(A/N: Okay, here's the next chapter of X-Men: Evolution, Hellfire! After this it's… well, I guess I can tell you. It's the third installation to the trilogy: X-Men: Evolution… er… Okay I don't have a name yet. I SMELL A POLL!)

"Shh."

"No seriously, I think I heard something."

"No seriously, SHH."

"But what if there's-"

"SHHHHH!"

Morph huffed and crossed his arms, his equivalent of an eye-rolling. "I'm just sayin' man, what if there's like… freaky robots down here?"

Scott tapped his fingers on the flashlight he held annoyedly. "Morph. Guess what?"

"What?"

"SHHH."

"… That was no fair." Morph muttered. "What are we lookin' for down here, anyways?"

"Well, hopefully we'll find something incriminating that we can use to put the Hellfire Club under. That and you can't honestly believe there will be freaky robots."

Scott and Morph were making their way through the labyrinthine tunnels they'd entered beneath the wreckage of the Hellfire mansion.

Morph blinked, making a face. "Or! I have a better idea. We're literally inside their base! We could stop them right now and nobody would be the wiser!"

They'd split into individual teams of two to search what Beast told them seemed like a vast underground complex on par with their own mansion. Most of the teams were fairly standard- Kurt and Kitty, John and Laura, Rogue and Wolverine, Storm and Jean, people who worked well together.

But of course, he'd gotten stuck with Morph. And Morph's carefree attitude didn't mesh well with his all-buisness attitude.

"Just shush and focus on the mission please. Okay?" Scott grumbled. Morph sighed and nodded, and they sunk deeper into the depths of the facility.

They hadn't gone thirty feet when they stumbled upon a laboratory. And, contained in tubes all around them, were robotic duplicates.

Robotic duplicates of the X-Men.

"Hey Scott." Morph said, his tone grim yet smug, elbowing his arm lightly. "Freaky robots."

"Team, be adv*schhhh*d that we've fou*zzz* some odd ro*krchhhht*ms up here."

Kurt grimaced and raised an eyebrow. "Vhas?" He prodded his communicator, held it up. "I zhink zis zhing is broken. Katzchen, you are zhe tech vhiz, mind taking a look?"

Kitty eased the communicator (Which was an old walkie-talkie they'd bought with their limited money supplies) out of his hands and examined it, popping the battery guard open. "Here's the problem, fuzzy. Lookit, you crossed a wire when you shook it earlier."

"Vell I don't even know." Kurt shrugged, and Kitty giggled, kissing him lightly on the cheek.

"Hey Scott, it's Kitty, could you repeat that for me, please?"

The communicator stayed dead.

Kitty frowned, and examined it annoyedly. "C'mon."

"Scott, do you read me?"

The communicator stayed silent, Scott's voice not issuing forth.

Kitty and Kurt exchanged a worried glance. "Hey, this is Shadowcat broadcasting to anyone who can hear us. Cyclops and Morph have gone AWOL, Nightcrawler and I are moving to their last known position to see if we can find what's going on. Backup would be welcome."

"We read ya, Shadowcat. This is John and X-23 moving to assist."

"John, you should really get a proper codename."

"Yeah well, Strafe sorta petered out and I can't be assed to come up with another one."

"What 'bout 'Superklutz'?" Rogue's voice came through. Bobby snickered.

"John isn't very klutzy, though." Beast pointed out.

"Guys aren't we getting a bit distracted?" Kitty said annoyedly into the communicator. Shockingly, there was silence.

"Guys, this is John and X-23. We're like ten feet away from where Scott and Morph dissappeared. We're- Holy shit…" John's disbelieving voice breathed through the comms.

"This is John to any and all receiving X-Men. Get to our location, pronto. We have… a major problem."

By the time Kitty and Kurt reached them, John and Laura had already set up a small camp-like area. Kitty gasped as she saw what John and Laura had found- A large room full of shattered glass tubes big enough to contain a full grown man with room to spare.

The floor was covered with broken glass and a green, viscous liquid. John had sampled the stuff with his fingers and told Laura that it had the consistency of runny mucus, which she'd responded to by making a disgusted face.

But more troubling to them, was that they'd found Scott and Morph both unconscious on the floor. Scott was up against a wall, as if he'd been hurled backwards by something.

Morph was twisted and pulled like silly putty all over the place- John and Laura had done their best to gather him back together, and they were now waiting anxiously for them to wake up.

"What happened here!" Kurt said, skidding to a halt next to John. It was a good thing he was wearing gloves and boots, otherwise his hands and feet would probably be pretty badly cut up.

"That," John started, looking around once more, curious about the very same thing, "Is an excellent question, Ku- uh, Nightcrawler."

Laura elbowed him in the side and pointed at a control console on the far side of the room. John blinked. It was dented and smashed as if Scott had shot his eyebeams at it- but Scott was unconscious, so they couldn't be sure if it was him.

Rogue and Logan skidded into the room, and Logan promptly slipped and fell. Rogue looked around with surprise etched on her features.

"What happened here!" She exclaimed, putting her hands to her hips and looking at Kurt, Kitty, John, Laura, and the two unconscious X-Men.

"John, what did y'all do?"

"Why was it me? Why is it always me?"

"When is it ever not you?" Rogue pointed out.

At this moment Logan got to his feet, growling expletives and wiping goo off of himself. He looked up and narrowed his eyes, then took several deep sniffs in. "Somethin' don't smell right." He growled, looking over at John and Laura.

Of course not, John thought, the floor was covered in lime-scented mucus-goo. Everything smelled like citrus.

Before he could voice this thought, however, Scott and Morph barrelled into the room from the opposite direction. "Guys, get outta there! They're fakes!" Scott shouted to them.

John's mind felt as if it might break- and then so did his skull when 'Scott' unleashed a full force eyebeam from below him, catching him in the jaw and propelling him into the air. His head thunked into the ceiling and he fell downwards, blackness flickering at the edge of his vision.

As he hit the floor with a 'Thunk!' he was aware of 'Morph' slinging Laura into Kurt and Kitty, knocking them both to the floor.

"Battlestations, battlestations!" Morph cried, leaping towards his doppleganger. He grew an axe blade from one of his hands. "Time to go medieval on these brigands!"

Scott let loose an eyebeam that caught his fake in the chest, sending it rocketing backwards into the wall, keeping it pinned between his beam and the wall. It's uniform began to disintegrate, and then the layer of skin that covered a metallic arm went with it.

"Robots!" Scott shouted as Bobby and Storm found their way into the room, followed shortly by Jean and Gambit.

"Damn, who started de party wit'out me?" Gambit shouted, taking a quick stock of the situation. Before he could assist Morph (Who had turned into a robot and was pummeling his fake, unable to change to the extent the real Morph could) or Scott, there was a loud wrenching sound. Moments later, a control panel slammed into the cajun, eliciting a loud 'HUNFF!' as he skidded backwards to where John was. John rubbed his head, trying to keep conscious. He made his way to his feet and saw that they weren't alone- more X-Bots had entered the room. A robo-Beast was tearing another control panel out of the wall while robo-Iceman tried to freeze Rogue in place and robo-Logan tackled real-Logan to the ground.

"This is madness! MADNESS!" Morph cried, waving his arms about as his fake got up.

"Madness? THIS! IS! SPARTA!" The fake roared, kicking Morph in the chest and sending him staggering backwards. Morph and robo-Morph tackled each other, and wrestled each other into a side- hallway, disappearing from sight.

More fakes burst into the room, breaking up the X-Men, pulling them into their own little hallway.

And suddenly John was alone with himself.

John looked warily, still a little dazed, at the person standing across from him. Robo-John gave a wicked grin. And armor- Armor John hadn't had at his command for a long time- wrapped around the robot's outer skin.

Robo-John charged, and John turned and ran.

A fist collided with Laura's jaw and her head rocked backwards. A knee met her stomach and she doubled over with an 'Oomph!' as the robot fake that had attacked her pressed her mercilessly.

She'd have been less comfortable with this situation if not for all her training with HYDRA. She grabbed the robot's arm, then stabbed it's arm at three separate points on it's arm, then kicked it back with a dull 'Whump!'

The robot looked at it's arm, which now sparked and fizzled from the holes she'd left, and looked at her with a flat gaze. It ran at her, then tackled her backwards.

Laura rolled down an elevator shaft, her duplicate snarling at her, trying to bury it's claws in her stomach. She gritted her teeth and dug her claws into the wall, slowing their descent to a stop.

Laura's fake bit her side and Laura growled in pain. She unsheathed her claws on her other hand and buried them knuckle-deep into her fake's forehead. A jolt of electricity raced through her, and she gave an eep of surprise and pain. Robot-Laura's jaw unhinged, it's eyes dimming from brown to black. It's grip on Laura slackened, and suddenly it's body was falling down the elevator shaft.

Laura waited until she head the 'BOOM!' of it's body impacting on the floor of the shaft before she looked up at the opening over her head- almost two hundred feet over her head, to be precise. She gave a sore huff, and began climbing at a painfully slow rate.

Scott slid under a table as an optic blast from his duplicate tore a chair behind him in half. He was used to fighting with his power- not against it. He leapt over a pool table. They were in a rather large lounge-type room that must have been used as recreation at some point in time. An optic blast blew it to splinters, and half an 8-ball whizzed past his head. Scott slammed his fake into a wall with an optic blast.

"That's the best you've got, Scotty-boy?" It taunted, grimacing. "I thought you could do better than that."

Scott creased his brows. "So you can talk. I guess that means you can think, too. How about rethinking this suicide mission of yours?"

"Suicide mission, eh? Well, I can do more than talk and think. As for a name, you can call me Corsair!" Scott dodged another optic blast and fired one of his own- which Corsair promptly dodged, picking up a chair and throwing it at him.

Scott blasted it out of the air but got hit in the chest by another beam, slamming him into a bar, which cracked under the impact. Scott groaned, arching his back against the bar. His whole body ached, both from their current battle and their earlier conflict.

Corsair advanced at a leisurely pace, chuckling a bit. "Ah, Scott Scott Scott. When will you learn? Your biggest enemy will never be anybody but… yourself."

Corsair bent and pulled Scott's visor from his face. Scott, who had been playing unconscious, opened both his eyes all the way. There was a flash of light, and the roar of his full-power optic blast blowing a hole in the floors over his head. After five seconds Scott closed his eyes and sat up.

His spine popped uncomfortably, and he shivered. "Ugh." He groped along the floor for his visor and pushed it back onto his face, then looked down at what was left of Corsair's body- his upper half had been stripped of synthetics, leaving an oddly thin skeletal form, sizzling and half-melted.

Scott rubbed his neck and started out of the room when a door opened behind him. He whirled around and dodged a dart as Hellfire troops spilled into the room. Scott made a break for the door, leaping over a table and bouncing his optic beam off the wall, off the floor, and into the lead soldier, slamming him up into the doorframe and onto his fellow soldiers. He sprinted from the room, and as the door shut, he slagged the door controls. He gave a light sigh of tiredness.

"X-Men, can anybody read me? Anybody need help out there?"

He got an overwhelming reply and shut off his communicator. Everyone needed help. There was no way he could help them all.

Kitty yelped and phased through a pipe her duplicate had swung at her.

"Where ya goin' kitty cat?" The other-Kitty taunted. "Run all you want, you can't escape yourself! Run, Kitty, run from Lady Bloodhound!"

"Like, who comes up with your names! They're horrible!" Kitty cried, running through a door which crashed open behind her. Her copy could duplicate her looks, her voice, and her personality- but it couldn't duplicate her powers.

"I mean, really? Lady Bloodhound? Seriously, it's kinda pathetic-" She stopped midsentence, hoping to catch her duplicate by surprise, and stopped short, letting her duplicate run into and through her. The robot crackled with electricity and gave a shrill metallic scream. It slammed into the wall, then fell onto it's back, twitching. Kitty shivered. Watching herself twitch on the floor like that was unnerving.

"This won-won-won't stop me forrrevvver! I-I'll get you, jus-jus-just you wait!" Bloodhound cried, voice now a metallic approximation of her own.

Kitty ran through the next door and found herself in an operation room- full of Hellfire troops. They were wearing garish purple uniforms, with red 'X'es on the chest and back. Their masks looked creepy, like dolls made to look like cavemen.

They paused in their work and looked at Kitty, seeming surprised. Kitty blinked. "Oh, I'm sorry, I was looking for uh… the little girls' room?" She gave a nervous laugh, then sprinted forwards as they fumbled for their blasters. Kitty ran straight through a big and important-looking control panel that shot up sparks behind her. Lasers exploded into the wall behind her as she vanished.

She came out and slammed into John, who gave a cry of surprise and fell backwards. She yelped. "Ohmygosh John, are you okay?"

John scrambled backwards away from her, eyes wide, nervous, and darting back and forth. "D-don't come any closer!" He brandished one of the troops' blasters at her, but his hand was shaking so bad that she doubted he'd be able to hit her even if he did fire.

"John, It's me, it's Kitty!" She took a step forwards, frowning, hands outstretched.

John fired the blaster, and Kitty ducked- she didn't have time to phase. The laser still singed her hair, however, and she yelped. "Hey man, what the hell! That's my hair!"

"I know it isn't you!" John shouted, pressing his back to the wall. "That's what they all said! But none of them were real! Just their fakes! You're the same!"

The fight was really getting to John. Kitty realized that he was very susceptible to mental manipulation- probably because of his loyalty. "John, relax! It's me, it's Kitty!"

"Liar!" John shouted again, scrambling to his feet. Kitty frowned- she couldn't talk to John when he was like this. "Come any closer and I'll shoot you!" He hissed, and then he turned on his heel and ran down the hallway. Bootsteps sounded behind her and she sprinted through the wall in front of her, searching for her friends.

(I am SO SORRY For the late update but at least it's here, right? Enjoy, guys. I'll try to pick up the pace on the updates.)