"YOU?" Adam yelled at the girl. "You are Le Chat Noir?"
The girl threw the wig at him. "You think you could yell that any louder? We're just lucky that nobody's heard anything yet."
"What's going on in here?" Tori gasped when she heard the same voice from the night before emanating from the hallway.
"Give my wig back!" she ordered Adam.
"Uh, no. I don't think so."
Shane entered the room, to see Adam and Tori face to face. "What's going on in here?" he asked. When he saw Tori's hair, his voice rang through the house.
"LE CHAT NOIR!"
Hunter came running back into the house, carrying an unconscious Lita. "Some one, quickly! Get a doctor!"
"LE CHAT NOIR!" Shane's voice sounded again. "She's in the house!"
Hunter rolled his eyes. "A doctor! Now! This woman's passed out!"
Most of the older men looked on in disgust as Hunter carried the soaking wet woman in the patched coat into the ballroom. Jericho pushed his way through the crowd. "Hunter, what's going on?"
"She...she passed out in the streets, I couldn't leave her in the rain!"
"You should have," Vince yelled at him. "She's probably diseased!"
There was laughter from the older men, and an angered look from Jericho. "Let's get her into a bedroom."
Stephanie motioned. "Bring her to the guest room."
As the trio headed up the stairs with the limp body of the red head, there was a commotion outside the ballroom doors, as Tori ran by, followed by Edge, who was being followed by Shane, who was still screaming, "LE CHAT NOIR! THE WOMAN! SHE'S LE CHAT NOIR!"
"NO!" Tori yelled back. "HE'S LE CHAT NOIR! AND HE TRIED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ME!"
"I DID NOT!" Adam screamed.
"HE'S GOT A PISTOL! CHECK HIM!"
Many of the other men looked at each other, shrugged, then headed out the door to join in the chase.
Tori continued running once she got outside, hearing Adam get tackled behind her. She paused for a second, before she realized that Shane wasn't going to give up.
"Tori, don't you do this to me!" Adam yelled after her. "I wasn't going to turn you in!"
Tori sighed, then stopped and reached for her bodice dagger. This she threw landing it right in front of the pile of men. All of them looked at her.
She reached down to her garters and withdrew a pair of pistols. "He's right, you know. I am Le Chat Noir." She pointed the guns at the men. "Now...who's going to try and take me in?"
"Quick, somebody get those wet clothes off of her!" Jericho ordered Stephanie and Hunter.
"What?" Hunter asked.
"You heard me. Look, we have to get her warmed up. If you feel the need to leave, go get her some towels. I've got to keep her dry."
Hunter turned and left the room, his gentlemanly side kicking in.
"All right, Stephanie, do you have a warm nightgown we could put on her?"
"I should," the brunette ran out the door towards her own room.
Jericho ripped the girl's wet clothing off of her and checked her pulse. She was still alive, luckily. He began feeling her body gently, checking on her. When he reached her lower back, he noticed a large fresh bruise. "This is the girl Hunter was telling me about?" he whispered.
Hunter came running back in with more towels than were really necessary. "Will this be enough?"
"Plenty," Jericho grabbed the first towel from the stack. "What's her name?"
"Lita," Hunter told him.
"No last name?"
"I didn't catch it."
"So, she's the one who Austin beat today?" Jericho continued making small talk with Hunter as he dried the girl off.
"Yes, this is she."
"Well, I have to say, if you had to pick a revolutionary to fall for, at least you picked a beautiful one." Jericho hurried to finish drying, grabbing another towel. "Though that bruise is a pretty nasty one."
"Well, getting hit by a man twice your size does that too you."
Stephanie came running in again. "Here, this is the warmest one I have."
Jericho patted Lita dry once more. "Okay, put it on her. Hunter, you take her feet, I'll take her hands. Rub until you feel them getting warm."
Hunter obeyed, grabbing the right foot and rubbing. "Rub her legs too," Jericho told him. "Get her circulation going."
Hunter rubbed, watching the girl to make sure she was still breathing. Jericho saw his gaze and smirked. So, Hunter was falling for the girl. Well, he was bound to find someone one of these days. Too bad it was at the worst possible time.
"I knew it," Shane growled at Tori. "You are Le Chat Noir. I saw you last night, robbing my sister."
"Yeah, she's got good taste," Tori kept the pistols pointed at the assembled group. "Now, you're all going to get off of him, or I'm going to shoot you. A lot."
The men looked at each other.
"Boys, look, simple decision. Get off of Legs there, or I kill you."
The men slowly stood up and back away from Adam.
"Now, we're going to run. And you're going to count to one hundred before you follow us. Or I open fire."
Adam stood and walked to Tori. "Let's go," she told him.
The two took off down an alleyway. Halfway down the darkened alley, Tori stopped Adam. "Not that way," she motioned to the ground. "We go through the sewers."
"Oh...no we don't."
"Okay, then we wait here for them to catch us."
Adam squatted down and pulled the grate off of the sewer. "Right, sewers it is."
"Where is she?" Matt sounded worried. "She's been gone for too long. And that wound of hers was pretty bad. Oh, God, what if she's dead?"
"That injury wouldn't have been fatal," Molly reminded him. "She's going to be fine."
"Yeah, I mean, she had plenty to eat before she left," Christian assured him. "She's fine."
Jeff looked away.
"Jeffery," Matt eyed up his brother. "What's going on?"
"Lita...Lita didn't eat before she left. She gave me her food, told me I needed it more. I wasn't going to take it until she told me she'd get something later. I guess she never got the chance..."
"That means she hasn't eaten in almost two days," Matt recalled. "She's got to be starving. Oh, I've got to find her."
He ran for the door, and then all of a sudden he felt a hand on his shoulder.
"Stay here," Gregory told him. "She's not stupid, she'll find a way to stay safe. Trust her."
There was a frantic knock on the door. Matt, being the closest to it, opened it and found himself facing a soaking wet couple
"Adam?" Christian asked. "Who's she?"
"Just get us inside."
"You smell awful!" Molly cried.
"Yes, well, one of us decided we should go through the sewers," Adam pointed at Tori.
"An aristocrat in the sewers? Sounds highly unlikely."
Tori rolled her eyes. "Trust me, I'm not exactly an aristocrat. I stole this to wear to a party tonight."
"Oh, Adam, don't tell me you're trying to pick up rich women at parties with that whole `Le Chat Noir' thing again? He's not you know," Matt told the woman.
"I know that!" She explained. Then, to Adam, "You say that to pick up women?"
"And to try and get away from potentially dangerous situations, such as that little confrontation we had earlier."
"But you're only willing to claim the rights to the name when it suits you, don't you?"
"I could say the same for you," He yelled back at her. "You tried to pin it on me back there!"
"Pin what?" Shannon finally yelled.
"The attempted robbery of the McMahon household this evening during their party," Edge explained. "I was trying to pick up some extra money to at least provide us with some food, and maybe some munitions. I thought I'd locked the door, but she burst in on me."
"You did lock the door," Tori informed him. "I picked the lock."
"Why?"
"Because I wanted to rob the McMahons blind."
Jeff looked at her curiously. "You're a thief?"
"I'm Le Chat Noir!" she protested.
There was a second of silence.
Then the revolutionaries burst out laughing.
"Yes, I'm afraid she is Le Chat Noir," Everyone in the café froze as Shane McMahon and Captain Austin entered. "And you are all under arrest for harboring a dangerous criminal."
"They weren't harboring me," Tori protested. "I ran in here, they didn't even know who I was."
"Well, I apologize, Madameoiselle, however, ignorance of the law is no excuse. Besides, these children are guilty of treason. They'll have to pay the penalty." Austin grinned from ear to ear.
"Arrest them all."
Lita rolled over in the bed, sighing in delight at the feel of the warm blankets on her.
"Oh, you're awake," Jericho smiled in delight.
"Where am I?" she asked.
"Guest bedroom of the McMahon residence. You've been out for hours. I'm Dr. Christopher Jericho."
"A doctor?"
"Yes, and a good friend of Stephanie McMahon's."
"And yet you helped me."
"We're not all so bad," Jericho assured the woman.
"How did I get up here? And why did I need a doctor?"
"You passed out in the streets. Monseur Hemsley brought you in and insisted I treat you."
"I passed out? From what?"
"Oh, either the cold, or hunger, or possibly that injury on your back."
"I didn't need you to help me."
"Right. You weren't laying face down in the streets, in the rain, in a thin coat and tattered dress. Never happened."
"Very funny. You're a laugh a minute. Now I'm getting out of here."
"Please, stay here. You're still not well yet."
"I'm fine. I am going to go back to my café and starve with my friends."
"No, you're not," Hunter swung the door to the room open and walked in, followed by Stephanie. "They've arrested your friends."
"What?"
"They arrested the other revolutionaries for harboring a criminal. They caught Le Chat Noir in the café with them."
"We had nothing to do with Le Chat Noir!" Lita protested.
"Well, that's not how Austin saw it," Stephanie informed her. "He had them carted off and thrown in prison."
"I've got to go help them."
"You mean join them, right? Locked away? Lita, they'll do it, they wouldn't hesitate."
"Well, what am I supposed to do? Just sit here and let them suffer?"
"Well, you have got one thing right, you are going to stay here," Stephanie insisted. "I'll simply tell my father..."
"Tell me what, Stephanie?" Vince McMahon, the wealthy English trader inquired.
"Tell you that my cousin Lita is going to stay here, for a while," Hunter grinned at Vince.
"Your cousin?" Vince asked. "If she's your cousin why was she dressed like that and passed out in the street?"
"She was..."
"Robbed," Jericho supplied.
"Yes, robbed," Lita burst in. "Everything was stolen, my clothing, my money, my carriage, all of it. I was on my way to Paris to see Hunter."
"Oh, yes, Lita, how are your parents?"
"Oh, your parents?" Vince sounded worried. "I'd best let them know that you have arrived."
"Hunter, you forget, my parents, your aunt and uncle, are dead. A few months ago, from disease!"
"Disease!" Vince exclaimed. "Dear, are you contagious?"
"No, she's not!" Stephanie screamed. Then, calming down. "She was in...Spain! Far away when she heard the news that her parents were dead and the bodies had been burned to prevent spreading."
"Yes, and she was distraught," Hunter explained.
"Hunter, a few minutes ago you forgot that your aunt and uncle were dead."
"I tend to, Vince. They were so dear to me that it seems like they are here with me in the flesh, not simply in memory. Dear cousin Lita was coming here to live with me because..." Hunter looked at Lita in distress.
"It is so dangerous for a woman of my stature to live on my own," Lita confessed. "So I hastened to Paris to live with my final remaining family member."
"So, Stephanie, why is she staying here with us?"
"She has nothing left father, and I do believe that my clothing would look better on her than Hunter's. She should stay here until the robber is caught and her possessions returned."
"So, who was the robber?"
"Big man!" Lita cried. "Large...big...man...with...hair!"
"Hair?"
"Long red hair!" she spat out, quickly. "And huge...." She held her hands out in front of her body. "Arms! Big arms, and a crazy look in his eye! His voice was deep, like that of Satan himself, and he said `Give me everything, or I'll take more!'"
"He tried to take advantage of you?"
"Yes, and I was lucky to escape with my maidenhood intact!"
Vince looked at the girl, melting. "Well, my dear, Stephanie is right. I'll see to it that you are provided with a new wardrobe, considering your misfortune. I will also have Captain Austin put a watch out for that bandit."
"Oh, Monsuer McMahon, how can I ever repay you?"
"Your thanks is payment enough, Mademoiselle," Vince replied before exiting the room.
"How long do expect me to keep this up?" Lita yelled as soon as Vince was gone.
"As long as it takes to prove the innocence of your friends," Jericho told her.
"I can't do this. I can't pretend to be some snooty little rich woman! I'm a revolutionary!"
"Well, then be an undercover revolutionary!" Hunter growled. "I'm not letting you get yourself caught!"
"It's not your responsibility!" Lita growled back.
"Like it or not, we need you!" Stephanie suddenly proclaimed.
"You need me?"
"We need her?" Chris asked.
"Yes. We do. Because she has to help us play out a little charade, you understand?"
"What are you talking about?" Hunter yelled.
"I'm pregnant!" Stephanie finally proclaimed.
The girl threw the wig at him. "You think you could yell that any louder? We're just lucky that nobody's heard anything yet."
"What's going on in here?" Tori gasped when she heard the same voice from the night before emanating from the hallway.
"Give my wig back!" she ordered Adam.
"Uh, no. I don't think so."
Shane entered the room, to see Adam and Tori face to face. "What's going on in here?" he asked. When he saw Tori's hair, his voice rang through the house.
"LE CHAT NOIR!"
Hunter came running back into the house, carrying an unconscious Lita. "Some one, quickly! Get a doctor!"
"LE CHAT NOIR!" Shane's voice sounded again. "She's in the house!"
Hunter rolled his eyes. "A doctor! Now! This woman's passed out!"
Most of the older men looked on in disgust as Hunter carried the soaking wet woman in the patched coat into the ballroom. Jericho pushed his way through the crowd. "Hunter, what's going on?"
"She...she passed out in the streets, I couldn't leave her in the rain!"
"You should have," Vince yelled at him. "She's probably diseased!"
There was laughter from the older men, and an angered look from Jericho. "Let's get her into a bedroom."
Stephanie motioned. "Bring her to the guest room."
As the trio headed up the stairs with the limp body of the red head, there was a commotion outside the ballroom doors, as Tori ran by, followed by Edge, who was being followed by Shane, who was still screaming, "LE CHAT NOIR! THE WOMAN! SHE'S LE CHAT NOIR!"
"NO!" Tori yelled back. "HE'S LE CHAT NOIR! AND HE TRIED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ME!"
"I DID NOT!" Adam screamed.
"HE'S GOT A PISTOL! CHECK HIM!"
Many of the other men looked at each other, shrugged, then headed out the door to join in the chase.
Tori continued running once she got outside, hearing Adam get tackled behind her. She paused for a second, before she realized that Shane wasn't going to give up.
"Tori, don't you do this to me!" Adam yelled after her. "I wasn't going to turn you in!"
Tori sighed, then stopped and reached for her bodice dagger. This she threw landing it right in front of the pile of men. All of them looked at her.
She reached down to her garters and withdrew a pair of pistols. "He's right, you know. I am Le Chat Noir." She pointed the guns at the men. "Now...who's going to try and take me in?"
"Quick, somebody get those wet clothes off of her!" Jericho ordered Stephanie and Hunter.
"What?" Hunter asked.
"You heard me. Look, we have to get her warmed up. If you feel the need to leave, go get her some towels. I've got to keep her dry."
Hunter turned and left the room, his gentlemanly side kicking in.
"All right, Stephanie, do you have a warm nightgown we could put on her?"
"I should," the brunette ran out the door towards her own room.
Jericho ripped the girl's wet clothing off of her and checked her pulse. She was still alive, luckily. He began feeling her body gently, checking on her. When he reached her lower back, he noticed a large fresh bruise. "This is the girl Hunter was telling me about?" he whispered.
Hunter came running back in with more towels than were really necessary. "Will this be enough?"
"Plenty," Jericho grabbed the first towel from the stack. "What's her name?"
"Lita," Hunter told him.
"No last name?"
"I didn't catch it."
"So, she's the one who Austin beat today?" Jericho continued making small talk with Hunter as he dried the girl off.
"Yes, this is she."
"Well, I have to say, if you had to pick a revolutionary to fall for, at least you picked a beautiful one." Jericho hurried to finish drying, grabbing another towel. "Though that bruise is a pretty nasty one."
"Well, getting hit by a man twice your size does that too you."
Stephanie came running in again. "Here, this is the warmest one I have."
Jericho patted Lita dry once more. "Okay, put it on her. Hunter, you take her feet, I'll take her hands. Rub until you feel them getting warm."
Hunter obeyed, grabbing the right foot and rubbing. "Rub her legs too," Jericho told him. "Get her circulation going."
Hunter rubbed, watching the girl to make sure she was still breathing. Jericho saw his gaze and smirked. So, Hunter was falling for the girl. Well, he was bound to find someone one of these days. Too bad it was at the worst possible time.
"I knew it," Shane growled at Tori. "You are Le Chat Noir. I saw you last night, robbing my sister."
"Yeah, she's got good taste," Tori kept the pistols pointed at the assembled group. "Now, you're all going to get off of him, or I'm going to shoot you. A lot."
The men looked at each other.
"Boys, look, simple decision. Get off of Legs there, or I kill you."
The men slowly stood up and back away from Adam.
"Now, we're going to run. And you're going to count to one hundred before you follow us. Or I open fire."
Adam stood and walked to Tori. "Let's go," she told him.
The two took off down an alleyway. Halfway down the darkened alley, Tori stopped Adam. "Not that way," she motioned to the ground. "We go through the sewers."
"Oh...no we don't."
"Okay, then we wait here for them to catch us."
Adam squatted down and pulled the grate off of the sewer. "Right, sewers it is."
"Where is she?" Matt sounded worried. "She's been gone for too long. And that wound of hers was pretty bad. Oh, God, what if she's dead?"
"That injury wouldn't have been fatal," Molly reminded him. "She's going to be fine."
"Yeah, I mean, she had plenty to eat before she left," Christian assured him. "She's fine."
Jeff looked away.
"Jeffery," Matt eyed up his brother. "What's going on?"
"Lita...Lita didn't eat before she left. She gave me her food, told me I needed it more. I wasn't going to take it until she told me she'd get something later. I guess she never got the chance..."
"That means she hasn't eaten in almost two days," Matt recalled. "She's got to be starving. Oh, I've got to find her."
He ran for the door, and then all of a sudden he felt a hand on his shoulder.
"Stay here," Gregory told him. "She's not stupid, she'll find a way to stay safe. Trust her."
There was a frantic knock on the door. Matt, being the closest to it, opened it and found himself facing a soaking wet couple
"Adam?" Christian asked. "Who's she?"
"Just get us inside."
"You smell awful!" Molly cried.
"Yes, well, one of us decided we should go through the sewers," Adam pointed at Tori.
"An aristocrat in the sewers? Sounds highly unlikely."
Tori rolled her eyes. "Trust me, I'm not exactly an aristocrat. I stole this to wear to a party tonight."
"Oh, Adam, don't tell me you're trying to pick up rich women at parties with that whole `Le Chat Noir' thing again? He's not you know," Matt told the woman.
"I know that!" She explained. Then, to Adam, "You say that to pick up women?"
"And to try and get away from potentially dangerous situations, such as that little confrontation we had earlier."
"But you're only willing to claim the rights to the name when it suits you, don't you?"
"I could say the same for you," He yelled back at her. "You tried to pin it on me back there!"
"Pin what?" Shannon finally yelled.
"The attempted robbery of the McMahon household this evening during their party," Edge explained. "I was trying to pick up some extra money to at least provide us with some food, and maybe some munitions. I thought I'd locked the door, but she burst in on me."
"You did lock the door," Tori informed him. "I picked the lock."
"Why?"
"Because I wanted to rob the McMahons blind."
Jeff looked at her curiously. "You're a thief?"
"I'm Le Chat Noir!" she protested.
There was a second of silence.
Then the revolutionaries burst out laughing.
"Yes, I'm afraid she is Le Chat Noir," Everyone in the café froze as Shane McMahon and Captain Austin entered. "And you are all under arrest for harboring a dangerous criminal."
"They weren't harboring me," Tori protested. "I ran in here, they didn't even know who I was."
"Well, I apologize, Madameoiselle, however, ignorance of the law is no excuse. Besides, these children are guilty of treason. They'll have to pay the penalty." Austin grinned from ear to ear.
"Arrest them all."
Lita rolled over in the bed, sighing in delight at the feel of the warm blankets on her.
"Oh, you're awake," Jericho smiled in delight.
"Where am I?" she asked.
"Guest bedroom of the McMahon residence. You've been out for hours. I'm Dr. Christopher Jericho."
"A doctor?"
"Yes, and a good friend of Stephanie McMahon's."
"And yet you helped me."
"We're not all so bad," Jericho assured the woman.
"How did I get up here? And why did I need a doctor?"
"You passed out in the streets. Monseur Hemsley brought you in and insisted I treat you."
"I passed out? From what?"
"Oh, either the cold, or hunger, or possibly that injury on your back."
"I didn't need you to help me."
"Right. You weren't laying face down in the streets, in the rain, in a thin coat and tattered dress. Never happened."
"Very funny. You're a laugh a minute. Now I'm getting out of here."
"Please, stay here. You're still not well yet."
"I'm fine. I am going to go back to my café and starve with my friends."
"No, you're not," Hunter swung the door to the room open and walked in, followed by Stephanie. "They've arrested your friends."
"What?"
"They arrested the other revolutionaries for harboring a criminal. They caught Le Chat Noir in the café with them."
"We had nothing to do with Le Chat Noir!" Lita protested.
"Well, that's not how Austin saw it," Stephanie informed her. "He had them carted off and thrown in prison."
"I've got to go help them."
"You mean join them, right? Locked away? Lita, they'll do it, they wouldn't hesitate."
"Well, what am I supposed to do? Just sit here and let them suffer?"
"Well, you have got one thing right, you are going to stay here," Stephanie insisted. "I'll simply tell my father..."
"Tell me what, Stephanie?" Vince McMahon, the wealthy English trader inquired.
"Tell you that my cousin Lita is going to stay here, for a while," Hunter grinned at Vince.
"Your cousin?" Vince asked. "If she's your cousin why was she dressed like that and passed out in the street?"
"She was..."
"Robbed," Jericho supplied.
"Yes, robbed," Lita burst in. "Everything was stolen, my clothing, my money, my carriage, all of it. I was on my way to Paris to see Hunter."
"Oh, yes, Lita, how are your parents?"
"Oh, your parents?" Vince sounded worried. "I'd best let them know that you have arrived."
"Hunter, you forget, my parents, your aunt and uncle, are dead. A few months ago, from disease!"
"Disease!" Vince exclaimed. "Dear, are you contagious?"
"No, she's not!" Stephanie screamed. Then, calming down. "She was in...Spain! Far away when she heard the news that her parents were dead and the bodies had been burned to prevent spreading."
"Yes, and she was distraught," Hunter explained.
"Hunter, a few minutes ago you forgot that your aunt and uncle were dead."
"I tend to, Vince. They were so dear to me that it seems like they are here with me in the flesh, not simply in memory. Dear cousin Lita was coming here to live with me because..." Hunter looked at Lita in distress.
"It is so dangerous for a woman of my stature to live on my own," Lita confessed. "So I hastened to Paris to live with my final remaining family member."
"So, Stephanie, why is she staying here with us?"
"She has nothing left father, and I do believe that my clothing would look better on her than Hunter's. She should stay here until the robber is caught and her possessions returned."
"So, who was the robber?"
"Big man!" Lita cried. "Large...big...man...with...hair!"
"Hair?"
"Long red hair!" she spat out, quickly. "And huge...." She held her hands out in front of her body. "Arms! Big arms, and a crazy look in his eye! His voice was deep, like that of Satan himself, and he said `Give me everything, or I'll take more!'"
"He tried to take advantage of you?"
"Yes, and I was lucky to escape with my maidenhood intact!"
Vince looked at the girl, melting. "Well, my dear, Stephanie is right. I'll see to it that you are provided with a new wardrobe, considering your misfortune. I will also have Captain Austin put a watch out for that bandit."
"Oh, Monsuer McMahon, how can I ever repay you?"
"Your thanks is payment enough, Mademoiselle," Vince replied before exiting the room.
"How long do expect me to keep this up?" Lita yelled as soon as Vince was gone.
"As long as it takes to prove the innocence of your friends," Jericho told her.
"I can't do this. I can't pretend to be some snooty little rich woman! I'm a revolutionary!"
"Well, then be an undercover revolutionary!" Hunter growled. "I'm not letting you get yourself caught!"
"It's not your responsibility!" Lita growled back.
"Like it or not, we need you!" Stephanie suddenly proclaimed.
"You need me?"
"We need her?" Chris asked.
"Yes. We do. Because she has to help us play out a little charade, you understand?"
"What are you talking about?" Hunter yelled.
"I'm pregnant!" Stephanie finally proclaimed.