"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you." Friedrich Nietzsche

The trigger seemed to contract with a slowness that she would have found astounding had she not experienced battle for years. She had her gun half out and was spinning, knowing she couldn't avoid the shot, when suddenly the gun got hit from behind by something and the shot went awry. She felt it rip through her lung instead of her heart, the inhibitor in it taking out her mutant power as soon as it hit, she knowing that it was going to do that, but she had tried anyway. Her phasing hurt cutting off more than the bullet ripping out the other side of her body, while she watched as Black Tom's surprisingly stiff body fell over. She felt the red hot agony from the bullet a few moments later along with all of her molecules as she looked to see who had come to her rescue. She took one look at the large man in front of her, blond hair in a ponytail at his neck, and the man standing behind him, blue fur complimenting his demonic appearance, and let the welcome she felt enter her eyes. "'Bout time you guys got here. Damn last minute rescues." She felt herself sliding down toward the ground, the bullet taking effect as the pain got worse and worse and the blood quickly soaked down her back. "Get... him... down to the beach... would you?" Vic's countenance faded in and out of her vision as he knelt beside her. "And Vic... get me out of here huh. Thanks." With that she let the darkness of blessed unconsciousness take her.

She woke with a scream trapped in her throat, the phantasmal images in her mind taking nightmares to whole new levels. She would have sat bolt upright if it hadn't been for a very big masculine hand barring her from sitting up all the way. "Hold it right there. You're not up to getting up yet." Katya glanced around the med bay she'd woken up in more than once and then met the cool blue eyes of the man above her. "Alright, Vic. Which base am I at of Kurt's, anyway?" She heard a feminine voice cut with aching sarcasm through the not even started conversation. "For one thing it's my base, Katya, and for another you're lucky my son and Victor managed to get you in here in time to do something about that bullet wound. I didn't realize you had such a hugely bad reaction to inhibitor bullets." Katya blinked over at the shadows until she saw the shape of the woman that seemed to spend too much of her time hiding in them. "Mystique." That was as close to a welcome as either of them got, but the respect was there in her voice, acknowledging the fact that Mystique had helped to raise Kurt and had done a good job of teaching him the ways of life and how to kill. She sat up more slowly this time and then swung her legs over the side of the bed. She was a little weak, but none the worse for wear overall, she figured. She rotated her neck to see how the brush burn was doing from her run-in with Rahne and was amazed that she didn't feel anything -- and then, looking down, she saw the almost healed bullet wound. "Holy...God damned son of a bitch."

She looked into Vic's eyes and asked, "How long?" Mystique answered for him, "About two days. You did a hell of a job on yourself before they got you to me and my resources. I called them when you started fighting the equipment and I knew you were waking up. You gave a fight for my advanced medical resources even... that's why you still have some residual injuries with your shoulder." Katya rubbed her shoulder a little bit and then carefully stepped off the bed despite Mystique's warning. "The reason that I took so long to wake up is because inhibitor bullets are like a psionic poison to my mutant powers nowadays. Henry McCoy saw to that. Last time it happened I flatlined five or six times. This time I went into an unconscious state for a while. Great... wonder if that's going to get worse or if that's actually an improvement." The wry tone of her voice was answered with a slightly rough one from Vic. "Yeah, well...we were worried about you, kid. What in the hell happened on that island? We got there when we got a leak that something really damn bad was going down and ended up rescuing you and helping your little playmates out of there." Katya glanced at him hard and said, "I don't want to talk about it right now." Vic looked into her eyes and she saw his brow furrow slightly for a moment... almost as if he saw something that disturbed him greatly, but he shrugged it off. "Okay. We'll talk about it later. In the meantime you're a-okay to get out of here." Katya nodded and reached to where a new uniform and all of the objects that had been on her, with the addition of some nice new toys such as a few nice plasma guns, very hard to find and more accurate and less wasteful then bullets, and some nice new throwing blades that were smaller then her norm, were in there too, "Gee, Raven, you know just what to get a girl." Mystique smiled slightly as she stepped into the light. "I figured you'd need them wherever you're going. You're going to get Pietro out, I'm assuming?" Katya nodded as she slipped into her uniform, comfortable with her nakedness around Vic knowing that he didn't see anything sexual about it and neither did she. "Yeah. I think I have a lead to find out where he is, but I need to go alone."

She saw Vic's mouth curve into a disproving line and shook her head. "Don't worry, Vic. I'll be back. And tell Kurt that we're going to play when I get back, alright?" Vic considered her face for a few moments and then tugged Wildchild's chain a bit. "Sure kid. No problem." She slipped the cigarettes into her pocket, along with the flask and other objects she'd taken off of Pete, with one exception. She pulled out the piece of paper he had in his cigarettes with a set of numbers, and she knew what they meant and where she had to go.

**************

He sat in the sleezy Madripoor hotel room and contemplated his surroundings with something akin to distaste. He then leaned closer to the lamp that was one of the few sources of light in the room and read another page in his book. He was turning the page when he sensed the change in the air, knowing he was being watched. He looked up and, seeing the shadow standing before him, blonde hair pulled back into a tight bun at the back of her head, he closed the book with a click and slid it to the side of the circular table with the others. He then sat back and put his feet up on the table, wondering if he was going to die. He saw her slight confusion over the choice of positioning for the books and explained, "I don't wish to get blood on the books if you're going to kill me. You know how hard it is to get books nowadays. It's all holodisks and computer terminals." Katya looked down at the man sitting across from her and, shrugging, took the seat across from him, not feeling any fear of the most feared of Apocalypse's generals. "I'm not here to kill you. I'm here because you didn't meet Wisdom at the designated location. I'm assuming you WERE the one that was supposed to meet him?" Cyclops blinked out of his one good eye, but of course she couldn't see that, and calmly tied his long hair at the back of his neck. "Yes I was supposed to meet him, but I cancelled through our usual snitch because I had other issues on which to attend to. Where is Wisdom?" Katya knew immediately that he wasn't faking the curiousity, and then knew instinctively that he had nothing to do with the setup. Good. That would make her plan easier, and took one target off her list. "Wisdom's dead." The calm finality of the tone, denying everything that she felt inside, made it impossible to ignore the message. Cyclops surprisingly let out a curse. "Hell. He was my best shot of accomplishing the mission." Katya raised an eyebrow at him in confusion. "Mission? What mission?" Cyclops looked at her consideringly. and then reached for his books slowly and slid a file folder out from underneath all of them, "This is the information that Wisdom requested in exchange for the last bit of help he gave me. Do with it what you will."

Katya didn't bother to look at the folder as she simply slipped it into her uniform, figuring she could look through it later when she was alone, because that wasn't what she was here for. "Fine. I've got a deal for you, Cyclops. It was hard tracking you down and, truthfully, I had no idea you were the contact Pete... Wisdom had on the inside until I ended up tracking you down on a separate matter entirely." She had tried to catch the name slip, but she knew that Cyclops caught it and she silently swore. Cyclops's face gave nothing away as he asked mildly, "What other matter?" Katya sat back in her chair, arms folded across her abdomen, as she said, "You want Logan -- I've heard that everywhere. I'll give him to you." Cyclops kept the delight at this thought of betrayal off his face because he knew that there were many things the woman who was before him could be setting him up for. "And why, pray tell, are you going to give up Logan to his greatest enemy?" Katya let the bitterness slip into her tone. "Because he betrayed me and left me behind to get killed once. He didn't care about my welfare, that I've seen. I owe him for that." She then met his eyes head on as she said, "I have information on where he'll be and what he'll be doing once he gets this message from what he thinks will be me." She held up a disk that she pulled out of her uniform and, putting it down on the table, said, "I also have 5 Sentinel building locations and all current locations for Nimrod bases that the human high counsel and the organization known as Black Air have created unbeknownst to your lovely highlord." Cyclops couldn't believe the information that the woman before him was offering, and he knew that the information would be accurate. If there was one thing he'd heard everywhere it was that Shadowcat did her job, did it well, and she didn't lie to anyone. He was starting to wonder how horribly his father had underestimated this woman in that he had told him one time that she had been nothing to worry about. Merely a slip of a girl who was too loyal to people who had betrayed her or otherwise. Something had changed her and he knew the woman before him was dangerous in many ways.

"You want what in return?" Katya looked at him calmly. "I want Pietro." She saw the amused smile curl his lip and narrowed her eyes. "Those Nimrods are pretty damn dangerous now... I wonder how good they'll be in a couple of months." Seeing that she now had his full attention she continued, "I want Pietro. I owe him. You'll get survival out of this, Cyclops, for you and your minions, and you'll stop a civil war before your lovely tunnel system is ready for that nuclear blast you all know could come anyday with a civil war from the human side. You know they'll turn the whole Western continent into a parking lot without a second thought. Then what? Everyone dies in that equation and who will be left to rule other than cockroaches? I know what kind of problems you've been running into with that tunnel system -- and finding qualified soldiers period. I'm willing to give you time. In exchange for one X-man who might be hard to catch but is in no way the making or breaking of the X-men line." Cyclops thought about that for a few moments, or seemed to. Truth was that he liked the idea of Pietro slipping out of their grasp just fine, since it would set him free to catch him again another day. And he was so stupendously bored most times he could use the challenge.

He then looked at Katya and said, "Done. I would give you Pietro for Logan, but since you're trading the Nimrod bases for him what do you want for Logan?" Katya looked down at the disk in front of her and then up at Cyclops, death shining from her eyes. "I want a name. The name of the one who betrayed us and gave up the information of the operation in Europe, the location of Wanda and the X-men... everything else. I want THEM." Hell couldn't have burned brighter then the look of absolute fury shining from her eyes. He didn't even think about that one. "Done." He'd been about to give out the name of the double agent that had been working for them for a few days now, but couldn't find the proper person to get it to who would make sure that they were taken care of, and as quickly and silently as possible. The double agent had become too much of a risk to him and his projects to keep her alive any longer. He almost smiled in pleasure, but refrained by sheer force of will from doing so. He didn't want to show the woman in front of him how glad he was that she had wanted that. He thought it was going to be something hard. Pietro had been much harder to give up than that name.

He respected the woman in front of him, he realized. It had taken a lot of guts to sneak past the guards he'd posted at the door, and then walk into his room and just offer him what she had, against all of her better instincts. So, he decided that he would at least try to warn her. "You might not like the name, Shadowcat." She cocked her head to one side for a second, and then seemed to mentally shake herself. "It doesn't matter who it is, Cyclops. I hate everyone and don't really care who it is anymore. I just want them dead." The truth shining in her eyes was almost painful to look at because it was, he imagined, like looking into his own. He reached into the pile next to him again, this time pulling up a padded envelope that was thick with photos and other memorabilia. "Here you are. The name is enclosed and the evidence speaks for itself. As for Pietro..." He reached into his outfit and pulled out a small disk. He reached across the table and as she reached for it said, "On one condition." Katya's hand froze a couple of inches from the disk and she raised an inquiring eyebrow in his direction. "Well, two. One is that I'd like to start an information sharing partenership with you about the human activities going on. You know as well as I do that the balance must be kept. And I'll give you subtle perks in return." Katya raised an eyebrow, this time in cynicism. "Alright I'll do that, but what, pray tell, kinds of perks are you talking about?"

Cyclops shrugged. "I know that your marriage isn't a happy one. I'll give you information that will drive him nuts and make him a little more miserable. Other than that, name something, and I'll see what I can do." Katya thought about it for a couple of minutes and then looked up. "I want cigarettes and scotch in a constant supply for me, going through Heaven since he's a neutral and Magneto won't know about it. And I want the files of five people wiped clean from your records so that they're assumed dead." Cyclops was surprised all the way, around but didn't show it. "Done. You can write down the names for me and I'll see that they're deleted. The supply line won't be a big deal. I'll take it out of my allowance to see you get those things, and father knows I have informants. Now for the information. Just tell your husband that Little Snowflake is alive. That's all I'll tell you, but it's enough to drape a carrot before his nose and watch him go running after it." She nodded and he watched as she shoved the padded envelope into her costume and then slid the disk that he wanted across the table to him and took the one from his hands in an almost continuous motion. She then stood up and was about to head for the door when she read the title of the book he was reading. "Alice in Wonderland? I always thought of you as a more mature reader. Cyclops." He shrugged and quoted, "Are you the dreamer or merely part of the dream?" Looking down at the book, he muttered, "I've wondered these last few years if perhaps I went down the wrong rabbit hole and which reality is real... the one down the rabbit hole or the one I come from." He saw the flash in her eyes before she could conceal it, the understanding there, and knew.

You know, don't you?" He had seen something in her eyes that was reflected in his many times in his life, but had just made the connection. "Scuse me?" Her sharp tone actually came out with her voice sounding somewhat panicked and questioning, and he answered it with certainty. "You know that this is wrong. That all of this is wrong. Have you seen the crystal?" He saw her face pale a bit as she took a step back. "In my dreams sometimes. Why?" He pulled out a picture that had certainly not been drawn by him, the crayon colors making the shape of a glowing pink crystal. "You, me and a mad woman. We know then. So we all haven't just lost our minds."

Katya blinked at him as she took out a cigarette and lighted it, her supply as of yet still being limited so she was careful with how many she smoked. "I don't know. Maybe I'm insane. Who knows? But I'm still taking as many people with me as possible before I go. I know I'll be looking up at my husband's face when I die and that's why I'm going back to him. You know I can just see it when I look at you, that you and Logan will be locking eyes when you die or damn close to, and you're hunting him down. We both want this to end. We both want to die, but we don't want to go out like cowards, either." Cyclops looked at the wiser than her years woman before him and felt his face freeze in place at the absolute certainty and coldness that reflected from hers, "...And when you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you." The quote slipped out before he could help it and he realized by the flash in her eyes that she recognized it and didn't think him ignorant any longer in his reading choices. Far from it. She turned toward the door calmly and, as she was walking through it, said simply, "I am the abyss." And Cyclops believed her.

**************

She arrived back at the base in the Western continent by dawn by catching a ride on one of the many transport vessels that went in and out of Madripoor. She walked into the kitchen at Mystique's base and, glimpsing the three of them sitting at the table, said, "I have Pietro's location. And I have a name. We're going to need guns and lots of them as well as some nice toys, Mystique, because a lot of people are going to die before I'm done." She saw the look of admiration on Vic's face that she'd managed to pull off such a find in information, and the weary ones on Mystique's and Nightcrawler's faces, but didn't much care. She'd get Pietro out with or without their help and then she was going hunting. And a lot of people were going to die tonight. She'd see to that. She smiled as she thought to herself, don't go anywhere kiddies; the fun's just started.