Present Day
Kitty slept through the late afternoon and past breakfast the next morning, only waking when Storm finally came to see her. "I'm sorry Professor." she mumbled, stifling a yawn, and pulled the covers off her. Someone had tucked her in during the night, probably Jubilee.
Storm gave her an easy smile and shrugged. "You're still recuperating, don't worry about it. We saved you some food from breakfast." she handed Kitty a warm plate, and the younger girl thanked her before stabbing some eggs.
Storm sat in front of Kitty, pulling over the chair from your desk. "Now, because you lost your powers for the time of being, your schedule is subject to change at any time, as soon as your powers return." She sent a reassuring smile towards Kitty. "Professor Xavier and I have the utmost faith that they will."
Kitty nodded, but secretly she didn't share the same confidence in herself that her two teachers did. She took a bite of bacon, realizing that talk of her now gone powers was making her appetite go away.
"Until then, you will not be able to participate in the Danger Room classes, although the rest of your senior year classes will be fully available to you. I see you chose to opt for eight classes instead of the normal six. Usually people decide to take it light during their last year...although I should have known with you."
Seven classes. Kitty thought miserably to herself. One of the eight had been a Danger Room class.
"Anyway, your schedule is Advanced Physics, Pre Calculus, and Senior English in the mornings, with TA for Chemistry, History of Mutants, Understanding DNA, and Dance in the afternoons."
Kitty nodded, glad that Storm was going over it with her. She had planned her schedule out perfectly at the end of last year, but that seemed like ages ago.
"Thank you Storm, I appreciate it." Kitty smiled, although it lacked her normal bubbliness. The white haired woman nodded, and stood, brushing a bit of Kitty's hair out of her eyes.
"Kitty. It'll be alright. I promise." Kitty nodded and Storm headed for the door.
As she pulled it open, Kitty asked, "When's Rog- Marie due back?"
Storm stopped in the doorway. "She should be back tomorrow."
Kitty smiled. "Thanks." Storm nodded, and left.
Kitty sat on her bed, crossing her legs, and closed her eyes. In the past few days she hadn't tried to phase at all. She didn't want to know how it'd feel to not be able to. Maybe if she didn't try, she could just pretend her powers weren't gone. But not being able to phase made even the most spacious rooms feel claustrophobic. She placed her plate of food aside on her bedside table.
Putting her hands on her bed to either side of her body, she pressed down, trying to phase, to force herself to sink through the solid matter. Nothing happened. She relaxed her body, leaning against the wall, trying one more time. Still nothing. Closing her eyes, she thought back as tears seeped down from closed lids.
OoOoOoOoO
September, Sophomore Year
"New girl, what's your name?" Kitty jumped when she realized the boy was talking to her. He didn't look like he really cared to know. Wearing a worn out beige thermal and dark blue jeans, he stared at her with a mean look in his eyes. Kitty knew a bully when she saw one, she had lived with her older brother long enough.
Her new roommate, Jubilee pulled her into a seat. The fifteen year old girl was sweet, although she chattered non-stop and had strange teal streaks in her hair. No one from the little town in Illinois she had lived in had hair like that.
"Ignore him." Jubilee said to Kitty, then shot the boy a glare. "Fuck off, John. Go pick on someone else." Just as quickly, she turned to the people sitting across from them at the cafeteria table, and grinned. "Rogue, Bobby, how were your summers?" Rogue shrugged, looking uncomfortable. She always stayed at the Institute the entire year, along with many others who weren't welcome in their own homes any longer. Bobby and Jubilee on the other hand, went back to their homes. Jubilee's parents were supportive of her mutation, and Bobby's just didn't know.
"Mine was fine. My brother was trouble, but he always is." Bobby replied. He sent a side-long glance towards Rogue, and Kitty realized that the boy liked her.
"Oh! I'm so rude." Jubilee gasped. "Bobby, Rogue, Pietro." she nodded to each of them as a big muscled boy sat down at the table on the other side of Rogue. "This is Kitty Pryde, my new roommate." she introduced proudly.
Kitty blushed and mumbled 'hello's and 'nice to meet you' to everyone. Jubilee turned her attention to the muscled boy. "Pietro, you're a senior, are you excited to graduate?" She chattered at him for awhile, and Kitty picked at her food nervously.
"So," she looked up and saw that Bobby was looking at her intently. "I can't figure it out, so I suppose I'll just ask. What can you do?"
"What?" she asked, taken aback. She looked around to see a table of curious faces, all talk ceasing from her new friends. "Oh...uh. I can phase through things." She hadn't done it since Professor Xavier and Dr. Grey collected her from her house three days before. She nervously ran a hand through her hair.
"What do you mean, phase?" Rogue asked, confusion on her face.
"Um, well, I can move through matter...go through walls and such like." she shrugged.
"So you're like some creepy ghost chick?" Kitty jumped as the boy from earlier sat next to her, lunch tray in hand. Jubilee rolled her eyes, and Bobby turned to the other boy.
"Don't be a dick, John." The boy, John, shrugged.
"So what'd you say your name was?"
"Kitty."
"Hmph. Sure as hell fits. Tiny and harmless and innocent. Just like a kitten."
Kitty glared, and brushed hair out of her eyes. "I'm not harmless."
John smirked. "Watch out guys, Kitten over here might walk through me. I'm terrified."
"It's Kitty."
"Mhm, whatever you say ghost girl."
He began to flick his lighter open and closed, and for a moment Kitty was worried. It was pretty obvious to her what his power was, the way the fire flicked up and down was unnatural. She turned to the others, determined to ignore him. "What can all of you do?"
Jubilee sighed, also ignoring John. "Nothing useful, at least not for now. Professor X says that my powers will continue to mutant and grow from what they are. She through a handful of colored sparks and what looked like fireworks into the air. "That's all for me."
Bobby grinned at her. "I'm opposite Mr. Pyro over here." He palmed the side of the lunch table and left a streak of ice following his fingers.
She turned to Pietro, and watched in amazement as the skin showing on his arms turned into shiny steel. He grinned, then shrugged and the metal disappeared, leaving regular skin.
Kitty turned expectantly towards Rogue. The girl had a strip of white hair that contrasted sharply with the dark brown. The people next to her got a bit tense, and Rogue didn't look happy. She tugged on black gloves that reached her elbows.
"I can suck people's powers away, and their energy by touching them." She raised gloved hands. "It can be a little...hard sometimes."
John snorted. "Can suck their life out of them too."
Rogue blushed a deep pink, and glared at the boy across from her. John grinned in satisfaction.
Jubilee turned to stare at John over Kitty's head. "What's got you into such a mood John? Get detention for lighting someone's curtains on fire again?" Kitty's eyes widened at the 'again' part.
John shrugged, and flicked his lighter lazily. "If you don't like it, you can always leave."
Pietro rolled his eyes. "You're sitting at our table, Johnny."
John glared, it was obvious that the other boy struck a cord. "Don't call me that." He stopped flicking his lighter.
Pietro stared at him, unblinking. "Then stop being unnecessarily rude."
Kitty watched, eyes flicking back and forth between the two, unsure what to do. John stood, Pietro did the same. John flicked open his lighter, glaring at the older boy. As he spun the wheel on it and it began to spark, she grabbed it from the boy and phased it through the table, leaving it halfway in and halfway stuck out.
Jubilee burst out laughing as John whirled on the smaller girl, eyes blazing. "Give it back. Now."
"That's another thing about John." Bobby began, trying to hide a smile. "He needs the fire to start before he manipulates it. He can't create it himself."
John was looking at Kitty with such a loathing that she almost flinched. She straightened her back instead and stared at him.
"I'm going to see what my classes for tomorrow are." Kitty said after a moment of silence. She smiled at Pietro, Rogue, and Bobby. "It was nice meeting you guys. I'll see you later Jubilee." She turned to leave, and John grabbed her wrist.
"Not before you get my lighter out of that damned table, Kitten." he snarled out, eyes blazing. She tried to yank her arm away from his, but his grip was tight.
Bobby stood up. "John, let her go." His tone was serious. Kitty had other ideas. She grabbed him by the front of his shirt with the other hand, and phased, pulling him until he was standing in the middle of the table. Then she left him, phasing back out so that she stood in front of it, hands on her hips. That left a fuming John Allerdyce stuck solid in the middle of the cafeteria table and floor.
Laughter erupted from several of the other tables and from theirs; Rogue looked like Christmas had come four months early.
"Now, a few things." Kitty folded her arms over her chest as she scowled at the boy. "My name is Kitty, and that is the only thing you will call me. Just because I'm new does not mean that I'll be the person you'll bully for the rest of term. Next time I will stick your entire body in a wall and leave you there." She wouldn't ever really do that, but she figured the threat would be enough. "And," her voice lowered dangerously. "Don't you ever grab me again."
"You can't leave me here stuck in this damned table!" John shouted. She glared at him once again.
"Actually, Johnny, I can." She stomped out of the cafeteria, leaving Jubilee, John, Pietro, Rogue, and Bobby staring after her.
"I like her." Bobby finally said with a grin.
OoOoOoOoO
Present Day
That had been her first day meeting all of them. Meeting him. Professor Xavier had made her come down to the cafeteria and retrieve John from the table, in which he had been stuck for three hours. But no matter how much John threatened, yelled, and raged, she refused to get his lighter out of the table. It had stayed flat and stuck in the surface of their table all year, and was the butt of many jokes made during meals.
Kitty opened her eyes and let herself slide sideways so that she was laying down on her bed. Where was John? He couldn't be dead. Professor X would have told her, she was sure. She had been out a week, so if he wasn't dead, why hadn't he come? Bobby's words to her the day they saw Pyro's face on a Wanted poster repeated in her mind.
"He's one of them now Kitty. He's dead to us. He didn't even tell you, or me that he was leaving. He didn't care enough to tell us."
But the way he had looked at her in the midst of the battle the week before, like he had never seen anything more comforting stuck in her mind. She missed John. Her Johnny Allerdyce. She started calling him that to mock him before they became friends, and she was the only one he allowed it from.
She sighed, rubbing her eyes, and rolled over to look out her window. Leaves were turning red and orange already. Fall was coming early. The John she knew, the honest, slightly arrogant, angry, protective, caring, sarcastic boy she knew didn't fit with the picture everyone painted of Pyro. Of a violent young man who didn't care who he killed, who liked killing, who set fires to hospitals and used the word 'homosapien' as if it were a race needing to be eradicated.
Could that really be all the same person?
OoOoOoOoO
His face wasn't on the TV screen, that was a plus at least. Yesterday they had listed the deaths, and the missing persons from the 'Mutant Battle', as the humans were calling it. He didn't see Magneto's name, or his name on there, although the report said that many bodies had fallen into the water around Alcatraz Island.
Turning away from the screen, he left money on the counter for the diner waitress, downed the rest of his coffee, and left, the door jangling loudly as he did so. Lifting the hood of his sweatshirt around his face, he looked around. Being in the town nearest to the Institute, he knew there was a chance he'd be recognized, so he hurried to the sleazy motel about three blocks down. It wasn't cold yet, and people looked at him oddly in his black pullover.
He got himself a room, and once he was in it, alone, he breathed a sigh of relief. He was still trying to decide if he really wanted to go back to the Institute. He desperately wanted to see Kitty, there was no doubt about that. He also knew that it wouldn't exactly be 'Welcome Home John!' when he arrived there.
No, he had been a member of the Brotherhood for the past six months, and he and his old best friend had tried to kill each other less than two weeks ago. He groaned, rubbing a hand over his face, and flicked open his lighter, watching the flame dance.
Really, he already made up his mind. He just had to get up and go, and he wanted to be fully prepared when he did.
Running a hand through his hair, he sighed. It was getting long, the blonde highlights Mystique had painstakingly streaked in growing out.
Three days. He would go in three days.