Disclaimer: I own nothing of X-Men: Evolution, and, unless I inherit a
large sum of money, I will *never* own X-Men: Evolution.
Author's Note: I admit it, I'm starting a new fic before finishing my old ones, but I have a good reason: I was inspired! What follows is my interpretation of the events of Shadowdance...if they had happened the way I would have liked them to. Now, don't worry, I've seen the episode countless times, I know that Kurt winds up with Amanda in the end, but...well, I'd much rather have him with Kitty, to tell you the truth. I apologize for the length of this chapter, but...it's more of an introduction than anything else, you know? So....let 'er rip!
***
Topsy-Turvy
A fic by Lyra Silvertongue
***
The door hissed open behind them as Rogue, then Kitty and Jean walked into the room.
"I got so excited when I dreamt this up," said Forge ecstatically. "Soon, Kurt, you'll be zapping anywhere on the globe."
"But...two miles is my limit. And I have to see or know where I'm going."
"Yeah, but this baby's gonna change that," Forge said, looking immensely proud of his machine. He was putting the finishing touches on it as he spoke to Kurt, who was looking rather perplexed about the entire situation.
"Uh...what does it do, exactly?"
The Professor took this opportunity to explain. "Forge believes that when you teleport, you actually pass through another dimension. His device will slow you down while you're there, so we can gather information about it."
"And with that data, we can improve your abilities," finished the eccentric inventor. He tweaked one last wire and shut the piece of machinery on the table. Retracting the part of his robot arm he had been using, his hand morphed into a more normal shape, and he picked up the device. "All right! Ready to boogie?"
"Uh...ah, boogie?"
Forge grinned. "Yeah, you know, trip the riff, go where no man's gone before."
"Uh, I guess. How long will I be in there?"
"Just a few seconds. I can set your speed with this chronometer." He did just that as he spoke, pushing the button four times until the meter read four seconds.
"Scott, make certain his breathing mask is secure. The sulphurous smoke Kurt leaves when he teleports indicates the atmosphere may be toxic."
"Gotcha," said Scott as he adjusted Kurt's mask. "You ready for this, dude?"
"Uh-huh." Kurt made a little gesture of assent.
"Good luck," said Scott, stepping back.
"Aim for my old lab in the high school," instructed Forge. "It's farther than you've gone before, and there shouldn't be anyone there to see your arrival."
Through the bulky oxygen mask, Kurt could see Scott giving him a thumbs-up, while Evan and Kitty were waving. His eyes moved to the Professor, who spoke again.
"When you arrive, report back via your communicator."
Kurt took a deep breath, and the lights in front of him began their countdown. When they reached the end, Kurt teleported away.
_Oh, man, I *knew* this was a bad idea._ Kurt's eyes took a few seconds to adjust to the light, but when they did, he wished that they hadn't. He was floating above a street that was lined with cars, and, unless he was imagining it, which he was pretty sure he wasn't, there were...people? _But...but the Professor said...a...people?_ Even Kurt's thoughts were unintelligible as he stared in awe at the *people* that slammed on their breaks and stared *back at him*, jaws dropping. Kurt was so absorbed in the sight of the people that went whizzing by, each of them with the same expression on their face, one of fear and shock, that he almost didn't notice what was directly in his path.
_Oh....Scheiße!!!_ He looked around himself frantically for some way of stopping himself beyond crashing into the wall. Three seconds away.... a light pole, to his right. Kurt stretched out his arms and his tail.... no luck. Two seconds.... the top of a truck, he stretched out his four toes...just one inch more...one second...too late now, there wasn't any help. Shutting his eyes tightly, Kurt tried to position himself in such a way as to *not* break all of his bones....
WHAM!
Kathy slammed her fist into the corner of her locker and it popped open. Reaching inside, she dug around for her Calculus book, biting her tongue as she concentrated on feeling for the book with her fingertips. Her eyes remained fixed on the ceiling until she felt her head being pushed forcefully toward the locker.
"Good afternoon, geek-a-zoid," said a voice from behind her, dripping with sarcasm and cruelty.
_'Geek-a-zoid.' How...original,_ she thought, rubbing her forehead and resuming her search. With a flush of pride she felt her wrist brush up against the Lycra cover, and she dragged it up out of the pit she called her locker. Putting 'Calculus 1' in her knapsack, and zipping the pack up for good measure, she finally turned around to the now-impatient bully standing behind her, who, lucky him, was her third contestant for the day. She gave him the best cold look she could muster, which wasn't *incredibly* cold, considering he towered over her by about a foot and a half.
"Good afternoon, *Todd*," she said, laying some emphasis on it. She knew he hated his real first name. "How goes the hunt?"
"The...hunt?"
"For brain-cells," she said bluntly. "I figure, from the amount you're killing each day, you *have* to be *hunting* them."
His face tightened in rage. "Ugh! You are *so* lucky that I don't hit girls, 'cause if I did-" he cut himself off with a double-take at the inside of Kathy's locker door. "What the hell is that?" One could almost see the pain in his expression as he slowly worked it out. "Is that the- the Baytown Demon? Wasn't that that bogus story in the Enquirer?" Kathy stepped quickly to cover the newspaper clippings, a blush covering her face. She clutched her books tightly to herself and looked at the bully as if to say: 'Yeah, so what if it is?'
"Why do you have a picture of a Demon in your locker?" His puzzled look changed to a malicious grin. "Do you *like* the Baytown Demon?" Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed the nearest passer-by and told them (with that terrible grin still on his face): "Kathy likes the Baytown Demon!" He started snickering, and pointed at the locker door through Kathy. "She wants to *marry* him!"
Desperate to get away from Todd, the boy nodded his head and smiled nervously, his eyes darting to the side, looking for any means of escape. Kathy, for her part, just clutched her books tighter to her chest and blushed.
_Get me *out* of here!_ To tell the truth, Kathy had to wonder why Todd picked on her in the first place. She had never actually *provoked* an attack by *any* of the bullies that chose to pick on her. _Give me something, *anything;* just *get me out of here!*_ Todd released the kid he was holding just as the "It's the end of school and we're closing the building for the day so get the hell out of here" bell sounded. Kathy waited to sigh with relief until Todd had gone through his routine of shoving her shoulder roughly and stalking away.
Turning back to her locker, Kathy took one last glance at the 'Baytown Demon' before she slammed the door. Slinging her backpack over her shoulder, she began walking toward the exit.
She remembered the first time she had seen the Demon. The 'appearances' had started roughly a year ago, and Kathy hadn't believed in them at first. People had been saying that some kind of blue monster had been seen in quick flashes all around Baytown. Ever the skeptic, Kathy had demanded proof (well, privately. Kathy wasn't the type of person who would demand something like that out loud), and she had gotten it. One day, in the middle of her Physics class, the Demon had appeared. It was one of his first 'appearances' in Baytown, and it had caused quite an uproar among the students in her class (kids diving out of windows, etcetera). While the kids around her had run amok, Kathy sat stock-still in her seat, the image of the Demon frozen in her mind. He had been looking straight at her, apparently not seeing the panicking students.
It had been less than a week later that the one and only picture of the Demon was run in the Baytown Enquirer. Kathy was a little embarrassed that she was so interested in something that appeared in the Enquirer, since it was pretty much the joke newspaper of the town. But something had drawn her to that picture, to that story…
_Hell, who am I kidding? I'm just a sick puppy who's drawn to freaky stuff._
Suddenly, Kathy noticed what she had been unconsciously heading for, and was jarred out of her thoughts. There was a crowd gathered around one of the four walls of the Fish Market; she could tell because of the sign that was still visible over the heads of the tallest people in the crowd: 'Fresh Fish Today.' _Mindless *sheep,*_ she thought to herself about the crowd. They seemed pretty excited about something.
Curiosity getting the better of her, Kathy stirred herself into moving forward once more. As she approached the crowd, every back to her, she could hear the people talking about what they were clustered around, whatever it was. As she listened, she couldn't help but notice that nearly every person in the group was a teenager.
"What *is* it?"
"It's blue!"
"It must have escaped from a *zoo,* or something."
"No, stop it! You're scaring it!"
"Why do *you* care whether I'm scaring it or not?"
"I want to take it home and make people pay to see it. I gotta-"
"What's it *wearing*?"
"I wonder what it's *doing* here…"
"It's *blue*!"
"I wonder what would happen if I touched it…"
"Ew, don't touch it, you don't know where it's been!"
"Holy *crap,* it's *blue*!"
Kathy struggled to see through the group of people in front of her. She tried several different positions and she tried jumping to see over their heads, but she finally resolved that she was going to have to look from ground level. Crouching down, she managed to get a good view of the wall through people's legs, but she still couldn't figure what they were talking about. _Well,_ she gathered. _I know it's blue. And I know it's alive._ Shifting her position, she suddenly saw something. A flash of blue. A frightened face, which she recognized instantly.
Sitting back with a 'thump!', she dropped her books on the ground. So it wasn't just some hoax. It - *he* - was real. She could definitely see that 'it' was a 'he,' now. So she hadn't been imagining it. The Baytown Demon wasn't a Demon at all - he was human - or at least something resembling a human. Blue…
It took Kathy a few seconds to shake off the shock, but she managed to gather herself together enough to realize that she couldn't just *leave* it - him - here. She had to *do* something, help 'him.' Otherwise…otherwise *some* people, mindless sheep that they were, would come along and do *something* horrific to 'him.' _They'll probably just *kill* him. Or chop him into bitty pieces. Or both._ Kathy grimaced, and ducked around the corner to begin rummaging through her pack.
_That didn't hurt as much as I thought it would,_ Kurt thought as he sat up, rubbing his head. Eyes closed, he leaned up against the wall that had brought him to a stop (a painful stop, but a stop all the same). It was a few seconds before he realized that he was nearly surrounded by the sound of many people speaking at once. He sat blinking into the harsh sunlight, then his eyes focused on the crowd that had gathered about him. That was when he realized what the people's most-likely intent was. That all-too familiar thought of being a monster, being inhuman. For all he knew, the people around him could be planning to have him dead and half-dissected within a few hours. _I'm a long way from home,_ Kurt thought bleakly, huddling into himself, his back pressed against the wall. There wasn't going to be any help for him here.
"Help is on the way," Kathy muttered. She fished the last piece of equipment that she would need out of her backpack. Luckily, she only really needed two things to go through with her plan, both of which were, by some miracle, in her bag. Kathy held the two small objects in front of her face, running over her plan one more time. "Okay," she sighed, gathering up her courage. "I can do this. I'm *going* to do this." Putting a jaunty step in her stride and her nose in the air, Kathy turned at the corner and headed toward the crowd. She paused right at the edge of the group, and took a deep breath. Then she began to push her way towards the Fish Market sign.
Kurt covered his face in anguish, trying to keep himself hidden from the crowd. He had already divulged himself of his bulky oxygen mask, figuring that if the people around him *looked* human, and *sounded* human, they were most likely human and couldn't live without oxygen. _If only I could teleport *out* of here,_ he thought desperately. _But then I might *never* be able to get back home._ Kurt was starting to regret that he hadn't asked for more information about Forge's 'gizmo.' Perhaps if he had known something about the way it had worked, he could have…
It was of no use to him now to regret his mistakes. _What I have to do *now* is focus on getting *out* of here._
Suddenly a clear voice called above the crowd, and someone was kneeling next to him. "When I stick this thing into your side," a familiar voice murmured, close to his ear. "I want you to act like you've been shocked with electricity or something, okay?"
Kurt slowly moved his fingers aside, and tried to keep himself from reacting when he saw who the voice belonged to. Her face was framed by the sun, and her hair had a glow about it from the light that was behind her. Kurt pressed his back up against the wall in his shock.
"Kitty?"
***
Oooh, a cliffhanger. Well, I'm really into this fic, so I'll probably update soon. Probably. In the meantime, feel free to review (not that I'm *requiring* you to, or anything, it would just be nice if you dropped me a line). Later, people! :D
Author's Note: I admit it, I'm starting a new fic before finishing my old ones, but I have a good reason: I was inspired! What follows is my interpretation of the events of Shadowdance...if they had happened the way I would have liked them to. Now, don't worry, I've seen the episode countless times, I know that Kurt winds up with Amanda in the end, but...well, I'd much rather have him with Kitty, to tell you the truth. I apologize for the length of this chapter, but...it's more of an introduction than anything else, you know? So....let 'er rip!
***
Topsy-Turvy
A fic by Lyra Silvertongue
***
The door hissed open behind them as Rogue, then Kitty and Jean walked into the room.
"I got so excited when I dreamt this up," said Forge ecstatically. "Soon, Kurt, you'll be zapping anywhere on the globe."
"But...two miles is my limit. And I have to see or know where I'm going."
"Yeah, but this baby's gonna change that," Forge said, looking immensely proud of his machine. He was putting the finishing touches on it as he spoke to Kurt, who was looking rather perplexed about the entire situation.
"Uh...what does it do, exactly?"
The Professor took this opportunity to explain. "Forge believes that when you teleport, you actually pass through another dimension. His device will slow you down while you're there, so we can gather information about it."
"And with that data, we can improve your abilities," finished the eccentric inventor. He tweaked one last wire and shut the piece of machinery on the table. Retracting the part of his robot arm he had been using, his hand morphed into a more normal shape, and he picked up the device. "All right! Ready to boogie?"
"Uh...ah, boogie?"
Forge grinned. "Yeah, you know, trip the riff, go where no man's gone before."
"Uh, I guess. How long will I be in there?"
"Just a few seconds. I can set your speed with this chronometer." He did just that as he spoke, pushing the button four times until the meter read four seconds.
"Scott, make certain his breathing mask is secure. The sulphurous smoke Kurt leaves when he teleports indicates the atmosphere may be toxic."
"Gotcha," said Scott as he adjusted Kurt's mask. "You ready for this, dude?"
"Uh-huh." Kurt made a little gesture of assent.
"Good luck," said Scott, stepping back.
"Aim for my old lab in the high school," instructed Forge. "It's farther than you've gone before, and there shouldn't be anyone there to see your arrival."
Through the bulky oxygen mask, Kurt could see Scott giving him a thumbs-up, while Evan and Kitty were waving. His eyes moved to the Professor, who spoke again.
"When you arrive, report back via your communicator."
Kurt took a deep breath, and the lights in front of him began their countdown. When they reached the end, Kurt teleported away.
_Oh, man, I *knew* this was a bad idea._ Kurt's eyes took a few seconds to adjust to the light, but when they did, he wished that they hadn't. He was floating above a street that was lined with cars, and, unless he was imagining it, which he was pretty sure he wasn't, there were...people? _But...but the Professor said...a...people?_ Even Kurt's thoughts were unintelligible as he stared in awe at the *people* that slammed on their breaks and stared *back at him*, jaws dropping. Kurt was so absorbed in the sight of the people that went whizzing by, each of them with the same expression on their face, one of fear and shock, that he almost didn't notice what was directly in his path.
_Oh....Scheiße!!!_ He looked around himself frantically for some way of stopping himself beyond crashing into the wall. Three seconds away.... a light pole, to his right. Kurt stretched out his arms and his tail.... no luck. Two seconds.... the top of a truck, he stretched out his four toes...just one inch more...one second...too late now, there wasn't any help. Shutting his eyes tightly, Kurt tried to position himself in such a way as to *not* break all of his bones....
WHAM!
Kathy slammed her fist into the corner of her locker and it popped open. Reaching inside, she dug around for her Calculus book, biting her tongue as she concentrated on feeling for the book with her fingertips. Her eyes remained fixed on the ceiling until she felt her head being pushed forcefully toward the locker.
"Good afternoon, geek-a-zoid," said a voice from behind her, dripping with sarcasm and cruelty.
_'Geek-a-zoid.' How...original,_ she thought, rubbing her forehead and resuming her search. With a flush of pride she felt her wrist brush up against the Lycra cover, and she dragged it up out of the pit she called her locker. Putting 'Calculus 1' in her knapsack, and zipping the pack up for good measure, she finally turned around to the now-impatient bully standing behind her, who, lucky him, was her third contestant for the day. She gave him the best cold look she could muster, which wasn't *incredibly* cold, considering he towered over her by about a foot and a half.
"Good afternoon, *Todd*," she said, laying some emphasis on it. She knew he hated his real first name. "How goes the hunt?"
"The...hunt?"
"For brain-cells," she said bluntly. "I figure, from the amount you're killing each day, you *have* to be *hunting* them."
His face tightened in rage. "Ugh! You are *so* lucky that I don't hit girls, 'cause if I did-" he cut himself off with a double-take at the inside of Kathy's locker door. "What the hell is that?" One could almost see the pain in his expression as he slowly worked it out. "Is that the- the Baytown Demon? Wasn't that that bogus story in the Enquirer?" Kathy stepped quickly to cover the newspaper clippings, a blush covering her face. She clutched her books tightly to herself and looked at the bully as if to say: 'Yeah, so what if it is?'
"Why do you have a picture of a Demon in your locker?" His puzzled look changed to a malicious grin. "Do you *like* the Baytown Demon?" Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed the nearest passer-by and told them (with that terrible grin still on his face): "Kathy likes the Baytown Demon!" He started snickering, and pointed at the locker door through Kathy. "She wants to *marry* him!"
Desperate to get away from Todd, the boy nodded his head and smiled nervously, his eyes darting to the side, looking for any means of escape. Kathy, for her part, just clutched her books tighter to her chest and blushed.
_Get me *out* of here!_ To tell the truth, Kathy had to wonder why Todd picked on her in the first place. She had never actually *provoked* an attack by *any* of the bullies that chose to pick on her. _Give me something, *anything;* just *get me out of here!*_ Todd released the kid he was holding just as the "It's the end of school and we're closing the building for the day so get the hell out of here" bell sounded. Kathy waited to sigh with relief until Todd had gone through his routine of shoving her shoulder roughly and stalking away.
Turning back to her locker, Kathy took one last glance at the 'Baytown Demon' before she slammed the door. Slinging her backpack over her shoulder, she began walking toward the exit.
She remembered the first time she had seen the Demon. The 'appearances' had started roughly a year ago, and Kathy hadn't believed in them at first. People had been saying that some kind of blue monster had been seen in quick flashes all around Baytown. Ever the skeptic, Kathy had demanded proof (well, privately. Kathy wasn't the type of person who would demand something like that out loud), and she had gotten it. One day, in the middle of her Physics class, the Demon had appeared. It was one of his first 'appearances' in Baytown, and it had caused quite an uproar among the students in her class (kids diving out of windows, etcetera). While the kids around her had run amok, Kathy sat stock-still in her seat, the image of the Demon frozen in her mind. He had been looking straight at her, apparently not seeing the panicking students.
It had been less than a week later that the one and only picture of the Demon was run in the Baytown Enquirer. Kathy was a little embarrassed that she was so interested in something that appeared in the Enquirer, since it was pretty much the joke newspaper of the town. But something had drawn her to that picture, to that story…
_Hell, who am I kidding? I'm just a sick puppy who's drawn to freaky stuff._
Suddenly, Kathy noticed what she had been unconsciously heading for, and was jarred out of her thoughts. There was a crowd gathered around one of the four walls of the Fish Market; she could tell because of the sign that was still visible over the heads of the tallest people in the crowd: 'Fresh Fish Today.' _Mindless *sheep,*_ she thought to herself about the crowd. They seemed pretty excited about something.
Curiosity getting the better of her, Kathy stirred herself into moving forward once more. As she approached the crowd, every back to her, she could hear the people talking about what they were clustered around, whatever it was. As she listened, she couldn't help but notice that nearly every person in the group was a teenager.
"What *is* it?"
"It's blue!"
"It must have escaped from a *zoo,* or something."
"No, stop it! You're scaring it!"
"Why do *you* care whether I'm scaring it or not?"
"I want to take it home and make people pay to see it. I gotta-"
"What's it *wearing*?"
"I wonder what it's *doing* here…"
"It's *blue*!"
"I wonder what would happen if I touched it…"
"Ew, don't touch it, you don't know where it's been!"
"Holy *crap,* it's *blue*!"
Kathy struggled to see through the group of people in front of her. She tried several different positions and she tried jumping to see over their heads, but she finally resolved that she was going to have to look from ground level. Crouching down, she managed to get a good view of the wall through people's legs, but she still couldn't figure what they were talking about. _Well,_ she gathered. _I know it's blue. And I know it's alive._ Shifting her position, she suddenly saw something. A flash of blue. A frightened face, which she recognized instantly.
Sitting back with a 'thump!', she dropped her books on the ground. So it wasn't just some hoax. It - *he* - was real. She could definitely see that 'it' was a 'he,' now. So she hadn't been imagining it. The Baytown Demon wasn't a Demon at all - he was human - or at least something resembling a human. Blue…
It took Kathy a few seconds to shake off the shock, but she managed to gather herself together enough to realize that she couldn't just *leave* it - him - here. She had to *do* something, help 'him.' Otherwise…otherwise *some* people, mindless sheep that they were, would come along and do *something* horrific to 'him.' _They'll probably just *kill* him. Or chop him into bitty pieces. Or both._ Kathy grimaced, and ducked around the corner to begin rummaging through her pack.
_That didn't hurt as much as I thought it would,_ Kurt thought as he sat up, rubbing his head. Eyes closed, he leaned up against the wall that had brought him to a stop (a painful stop, but a stop all the same). It was a few seconds before he realized that he was nearly surrounded by the sound of many people speaking at once. He sat blinking into the harsh sunlight, then his eyes focused on the crowd that had gathered about him. That was when he realized what the people's most-likely intent was. That all-too familiar thought of being a monster, being inhuman. For all he knew, the people around him could be planning to have him dead and half-dissected within a few hours. _I'm a long way from home,_ Kurt thought bleakly, huddling into himself, his back pressed against the wall. There wasn't going to be any help for him here.
"Help is on the way," Kathy muttered. She fished the last piece of equipment that she would need out of her backpack. Luckily, she only really needed two things to go through with her plan, both of which were, by some miracle, in her bag. Kathy held the two small objects in front of her face, running over her plan one more time. "Okay," she sighed, gathering up her courage. "I can do this. I'm *going* to do this." Putting a jaunty step in her stride and her nose in the air, Kathy turned at the corner and headed toward the crowd. She paused right at the edge of the group, and took a deep breath. Then she began to push her way towards the Fish Market sign.
Kurt covered his face in anguish, trying to keep himself hidden from the crowd. He had already divulged himself of his bulky oxygen mask, figuring that if the people around him *looked* human, and *sounded* human, they were most likely human and couldn't live without oxygen. _If only I could teleport *out* of here,_ he thought desperately. _But then I might *never* be able to get back home._ Kurt was starting to regret that he hadn't asked for more information about Forge's 'gizmo.' Perhaps if he had known something about the way it had worked, he could have…
It was of no use to him now to regret his mistakes. _What I have to do *now* is focus on getting *out* of here._
Suddenly a clear voice called above the crowd, and someone was kneeling next to him. "When I stick this thing into your side," a familiar voice murmured, close to his ear. "I want you to act like you've been shocked with electricity or something, okay?"
Kurt slowly moved his fingers aside, and tried to keep himself from reacting when he saw who the voice belonged to. Her face was framed by the sun, and her hair had a glow about it from the light that was behind her. Kurt pressed his back up against the wall in his shock.
"Kitty?"
***
Oooh, a cliffhanger. Well, I'm really into this fic, so I'll probably update soon. Probably. In the meantime, feel free to review (not that I'm *requiring* you to, or anything, it would just be nice if you dropped me a line). Later, people! :D