Yo. I'm back, and my GPA is good. I am so sick of this chapter; I've messed it up more times than I can remember. So, I'm back and here is the next chapter, good or bad. I'll just let you decide.
***
Katherine wandered into the club, onto the floor. It seemed the best way to do it; like the wonder of bodies and lights around her was only of passing interest. Music reverberated through her and she unwillingly began to dance, at least at first. It took her and that happy feeling filled her, so she danced to the beat. Did the words even matter, she thought, or were they just background?
She just danced for a time, reveling in her dream of the adult club. If she had known it was so simple, she would have faked her way inside sooner. Everyone seemed so alive and wild. It was a dream come true. Then a man stumbled into her, dead drunk and drooling. She shoved him away and made a sickened face. She ghosted the rotten smelling slobber through her bare arm onto the floor. She stared at it a moment: a semisolid, golden colored goop. It was some wake-up call. With new eyes, Katherine watched the adults around her.
People slid around her or clung to her shadow, hoping for something. Wasn't it enough for them to feel the throbbing base tingle the air in their lungs? No, the music meant nothing to them, just the people. They would never dance alone, never just dance. They were unhappy because of that, she could tell.
It was a tool to them, music. The more she saw of the world, the more everything was a tool, including her. Despite the music, she was Mystique's tool. Katherine opened her eyes and drew her mind from the beat, though not her body. As she danced, her gaze roamed the people around her, looking for the person only known as Knave's fille.
She navigated through the mass, all of them people trying to get something tangible out of the music. She avoided people with dilated pupils and too jerky movements. She waved away free drinks and other such traps. She wove around male wolves and girls drunk enough to forget they were hetero.
They were all sickening. The clubbers weren't dancing; they were trying to have an orgy. Katherine blinked, realizing it was a religious schoolgirl thing to think, but that was what it seemed like to her. Was this what adult clubs were like -alcohol, drugs, and sex-craved lunatics? Then she slid a little farther away from the bar, and she ran into the change in atmosphere like a brick wall.
Three girlfriends laughed as they swung their hips at no one in particular and talked over the music about a chess match. A young man sat at a booth, sweet talking a handsome thirty-something year old. He chatted energetically, waving a beer bottle around that had maybe one half-hearted sip taken out of it. The older listener seemed a little uncomfortable, but the boy's pure charisma put his fears at ease. Something told Katherine the two men were becoming more than just friends. Couples danced, and they truly were couples. She saw no few matched wedding and engagement rings.
Katherine moved through the next barrier. At first she thought it was the first set of people again; she quickly changed her mind. All around her, the dancers were nice, but lonely. Many of them were older, less attractive, or at least less scantily dressed. Beyond them sat the wallflowers, getting drunk. Occasionally, a person from what Katherine dubbed the Wolves' section would stalk over to them and leave dragging along a reasonably desirable, reasonably wasted partner.
A vixen dressed in an outfit hiding little more than -well, a transparent G-string, pulled a bewildered, Asiatic looking fellow back into her throng. His friends looked after them jealous. Katherine looked on too, with barely concealed pity. She silently bet three grand that the guy was underage. And a virgin, she added after a moment. "Like, like knows like," she murmured sarcastically, purposely overusing the L word.
There was a low chuckle in her ear. Apparently, Mystique thought the stupid sentence was funny. Then again, the Blue Bitch was warped, so who could blame her?
Katherine looked about and decided that the best place to look for the girl and not look like a woman on a mission was to play the wallflower -sort of. She didn't quite want to describe how she descended on the young men still staring after the near-naked woman. At least it wasn't as bad as the redhead's slither. There was something unnatural about that movement, not quite human. When Kurt did some of his acrobatics and wall crawls with the holographic illusion of normalcy on, he seemed like he was ...something wearing human skin. She seemed like that, a viper in vixen's clothing.
With supreme effort, Katherine managed to garner the gawkers' attention. Supreme effort was defined as leaping on top of their table and leaning against the wall from there. As they stared up at her, the girl had a realization of monumental proportions: Asian guys were cute.
As she flipped her hair back behind her head, Katherine mentally stuffed Kitty back under the litter box, then locked it in a crate, put that in a series of three safes, and dumped it all into the imaginary shark-infested ocean.
I mean, seriously, they are totally cute. Check those eyes!
Unfortunately, the Kitty persona was turning out to be a regular Droopy Dog.
Katherine tucked a stray hunk of hair behind her ear, secretly glad she had opted for the ponytail-less look. It gave her something pointless to do so she wouldn't ruin her character instead. Hand on hip, she bent down and put her head on same level as her audience. With the other hand, she tilted down her mirror sunglasses -a wonderful little gadget courtesy of Mystique's goody bag. "Don't you like to dance?" she purred, aware her panther tattoo was in full view.
Silence. Rearing back up to lean against the wall, she replied, "Shame." She smirked and pulled the shades back up. Voila. The dark atmosphere of the club was bright as day. As the boys gawked and discussed what to do in what she figured was rapid Japanese, she swept her gaze over the dancers, looking for the girl that matched her photos. The extra three feet of height given to her via wallflower table was a definite help.
She'd identified the fille's car in the parking lot. Another of Mystique's darling presents had gone behind that little door that hid the car's fuel cap, a place Katherine doubted people looked for tracking devices. Technically, she had no clue about such things, but Mystique had deemed it a good choice. The woman was -supposedly- keeping an eye on the signal. As long as the girl left in that car, Katherine would be able to know if she left and follow her.
She considered stifling the sigh, but let it loose instead, sending her boys into a twitter. She almost wished the girl would leave so she could play tag instead of hide-and-seek. The fille was a needle hidden within a piece of straw somewhere in a barn of haystacks.
`~.*`~.*`~.*`~.*`~.*`~.*`~
Emma slid back into her seat, pulling her shoulders forward slightly. The movement was tiny, but in nothing but lingerie it made her breasts look twice their abnormal size. Sexual Weapons 101, rule number one: Do it subtly, make it obvious. The thought made her smile and she directed pearly grin of seductive perfection at the horrid man across the long table. Rule number two: Make use of every opportunity. Waste not, want not.
The young woman decided she would include such a class at her academy next semester. She might even go so far as to make it a requisite for graduation among her more lovely male students. Finals would be a joy to oversee. Yes, a wonderful idea. She would start work on it immediately when she returned to Massachusetts.
"An interesting costume," the ugly bastard drawled terribly, trying to make small talk. "Something I would expect down there. He gestured to his right and Emma glanced sidelong lazily. Club Mist was shown in all its gaudy glory through that glass, though the throng couldn't peer back at them. She immediately disliked the man; she had already not liked him, and now she could barely stand to be alone in the same room with him. His thoughts were tawdry and disgusting.
The other half of her business meeting had his office overlooking the dance floor of the most infamous club in town so he could look down on them all and smugly call himself better. He was nauseating. "Required uniform, I'm afraid," she replied silkily. Alighting from the black leather seat, she strolled to the dark pane of glass, aware that he was gawking at her rear end. She didn't even need telepathy to know he was -or a brain at all, for that matter. She saw it in the glass's reflection.
Emma didn't bother to study her own lovely visage staring back at her with seductively slit eyes. It was petty and she knew her own body better than every man who had been allowed in her bed put together, times twenty. Instead, she looked down at the people. She noticed the drug abusers immediately and looked away, mentally forcing herself not to cringe.
*Damn it Christian, you idiot. What's the use of this telepathy if I can't reach into that feeble mind of yours and shatter it? Fool! You can't even hear me and I'm thinking right at you, Bastard. Well, you're fried, warped up by all your pretty pills. But what do you care? Good old Daddy can't yell at you anymore for trying to be an artist. He was right, you know; your paintings were shit. I burned your portrait of me.*
In his little padded box, Christian made no response. He never did.
She shifted her gaze around. People like Christian herded close to the bar and the door. They were out for a good time, but doing it in such stupid ways that they needed a quick way out. Then, away from the drinks and the exit was that happy little clique that pervaded every dark place. Innocent people danced around, oblivious to the evil around them. They were just dancing, talking, having a night on the town that would end before the clock struck twelve and Cinderella found her Prince Charming was anything but in some dark ally.
The third group, last of the holy Club Trinity, was the loners. They also massed by the bar to drown their sorrows and down bottled courage, but kept as far from the door as possible. They were afraid they would get thrown out of the club at any moment.
An odd person sticking out in the mix caught Emma's attention. Someone stood up upon a table, an enormous rose among a field of diminutive daisies. Interest peaked; she reached out and found a whole bouquet of nothing. No secret desires, no dirty little secret, no emotions, not even surface thoughts --no anything. She could feel a presence, but only because she knew exactly where to look. A foot left or right and she would have noticed nothing. The White Queen eyed the shadow on the wall of the dark club critically. Surely she wasn't seeing a phantom or other such nonsense.
She noticed a few figures sitting in the booth surrounding the girl or woman. Like a cold wind, she drifted in and looked at one's mind, which was currently staging what she supposed was the Japanese rendition of the "Catholic School Girl." Emma sat and watched; she really didn't have anything else to do. The boy was original -she had to give him that, though many of his partner's positions were anatomically impossible and he obviously had very little clue about what he was fantasizing about. The girl flipped her hair -the first realistic action he had her perform, and her face became apparent.
Emma laughed and didn't stop. The bastard in the office looked at her oddly, but she snapped her fingers and knocked him into a state of thankfully silent bliss. Tears started to form in her eyes and she threw her head back to keep the glistening salt from running down her face.
Katherine, little Kitty Pryde; how far she was from the little Chicago suburb of Deerfield.
Emma frowned and tapped the glass, her nail seeming to strike the girl in the chest, hard. Bitch, she thought, remembering her little excursion to Chicago the last summer. It was supposed to be a simple recruiting: enamor the parents, fill out the proper forms, get back to real business. Things hadn't turned out so easy. Kitty had seemed eager to go along with it all. Then, two days before the Academy's school year started, Emma had received a call from the little bitch in person.
Kitty had informed the woman of exactly where she could shove her school, among many other things. It surprised Frost, but it was hardly something she unprepared for. Then the girl had set off the atomic bomb: she had called Emma a drug addict.
Emma pounded the glass, seeming to squash the girl that she couldn't touch with her mind. 'A drug addict, like Christian.'
She had spent the next weeks in an insane rage, barely holding back the urge to fly to Deerfield and kill the girl, or at least hire someone who would do it slow. She'd managed somehow by taking her anger out on her students and beginning her habit of one-sided mental arguments with her straightjacketed brother. Emma had told herself revenge would be sweet, but then it had been taken out of her reach. A telepath had taken the bitch under his wing: none other than Charles Xavier. She had burned them both at the stake in her dreams.
But, now the girl wasn't with the Professor, and Emma was. Her sources said Xavier had been in New Orleans for a short while, then left -obviously without his kitten. Frost took a step back from the one-way window. It all seemed too perfect; she needed someone to get close and verify it was Kitty and that she was alone. She hadn't gotten where she was in the world without learning about traps.
Emma pulled a cell phone from a place on her person -from only she and God knew where- and punched a number. Angelica's bubbly voice answered immediately. *Miss Frost?*
"Firestar, there is someone-"
*Forget it, Ice Queen,* a thundering woman shot at her, and then the cell went dead, completely dead. Emma hurled the useless piece of technological junk into the wall, enraged. A trace was impossible. Whoever the Hell had done that was on her blacklist, and she wanted to find out who. Calming down, Emma quickly made her decision. She would stay in New Orleans a while and hire the aid of just the right person for the job. No one got the better of the White Queen. It sounded so cliché, but it was her motto. The Black Widow would find her what she needed, the woman on the phone would speak for the last time, and little Kitty would leave with her, declawed and collared.
`~.*`~.*`~.*`~.*`~.*`~.*`~
Mell danced, willingly pulled around by the wave of happy, crazy people. She danced in front of so many guys, glad that the darkness hid the Plain Jane that was she. She swung in close to girls, just to see how they would react. She put drinks on her tabs -she kept four- and swigged them mid-dance step. After three drinks, the damned cat stopped showing up in her head, waving an admonishing claw at her. She smiled grimly, knowing exactly what was in store for him during his next visit to the vet. Then she shook her head violently.
She was treating the cat like he was to blame for her insanity. What kind of perverted person had she become? "Hello, beautiful," a voice breathed into her ear. Mell looked up at the man who locked his hands on her waist and swung her around. She shifted her weight and shoved, sending the drunkard back into other dancers. He grumbled and rushed back towards her, but she had already slid away to a different spot. Inwardly she fumed and changed her dancing, swinging her arms too much for anyone to get close like that again. People seemed to feel her anger and backed away a bit, leaving her a few feet of floor.
The girl used it too, venting through the music, thinking. What a terrible day. I don't need Gambit thinking I'm holding back information. The mysterious voice echoed in her head again, followed by I'm Officer Kitty and you're clean from now on or I tell Gambit. Gambit, why was her broken subconscious suddenly so bent on forcing her "Dad" on her more than he was already? 'Not a word, Mell; Never give him dis kinda useless shit again; For a genius Mell, you are one stupid fille.'
She spun wildly, trying not to hear his next words. They came anyway. 'Stupid name for a pretty fille: Marie. Gambit t'ink Bella Donna suited her better.' She saw the gun. 'Six chambers, five shots left. De first go through Marie's pretty head.'
God, he'd turned Marie into a Bella Donna, he'd done that to her and then killed her. Mell froze for a moment. No, he hadn't killed Marie; he'd disposed of a shell. Marie would have died long before her body did, especially if Gambit was anything like his late Uncle. She began to sway to the beat again, slowly, as if she too was just skin wrapped around a void. People still kept their distance, somehow knowing it was beneficial to their health.
`~.*`~.*`~.*`~.*`~.*`~.*`~
Katherine frowned, spotting an empty space in the Wolves' section. Only one person filled it; from what she had seen, that should have been impossible. Studying the person, she smiled. It was about time. She bent and pecked one boy on the forehead like she would a small child -had she known any. Hopping off the table, the girl moved to the beat and disappeared into the crush of people, snapping the shades around a belt loop. It would look strange to a wary person if she wore them, she supposed.
After three minutes, she finally had worked her way to that open space, which was miraculously still there. She pulled a handsome man and steered him before her into the gap. It could be suspicious if she just entered the sanctuary; let the guy take the heat. Katherine quickly became a passive dancer, letting the raven haired man lead her around.
For some reason, she pegged him for a European; he just had facial features she wouldn't expect on an American. That and she'd known maybe three good old, white American boys with natural black hair. His dancing was aggressive, and for some reason he spent a lot of energy trying to steer her away from the open area by the girl back into the crowd. He wasn't good at hiding it; it was obvious Bodyguard? she wondered. The fille didn't seem aware of him; but then she looked rather deep in thought.
Katherine frowned and leaned up into his face. She whispered in his ear, "What is wrong with you? We've got this room and you just want to leave and get elbowed by two hundred imbeciles!" She turned away and danced alone in the empty space, purposely not paying any attention to the girl or her former partner. When she finally glanced his way, he was gone, though most likely still close. Either she was just paranoid or he had been a bodyguard and she was deemed harmless. She grinned and started moving around a bit more when she danced, slowly working up to get close to Knave's fille.
The girl looked sad and lonely. Kitty immediately wanted to make friends. For once, Katherine didn't point sternly at the perky persona's apparently shallow grave. Friends would be a good thing if she was going to infiltrate the LeBeaus.
*Turn left ten degrees. There's a mark on her wrist I want a shot of,* Mystique said almost inaudibly. Katherine avoided frowning, but did as commanded.
*Perfect. The sunglasses are also a camera. Avoid that man from before, Leo Lycaon, works for Knave. I can't talk when he's close, and I won't explain why. Also keep an eye on your trail, there's an Emma Frost in town out for your-*
She almost swore. The Ice Bitch, the Headmistress of Hell High, was in New Orleans looking for her? Then she blinked and almost stopped dancing. Mystique had cut off mid-sentence, why? She felt someone at her back and turned. An incredibly beautiful man with raven hair looked down at her, "Bonsoir," he said before starting to dance.
Katherine looked him over before she followed his lead When she saw his hair, she had worried it was the bodyguard Mystique had identified as Leo. It wasn't. Katherine joined his dance, shock and worry immediately dispelled, though not her wariness. The man was wearing sunglasses in a dark room, for God's sake. She wasn't stupid. He stared at her, intent on burning her face into his retinas –assuming he could see her at all.
"Something interesting?" she asked, not at all uncomfortable. Her time with Mystique had destroyed any dredge of shyness.
"Something unique," he corrected, then mimed a caress of her neck. "This tattoo? Tell me the artist's name."
She quirked an eyebrow. He was either artistically insane or medically insane. "It's the Blue Bitch's work," she said at last. He smiled, somehow expressing confusion, curiosity, and irritation with the small twitch of lips.
"Interesting," he said, interrupting the silence. Silence? Katherine blinked, and she suddenly heard the music again, and then it stopped. She felt the base pulsating through her skin, but heard nothing. Was her mutation ghosting away from the sound's vibration? If the little ear bones didn't shake from the impact of sound waves, she wouldn't hear something -or so her Biology teacher claimed. Was it that or just the selective hearing people got when they concentrated?
"...purchase the ear piece? The metal is rare. Rather extraordinary properties."
Whichever way she had phased out the sound by, she cursed it a thousand ways. What about Mystique's ear clasp; what extraordinary properties, and what did metal have to do with any of it? Katherine was bothered by the man's interest in Mystique little toy for sure, but was also very curious about anything he could tell her about it. Katherine thought for a moment, trying to come up with a decent lie. A few seconds later, she had nothing and the guy was waiting. She had to cough up information before he gave her any, so she stood tall and winged it.
"Bizarre metal, Really? My mother enjoys magic and all insane things like that. Gave it as a birthday present." Katherine hazarded a guess, based on what Mystique had leaked to her about it. "She told me it would hide my presence from..." she hesitated. Stupid! What am I supposed to say: from mind-readers?
The man's face twisted with deadly interest. "Hide you from what?"
She laughed, putting on a sparkling expression to hide her worry. "Evil!" she cried suddenly, hoping she didn't sound too flustered. Why was she feeling so insecure about one man? Time spent with Mystique equaled destruction of bashfulness, so she shouldn't have felt that way. She didn't know why, but he did make her feel like an antelope too stupid to bolt from its good friend the lion.
And despite that, she also felt very comfortable around him. It was a contradiction that made absolutely no sense. There was a flicker in his face that hinted she wasn't grasping at straws, and that damned cheerful part of her picked up the slack and continued, "She's a wee bit cracked, Mother."
Now, what would you do without me?. You'd, like, be up a creek; that's where. Now, let me talk. Katherine conceded and let Kitty out in full purring glory. That mask had hid her little secrets for years; it would work on the nosy guy.
He turned around gracefully. The man danced more like he was at a ball than a club. It was exciting, like a wicked new waltz. Spinning once, Katherine noticed the bodyguard Leo oh so very close by. At least Mystique's radio-silence was explained. Her dance partner pressed, "Did your mother say where she bought it?"
Kitty bit her lip thoughtfully. "You know? She did actually mention something. Great Wiccan artist in the Big Apple, specializes in "magical" alloys -or something like that. So, what's the name?"
"It's Nathan," he answered and rested a hand lightly at her hip. He stared into her eyes, or at least she thought he did. The dark glasses obstructed her view. It was odd, like he was some sort of demented secret agent. It didn't seem wrong on him though, quite the opposite.
Pryde shook her head. "Not you, the metal."
"Oh, well that's a secret," he answered briskly and pulled her close.
Her eyebrows shot up. "Really," she said coldly, all her former purr kicked out of her voice. "What, do I have to be a –real good girl to find out?" Katherine broke out of his grasp and backed up, knocking into Knave's fille. For a moment, her foot ghosted into the girl's shoe heel. The next moment, the tracking device she had hidden in her shoe was inside the girl's.
She turned quickly and apologized to the fille, then looked back at Nathan. "Tell you what. Talk to me at the bar in fifteen minutes like a human being and not your dancing mannequin and I'll talk back."
Katherine walked away, not really knowing why she had just done that. It was odd that he asked so many questions, but wouldn't even name the metal composing the piece of jewelry that she wore. There was just something wrong about that on levels she couldn't describe, but didn't like anyway.
Ten feet of pushing through solid people and Katherine was at the bar. She looked back, unable to see Nathan or the fille through all the heads. A woman lounged on three bar stools, getting drunk off the affection lavished on her by no less than four young men. Disgusted, Katherine dragged the dirty blonde off her seats and threw her into her fan club's eager arms. The femme glared murder, but she saw the look in her "attacker's" eyes and quickly retreated.
The girl took the same position, though she only propped her legs up with one chair given her short stature. She wasn't tiny, but she was a far cry from model height as well. It didn't matter; she only needed to save one extra chair anyway. She sat there, thinking about what to do next. Mystique should have told her whether the tracer was working. There was a chance it had been squashed by the molecules in the fille's boot heel.
Katherine tucked a bit of hair behind her ear to avoid biting her lip in worry. Mystique was keeping air silence for some reason. She could only think of two causes. One was that the Blue woman knew someone would hear her speak. She looked around, but there was no sign of a raven haired bodyguard guy anywhere. Leo and Nathan were nowhere in sight.
Nathan?
She paused to wonder why she suspected Nathan of being anything more than an annoying art buff. Oh yes, he definitely had an appraising eye when he looked at me, like he was a jeweler inspecting goods. She shook her head. No, it felt more like a butcher looking at the animal he wants to make chops of. She shook her head again. What am I thinking? Two minutes without the Blue Bitch telling me what she's learned from guarding my rear end and I see danger everywhere. I'm getting too paranoid. I just didn't like him pushing me that close to him.
`~.*`~.*`~.*`~.*`~.*`~.*`~
Nathan watched the girl disappear into the crowd towards the bar. He absently twisted a ring on his finger as he thought about. The man hated the habit, but it was a soothing motion. In the corner of his vision, he noticed a girl watching him. She was waiting to dance with him or fade away, like she needed permission to be there. He held out a hand and they began to dance.
"Hello."
She looked up into his shades. "I don't talk." They almost never did, but they wanted to. Nathan knew it was why she had stayed around. The girl wanted to talk.
"All right," he replied lightly.
They danced for a while, and he waited. After three quarters of a minute, she repeated, "All right?" It sounded like she didn't think males were capable of saying it.
"Why push you, seeing where it got me with her? A fifteen minute timeout." He pouted slightly and gestured towards the bar. As he expected, the girl didn't react.
"I'm just a way to waste de time den?"
He smiled and drew her in a little closer. "You aren't a total waste of time. Fifteen minutes is enough to have a good time, isn't it?"
Unlike the girl with the "magic" ear clasp, she didn't get angry at his physical hints. Girls that did generally were the type with someone to miss them, someone who still cared. Those that didn't, they had nothing to lose.
A voice rose over the club noise. "Listen yer Bastard, I am not touchin' your drink a' decayed potatoes. God know what else you've put in thah!" Nathan thought it was amusing, considering the protesting female was very much drunk already. There was occasionally something to be said for human instinct, though not often.
The girl, now in his arms, flinched. He picked up a memory of a fat tabby cat actually saying something close to the same words. Nathan took her chin in his hand. She was insane; it made things so much easier. The drink was also heavy on her, but it would burn away in a few hours.
"Nathan, right?"
He spun around her and smile. "Yes."
"I'm Mell."
"Interesting," though they danced, Nathan's ears and attention stayed with the girl with the ear jewelry made up of Suith. It bothered him, having an unknown element on his territory. He thought she was no threat, just a kid who actually wore the jewelry her mother bought, but he didn't actually know for sure. Her could hear her breathing like a roar, and studied it, listening for the breathing pattern of a warrior. He couldn't tell. It was disconcerting to rely upon his own senses while on the hunt. She had set him so off guard, the tattooed human child, that he could listen to little else from the spirits. Even then, he heard nothing from them about her but silence.
Nathan felt a twinge on his hair and looked down. Mell had reached up and touched it. He took her hand away and smiled chidingly. It wouldn't do for her to see the ears, so much larger than humans' and tapered to a proper point.
It wouldn't do for her to see he wasn't human; that he was her hunter. The persona Nathan, he smiled at the girl, but it was Nakor who slowly led his prey towards an exit where the lights were far away and not bright. The sunglasses, the gauze over his eyes, and the darkened contact lenses could only do so much to protect him. He was often grateful the Club Mist disdained strobe lighting and other blinding forms of human eye-candy. Its atmosphere was dark and often made hazy when its artificial fog covered the floor.
As they stepped out the door to the alley, Nakor did a quick estimate of time. He had three minutes to get back inside to confront the human who wore Suith. He would take her too, but he would need some time. She had mentioned a mother, so she would be missed. It would be best to wait until the club closed and the dancers spilled out. Then people would assume another human had taken her, if anyone bothered at all. Unfortunately, it would only be an hour until predawn then. He would be cutting it close.
Nakor led the girl back to her own vehicle. She had been foolish enough to park in the alley where no one could see. She stared blankly at the car, realizing it was hers. "What?"
"Goodnight, prey," he said softly in his own tongue and knocked her unconscious with a small flick of the wrist.
`~.*`~.*`~.*`~.*`~.*`~.*`~
Katherine checked her watch. It was thirteen minutes later; her boy was a no show. She had expected him to come in begging at ten or not show at all. Mystique had still not said a word. She remembered the second reason why the woman might be silent; she had thought of two. Kurt might be trying something. The thought had crossed her mind before, but she had been too frightened to really consider it. God, what if she hurts him? She still was, so she pushed it away and went to find her girl again. Assuming Knave's fille didn't toss her boots in the river, there was a good chance Katherine would know exactly where she was at all times. Of course, that was when Mystique was actually on the job, watching the computer screens and informing her.
She felt vulnerable, and briefly wondered if the Blue Bitch was just sitting, watching the show of Kitty sweating. It wasn't a comforting thought. Wanting a little security, she put the shades back on and could see again. She made her way back towards the Asian boys. Her mission was accomplished; there was a tracker on the girl. Whether it worked remained to be seen, but Katherine was done.
About three yards from the boys' booth, a figure dashed past her, slamming her to the side. Only an extreme amount of concentration prevented her from ghosting and causing a scene. A raven haired man ran to the dimly marked exit and stopped. He inhaled with his nose, turning his head as he did. Katherine did a rapid succession of double takes. She had been by the Wolverine long enough to recognize a covert sniff. It dawned on her that it meant he was a mutant. Then she noticed it was the man from before: Leo Lycaon. Finally, it occurred to her that if the panicked bodyguard of Knave's fille was frantically sniffing around, it was because his charge had gone missing.
Leo suddenly did a very decent impression of a bloodhound on the scent and barreled through the door to the outside. Katherine took a split instant to make her decision, and then ran straight after. She caught the closing door and slid through the opening before it could slam on her. The "I can walk through walls" trick was something she wanted to hold in reserve, just in case things got hot.
The exact moment the door shut behind her, a very large fuzz ball was hurled into the wall, inches from her own body. It rolled back into action immediately and barreled towards Leo, who crouched over the girl, currently unconscious. As it sped up, the words tore from Katherine's throat. "Look out!" The man's back was to her; he couldn't see the animal rushing at him. Leo whirled, and Katherine did yet another doubletake.
It wasn't Leo; it was Nathan. He stared at her, shocked to see her. She saw him cock his head to the side, as if changing the angle he saw her at would make her disappear. He was so busy watching her that the beast hit him dead on. What she saw was frightening.
Nathan didn't budge so much as an inch. It was like a soft breeze had hit him, no more. The animal wasn't so lucky: it crumpled on impact. There was a sound that reminded her of home, when it was muddy in the spring and she would walk in the woods in bright blue rubber boots. The red mud would make enormous squelching sounds, and every so often, she would step on a stick or two. There would be a happy sounding snap then. It sounded like that: mud squelching and dozen of sticks snapping as a grade-schooler jumped around having her springtime fun. Katherine covered her ears. The memory morphed and she wasn't jumping on a fallen branch stuck in the mud; she was stomping on bones and the red mud was made of muscle fibers and blood.
She looked at the poor animal, snapped into pieces. It was little more than a bag of fur filled with guts and broken pieces. Only then did she realize that the clothes it had worn were Leo's. Katherine stared at what had once been a man and a tear rolled down her cheek. She finally looked up at Nathan, and his eyes were on her. He hadn't looked away from her, not for a second.
The flesh bag wriggled. One paw inched forward and the jagged bone connected to it was slowly pulled back into body. It -Leo, he tried to stand, and Katherine took a step back, almost passing through the door into the club. He managed to get two horribly mangled legs under him before he collapsed again. A low whine escaped somewhere from his body, but she couldn't see where. The head was nowhere in sight. She didn't dare look around, afraid she might she it lying around in the alley somewhere. She hoped it was under the body.
At the sound of the whine, Nathan looked down. His dark glasses hid any emotion he might have shown. "Close your eyes, human." Katherine blinked. He suddenly sounded old. Nathan repeated himself. "Close your eyes, human, or you shall scream and I will be forced to dispose of you here."
The whine hadn't stopped. Despite all logic, she obeyed the command. There was another sound of squelching mud and breaking sticks, and then the whine stopped. Katherine shook and panic rose in her throat. He's killed him.
"Eyes closed," Nathan warned. Katherine went intangible, just to prove she was safe. Knave's girl wasn't. As far as she could tell, the girl was still alive. Somehow, her mind focused on that. Mystique had said to save the fille's life, if possible. There definitely was a possibly of saving her life, though Katherine doubted she would be able to reach the fille before Nathan would.
The whine suddenly started again, and loud. Katherine listened to crunching and swishing sounds for a few minutes. She forced them out of her head, trying to think of a plan. From what she knew, Nathan had knocked the girl unconscious, and Leo had bounded in to save her. Katherine's art buff had swatted the morphed Lycaon into the wall, a mercy blow. There was a very large, crumbled section of wall to her left. Leo had gotten to his feet, mostly unhurt, and tried another charge. For some reason, Nathan had been so fixated on her that he forgot about the beast man. Leo had slammed into his opponent with enough momentum to break his way through the entire brick wall to her left. Unfortunately, unlike the wall, Nathan hadn't budged. With no cushion of stone and mortar, the force had crushed Leo, like he had fallen from a very high place onto a steel floor.
The whine became a soft growl, then a shocked yap. Katherine's eyes flew open to see a badly injured, but intact black wolf held in the air by the scruff of its neck. It was a wolf, not some halfway thing like before. A werewolf, she realized. Leo was like a werewolf.
"Go home," Nathan said forcefully, glaring straight into the enormous animal's eyes. He dropped Leo. The wolf slowly got to its feet and tried to limp over to the girl. Nathan shoved it away and Leo tried again. Over and over again, the same sequence happened. Katherine crept towards the girl. She thought of disappearing under the pavement and swimming for it, but then she saw Nathan's eye flick to her no few times. If he was as fast as he was strong, he could be clear on the other side of town with the fille when she surfaced. All she needed was a tiny touch and she could disappear underground with the girl and Leo. By the time he tunneled underground or figured out where she had surfaced, she would be the one clear on the other side of town.
As she almost crawled along the ground, Katherine tried not to laugh. It seemed so much like that night in the cemetery with Kurt, only so different. She had endurance and training now, but it seemed useless in front of such a powerful mutant. It was a given that she was perfectly safe, just as Mystique's gun had been harmless to her. It was the unconscious person so close to her and yet so far that was in danger.
Katherine suddenly saw Knave's fille as a sort of sister. We both have brown hair, why not? She wanted to protect the lovely girl with a gorgeous body and a bruise forming on her left temple.
Over a few minutes of shuffling around the trio, she realized that no one was watching her anymore. The two were so intent on each other and the fille that she was nothing. They didn't know she was there. The girl was obviously unable to know anything about her surroundings, but the other two should have noticed. She admitted she looked helpless, but some random neuron in their brains should have fired off the message, "Keep an eye on her!"
Leo was a wolf, he had to have smelled her. He also seemed like a very straightforward and truthful person. Even as a wolf, every thought was written on his face. She didn't think he could have hidden candy from a baby. She thought about how obvious it had been that he was guarding the girl. It was impossible that, injured as he was, Leo could have pretended ignorance of her. He wasn't a good enough actor to completely ignore her. Katherine looked down and saw her hand had passed through the ground. She was intangible, was her scent undetectable too? She'd never been around Logan long enough while ghosting to find out.
Nathan also seemed totally oblivious, which was strange considering his sharpness about everything else. For a while she thought he had indeed dismissed her as harmless and didn't bother to keep an eye on her. Then, from her angle, she saw it. A ring on his right hand, middle finger, gleamed very dully. She recognized the metal; she wore it on her ear. Mystique had said, It hides your mind and presence from telepaths, among other things. What were those other things; was Nathan one of them?
He had been so interested in her ear clasp, asking questions about what she knew of it. He wanted to know if she knew of its properties. Katherine suddenly felt good about her insane mother story, though she still supposed Mystique would be furious at the insults she had thrown in about her. Anyway, Nathan thought she just wore it because it was a gift. She wasn't important, so she had a shot.
Feet from her target, Katherine realized her breathing was loud. She stopped breathing and hoped the slight breeze was pushing enough air in and out her lungs. The trick worked wonderful when she moved, but it was as bad as holding her breath or diving inside a solid object when she held still. Her heartbeat was also very loud. She hoped Nathan's hearing wasn't super sharp and that Leo really wasn't listening. The most she could do was to use the meditation tricks Ororo and Wolverine had taught her.
The girl didn't know if it slowed her heartbeat, but after a few "breaths," her nerves were more steady and her mind clear. Katherine longed to dive under and grab the fille that way, but she knew if Nathan noticed her, he would be gone with the girl and she would surface, wondering, 'Which way did dey go?'
Behind Nathan to the right while he focused on the wolf at his left, she slowly reached for the closest part of the girl's body, coincidentally the bruised spot on her head. Katherine sincerely hoped that since Nathan was unwilling to hurt Leo, the same would hold true after she grabbed the girl. The gentleness in which he picked up the exhausted wolf and placed it away might have made her believe he would not harm her either, but he had threatened to kill her already. It hardly made her trusting of him.
Leo gave a shocked squeak and stared straight at her. The wolf had finally noticed she was forty feet closer than before. Nathan's turned on her, shocked. She fought the urge to strangle Lycaon and eat wolf stew for dinner, instead thrusting her hand towards the girl. Just touch. She just needed a tiny touch and they were safe.
***
Cliffhanger. Kill me after I resolve it. Well, does Katherine get the girl? ...That sounded wrong. And uh, yes, how did Leo go from bag of broken bones to wolf? I'm explaining it in 1-2 chapters, so don't ask me, please.
Whoa, okay. This is Sooooo long. Again, never expect such longness from me, it just happens.
Okay, because this is taking so long to get back to the Rogue/Remy, I'm sticking in *another* dream scene soon.
I have this feeling I've totally screwed Emma. Vengeful, uses sex as a weapon, insane, deadly, vain -yeah, I've got all that down. She just feels over the top and melodramatic. Oh...bad memory...Sex therapy...with Scott. Aagh!! ...I'm Still not over that one.
Oh, Good God! I've thickened the plot -again! It's got to be rock hard by now.
Review Responses:
Daughter of Bast 1:
Now that's a nice review. Really, Tithe? I've looked at it a few times, but felt reluctant to pick it up and tear apart the covers. I've had the contents of books try to devour me before...literally. Imagine a ten foot version of the Hagrid's Monster textbooks chasing after me, gnashing its pages open and closed. And Thanks for the back up. I'm eternally bedridden with self-doubt.
Bitrona:
Darn. Still no Rogue/Remy/Romy. It's a Kitty world right now. Give me something for sticking in the White Queen at least...shoot. Why not? She's like Mystique's soul sister or something. Oh well, I progress steadily towards extended Romy. Heh, heh. You know, I probably should have warned you guys it wouldn't be exclusively Rogue and Remy in the summary. Oops.
Alliryian:
Ignore the Choo-master cat thing for a while. It shall be explained. Hey, I think you're the only reviewer who is confused. This is good. Either my writing has become better or my readers have become resigned to this little fact of life: ToS is confusin', man!
Turquoise:
Spoke too soon. Tattoos? Okay, I'm not 100% sure in the science involved here, but basically, a tattoo is ink injected under your skin, meant to stain the skin cells forever. It's in the cells. My theory (Mystique's, actually) is that Katherine can phase her body but not the ink (or some weird vice-versa). Point is, water run through the tattooed area picks up the stain and carries it away. Permanent tattoo becomes a relative term
Gothic Cajun:
Hey! I included more of the no breathing stuff. See; introduce cool stuff early so you can use it in the tense scenes. Isn't prior planning wonderful that way?
Lonewolf:
I almost killed the wolf guy, I'm sorry...why do I write to you about such things? I survived school, and I have the GPA to prove it. Yay! I can write more.
NiteSky:
Well, I updated. Finally. Okay, maybe a week later than I predicted, but I still updated. And I've made a bigger fool of myself, don't you worry. Case in point: my little tantrum strike. Heh-heh. Why did I bring that up? *Bangs head on table*
Analis Destiny:
NO ROMY. I apologize, but everything I
write is somehow connected to those two...eventually. It makes you deserve it more when I finally get to it. ...uh, did that make any sense at all?
Piotr's Girl:
Yes, well, by finding it later on, you've avoided some very embarrassing moments of mine. I'm grateful for new readers, because I get new opinions (not that I don't love those that have stuck with me the whole way!) and feedback. That and I can get a whole new author page to exploit your fics and favorites. I don't think I've just looked at the main X: Evo page for a month. I like the reader tester, reviewer approved fics. "Search of the Unknown," for example. Sounds interesting.
Personage:
Yes, the new Kitty...*ahem*...Katherine! I meant Katherine! The new "Katherine" is a characterization I'm proud of. She seems more true to that Pryde you find in the later comics, not that I have a special background knowledge in them, but an adult acting Kit...Katherine is a good thing.
Everyone else: Thanks for the exam sympathy. On a bright note, I updated, and my notorious case of writer's block vanished overnight. Unfortunately, it's morning now and I have school in the morning, like in less than four hours. Oh well, that's why I keep three alarm clocks. Night!
