. Beast was in the pilot's seat, coordinating the flight and the tracking while Cyclops was in the co-pilot's seat with Phoenix standing behind him as they worked on an alternate method of tracking their teammates.

As the horizon began to fade into view of the Blackbird's windsield, Beast saw four tiny figures in the distance below on the sandy desert grounds. He leaned into the windshield and squinted his eyes, then let out a sigh of relief.

"There they are," Beast said, pointing out the windshield of the jet's cockpit and turning to Cyclops and Phoenix. "We've found them."

Cyclops and Phoenix looked away from the computer monitor they were working on and looked out the windshield together, Cyclops sitting in a seat and Phoenix standing behind him and looking over his shoulder. Down below and dozens of yards in the distance, Iceman was sitting on the ground with Wolverine at his side, pointing up at the approaching Blackbird. Rogue was standing a few feet away and Storm was even further down from the group, alone on a sand dune looking in the distance.

"Good job, Hank," Cyclops said, patting his friend on the shoulder. "Okay, take us into hover to let Jean and I out, then find a good spot to land."

"Will do, fearless," Beast replied. Cyclops unbuckled his seat's harness and dropped it to the side, standing up and moving out of the cockpit, Phoenix following suit.

"Hang on for a couple more minutes, guys," Phoenix called out to her friends and teammates telepathically. "Scott and I will be down in a moment."

"Take your time, Jeanie," Wolverine replied through their telepathic connection. "Outta the fryin' pan, not quite in the fire yet, as they say."

Phoenix paused for a moment, not quite understanding what Wolverine was trying to get at. It was then she heard one of the jet's hatches open, blowing wind into the makeshift passenger area of the jet, and she looked up to her husband.

"Let's go," Cyclops said as he stood by the open hatch, nodding his head outside of the jet. Phoenix moved to his side and took hold of both of their bodies telekinetically, using her powers to lower them both the sandy grounds below.

Wolverine put a hand to his forehead, trying his best to block the sun from his visage as he looked away from the Blackbird to his two teammates descending from the hatch. Iceman sat up from the ground and began dusting himself and Rogue approached from a few feet away, where she had taken a moment to herself.

"Is everyone alright?" Phoenix asked as Cyclops and her hit the ground running, heading for their teammates.

"Right as Ann Coulter," Iceman quipped as he dusted the last of the sand off of his street clothes. Wolverine glared at him. "What? It sounded funny in my head."

Cyclops shook his head and ignored the two, looking to Rogue for a serious answer. "What happened?"

Rogue took a deep breath and turned her attention towards a sand dune in the distance where Storm stood, lethargically facing a sunset on the horizon and hugging her bosom. The wind was caressing her lengthy white hair and whipping it up into the air behind her shoulders. Rogue turned back to Cyclops and sighed.

"Ah think 'Ro just made a deal with the Devil himself..."

TO BE CONCLUDED...