33 reviews! Thank you all! *mental hug* Sorry for the long wait, had to work on other stories and with school coming soon and all. *weep* I own nothing, not even Jubilee, not even . . . well I do own Blaze, so . . . oh forget it.

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"Ahh!" Blaze fell to the floor hard as she felt the harsh lashes of the whip. It was no wonder mutants hate people so much! She seriously didn't know why the X-Men tried to go peacefully, if the "innocent" people whose deaths they're trying to prevent were like this, Blaze seriously disagreed.

"Will you give up now, filth?" her tormenter mocked.

"Damn . . . you . . ." Blaze groaned as she tried to pick herself up. Why not use her powers? At least she could enjoy watching this evil person burn . . . just like normal people like watching mutants burn.

"Down, MUTT!" The man shoved her against the wall, causing Blaze's arm to get pierced by a loose sharp rock on the wall.

"AHHH!" Blaze tried her best not to scream, but she couldn't, the pain was so bad. And what's worse was that she couldn't use her powers, or they'll have an advantage over her.

Blood began to pour from her arm, and Blaze clutched it tightly, trying to make the blood stop. But instead her hands became soaked with her own blood, and the pain wasn't helping much. She wasn't the type to cry, but if any was a time, this was one. In fact, Blaze couldn't remember ever crying since the day her parents disowned her. Since that day, Blaze hardened her heart and didn't let anyone cause her pain.

"What? Too feeling less to cry, little girl?" The tormentor mocked, "But I'm sure you have cried once before, when your mommy and daddy threw you out when they found out you were a mutt . . . a abomination of their own flesh and blood."

Blaze's heart stopped when this cruel man mocked her. How dare he . . . rage boiled inside Blaze's heart, and flames were creeping up in her eyes.

And she made a perhaps stupid move. Despite the pain she was feeling, Blaze threw herself at the man in rage, kicking and punching all the vulnerable parts of a guy, which only ticked him off, causing Blaze to be slammed into a wall, causing her to break her right arm.

The man approached her viciously, practically spitting on her in disgust as she curled up in that corner, trying hard not to cry and cradling her broken arm. Great. Torture, then breeding a super species. All in a days work for a mutant. Blaze thought bitterly.

"That'll teach you to never ever be born." He spat.

* * *

"What the heck is taking so long?!" Bobby demanded. "This is supposed to be the future, right? So doesn't that mean the technology's supposed to be better?! So why's it taking so long to find my friends?!"

"Bobby, calm down." Both Maries said at the same time.

"CALM DOWN?! HOW DO I CALM DOWN WHEN MY BEST FRIEND COULD BE DEAD FOR ALL I KNOW?!"

Marie looked shocked. "You're best friend? But he murders you, Bobby, how can you still count him even as a friend?"

"He will in the future. But what if this . . . this whole future adventure thing . . . changes him? How do I even know that he'll do it now?" Bobby demanded. "Besides, I . . . I never really hated him. So I'm guessing Future Bobby doesn't tell you how he really felt about Pyro, huh?"

"Well, it's not like I pushed it." Marie sniffed. "Besides, do you know how hard and lonely it's been for me without him?!"

"Well, just to let you know, I did hate him for a while, but then I couldn't, okay? He's been my best friend ever since he arrived at Xavier's, and he will always, in some distant part of him, be my friend. And you had better listen, because I don't usually get all this gushy so you'd better pay attention because I'm only saying this once!" Bobby said all this in one breath.

"Wow." Marie said.

"Marie! We have a reading on Blaze's signal!" Sparky announced.

"Excellent, how many X-Men do we have available?"

"It's a heavily guarded fortress, so . . . not enough."

"But who knows what they're doing to them now! Blaze is one of your people, and if John dies who knows what could happen to this future?" Rogue said. "We have to go in now!"

Marie shook her head. "If Pyro dies the future would be much brighter. I'm sorry about Blaze, but I just can't risk losing more X-Men. Logan will be contacted immediately, and others will come as soon as they can, but with our small group right now there's no way."

"Then have us go!" Bobby suggested. "Give us the map to the place and we'll break in. Can't be as bad as the danger room or when we went into Stryker's complex."

Bobby imagined arguing, he imagined conflict, but he never imagined a straight out no.

"No."

"But-"

"This is not debatable. Do you realize that if you die, this world is over? That without a Bobby and a Marie some things would not be possible? No way. You're staying here."

And with that Marie left.

Bobby groaned. "For all we know, they could be dead."

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Blaze wasn't dead, but she might as well be, for she was so hurt she couldn't fight anymore. Finally, the guy gave up on making her show her powers, saying that they'll have another "session" tomorrow. She was thrown into a cold stone cell with John, who was pacing around.

John's eyes widened in shock as he saw the condition Blaze was in.

"Are you okay?" John was shocked. He had never seen someone treat a mutant this bad!

"Do I LOOK okay?" Blaze managed to stutter through bits of blood that spit out of her mouth.

There was one stone bench (great living conditions) in the cell, and John helped her sit down. Blaze managed a grateful smile and leaned back on the wall.

"I can't keep this up much longer, Pyro." Blaze said. "I have a feeling that once they confirm me as a mutant they'll go on to doing the thing, and since I'm obviously not one, I'm afraid they'll keep on doing this until I die."

A shiver went down John's spine. The worst they did to him was give him a sore neck and back because of being strapped up, and for causing him utter boredom.

Looking at Blaze's condition really scared Pyro. She was in such a bad shape he thought that if she had to endure maybe another half hour of that torture she'd be dead. He didn't want her to die, Pyro realized.

"It's okay. They'll find a way to get us out . . . somehow." John tried to comfort her.

* * *

Bobby was whispering something in Rogue's ear that no one else could hear, nor did anyone pay attention to the teenagers. Rogue nodded and sighed. She took both gloves off and handed them to Bobby, being very careful not to touch her boyfriend's skin.

Then she approached the two mutants working hard at the computers.

"Listen; could you do me a favor? Could you show me the map to where Blaze and John are?" Rogue asked in her best flirty voice.

But the guy just frowned at her and said, "Sorry, miss, can't. Now go back and be patient."

Rogue sighed. Why does it always come to this? She reached her arms out and touched both men's bare necks, causing them to fall limp. She suddenly felt a spasm of pain as both men's cries filled her mind, and she felt a strange surge of power. She had never absorbed two mutants at once before.

She motioned to Bobby to come over, and then suddenly sparks flew out of her fingers towards Bobby! Bobby, with his athletic reflexes, was able to dodge the spark in time.

"Careful with that!" Bobby complained.

"Sorry." Rogue apologized with a grin.

Bobby looked at the computer in front of him with all the complicated series of numbers. He was confused.

"Um . . . how are we going to find the map?" Bobby asked.

"No problem, we'll just have to access the main computer files on her trackers, and find it." Rogue said, as she started typing rapidly.

"Must be Arcade's super-genius powers." Bobby muttered.

After many clicks of the keyboard, Rogue found the map to their location. She clicked on another icon with the mouse and the map started printing. She also found the schematics for the blue prints of the complex.

"Whoa, with all this stuff they could have taken this fortress out years ago." Rogue murmured.

"Maybe they just got it." Bobby suggested.

"Or there's something else going on here. They're probably afraid . . . or there's some different reason."

"Hmm." Bobby picked up the freshly-printed maps and blue prints. "We'll worry about that later. For now . . . we have some pyromaniacs to save.

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I'm really sorry I wasn't able to actually get them into the rescuing part of it in this chapter . . . I had really wanted to upload a chapter before school, since I wouldn't be able to update for a little while.