James Logan and Victor Creed sat in the darkness of their cell, dwelling in their own separate thoughts, pondering the chain of effects that had put them in their present position.

James himself was quietly worrying about his brother's changing personality. His rage and irrationality was steadily growing, and James was finding himself hard pressed to keep his brother on the straight and narrow. Hence, the reason they were put to firing squad. His brother, the boy, the man who saved his life and raised him from childhood, was becoming something grotesque that James could hardly fathom. He would have raped that woman, had the sergeant not found him and stopped him. He killed the sergeant, and many of the other officers that attacked him to stop his murderous rampage. And then, when put to firing squad, he had merely grinned in the face of flying lead. James still had yet to understand any of it.

Victor on the other hand, sat examining his long, curving claws, his eyes masked from any emotion that his brother might seek therein.

Finally, James asked the question both of them had been waiting for since the beginning of their incarceration. "Why, Victor?"

Victor stopped his inspection and looked up at his brother, his eyes still guarded "Why what, Jimmy?"

"Why did you try to rape that woman?"

Victor slowly sheathed his claws in the opposite arm, watching as the blood dripped and the wounds closed around the intruding objects. "You should have seen the way she looked at me."

"When you were about to rape her? What did you expect?"

The blood continued to drip "No, before, Jimmy. Before I… before. She saw me for what I am. She knew I wasn't a man. She knew I was a monster, an animal. And then I had to break her to pieces for knowing, for that… how she looked at me. You didn't see it, Jimmy. You don't know. And her smell… like concentrated fear wrapped in loathing. She was fascinated by me. I was going to fuck her and make her realize that she wanted me all along."

Disgusted, Logan turned away, feeling the hot rush of bile in his throat. He spat, hoping it would relieve the overwhelming urge to vomit. It didn't.

Then, the slight tapping of footsteps interrupted the silence, and Logan immediately assessed the approaching sounds and scents to determine the danger, if any. He turned to his brother to nod slightly; they both knew what was coming. A man, medium height and build, with an authoritative step and the scent of someone on the hunt, and a woman whose scent was wrong.

Together, they looked up as the door to their cell opened, and saw the two people they had been expecting. Logan first noticed the man was wearing a military uniform, but seemed distinctly un-military in the hunger behind his dark eyes.

The same man kneeled down and began speaking, while his companion leaned carelessly against the door frame. The man's eyes burned into Logan as he spoke, accenting the consonants "Hello, my name is Major William Stryker. You were sentenced for decapitating a senior officer. Your sentence was carried out by a firing squad at ten-hundred hours. Now how'd that go?"

Logan spoke, his eyes flicking towards Stryker's companion, "It tickled."

The woman smiled slightly at his response, and oddly enough, her eyes appeared to flicker. Logan thought back to the smell of the woman as she approached, and the hair on the back of his neck rose. Something was wrong, a natural balance disturbed, and as he was thinking this, the woman's eyes glistened again, sparking yellow in the dim light. He looked toward Victor, and saw his hooded eyes fixed on the woman as well.

Stryker suddenly realized something was wrong, and turned angrily towards the woman and barked, "For God's sake, Surge, turn it off!"

Surge smiled once again, but this time her eyes did not flicker. Logan at once felt at ease, and turned his attention back to Stryker. But Victor continued to stare steadily at Surge, his eyes betraying nothing.

Stryker continued, "As I said, I am Major William Stryker, and I have a proposal for you two. You boys tired of running? Tired of denying your true nature? "
Victor spoke up for the first time, his voice rumbling deep in his chest, "What do you care?"

"Oh, I care. What I care is how valuable you are. We're putting together a special team with special privileges. Now tell me, how would you like to really serve your country?"

Logan looked at his brother. Victor glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. Logan returned his gaze to Stryker, and nodded once.