Moving through the dense undergrowth Logan growled quietly scented the air. There was nothing. No trace of human or animal and it was not right. Anywhere with this much undergrowth should have an active animal population and he should be able to smell or track them. Thus far he had not even seen a trace of any kind of track and he was of the opinion that the whole thing just stank.

"Wolverine" Storms voice came through his com unit "Have you detected anything"

"Not a damn thing 'Ro and I'm getting a really bad feeling about all of this"

"Indeed I would have expected us to come across some sign of life but to find nothing is wrong. I fear that this was all a ruse to get us away from the mansion"

He was torn. While his head said that he should agree with the weather witch - his heart would not give up on the idea that Kitty was somewhere on this island and in trouble.

"Lets give it another 5 minutes 'Ro and then we will head back to the blackbird" he had to keep looking - just in case.

"Very well Logan"

Logan continued heading forwards towards the location of the clearing. He and Scott had agreed that he should scout the while area before he approached the clearing. If any of their team mates were there they needed to know that when they reached them there would be no attach from the rear.

Approaching the clearing he joined the rest of the group who reported the same thing. No signs of life but it did look like one of the X Jets was in the clearing.

"Bishop, any signs of life on the scanner yet?" Scott asked

'Negative, no change in status from our approach"

Nodding he turned to the search party. "Very well, standard cross grid search pattern, anyone finds anything then radio back"

It was a sign of the times that the rest of the team knew what he was asking them to do. More and more they were called on to search for missing mutants who had been attacked as the battle between human and mutant kind escalated. The team moved into their possitions and started to work towards the jet.

Making a quick assessment of the situation Scott could see that this had been no crash landing, the jet had sustained no damage and looking at where it had landed it appeared that the selection had been deliberate.

Stepping into the clearing Gambit moved to stand near Wolverine. "Something 'aint right here mon ami"

Wolverine snorted trust the cajun to state the obvious. "Just keep your eyes peeled swamp rat" He had a nasty feeling that this was not going to end well.

As Emma approached the downed jet she experienced a sudden telepathic flash which caused her to grunt in pain. It was an image of a man, dressed in black stood near the jet. "Scott I think we need to pull out, Now!" she barked backing away from the jet. That was about as far as she got as the clearing was suddenly illuminated in a wash of white light which was quickly followed by darkness for all of those who stood there as they slipped into unconsciousness. Moments later a group of men appeared and looked into the clearing.

"Get the inhibitors on them and then load them for transport to base" a dark figured ordered as he smiled to himself. Things were about to get really interesting

Nick Fury checked over his gear for what felt like the tenth time that day. He had received a call from Hank McCoy a few weeks earlier. He had been worried about Scott Summers and his missing re- con team. They had apparently left to check upon the incident that he and Major Lee had been tracking and they had not been seen from since. That in and of it's self was not odd but the sudden disappearance of the the blackbird and an inability to raise any members of the team had forced to good doctor to put things on lock down and then to contact himself. It seemed that all of the key players from the X-Men had been on the mission, at least those that were not needed to run the school.

For the past two weeks Fury had been working with a number of trusted staff members looking at the strange cycles they had been seeing in the hostile uprisings that they had been seeing. If that was what Summers and his team had been investigating then there was a chance that they had found something out which had taken them off the radar. To date they had not seen any patterns that he could discern, so he had called on Jubilation and asked her to look it over.

True to form she had come back 12 hours later with some information., Each of the uprisings that they had concentrated on had happened within hours of reported disappearances of people from the surrounding area. It had seemed tenuous until she had put the data up and he had seen it then, a distinct pattern. He had sent her off, asking her to look into the backgrounds of the people that had been taken. There should be a connection between them all if there really was a connection. He had contacted Dr McCoy to see if the others had touched base and check whether Hank himself knew anything about the mission they had been on. He had confirmed that the team was still missing and claimed that they had just reported it as another uprising. Fury was not convinced but if that was the case then they were back to square one.

He had approached his superiors with the the information about the patterns that they had found. They seemed to take it in their stride but were not convinced by the data patters. He had brought in Major Lee who had then had one hell of a grilling, most of which seemed to be centered around why she had been investigating this in the first place. She had come back with an answer about finding a way to suppress the uprisings which, while very believable had not appeased the panel. He had stood up and explained she was just following orders which had pleased them slightly more and she had been ordered from the room with the direction that she was to go on with her daily duties.

Fury had known that working out what was going on , without intelligence would be impossible so he had made a couple of calls to ensure that he and the Major could meet off base. He had gone along to her club and approached her in her office explaining that he needed her to do some further checking. He had constructed a file about the disappearances and asked her to carry on her research, even going as far as supplying her with new credentials she could use so as not to raise suspicions.

He had then approached his superiors once again, but under the guise of having noticed that some of the key leaders of the mutant community (the X-Men) had gone missing while under covert supervision. He had fed them some story about the risk of a mutant uprising that was lead by charismatic characters who could destroy the world, praying on what he hoped were their fears. While not all members of the comity he had presented to had been convinced, enough had bought the story that there had been discussion of a mission, for purely information gathering reasons.

The brass had been making noises about Fury not going on the mission which has struck him as odd, after all he had been there "go to guy" for any missions of this nature. When he had detailed the plan out they had told him that they would need top level clearance and they would be in touch. In preparation he had put together a team from a group of select soldiers that had been dubbed Fury's Hell Hounds. They were men that he could trust implicitly and that he had trained himself. They were tough as hell and would be willing to carry out his every order and based on the reaction his plan had received he figured he would need them.

The go ahead for his plan had been received only 5 hours earlier with the proviso that he had to be off base with the rest of his team in no more that 6 hours. It was an odd condition and had backed up his belief that his feeling that something else was going on. His team were even now waiting for him boarded on one of the jets that he had ensured was waiting on standby.