Author's Note:
This fanfic is in response to a challenge the InterNutter has on her web page. (Go to http://cat.devil.com for details. I believe it's on her "miscellaneous" page. Check out her other stuff while you're at it, too. She's got a lot of neat stuff.) While this story may not what she had in mind, I hope she enjoys it.
Please review and give me useful feedback. You don't flame me, I don't flame you. (And believe me, I can get very creative...) This story is still open to massive re-writes. I'm having issues with the fact that it seems so contrived...
Standard disclaimer: I don't own the X-men and I'm not making a dime (or even a nickel) off this story.
Radical Nike
Part Three
Kitty returned to her locker, a roll of towels she had pilfered from the restroom tucked under one arm. Even though she had removed all traces of Toad's slime from her hand, she kept rubbing it unconsciously against her capris.
"Toad, it should, like, be against all natural laws for a human being to be so horribly disgust-o-rama," she muttered to herself as she made her way back to her locker. Wonder where Mr. Griefe is? Oh, well, I'm sure he'll be along in a minute or two...
Mr. Griefe, however, never appeared, and Toad's slime was drying inside her locker and really beginning to stink.
There's, like, no way I'll get this clean before homeroom's over. She hurried into her classroom, where a distracted Ms. Lewis wordlessly gave her another hall pass.
Now, to just zip over to Griefe's classroom...
All the sophomores stared at her while she spoke to the instructor. Kurt was nowhere to be seen. "Um, Mr. Griefe, did Kurt Wagner come in?"
The chemistry teacher's inquisitive look turned into a frown. "I sent him to the chemical closet to fetch some cleaning supplies. He was to help you with your, ah, locker problem."
Weird. "He never showed up. Maybe he, um, ran into some trouble?"
At the back of the room, Rogue looked up. Kitty met her eye and Rogue shrugged.
"Hmm. Come with me, Kitty. We'll find out." He stood and eyed the students watching them. "I trust you can all behave properly until I get back..." he said blandly before following Kitty out the door. The class burst into whispers as the door shut.
Mr. Griefe made small talk as they walked down the hall. "So, what exactly happened to your locker? Kurt said someone got into it and made a mess."
"Yeah, something like that," Kitty responded, trying to figure out why Kurt would just ditch like that. Maybe his hologram malfunctioned...
"Do you have any idea who it may have been?"
"Uh, kinda, but I don't have, like, any proof." Not unless you make him spit at you, anyhow.
They approached the outside of the closet. Mr. Griefe tentatively turned the knob, which still had the keys in it. "Well, we know he unlocked the door..."
Kurt's bag was sitting in the middle of the floor, but Kurt was nowhere to be seen. Mr. Griefe stepped inside, pausing when a piece of paper crinkled under his foot.
It was Kurt's hall pass. There was a speck of red on it.
"K-Kurt?" Kitty whispered, feeling her blood pressure surge.
Mr. Griefe dropped the pass like it had bit him. "Kitty, stay here. Make sure no else disturbs anything."
"Um, sure thing."
After Mr. Griefe hurried away, Kitty bent over and examined the shelves. There were the cleaning supplies, neatly tucked away in the corner where they always were, apparently untouched. She sidestepped the bag and peered around. There didn't look like there had been a struggle or anything. It didn't smell like Kurt had 'ported anywhere, either, though most of the students at the Institute knew this was one of Kurt's semi-permanent landing points.
She couldn't see any clues besides his bag and the bloody piece of paper, so she stepped out into the hall to wait for Mr. Griefe to return.
Fighting growing panic, Kitty yelled *JEAN!* as loud as her mental voice could.
Jean Grey was gathering up her belongings to depart for her first class when Kitty suddenly cried her name, nearly staggering her over.
"You okay, babe?" Duncan asked. He eyed her and she caught his surface thoughts. Hope she's not coming down sick, that'd suck. Wouldn't be cool to ask her out when she's not feeling well... There was, as always, an unsubtle undertone of lust to his thoughts.
Boys—it's all hormonal... "I'll be okay, Duncan. All the blood rushed to my head when I bent over and it threw me off-balance for a moment." *Kitty, I hear you. Just give me a moment.* Kitty's yelling stopped abruptly. She was panicked and trying to keep her cool.
"Oh, good. Want me to walk you to class?"
"That's okay. I have class with Scott next period and I usually walk with him." She ignored the ugly look that crossed his face at the mention of his rival's name. *Calm down, Kitty.*
"Yeah, sure." Jean heard him complain subconsciously as he stalked away: Jeez, I wish that she'd make up her goddamned mind...
Wincing inwardly, Jean waved at Scott, who frowned at the expression on her face. She tapped herself between the eyes and she saw his eyebrows knot up underneath his red sunglasses. Wordlessly, he picked up her books and walked with her to the door, making sure she didn't run into anything while she concentrated.
*Kitty, what's wrong?*
*Like, Kurt's disappeared,* Kitty babbled. *Toad slimed my locker this morning and Kurt, like, walked by, so I asked him to have Mr. Griefe unlock the cleaning supplies for me, but Kurt never returned and Mr. Griefe and I went to check on him and he's like gone and his bag is lying-on-the-closet-floor-and-his-hall-pass-hassomeBLOODONIT—*
*Calm down, Kitty,* Jean said soothingly. She could sense Kitty steadying herself. *Are you sure he didn't teleport?*
*Doesn't smell like he did, but the chem closet, like, stinks anyway. Mr. Griefe went somewhere, I think to tell the office or something, but he told me not to mess with anything. Do you think he'll, like, call the cops?*
*Probably not right away,* Jean replied. Scott was watching her in concern. "Let's walk by the storage closet next to the chemistry lab, Scott."
"Why?"
"Kurt's disappeared and that's the last place he was known to be. Kitty's frantic."
*Kitty, act hysterical so that Scott and I have an excuse to stop and see what's going on.*
*No prob, Jean, 'cause I'm, like, halfway there already.*
Jean scanned for Kurt, but—"I can't detect Kurt at all, Scott." Hold on. "Actually, I can, but it's like he's behind soundproof glass." It was like he squeezed tight and about to erupt.
"Middleverse?" he inquired, referring to the pocket dimension created by Forge that Kurt had once been entrapped in.
"No, it's not quite the same. He was much further away, that time. I get the impression that he's very close by this time. He has a here-not-here quality and he's cramped up, like he's under pressure. He's not happy, Scott."
"Man, he sure manages to get himself into trouble..."
When the pair arrived at the closet, Kitty was babbling to Mr. Griefe and Principal Kelly.
"I mean, it isn't like him to just, you know, leave me hanging like that. He wouldn't leave his books lying around, I know he wouldn't leave his books lying around, he's a total neat-freak—"
Principal Kelly looked like he wanted to fall through the floor. Kitty looked like she actually would.
"Hey, Kitty, is something wrong?" Jean asked with concern.
Kitty spun around and grabbed onto Scott like he was her only hope for eternal salvation. "Kurt's disappeared and there's blood and his stuff's all over the floor and—"
"Katherine, please calm down," Principal Kelly placated while Scott tried to ease Kitty's death-grip. "There's no need to get panicked just yet."
"Let loose a little, Kitty. My blood needs to circulate—"
"OhmyGod, there's blood on his freakin' HALL PASS—"
"Calm down, Kitty," Jean said sternly, giving Kitty an empathic nudge. *Don't go overboard.*
Kitty squeaked and stopped babbling, letting go of Scott, who companionably laid an arm over her shoulders. "Okay, short stuff, what's this about Kurt disappearing?"
Jean groaned and prepared to hear the story all over again. The things we do to appear normal.
Rogue knew something was up when Mr. Griefe didn't return right away, but there wasn't anything she could do but go to class. She glanced down the hall and saw a small crowd gathering at the other end, but she had no business going there because her destination was in the opposite direction.
Well, if it was anything, someone would let her know.
She walked into her English class and sat down near Rhave, who kept glancing at the clock. "I've had days like that, too."
Rhave started and looked at her blankly for a moment. "Sorry, Rogue. My mind was somewhere else. Days like what?"
"Y'know, the kind that you can't wait ta get the Hell outta school 'cause you have other things you'd rather do," she snorted. "I'd love ta know what's going on down the hall, right now."
Rhave brightened at the prospect of gossip. "Was there a fight?"
"Dunno, but everyone seems pretty interested in whatever happened." She thought about Kurt's errand. "Might have somethin' ta do with the storage closet." She slumped in her seat and pulled on her gloves to make sure they were on snugly. "One of the students in my homeroom went down there for some cleaning supplies during homeroom and never came back." She gave the gothic-wannabe a sly glance. "Maybe the Bayville Demon got 'im."
Rhave became very still and held her breath, then suddenly relaxed.
It was a pity Rogue didn't have telepathy at that moment.
Much later, the young X-men were gathered at a table in the cafeteria.
"So, do you have any other clues, Jean?" Kitty asked.
"No. I asked the Professor to look with Cerebro, but so far he hasn't come up with anymore than I have." Jean was sitting with her head cradled on her arms on the table.
"What about the closet?" Evan asked, waving his milk carton with his hand. "We should check it out. Maybe have Logan sniff around in there."
"I'm not sure what good he could do, Evan," Scott said. "A lot of people have been in and out of that room today. The principal called the police. It's taped off."
Evan pounded his fist on the table. "Man, I wish the cops hadn't gotten involved," he groaned. "How can we look for clues with them around?"
Rogue cleared her throat. "Maybe Jean or the Professor could, you know, distract them or somethin' while Kitty sneaks inside to take another look."
"Like, I already did that. We'd need, like, Logan's nose—"
"Or mine, Kitty," said a voice behind them. They all turned to see several of the junior X-men: Rahne Sinclair, flanked by Sam Guthrie and Jubilation Lee. "Mah nose is as sharp as Logan's, if nae sharper. 'Twould better ta check it out as soon as possible, too, 'fore the scents get more muddled."
"That sounds like a plan," Scott agreed. "Jean, do you think you can get everyone to come out of that closet and stay out long enough for Shadowcat and Wolfsbane to take a look?"
"Sure thing, Cyclops," Jean said dryly. "We're not in uniform, you know, Scott."
"It's a mindset I have—"
"No kidding, Mr. Military."
Rhave carefully dropped the smoke bomb into the trashcan in chemistry lab. Sylvan needed the distraction in order to get into the storage room undetected to retrieve the jar. It was a stupid coincidence that the dumbass had grabbed the stuff for the bomb this morning. Who would've thought it would be needed?
She was really glad Bayville Highschool didn't have cameras or anything installed.
Smoke began to pour out of the container and into the room. Rhave ducked out into the hall and walked quickly away. A few moments later, a student yelled, "Hey, fire!"
The hallway quickly became a jumble of bodies and someone pulled the fire alarm.
Outside, Kitty, Rahne, and Jean all paused when the fire alarm went off. "Well, that makes things easier," Jean said in relief. "I can just send the officers standing around to help evacuate the school." She concentrated for a moment. "They didn't even really need the encouragement."
"Better be quick about this, Jean," Rahne murmured, transforming from girl to wolf to girl again. "I smell a lot o' smoke."
Sure enough, there was a thick black cloud coming out of two windows.
Kitty studied the wall. "Let's go. I think the closet's a little bit further down..."
Sylvan crouched in the broom closet, praying that the cops hovering outside the chemical closet would move away when Rhave set off the alarm. He needed to remove the jar from the room so that the cops wouldn't confiscate it. He could set the spell up again some other time. Why did some kid have to go missing just as he was about to snag his own personal bogeyman?
He nearly screamed with relief when the siren started wailing and the two police officers hurried away.
"Thank you," he breathed. In the press of the crowd, it was easy to duck into the storage room.
A quick glance under the shelf—
A cookie jar? Had the demon had already been caught? The vessel changed to reflect the nature of the demon it held. What the Hell kind of demon would—
He didn't wait to finish the thought, because a disembodied hand pushed its way through the wall. "Holy fucking shit!"
He turned tail and ran, hugging the cookie jar to his chest.
Shadowcat and Wolfsbane phased through the wall just in time to see someone run through the door. The wolf-girl immediately took off after the escapee, barking frantically.
Kitty followed and was immediately caught in the flow of students evacuating the building. Crud. *Jean! Change of plans.*
*What happened?*
*Ask Wolfsbane. We phased into the room and caught someone on their way out. She ran after whoever it was. I'm, like, caught in the exodus.*
On it. Jean started to walk towards the soccer field. *Rahne, what hap—*
*Lordy, Jean, can it wait?!* Rahne turned a corner and finally got a clear view of the person she was chasing. *Well, he's mighty distinctive lookin', what w' all that make-up on. Ye know this pansy, Jean?*
Jean got an image of a pale boy with skanky black hair, black lipstick, a long black trenchcoat, and clutching something close to his chest.
*Patrick Rumsfield. We'll follow him later. Change back and head for the field like everyone else.*
*Roger tha', Jean.*
Jean made sure that no one noticed Rahne as she reverted back to her human form.