~ Well, the way I see it, you have two options. You can talk to me here and now, or we can wait until Wolverine gets back. Which would you prefer, you scoundrel? ~

~ I don't have to answer to the likes of you! I would never give up the location of my master. ~

~ I don't care about where he is. I want his purpose. ~

~ His purpose? You've spent years with the X-Men and you still want to know his purpose? Pathetic. ~ "Agh!" Exodus cried out, his hands reaching to his head, but they couldn't reach. His hands were chained to a metal chair. His powers were restricted by a collar that he was made to wear. Emma Frost entered his mind in order to interrogate him - she meant to be patient with him, but his last insult had caused her to give up on patience entirely.

~ This is your final warning, Exodus. Reveal what you know now, or I promise you, you will live out the rest of your immortal life praying you had never been born. ~

"You're the telepath - you tell me!" Exodus shouted. It was true - Emma should have been able to simply delve into his mind and 'pluck' the necessary information from his mind. But she couldn't. She wasn't sure what it was exactly, but there was something there - or not there rather. It was almost as if all of his memories were missing.

"This meeting is over," said Emma, curtly. She got up, out of her chair, and tried not to let her frustration show. She opened the door of the interrogation room and stepped outside.

"... so thanks, again, for letting us use this location. We needed to question him, but bringing him back to the Institute was a bad idea," said Cyclops to a brazen, redheaded woman.

"It was the least I could do. Besides, I consider Logan one of my friends and Exodus is technically a criminal," the redhead replied. Emma Frost walked over to Scott.

"Emma, I think you two have met before - this is Natasha - "

"Romanoff - yes I do believe I've made her acquaintance once or twice before," Emma said. Natasha Romanoff, aka the Black Widow, extended her hand to Emma, who shook it, reluctantly and almost with a look of disgust. The woman was wearing a tight black leather catsuit, with two Glock 26 handguns holstered to her thighs. The golden bracelets around her wrists packed a powerful electric charge and the belt around her waist held various odds and ends. She was an agent of the Strategic Homeland Intervention Espionage & Logistics Division, SHIELD for short.

"Is he talking?" asked Cyclops.

"No - and I can't access his mind. It's as if there's nothing left in it," responded Emma.

"What do you need to find out?" asked the Widow.

"The location of - " began Scott.

"Does she really need to know? She's SHIELD," said Emma.

"Logan vouched for her," said Scott. "You need to learn to cooperate with her."

"That doesn't exactly help her case, and the last time I checked, SHIELD wasn't so willing to cooperate with us. Especially not when they sicced their Avengers on us," said Emma.

"That was the past, and she was following orders," said Scott."We need to know the location of Magneto - these attacks he's been setting up - they don't make sense. It's not Magneto's style. Something's wrong."

"Give me two minutes," said Natasha. She strutted forward, into the interrogation room. She flipped her long red hair. Exodus looked up. Cyclops couldn't hear what she was saying, but then Exodus laughed. The Widow smiled. With inhuman speed, she grabbed the mutant's long black hair and slammed his head down onto the metal table, quickly and repeatedly until blood flowed from his nose. She punched his throat, then his stomach, and pulled his face close to hers. He whispered something to her, and then she dropped him.

"I'm not entirely sure how this will help, but he said something about a group called the Purifiers," reported the Widow.

"There ain't no way Exodus is working fer the Purifiers," chimed in Wolverine. "They're mutant haters. They want to wipe us out."

"In all likelihood, he was not telling you the truth," said Emma.

"Well, we have to start somewhere," said Scott.

"Oh, excellent," said Emma, dryly. "And what shall we do with Exodus?"

"You can keep him here for as long as you want. This place is absolutely secure, and with that collar on, he can't do a thing. I'll be staying here for at least a week, so you have at least that long before he has to be moved," said Natasha.

"And if SHIELD finds out?" asked Emma.

"I'll tell them that it's exactly what it looks like - a criminal was detained and he's being questioned," said Natasha.

"Won't they get suspicious?" asked Storm, who until that point had remained silent as she attended to the wounded Beast and Angel.

"If they knew half the things I do behind their backs, there's no way I would still be a SHIELD agent," Natasha told them.

"Is that supposed to be reassuring?" asked Emma.

"It's good enough for me," said Scott. "And now we have to go. Has Rogue been able to do something about the jet?"

"No, but I'll have my people fix it for me. Until then, you can use one of our jets," the Widow offered.

"Thanks," said Scott. "We need to get back to the Institute to sort all this out."

The X-Men left leaving the Black Widow alone with Exodus … what could possibly go wrong?