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            Betsy concentrated hard on the scene below. She hid high, up close to the ceiling. She crouched over a web of pipes, keeping her mind open to anticipate her enemy's arrival and maybe to sense his course of action. She loved a test. She loved a challenge. This was her opportunity to show up Magneto's own trained goons while he watched and let it happen. She looked to the ground as Sabretooth came into view. He had followed her scent and it was only a matter of time before he found her hiding place. She jumped down to surprise him. She wrapped her legs around his neck, sitting on his shoulders, and caught him off guard. She easily charged her psionic dagger, and forced it into the back of his neck. He fell forward and she landed on her knees. Her short scuffle with Sabretooth left her distracted. She never noticed Pyro's presence.

            A ring of fire encircled Betsy, flaring with a roaring sound mixed with Pyro's own maniacal laughter. She was caught off guard at first and struggled to regain her focus as the fire's immense heat fought to take over her. She could see Pyro in his red, flame retardant jumpsuit, continuing to spray fire at her from the blow torch attached to his back that snaked its way up to his wrists. She had to look up to the ceiling to take in cool breaths every so often as she formulated a plan, and her enemy grew over confident. Suddenly, in the air in front of him, four hoops of fire appeared. Pyro became fascinated with them as they stacked themselves around him. He grew hysterical, not at the fire, but at the fact he couldn't control it. The fire around Betsy dissipated as Pyro lost his focus. She continued to exert her mind on him with an evil stare. Pyro grew more and more frantic as he lost his control. Betsy stepped through the rings of flames and lodged another psionic knife in his neck. Not having his mind to project the flames into, they disappeared.

            From across the large empty room, scattered with boxes, Colossus, in his 500 pound armored form, took off charging at Betsy. She wracked her brain for away to get out of this situation. Her martial arts training kicked in, as she was able to leap high enough to plant her hands on his shoulders and flip herself over his head. She landed on a stack of boxes. He began tossing them aside. She fell off the tower and couldn't act fast enough. She put her hands up in a defensive mode, and Colossus grabbed them. He began squeezing her hands. She screamed in pain and fell to her knees. She thought he would break every bone below her elbow, and could see why he hadn't already. Reacting out of self preservation, she looked through his mind for a weakness… and she found it. She spat out a couple of sentences using the Russian in Colossus's mind. He immediately surrendered, and reverted back to his normal human form. He sat on the ground and put his head in his hands. She fell on her back and heaved from the exhaustion of both her physical and mental confrontation. She rubbed her arms, and Colossus said nothing.

            "Alright, Psylocke, it's mah turn now." Gambit smiled at her as his auburn hair dangled around his eyes. She groaned as she blinked and prepared herself for battle once again. He held a couple of playing cards over her head, trying to give her a warning. He would be her toughest challenge. They had fought both together and against each other for over a year as Sinister's guinea pigs and personal entertainment. They had been apart for over two years however, so they both had time to develop their own secrets. It was no use to rifle through his mind, it was likely she'd get bit by something, and physically, they were equals.

            Gambit charged the playing cards and dropped them. She rolled out of the way in a crouching fighting stance. He tossed a few more explosive cards at her, and she managed to dodge each one. He reached into his pocket to fish out more only to find he had none left; he'd tired his supply. This left them fighting hand to hand for a little while. Each punch she threw she was blocked and same for him. Each kick was opposed and each time one of them fell, they were back up just as quickly. Psylocke put up her foot to kick him, and he grabbed her ankle, flipping her over backward. She fell and rolled away from him as he located his staff in an inside pocket of his coat. She began doing a series of hand springs in order to get closer to him. He held his staff out defensively, waiting for her to make an offensive move, but she just continued flipping closer to him. He took steps back to avoid getting hit in the face with one of her purple boots. She continued with her gymnastics until his back was against the wall. She hooked the heels of her shoes, shoulder width apart, on to his horizontal staff. She pushed it up hitting Gambit in the nose. He fell to the side, cupping his nose, giving her room enough to plant her feet on the ground. She slipped the staff out from under her shoes and held it up like a baseball bat. She prepared to swing it as she turned around, and he curled up defensively. She lowered the stick and sighed at him through short, labored breaths. Her hand glowed purple once again.

            "Lights out, Gambit." She whispered as she gently pushed it into his neck. She turned to see the reaction of her audience. All he did was yell at her.

            "Clean this up." Magneto sounded frustrated as he left the room, slamming the big metal door behind him. The loud echo startled her, making her shoulders jump. She didn't know what to do, she didn't know what he meant by cleaning up. She crouched down in front of Remy, and leaned his lifeless body against the wall. His nose was bleeding. She pressed her fingers against it and decided it wasn't broken. She tilted his head back and untied the sash around the waist of her purple uniform to try and stop the bleeding. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Colossus hadn't moved a muscle. She tied the sash around Remy's head and got up and approached Colossus.

            "Peter?" She addressed him tentatively, not knowing if he was angry or not. He looked up to her. "That is your name… Peter, right?"

            "In English." He nodded. "In Russia, my name is Piotr… but you may call me Peter." She smiled at him and extended a hand.

            "I'm Betsy." She said as he took her hand, pulling himself up. "I'm sorry." She said. He looked back at her.

            "For what?" He spoke little, but his thick Russian accent was apparent.

            "For going into your head like that and using your personal thoughts against you. I didn't mean to, it was a reflex, out of self preservation…" she shut her eyes and shook her head. "Oh screw that, I'm making excuses… It was wrong and I shouldn't have done it. All I can promise you is that I won't tell anyone what I saw… and I won't do it again--" She was interrupted when the big stoic man placed a giant bear hand on her small shoulder.

            "I forgive you… but you were right… what you said." She gave him a confused look. Either he didn't see it, or pretended he didn't. He went to work, sitting Pyro up against the wall and then Sabretooth. "What did you do to them?" she smiled.

            "A direct mental attack. A healing factor can't help your mind; it depends on the strength of your will." Peter looked at her and for the first time, he smiled.

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            Remy watched Betsy as she slept. He was crouched on top of the dresser in the dark room that was only ever illuminated by the sunlight that came in through the small, fogged window on the wall. She was easily visible to him thanks to his mutant, red-eyed night vision. She was huddled up in the fetal position, like she was cold. Her long purple hair was carefully placed between her shoulder and the pillow. She didn't make a sound. Remy only knew that she was still alive because her eyes twitched furiously under her eyelids. She must be dreaming. She looked just like she did when she slept on the concrete floor of her cage when he came in to check on her every night. She was never this peaceful though. Back with Sinister, her body used to be rigid. If he shook her shoulder to wake her, her whole body moved. Now, she was rather relaxed.

            Betsy could unconsciously feel Remy's eyes watching her, as she flickered her eyes open. When she caught sight of Remy's glowing red eyes in the darkness, she screamed, startled at the image.

            "What are you doing in here?!" She halfway whispered, halfway screamed as she realized who it was, trying to slow her heartbeat. "You know this is the first peaceful night's rest I've had in over three years." He stepped off the bureau and sat on the foot of her bed.

            "Yeah, Remy remember how that felt. A week later, dough, de nightmares began." He looked at the floor.

            "Nightmares?" She pressed further.

            "Well, memories. Dey haunt Remy. Can't sleep none anymore." She just sighed at him. "Sinister standin' over me wit' dat bone saw…You know, I felt all a that." He looked up at her. Betsy was sitting with her arms tugged tightly around her knees.

            "He wouldn't be Sinister if gave us anesthetic, I remember well… Was it worth it?" He looked to his folded hands in his lap. Betsy knew this meant that he was unsure of his sacrifice. "You're nose is looking better. The swelling has gone down considerably." She said, changing the subject. He cupped his nose and gauged its well being by the tenderness as he winced.

            "Dat was a nice move earlier, wit' your shoes." Betsy smiled with pride. "Dose assassin bodies come wit' some nice accoutrements." Her smile quickly turned to a frown.

            "That was nice little gem I learned all on my own." She grew defensive. "And besides… if I were an assassin, we wouldn't get a long so well… assassin and a thief…" She smiled having nailed him in a sensitive spot. His eyes flashed at her reminder.

            "How we gon' get outta here?" He said as the subject changed once again. She had to think for a moment.

            "Well, the only way out of here is those metal spheres, right?" Remy nodded. "So we hijack one and get to Bayville." Remy smiled and chuckled.

            "Great plan, Spanky. I'll get Alphalfa and Buckwheat. You remember de secret hand shake, non?" he mocked her vigorously, she looked offended. "Oh c'mon, Betts, it ain't gon' be that easy."

            "I know that, you bloody retard. I was giving you the abridged version." He quit smiling. "The doors only open for the orbs, and they only open for Magneto, right?"

            "Oui… well, his magnetic power anyway. Dat's how de t'ings fly."

            "That's how they fly when he's in control… but what if something happened to him and his Acolytes wanted to carry on his vision? I think there are some in that loading bay of his that can be worked by the passenger." He smiled.

            "So how we gon' get 'em open?"

            "Well, thank of how many telepaths there are out there. There's me, there's Xavier, Jean Grey…" Remy stuck his tongue out at the mention of her name. Betsy smiled in subtle agreement. "Right, well you get my point. Who knows how many mutants there are that can control magnetism? I don't think it's his powers that open his followers' only stronghold. I think it's his brain waves." Remy tilted his head in confusion. "If I could get a get a reading of Magneto with his helmet off, I could replicate it and project it to the orb and we're out of here."

            "But he's opened dose t'ings wit his helmet on b'fore." He raised a good point.

            "Well… he helped create Xavier's mutant brainwave reader, so he obviously knows how they work. These things have to be sensitive enough to read through his helmet, but only recognize his signal from not too far. So, it's rather different from that cerebro, but cerebro uses a telepath's power for much more complicated things. These are just machines, like a microscope it can see things that people can't. The mind is a powerful thing and his little helmet can't block him entirely, what gets through is just too delicate for another mind to pick up, and cerebro just over looks it." She hypothesized and made grand assumptions.

            "So you t'ink we can do dis?"

            "I just have to get Magneto with is helmet off." She said with pride and nonchalance. They just smiled at each other.

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            Kitty walked down the hallway to her room, listening to music on her disc man. She began to sing softly with it, but it progressed rapidly to singing and dancing as she lost herself more in the music. She danced herself right into her room, pashing through the door. She caught Rogue off guard. Rogue was gently sobbing as she wrote in her journal.

            "Don't you knock?!" Rogue screamed at Kitty, wiping tears from her cheeks.

            "Hey, it's my room too!" Kitty shouted back. Then she realized Rogue had been crying and instantly went into "mother nurturer" mode. "What's wrong? Another session with Logan?" she joked trying to get her friend to crack a smile.

            "No, just tryin' to sort through mah' head. The professor told me Ah oughtta write in mah diary, it would be a good release so stuff wouldn't build up so much… it really jus' makes me sad." Rogue showed the book to Kitty, and she took it cautiously.

            "Can I read it?" She asked to make sure she wasn't invading Rouge's personal space. Rogue simply nodded and Kitty opened it up. It was almost filled with random thoughts and images. The pen lines were thick and deep, indenting the paper. "Wow, you talk about red and black devil eyes a lot."

            "Ah see 'em all the tahm." She whispered. "He's sad and lonely… lahk me. He doesn't think anyone will ever love him unless he does what they want." Kitty just looked at her sadly.

            "Wow," she continued flipping through the pages. She grew a look of surprise across her face. "Toad can quote anything by Shakespeare?" Rogue smiled.

            "Yeah, he's really smart… He could give Jean a run f'r her money if he wanted to… and his real name is Mortimer." Kitty arched an eyebrow.

            "Where did 'Todd' come from?" Rogue shrugged her shoulders.

            "It's a good change if ya ask me." She answered. "Ah have conflicting memories of Magneto, though, from everyone."

            "Weird…" Kitty said. "So this helps you?"

            "Yeah, a lot." Rogue nodded.

            "Wow, I'd hate to think what you'd be like without it." Kitty smiled at her own joke, but Rogue was not amused.

            "Ah'm sorry f'r yellin' at you a minute ago." Rogue said sheepishly. Kitty just smiled at her and handed back the book.

            "It's totally cool, Rogue."