This goes along with my other two stories, 'We're All Scared' and 'We're All Brave.' So be forewarned this story may not make sense if you're not familiar with the other two.
Kitty really isn't the type I'm into. I like them tall and redheaded, with blue or green eyes. Not short and brunette, with freckles no less.
Still, she's cute… 'But I don't like cute, I like sexy.'
Sexy really wasn't in Kitty Pryde's description. Did that seem to be making a difference at the moment? Didn't appear to be. That stupid leather uniform fit her perfectly.
Something must be wrong with me. I was checking Kitty out when Jean or Storm were standing right there, and no Storm wasn't a redhead, but she was stacked. And there was Rogue, she wasn't bad looking either.
But when the hell had I actually started checking any of them out? Oh, right, when my sudden interest in Kitty cropped up and I tried distracting myself with other views. What the hell is wrong with me?
I took a deep breath and focused. It wouldn't be a good idea to get distracted. We were boarding the jet and getting ready for a possible fight to get Cyclops back. Not that I'd ever meet the guy but I'd heard enough about him. The plan was to get me close enough to grab him and teleport him back to the school. Sounded simple enough expect that this was some military base and getting close to Cyclops wasn't going to be easy. However I'd missed the exact details of everything because I'd been too busy admiring how well Pryde's suit fit her. Fuck.
I take a seat, one that's not in the direct line of Miss Pryde and run through my bit of the plan again. I'd at least gotten that part. An easy snatch and grab. Most everyone else coming along were for distraction purposes, except Kitty. She and I would be running hand in hand through walls to until we found Cyclops and I'd take the three of us out of there. Great, huh? At least we had a pretty good idea of where Cyclops holding cell was, so it would be a straight shot, and with Kitty's powers it would make it twice as fast.
Why can't I just teleport straight to Cyclops and save everyone the trouble? Because I need to have first been somewhere before I can teleport there. Sucks, I know.
The flight there was silent. Usually there was some chatter going on, but not tonight. It seemed everyone was taking this more serious than usual. I reckon because everyone but me knew Cyclops. The quiet was fine by me, not that anyone would have really been talking to me anyway. It was a good forty-five minutes before we landed, and then Storm went through a quick summary of the plan again to makes sure we all got it. I liked Storm, and didn't mind following her lead. She was smart, decisive and could keep a clear head on her shoulders.
Everyone filed out of the Jet, and at Logan's nodded everyone but me and Kitty advanced on the base. They moved, staying out of sight of guards and cameras. I tracked their progress, while staying hidden. Kitty and I would stay that way until the confusion started. Normally Xavier didn't prompt violence, especially if we started the aggression, but Logan came up with the idea, Storm agreed to it and Xavier was just out of options on how to get his golden boy back.
"How long do think it's going to take?" Kitty asked it so quietly I barely heard her.
I spared her a glance. "As long as they need to." I answer just as quiet, then looked at her again for a longer moment. She was nervous. Not so much that she wasn't going to be able to handle what we had to do, but just enough that I could tell.
She was looking back at me, and I was thinking maybe it wouldn't hurt if it took the others another five, ten minutes longer to get the ball rolling. She was right there, barely a foot from me, and when she nervously licked her full lips, I started thinking…well…I really wasn't thinking. But it's fine. Because we heard an explosion, jolting us both to the present and I mentally kicked myself.
"That's our cue." I muttered, irritated with myself.
"Ready?" She held out her hand.
I took it without looking at her and flashed us down to the farthest point that I could see, getting us as close to the base as I possibly could. Then we took off running as fast as we could. Bullets started fly but we were only about twenty feet from where we needed to be so we made a run for it. I was just about dragging her, and reminded myself to be careful because I could hurt her if I held on too tightly; she was a hell of a lot smaller than me after all. But she didn't complain. As we approached the building we needed to get into, she took the lead and pulled me right through the wall. Not a very pleasant experience if you ask me. As we kept moving through one wall to the next I realized it was she was dragging me this time. That was fine and all 'till she phased us through the damn floor without warning and my stomach flipped.
"Warning." I said through gritted teeth. "Warn me before you drop us through another floor."
"Sorry." But she was preoccupied trying to figure out switch wall we needed to get through next. She adjusted the grip she had on my hand and I loosened mine up, thinking maybe I'd hurt her, but the next thing I knew she squeezed mine and we were off again. Running through wall after wall, some rooms we passed through were empty, others had people in them. Mostly soldiers, we saw a few doctor types thrown in.
"Going down." She threw over her shoulder right before we sunk through the floor.
After my feet touched the floor of the room we had entered, I went to tell her that really hadn't been enough time to let me get ready, but her face stopped me. I glanced around at our surrounds, and felt the severity of it settle in.
"Oh my God…" Kitty breathed from next to next to me.
I glanced over at her to see a perfect expression of horror etched on her face. We were looking at rows and rows of man size cages, nearly all of them filled with people. People so pathetic that most of them only looked at us silently, not caring any more. A few begged us for help.
See, most people don't realize that this sort of thing goes on, experimenting on mutants, but it happens more often than you would think possible. I'd seen something similar to this twice before, when I'd been with the Brotherhood.
"Oh my God." I don't think Kitty realized she was repeating herself. It was appalling, she'd been unpaired for this and I left a bad for her. But not as bad as these poor bastards staring at us with empty eyes.
"C'mon. We need to find Cyclops." I pulled her along, needing her to focus because she knew what Cyclops looked like better than I did. I'd only seen pictures of him.
I half expected some refusal from her. Like she wouldn't be able to handle any of it, but she pulled it together and helped me look into to each of the cages to find Cyclops. I'll give her credit, she was keeping it together a hell of a lot better than I had the first time seeing something like this.
"There." Kitty pulled me to a stop in front of one of the cages but didn't move close to it.
I did though, stepping up and looking in. Sure enough, there was a tall guy with a cloth tied around his eyes, just sitting there.
"You Cyclops?" I asked, knowing he was, but wanting to know if he was lucid enough to respond. It wouldn't be a surprise for him to be doped up on something.
The guy cocked his head in our direction, and with a surprisingly strong voice demanded: "Who's asking?"
I smirked a little, glad I wasn't going to have to carry this guy out.
"It's me, Kitty. Do you remember me? Kitty Pryde?" She finally moved forward.
"No time for this." I told her. "Phase us through the bars so we can get the hell out of here."
She did so with no hesitation and I grabbed Cyclops by the shoulder and we were back at the medical lab between one heart beat and the next. Xavier and Beast were there waiting for us, and I got Cyclops on the exam table even as he tried to protest.
I backed off and was about to head back to the others to let them all know we got him and he was safe.
"Wait." Kitty stopped me, and looked back and forth between me and the Professor. "There are others. We can't just leave them."
"There's no way we can get them all out." I told her. "I can't teleport them all at once and we don't have enough man power to get them out any other way."
She looked at back at the Xavier. "There's got to be away to help them."
"We need to regroup first. We'll discuss it once everyone is back." Xavier said.
Kitty didn't look satisfied with that answer, so I tried to reassure her. "Probably a good idea. That way we would know what we would be up against and for many victims to prepare for.
I flashed back to the base, and hunted down Storm and let her know we had Cyclops. It was only a few minutes before everyone was heading back to the Jet.
I was pulling up the rear, trying to make sure we had everyone, incase I needed to teleport around and get someone, when a hand on my arm stopped me.
I turned and found Jean.
"I need you to take me back to the school." She had worry and urgency bleeding off her.
I nodded and caught the look on Wolverines face as he passed us, and figured I'd be just as glad to skip the flight back anyway. Jean thanked me before we left the jet and when we got to the medical lab. I watched her rush over to Cyclops, and it looked like she was crying already. So I headed for the door, and passed Kitty out in the hall, crying too.
Crying girls are not what I'm good at. Other than my sister I've managed to avoid them. But there was Kitty, standing in the hall by herself, face wet, even though she kept wiping under her eyes.
Keep walking is what I told myself.
"You okay?" I asked instead, not coming out as nice as I meant for it too.
She shook her head, telling me no, when all I wanted to hear was 'yeah, fine' so I could keep moving.
Kitty sniffled and I glance around looking for someone to help, feeling guilty even though I was pretty sure this wasn't my fault.
"Those were people we left behind." She stared up at me, and it dawned on me those weren't just sad distraught tears she was crying. Hell no. She looked frustrated and angry.
I blew out a breath and ran a hand through my hair, trying to think of what to say. But yeah, nothing makes this sort of thing better.
"Why doesn't it bother you in the slightest?" She demanded to know.
I narrowed my eyes on her.
"I mean…" She shook her head. "That's not what I meant. It's just you seem like you're handling this a lot better than me." She took a deep breath. "Sorry… It's just that this is the worst thing I've ever seen."
I eased off glaring at her, and glanced down at the floor, before looking back at her. "It's not the first time I've seen something like this."
"You mean there's other places like what we saw?" There was disbelief all over her face.
"Worlds not a pretty place." I shrugged.
She scoffed and wiped at her face again. "We need to help those people."
Yeah those people did need help, but the truth was it was a little too late for most of them. About half of them were so wasted away I really doubted even getting them out of there was going to save their lives. I'd seen it happen before, when Magneto had 'liberated' captives. I'd once asked him why we even tried, did he just like watching them die? I'd certainly didn't have the stomach for it. But Magneto had explained it like this: we can't save all their lives, it's true, but would you rather die free or caged like an animal? It had helped me, but I doubted Kitty would appreciate it.
"And we will." I told her, because that was probably what she needed to hear right now. She'd learn about the rest the hard way.
The crazy part was I found myself wishing I could save her from that lesson.