A/N: Here comes another apology; I'm sorry for the delay:( Real life's been a bitch lately, and I haven't found the time to write. I won't make any promises for the next chapter,hehe, seeing as how that has worked out so far:P But I will say this: the end is nigh! Sorry for not reading and reviewing as well. I will get to that, hopefully soon:)

Chapter 9 - Reunited We Stand

Dukes was left confused and rather dizzy when Logan and Wraith took off to find that Remy fellow. His head throbbed, dark specks floated in front of his eyes and his ears were ringing. Logan should not have been able to do that. Toppling him was next to impossible. Yet there he was, on his ass, with a major headache to boot. A small part of him wondered how he was going to get up again. Logan's little visit, however, had confirmed a long-time fear and suspicion of his; Stryker was experimenting on mutants. The thought made his blood boil and he swore that he would make Stryker pay for what he had done to all of them. But most of all; for what he had done to Aurora. For what Dukes had let Stryker do. He had promised to find her, to save her. Instead he was hiding like a sewer rat, eating his guilt away. He could have looked harder. At least he would avenge her...when he got back into shape. Dukes bowed his head and started pulling his boxing gloves off. Some time ago, he had felt a flash of light inside his skull, but having felt nothing since he had assumed that what he had felt was Aurora giving up the spark. She was dead, and maybe that was for the best, considering what Stryker was doing to the other mutants. He was sure she would have gotten a much worse treatment, especially from Victor and Zero. He tugged harder at his gloves and felt an urge to eat something...anything. The hair on his arms lifted from the skin, and there was a tingling sensation between his shoulder blades. He assumed Wraith had left the door open and thought nothing more of it, until he heard light footsteps, making their way over to him across the ring. He looked up and saw a figure standing in front of him, back lit by the lamps in the ceiling so the face was cast in shadow.

"Need some help with that?" the figure said and kneeled down.

Without the blinding light obscuring his view, he could see dark brown hair and a pair of stormy eyes peering at him from a pale face. She was thinner than the last time he had seen her, and everything that had been soft about her was now hard and unwelcoming. Her hair was longer, and the way she moved reminded him of an animal that had many enemies. But the way she looked at him had not changed and her smile still invited him in. He watched in silence as she unlaced his gloves and gently pulled them off. She laid them down at his feet and moved over to sit beside him. Dukes was sure he was hallucinating and that Logan had caused irreparable damage to his brain. But it didn't matter, because seeing her again, even if it meant that he was sliding into a coma, was worth more than a few thousand brain cells.

"Cat got your tongue?" she said, but didn't poke him in the ribs as she would normally have.

Dukes shook his head without looking at her, afraid she'd disappear if he looked too hard.

"I'm not sure what to say...I haven't done this before," he said.

"Dukes, you're not hallucinating. Your brain looks fine to me. I'm here, I'm not dead."

He turned his head and looked at her for a long time, before he stretched out a trembling hand and touched her face. He drew a deep breath and hid his face in his hands.

" I thought you were dead, Aurora," he mumbled.

"Aurora is gone. There is only Blitz now."

Her words, her tone of voice, filled his heart with dread. What the hell did they do to you?

"Where have you been? What happened to you?" he asked, balling his hands into giant fists.

She shrugged and hugged her knees.

"Around. The Amazon mostly. I knew I'd be safe there. From them. But I don't really wanna talk about it," she replied

Dukes let the matter lie. He didn't want to push her too far. She seemed so close to the edge.

"Why did you come back?" he finally asked and looked at her.

Her eyes widened a little and she bit her lip.

"I should have come back a long time ago. I wanted to, so much. But I was lost, and terrified and broken. I couldn't let you see me like that. But now, things have changed. Windows of opportunity have opened. And I need you," she replied, her voice thin and trembling.

Dukes felt a hard knot form in his gut, and his heart, his heart seemed ready to shatter.

"You're goin' after them," he said. She nodded and looked down.

"Logan is your window of opportunity...and you need me...for what?"

Her head snapped up and her eyes locked on his.

"What do you mean? I need you to help me with this. I can't do it alone. There's no one else," she whispered and grabbed his hand. He felt that familiar tingle as the hair lifted from his head and arms, but it was much stronger this time. His arm started twitching and she let go. Her gloved hands fell into her lap, and she stared at them, biting her lower lip.

"How can I possibly be of any help to you? Look at me!"

She did. Her eyes studied him, and took in everything that he was. It was now his turn to look down, ashamed of what he had turned into.

Blitz shook her head. "We've both changed, and maybe for the better. But I don't care about how you look. Underneath all that," she said and poked him in the gut, "you're still the man you were in the military compound in Africa, in the desert, in the jungle, in the hotel room in Kuala Lumpur. I'm hoping you're still the man who lo-, who'd ensure my safety at all costs. And I just need to know that you'll have my back this one last time."

"I am, and I will," he said leaning over and kissing her on the forehead.

I won't let you down this time. I can't,he thought and knew that it was true. This time he would do anything to make sure nothing bad happened to her. If he failed her again, he would be destroyed. This is my chance to redeem myself.

She smiled and climbed to her feet. She rolled her shoulders and cracked her knuckles. It seemed as if an immense burden had been lifted from her small shoulders.

"Well then. We probably have some time before Logan gets to where he needs to be. Let's put it to good use," she said and reached out a hand towards him.

"What are you proposin'?" he asked and grinned.

She shook her head, and he thought he could hear her laugh.

"This will not be like Kuala Lumpur. Get on your feet and we'll spar a little. We need to work out our dynamics."

Dukes grabbed her hand, and used the support of the ropes, to get back on his feet. He had forgotten how small she was, and now that he towered over her, that old protective feeling washed over him and filled his heart.

"Okay, little lady, lets dance."

Dukes and Blitz spent the next few days sparring, eating and sleeping, but mostly sparring. She threw everything she had at him, and every time he blocked a punch or a kick, or dodged an attack she smiled in begrudged satisfaction. But she put even more effort into the next sequence of attacks, trying ever harder to come victorious out of their pretend battles. The more time they spent in the ring, the more she focused on keeping up her physical guard, the more her mental guard seemed to slip, and Dukes learned more and more of what hid beneath the surface. He eventually learned of the death of her father, how her mother and brother wanted nothing to do with her and had moved to an undisclosed location, and he learned of her time in the Amazon. But she had still not said a single word about what had happened before that. And he did not want to push her on that particular subject. Not now when she seemed so much like her old self. She also learned things from him. What he had done since she'd disappeared, what Logan had told him, what he was after. When he told her what had happened to Zero, she had hugged him and laughed, and she'd seemed almost happy for awhile. But it was obvious that all was not well.

They had been throwing punches at each other for the last half hour when Blitz suddenly froze. Her eyes widened and all the blood left her face. Her head slowly swiveled towards the door and she stared at it, like she expected the Devil Himself to come walking through it.

"Creed," she whispered.

Dukes moved to her side and lowered his head towards her.

"What's goin' on?"

"Creed is coming. He is close. He's here for you. He's killed Wade and Chris, and now he's come for you. We need to hide!"

"No! No more hiding. We'll face him now," Dukes said and straightened.

Blitz's head swung around and what he saw in her eyes was pure terror. She shook her head violently.

"I'm not ready! I can't...it won't work without Logan! He's the only one who can handle Victor...I need time to power up-"

He could hear heavy footsteps approaching, and Blitz was now staring at him with pleading eyes. He scooped her up in his arms, climbed out of the ring and headed for the back door. Outside, in the alley was a row of dumpsters and he sprinted over to the middle one, crawled into it and closed the hatch above their heads. Blitz was like a shivering baby sparrow against his chest, and all that she had regained of her old self had disappeared in an instant.

"What the hell happened to you?" he whispered into her hair.

"Victor grabbed me outside the hotel," she mumbled, almost too low for him to hear. "He and Zero brought me to Stryker's mutant facility and locked me in a sort of two-way mirror cage."

"You were on the island the entire time?" he asked, the knot in his gut tightening.

She nodded and said "I saw you."

The knot was now a lead ball, and he found it difficult to breathe through the anger. She had been there, and he had not seen her. He could have saved her. But I was too busy with dealing with my own guilt. I could have prevented this!

"Did Stryker...did he experiment on you?"

Blitz shook her head. "No, he just took a sample of my blood. And then he left me to Victor and Zero..." The bitterness and pain in her voice was like a steel-clad claw wrenching his heart.

"Every day they'd come in and take out all their anger on me. They'd leave me broken and bleeding and come back the next day, even angrier than the day before. For awhile I was sure I was dead. I hoped I was," her words came out in angry little bursts, like she couldn't quite control them. "But then I saw you...and that saved me. Gave me what I needed to unleash everything I'd been working to keep in. I escaped. But the price I paid was high."

She was shaking now, and her breathing was ragged. He held her tighter, rested his cheek on her head and resisted the urge to burst out of the dumpster and strangle Victor with his bare hands. He couldn't leave her like this, and he wasn't sure he would be able to kill him. Victor was too fast, too strong for just him.

Blitz squirmed in his grip and sobbed.

"I need to get out. Confined spaces terrify me. And I can't -...I need to be in control. I can't let it slip, or I might destroy everything. And I could, you know," she said, her voice hoarse and weak.

Dukes pulled her even closer as he felt the front of his shirt get wet, and did not let go, not even when his arms started going numb, and the charged air in the dumpster made his eyes and tongue sting. Her unsettling words penetrated the familiar humming that filled his ears.

"Could what?" he asked, trying to calm her down.

"I could destroy the world. One city at the time. The Amazon permanently amped up my power, somehow, and if I let go, no place would be safe."

"But you wouldn't do that, Blitz. I know you. You wouldn't harm innocent people. We only kill the bad guys, remember?"

"No! We killed whoever Stryker told us to kill, and we knew nothing about them. He told us they were a threat, and we believed him. And we killed and killed and killed. But now that we've outlasted our usefulness it's our time to die. And that's how it always will be, with them. With those who are not like us. They'll tolerate us as long as they can use us."

"What are you saying, Blitz? This isn't you!"

"I know, I know...but I'm losing control. I'm so angry, sometimes it's really tempting to just let go. Kill all the Strykers in the world, all of them, because it hurts so much! It hurts...I just want the pain to go away."

"You have to direct that anger towards those who deserve it. And that's Creed and Stryker, and all the people who still work with him. Not the rest of the world, there's still some good left in it," he said, but his words rang untrue in his own ears. He felt like watching the world burn, for what the people in it had done to Blitz. And she was right, he had had the same thoughts when the night was at its darkest. They were different, and the normal people of the world, the humans, would always hate and fear them for that.

"First Creed, then Stryker. And it's going to be slow and painful," she said, and seemed to relax. The shivering stopped, and he regained the feeling in his arms. Something he said must have gotten through to her. He had saved her from herself. It was a small step on his long way to redemption.

"They'll get what's comin' to them," he replied.