Then.

"Hey there, 'Ro," Cannonball called out from across the brightly lit, sterile room.

"Hello, Sam," Storm said as she walked into the medical bay, nodding to both him and the woman in the bed beside him. "Beatrice."

"Yo," Domino waved.

"Ya had us worried there for a bit," Cannonball teased. "Lorna told us about you guys gettin' trapped in Sinister's lair and him impersonating that Helena Weaver lady and all. Crazy."

"Thank you for your concern, Sam," Storm said as she looked around the medical bay. There were two empty beds directly across from Domino and Cannonball, as well as a fifth bed in the corner of the room surrounded by curtains. That struck her as odd. "I see Rachel, but where's Jared and Allison?"

"Oh. Henry and Jean took Allison off to Muir Island so that Dr. MacTaggert can take a look at her and try to figure out something with that split-personality thing," "Jared's still not in the best shape, but he went with her to keep her comany."

"I see..." Storm said. Domino's brow furrowed.

"Hey, you're Scott's co-leader, aren't you?" she asked suddenly, causing Storm to cock her head to the side curiously. Domino pointed a thumb in Dr. Reyes's direction and frowned, annoyed. "Wanna do us a favor and tell the good doctor here to give us our clean bill of health so we can get back to active duty?"

"Gah, will you stop with that already?" Dr. Reyes chimed in, rolling her eyes as she jammed a needle into Cannonball's bear behind. "Co-leader or not, the actual leader told you guys to stay in bed for observations for the next couple of days. Logan was given a pass on account of his healing factor, but you won't be as lucky."

Domino bobbed her head side to side on her shoulders, using her hand to make a frantic yammering imitation. She grunted and rolled back onto her side, back to Cannonball and Reyes, facing a magazine. "Muties & Ammo."

The itchy white bed sheets, the bright fluorescent lights, the constant humming of all of the equipment, Cyclops being too cheap to wire cable to the medical bay... It was all starting to get under her skin and now she had to get a daily check-up from her least favorite former teammate in the Exiles.

Suffice to say, it had only been a couple of months and being an X-Man sucked.

"Are you really in that much of a hurry, Beatrice?" Storm asked as she sat down in a chair beside Domino's bed, hunching over the arm and resting her chin in her hand. "You've been through a lot recently. The riots in Washington, Nate's ascension, being captured by Sean and the Byron Agency..."

"Meh," Domino sighed and flipped her magazine shut, looking up to Storm and sitting up again. "I only joined the X-Men because I thought it was what Nate would have wanted, but aside from the D.C. thing I don't really feel like I'm making any kind of difference here. To be honest, I think I'm gonna call it quits."

"Aww, Dom..." Cannonball groaned from his bed. Storm and Domino turned their attention to him just as Dr. Reyes shoved another needle into his rear, causing him to flinch and yelp in pain. "Ow!"

"Oh, stop being such a baby," Dr. Reyes said, annoyed, as she injected the last dosage and tossed the needle on a metal table. "Drawers up," she said and patted Cannonball on the his pastey white hiney. He rubbed himself and pulled up his boxers irritably. "Lots of vitamins means lots of recovery, which means clown-face over there can stop whining and get back to breaking necks with her thighs and shooting stuff or whatever it is that she does."

Domino shook her head and looked back to Storm. "Yeah, see what we put up with down here?" Storm held back a slight smile. "Anyway, once Reyes is sure we don't have any crazy infections or weird bladder disorders from all that experimenting and captivity we were put through, I think I'll be jetting."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Storm replied sincerely. She looked up to Dr. Reyes as she began packing up her medical bay and preparing to leave. "What about you, Cecilia? Have you finally taken up Scott's offer to become the X-Men's full time physician?"

"Not only no, but hell no," Dr. Reyes said rather flippantly as she finished packing her bag and moved out from around Cannonball's bed, passing by Storm. "In fact, I think this will be one of the the last times I come through. Charity work's getting old," she said and with a wave she continued on her way out. "Cianara. I'll call you guys with the blood results later."

The three watched as Dr. Reyes left, then Storm and Cannonball turned their attention back to Domino. Domino wrinkled her nose

"So yeah, just sayin' that this X-Men gig wasn't what I thought it'd be," Domino explained with a bit of a casual shrug. "It's not that I'm THAT big of an action junkie, but it'd be cool if I actually got to do something meaningful besides get captured and lay around sick bay."

Storm considered Domino's words for a moment, nodding to herself slowly. "That's actually the reason why I came down here," she revealed. "I wanted to know if the two of you would join us on a mission. It's... a rather sticky one, considering."

"How so?" Cannonball pressed, arching a brow.

"In short, I made a deal with Sinister," Storm said simply.

"Ah," Domino remarked understandingly. She nodded and shrugged, a somewhat repulsed look developing on her face. "Been there, done that."

"When'd you ever do that?" Cannonball asked, taken aback. He shot a look from Domino to Storm, then back to Domino. "And what'd he have you do exactly?"

"Wanted me to jack a fetus from a hospital," Domino said, unmoved. Storm and Cannonball's eyes widened out of a mix of disgust and surprise, the looks on their faces alone demanding an explanation. Domino cleared her throat. "Y'know... an important fetus..."

Storm rubbed the tension out of her forehead and shook her head slightly. She cocked her to the side and asked, "Well... how would you like to be apart of another deal with Sinister?"

Now.

*BAMF!* came the sound of air exploding in the restaurant where Ambassador St. Croix was observing a quaint fireplace not a half hour ago. Smoke and brimstone accompanied the sound and movement in air, and in the center of it all Rogue appeared.

"What the..." Rogue trailed off, startled by what she saw upon return. Weapon Buddha's neck was gurgling as a bubble of sorts grew larger and larger at its center. If she didn't know better, she would say that the construct was still alive and that its head was reforming on its shoulder that very moment.

"Rogue!" a voice called out, drawing her attention. She saw Trish Tilby, nursing a bleeding arm, stumble into the room.

"Trish?!" Rogue barked, taken aback. A realization dawned upon her. "You're the reporter Ambassador St. Croix was meeting with?"

"How did you know?" Trish asked, coming to a stop up to Rogue.

"Uh, it's a long story," Rogue said, scratching the back of her head. "You heard about the incident with the Byron Agency and S.H.I.E.L.D. in Europe, right?" Trish nodded, so Rogue explained as vaguely as possible. "Keepin' it short, we got a tip from somebody that St. Croix was gonna spill a bunch of info on President Kelly's involvement in all that and that he was gonna be assassinated by these things before he could."

"I - I don't even know what to say about that!" Trish stammered, unable to wrap her mind around Rogue's story. She had too many questions, but now wasn't the time and she could only get out two. "Where's Cartier now? Is he alright?"

"Yeah, you remember my ol' teammate Sam Guthrie, right?" Rogue asked. Trish nodded again quickly. "Well, he's guardin' Cartier in the jet right now, but Ah don't have time to take you to him. You really need to get outta here, sugah, 'cuz this is about to get ugly!"

"Where do I go?"

"Bobby's got this whole block cornered off with ice..." Rogue said, more to herself in consideration than as a statement of the obvious. "Storm and Wolvie got most of the civilians out of the way and Ah got Cariter, but uh..." Rogue looked back down to Weapon Buddha as it began to stir and the bulb on its neck grew larger, a sudden sense of urgency growing in the pit of Rogue's stomach. She looked to Trish. "Ah can't leave this thing just yet so Ah think you're screwed. Just run and find somewhere that looks reasonably safe and we'll come back for ya! Go on, sugah! Run!"

Trish shook her head, turned, and muttered something under her breath before taking off into a sprint across the restaurant. The bulb on Weapon Buddha's neck suddenly exploded and her head reappeared, prompting Rogue to clench her fist and access the powers of her one time teammate, Colossus, which transformed her skin into organic metal. Wepaon Buddha sat up slowly and looked up to Rogue, then narrowed its eyes.

The X-Woman never saw its next movement coming.

"OOF!" Rogue grunted as Weapon Buddha drove her through the remainder of the restaurant's wall with an uncanny ease. Weapon Buddha released her and ascended further into the air, leaving Rogue underneath the rubble as it entered the battle in the city streets outside of the restaurant between the X-Men and its two little sisters.

"Rogue's back!" Iceman yelled over the sounds of battle cries, fierce winds, and gunshots. "By the looks of it, so's that Weapon Buddha thing, too!"

Storm shot a look towards Iceman as she attempted to outmaneuver Weapon Sangha through the air, noticing that her teammate was right. Iceman brought his ice bridge around the street and shot towards Rogue's assailant, narrowly avoiding a hail of energy blasts along the way, as he confronted the genetic construct, trying to distract it long enough for Rogue to get away. However, in Storm's own moment of distraction, Weapon Sangha whipped around her and dropped an elbow down into the spine of X-Men's squad leader, sending her barreling down towards the street.

Rogue, recovering from Weapon Buddha's attack, caught sight of Storm's fall and concentrated on accessing her power catalogue. In seconds, her buddy engulfed itself with an orange and yellow blast-field reminiscent of Cannonball's and she shot through the air, catching Storm just moments before she hit the ground.

"Gotcha, 'Ro!" Rogue gasped as she whisked her long time friend and teammate away from the battle. Weapon Sangha was about to follow suit, but a barrage of bullets from Domino's rifle drew the attention of the weapon, who then reacted accordingly.

"F-Fall back," Storm said through gritted teeth, the severe blow to her back having left her in agony. "We're all here, so we need to do it now or never!"

Rogue nodded to Storm as she touched down on the street, her blast-field quickly dissipating. She released her grip on Storm, letting her drop to her feet, and yelled out to the rest of her teammates. "EVERYBODY FALL BACK AN' MOVE INTO POSITION! IT'S TIME!"

Iceman shot a look back to Rogue and then up to Weapon Buddha, who up until then he was attempting to repel and draw back away from his teammates and its 'sisters.' He guided his slide downwards and ducked underneath a blast of energy, then outmaneuvered the oncoming fist of Weapon Buddha and barreled away from his opponent. As was in the Project: Three Jewel's programming, Weapon Buddha took its opportunity to flee from battle and dart up into the sky, signaling for its little sisters to do the same.

Likewise, Domino ceased firing at Weapon Sangha and shouldered her rifle, moving around and backpedaling away from the construct. She pulled out a handgun from a tactical holster, switching to light arms whilst opening fire on her opponent in an attempt to continue repelling Weapon Dharma, but when she moved around the unyielding replica of Claudette St. Croix the weapon darted towards its big sister, Weapon Buddha.

Weapon Dharma was the last of her sisters to evade its opponent and join with its twin sister and older sister. Wolverine's melee attacks and healing factor were of little use against the brute strength, speed, and electrical-energy based attacks, so he had to rely on his own tactical skills to lure and outrun Weapon Dharma from battle. However, when Weapon Buddha sent out the call for the hive to assemble, Weapon Dharma turned about face and propelled itself through the air at breakneck speeds.

It was the last of the Three Jewels and together, taking its rightful place to the left of Weapon Buddha. Weapon Sangha was at its big sister's left and together an aura of blinding energy and an electricity so intense the humming could be heard several blocks away surrounded the three. They were charging up one of their most powerful attacks and in moments they would devastate the entire city block.

"Rogue! Iceman!" Storm called out as the five X-Men surrounded the Three Jewels, who hovered in the air and gathered their collective energies. "Together!"

From the left, Rogue knelt down onto one knee and tightly closed her eye lids. When she opened them, her eyes unleashed a thick and wide optic blast, courtesy of the borrowed mutant abilities of the X-Men's leader, Cyclops. From the right, Iceman clenched his fists and punched his hands towards the Three Jewels, unleashing two immense streams of cold into the three sisters. From above, front and center, Storm brought down a barrage of lightning bolts, colliding into the Three Jewels along with the optic blasts and streams of ice.

At first, the simultaneous attacks didn't seem to phase Weapons Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, and they endured as a large ball of energy gathered above their heads. In fact, the three sisters were actually becoming less susceptible to the attacks the longer they continued, but then a forth attack came from within...

... and the Three Jewels cried out in pain.

Then.

Not very long after Storm had made a visit to the X-Mansion's medical wing, Rogue, Iceman, Wolverine, and herself had assembled in the hangar bay near the Blackbird Jet. While her teammates had the general idea of what they were about to go up against, the actual briefing and Storm's battle plan hadn't yet been laid out.

Instead, Storm, Iceman, and Wolverine sat around Rogue uneasily as their teammate heaved and groaned loudly, her face in a brown paper bag of sorts.

"Alright, 'Ro. Seriously this time," Rogue said, wiping the puke and saliva from her lips. "No more teleportin' with Blink's powers. Kurt's Ah can handle, but not hers. Even Logan's healin' factor ain't doin' it for me anymore."

Wolverine cleared his throat and raised his palms up, flapping them inward, motioning for Rogue to toss the paper bag his way. She did her best to roll up the open bag tightly before doing just that and he caught it, cautiously, before disposing of it in a nearby trash can.

Storm watched then, making a queasy face, and then looked back to Rogue. "If you need to take this mission off while you recover, no one would think the less of you, child."

"Nah, don't worry 'bout me, sugah," Rogue insisted, nodding towards the hangar bay's elevator door as it began to open. "Pharmacy's here."

Storm turned around to the elevator doors as they slid open and made way for Sam Guthrie, Cannonball, and the woman whose only real name was Beatrice, or Domino on the field. Both wore dark military fatigues and carried heavy backpacks.

"Heya Ororo," Cannonball greeted as they approached, tossing a bottle of pills Rogue's way. She snatched them from the air and popped the bottle open as Cannonball and Domino came to a stop before Storm, huffing slightly. "Not late, are we?"

"No, not at all," Storm insisted, biting her lip slightly as she looked around her assembled team - noting that Rogue was chugging pills from whatever bottle it was that Cannonball brought down to her - and then she looked back to Cannonball. "I was just about to explain to everyone what Sinister told me about Weapons Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha."

"We're all here, so spill," Iceman said casually. "What are we up against?"

"It's a bit... complicated, as things usually are with Sinister," Storm tried her best to explain, but was at a bit of a loss regarding anything but the most basic of details. "He used the DNA of Monet and her sisters to create genetically engineered weapons, living and functioning almost akin to clones, but lifeless and controllable."

"Ugh," Domino groaned, rolling her eyes. "She used the 'C' word."

"Ya mean 'complicated' or 'clones'?" Cannonball wondered aloud. "Or uh, controllable?"

"Clones," Wolverine muttered through gritted teeth, rolling his eyes.

"Are they sentient clones?" Iceman asked, crossing his arms. "I mean, do they feel pain? Have their own thoughts? Or are they just of the mindless drone variety?"

"Essex claimed that they were biological organisms that functioned only on electronic commands," Storm replied, though not sure if she was truly answering the question or if she was even given an answer. "That they were engineered and programmed to behave and act as a hive, not to act or think as individuals..."

"Sure looked like dispassionate killin' machines if I ever saw 'em," Wolverine said in his own assessment. "So then what?"

"There appears to be one major flaw in their design, one that Essex was unable to correct before his double-crossing of the Byron Agency," Storm said, hands on her hips as she looked over her assembled team. "If these weapons are forced to adapt to several mutant powers at once, they can become overwhelmed and cease to adapt to any more powers until they're repaired."

"So, we just all hit 'em at once with everything we've got," Wolverine said with an unimpressed shrug, crossing his arms. "That'll stop 'em from adapting to our any more powers and then whoever's left can just thrash them, right? I got that one covered."

"It's a bit more complicated than that," Storm sighed and shook her head. She took a moment to collect her thoughts and rub the tension out of her forehead with a hand, then continued, "While they will cease to adapt to new mutant abilities, by this time they will still have already adapted to the ones they were exposed to. Plus, they still have their inherent abilities to fight us off with, courtesy of Monet's DNA."

"Are you sayin' that on top of their augmented strength, nigh invulnerability, flight powers, and the likes that they'll still remain adjusted to all of our powers after we attack them?" Iceman chimed in, raising a curious brow.

"Unfortunately, yes," Storm answered reluctantly.

"Damn," Domino remarked, frowning. "Then what do we do? I can get us a couple of rocket launchers or something, but uh, it's a little short notice..."

"I had something a little more efficient in mind," Storm said and then looked over her bewildered team, explaining, "They're still technically part machine, running off of electronic impulses, only really 'alive' because of their mechanical parts..."

"Ah see where you're going with this," Cannonball nodded, biting his lip. "If we can overwhelm all three of 'em to the point of not being able to evolve to new conditions, we just slam 'em with an EMP or somethin' to scramble their electrical systems, right? Then it won't matter how tough they are 'cuz they'll be immobile."

Before Storm could answer Cannonball's question, she was cut off.

"We're gonna hit them with a weapon better than an EMP 'or something,' bucko," a familiar voice said from behind. The X-Men turned around to see Polaris standing by an open elevator in full uniform, grinning mischievously. "We're gonna hit them with me."

Now.

{{ KzZZzzzTTtttt!! }} Weapons Buddha, Dharma, and Sanga cried out in unison as the electronic components in their bodies began to short circuit. Polaris's magnetic grip never relented, leaving the three constructs to virtually strangle above the streets of Washington, D.C., their bodies convulsing violently and sparking with electricity.

"Domino! Wolverine!" Storm called out over the chaos. "Now!"

Domino bent down on to one knee and lifted the stinger missile launcher onto her shoulder while Wolverine swung a similar weapon up onto his shoulder and they both took aim. With the pull of two triggers, missiles flew from their stinger launchers and spiraled through the air before simultaneously colliding into Weapon Buddha.

*KA-BLOOM!*

The sound of the explosion and the shockwave shook the X-Men below and they averted their gaze, many taking cover behind whatever they could find. Rogue behind a pile of rubble, Wolverine and Domino by several overturned cars, Polaris behind a magnetic shield, and Iceman and Storm behind Iceman's barricade of ice.

As expected, the blast was more than powerful enough to rip through the two constructs at her side, lighting up the sky in a burst of flames and smoke, and sending the chunks of mechanical pieces and organic body of the three in all directions. When the flames dispersed from the air, the smoke thickened, and the various dismembered body parts and chunks of torso hit the ground, the X-Men all began to regain their composition.

"Are they dead?" Iceman asked, peaking over his ice barricade.

"They were never really alive," Storm replied as she - in a similar fashion to Iceman - rose up from behind the barricade. "But yes, they appear to be disabled."

"Pretty safe bet," Polaris agreed as she descended from the sky, the sphere of magnetic energy dissipating from around her as she touched down onto the streets. "I'm not sensing any more electrical impulses from their bodies... or you know, what's left of them, anyway..."

"Booyah!" Iceman said, high-fiving with his ex-girlfriend. He looked around the pulverized city streets until he caught sight of Rogue rising up from underneath a pile of rubble several yards down, dusting off her metallic skin. "Hey, yo, Mississippi!" he shouted out to her. "Get your southern booty over here! We gotta do our victory dance!"

Rogue paused as her skin returned to flesh, seemingly unsure of what her teammate had yelled out at her. The realization hit her and she nodded, mouthing 'oh' to herself, and then began to do the macerena, shaking her hips and bobbing her head side to side with her eyes closed. Similarly, Iceman began to do the robot.

"Goddess," Storm remarked as the Rogue and Iceman danced. Polaris covered her mouth and tried to suppress a giggle, but it wasn't working very well. Storm hit the communicator on the side of her belt. "Rogue, can you teleport Ambassador St. Croix and Cannonball back out of hiding. I'm sure the ambassador would like to know exactly what's going on here..."

Rogue promptly stopped doing the macerana as Storm's words carried over through the radio and she stood up straight, waving to Storm from across the distance that separated her and her teammates.

"Sorry, Bobby!" she shouted. Iceman looked up as Rogue called out to him, just in time to catch sight of her disappearing in a purple and black cloud of smoke and brimstone, a faint 'bamf' sounding in the distance.

"Bah," he muttered and then turned to Storm. "Party pooper."

Storm merely glared at Iceman, unmoved. At that time, she saw that Wolverine and Domino had began walking up to the remains of M constructs's fallen and badly damaged forms, and so she naturally began to converge on them as well. Iceman and Polaris followed suite, though with a bit more enthusiasm.

"Someone get a stick and poke 'em," Domino joked as she nudged the big sister construct with her foot. "C'mon, Wolverine. Do it."

"I'm pretty sure they're dead, darlin'," Wolverine said half-heartedly, pulling out a cigar from his jacket pocket and a Zippo from his pants pocket. He shook his knuckles at her. "If not, I'll see what I can do about that pokin' 'em thing."

The 'BAMF' sound that the team had heard earlier returned, albeit louder this time, as Rogue used the powers of her foster brother to teleport her, Cannonball, and Ambassador St. Croix on scene in a cloud of smoke and brimstone.

While Cannonball released Rogue's arm and put some space between the two of them, Cartier broke away from her and urgently moved to the replicas of his daughters, kneeling down over their forms.

"You... you said these weren't my daughters?" Cartier said, his voice trembling slightly as he reached out to the remains of the constructs.

"Please sit down, Ambassador," Storm insisted, touching his shoulder. He retracted his hand and looked up to her and she nodded. "It's a long story."

"The Byron Agency genetically engineered clones of your daughters, turning them into relentless, super-evolving killing machines," Polaris said in one breath. "Your real daughters are being held elsewhere, but we should be getting them back soon."

"Perhaps not that long..."  Storm reconsidered quietly, her eyes moving side to side. She looked back to Cartier. "The Byron Agency was basically experimenting with them as forms of mutant weapons of mass destruction. Apparently, they also wanted to use them to assassinate those they consider a threat."

"We don't know why they would be after you, though," Wolverine said, crossing his arms and taking a drag off of his cigar before exhaling. "Any ideas?"

"I was meeting with a reporter when they attacked," Cartier recalled slowly, taking a seat on a large piece of stone that had been left from the destruction of a nearby building's wall. "After my daughters disappeared and official sort of investigation made headway, I figured I had no choice but to go to the press."

"Why did you do it, Ambassador?" Cannonball spoke up, shaking his head at the prospect of a man giving up his daughters. "Monet was kidnapped, Ah get that, but why did you give the Byron Agency your other daughters as well?"

"A friend in your government told me that, in the wake of Senator Stocker's murder, that the United States Congress was looking to pass legislation on mutant registration and detention," Cartier explained with a sigh, dropping his head into his hands as he examined the carbon copies of his daughters and the devastation they caused.

"Who was your friend?" Wolverine interjected gruffly, crossing his arms.

"Robert Kelly," Cartier replied simply, throwing all those listening to him for a loop. While they all had their questions, the team's leader raised her hand and shook her head, halting any further investigation into the name.

"Go on," Storm said, not wanting to side track Cartier.

"Even if legislation didn't pass, I was afraid that after the riots in D.C. that people would retaliate against mutants, against my daughters," he continued, on the verge of tears by that time in his story. "Robert brought in another friend and they suggested that they and the Byron Agency could enroll them in a school in Nebraska that could help them, protect them, much like Xavier's. Then I never heard from them again and that's why I was here tonight, trying to expose the whole incident to the press..."

Everyone on the team exchanged looks as the ambassador recounted and ultimately concluded his story. Though they would have to verify a lot of the information, what they had heard from him matched up with what they had learned in recent months, and his story made sense. The plot was only thickening with Robert Kelly, however...

"I'm still not sure if I understand why the Byron Agency tried to assassinate you," she said, her voice betraying her perplexed disposition, as she crossed her arms. "Do you believe they were trying to keep you from exposing them and the President's relationship, and possibly what they did to your daughters?"

"I don't know," Cartier said tiredly with a sigh, hanging his head low and dropping his hands into his face in distress. "For the life of me, I don't know..."

"Don't beat yourself up over it, sugah," Rogue said as she knelt down beside Cartier, shifting her attention from him to Wolverine - who bared a disgusted look on his face - and then back to Cartier, sympathetically. "You did what you thought was right for your daughters. In the end, that's all you could have done."

"Yeah, don't sweat it, man," Iceman said, also noting the more repugnant expressions of his teammates. "They'll be back home by the end of the night..."

"So soon? Ambassador St. Croix said and Storm nodded. He sighed, exasperated and relieved at the same time, as he leaned back onto his hands and hung his head backwards. He closed his eyes, thinking of all that he was responsible for, and began to break down into tears.

Things were going to have to change.

After.

In an underground bunker of sorts, Nathaniel Essex - the immortal mutant geneticist commonly referred to and feared as Mister Sinister - stood before four stasis tubes filled with bubbling green fluids. They lined the back wall of his New Mexico compound's main laboratory, despite the fact that the women and girls within the stasis tubes were merely his captives, and no longer his experiments.

Helena Weaver, a Caucasian woman in her late thirties with flowing brown hair amidst the fluids, was never even an experiment of his. He had merely impersonated her as a means to infiltrate the United States's Executive Branch and the Byron Agency, a shadow organization of sorts intent on policing the world.

Monet, Nicole, and Claudette St. Croix, however... the biological weapons that he had created for the Byron Agency utilizing their genetic make-up were meant to be his masterpieces. Incomplete and thus doomed to failure, he had been content in knowing that his work was nearly all the success that he intended, and that with the remains of those weapons that he would be able to reconstruct them in time.

Time. That's all that it would be a matter of.

As Sinister found himself lost in his thoughts, a bolt of lightning ripped through the laboratory's ceiling several feet behind Sinister, carrying debris and rubble along with it as it created a gaping hole where it passed through. Wind miraculously whipped up within the laboratory and centered itself around the fresh hole, cushioning the descent of a young black woman in black fatigues with flowing white hair and piercing blue eyes.

"Has anyone ever told you that you're very prompt, Ms. Munroe?" Sinister remarked, tongue in cheek, as Storm made her entrance. He hadn't even flinched.

"You'd do well to be as prompt," Storm said, narrowing her eyes onto him as he turned around to face her. He noticed that centered between the two of them were the collective remains of the Project: Three Jewels, the M constructs to be precise, which she must brought with her upon her descent into Sinister's laboratory.

Storm tossed a small PDA to Sinister and he caught it handily. "These are the coordinates that I want Monet, her sisters, and Weaver teleported to."

Sinister looked to the PDA's screen, puffed out his lower lip, and finally nodded, his mannerisms impish. He looked up to Storm as the four figures in the stasis tubes behind him flashed with a bright yellow light and then disappeared, all upon Sinister's telepathic command to his computer network.

"A deal's a deal," he remarked, tossing the PDA back to her. She snatched it from the air and began to put it in the pouch on her belt when Sinister stepped over to Weapons Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. He paced around them slowly, examining the damage inflicted upon them in their subsequent battle with the X-Men. After a moment, he observed, "I see that you were able to put Lorna Dane's powers to good use."

"Lorna was instrumental in the defeat of these weapons," Storm concurred, her eyes tracking Sinister's every movement. "We couldn't have done it without her."

"I meant in rendering you safe from my x-factor dampener, as well as disabling the equipment in my laboratory," Sinister explained, a mischievous grin appearing on his face as he moved away from the genetic constructs and approached Storm, now beginning to pace around her. He kept his beady red eyes focused on her, intent, as if he were a hunter and she were merely his prey. "She won't be able to keep it up for long, of course. Why, given a few moments at a console, I could end her electromagnetic tampering in a matter of moments..."

"Then I better make this quick," Storm said. Sinister cocked his head to the side, smiling curiously, until a gust of wind kicked up in his laboratory and a barrage of lightning bolts struck him successively.

The force of the blasts sent Essex reeling backwards into and it was there he was pinned by overpowering winds, unable to keep upright even if he wanted to. Storm pointed a finger at him, scorn evident in her voice.

"Our link here is severed," she commanded. "You're never to cross the X-Men, our friends, or myself ever again, or I'll see to it personally that your weasely life in the shadows and mad machinations are ended. Permanently."

Before Sinister could respond to Storm's threat and use of force, her fierce winds relented and then as, picking her up in a cyclone of sorts and thrusting her upwards out of the geneticist's lair. In those brief moments before leaving, her eyes never left Sinister's as he lay on his equipment, until finally she was gone and the winds relented.

Sinister sat up from the equipment that he had been pinned down on and steadied himself on his feet, an indignant scowl etched upon his albino features. He patted down his blue armor as he sauntered over to the gaping opening that the X-Men's co-leader had exited from and looked to the skies, watching her as the winds carried her to the Blackbird jet overhead, considering her last words to him.

"We'll see, Ms. Munroe," he mused, crossing his arms. "We'll see..."

THE END

NEXT ISSUE: The President of the United States has awoken from his coma, Valerie Cooper has inexplicably disappeared, and Congress has passed a law sanctioning the use of Sentinels in the United States! Cyclops and his team take action in a story that could only be called, "MR. SUMMERS GOES TO WASHINGTON" in the upcoming X-MEN ANNUAL 2007!!!