"Kitty?" Ororo called, slipping into the war room through the great, sliding doors. The young girl sitting before the massive central computer console didn't even glance over her shoulder at the sound. This wasn't the frightened and flighty girl whom had sounded so panicked over the intercom in the blackbird just a few short hours ago. This was a Kitty who was in her element and in control. This was a Kitty sitting in front of a computer.

"Ms. Munroe, I'm glad you're here," the girl said. "Look what I just found." She pointed to the counter ringing the main computer bank. On it sat a black box, about 5' by 5' across, with a pale red/black square glinting in the light on one side. There was a string of different colored wires streaming from one edge of the cube.

"Um, what is it?" Storm asked, picking it up and turning it over in her hands. Kitty chuckled softly and continued typing.

"It's a remote transmitter," she explained. "Someone wired it into the hard drive of the main computer here and it relayed data from our computer back to the one controlling the transmitter. It's a pretty ingenious device." She tore her eyes off the screen for a split second to flash a grin at her teacher. "It was engaged the minute Scott sent those coordinates to you in the jet. See that little square on the side? It's a data port. The minute the transmitter was engaged it sent a signal to the mechanism stuck underneath this very chair," she said, tapping the armrest of her computer chair, "that released the gas that knocked out Scott." Ororo put down the transmitter and turned here focus towards what Kitty was working on.

"And speaking of Scott, are those his files?" 'Ro demanded, glancing over the girl's narrow shoulder at the main screen. Files and programs with Scott's heading were flashing across the screen so quickly that Ororo had no idea how the girl could identify them. Kit shrugged.

"I want to know if he had any other files open when this little transmitter kicked in. If whoever was on the other end got anything besides the coordinates he was sending, we could be in even deeper than we already are." Storm was still a little flabbergasted.

"Wait," she said, shaking her head slightly. "How'd you get into his files in the first place?" The girl shrugged nonchalantly once more.

"It's not that hard," she muttered, her voice slightly condescending. "His password's either Jean or the name of his car." Storm made a mental note to change her AOL password to something other than 'password', but she had a feeling that Kitty already knew this anyways.

"His car has a name?"

"Yeah, the corvette's name is Black Betty." This time Kitty yanked her eyes away from the screen long enough to shot 'Ro a surprised look. "You didn't know?"

"No, and I'm starting to wish I still didn't. So what did you need me for, Kitten?" Kitty tuned back to the screens and put the file scan on pause, pointing to another monitor set into the console above the Blackbird's remote radar tracker.

"Whoever planted this little baby," she explained, grabbing the transmitter and connecting it to some cables hanging from an open panel beneath the console, "knew what they were doing, but didn't think we would." She returned her attention back to the other screen, which displayed only a C:on screen. Kitty's fingers began flying over the keyboard as she typed in what looked like just random letters and symbols to the baffled teacher. "The firewall they put up as a security measure is about as weak as they can get." Apparently this was supposed to mean something, but what Storm had no idea.

"So, in English, what does that mean for us?" Ororo asked, hoping this was going somewhere significant, and not just Kitty getting excited over a new technological toy she could play with. The girl huffed under her breath in frustration, then began talking the way one would to an infant.

"It means that, once I hack through the firewall, I can use the transmitter's remote sensor against whoever planted this one. If they don't have a strong central coding, hell, I can probably download all the files on whatever computer they diverted our coordinates too."

"Kitty, don't swear."

"Sorry," she said sheepishly. "It's just that this is huge." She stopped typing and hit RETURN. All the lines of computer gibberish suddenly disappeared, replaced for a split second by a flashing cursor before…

"Yes!" Kit cried in triumph as a long list of data a file titles began rushing past on the right side of the screen. "We are in like Flynn!"

"How…how the hell did you do that?" Ororo asked, leaning close to the screen, despite being able to see it perfectly. Kitty chuckled softly and began typing once again.

"Oh, that was nothing compared to the stuff I had to hack through to get into that NSA databa…oh," she stopped in mid-sentence as Ororo glared down at her with her best 'angry mother' look. "Oh, right, I…see, what I meant was that, um…" she stumbled, her face going red.

"Kitty?"

"Yes Ms. Munroe?"

"Download all those files and no one will hear a word of that from me, okay?"

"Deal!" she agreed ecstatically, and almost instantly a bar appeared on the screen measuring the rate of file transfer. This seemed to make Kitty nervous.

"Crap," she hissed to herself as another little dash appeared in the mostly empty box that read 5 downloaded.

"What?" 'Ro demanded. "What is it?" Kitty began typing furiously.

"Too slow, it's going to slow. They could cut us out before I get it all," she seemed panicked, and turned her attention to another, empty screen. "I've got to open up more files, try to speed this up." A row of numbered files rapidly filled the screen as Kitty worked furiously.

"Cut us out?" Storm asked, confused. "What do you mean, cut us out?" The files transferred box began to blink a little more rapidly then, but not much. Kitty pulled up another screen full of numbered files.

"This remote transfer device isn't discrete. If whoever is on the other end of this thing turns on the computer, they're gonna see that I'm stealing their files, and they could kill the transfer. I didn't expect there to be so much data, I was hoping this would go faster." Her voice was rushed and edgy as her fingers moved in a blur of speed. "Or even worse, they could load a virus into the transfer program and that could kill everything on this end. All our files, the hard drives, erased, the whole nine yards." Suddenly, the status box began filling faster than 'Ro could follow. Kitty slumped back in her chair with a relieved sigh as the box flashed 'download complete' brightly. Kit shut down the program then reached underneath the console to and yanked the remote transfer device free and ran her hand through it, literally. A shower of sparks erupted from it as Kitty's phasing short circuited the device the way it did with all electrical supplies. She then deftly tossed it into the garbage can in the corner. The two women sat together in silence for a moment, before Kitty's face broke out into a big grin.

"Damn, that was so Alias!" she muttered happily.

The last thing Remy remembered was getting chewed out by the really hot woman who claimed to be his doctor. He'd just been about to make a lurid joke about rubber gloves and physicals when something stuck him in the back of the neck. Hard. Everything after that was black.

"Christ Almighty!" he exclaimed, softly, opening his eyes. A pair of blue eyes looked back at him in fascination.

"Cool, he's got eyes like a devil!" Suddenly six more sets of eyes, belonging to six identical brown headed boys, entered his field of vision.

"Weird!"

"Poke him. See if they move!" Instantly Remy felt dozens of little fingers digging into his ribs. He squirmed.

"Hey! Knock it off!" Remy ordered. The air was filled with the laughter of little boys, but the poking stopped. Looking around, Remy found himself in a bed, just like before, except this time he was bound to it by cables around his legs, wrists, and chest. "Son of a bi," he stopped short, looking at the crowd of little kids milling about. He returned his focus to the situation at hand. Damn doctor had even tied his hands to the metal guardrails so that his palms were facing up. And he couldn't charge what he couldn't grip. Crap and a half!

He looked around, noting that this time he was in a room, smaller than the previous, and lacking the other two patients that had been there before. Instead the room was full of identical 10 year olds, talking to one another and regarding him curiously.

"You're sure Ms. Grey doesn't know we're in here?" Remy heard one boy on his left ask another.

"Positive," assured the other boy. "She thinks that you're with Piotr right now." The boy who'd asked the question to begin with still looked nervous and rubbed his hands together. Remy noticed that he had a band-aid around one finger.

Glancing around, Remy noted that there was a narrow counter covered in medical supplies along one wall, a large industrial cabinet next to that. One of the boys had the double cabinet doors open and was eagerly digging around inside.

"Check it out!" he cried suddenly, yanking something out of the cabinet. He presented it to his siblings with a flourish. In horror, Remy recognized that the boy was holding his trench coat..

"Hey, dat's mine!" he shouted, but no one heard him over the excited noises the boys were making.

"Ugh!" one kid exclaimed in disgust, leaning close to the coat and smelling it. "It smells like road kill!" That didn't stop him throwing it about his shoulder eagerly. His siblings all crowded around him, regarding the newly discovered treasure and sniffing it like excited puppies.

"No, it smells like that stuff that John and Sam sneak in," said one boy in an argumentative tone. "You know, the stuff from the bottle with the pirate on it." The others were instantly captivated.

"Which pirate is it?" another asked.

"Capt. Hook?" one questioned.

"Capt. Jack Sparrow?" another wondered aloud.

"Capt. Kangaroo?" demanded the child currently wearing Remy's coat. Remy groaned deep in the back of his throat and ground his teeth together in frustration. He had no patience for children, or time to deal with this crap.

It's Capt. Morgan, ya little buggers!" he hissed. The kids all turned to glare at him with equally blank looks. "Now git dat coat off! It ain't some play toy!" The silent eye contact continued for a few minutes until…

"Arr, Matey!" exclaimed the little kid with the band-aid around his finger in a pirate-ish voice, brandishing his arm out in front of him like a sword. One of his 'brothers' quickly joined in the game, thrusting his own arm at the first as they went bounding about the room. The normally raucous squealing and shouting then resumed, but not before the coat-thieving kid muttered,

"I still think it smells like road kill," in a sullen voice, pulling the coat tighter around him in a defiant gesture.

Remy ground his teeth, trying to remain calm. "Look, any o' you kids know what's going on? Where's Rogue?" he demanded in frustration. That got the boys' attention. They all turned to face him, blue eyes bright with curiosity. Then they began talking at once, turning their voices into one, big jumble.

"Rogue?"

"We know her!"

"Rogue was nice," replied one on the far right.

"She called us 'dorable," explained the one next to him. Then the two nodded at each other emphatically, like a pair of living bobble-head dolls.

"Yeah, then Jubilee kicked us out of the room!" called out their brother, who was standing in the opposite corner of the room.

"She said they had girl stuff to talk about," explained the kid who was standing right at Remy's bedside.

"I bet I know what they were doing in there," said another with a dangerously naughty look on his face, one eyebrow cocked wryly.

"What?" all the others chorused in unison. Remy was starting to think that they had this whole conversation rehearsed, and that the naughty looking boy was the same that had brought up liquor earlier.

"They were gonna have a pillow fight!" Yeah, it was definitely the same one.

"In there underwear?" asked the boy with the band-aided finger.

"Yeah," replied naughty sibling. "Like the girls do in the magazines that Bobby keeps under his bed!" Alright, this was not a conversation that he was expecting to get out of a group of ten year old boys. So far it seemed like the only people they knew were perverts or drunkards.

"Wonderful," he muttered to himself. Meanwhile, the conversation continued on around him.

"The ones with the bunnies in 'em?" one kid was asking.

"Yup!" was the chorus from the rest.

"Everyone was sad when she left," one of the boys nearest him confided softly to Remy, still on the subject of Rogue. "You know, when she ran away. The teacher's are all sad that she's gone." Remy's heart felt heavy in his chest. He dropped his head.

"So she ain't here?" Remy wondered in disappointment. The little boy next to him fidgeted nervously. He scuffed his sneaker against the shiny, white tile floor.

"Yeah," then the boy brightened suddenly. "But Ms. Grey says they'll find her. She's good at that." Remy was struck with a sudden idea.

"So…" the Cajun said slowly. "When dis, what's her name, Ms. Grey finds mah Rougey, how dey plan on getting' to her?" The boy responded exactly as Remy had hoped.

"They'll take the Blackbird to go get her." When Remy's only response was blank look the little kid went on. "You know, a jet. The hangar's at the end of the hall." To illustrate his point the little kid pointed at the door.

"Ahhhh." Already Remy was formulating a plan. "Look kid…uh, what's yer name?" he asked in a low whisper.

"Jamie."

"Jamie," Remy repeated. "Why don' you gimme a…" he started to say when their conversation was interrupted.

"Hey," one of the kids said suddenly in a tone that made Remy want to run and hide. This kid was digging around in the closet that had produced the Cajun's coat earlier. "Look what I found!" He pulled a square, palm sized package down from a shelf and showed it to his brothers. "Let's play craps!" He was holding a rather battered deck of playing cards. Remy bolted up against his restraints that he knocked the wind out of himself when the strap around his chest slammed into his diaphragm. He coughed and sputtered while the little boys all swarmed around the one holding the deck, including the one who'd told him about Rogue.

"Stupid, you can't play craps with cards. That's poker!"

"Or blackjack!"

"Or 52 card pickup!" Then the boy holding the card deck tore the cards out of the scrappy packaging and tossed them into the air. Remy was in physical pain as they drifted through the air to the ground below and onto the crowd of identical little boys.

"Got any sevens?"

"Go fish!"

This was taking too long. Remy was antsy. He was sick of not being in control of the situation, and he was sick to death of all these children! He squirmed and wiggled his wrists, but the cords binding them didn't budge.

"Argh!" he muttered. "Look, Ah'll tell you what, mon petite freres," Remy said, trying to sound sweet and big brotherly. Considering the fact that he was practically suicidal at this point, it didn't work so well, be he got the boys' attention anyways. "You untie yer Uncle Remy here and Ah'll show you a trick to do wit dem cards dere dat's sure ta amaze dose friends o' yours." This kids glanced at one another, skeptically, but moved closer to Remy's bed anyways. Their leader, the boy with the bandaged finger, stood at the foot of the bed with his hands on his skinny hips, shooting Remy a caustic look.

"I don't know," he admitted aloud. "Ms. Grey said we weren't supposed to let you up…"

"Yeah," one of the other boys countered, "but she also said we couldn't talk to him either, and you're doin' that." The others muttered softly to one another and nodded. Remy urged them on.

"Yeah, c'mon kids. Ah'm injured, remember," he said, turning his head to the side as best he could to show off his bandaged neck. "How dangerous could Ah be?" That did it. One of the little boys standing by his bedside started to unhook the clasps that held the nylon restrains in place.

"I wanna see the card trick," he said. "Think of how jealous Bobby and John'll be!"

"Hey, wait!" cried the little bandaged boy, but his friends were already well ahead of him, In mere moments, Remy was standing beside the bed, straightening out his clothes and reaching for his pack of cards.

"Now watch closely," he told the youngsters, pulling out the deck and holding up and three of clubs. As it began to glow brightly purple the boys leaned close in fascination.

"Ohhhhh."

"Lookit that."

"How do we do that?"

"Shhhhh," Remy instructed his awestruck audience. "Now watch de card carefully." Effortlessly, he lobbed the card over the heads of the raptured boys and it landed right where Remy had aimed it: right atop a bottle of talcum power sitting randomly amongst the vials and boxes and jars of medical supplies. As all the boys whirled to follow it's progress, the card detonated. Instantly the air was full of billowing powder, masking everything and everyone in the vicinity.

"Cool," one boy cried through the powder filled air. Around him his brothers hacked and coughed, all of them amazed by the trick.

"How do we do…Ack…do we do that?" But as the smoke settled, the boys found themselves alone in the medical lab. Remy was nowhere to be seen.

"Uh-oh, Ms. Grey's not gonna like this," sighed the boy with the band-aid on his finger, his head buried in his hands.

"Forget that!" cried one of his brothers, looking about frantically. "Someone took my coat!"

A/N: Sorry, but I'm a big believer in giving the X-Kids bigger roles in the films, so Kitty and Jamie made their star appearance. Hope you enjoy. Next chapter, Rogue gives Magneto a run for his money. Now go review!