Disclaimer: Well, now that I've solved all of my reviewers problems, I don't know what to say in here. I suppose I should tell you to just keep reviewing because I'm at a grand total of seven. SEVEN!!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?! Would I lie to you? Of course not. Guess what happens in this chapter? Well, see, Photon puts down this tank with little holes in it. Magneto says. Wait a minute. why do I even bother. If no one is reading my book than that means no one's reading my disclaimer! That was pointless. mysteriously disappears

Photon put down a large glass tank with tiny holes in the top. They were back in the Brotherhood headquarters.

"Put the hostages in the tank," Magneto ordered, "It has been enhanced so that no one can escape from it. Not even the phasing one."

Mosquito, Sabretooth, and Paste dropped Kitty, Rahne, and Shawn into the tank. They were still unconscious. Blob moved towards the tank, holding the lifeless Nucleo in his arms.

"Blob," Magneto instructed, "Give Nucleo to Sabretooth. We need to put him in a different location."

Blob did as he was told although a little confused. Toad and Pyro dragged a struggling kid through the entrance causing Photon to drop the awakening Nightmare.

"Should we put this one in the tank?" Toad asked, "We found him skulkin' around outside."

"We could burn him, instead," suggested Pyro as everyone turned to look at him, "It was only my opinion, mates."

Without waiting for an answer, Toad stuffed the besieged kid into the tank and slammed the porous lid shut.

"Gambit, Sabretooth, Mystique," Magneto said loudly, "Come with me."

"Where's Massacre?" asked Gambit, who had scorched holes in his trench coat.

"He is too injured to accompany us," Magneto explained, "He will be staying here under the rest of the Brotherhood's care."

Gambit looked around.

"I pity him," he said to himself.

The four left and everything went back to normal. Lance and Pietro were attempting to get unglued while shouting insults at each other. Mosquito and Pyro had gone back to watching some dumb show about cows. Everyone else except Massacre and Nightmare were waiting at the card table for Lance to deal them a hand.

"Hey, Gumball," Toad said to Paste, "Get rid of that glue so we can play,"

Paste did as he was told and they sat down to another night of poker as if nothing had happened for days. Eventually, the three hostages woke up to find an unfamiliar kid in the tank with them.

"Hey, kid," Shawn said to him, "Who're you?"

"Cory Sanders," the kid said.

"THE Colonel Sanders?!" Shawn said amazed.

"He said Cory," Kitty said annoyed, "You, like never get anything right."

"Oh," said Shawn, a little disappointed. He looked around, "Hey, look where we are."

"It's, like, the Brotherhood headquarters," Kitty said, also looking around.

"This should be fun," said Shawn mischievously, "Years of spending time with Aaron's insults have given me plenty of ideas for my own."

"Here we go," said Rahne rolling her eyes.

"Hey!" Shawn said, noticing the card game, "Poker! Can I play?"

"Are you kidding?" said Pietro giving Shawn a dirty look, "Since when do hostages play poker?"

"Since now," said Shawn, "I love poker. Are you playing for money?"

They resumed their card game, ignoring Shawn.

"Ok, then," said Shawn grinning, "I'll just help."

He looked over at Kitty and Rahne and winked.

"Hey, Tubbs!" Shawn started, "Wart Man has a straight! I'd fold while you can."

Blob immediately put down his cards.

"Hey, you," Toad whined as everyone dropped their cards, "You're losing my money."

"Just doing everyone a favor." Shawn shrugged his shoulders.

Shawn continued annoying the card players. Kitty sulked in the corner. Rahne thought about why she had to get stuck with Shawn instead of Roberto. Cory seemed interested in Shawn's comments and was listening intently.

"Aagh!" Toad screamed, "I've had enough! I'm out of here!"

He flung his cards in the air and hopped to his bedroom.

"It's getting to be too much for me too," said Lance, "I'm going to bed."

Everyone else seemed to agree and they all went into their rooms. Shawn resorted to the two watching TV.

"Hey, Skeeter!" Shawn called to Mosquito, "Whatcha watchin?"

"Oh, Mother of Pearl," Mosquito muttered, "He's got started on us now."

Pyro just smiled at a burning barn with cows running away on the TV screen.

"How about you, Hades?" Shawn started again, "Can you tell me what's on tonight?"

"Well, I don't know about you, but I'm going to catch a few winks," Mosquito said to the mesmerized Pyro.

"This isn't much fun anymore," said Shawn to Cory, "There's no one left to make fun of."

Kitty and Rahne had fallen asleep so Shawn and Cory decided to sleep, too.

"Just think how disgusted Amara would be if she was here," Shawn said to himself right before he dropped off to sleep.

Jean entered the medical center carrying a pair of crutches. Roberto was stretched out on a bed with a cracked rib from his encounter with Pillbug and a bandaged nose. Jean passed Amara and Ray who were leaving with their arms bound up to stop their bleeding. Jean moved past Kyle's bed. He had obtained a slight concussion from the fallen tree landing on his head and was still unconscious. Jean approached Siryn who was sitting up on the edge of her bed, her broken foot in a cast.

"They don't call him the Blob for nothing," Jean said to Siryn who attempted a smile. Jean handed her the crutches, "You'll probably need these for a while."

Jean went to tend to Roberto while Siryn left the room on her crutches. Siryn made her way down the hall. She turned the corner to see Aaron sitting on the floor.

"Why aren't you in the meal room eating?" Siryn asked him, "Are you up to something?"

"Huh?" Aaron suddenly realized she was there, "Oh, no, I'm not up to anything. I was just..."

He stopped.

"Just what?" Siryn asked him.

"Uh, what happened to your foot?" Aaron asked.

"Blob stepped on it," Siryn explained, "But what were you talking about before?"

"Oh, well, I might as well explain," Aaron said, "You see, Shawn is a whole lot better at making plans than I am, so right now I feel useless, like there's nothing to do anymore. I'm really bored."

"You miss him?" Siryn guessed correctly.

"Well, he's my brother," Aaron said rather embarrassed, "What do you expect?"

"Why don't you go eat?" said Siryn, "Avoiding food just makes it worse."

"Oh, alright," Aaron agreed, "I'll come."

They both continued down the hall and entered the Meal Room. They each sat at the same end of the table, across from each other.

"Is your foot alright?" Rogue asked.

"Yeah," said Siryn, "It hurts a little, but its fine."

"I'm sorry about Shawn," Bobby said from next to Aaron.

"Yeah," said Aaron rather gloomily.

Not even Ruben could think of anything else to say after that. Everyone finished their dinner and went to bed. Scott watched them from a nearby table. Jean walked in and sat down next to him.

"I checked on the students in the medical center," she said, "They were all OK."

"That's good," said Scott.

"What's wrong, Scott?" Jean asked, concerned.

"I just feel bad for leaving students behind, just to talk to the professor," Scott explained.

"You did what you had to do," Jean reassured him, "There was no way we could have gone after Magneto and the Brotherhood."

"There's something else," said Scott, "What's Magneto going to do with Nucleo? Nucleo isn't going to work for him. Do you think Magneto wants to experiment on Nucleo?"

"I know Magneto's cruel and everything," said Jean, "but I don't think he would actually experiment on his own kind."

Scott started to say something, but his spaghetti had just grown a lot taller than it should have been.

"Want skettys?" asked Bear through the long strands of saucy pasta covering his hair.

Scott plucked a meatball from Bear's fur.

"No thanks, Bear," Scott said calmly, "You can have it."

"No skettys for me," Bear said cheerfully, "I's full."

With that, he hopped out of the plate of spaghetti and onto the floor, getting sauce everywhere. Scott threw away the rest of the spaghetti and he and Jean went up to bed.

The days passed slowly and a week from the big fight, Shawn found himself bored.

"I wouldn't be bored if Aaron was here," Shawn told Cory, "He has the greatest insults."

"I think your just afraid that Aaron might try to horn in on you and Melanie," Rahne said smiling innocently.

"Huh? What are you talking about?" Shawn asked turning red, "I don't understand."

"Roberto told me all about the little conversation between you and your brother about Melanie," Rahne explained.

"Uh, well," Shawn stuttered, "Are you sure you heard him right?"

"Shawn with Melanie?" Kitty said as if she couldn't imagine Shawn with anybody, "That's, like, totally weird."

Cory didn't say anything because he had no idea who Melanie or Roberto or anyone was.

"So, uh, Cory," Shawn decided to change the subject, "Are you a mutant?"

"Well, he's not a normal human," Kitty said, "Or Magneto would have, like, totally fried him."

"Oh, right," said Shawn, still recovering from his previous embarrassment, "So, uh, what's your ability?"

"I can lower peoples' body temperatures," said Cory, "I can... kill people."

"Um, yeah," Shawn said, "How nice."

The four hostages looked over to the entrance to see Magneto walk in with Mystique, Sabretooth, and Gambit.

"Hey, we got our old dealer back!" shouted Toad, "It's about time. I think Lance cheats!"

"Prepare the hostages for travel," Magneto announced, "We'll be taking them somewhere else in a few days."

He strode out the door leaving the other three standing there.

"Like, this is totally not good," Kitty said, worried.

"If they move us, the X-Men won't be able to find us," Rahne said in the same tone.

"Don't be silly," said Shawn, who had completely recovered from his humiliation and was watching Gambit walk towards the card table, "Professor Xavier can use his Cerebretron 3000 or whatever to find us."

"Oh yeah!" Kitty exclaimed as Cory looked around, confused, "the Professor can use Cerebro to find us!"

They all were in a better mood than before, except for Cory who didn't understand what they were talking about.

Professor Xavier rolled out of Cerebro's chamber to meet Scott, Jean, and Hank.

"Did you find them?" Scott asked immediately.

"Yes," said Xavier calmly, "They are being held captive in an old warehouse."

"When should we leave?" asked Hank.

"As soon as possible," said Xavier, "We shall inform the students of our departure."

"But," said Scott, "They can't come. That's how we got into this mess. The students were captured because they came along."

"Scott, you know as well as I do that we are hopelessly outnumbered without the students," Xavier said.

"But," Scott gave up, "OK, fine."

"Let's tell the students," said Jean.

The students were eating lunch. They had all given up trying to get Ruben to turn down his music. Ruben was singing to himself.

"Has everyone in the medical center recovered yet?" asked Louis over the words 'there's a suitcase pokin' me in the ribs, there's an elbow in my ear'.

"I don't think so," said Amara, "Roberto's nose is alright, but his rib is still healing."

"Dude, don't forget that Kyle is still totally busted," Allen put in.

"I can't walk without my crutches yet," added Siryn.

"Our whole school might as well be full of lepers!" Ray said in frustration and Amara gave him a dirty look.

Ruben suddenly burst into some melody with his tongue sticking out. Everyone stared at him, but he didn't notice. He just kept singing 'the window doesn't open and the fan is broke and my face is turnin' blue'. Sarah held back a giggle. Allen laughed rather stupidly.

"There is something really wrong with him," said Ray.

Jean approached the table.

"We're going to leave tonight to save the other students," she announced.

"I should have got off a couple miles ago, but I couldn't get to the door," Ruben sang.

"Siryn, you won't be able to come," Jean continued giving Ruben a strange look, "You'll have to stay here with Roberto and Kyle."

"As long as you come back," said Siryn.

"What kind of..." Ray started but Amara yanked on his hair.

"Come to the Blackbird after dinner," Jean said, "Try not to be late."

"Late for what?" Ben and Peter had just walked up behind Jean.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you," Jean said as she turned around, "We're going to rescue the students from the Brotherhood. Meet us at the Blackbird after dinner."

Ben rubbed his bald head, "Who's staying to watch the injured ones?"

"We chose Logan for the job," Jean said with a smile.

Everyone but Logan and the injured students met at the Blackbird after dinner. They boarded quickly and Cyclops started up the jet. Everyone seemed extremely quiet, as if they were on their way to the gallows.

"I hope we win," Ruben whispered to Sarah.

The jet landed a little ways from the warehouse. Everyone except Xavier walked down the ramp towards a door in the side of the warehouse.

"Oh, come on," Mosquito protested, "You've seen this episode at least eighteen times."

Sabretooth growled and Mosquito fell silent. They were watching the Munsters on TVLAND. Toad's tongue shot out and snatched the remote from the arm of Sabertooth's armchair.

"Cut it out, mate!" Pyro said wiping slime from his face.

Toad changed the channel. The four of them then settled down to watch Homer Simpson grab a beer from a packed fridge.

Gambit dealt another hand. Nightmare had recovered and had joined in with the rest of the card players.

"Blob's got the nine of clubs," announced Locust.

"Hey, quit looking at my cards," Blob said menacingly.

"I'm on the other side of the table, moron," Locust said rolling his eyes, "I can't see your cards. The nine of clubs has a ketchup stain on the back because of you."

They continued their game, unaware that the X-Men were standing right outside. Shawn was poking his fingers through the holes in the top of the tank and making weird noises through the side of his mouth. Cory was attempting to see what episode of the Simpsons was on TV.

"Do you think Rogue and Bobby really belong together?" Rahne asked Kitty.

"Sometimes they seem like the nicest couple, but other times they, like, seem totally different." Kitty commented.

"How about Ruben?" Rahne asked, "He seems to have an interest in Sarah."

Kitty giggled, "I noticed that, too."

"What about Melanie and Shawn?" Rahne asked looking over at Shawn.

Shawn looked over at the two girls. They smiled innocently at him. Shawn raised an eyebrow and returned to making strange noises. Rahne and Kitty were about to continue their conversation when Colossus and Piledriver plowed down the door. The entire Brotherhood looked up from what they were doing. By the time the situation had registered in their heads, all the X-Men had walked into the headquarters. Gambit and Sabretooth jumped up first.

"Why don't you show them your winning hand," said Pillbug, who had been looking at Gambit's cards.

Gambit hurled his royal flush at the X-Men, all of which scattered instantly. Shift had transformed into a large rat and fled into one of the rooms. The rat jumped up onto one of the beds. Massacre looked up into the rat's face. He started to yell but instead let out a series of coughs and leapt from the bed. He grabbed a nearby broom. The rat's eyes widened as the broom struck him on the head. He jumped off the bed and ran from the room.

"I hate those things," Massacre said to himself, breathing heavily.

Sabretooth picked up one of the armchairs and threw it towards a group of the students. Flare blasted the chair to pieces with one of his red bolts. Toad shot out his foot sending Flare soaring backward and into the wall. Sabretooth lifted another chair.

"Wait! Not my chair, mate!" Pyro shouted at him and then, being out of uniform, he pulled a lighter from his pocket and ignited the chair in Sabertooth's hands. Sabretooth simultaneously launched the chair towards Flare, who was brushing himself off. He looked up to see a burning armchair hurtling toward him. Nightcrawler appeared next to him and grabbed his arm. They disappeared in a puff of smoke as the chair shattered against the wall, cracking it.

Cannonball flew towards Quicksilver at top speed. But even top speed was too slow for Quicksilver. He dashed out of the way and Cannonball slammed into Blob and simply bounced backwards onto the floor. Blob laughed and picked up the card table sending cards flying in every direction.

Rogue dodged a glowing card and grabbed Avalanche's leg. Avalanche stood bewildered for a moment at Rogue and then passed out on the floor. Rogue tried to push Avalanche's memories away. She saw Lance spray painting lockers. She saw Kitty phase through the lockers and collide with Lance. She saw Lance bring down an entire school. Rogue forced the images away and looked over to where Blob was about to crush Cannonball with the card table. Rogue stomped her foot, using Avalanche's powers. Blob was suddenly caught off balance and fell over backwards dropping the card table. Cannonball got up and ran back towards Rogue.

"Thanks," he said appreciatively.

"I owed you one," Rogue said.

Shawn, Kitty, Rahne, and Cory moved to one side of the tank as Quasar cut a hole in the other side with her intensely hot beams. Flash temporarily blinded anyone who came to close to the tank. The four hostages climbed out of the tank.

"Get out of here!" Mystique yelled to the Brotherhood, "Follow Gambit and Sabretooth!"

The Brotherhood made for the back door. Nightmare stole a quick glance at the blonde girl he had seen at the recent battle as he passed her. He knew she looked familiar, but he couldn't remember who she was. Nightmare was shoved out the back door by Toad and Paste who had someone bundled in a ball of glue.

"Move it, you Lilac-Headed Sleep Spook!" Toad shouted at him. The X-Men stared at the open back door and the destroyed Brotherhood headquarters.

"Well, our mission has been accomplished," Aaron said as he pointed to Shawn.

"It just wasn't the same without you, old bean," Shawn said in a phony accent, "Here, I want you to meet someone."

Shawn turned around to introduce Aaron to Cory. Cory was gone.

"Hey!" Shawn exclaimed, "Cory! Where are you hiding at?"

"You must have been pretty bored to have made up a friend," Ray said grinning.

"No, he was with us in the tank!" Shawn said frantically, "Kitty and Rahne saw him, too."

Cyclops looked over to Kitty and Rahne who nodded.

"If we get back to the institute in time," Cyclops turned back to Shawn, "Professor Xavier can track him with Cerebro."

Everyone followed Cyclops back to the Blackbird. When everyone got back, they went to bed, except Rahne who went to the medical center to visit Roberto, and Shawn who kept Aaron awake telling him what Cory was like.