It seemed that she was destined to follow in Numbuh 501's footsteps. Not that she'd even known about 501 at the time- after all, she was only the Head Interrogator. Someone who knew all the right places to push. She could break anyone, no matter who they were.

And it was all necessary. She'd seen entirely too much in that position. The nightmares started after three years in the position, the screams of her victims always pervading the background noise. Adults, they were always adults, except the one time before her dreams began. It had been a ten year old boy then. No matter how much he much screamed, she wouldn't relent. She couldn't.

No one else knew this pain, although many saw horrors. Her planet was a world of violence and blood, with weapons deadly and made to kill, not to immobilize. The nightmares only worsened when she first spiraled out of control, her D.I.R.K. spinning towards the Supreme Leader's back and his scream was cut off by the choking of his throat by his blood welling up through his lungs.

Then the visions started.

None of them were alive; they all stared at her sadly and whispered to her, and she could never tell if an operative reporting to her was dead or living. She would shout out for the perished to go away, while others would simply run in terror and confusion.

Then there was the day that they came. She couldn't remember much about that.

The weeks were blurred together, a mix of incoherent mutterings in a blank room with gray walls that sometimes had her own blood stained on them. She always had visitors, but none of them stood out anymore; the thought that she was dying slowly crept into her head.

Then one visitor started to show himself out more than the others. This one managed to make her angry. Him, with his self-assured attitude and quiet smugness hiding behind those sunglasses. They made him a coward, she told him a million times, a human coward with nowhere to run. He would only laugh, and that made her fear him a thousand times more. She could never tell if he was nervous. His skin was dark enough that it didn't pale or blush.

She didn't have any fears until then, and since it was all she had, she clung to it desperately. When he handed her the D.I.R.K. one time, she surprised herself and didn't try to kill him or end her own life, much as she wanted to.

Gradually, she learned. She locked away her insanity, convincing herself that what she saw wasn't real. Eventually every time she had a vision, she forgot about it immediately afterwards, her mind becoming hardened and cold. He began letting her out, allowing her to go on missions.

She had a life of emptiness, giving and following orders, putting on an act that convinced so many. And then came another fateful day.

The day that her favored weapon sunk into the heart of him. She watched with a strange, half-conscious fascination as it plunged deep, spraying blood and splattering on the brown haired girl. She had instantly seen herself in that girl, and feared her because of it. She ran.

Now she remembered her visions. Two weeks in a S.C.A.M.P.E.R. without him there, bringing her back from the edge. They told her to be irrational.

She wasn't sure when she gave in to their demands for blood and pain. All she knew was that one day, the brunette who had killed him was going to scream in the very same interrogation room where it all began.

Ar-Ti's lips curved in a sadistic smile at the thought.

Author's note: As if Numbuh 98 was about to let that happen… Oh yes, Wesley will have a much larger role in the upcoming Operation: D.O.M.I.N.O. I gave in to my own desire to explain something I mentioned in my one-shot, Intrigue Is Not An Option. This was just a preview. I don't know how long it'll take for me to get started, but it'll be a three-chapter story, like last time.