NightWitch: Horsemen

Chapter One

KURT

The lights went out when the storm hit.

Kurt was sitting in the kitchen of the X mansion, building an absolutely wunderbar sandwich, when everything went dark.

"Agh! Ouch!" exclaimed Bobby, his outcry accompanied by the sound of a chair clattering. "I tripped."

"You were sitting down," Kitty replied dryly.

The two teens were sitting at the table eating a late dinner while Kurt perched on the counter with his sandwich, only his yellow eyes shining in the pitch black room.

"It must be the storm," he said, peering out the window to where the wind lashed the sea into a frenzy. "The back-up generators should kick in any minute."

"I can't see a thing," complained Bobby. "And my foot hurts."

"Oh, do you need a Band-aid?" Kitty cooed sarcastically. "You big baby."

Kurt took a big bite of his sandwich but paused in his chewing as a noise tickled his elfin ears.

"Can you see anything Kurt?" asked Kitty more seriously. "I wish I had night vision."

"Shmph." said Kurt with his mouth full. "I'm lishtening."

Bobby didn't listen. "Are you eating? At a time like this? I'm in pain-ow!"

Kitty hit his arm with surprising precision in the dark. "He's listening, you dummy."

Somewhere in the mansion a clatter and bang sounded, followed by what might have been muffled cursing.

Putting down his sandwich, Kurt turned to the other two X-Men.

"It's probably nothing. You two sit tight," he said, and BAMFed out into the front hall.

"Are we gonna listen to him?" asked Bobby.

"No way," replied Kitty.

In the dark front hall Kurt BAMFed again, up onto the ceiling where he could see but remain unseen as a shadowy figure darted across the hall.

"Aha!" BAMF. He caught the shadowy figure by the shoulders and toppled them to the ground, only to find himself entangled with Jean instead of an intruder. Scott was going to kill him.

"Apologies, mein Freund." Kurt awkwardly disentangled himself from the red-haired telepath and offered her a hand up. "I thought you were a burglar."

"Kurt!" she said as he helped her to her feet. "There's someone here! I can sense them. We need to find Logan and the others."

"Can you sense who it is? The Mardies? The Brotherhood? I left Kitty and Bobby in the kitchen. I told them to stay put while I checked things out."

Behind them something crashed, and they whirled to find Kitty and Bobby standing sheepishly over an upended table and a broken vase. Kitty could phase through things in the dark…Bobby couldn't.

"About that…" said Kitty.

"It was her idea!" added Bobby.

"It doesn't matter," Kurt said. "There is an intruder in the mansion. We need to find them and warn the others."

"Yeah, there's just one problem with that," said Kitty. "Most of us can't see in the dark."

"Right. Wait here," said Kurt, and teleported away. In a few moments he was back with flashlights for the others. "You guys stick together, I'm going to find Logan."

He covertly teleported through the mansion, checking Logan's room, the war room, and the chamber where Professor Xavier still lay in a coma. Wolverine was nowhere to be found, though he did bump into Ororo and Scott, nearly getting his tail singed off in the process.

"There's someone here," said Kurt. "But I don't know where. Jean said she can sense them."

Ororo asked, "Do you know how many intruders?"

"Just one, as far as I know."

Scott frowned. "The backup generators should have come on by now. Whoever it is wants to keep us in the dark."

Kurt's ears twitched as he listened for noises in the dark. He could just make out the hushed voices of Jean and the others, and somewhere deeper in the mansion…sounds of fighting.

"This way," he said, leading the other two down the hall, all the way to the hanger beneath the tennis court, where they kept the blackbird. Without any lights it was a vast, chilly cavern of darkness, but his sharp yellow eyes could see the huge shape of the jet and something splashed on the concrete floor.

Blood.

"Wait," he said, holding a hand out to stop Ororo and Scott and he knelt to touch the spreading stain. It was still warm.

In the wall near the blood were long claw marks that were easily recognizable as Wolverine's, but there was no one else in the hangar.

Or maybe they weren't alone, thought Kurt as something moved in the deep shadows behind the blackbird.

"Over there!" he shouted, pointing to where a corpse-pale face shone dimly in the dark, skin tinged the faintest blue of hypothermia. Sharp teeth showing in a malicious grin.

"Sinister." Scott swore, blasting the figure with his laser vision. Metal and concrete exploded as he hit the wall. Sinister had vanished, but the sounds of his deep, throaty chuckle resonated through the hangar, taunting them.

WANDA

The sound of rain berating Magneto's metal palace on Genosha was almost musical, thought Wanda as she stood just within the open balcony doors to her room, watching wave after wave of torrential rain wash over the city she had spent her whole life helping her father build.

But her father was gone now.

She had banished him herself, and now all this-a whole island full of mutants-depended on her.

Things were going remarkably well considering the sudden shift in power; the communications tower was in full working order again, electricity was back on, and the rebuilding after the Sentinel attack was almost finished. She had even managed to re-integrate all the mutants from her father's cells back into Genoshan society. That hadn't been easy…but it had been the right thing to do.

She was doing a good job here.

But she still felt alone.

"You're yearning again," said Lorna in her soft voice, coming up behind Wanda and laying a hand on her arm. "For a certain X-Man?"

"I am not yearning," replied Wanda sternly. "I am merely thinking about the festival next week."

The festival had been Lorna's idea. A way to celebrate the completion of their rebuilding.

Lorna brightened. "Oh! It's going to be wonderful, I promise. You don't have to worry about a thing. Blink and Dust are helping me arrange everything, it's going to be so beautiful." She gently elbowed Wanda. "You could invite Kurt."

"I'm sure the X-Men have their hands full," Wanda said stiffly, though she had already thought about inviting Kurt to the festival, but couldn't bring herself to. They hadn't spoken in almost six months, and before that she had let her father keep him imprisoned. Even when they were fighting for their lives in Mojo's hunting grounds, she had nearly let one of his best friends drown. Though there had been a moment…

Vonda, your life is important to me.

But that was the thing about Kurt Wagner; he cared so much about everyone. He tried to protect everyone. He was so good that maybe he could forgive her for all the terrible things she had done, maybe he would even accept an invitation to the festival and give her a chance to show him that she could change.

But maybe he wouldn't.

She simply couldn't face his rejection.

"Don't you think true love deserves a chance?" asked Lorna. She was too much of an idealist; Wanda was a realist. She believed in love, she just didn't believe in true love. She believed in two people making things work because they cared enough to work at it. She didn't believe she could make a relationship work, because she was too much like her father.

"Don't be a child, Lorna," she said, a little too harshly. "You're too old to believe in fairytales."

Lorna blanched, her green eyes going wide and her lip quivering slightly, and it was almost enough to make Wanda take her words back until she saw that Lorna wasn't looking at her anymore. She was looking past her.

Spinning around, Wanda caught sight of a fearsome winged shadow in the storm, outlined by a flash of lightning, before something knocked both her and Lorna back.

They tumbled into Wanda's bedchamber, crashing into a dresser.

They were back on their feet in an instant, red light glowing around Wanda's closed fists.

"Stay back, Lorna," she said, stalking towards the winged silhouette standing in the open balcony doors. "Go find help."

In a flurry of wings and wind the winged mutant surged into the room, shooting feather blades that Wanda deflected with crimson shields of energy. She held her own, even managing to hurl the assailant back against the wall with a blast, until a flash of green distracted her.

Lorna. She hadn't gone for help.

In that moment of distraction the winged mutant sliced through her defenses, three razor-sharp feathers cutting her shoulder, her calf, and her side. The pain was crippling, bringing her to her knees, but she kept fighting. She had to protect Lorna.

"Wanda!" exclaimed Lorna, and then she was by her sister's side. She stammered, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I froze. I was too scared."

"It's alright," said Wanda through gritted teeth, trying to sound calm and authoritative. "Just stay behind me and we'll get out of here."

"I can help, I promise-" She helped Wanda to her feet just as another barrage of steel feathers shot towards them and Wanda shoved Lorna behind her.

It was over when the blades hit. Three of them lodging in her ribs, pain choking off her scream, and this time she couldn't get up. She couldn't even conjure a sputter of power. She could only watch as the winged mutant advanced on Lorna.

"Get out of the way," he said, wings raised to strike. He hovered three feet off the floor, a reddish-purple diamond glittering on his forehead.

"No." Lorna stood her ground, between Wanda and their assailant. She might have been scared before, but now she was angry. Her clenched fists trembled. "Who are you and what do you want?"

His head tilted. "I am Archangel, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse."

"Yeah well, I'm Polaris, daughter of Magneto, and you have metal wings."

With a jerk she wrenched him out of the air, metal grating as Archangel fought the pull of her magnetism, feathers popping free of his wings, a scream tearing from his mouth.

Then Lorna collapsed to the ground, a woman in purple stepping around her body, fingertips pressed to her temples. A telepath.

Archangel hadn't come alone.