D:WIO

It was black as night and cold as midwinter, a new moon, and barely any light from the stars. All was dead silent, then a radio crackled with static.

" . . . av—Avala . . . Avalanche . . . . o—ver . . ."

The radio was picked up and the static stopped as the "talk" button was pressed.

"Shadowcat over." The static resumed as the "talk" button was released and the message flung out over radio waves.

" . . . 'lone . . . ?"

"Yes."

" . . . welve hours . . . 'go . . . Glass Flow'r . . . exhibit . . ."

"Then why didn't you tell me twelve hours ago?" it was a commanding, scathing tone of voice used, obviously pointing out Avalanche's incompetence.

" . . . radio . . . off . . ." the radio crackled.

"The connection is horrible here." It was said very flatly.

" . . . next? . . ."

"I'll use a telephone tomorrow." was spat into the radio and the power turned off. Stiff joints stood up from the frosted heather and started trudging back to where they came from.

~*X*~

Kitty's alarm screamed in her ears at 6 am. She reached out a heavy hand and phased through it, effectively silencing it for good. Pillow shoved over her head, she fell back asleep.

~*X*~

In the small mirror-walled gym at CC, Kurt waited impatiently, tapping his foot, holding two fencing swords and two face guards. Across the gym, by the wall, lay protective pads for Kitty. He checked his watch. She was ten minutes late. Growling in annoyance, he teleported away and the swords clattered to the ground.

~*X*~

Kurt appeared in Kitty's room, quite ticked. His ears were flattened and eyes narrowed as he glared at the sleeping form of Kitty. Suddenly, he ripped her sheets off and pushed the pillow off. She didn't move. Kurt growled louder and reached over to her nightstand, and, using his tail, proceeded to dump water on Kitty's face. She sat bolt upright suddenly, gasping and pushing her wet bangs out of her face.

"K—" she was about to shriek his name in indignation when a hard smack landed on the back of her head in a style that could be only defined as a "GibbsSlap version 2.0: the Tail."

"You are ten—no, tvelve minutes late for practice." He hissed, his hands on his hips and eyes narrowed in annoyance.

"Sor-ry," Kitty sneered, then realized she wasn't in a position to sneer.

"Zree minutes and I come back viz Blitz." Kurt said dangerously, teleporting away. Kitty grumbled but got up, stumbling drunkenly around her room, pulling out clothes, turning on her music, then realizing they were the wrong clothes and fixing her wardrobe choice, and somewhere in there, distractedly picking up an issue of Cosmopolitan and thumbing through it. She didn't notice the faint whisper of Kurt teleporting slowly into the room.

However, she did notice the sharp, cold point of Blitz digging into her spine. Kitty's body froze, but her brain was racing, commanding her frozen jaw to scream, commanding her shocked body to move, to draw away from the pain that was coming now that Kurt had pierced the skin. All of a sudden, though, the sword drew away.

"I told you I'd come back viz Blitz. I see you didn't take my warning," Kurt whispered silkily in her ear. Then Kitty's body chose to scream and leap. She shrieked and leaped sideways, twisting away from Kurt and falling flat on her butt. Kurt stood there, looking down on her, holding Blitz with a slightly confused or shocked expression on his face. Then he started laughing. "Ach, mein Gott, Kätzchen!"

Kitty had the sense to frown at him. "So are you going to teach me or not?"

Kurt became instantly serious. "Of course I am. Now get up and come to the gym!" he snapped, whirling away in a teleport.

Two minutes later, Kitty phased into the gym. Kurt was not in sight, but she saw the fencing pads and figured she'd put them on. She struggled with the white fabric for a minute, then finally settled the seams in the right places, only to have Kurt appear out of nowhere and slap her hands off her shoulders and snap that she had it on backwards.

"Goodness," Kitty breathed irately as she went through the whole dance again, nervous and fumbling under the piercing glare of the German demon.

"Finally, ve are ready. Zese," he picked up two long, narrow sword-like objects, "are foils, not svords! Zey are generally used in fencing, however, ve vill be using zem today for combative training, for lack of better equipment."

"What do you mean?" Kitty asked, already sweating in the heavy suit.

"Do you really zink I'd let you use vone of my svords?" Kurt asked, giving her a lazy look that said, really now?

"That's a rhetorical question, I hope," Kitty grumbled.

"Zere is a protective tip on ze foil, but it vill still hurt ven I hit you, just let it be a lesson to not get hit! Fencing stops ven you land your opponent. Combative fighting depends on not getting hit, and never ends. Getting hit means death. Vat does getting hit mean?" Kurt barked, throwing a foil handle-side at Kitty.

She caught it hurriedly, fumbling, and jumped as he shouted. "Death!" she replied quickly, getting a better grip on the handle of the foil.

"Gut, you're not as stupid as you look. I von't teach you posture and zat scheisse, but I vill teach you how to parry, attack, and disengage today. Ve'll learn more as ve have more lessons." Kurt said relaxedly, then suddenly whirled towards her and hit her ribs hard with the foil.

"Ow!" Kitty said, giving Kurt an angry glare.

"Ven you're trying to keel somebody, zey're not going to shout "on guard!" It's your duty to be prepared at any moment!" Kurt barked. Kitty glared at him and swung her foil down with two hands as hard as she could, hoping to hit Kurt in the legs, but he leaped out of the way.

"Don't be so obvious in vhere you're going to hit. Stare your opponent in ze eyes and use your peripheral vision to vatch your foil." Kurt chided, easily ducking a blow aimed at his face. Kitty proceeded to swing, thrust and whack Kurt into submission in her anger, and as the saying goes, Hell hath no fury like a woman's scorn. The arrogant German was no exception, and after the first fifteen hits landed painfully on his body, his face twisted into a snarl of concentration and defiance as he spun and dodged and slashed with his foil, never actually landing a hit on Kitty until he kicked her knees out from under her.

"Aaargh!" Kitty screeched, flailing her foil backwards and hitting Kurt in the *ahem* jewels from her vantage point on the floor. Kurt doubled over and Kitty leaped up, smashing her foil down onto his neck and kicking him over, putting a foot on his throat, pointing the foil at the point between his eyes so he went cross-eyed to see it.

He looked up at the picture of fury standing above him, Kitty's face scowling dangerously as she ripped off the face guard and threw it to the floor, panting from the exertion of the fight, a slight dangerous smile gracing her features at her mastery of the master. "This makes you one dead elf." She growled.

"And zis makes you one deadly kitten." Kurt choked, pushing Kitty's foot off his throat and struggling up into a standing position. He took Kitty's foil and put them back over by one side as Kitty stripped out of her sweat-soaked pads.

"I'm going to take a shower." She flounced out of the gym and Kurt smiled at her back.

"Tomorrow it's zrowing knives!" he called at her as she slammed the door behind her. "I know you're not really fifteen." He said to no one. "Too strong, kitten."

He gathered up the foils and threw them into the closet he'd found them in, along with the fencing pads he'd found in the same closet, 'porting upstairs to change.

XXX

That afternoon, the telephone rang. Kurt teleported over to it and was about to pick it up when Kitty dived for it and knocked it out of his hands, leaving the German standing there rather confused. He shrugged and walked away as Kitty cupped the mouthpiece of the phone and started speaking in hushed tones.

"We can't start planning yet, idiot." She hissed into the phone. "We have to wait for the official call. Then it's all systems go."

She listened to the person on the other end of the line. "Yes, yes, do recon, just don't steal it! What's that? Don't you dare cut me—"

Kitty glared at the phone and slammed it down into its cradle.

"Somezing vrong?" Kurt asked, leaning against the wall across the room, one eyebrow raised and a cocky smile reminiscent of Errol Flynn on his face.

"Yeah. You." Kitty spat and stormed out of the room. Kurt jogged after her.

"Ooh, touchy. Vot's got leetle Keety's knickers in a tvist?" he jibed.

"Back off!" Kitty wheeled around on him and slapped him in the face, sending him reeling backwards. He put a hand to the cheek that Kitty had slapped and his glare suddenly grew dark and dangerous.

"Zat vos uncalled for." He growled and disappeared with a crack like a gunshot. Kitty was left standing there feeling rather torn. Half of her was scared and sorry, and the other half was smug and angry. Slapping herself in the face, Kitty went into her room and pulled up her laptop from in the mattress of her bed and flipped it open, starting a private browsing web search. The Glass Flower, she typed into the search bar.

Eyes narrowing as she paged down, sifting through the information. The Glass Flower was a 1000 carat diamond cut to look like a rose, and it was perfectly flawless, the largest diamond in the world, almost twice as big as the Millennium Star. This is what a client had unofficially called the Brotherhood, the White Gloves' archrival and another thief gang, about, offering ten million for the diamond, and that was why Avalanche had called Kitty, or Shadowcat. She was the twenty-year-old leader of the Brotherhood.

XXX

XXX

XXX

The phone rang. Jean picked it up. Her face lit up as she put the phone down. "We've got ourselves a job!" she called through the house. Everybody ran to the phone and Jean. "It's a client who will give us ten million for a diamond called the Glass Flower."

Kitty's face paled. Oh no.

Muahaha, I'm evil, eh? *basks in evilness* I'm sorry it's such a short chappie, but it gets really good from here on out. :D