"He wins his battles by making no mistakes. Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated."....Sun Tzu

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Meanwhile at the Castle of the Highlord Apocalypse

They stood before their lord like criminals awaiting an execution, and truly they could be at any moment annihilated by the figure before them. He surveyed his troops, his chosen... his horsemen and his generals, and spoke in a tone that would freeze ice on a lake. And this was coming from a hologram, Cyclops reflected.

"What went wrong with this mission and whose fault was it?" The tone was one you didn't want to mess with on any given day when it came to their ill-tempered highlord, but Cyclops was never one to listen to others' mutterings of good sense. He stepped forward, Havok behind him looking more than a little ill, and said, "It was my fault, my Lord. I was lead general, and I was the one who set up the operation, so therefore it was my fault it went awry." The hologram of Apocalypse turned toward him, the face cold and dispassionate. "And pray tell, Cyclops, what was the mission?" Cyclops couldn't help feeling his ire rising at the reminder of his failure and he felt his fists clench at his side, his good eye narrowing behind his ruby quartz visor, "Two years! Two years of hard work ruined in an instant is what happened, my Lord. I had planted information carefully for two years, lulling the enemy into thinking it was the real thing, and in under five minutes my plan disintegrated into nothing." He did not lie, but neither did he tell the truth, because that quite honestly would have gotten him killed by any of the little vipers around him. The truth was that, while he had wanted to capture Pietro and Storm, it was not because of any ambition for power. It was to prove he could do it. And then he'd planned to let them go.

Yes, some would consider him insane, but the point of it all, in his mind anyway, was that it WOULD have worked. He could have gotten them, held them for a moment in his hands, and then released them. A grand masquerade... a plan inside a plan... a trap inside a trap. He had known that his brother had been checking into his activities outside of the duties he possessed currently, and he had known when Alex had found him giving information over to the enemy. So he had staged a trap outside of what he would normally do and had planned carefully, figuring that his brother would be stupid and try to wreck the operation that the X-men would have been fools to pass up on. What he hadn't planned on was the other horsemen coming in to back Alex up. He scowled at the memory and announced, "It was my fault for not calculating in the mistrustful nature of the Horsemen or my fellow generals. I will take whatever punishment you require to be given." The hologram watched as he got control of his anger and stood calmly before him, and all but Sinister didn't see the look of respect in his eyes.

He studied Cyclops for a moment and then his voice echoed through the room again. "Tell me, Cyclops. Who messed up this carefully planned operation, and who were you trying to capture?" Sinister didn't wait for his son to step forward, but instead spoke calmly, "He didn't TRY anything, Milord. He suceeded. We have Quicksilver in custody now to do with as you wish. He almost had Storm as well as a gift for you, but, well... things did not go according to his plan." The face on the hologram was far from happy, anyone could see that. He looked at Cyclops and what he asked was not a question. "The names of the ones who made this operation a disaster?" Cyclops took a calming breath and, stepping forward once again, stood tall. "I can not in good conscience as a commander give up the names of the ones who wrecked my plan, milord. It was my fault for I had been giving the information out secretly and they assumed, however naively, that I was being a double agent to the enemy and therefore were trying to stop me in your name." Apocalypse cocked his head to the side in acknowledgement to that comment. "No worries. The faces of the ones who did it gave them away. So, all of my Horsemen were in on this, were they? I will deal with THEM, and Havok, later. As for you..." Cyclops waited in false serenity for the verdict, figuring he was dead. The finishing of the statement surprised him. "...name your boon."

Cyclops was, needless to say, stunned by the words and stood there with what had to be a baffled expression on his face for a couple of minutes. He then managed to stutter only slightly when his baffled question of "Wh...what?" came out of his mouth. A sigh was his reply for a few moments of reflection on the hologram's part, and then the voice emerged from the depths of pixels and protons. "I said, Cyclops, name your boon. YOU have pleased me by delivering to me Quicksiler. It will be an advantage over the X-men on any given day. This was good news to hear. So, name your reward. I shall give you anything you ask of me. Money, women, power, territory? What will be your price?" Cyclops thought of it for only a few seconds and then, stepping forward, proclaimed, "I would like two weeks off, lord."

A pin could have dropped and it would have sounded like a grenade exploding with the silence that fell over the room. It was if a shroud of confusion and shock had descended upon everyone, including the man across the territory who was only about two feet tall, being projected from a machine. Finally the silence was broken by the Highlord himself. "You wish two weeks off? That is all?" Cyclops could feel the outright shock around him, but ignored it as he nodded slowly. "Yes, sir. I would like two weeks off, completely alone, from any and all surveillance from others of our regime. I realize that is a lot to ask," he added when he saw the look of impending displeasure mar the horrific smiling face, "but I have an errand that is best done alone, without interference." The look of displeasure right under the surface did not leave the face, but curiousity also lit his eyes as he asked, "And what is that?" Cyclops snarled out the word despite himself, "Hunting." He threw his hair back over his shoulder so all could view the horrific scars that marred the surface of what once might have been a handsome face, a metal plate put over what once had been his eye. "I would like to hunt. Alone. I want HIM and the only way I am going to get to him is through circles that I would draw too much attention in if I was with a score of guards." Suddenly laughter erupted from the Horseman known as Holocaust. "I like this, kid. I asked for a contingent of soldiers. Others have asked for more money, more power, more guns, more armor, more territory, and this kid asks for a vacation to get revenge. That's something, I'll give it that. Actually it's something I respect." The last part was serious, and he shut up immediately thereafter in deference to the overlord.

"As do I respect revenge. Especially for the reasons that you wish to hunt him down for, Cyclops. You have your boon. Enjoy your hunt. The rest of you have your assignments on your computer terminals. Perhaps blowing up swamp rats will teach you, and Havok, to better understand the chain of command, and perhaps be more careful before going into an unknown situation. You will have that assignment for the next two weeks while Cyclops is away unless a serious operation comes up. Cyclops," The eyes switched back to Scott who was in the middle of smiling in satisfaction, "I wish you to make plans to transport Quicksilver to my current headquarters. This shall be MY kill, and my soldier to break to get the information about Magneto's base. Ahhh... I have just received your full report of the extent of his injuries as well. Very good and very detailed. I do not want ONE more scratch, bruise, or abuse to be delivered to his person. Make sure that Havok controls his little sadomasocists Aurora and her brother. I do not want them OR McCoy to get ahold of him. Do you understand me, Sinister?" Sinister bowed low in response. "Of course, my Lord. I will see to it personally." With that the hologram blinked out.

Sinister must have felt the anger rising in the room, for he stepped toward Scott, took his arm, and briskly moved him toward the door. About halfway across the compoud, Sinister was about to begin their conversation he had planned out in his head when an extreme explosion rocked the complex. Sinister closed his eyes in suffering and, walking over to the window, saw where a quarter of the compound had been blown apart, the cosmic residue still floating in the air. His tone was mild but his expression incensed as he beheld the damage before him. "I am really going to have to talk to Havok about his temper... or talk to McCoy about possible solutions. He really is too spoiled and out of hand to put up with anymore. This must be about ten million credits worth of damage... and this is the third time this week. This time is obviously over you and what you chose for a boon... and his punishment. Perhaps a clone of a nice wolfhound -- yes, a wolfhound would do nicely. Perhaps Ms. Sinclair's DNA will come in handy after all. Easily controlled and put to his brainwaves, an empathic creature naturally, easy to build, easy to shoot when it gets too out of hand, easy to replace. Hmmmm..." He seemed to put that thought into the back of his mind as he turned back to his son, leaned against the window sill, and crossed his arms over his chest. "Alright, then. What, pray tell, do you want to track down Wolverine for? He is not the one that made you truly miserable."

Scott knew that this conversation had been coming, but he was hoping to avoid it for at least a little while. He leaned against the opposite wall, leaning back against his bent left leg that was lying flat on the cement, and ran his gloved hand through his hair in slight agitation. "I don't know what you mean, father." Sinister gave him a look that Scott knew all too well and the sarcasm lacing his tone when he spoke could not be ignored, "Really? Not one clue?" Scott returned his look with one laced with a rage that Sinister knew masked a lot of pain among other emotions. "Alright, you want the truth of why I want to hunt him down? To kill him. That would be rather obvious, wouldn't it? But the why of it is more complex. Part of me wants to make him pay for taking my eye, yes -- but another part of me wants to take HIS happiness away from him... away from HER. So that they would know what it was to be truly miserable. That is why I want to hunt him during this vacation, father. Satisfied?" Sinister boosted himself off the wall with a slight push, walked over to his son and laid a hand on his shoulder. "No, not really, son. But I understand. Come. I've work to do, but I'll walk you to your prisoner and let you be off on your little escapade. Dress warmly and be careful. And if you do manage to kill him, bring back the skeleton. We could use it to figure out the process that made him."

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Katya could have kicked herself a couple of hours later for leaning on Pete and crying like that, but figured that the best thing to do would be to pretend it never happened. Unfortunately, she wasn't doing a great job. She'd slept for the most part of twenty four hours after he had held her like that, recovering from the concussion she had received and getting woken up on a regular basis to make sure she was going to be okay. Pete rested up as well. Only one of the wounds he had recieved had needed stitches, but it had done a good deal of bleeding from his chest, so he had to get over the blood loss. She hoped he was feeling better. She shook her head to get out of her flighty mindstate, and went back to her self-imposed task. She was sitting at the kitchen table, a pad and paper in front of her, and was brainstorming. She hadn't done the exercise in quite a while, but she found it still was pretty basic. In the middle she had Magnus's name circled, and around him his closest friends and advocates. Around those circles she put people they associated with and so forth. Two hours and a huge amount of people later, she had a pretty good list, but damn if she was any closer to figuring out who could have betrayed them.

She couldn't even, in good conscience, take the men off the list because, as Remy had shown her on one occasion in the Western Continent on a really nasty mission, a man could pass himself off as a woman down to the most minute detail if they wanted to. She couldn't even discount Piotr or someone his size because, while they didn't have a lot of image inducers left in their inventory from what Magnus had managed to construct, there WAS still a few of the high powered hologram emmitors in their inventory at the mansion. She scowled in concentration as she studied the pad and the circles in front of her, scribbling notes and getting nowhere, and reached for her coffee without looking up. When her hand touched flesh she jumped out of her own skin and, shooting backward, wielding her pencil in front of her at whoever it was. When she looked up and saw Agent X standing there, she sighed deeply and leaned back in her chair. "God, you scared the shit out of me. I'm not used to people sneaking up on me." A slight smile cracked the face of the ex-paratrooper as he grabbed the pot of coffee that she had been reaching toward and, pouring himself a cup, sat down in the seat opposite hers at the circular table, "I didn't want to disturb you. You seemed to be in very deep thought when I came in. And you didn't seem very happy by those thoughts. Mind me asking what those thoughts are about?" Katya reached back and stretched, feeling the slight snap as her neck aligned itself properly again, and sighed, continuing to look up the ceiling like there was something interesting up there. "Unfortunately I can't. It's a sorta personal matter that you wouldn't know much about, honestly. I'm trying to hunt down someone but I don't know who that person is yet. And I've a friend who is in a bad situation, and I'm helpless to do anything about it until something gives on his location. Bottom line? I'm pretty much screwed on either account for now, so it's time to put it on the back burner. In other news, have you guys found a way into that compound yet? We're on a tight time table here." She slowly moved her head so she was meeting his eyes again in time to see him shake his head, "We've gone over every damn inch of that room and the only way we can see is through the air vents. We might have to do a full sweep of the ventilation system and just try to take them out there, which is pretty suicidal in that closed-in of an area. With what those vents are made out of, bullets will ricochet and take out more of our people than the enemy."

Katya pursed her lips in deep thought and then, relaxing her face, sighed, "Well, we could always drill down with a tractor beam and just rip the whole freaking roof off the place. Not subtle, by any means, but we'd take the enemy by surprise and have the advantage of being able to see them and find them. The person in the plane could do a drive by tractor beam rip and the rest of us could be standing by on nearby rooftops and go from there." X sipped his coffee in contemplation for a moment and, lifting his eyebrows, said, "Well, it could work. If we can't find anything within the next twenty four to forty eight hours... we only have four more days till the meeting of the human high council. We need someone in their inner sanctum to stop the assassins and others to take down the other members of Black Air. If nothing else, at least that'd stop us from having to do foot by foot fighting through omnium lined vents. I'll talk it over with R when I get the chance." Katya glanced around, for the first time noticing the absence of the other troops in the group. "Where is everyone anyway?" The Brit looked at her over his plain black coffee mug and said, "Making ammo. We collect all of our brass since it's one of the rarer commodities to come by, so we can at least use that again. It cuts down on costs and having to smuggle stuff in. Pete and the others are making pipe bombs and other mechanisms, and Mike is working on putting together some smart bombs and some homemade land mines. For some odd reason this team has always had the philosophy that you can never have too much fire power."

Katya rubbed the back of her neck, looking slightly amused. "Yeah, well I know how THAT is." Agent X chuckled, "I'm sure you do. Let's see...Harold is still working on finding an opening in that building, along with Nick who just relieved me, Rahne and Romany were making the ammo and Pete is cleaning guns and prepping them for battle... if we ever GET to battle, that is. I'm getting frustrated, I'll be the first to admit." Katya nodded. "The best thing to do when I find myself frustrated is to go and beat the living hell out of something. You want to climb into the ring? Name your poison -- I could probably match you on it." X looked at her consideringly for a moment and then, looking pleased, nodded. "Sure. You don't have anything better to do?" Katya looked down at the pad in front of her, thought of Pietro in the hands of God only knew who at the Highlord's mercy, and slammed the top of it closed. "Well, it seems like everything is settled here and I really need to beat the hell out of something right now. Let's go."

She had to admit he was a pretty good opponent. He had to admit that she was hot in spandex and martial arts guards. That shot from him almost got her knocked out, but she countered it with a good heel kick and a "dream on" commentary. About an hour into it, though, X looked down at his watch and held up a staying hand, looking winded. "I've got to get going, Katya. I need to get some much needed sleep before going back to the grind. I'm glad to see your knee is feeling much better. If you're still around later on and have nothing to do, look me up. I'd love to try sword fighting again. I used to be pretty good at it." As the big man walked off, Katya sighed and glanced around the gym. She was sweating and the salt was starting to seep into where her stitches were, but she still didn't want to go back to being the consultant people around here seemed to be treating her as. It was either that or them not trusting her at all and giving her suspicious stares out of the corner of their eyes, amongst other things. She figured she preferred the consultant persona if nothing else. She was about to step out of the ring, go shower, and perhaps look up their library around here, or go back to her brainstorming, when she felt a presence. She skimmed the interior of the gym, on the surface calm and seeming to be just checking out the equipment, but inside ready to take someone down. When she saw the person separate themselves from the shadows she wondered why her adreneline wasn't going down. As Rahne Sinclair stepped foward she realized why. "Ye. Yuir scent is all over him. Ye have a husband, ye whore, what do ye need with him? You are just fooling with his heart, are ye? I'll make ye pay and make sure ye can never take him away from me again!" As the young readhead came flying at her, claws extended, Katya wondered, not for the first time, how she could have been born such a lucky person.

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