Now that they had the ability to see into the building, the team was discouraged by what they found. The two unrented apartments were occupied by a couple of people and machines. One was used as a communication post, and the other was where the field was originating from. All together that meant that there were about twenty five people in on trying to get Jubilee.

"It doesn't make sense!" Jubilee exclaimed, "Why all these people just to get me?" Angelo and M were trying to capture the pictures of all the people in the apartment to run though the computer.

Sam sat and thought. If they had just wanted the one girl, the eight men that were situated in the apartment would have been more than enough to capture her, unless.... "Ah gotta dig up worms to catch fish."

"Like, HUH?" Jubilee turned. "I'm no worm."

Paige got the comparison. "Sam means that you have to have the right bait to get a fish. Think about it- they have you, then along comes Wolverine and, since the rest of the X-men have been gone for two weeks, and the only real thing keeping Excalibur there is the storm, Shadowcat comes after him. And with her, Mr. Wisdom."

"No way dude! The Wolfmeister wouldn't allow himself to be captured." Jubilee was confident of that fact.

Sam spoke then, "Ah may be a good fighter, trained under some of the best, but Ah would stop if someone had a knife at one of my kin's throat." Just the thought of someone threatening to hurt his family would be enough to disarm him, temporarily.

Paige rolled her eyes at that. Trust Sam to remind everybody once again that he was the big, macho fighter. Geesh, since he caught up with Li'l Bit, he had been acting like his old self- bossy! As if it wasn't bad enough to see him acting like a wimp when he first joined the X-men!

"Isn't that a little extreme and risky? To try and capture such good fighters?" Ev wondered.

Skin turned around at that comment. "Not these guys. They were hood born and raised, and know how to fight" The team turned around at that remark.

M quickly filled them in. "Each is a former gang member, deadly fighters. All believed to be dead." Quickly she ran down the background of each. Angelo stopped her on the last two.

"This one is Tony, a.k.a. Dragon. I knew him." Skin showed them the next one, Tanner. "And he is the most crazy of all. Back in the Barrio, we called him Loco or 187, the code for murder. Totally insane."

Sam's mind was on something else. Why would these men try to capture Jubilee? Why now? Some small piece of the puzzle was missing. There was something he wasn't seeing. He started to reason it out.

"X-Force, X-Factor, and the X-men are all busy elsewhere, working on understanding 'Operation: Zero Tolerance'. Wolverine was going to sell his bar in Mandripoor, it was an open secret--"

"You mean like Northstar?" Jubilee asked. Sam had to work to hold back his smile on that one.

"That means that Excalibur would be the only team to back up Logan." Sam paused, remembering that Sean had called him, around four o'clock this morning, to let him know that British Government had asked for Excalibur's help. "But, with that mission, as dangerous as it is, most of 'em would be tied up. Kurt's at a Promise Keepers' rally, and couldn't be easily reached. Kitty and Pete, 'cause they were workin' on th' other, gitting th' info about Black Air from the U. S. embassy, would be th' only ones that could come in a hurry. This feels wrong," Sam announced. "It's a set-up, but why would someone-- who's behind it?"

Skin had been following Sam's thinking. "The government."

Jubilee turned to Angelo as Sam snapped more pieces of the puzzle together. "The U. K. government asked Excalibur's help, Kitty and Pete are gittin' the documents from the U. S. government, the U. S. government let it leak that Bastion would be speaking about 'Operation: Zero Tolerance'. Scott arranged for everybody to be at that."

Angelo added the last piece. "The Network does some of the work that the U. S. doesn't want to dirty its hands with."

"So why would the government want everyone to attack it?" Paige asked. "'Cause if they had Jubilee, Wolverine, Shadowcat and Mr. Wisdom, everybody would want in on getting them out," she answered her own question.

That was the last piece of the puzzle. "Of course!" Sam said. "It all makes since now! They attack the government, and the government has a real reason to unveil every detail of 'Operation: Zero Tolerance'. That's mighty big fish to fry, especially to have caught with such a small worm."

Jubilee was wide eyed with shock. She could have been the undermining of the X-men. "Oh my Gowd!" Celeste and Ariel were the only people standing between mutants and the start of Operation: Zero Tolerance.

"Celeste, do you hate me?" Ariel had to know the answer.

"NO!" her sister answered, emphatic. "Never. Why would you even ask such a question?"

Ariel answered, "I'm the reason we're here. If I hadn't decided that it didn't matter that Julie was a mutant, then we wouldn't be bait. If I hadn't insisted that Mom and Dad let me stay that extra half hour, they would have been alive! If I had died, then you would have gone on with acting, taken that role in the movie, and been on your way to being a star. I mean, Sally Bears who took that part is a minor star now. Everything that happened to you is my fault."

Celeste climbed up the bunk bed and held her little sister. "I made the decision that you could stay friends with Jubilee. And I never gave up hope on you, I told the hospital to keep the machines going, and then moved heaven and earth to get you back. Funny how fate and free will can collide," she said reflectively. Celeste thought the next part over. "And I wouldn't have been able to take that movie role."

"You mean, because of the grief?" Ariel got the feeling that Celeste was going to tell her everything that had happened, what had changed her sister from a carefree, fun-loving girl to a serious, dedicated woman.

"No, not just because of that. I'm a hard worker, I would have buried myself in the role, but ... Have you ever wondered why I'm so hard on you about dating and being safe?"

"No. I thought it was just stress, like the reason you're seeing the doctor." Ariel knew that there was a deeper reason for all her sister's stress, but she couldn't put her finger on it. It was like her dream memories from the coma, the times her sister sat next to her and talked to her. The source of her stress was tied to something she had told her during that time.

Celeste paused, as if looking for the best way to say what she was going to say. The moment was lost when Tanner walked in the room. "We want to eat. Now!" He stood at the door, looking at them.

"My sister and I were talking. I'll be out in a few minutes." Celeste told him politely. Ariel started to feel nervous at the sight of this man.

"I said now!" With that he grabbed Celeste's leg off the top bunk and started to pull her down. She allowed herself to be pulled off the bed and land on her feet, but wouldn't budge from that spot.

"Get out!" Ariel demanded. He grabbed Celeste's arm and tried to force her to move, but she quickly got her arm free. Their mother had insisted that both girls learn some form of self defense at a young age, and it was coming in handy now.

Ariel pocketed the knife that Angelo gave her for protection, and then jumped off the bunk. "Let my sister go!" She stood by her sister, ready to fight if she had to.

Tanner instead slapped Celeste across the face. Celeste stood her ground, so he physically picked her up out of the bed room, and threw her into the kitchen table. Grabbing the table, Celeste looked around the room. The other men were gone. "Get cooking, or I'll show you the other thing that women are good for," Tanner demanded.

Ariel saw the look of fear cross her sister's face, and then Celeste got up and went into the kitchen. "Tacos, it is then." She poured some oil into a cast iron pan and started to heat it up, like every time she started to make tacos. "Ariel, come help me chop the onions." Her voice was so devoid of emotion it was scary.

Ariel walked cautiously into the kitchen and started peeling the onions. "Don't make eye contact with him, don't make any sudden moves." Celeste whispered to her sister.

"You're bleeding!" Ariel whispered to her. A thin line of blood was trickling down Celeste's head. Celeste felt under her bangs and nodded.

"Just a little. Must have hit my head against something." Quickly, Celeste got out the ground beef, lettuce, and tomatoes. "Stay over here and chop. Don't put that knife down for anything." Celeste picked up the chopped onions and poured them into the hot oil. By turning towards the stove she was facing Tanner.

Tanner, who seemed to Ariel to be high on something, started rambling on about mutants and humans who were too ignorant to know that they were talking to mutants. "Damn mutie lovers, that's what you are. Too dumb to know what's good for you. What did she give you in exchange for your friendship? Something no human man could?" Celeste turned around to get the meat she had left on the counter behind her. "Look at me when I'm talking to you!"

"Um, Mr. Tanner, I can't look at you and scramble the meat." By her tone of voice, Ariel knew that Celeste was very close to losing her temper. That was rare, Cel kept tight control over her temper because once she lost it, she would spent weeks making up for what she did. It was a Dubois family trait, the extreme way they could get angry. Ariel had lost control once and found herself holding a broken door five minutes later.

"Then, mutie lover. Tell me, was she a good fuck? Huh, Ariel?" Ariel carefully continued to chop the lettuce. "Did things no man would do? But then, you need to ask your sister what a man can do. She knows all about that." This guy was clearly insane, Ariel realized. Besides, her sister was a virgin, one of those old-fashioned girls that would save herself for marriage. "Maybe I could talk her into a demonstration- I've heard she likes it rough." Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that Celeste's hands were shaking.

Ariel had almost had enough. This creep was upsetting her big sister, and she wasn't going to allow it. Dammit, they came into her house, threatened her friend, hurt her sister. Enough was enough! Quickly, she turned around. "Shut up!"

That set Tanner off. Quickly he jumped in the kitchen, pushing Celeste out of the way and into the fridge. Then he started to wrap his hands around Ariel's neck. In one smooth motion, he threw her on the floor, landing on top of her. "I'll teach ya to backtalk a man! Maybe I should teach you what a man could do, huh? Like that?"

For the next few seconds, Ariel felt like her brain had shattered, each part relaying information. Some part of her brain told Ariel that she was in deep shit, while another part heard Tanner talking about how much he loved snuffing girls. She was trying to remember what she had learned in her karate classes to do in this situation as yet another part of her mind saw that her sister hadn't moved from where she landed. Finally, the information clicked, and she was able to knock the man off from on top of her.

He rolled over, and Ariel could tell from the look in his eyes that she was in worse trouble. In a quick movement, he was behind her, one hand holding a handful of Ariel's long hair, the other twisting her arm behind her back. Quickly, Ariel stomped on the inside of his foot, and dug her other elbow into his rib cage, hearing a gratifying crunch as she broke the hold. Turning around, she could see that he had pulled out a good bit of her hair. Adrenaline was flowing so strong that she didn't feel the pain yet and was giving her a lot of extra strength.

The point of her classes was to be able to get her to a point that she could run, but Ariel didn't want to leave her sister alone and defenseless. Instinctively she knew that if she ran, she would never see her sister again. Her neighbors wouldn't or couldn't get involved, and it would be a bad idea to force them into this situation. Her other option was to somehow disable the man to the point that he couldn't hurt her or Celeste and then go get help.

"And I thought your sister liked it rough! Bitch, just give up." Ariel started to reach for her knife but stopped. If she lost control of the knife now, she would be dead. The smell of burnt onions filled the room.

Tanner started to kick at her, which she easily sidestepped. Her hair tangled around his hand made him have a hard time forming a fist, so he opted for a slap. Quickly she caught the arm and twisted it the way her teacher had taught her. From the pop she heard, she hoped that she had at least dislocated the shoulder, making it harder for him to use his hand. Ariel made a mental note to start working out with Jubilee when this whole thing was over.

The pain made Tanner crazier. In under a second, she was on the floor, with his knee between her legs and his arms around her neck. The impact with the ground dazed her. Now, Ariel knew she was truly in trouble.

The next thing she knew, Tanner had fallen off her. Surprised, she felt a quick stinging sensation fall over her exposed skin. Celeste was standing above her, holding the iron skillet.

They both asked and answered the question together. "You okay? Yes." A spell of brief nervous laughter escaped.

"Talk about another use for a pan," Ariel muttered. "He alive?"

Celeste had felt his pulse. "Yeah," she muttered darkly. "Should have hit Peter harder." Something in her eyes looked like she was someplace else. "He couldn't be satisfied..." Celeste shook her head and seemed to return from that place.

Ariel was more afraid of the look in her sister's eyes than the attack that just happened. "Peter?"

"I meant Tanner-" The rest of what Celeste was going to say was interrupted by the arrival of Tony.