What, can the devil speak true?

- 'Macbeth,' Act I, Scene 3

Sinister was not surprised to see that Danvers was awake. The last dose of sedative he had given her had been intentionally small. However, he was a little startled to see that the Rogue girl was also conscious; evidently she was more resilient than he had thought.

Well, that only helped to serve him in the long run, didn't it?

This room was one of the more spacious ones, big enough to hold some of his larger equipment, and he had taken the precaution of restraining Danvers and Rogue on opposite sides. Taking a further lesson from Worthington's embarrassing escape, he had made the restraints of thick, tempered steel - adamantium in Danver's case - and had also removed anything that could be used to cut through them.

"Back for more, creep?" Danvers asked, rather cheerfully, the second he entered. She had been restrained via wrist, waist, and ankle clamps to a movable platform, currently adjusted to a roughly vertical position, and her mangled street clothes had been removed in favor of a bland uniform with no sleeves - the better to administer injections. The restraints had not, evidently,
dampened her spirit.

Sinister smiled, making sure that she saw that the injuries inflicted upon him by her earlier outburst were long since gone. "In a manner of speaking, Ms. Danvers; I wanted to see how your roommate is faring. I understand her evening has been decidedly rough."

He crossed the room to the Rogue girl, shackled like Danvers on an identical platform. On closer inspection, he saw that she had just come out of the sedative's grasp and was not truly awake. "How are you, my dear?"

She blinked fuzzily and pulled against her arm restraints. "Where- Where am I?"

"My laboratory," he said, checking her pulse with two black-gloved fingers. It was slightly faster than the average measurement he had compiled as she slept - no great shock, considering her current situation. "Where you will remain for the conceivable future. My name is Mr. Sinister, by the way."

She blinked at him again, clearly trying to put all that together, and then her eyes widened. "What about Risty?"

Sinister successfully kept himself from laughing, but it was a near thing. "Your friend is unharmed, and will remain that way pending your continued good behavior."

"Why? What do you want with me?" she asked, now fully awake and beginning to muster a defiant attitude. That would not do. He placed his hand around her jaw, leaning forward so that she would understand that he was firmly in control of her destiny.

"You," he said, tightening his grip, "are going to be a weapon. My weapon. My... insurance."

Rogue tried to pull her face away, but his fingers tightened further.

"Oh, for God's sake, leave her alone," Danvers exclaimed. "She's a kid - there's no reason to taunt her like that."

Sinister chuckled and squeezed Rogue's jaw one more time, bruising her, and let go. "Ms. Danvers, do be careful what you wish."

The intercom unit on the wall buzzed sharply, breaking the mood, and Sinister strode over to it with no small amount of annoyance. "What is it now?"

"We found something," Riptide's voice said.

Sinister exhaled. Could the fool be more vague if he tried? "What is it?"

"We're not sure. But whatever it is, you're gonna want to see it."

"I'll be there shortly." Sinister turned to the two young women and sketched an abbreviated half-bow. "Please, make yourselves comfortable until my return."

And with that, he went to see what his idiot mercenaries had discovered.

From a concealing doorway two rooms away, Mystique shifted out of Riptide's form and watched as Sinister sealed the door behind him. She was, to put it mildly, ready to rip the lying bastard's throat out.

Sinister had told her that he knew how to bring Rogue's power under control, and because of that, she had temporarily bartered her soul into his service once again. But less than a minute ago, as she stood in the hallway and listened to him gloat over "his weapon," she came to the grim conclusion that he had been stringing her along from the very start.

Mystique really hated that. It meant that now she was going to have to kidnap Rogue again, risking Xavier's wrath, Sinister's revenge, and her own neck. The last part bothered her the most. She lived her life by the motto "discretion is the better part of valor" for a reason, and that reason was that she had no desire to get killed.

No, no, it was so much nicer to have someone else do the dangerous work. Add to that the minor problem that she lacked the skills to break into the locked lab room, and there was only one way left to get out of this situation. To that end, she waited until she was sure that Sinister had exited the complex and ducked back into the communications room, where she dialed a familiar number.

"Hello, Xavier Institute. Can I help you?"

The Daniels boy. Denser than a brick, and half as observant. If asked about it later, he probably wouldn't even remember the call. Perfect. In her best airheaded-teenage-girl voice, Mystique said, "Hi! Is, like, Remy there?" She giggled a little to reinforce the characterization.

"Uh, sure, hold on," he said, and evidently set the phone down before yelling, "Remy! Phone!"

Mystique waited impatiently for the thirty-one seconds it took LeBeau to pick up and say, casually, " 'lo?"

Using her real voice, Mystique said, "Drop whatever you're doing and get to the New York lab complex. Our old friend Essex is prepping your girl for an experiment as we speak. Come alone or forget it."

Then she cut the connection without waiting for a reply. If anyone was running a trace, they would have had time to complete it - but she was betting that Sinister's lines were sufficiently encrypted to prevent that.

She estimated that they had about fifteen minutes before Sinister returned from his wild goose chase. That was not nearly enough time for LeBeau to reach the lab, never mind carry out a rescue, and it would be stupid for her to be there when Sinister got back.

Mystique finished her preparations and started, unhurried, for the surface.

Remy LeBeau was not one to panic. But Darkholme's call had launched him into a blind nightmare of fear and anxiety with a single word: Essex.

The idea of Rogue being anywhere near Essex absolutely terrified him, because he knew what the doctor could do in the name of science. What he would do. And none of it was nice.

He had dropped the phone and sprinted back upstairs, ignoring the concerned voices of the other students, hoping beyond hope to find Rogue sprawled back across her bed doing homework. All he had found were her textbooks and a half-completed set of math problems. She was still gone.

There, standing in the room she shared with Kitty, his fear had blossomed into anger, and he felt his eyes glow with unspent energy.

First he was going to save Rogue. Then he was going to kill Darkholme for leading her into trouble in the first place. And then he was going to do what he should have done two years ago: put a stake through Essex's cold heart.

And he was going to do it by himself. He knew Darkholme well enough to know that when she said "come alone or forget it," she wasn't bluffing. If he showed up with the X-Men ready to rock - if he even brought them along as the calvary - she would drop the whole thing, and then he and Rogue would both be out of luck.

He left Rogue's room and went to his own; he had to share with two of the younger kids, but Bobby and Sam were still getting kicked around in the Danger Room. He could do what he needed to and get out of there without nosy witnesses.

Gambit did a quick-change out of his regular clothes and into the Thieves' Guild body armor, making sure that all of the outfit's hidden pockets were full. The last thing he wanted to do was run out of ammo; he tucked three fresh decks of cards into his trenchcoat's pockets, slipped his bo-staff into its place on his back, and shrugged the coat on. As a last measure, he took the slim, rectangular X-Men communicator that had been given to him and tucked it into the waistband of his coat.

Then he took a series of deep breaths and forced himself to calm down before he blew something
up. Don't panic, he told himself. Use your brain. Think like a thief, not a high-school kid.
And why are you panicking anyway?

He realized with a small jolt that he liked Rogue a hell of a lot more than he'd thought. "And what a time to figure it out, salaud," he muttered to himself.

He opened one of the room's big windows - which weren't supposed to be opened without setting off an alarm, but he'd taken care of that five minutes after he moved in - and jumped effortlessly to a branch of the large tree growing conveniently nearby. From there he used his bo to push the window shut again, and dropped the rest of the way to the ground.

Much like Rogue had earlier, he clung to the shadows as he ran across the lawn. Unlike her, though, he didn't head to the wall. He went straight to the garage.

For a moment, he considered taking Wolverine's bike again, but decided against it. He didn't know what condition Rogue was gonna be in when he got her out of the lab. What he needed was a car, and preferably a fast one.

So he took Scott's.

Remy knew a little about cars (most of it how to steal them), but he knew that this particular convertible was a vintage 1966 AC Shelby Cobra, if only because Scott had told him - and with no small amount of pride when he did. It was fast, it was cool, and the engine was almost perfectly silent since Scott obsessively maintained it. Up until this point, Remy had refrained from borrowing it out of respect; Summers was a stiff, but he hadn't gone out of his way to make the life of Jean-Pierre's favorite son miserable.

He figured Scott would understand, especially if he couched his explanation in terms of "pretend it was Jean who needed saving."

Remy made it out of the Institute's gates without incident and set a course for New York City.

"Hang on, chere," he said to the night sky, and floored the accelerator.