They trudged through the dark building in a single file line: Ororo in the lead, followed closely by Jean. Logan tailed close behind her, with Remy bringing up the rear, being sure to leave enough room between the Canadian and himself. He moved with the silent grace of a born thief, totally at home with the darkness around him. He couldn't help but treat the situation as if it was a routine, high-stakes job. He peered around, noting the positions of security cameras, as well as looking for possible exits, and places he didn't want to get cornered in. He couldn't help himself, that kind of thinking was an instinct now. He couldn't turn it off, just like he couldn't help by notice that security was somewhat lacking.

"Dis is still a national monument, non?" he asked quietly as they encroached their third flight of stairs. Above him, Logan groaned.

"Last time I checked, Cajun, it still was," he said. Then, knowing he was going to regret it, he ventured to ask, "why?"

"Cause Ah've seen strip clubs wit tighter security den dis," Remy replied, spying yet another security camera that didn't seem to be moving or working. In front of him, Logan sniffed the air deeply, discovering what he'd expected.

"The place has plenty of security kid," he muttered. "Someone just took care of them for us." He counted the scents of at least three different bodies near the stairwell. When he was back in the openly circulating air of one of the display floors, he figured they would be likely to discover more.

Exiting the stairwell at the tallest museum floor, they found it lit by dim, emergency lighting, and as empty of security as the previous floors had been. Moving out of the stairwell and into the open room, Storm began explaining the layout to her troops.

"This is the highest historical floor. The stairs to the viewing chamber in the crown of the statue are across the floor and around the corner there," she gestured, pointing in front of them and to the left, where a blinking EXIT sign was the only indicator of a opening there. Remy craned his head back and looked at the narrow strip of displays that circled the historical floor a half-story above.

"What about up dere?" he asked, pointing. Storm didn't look up, but instead gestured to her left, where a giant, industrial door on a sliding track hung over an opening.

"Stairs to that mezzanine level are over there, but that's as high as they go. There's no viewing deck access from that level. You have to come down to go back up." She opened her mouth to say more, but a raucous alarm bell interrupted her.

WHAAA-WHAAA-WHAAA-WHAAA-WHAAA…

The metal detector screamed as Logan passed beneath the security archway. The two women whirled around in surprise as the machine screeched into the dark.

WHAAA-WHAAA-WhAAA-WHA-aaaaa….

With a faint SNIKT sound, Logan drove both sets of his claws into the red lights flashing on the side of the machine. With a pitiful wail and a shower of sparks, the siren died, leaving the four mutants to gape at each other in silence. Logan moved through the archway sullenly, and Remy slipped through after him.

"Real smooth dere, homme," he muttered as a handful of sparks leapt up in his face. "If dat wasn't obvious, Ah don't know what," he started to say when both Logan and Jean tensed and stopped, Logan holding up a hand for silence.

"We've been discovered," Jean said, casting out a telepathic net. She wasn't strong enough to hone in on who it was, just enough to know that they were quickly approaching.

"Gee, Ah wonder who's fault dat is," Remy hissed under his breath. However he slipped into defensive mode, peering around himself into the darkness. He pulled out his deck of cards and held gripped them tightly in his half-gloved, left hand. The feel of the tattered jack of clubs beneath his fingers was comforting. Still sniffing like a bloodhound, Logan walked away, venturing into a small, dark passage to the left.

"Logan," Storm hissed. "Get back here." Either the feral man didn't hear her, or more likely, he just chose to ignore her. However, a few seconds later he reappeared.

"They're close, I just can't tell where," and that's when a figure leapt from the shadows, tackling him from the side, and knocking them both back into the dark hallway. When the fighting duo finally passed under the light, what Remy, Jean and Storm saw was Logan fighting…Logan.

"Well crap," was all Remy heard from Storm before he got a hit from behind, a swift kick to the back that sent him tumbling forward.

Recovering with the speed of a natural acrobat, he turned the uncontrolled tumble into a neat forward roll. Landing on his feet in a crouch, the Cajun whirled to face his attacker. However, the only thing he saw was Jean getting to her feet, having been knocked to the floor. Storm was persuing the two, quickly moving Logans down the hall and into an adjoining room. He and Jean were on their own, with an attacker they couldn't see. He moved to her side.

"Wait…" she muttered, as they stood side by side, peering into the darkness, trying to distinguish statues from humans. "Just wait…"

Neither of them moved for a full minute, waiting with bated breath. "I can feel him," Jean whispered. "When I tell you Remy, duck…"

"What?" Remy had only a nano-second to wonder before Jean yelled,

"NOW!" Remy hit his knees and Toad sailed by, just over his head. With reflexes bred for speed, the thief recovered and sent three charged cards spiraling into the darkness after the reptilian mutant. A brilliant explosion occurred, knocking over several displays and issuing a yelp of pain telling Remy that his cards had hit home.

Not waiting for the smoke to clear, Remy charged headlong into the billowing cloud.

"Stay close," was the only thing Remy heard from Jean before the jeering started.

"Wot? Jus' two li'l X-Men gangin' up on poor Toad?" The voice was came from the left in the dust cloud. "That don't seem quite fair." This time the voice came from the right.

"Neit'er is hittin' a guy when his back is turned," Remy called back, hoping to pinpoint the mutants location. "And dat didn' seem ta stop you, now did it?" The only response was a small statue of lady liberty that went whizzing past his head. "Now dat just ain't cool!" However, a yelp of pain penetrated smoke, followed by a loud crash.

"I got him, Remy," Jean called out as the smoke began to fade. "Get out into the open." There was another loud THUNK.

Escaping from the fading cloud, the thief found Jean pitching the ugly mutant back and forth into display cases.

"Never lose sight of your target," she explained to the novice, kinetically hurling Toad out of the ruins of a case documenting the building of the monument, and into one depicting French and American contractual documents. "It's the first rule of combat."

Toad didn't give a shit about rules of combat though. All he knew was that he was tired of being treated like a mutant dodgeball. Twisting in midair, slammed into the glass feet first this time. Pounding off the back wall of the case, he propelled himself out with the force of a bullet, right at Jean. She recovered quickly enough, and dropped backwards to avoid being hit. Again, Remy chased the annoying mutant down with a series of explosive cards.

"Anyone else tink it's highly disturbin' dat dis guys weapon is a fourteen foot tongue?" Remy asked sarcastically. "Ah mean, deres just some tings you don' want in your mouth."

"Focus, Remy," Jean chastised gently as she leapt to her feet. Toad had used his momentum from being thrown by Remy's blast to try and rocket himself into Jean yet again. She caught him in a kinetic vice grip this time, and put him through a plaster model of the Statue of Liberty next to one of the Eiffel Tower. It was obvious from their banter that both mutants considered Toad to be more of a nuisance than a threat.

However, it was a good warm up for Remy, Jean thought, and the boy was handling himself well. The two joined each other in the center of the room, as Toad cavorted off the guardrails surrounding the walkway above, keeping out of both mutant's ranges. Looking for point of attack, or obvious weakness, and finding none, Toad landed on the floor before the dynamic duo, instantly lashing out his tongue.

The slimy length shot between the two mutants, missing them both by a considerable distance. Which was fine, considering that they weren't the targets anyway. It wrapped around a random pipe along the wall, used for hot air distribution or something. With a firm tug, the pipe bowed out and broke, snapping a four-foot length of it back at Remy and Jean. It was a good idea, and it might have worked had it happened quicker, and had both of X-Men been blind. As Toad jerked the pipe back, Jean floated over it, and Remy crouched down, allowing it to sail over his head. Toad unwound his tongue and caught the rod just before it would have cracked him in the mouth.

In the blink of his yellow eyes, he vaulted at Remy, bringing the pipe back above his head, so that he could strike a blow as he landed, coupling his own downward momentum with his arm strength.

However, Remy caught the end of the pipe as it arced toward his head.

"You lookin' at de master o' dis weapon, boy," he jeered. "Don't you come over here expectin' to hit anyting." With a twist and a jerk he wrenched it from the grasp of the shorter mutant. He grappled with the pipe, getting the feel of it and taking a swing. With a flourish, he clipped Toad's leg, tipping him over.

"'Ey, that's mine!" Toad cried as he toppled to the ground. Then, taking the phrase 'tongue lashing' seriously, he shot out his tongue and wrapped it around the pipe a few times over.

"Well, if you be wantin' it back dat badly," Remy said, standing in false contemplation. "Ah guess Ah should give it back." Then, he released the pipe, letting elasticity and tension do it's job. The pipe flew back and hit Toad square in the nose, and by the time his vision had cleared and he had time to register that the pipe was glowing bright pink, it was too late unwind it from his tongue.

The blast was impressive, blowing Toad 10 feet across the room and into a series of glass viewing windows. It also left about two feet of the mutant's singed tongue lying on the floor where he'd been sitting only seconds before. Jean took it from there.

"Game over, Toad," she told him, the minute before she hit him with a telekinetic 'punch' that blew him threw the window. Jean made sure that she launched him far enough so that he would hit the water and not the concrete or the rocks of the island below. Beyond that, she didn't really care where he landed. With a flip of her ponytail, she turned to regard Remy.

"You did good," she told him with a soft smile. "I knew you would." But Remy wasn't listening.

"Shame Ah had to blow da pipe," he muttered. "Could've used it." He joined Jean as she gestured for him to follow. They went to check on Storm's situation, as Remy whined, "damn, Ah miss mah bo staff."

The brawl with Mystique was fast and ugly, though Logan had to admit: fighting someone who looked and smelled just like himself was unnerving. His copy was faster than he was, and more flexible. For each blow he landed, his duplicated landed two or three. However, he was more both more experienced with his claws, and could put more muscle behind each blow. The two circled one another while Storm watched in awe. Unsure of which was which, she couldn't risk taking out a member of her quickly shrinking team. She started at the fighting duo, but each time she had Mystique locked in her sight, the two circled again, and she lost her.

Wounds didn't help either. When Logan got hit, the healed up almost instantly. When Mystique got hit, she covered them up just as quickly. When one Logan threw the other into the chin link fence of the storage cage behind him, it seemed like it was all over. And for Storm it was. She had had enough.

"This ends now!" she cried. Raising her hands, she drew in the air from the chamber and hallway beyond, and directed them like a music conductor. In a matter seconds, she had created a whirling cyclone within the small confines. With each passing moment, the speed increased, throwing boxes packages against walls, and into the still dueling Wolverines. Both fought the wind, though, Storm began to notice that one duplicate was struggling more than the other. As the fury of the tornado increased, the flailing Logan was eventually picked up by the wind, in mid-kick, and thrown back against the wall. That's when Ororo was sure.

Still plastered against the wall, 'Ro advanced on Mystique from one angle, slowing the winds as she went. The real Logan approached her from the other direction. Caught between a rock and a hard place, Mystique, still in the guise of Logan, did exactly what Storm had hoped she would. Diving at the goddess, mock claws unsheathed, she screamed in a blind rage. That scream of anger quickly turned to one of pain as Ororo hit her with a mini bolt of lightning just a moment before she would have struck right in the chest.

The shock knocked the shapeshifter backwards, where she fell onto the real Logan's claws. The three shining blades stuck her through the back, emerging just below her heart on the other side. As blood began to drip from the wound, Mystique's disguise began to give way to her usual blue self. With a muted groan of pain she slipped off the claws and slumped to the floor.

Both breathing hard, Logan and Ororo started at the fallen mutant while they collected their thoughts. Finally Logan broke the silence.

"How did you know it was me?" he asked, sheathing both sets of claws with a soft SNAKT.

"Played a hunch."

"What hunch?"

"That a guy who's bones are all coated with indestructible metal wouldn't get blown around as badly a woman pretending that her's were," she said, turning and strutting out of the room. Logan paused in the doorway and looked at the fallen Mystique one final time.

"Good hunch."

The rag-tag gang of heroes regrouped at the foot of the final staircase. The fight had appeared to agitate Logan, who charged up the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time, much to Storm's dismay.

"We've got to stick together," she chastised him when they both finally arrived on the viewing deck. Remy was unable to mask a jaunty grin at the sight of the headstrong Canadian getting scolded by a woman half his age. It would have been a downright funny sight, if Logan hadn't suddenly flow back and hit the wall a split-second later, issuing a feral roar.

"Merdre," Remy cussed. He'd seen that happen before, back when Magneto had attacked them in Louisiana. "Move!" he shouted, grabbing Jean's wrist and turning back towards the stairs. But it was already too late.

Steel girders ripped themselves from the wall and wrapped around the three remaining mutants. With sickening force, all three were thrown back against the wall, prisoners trapped with a symbol of freedom.