Kitty walked through the temple hallways hand in hand with Bobby, the flickering light of the several dozen hanging lanterns casting a red tinted light over their features.
The enormous front doors to the courtyard outside were open, though they wouldn't be for long. Ten minutes from now, those not necessary to the plan would take their stations outside. Sentinels would find them before long. They always did, their global networks were too powerful to evade for any significant matter of time. And this time Bishop wouldn't be making any jumps. No more second chances.
Along the hallways walls the last remnants of the X-men stood waiting for her with expressions that covered pretty much every possible level of stoicism. Storm's conjured fog rolled in from outside, coating them in shifting condensation, doing nothing to detract from the accepting resignation that shone in each of their eyes.
So few of them left
Kitty broken away from Bobby and paced to the center of the room and gazed around, her mind filling on all the missing faces.
Hank, with his cultured charm and heart to match his bestial strength.
Rogue, who'd come back to a fight she had every reason to abandon. Remy had gone with her, both of their lives ending in a bang that resulted in one of the few minor victories against the sentinels they'd ever had.
Mister Summers and Doctor Grey, gone for so long yet with a presence that still lingered.
And Kurt, who had faith enough for all of them. Kitty was Jewish, yet she'd still found a strange comfort in watching his prayers knelt before a candle with a rosary between his three fingered hands. That was something she still found hard to believe. How had such a gentle soul come from a mother so vicious? The Professor insisted that Mystique had been different in the past, kinder, compassionate. That the mission to the past could save her. She believed him, but she was a bit biased.
Seeing someone carve their way through enough human foot soldiers with brutal acrobatic rage tended to paint one's perception in a less that favorable light.
That perception in Kitty's words?
"Crazy bitch."
"So," she began. "This is it, huh?" Her eyes fell to the stone floor. Part of her wanted to cry. Though she should cry. Her last exchange with the people she loved, the last time she'd ever seen them in recognizable forms. Yet the finality of the decision blocked any tears. She couldn't bring herself to cry right now, and that made her want to cry even more.
"You guys probably know I haven't been thrilled about how we've been doing things recently," she continued, forcing herself forward. "I know why it had to be done, but I still hated feeling like a damsel who needed protecting. Me being the first to eat, first to sleep, always the priority. I get it, I was the lifeline, and much as I hated it, I appreciate all you've done." She smiled a little, meeting their eyes. "Mind doing it one more time while Logan and I retroactively kick the sentinel's asses?"
A series of smile alit on their faces.
Storm stepped forward, pulling her one time student into a hug.
"Do we really have to answer that?" her eyes were misted over slightly, contrasting with her mocha colored skin. She was keeping the weather outside just an inch away from breaking into a torrent of wind, rain, and lightning.
"Thanks, Ororo," Kitty whispered.
"Always, Kitty," she gave her student one last squeeze then turned towards the doors. "Make sure to keep Logan in check. He's more than competent, but things have a tendency to…blow up, whenever he enters the picture."
With that, she flew out into the courtyard, cape whipping behind her and thunder booming overhead.
One by one her friends stepped forward and said their goodbyes and gave their hugs. Now was the best time possible for hugs.
Roberto's hug tingled with heat in the same way Bobby's did with cold.
Clarice was on the verge of tears, pink colored skin nearly ethereal in the misty fog.
Colossus' arms were large as barrels, and for a brief moment Kitty was the fourteen year old with the crush on the twenty year old Russian guy.
Then it was just her and Bobby.
No more words were exchanged, just one last kiss, and a fleeting glance over his shoulder as he walked out to the courtyard.
Behind him the doors were sealed shut, fingers of ice crawling through the cracks as Iceman reinforced it. Left alone, Kitty turned and phased through the door to the inner sanctum. Her mind was on the mission. All else had to be either pushed to the back of her mind or temporarily forgotten. The way forward was clear, and dwelling could really get in the way. Work now, remember what was lost later.
The old men of the team were waiting for inside.
Seated in his floating chair, the Professor was gazing contemplatively at the multicolored crystals that made up the windowed panels of the chamber. Cobwebs crisscrossed over them, filling the chamber's sides and becoming more and more plentiful as the walls met to form the corners of the room. Magneto leaned nearby; the wrinkles of his face all the more evident in the dim light. He no longer wore a helmet anymore-being in telepathic communication with the rest of the team was imperative, and an X was stitched on the shoulder of his armor.
Oh how the times changed.
"You ready, kid?" Logan grunted from his seated position on the stone slab at the room's center, a cigar burning between his teeth.
"As I'll ever be," she smiled a bit. "How 'bout you, old man? Ready to rock the seventies? What were you up to back then, anyway?"
"Not a damn clue," he sounded irritated. A brow crawled up her forehead.
"Didn't you get most of your memories back?" She'd thought the professor had basically sorted that out for him with telepathic-magic-stuff.
"Yup, the ones I lost from Weapon-X. Chuck got me that back. The seventies….Christ, they were the seventies, kid. You'd be amazed what you could get on street corners back in the day."
"Say no more," she told him, mentally preparing herself to find his past body coked out in a gutter somewhere.
Logan took a long drag off the cigar before tossing aside, watching it break and burn out against the wall.
"Mind explaining all this to me?" he gestured to the makeshift stone bed. "Chuck explained your whole…time thing, but with you coming' with me-"
"It's different," she finished, taking a breath. God, this was complicated. "Yeah it is. When I jumped Bishop back, I stayed here as an anchor between past and present while he warned us about the Sentinel attacks. When the past was changed, Bishop would snap back to the present, with memories of the past he'd changed…..he watched everyone die a dozen times over."
"I've seen it," said the Professor, rolling forward. "It was…disconcerting to say the least."
Kitty nodded. Telepathically sharing the alternate pasts had been a big part of recent strategies.
"This time," she continued "with me going along, I won't have a body to anchor me back. I'll have to manifest one in the past. Theoretically, I should end up somewhere near you. Random proximity, that kind of thing. You'll go to sleep, and the energy I run through your mind will constitute the jump. When we change things, you might snap back to this time period. Not quite sure about that. Me, I don't come back. Whatever happens, I stay where I end up."
There was a prolonged silence-the three older men exchanging meaningful glances. Unspoken words shining in the silence.
"Alright then, kid," said Logan, a respectful quirk moving the edges of his lips.
"Our thanks can never be enough for this," the Professor edged closer, his age showing more than ever. A wistful look flashed over him. "Come here, my dear girl."
Falling down on one knee, Kitty took a pair of pale withered hands in hers. The tears almost came roaring forward at this point, sharing a final moment with the man who had become the father and confidant to her and so many others. Their minds melded briefly, snapshots of moments long past zipping by at incredible speed.
Their first meeting when her powers manifested. The half dozen times she'd found herself either mopy or crying during the hellish teenage years, curled up on the couch of his study for a good chat. A thousand other random moments and conversations, and their reunion after his miraculously return from the grave after the Phoenix debacle.
"You've come quite a long way, haven't you?" he whispered, brushing strands of hair off her cheeks. "A thousand battles, just as many losses. And now one last chance. You and Logan are among the best. Knowing you Kitty, our fate is in good hands."
"Thank you, Professor," she leaned in and pressed a kiss to his cheek. God, she did love the old jerk.
They embraced for a moment, then, finality sinking in, she pulled away and got back to business.
"Tell me what we have to do to stop Mystique."
"Go to my house and find me there. Convince me of," he waved a hand at their surroundings. "All of this."
"Can't you just read our minds?" input Logan. "See it all?"
A bald head shook sadly.
"I didn't have my powers in nineteen-seventy-three. Those were…dark time for me. Ask me when you get there. He'll be stubborn about it. I remember that clearly, but if you mention Raven, he may be more amiable."
Kitty nodded. Made sense. Baby Professor might budge if the kind-of-crazy-maybe-not-yet sister got brought up.
"You'll need me as well," spoke up Magneto , moving away from his place against a nearby pillar
"Will we?" she asked bluntly. "Weren't you still a player in the whole megalomaniacal terrorist game back then?" He was an incredibly powerful ally; one of the most powerful Alpha level mutants on the planet even before most of the species had been decimated. As close as you could get to Omega without actually reaching the god-like state usually unique to the likes of Jean Grey. That power and usefulness didn't change the past, though. The 1970 had been the early period of his days as evil mutant extraordinaire.
Being basically alright with present day reformed Magneto was far different than being cool with the militant old one.
Magneto nodded.
"It will take the two of us, side by side when we couldn't be further apart." His face took on what could only be despair. "I was the one who led Raven down this path, Katherine. Please, let me help pull her back. And perhaps, I could be pulled back as well. Hopefully quicker, this time around."
"This a second chance, Kitty," said the Professor. "For all of us."
She nodded.
"Fair enough," said Logan, voicing Kitty's own thoughts. "Ready to go?"
"Yep," was her simple reply. Now or never.
Logan lay back on the stone slab, looking obviously uncomfortable as the adamantium in his body ground against the hard surface. Walking around to his head, Kitty sat at the waiting chair, and raised her hands. Sweat beaded on her knuckles. Funny how her nerves only became apparent moments before the fact.
Ten heartbeats, that was how long the wait took.
Ten heartbeats plinked by, a fire ignited in her head, and a blue light shot from her hands.
Logan screamed, and the two old men watching the scene found themselves alone in a room with Logan, prone body shimmering with an aura of blue and white.
LINEBREAK
Kitty found herself falling.
Every atom of her body buzzed with a torrential frenzy, pulsing and screaming as her form plummeted through a void of blue and black and white. Lightning splintered around her twisting into an enormous double helix that crackled and fizzled. This was the nerve center of fall things, pumping with raw lifeblood of the universe. Kitty felt energy bombard her again and again.
Fragments of time, the past, her present, moments she'd lived through and some she hadn't, burned themselves into her being. Her eyes were aglow with power. As her momentum twisted her further and further down the double helix, she saw focal points in history become alight. Pinpricks of white like the readout screen of Cerebro.
It was the purest form of ecstasy. Being connected to all that was and would be, feeling the turn of the universe like her own beating heart.
Then she hit the pavement at roughly Mach two, sprawling out on the hard surface in a daze of pain and whiplash. Head spinning, she was vaguely aware of the bustle of a Suburban street not too far off. Just a few dozen yards.
And she was completely naked.
Naturally.