I'm taking a page from Tamarai's book. No crazy spelling errors to produce that lovely southern accent. Use your imagination. I don't own the characters or universe or anything else that is the product of Marvel.
Thank you, everyone, for your kind reviews and favorites and archives. I'm floored by the response to this story. I'll try to live up to your expectations with it.
Fight and Shadow
Chapter 3: The Queen's Game
Shadowcat crouched within a bed in the medical bay. Every so often, she would poke her face out slightly to see Hank McCoy moving his furry, blue form around the area. She sighed internally. Why Rogue didn't just come out and ask for the records was beyond her. But anything for a friend, right?
"You know, you could just ask him," Shadowcat told her in exasperation.
Rogue was back in full force, and somehow her bare arms only made her look more dangerous. "I waited three years for the Professor to help me," she snapped. "And now what? He's dead."
Shadowcat flinched at the raw statement.
"I'm tired of waiting on someone else. You said to fight. To find out how."
So here she was.
Now, if only Hank would stop humming and get out of the medical bay!
"Merde." Remy LeBeau swore methodically and vehemently in French at the thin letter he held in his gloved hand. In the other hand, a slim cell phone dangled, open, from his fingers.
"Gambit? Are you still there?" The former thief's voice sounded mildly panicked.
He lifted the phone back to his ear. "Stormy. I have to take care of this."
"Take care of what? You promised!"
He clenched his jaw and answered tightly. "The start of the term. No sooner. I didn't promise you more, Chere."
Storm sighed, intense exhaustion blowing out with the sound. "Where are you?"
Remy smiled a grim smile beneath his devil eyes. "Can't tell you that, Stormy. Start of the term. I'll see you." He snapped the phone shut before she could respond and fingered the letter from the Guild.
Finally, he dropped a playing card on the pillow next to the nameless woman who'd shared his bed last night (and paid for it) and left silently as a thief.
Pyro arrived around second period. He squinted at the clock in the entryway as his "probation officer" exchanged meaningless pleasantries with a woman he didn't recognize. If anything convinced him that his lawyer was hired by Magneto, it was the fact that she morphed so easily into another role and the X-Men didn't recognize her.
He looked up at a small gasp from the hallway—and froze.
His Kitten had grown up. She was stunning. Dark, loose curls tumbled over her shoulders, framing skin like porcelain. Somehow, her slender petiteness had matured and become more feminine and curved beneath her small blue shirt and snug jeans. She clutched some file folders to her chest and stared at him with wide brown eyes.
He caught himself back. She was an X-Man, see-the-good-in-everyone Katherine Pryde, a clawless kitten. He hardened his face and sneered. "Sprite."
Her own face transformed into something significantly fiercer. She stepped forward. He almost stepped back, but managed to hold still and smirk at her. She stood on tiptoes and slapped him hard on his right cheek. He was startled and did step back, but she swung back again for the other side. He grabbed for her wrist and it fell through him. She slapped him again.
She bit out in tightly controlled fury, "The name is Shadowcat."
Then, she phased right through him and through the wall.
He stared, slack-jawed, after her.
She'd slipped into his life unbidden, this tiny slip of a girl, eventually claiming his heart. He was never a good boyfriend or anything, and no one knew about their quasi-friendship, except for Bobby and Rogue.
It had started at the trees and always ended up there again.
She curled up in the juncture of three branches in her tree, a nook designed for someone so small. He usually sprawled on his back on the other tree's largest branch. They chatted, fought, played pranks. Often. He hated it when she phased him.
"Why do you call yourself Sprite?" he demanded one day, interrupting her favorite novel. "It's a baby's name."
"Is not!" she protested hotly.
"Is too."
She dropped the book unceremoniously from the tree and lunged across the gap.
He swore and made to move, but was too late. She landed in him and scared a few choice expletives out of him.
Kitty giggled, then surprised him by staying in his arms, warm and solid and real.
John breathed softly on her neck then slipped his arms around her tightly and pulled her up until they were eye to eye and mouth to mouth, mere centimeters apart. She stared at him with wide eyes.
"Shadowcat," he whispered.
Then he kissed her, tasting the sweetness of the apple she ate for lunch, the slight cherry tang of her lip gloss, and the soft, warmth that was all her own. She pulled away a minute later, gasping for air. She scrambled back on the branch.
He merely smirked and leaned back on one arm, flicking his lighter with the other hand. "Now, that's a good codename."
"Want to tell me what that was about?" Emma Frost snapped at him.
"Get off, Frost," he snapped back.
The unknown woman glanced back and forth between the two. "Perhaps…"
"You're supposed to behave," Emma replied dangerously, crossing her arms. "Or you'll end up back at your own prison cell, cured."
"I wouldn't do that," Pyro said softly.
She startled at that and looked at him. Something dangerous, slightly feral gleamed in his eye. She narrowed her icy blue eyes at him.
"You're a rook, Pyro," she said. "But the queens rule the board."
"Perhaps, I should show you your rooms?" The woman finally made herself heard. They looked at her, began to follow.
Pyro glanced uncertainly toward the wall Kitty had disappeared through. Why had she called herself by his name for her? It was a threat, a punishment, a warning.
The queens rule the board.
A/N: I promise, Romy coming soon. I just have a lot of ground to cover.
