No, you're not hallucinating, I'm really here, and with a new chapter too! Wowie! Same old story again, busy with stuff and sorry it took so long to get this out. After all the exams I really couldn't be bothered, to be honest. But I got an excellence in my maths exam! Play went well too. Anyway, I'm back, and better than ever! It's the holidays yeesss! And my birthday is today! Woo-hoo! Sing to me! (10/12). Also, apologies in advance to anyone who speaks Spanish, if my translations are slightly off, blame the translator! This one's just an interlude to keep you going, nothing much exciting happens, just a temporary fix. Enjoy it as best to your ability!

With my undying affection,

Miss P

Ishandahalf: Do you happen to know where I can aquire some crack, as my poor bunny's supply is running extremely dry ;) Hope the cliffhangers aren't too terrible.

MCLBLUE: Yes, it was Rogue, as you'll see from this chappie. Glad you liked it, especially as a newcomer! Welcome!

Dark Ballerina: How dare you? We sooo let you win! Nah, I was going for England anyway, anything's better than Oz. No offence to any Aussie's, it's just that damn George Gregan…

Epona: Thankyou for your encouragement! And thanks for the drama 'good luck' thingy, it did go well.

Kagii: I wroted! Hope this satisfies you for a while. HEY! Come back here with Pyro and Gambit! (chases, trips, and steals them back. Runs away laughing sardonically.)

Disclaimer: Talk to the rich people.

Kitty Pryde's mind was rarely empty. On the contrary, most of the time it was full to the brim. She was a smart girl; classes, study, topics, teachers, exams and all sorts were always zooming around somewhere in there. But more importantly, there was at least the odd snippet of gossip, latest fashion and music, make-up, friends, boys, people at school, people at the institute, not to mention how to survive the latest danger room session…

But right now only two things were running dully through her usually buzzing head, like the jumping of a scratched CD.

a)Getting feet to solid ground

b)Rogue

She had tried to call for help, but her voice was shaking close to incoherency, and already hoarse in any case from screaming her friend's name. Her fear had escalated to a numbing terror, blocking out all other emotions, and quite a decent amount of her sense as well. Desperately, the panicked girl clawed at the earth above her, her feet scrabbled away rocks and dirt from the cliff face, and she remained hysterically unaware that she was actually lessening the odds in her favour by her actions.

Her flailing foot caught on a loose rock and she slipped, her hand scratching uselessly at the dusty hole she'd made. She caught the cliff's edge with her hands, her heart attempting to leap out her throat and let her plummet to death on her own. Terrified, she screamed as loud as she could.

"Kitty!"

Not daring to lift her head least it break her concentration and she lost her grip, Kitty still recognised the male voice shouting her name.

Scott reached down to her, and quickly pulled her to safe, solid ground.

"God, are you OK?"

Kitty slowly raised her head to see the faces of Scott and Evan. Scott's face looked urgent, while Evan's was screwed up in pain and anger. He was clutching his ankle so tightly his fingers were several shades lighter than his hand.

"I - I..."

"How did you fall off the cliff? Did someone push you?"

"Pietro did, I think, I don't know, we were attacked.."

Evan looked angrier than ever. Scott looked equally concerned and fearful. Kitty's vision swam. Feeling a sudden urge to vomit, she lurched to the side and little white dots danced in front of her eyes.

"Woah, easy. Breathe, Kitty, take a breath."

Hands pushed her back into a sitting position and forced her head down towards her knees. She shut her eyes. Slowly the clanging stopped and the cliff stopped spinning, though she still felt like she was going to throw up. Well, Scott and Evan didn't look like they were going to move, so that was their problem.

"Are you ok?" Evan asked again.

"Fine," Kitty croaked, though she didn't think she had ever been less fine. Scott was looking around the clifftop, waiting for someone to appear; Evan made a move to stand up, his fists clenched, but Scott held him down. They didn't understand, it didn't matter about Pietro, she had to make them understand.

"Rogue," she croaked. It was all she could think to say.

"Where is Rogue?" Evan said, remembering. "I thought she was up here with you."

"Gone."

Alarm bells immediately went off in Scott's head.

"Where is she?"

"Sabertooth. He took her. And that huge metal guy."

"WHAT?"

"Rogue got captured by Sabertooth and Colossus?"

"What the hell would they want with her?"

"How did they get her in the first place? She would've put up one hell of a fight!"

"Oh man, what did they do to her?"

"What are they going to do to her? We've got to find her!"

"We can't, we've got to get you back to the institute. If that ankle's broken, we've got to get it seen to before it gets infected."

Kitty couldn't take it. Their panicked reactions, the thought of what could be happening to Rogue, the guilt of not being able to stop them, the news that Evan's ankle might be broken and they had to fly home and leave Rogue here...it was too much. Hysteria finally finding an outlet, Kitty broke down into Scott's arms, uncontrollable sobs shaking her whole body as she clung to him like a drowning girl to a floating log.
Thud.

'Ow.'

'Ow' was the very first thing to pop into Rogue's head upon regaining consciousness. She wasn't sure if she'd said it aloud or not, all she was aware of was that she'd just been discarded from a reasonable height onto a metal floor, and it'd hurt. She was suddenly wrenched upright faster than she would've liked, and felt cold metal press against her bare wrists. She automatically flinched at the unexpected contact. Whatever had been holding the covered part of her arm was released, but the metal thing kept her hands above her head.

'Chains.'

Realisation was slowly dawning on her, and she didn't like it any more than she liked the memories that were flooding back. The battle had been pretty embarrassing, really. Not that she'd been any help; for God's sake, Kitty had to save her from becoming a Sunday roast in the first 5 minutes.

Suddenly the rather disorientated Goth tried to leap up as she remembered where she had last seen Kitty - dangling off the edge of a cliff. Despite that she had realised bare moments before that chain currently attached her to the wall. There was an unpleasant crunch of joints as the manacles prevented her sudden, very fast attempt to move forward. She mentally cursed herself as she landed somewhat ungracefully on the cold floor.

'What sort of control freak has his entire 'house' built so he can control every inch of it?' Rogue thought grumpily.

She looked around the room for the first time. It certainly wasn't any attempt at eye candy - a big, empty room with a ridiculously high ceiling, all the boring colour of dull metal. Which, of course, was what it was.

She continued staring around the room, her head turned towards the ceiling, hoping that her prison wasn't really this disinteresting.

She lowered her gaze closer to ground level, and jumped slightly. The ebony-haired girl on her left was staring curiously at her, looking otherwise quite unconcerned. Rogue couldn't see the boy properly, as he was on the girl's other side, but she could pretty much tell he wasn't present in the land of the conscious.

She looked at the little girl again, whose eyes were still fixed intently on hers. It unnerved her. Usually Rogue was the one who could make people look away the moment they caught her eye, but for her age this girl was intimidating, without even meaning to be.

The shocking acid-green of her eyes made them stand out as though they were the size of tennis balls, and the slit-like pupils gave the otherwise stereotypical 'cute and innocent' girl a quite demonic look to her.

Rogue turned away, feeling guilty for some reason. The little girl probably didn't think it meant anything to be stared at, after all, she'd been staring at Rogue for however long without a worry. She obviously didn't even know why she was here. Rogue felt a sudden surge of anger.

'That sick bastard. He doesn't have a clue. These kids have families. They won't get their powers for maybe another couple of years, but he's already taken their lives away.'

"Hi! What are you doing here?"

Rogue was surprised to hear perfect English, albeit heavily accented, coming from the little girl's mouth.

'I thought they were supposed to be Spanish,' she thought blankly.

"I, um got captured when me and my friends were trying to find you," she said instead. The girl looked excited for some reason.

"How did you know where we were?" she asked enthusiastically. She sounded like she was getting an update on her favourite cartoon.

"We didn't actually, but me and my brother saw you get kidnapped from the ice cream store."

"So you decided to come and see if you could find us?"

"Yeah, we do things like that. We try to protect people, basically. But instead I ended up getting caught, and now no one knows where we are."

'Eurgh, "we try to protect people?"' she cringed. 'I can't believe I just said that.'

"So you're a pris'nor too! Like us, we're pris'nors!"

She looked absolutely thrilled with the prospect. Rogue stared at her with disbelief, shock and bewilderment all wrapped into one, open-mouthed expression. The girl just grinned expectantly. She was so young. She probably thought this was all some exciting game.

Rogue looked at her sadly, a resigned heavy-shoulders feeling washing over her.

'God, they really have no idea.'

"Do you know why you're here?" she asked tentatively.

The girl shook her head eagerly.

'Why me?' Rogue groaned inwardly, then sighed.

"Do you know what a mutant is?"

Completely Useless. That was all there was to it. Never in his life had he ever felt so pathetic, so incompetent. It wasn't something he liked, he was one who valued his control and ability to grasp a situation. But not only had they failed to rescue the kids they had gone there for in the first place, but now Rogue had been kidnapped, and no-one knew how to find them. Maybe they should all get a team slogan tattooed on their foreheads: Pushovers. The whole team was a mess; Kitty was sleeping, exhausted after her panic attack, only Evan's sprained ankle was stopping him from running to the BOM house and murdering Pietro, and after stomping around the house growling and breaking things for a while, Logan had gone out on his bike and hadn't been seen since. Jean was lying on her bed with a migraine after repeatedly scanning as far as she could for any traces of Rogue, Hank McCoy was hopelessly searching the internet while occasionally muttering random Shakespeare quotes, even the Professor had locked himself in Cerebro. And meanwhile Scott was busy wallowing in self-disgust. How could he have let this happen to one of his teammates? He was supposedly their leader, he was responsible for them. Right. He'd really done that 'responsible team leader' thing well.

X-men, I trust you have now all had a chance to change and freshen up. Please assemble in the rec. room as soon as possible.

Just for a moment, Scott wished the professor would drop the calm-as-a-cucumber-act and stop trying to pretend it could easily be fixed with the right attitude. Either that or shut up and leave them alone altogether. He immediately felt guilty for thinking it, and sincerely hoped neither telepath in the house had heard him as he hurried off down the hall.

It was reasonably early in the morning, so the room filled gradually as the subdued teens obeyed their mentor's wishes. Some of them kept their eyes on him, their faces lined with hope. Others stared blankly at the ground, lost in their morbid thoughts.

Professor Xavier looked sadly around at the low-spirited group. Ironic, really, the effect of losing such an anti-social member of the team could have on them. He cleared his throat for attention.

"I'm afraid I have some bad news."

Most expressions of hope vanished. Kitty clutched Kurt's shoulder. It looked painful.

"Magneto, having been alerted by our battle with the Acolytes, has taken the opportunity of our absense to move his sanctuary elsewhere. I have not been able to detect Rogue on Cerebro, and although this does mean she has not had a need to use her powers, which is a good sign, it also means I do not know where to find her."

"You shouldn't have left because of me!" Evan suddenly burst out. "Now we'll never find them!"

"Recuperating here was necessary Evan, not just for your ankle, and you should consider yourself lucky that it isn't broken, but to recover from the battle also. You were all weary, hungry, and your abilities were suffering for it. You were in no position to spend hours trying to get Rogue back from adult mutants who surpass you in skill, control and experience."

"Well, we still have to find her," Scott said, and Kurt nodded fervently.

"You're quite right. And I believe that we will. We must split into two groups, one will take the Blackbird, and the other will take the non-metal jet that we generally use when confronting Magneto. Jean will be with one group, and I will be with the other; we will both scan each area we enter thoroughly for any trace of Rogue.

"Now, Jean, Scott, you will be in the non-metal jet, with Wolverine. Kitty, Kurt you will be in the blackbird with Storm and myself."

As Evan opened his mouth, looking furious, Xavier held up a hand to stop him. "Yes, I know Evan, and I'm afraid your deduction is correct; you will not be accompanying us. You will not be able to help with a sprained ankle, and with that in mind it would be better all round if you stayed and let yourself heal."

Evan leant back, his arms folded and his face mutinous, but he didn't argue. Xavier addressed the others.

"Storm has prepared some food, I suggest you eat more than you need. I don't know how long we will be away."

They filed out, a few, like Kurt and Evan, muttering darkly. Scott wandered off to his bedroom, not feeling particularly hungry.

'It's Monday today,' he thought matter-of-factly. 'We're missing a school day to look for her. That can't be good. Sure we'll find them, but whether they'll be okay or not is a different story.'

The girl blinked her stunning green cat's eyes at Rogue.

"Oh, so that's what's wrong with me," she said thoughtfully.

"There's nothing wrong with being a mutant," said Rogue heatedly. "It's not an illness."

As much as she generally loathed her powers, and cursed her misfortune of ending up with them, she always fired up when people spoke unfavourably about mutants. Especially like it was some kind of disease or something. But to her surprise and indignation, the girl just laughed.

"No, no!" she said delightedly. Everything Rogue did and said seemed to thrill her. "I mean this."

She gave a little cough, and as she did a small cloud of smoke came gushing out of her mouth.

"I cough all the while," she explained offhandedly. "Whenever I do, smoke comes."

Rogue studied her with narrowed eyes.

"That can't be your power," she said determinedly. What kind of a power was a permanent cough and built-in lung cancer?

"Well, my eyes are funny also," the girl commented.

"Yeah, that's part of it, obviously," said Rogue, peering into her eyes as she spoke. They were kind of pretty in a weird, feline sort of way.

The girl was silent for a few minutes. Then she turned to Rogue again.

"My name is Eva," she said, as if they hadn't just had a whole conversation about who and what she was. "What's your name?"

"Rogue," replied Rogue vaguely, her mind elsewhere.

"That's a funny name."

"Well it's not my real name," Rogue retorted without thinking.

"Then, what is your real name?"

Rogue glared at her warningly, letting her know that wasn't a question she should be asking.

"Just call me Rogue."

"OK," she shrugged. "He is my brother, Maximo. His age is 7. My age is 10. How old are you?"

"18," Rogue said, trying to get a better look at the boy. "Is your brother OK?"

Eva turned to look at the little boy too. He was still sleeping, or unconscious.

"I do not know. He's not waking. He isn't dead, is he?"

It was more a statement than a question, but all the same, Rogue leaned forward as far as her shackles would allow, to double check.

"No, he's breathing."

"So how will we get out of here?"

The little girl looked a little concerned for the first time. Rogue once more pulled fruitlessly at her chains. They cut in painfully.

"I don't know. Does, uh, Maximo have his special power yet?"

"No. He doesn't have anything. His eyes don't look funny, and smoke doesn't come out of him. How do you know he will have anything?"

"The professor that looks after me and lots of other mutants has this special machine. It tells him when people are going to be mutants. The professor is a mutant too. He helps us with our powers, teaches us how to control them and stuff," Rogue explained as simply as she could. 'Though I seem to have been left out of all this 'helping' and 'controlling', somehow,' she added silently.

"Is he going to save us?" Eva enquired.

"I don't think he can find us."

"What about your power?"

Rogue scowled, but then a haggard voice speaking a language she didn't understand, unintentionally saved Eva from a probable rant.

"¿Eva¿Qué usted estå haciendo¿Quién es esa muchacha?"

(Eva? What are you doing? Who's that girl?)

Eva immediately turned away from Rogue and replied to whatever her brother had said. Rogue leaned forward with interest.

"Ése Es Rogue. Ella es buena, ella nos ayudara a salir."

(That's Rogue. She's kind; she'll help us get out.)

"¿Es usted seguro¿Ella no nos lastimara?"

(Are you sure? She won't hurt us?)

"Sí. Opinión hola a ella."

(Yes. Say hello to her.)

At this point the little boy leaned forward slightly to look at Rogue. Their eyes met for a split second, and then he looked down again straight away.

"Hola," he muttered to the ground. Rogue could basically figure out what that meant with common sense, but Eva obviously didn't think so.

"Ella no haba nuestra lengua," she reminded him. "Dígalo en Inglés."

(She doesn't speak our language. Say it in English.)

Maximo nodded shyly. "Hello," he repeated in English.

"Hi," Rogue replied.

"That is Max," Eva said, both cheerfully and unnecessarily. Rogue nodded.

"Yes," she agreed. "And as I think Eva told you, my name's Rogue."

Max nodded again. There was a brief silence until inevitably, Eva spoke up again.

"So, can you use your powers to help us?" she prompted. Rogue's frown regenerated at astonishing speed.

"My powers are no use to anyone," she said bitterly. "Unless I can touch another mutant, and get their power."

Eva opened her mouth, probably to ask why not, or what stupid kind of power she had or something along those lines, but a remarkably annoying voice with a strong Australian accent got there first.

"Aaw, ain't that just the luck sheila? I feel your pain, right here."

He put a hand on his chest and grimaced in what he obviously thought was an empathetically pained expression. Max and Eva watched in fascination as Rogue's head snapped up and her eyes narrowed in a glare.

"You," she snarled. The single word was dripping with fury and laced with hatred. Pyro lifted his hands in mock surrender.

"Hey, hey don't shoot the messenger now. Anger is hell's fire, you know."

A dreamy look settled on his face at the mere mention of fire, and his insane eyes glazed over. Rogue snorted.

"You are unbelievable," she said scornfully. More unbelievable, really, was the fact that even when chained to a wall beside 2 Spanish minors, Rogue still managed to be condescending.

"Oh, I know, the females tell me so every day luv," the pyromaniac quipped.

"May I ask what's in it for you?" Rogue enquired with sarcastic politeness. "Or has ol' bucket head threatened to deprive you of fire generators if you don't run around kidnapping innocent people?"

Pyro shuddered involuntarily at the thought.

"You're bloody pathetic, the lot of ya. These kids aren't even out of primary school, they don't have a clue why this is happening to them. You're so blinded by your desperate need for power that you can't even see yourself any more, can't recognise your own insanity, to give it a more favourable name. Cruelty would be my choice, but there ya go. You are tearing families apart, stealing kids away that don't even have their powers yet, for God's sake! All because you're convinced that there's going to be some stupid war, and losing is not an option, I suppose, for power-crazed lunatics like ya!"

Rogue was fully aware that she was raving, and also aware that neither Spaniard present had a clue what she was on about. Which was half the reason she said it the way she did; she had no desire to let on enough about their reason for being there that it would freak the kids out. But the fact was, she was furious, and she had to vent it off on someone. Pyro was simply lucky enough to be that someone.

"And what the hell was the point of bringing me here?" she demanded. "God, and here was me thinking attempted murder would satisfy you."

Pyro, who had been on the point of backing away slowly, stopped and drew himself up indignantly.

"Excuse me, we did not try to kill any of yaz! It was you X-men who came barging in uninvited in the first place, we was just defending our property!"

Rogue snorted again. "Oh right, so what should I refer to you engulfing me entirely in flames as then, just for future reference. Cos I was kinda thinking a murder attempt was a great description, but by all means give it a name of your preferal," she said sarcastically. "And as far as I know, these two kids aren't your 'property', so we have as much right as you do to come in and relieve you of them."

"You have no idea what you're blabbering about, girlie. The boss-man has his reasons for holding the lot of yaz."

"I'm bloody sure. Enlighten me. Why has bucket head sunk low enough to kidnap children for his little 'fight the war' scheme? After everything he went through as a kid, too. You'd think he'd have some sympathy when he'd experienced it himself, but guess that's a bit too caring for his liking."

"Experienced what himself?" frowned Pyro.

Rogue raised an eyebrow with perfected disdain. "God, he doesn't trust you at all does he? He didn't even tell you the reason he hates humans so much. Do you have any idea what you lot are to him? Slaves. Labourers. Willing little pets to run around doing his dirty work. That's all you are. Replaceable."

"You don't need to share a family bond to work on the same side. We're here to fight the battle that's not gonna be stopped by ignoring it. We're opening our eyes instead of seeing only the sugar and spice of this world. You can stick with your hopeful little dreams of peace and harmony; we're just trying to keep our heads above water. Are all these people who claim to be your dearest friends going to stay by your side when mutant-haters' bullets are flying towards you?"

He turned huffily and walked out of the cold, dull room. Feeling only marginally better after transferring her bad mood onto someone else, Rogue reluctantly turned to face the children again. They both stared at her expectantly with mismatched eyes. She looked away.

'God, what the hell am I going to do?'