READ THIS!!!   Okay, I've figured out a way to get this story back on the Romy track.  *looks around, trying to find the source of loud cheering* It involves a dream sequence, a helluva lot of LeBeau Family politics, and --y'all are going to hate me for this--  massive reconstruction on the entire fic.  *dodges hundreds of bullets in a Matrix-like manner*  ...sigh.  Yes, I'm doing revisions (as in putting in new material in addition to repairing the old stuff) midfic and nothing will stop me.  To answer that worrisome question in the back of your minds, though: No, you won't have to reread the entire thing, just an add-on I'm attaching to the beginning of the fic.  Think of it like a flash back.  On the plus side, it lets Rogue...Ahem, she isn't Rogue yet in the new part...Fine, nitpick voice in my head, fine!  It lets Miss Adler have more fic time and gives the story an actual, real, honest to God, non-OC antagonist.  Yahoo!!

To alleviate fears, I will continue to post chapters 22, 23, and maybe even 24 before I implement the change.  Again, on the plus side, it will steer the plot towards the impending point of no return for Rogue and Remy's marriage: an official ceremony!  That means lots of my madcap style Romy along the way.  If I don't do this, the plot will swing more and more towards Katherine until I kill the couple off and focus on her and a few, key OCs exclusively.  That is a threat, by the way.  Grr. 

Sorry.  I probably sounded kinda mean ...okay, really bitchy when I wrote that.  I'm mostly just trying to beat myself into submission by giving an ultimatum; you guys just got caught in the crossfire.  It's hard for me to gather the courage and work ethic to revise.  At least that damned Creole ≠ Cajun issue will disappear when I'm finished.  I do know the difference, I'm just lazy!!  

Ch 21: A Woman Named LeBeau

Deep within the Boudreaux Compound, Marius, Leader of the Assassins, was on his knees.  Head bent subserviently, he begged his master's forgiveness.  The motionless statue that was his lord stared down upon him coolly.  Meticulously arranged clothes clung to his impressive, larger than life figure.  The only lights in the darkened room were aimed to light up his pale features in a foreboding and powerful manner.  He stood tall and straight, critically judging the man who knelt before him.

Marius, finally with nothing left to beseech his master for, ended his entreaty with words he knew by heart.  Quietly, he broke the room's long silence with a faint whisper, "Forgive me, Lord, for I have sinned.  Thou shalt not Ratsach; so say your words.  Yet I lie in wait to murder men and their wives, their children.  Forgive me, Amen."  So ended his prayers, his daily ritual.  Still on his knees, he opened his eyes and studied the sculpture of his Lord Jesus before him.  As always, the Boudreaux man found himself in awe when he gazed upon the Savior's face.  It was only an imitation, but the statue of Christ seemed more real and lifelike in stone than Marius did in flesh.  Truly, something holy had guided the hands of the piece's maker.

He heard the faint, smooth sound of the door gliding open.  One of his men entered the room slowly and reverently.  "The Lady Frost has taken her leave of the cabaret, Milord," the retainer announced at last when he sensed his master was willing to listen.  "She was reported to be --quite aggravated."  Marius inclined his head slowly in acknowledgement before rising to his feet, a silent message that he very much wished to speak to Everett and see what the Hell went wrong.  The serving man, Ethiopian in origin, quickly retrieved the cushion the Boudreaux leader had knelt upon.  He went to a small table at the side of the room and placed the soft, cream colored pillow upon it.  It would be washed and returned to its place before the statue by dawn.  In a graceful manner gained from years of repetition, he retrieved a fresh set of Marius' outer clothing and brought it to the man. 

In moments, he had dressed his lord in a silk shirt of the same golden, creamy material as the pillow.  The Boudreaux himself buttoned the delicate cuffs as his man placed upon him an elegant vest of dulled and blackened alligator hide.  As he straightened his clothing, the servant laced up tall boots that matched the vest.  While he attended to his collar, he felt his long, golden hair being pulled into a no-nonsense yet refined tail.  When the man was finished, he stepped toward his own personal cabinet.  Pulling the rich mahogany doors apart, he eyed the assortment of weapons.

After an instant's deliberation, Marius pulled a slim throwing knife from many assorted along the back of the cabinet.  He slid it into position within the sheath already hidden underneath his left shirt arm, bringing the number of blades he stored there up to five.  Next, he removed a thin and feather light revolver from a high shelf and placed it in a secret pocket on the inside of his vest at the small of his back.  Finally, the Boudreaux reverently lifted the sword, his symbol of office, from its pedestal and carefully buckled it to his belt.  He stroked the polished scabbard a moment before turning towards the door.  Inwardly, he felt anxious to find out what had gone wrong with Everett's deal with Frost Industries.  However, his training removed any outward expression of his concern as it had for so many years.

Completely prepared, he strode out the open door into the hall.  His eyes swept about the marble corridor before him.  His eyes rested briefly upon the crosses, the sky painted upon the ceiling, all the signs of his family's devoutness, and the beauty of white marble dressed with blue and gold about him, but they soon moved on to scout for any danger.  Such was his training, and even the safety of his own home could not appease the assassin's weariness.  Marius took note of the two guards who fell into step behind him.  Though he could not be bothered to remember their names, he knew they were the two assigned for him that day.  He relaxed slightly.  He would not be attacked in his halls that night.

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Behind the statue of Jesus that Marius had just left, a shadow stirred.  Quietly and stealthily, it crept passed the black servant who diligently cleaned up any trace of the room being occupied.  LeBeau kept a watchful eye on him as she backed out the same door the Head of the Boudreaux House had used.  She scanned both sides of the hallway for signs of life before following Marius and his two guards.  As they passed an intersection, she looked both ways before crossing.

LeBeau silently pulled a switchblade from inside her dark uniform as she came closer to the group.  She turned around in a circle, careful to make no sound as she searched for any hostile presence.  Deeming it safe enough, she rose from her crouch and stood tall.  Raising her blade to wipe out the offending blight on the landscape, she froze.  There had been an odd sound.  She turned and went to a door set open only a crack.  Peering through the hole, she saw one of the Boudreaux night staff hurriedly pick up the mop he had dropped, most likely in exhaustion.  Turning back into the hall, she again analyzed the situation.  There appeared to be no danger, but there was no way of truly knowing. 

Nearing the group again, she did another sweep of the area.  Deciding it was safe, she raised the knife to shoulder height.  Then LeBeau cut off the long, stray thread from her uniform.  Quickly snapping the blade closed and wrapping the offending strand about it, she replaced it in her person.  Silently, she took her usual place as Marius's rear guard.

The young woman alternatively switched between searching for any potential assassins and adjusting her appearance to match the standards of her lord.  Crouching behind a statue for several hours while Marius relaxed, took a nap, enjoyed a few drinks, and prayed hardly helped her look pristine.  Her hands swept over her uniform, a black version of the outfit worn by all of the Boudreaux guards and quite possibly the shabbiest affair the Family's seamstresses had ever turned out.  It was supposed to be durable to the point of insanity, but in reality, its poor construction made it about as delicate as spider's silk.  The suit was constantly falling to pieces and she –never being taught niceties like sewing- was forever cutting off loose strands and hoping the end result didn't look too threadbare.

After making her clothing as presentable as she could, she moved on to her hair.  Scraggly, uneven auburn locks fell about her head, a result of cutting her hair by hacking at it with a switchblade.  The young woman's hair was too thick to support the preferred, long length braid of Boudreaux guards, not mention that she barely had time enough to wash her hair, let alone brush it smooth and braid it.  She used her left hand to tuck her hair into a decent position actually behind her ears while the right strayed towards the gun at her hip.  There was another odd sound, and somehow she was sure that it was not another clumsy cleaning staff member.  Rapid, loud steps echoed down the intersecting hall Marius was just crossing.  The right guard glanced down the passageway at the ready, but quickly relaxed and passed by.  However, he didn't turn back to a forward position before jerking his head from her to the hall.   

LeBeau schooled her features into an emotionless mask as she withdrew her gun from its holster.  There was a situation.  The problem either wasn't glorious enough for him to handle or too dangerous.  That of course meant that she was supposed to handle it.  There was nothing lost if she was killed, and no one in the compound had qualms about giving her dirty work.  She turned down the hall and looked at the situation.  A man sprinted down the hall, not winded at all.  He'd slept in his clothes at least two nights in a row, but he looked rested, if rumpled.  There was a metal band cinched over his arm that denoted him as important enough to not kill, under interrogation, and dangerous.  He took note of her the instant she had him.  She readied her gun.  He had his own revolver, likely stolen from his personal guard, and damn if it didn't look like he knew how to use it.  He aimed it at her coolly.

That Marius had passed the man unscathed bothered her.  He wasn't an assassin, or at least not one with a contract on the Boudreaux leader's life, so things were a lot more difficult.  His primary goal likely to get out of the compound alive.  He hadn't shot Marius because he was preserving bullets.  That spoke something about his intelligence.  The young woman frowned.  She was exhausted, absolutely starved to death, extremely cramped from her long stint behind the statue of Jesus, her Lord Savior, and ticked off that she had to deal with a disturbance on what would have been her day off if she a vacation package, or pay for that matter.  LeBeau shot the gun out of his hand and then aimed her own pistol at his head.  He froze.  The escapee hadn't expected her gun to have a built in silencer, which had been her saving grace.  People like him were trained to dodge bullets after they heard them coming.  He would have gotten out of the way, then fired the instant he heard a gunshot, and probably hit her somewhere vital.  The chance of her receiving immediate medical attention was nonexistent, so silently thanked the Lord for that silencer as she stared the prisoner down.  He cocked his head at the gun, not quite believing she had shot his weapon away without harming him.  She stood there, not quite believing she had shot her firearm at all.  She had just used up her only bullet -though she wasn't about to tell him that.  Far away, there was a faint sound of running footsteps.  The man grew frightened at the sound, so there was no possibility in his mind that they could be back-up for his side.  The noise relieved Marius's most unorthodox guard as much as it panicked him.  To her it meant that Boudreaux men were coming.  It would have been odd if she had just stood there, aiming a gun a man for minutes without trying anything.  He would guess correctly that the gun was empty and make a run for it.  With her backup coming in from behind, she seemed like a solid, impenetrable wall.  Fortunately, walls didn't have to move. 

While she waited for the runners in the distance to appear, her mind turned to the injustice of it all.  Everyone that wasn't some sort of menial servant in the building was armed to the teeth except for her.  All she was allowed was a single bullet and her one, trusty switchblade.  It was the answer to a logistics problem.  How could Marius make a girl his bodyguard when he fully expected her to kill him, given half a chance?  Well, if he kept two trustworthy guards with him at all times, armed himself, and threatened to kill her mother if she tried anything, then she was effectively trapped.  If she managed to off two of the Marius and Guards trio, then the remaining man would stop her.  Wasn't life grand?

Two guards came around the bend and the man's heart fell.  He would likely never leave the compound alive.  He looked at her, his eyes revealing his hopelessness and despair.  She looked back at him, her sunglasses hiding the hopelessness and despair shining in her own eyes.  He didn't know that she was a prisoner just like him.  Marius's men were ordered to shoot her if she tried to leave his home.  As the guards dragged the prisoner back to where he had come, she went back to her spot behind Marius. 

Along the way, she again tried to make her self presentable.  Her hair had fallen to its preferred spot over her eyes.  Tucking it back again, LeBeau took advantage of her shades to pin the more unruly bits into place.  Finally, she adjusted the sunglasses, spending a lot of time making sure they wouldn't slide.  She shivered, remembering the last time she accidentally let Marius see her eyes.  They were the reason why her life was a living Hell, her eyes.  Everything had been fine until they inexplicably turned a glowing demonic red a few years back.  She woke up one morning and panicked.  Her mother, she tried to tell her that it was normal, that it was only because of her real father's blood, but she hadn't calmed down until she was in the emergency room.  Then, within an hour of the doctor's visit, she had been taken away for "further testing."  If further testing meant being beaten by silent men dressed in white and blue, locked in a crate, and then gift dropped to a terrifying man named Marius Boudreaux, then yes, the doctor hadn't been a lying bastard.  She had spent a horrifying few months being reprogrammed like she was a computer.  Only God knew what they had done to her; she didn't care to remember.  One side effect of that programming was that now she actually thought of herself as LeBeau: the strange name she had been given that no one would explain to her.  Wasn't life grand?       

Falling behind the leader of the Assassins again, LeBeau felt a faint tingle along her stomach.  She pulled out the cell phone and took the call as her eyes swept about the hall, searching for any potential assassins.  The man on the line delivered his message and terminated the call, unwilling to sink to small talk with the hated LeBeau she devil.  She closed the phone and replaced it on her person.  It was nothing she wasn't used to.

"Everett's in de foyer, Monsieur Boudreaux," she said quietly, breaking her silence for the first time that day.  He didn't look back, but she saw his back muscles clench with agitation.  She cringed. 

Without turning his head, he ordered curtly, "Improve your speech, LeBeau."  She hung her head slightly.  She had forgotten how much her Cajun dialect irritated him.  Somehow, she thought her next training session wouldn't be a pretty one.

"Yes, mon seigneur," she said softly, careful to remove all sarcasm from her voice.

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For the thousandth time, Marius wondered why he put up with the girl.  The answer was that a LeBeau pet was worth any aggravation she might cause him.  Dr. Donal's blood tests proved that she was indeed the late Darien LeBeau's bastard daughter, but they held no indication of what demonic ability she possessed.  Darien had created invisible walls, and that new one -Remy Etienne- enjoyed explosives if his spies were correct.  LeBeau, she had no apparent power, which irked him.  It was too much to hope that it had been successfully exorcized from her, so it was either something unnoticeable or she was smart enough to hide it.

As always, he didn't have time to think about it.  God had chosen that he be a busy man by making him be born into the Boudreaux family, and He always managed to find something to occupy His servant's attention.  As Marius stepped into the foyer, he almost sighed.  God intended for him to be very busy that night.  Rubble littered the area and a cleaning woman stood in the center of the room by a pool of blood, doing absolutely nothing about it.  Belatedly, he also noted that Everett lay unconscious by the elevator.

Curious, he gestured to guard on his left that the man question the maid.  Within instants, the woman launched into a very excited story.  "Sah, what happened?  Why, I was here, polishin' these floors nice an' beautiful when a drop of red somethin' plopped down next ta me.  I looked down, an' it was blood.  I look up, and tha Lady, she be cryin' Sah.  Cryin' blood.  It starts to come down real fast, and I's scared.  Then brick and dust, it starts to fall, fall straight through the painted sky up there.  I's scared, but nothin' touches me.  It stops and I look up.  Mary looks down at me, eyes still red from tha cryin'.  She looks beautiful an' holy even with those horrible, demon lookin' eyes."

Marius glanced at LeBeau critically, who suddenly looked white as a sheet.  The woman went on, "Then this oaf here," he assumed she meant Everett, "he comes down here all high an' mighty.  I tries ta tell, tries to tell him it's a miracle.  Yah know what he says ta me?"  She looked around, he eyes something wild.  "He calls mah Lady a woman of…of…a woman of bad color!  He started ranting evil things and, oh bless his heart, one of the angels up there in the painting got mad, and he hurled a brick at tha oaf's head."

Marius eyed the unconscious man.  The woman was rather too excited to be lying, and frankly, he wouldn't put it past Everett to try to destroy the good name of the Virgin.  Disgusted, he took control of the situation.  After a minute of terse conversation to the people in the Foyer and on the phone, his guards dragged Everett away for good.  The maid received a raise for her faith if nothing else and was convinced to leave the area of her "miracle."  A crew was brought to the site to clean up the mess.  A scientist came and took a large sample of the blood for testing before the pool was mopped up.  The man in charge of the surveillance in the compound informed his that the camera watching the area directly above the underground foyer had been out for roughly half an hour.  He sighed at that; it would be so nice to just call it a fakery or a miracle based off of that tape but God said it was not to be. 

Everything taken care of, he stared up dispassionately at the Virgin's red eyes.  Marius finally went over to LeBeau.  She obediently handed him her revolver and knife.  He walked down the hall with only her behind him.  The damned woman followed him into is quarters and made her way deep into them where her own small room lay.  Allowing himself to be undressed, he tried to banish thoughts of a Mary with blood red eyes and failed.  As he settled in for sleep, he somehow knew he would dream of a Virgin with sunglasses and scraggly auburn hair who cried blood.

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(Ookay, me be very warped.  Let's move on…hey, at least it was in the X-Men universe!  Now onward, to Katherine driving a car…*giggles*    )

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Katherine stared the thick folder lying in her lap.  She knew there was more in it that she hadn't seen, but she was afraid to look.  There couldn't be anything worse than her own death certificate, but one thing nagged at her.  "If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway," she quoted in a low mutter.  The girl looked at the unprepossessing manila folder; it seemed so plain, so harmless.  How could such an ordinary thing hurt her?  After gathering her courage, she opened the folder, hurriedly paged past the card that declared her a corpse, and narrowed her eyes. 

She whispered, "Murphy, why do you have to be so right?"

Another person's photograph lay there.  It took her a moment to recognize the smiling face gazing up at her.  She had thought of him as fuzzy for so long, it was strange to seem him without his midnight blue fur, yellow eyes, and fangs.  Kurt flashed his patented toothy grin at her, and she narrowed her eyes further to keep from tearing up.  "Damn you, Murphy," she whispered.  Katherine flipped the photo around, not wanting to see him anymore.  She frowned and squinted to decipher a jagged scrawl of cursive on the picture's back.  She read aloud, "Kart Wagner, poppy Dunce wiener, pressured dead at bird?"  She blinked.  "What?  That can't be right."  Picking up the photo and placing it inches from her face, she tried again.  "Kurt Wagner, possibly Duke Wagner, presumed dead at birth ...holy shit!"

The wolf in the back made a huffing noise from under the blanket.  She glance back him worriedly for all of two-thousandths of a second before returning her attention to the photo.  Katherine's mouth made a little oh as she remembered what Mystique told her about the Wagners so she wouldn't 'disgrace the family name.'  The Blue Bitch had said the boy was only missing, though.  A little brain power and she put two and two together.  "Cross out the possibly, he is Duke Wagner."  She shook her head and wondered why it mattered that much.  It wasn't like he could just walk into a ballroom in Europe and be fawned over.  He would need to be blue blooded, not blue haired.  His appearance was likely the reason why the note said he was "presumed" dead.  The second his mother saw the tail, she had probably tossed him in a river.

Katherine realized she was rambling in her head, and she knew why.  She was actually stalling for the moment when she would have to drive the car.  Shaking her head, she berated herself, "Baby.  It can't be any harder than riding a bike.  There are four wheels for God's sake."  She started looking around in the car and found out that Knave's fille was the smart type that kept her keys on her person.  Sighing, she shrugged and plunged her hand into her stomach.  She fished around in her navel for a while before pulling out—

"My room key."  She frowned and ghosted it back into herself.  She tried again and pulled out, in order, several tracking devices, her fake ID, the money she was supposed to use for bribery but likely go shopping with for a new house, her room key again, her cell phone, and the keys to her bike.  Katherine groaned and tried one more time.  "Where is that damned…oh."  She pulled out a silver cylinder that looks a lot like a lipstick tube.  After studying it for a minute, she pressed a button on the back.  A strange sort of skeleton key popped out the other side.  The girl pinched the extended colored tube and felt it give like putty.  It returned to a flat orange stick when she let go.  Frowning, she pinched it again and then pressed the button.  That time the orange material held the shape.  "Why do I feel like I'm James Bond's little sister?" she murmured as she jammed the soft stick into the ignition and pressed the button on the back.  She turned the "key" and felt the car spring to life. That done, she sat there and racked her brain, trying to remember every time she had watched her mother drive the minivan.  Silently thanking God that the car wasn't a stick shift, she pressed down on the break and shifted the car into neutral, then drive.  Smiling, she let her foot off the brake, and then hastily slammed it back down when the car began to move.  Katherine stared at her feet, wondering what idiot thought it was a good idea to make the car drive when the acceleration pedal wasn't being pressed. 

Trying again, she slowly lifted her foot off the break and started to steer.  She tried swerving right away from the brick wall, back towards it, and driving straight.  It didn't seem too hard.  Then she made the mistake of pressing the accelerator.  About one second and a hundred feet later, Katherine slammed on the break.  The unconscious Leo made a horrified yelp in the back, and she agreed with him wholeheartedly.  She took a deep, steadying breath and started again.  She managed to drive down the alley fairly well.  The turn to get out onto the street came up, and she didn't turn fast enough.  Again, Katherine closed her eyes and made the brakes screech.  Her tire treads were going to be gone soon.  Slowly she opened her eyes.  The brick wall of  alley was inches from her nose -her actual, flesh and blood, in desperate need of plastic surgery nose.  Her legs and arms were ghosted through the wall.  "Thank God for super powers," she heard herself whisper as she put the car into reverse and backed it out of the wall, leaving both car and wall unscathed.

After a few interesting experiences with switching a car from drive to reverse and back again, Katherine finally got the car through the curve.  With some practice and a bit of trial and error, she found herself weaving through the empty alleys with relative ease.  Within five minutes she wasn't even needing to ghost through corners and trashcans.  Katherine started to look around.  Fun as driving around in dark back ways was, she needed to get on a road with a street sign and find her way back to the hotel where Mystique kept base.  She had a street map stashed in her belly too, but it wouldn't get her out of the large, dirty maze she was stuck in.

Katherine started to hear the faint sound of cars and worked her way towards it.  Eventually, she found that her road spilled out onto a main street, thankfully one not filled with traffic.  She suddenly felt a fear way up in her throat.  She would have to drive on the road with other drivers sooner or later.  To take her mind off of it, the girl glanced at readout in the car and found out she was facing east.  After a few mental calculations, she figured she was north of her hotel.  Slowly, she turned right, adamant that she would stay on nearly empty side roads.

About ten minutes later she found herself in hell: stuck in forty mile an hour traffic.   Cars whizzed past her over the speed limit by about forty miles an hour and her heart threatened to go into cardiac arrest, she stayed at just under the limit, pretending to be somebody's slowpoke granny.  The tactic seemed to work, and she finally found herself in familiar territory at the same time the traffic thinned dramatically. 

As her hotel came into sight, Katherine suddenly had the urge to smack her head into the steering wheel.  There was a wolf in the backseat.  There was no was she was going to be able to sneak up an unconscious, four foot tall wolf through the lobby and up seven flights without being noticed.  She briefly thought about how fun it would be to try, but then she spent her mental resources trying to find a solution.  By the time she figured out what to do, she was in the parking lot.  With some difficultly, she did a U-turn and drove the car to the back of the hotel.  Parking next to the wall, she got out of the car and leaned on it.  She spent a quick minute thanking God she had survived. 

It was about time the Blue Bitch gave her a helping hand, Katherine thought when finished.  She considered her ways of making contact, including storming down to the hidden basement smashing the redhead with a two by four.  Finally she settled on walking a good ways from the car but within in easy range of it.  The girl didn't want to lose Leo as well as Knave's fille. 

"Mystique?" she asked.  After a minute a complete silence, she semi-shouted, "Mystique!"

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Meanwhile, Raven Darkholme was having a bad day.  She picked up a thirty kilo Grecian urn and hurled it across the room.  Her son Echil's DNA helped with the lifting, but the anger and senseless rage was all hers.  Morphed into the cat man, she growled and eyed the elegant office around her, intent on destroying everything in her path.  She grasped a vase sporting delicate, white lilies.  The flowers' pale petals reminded her of the pale skin of a Night Child, a vampire.  "Nakor," she snarled and smashed the vase into the wall.  He was still hunting, still roaming the night, still kidnapping innocents with loved ones and wives and families and people who would miss them so much. 

Mystique slammed her fist through the wall, remembering when she woke up before dawn to find her love gone from her arms.  She remembered when Echil went off in search of his father, only a boy, and didn't return for days.  She had feared that he was killed too.  Then he returned and told about creature he smelled Cramir's blood on.  It spoke strange, but called itself Nakor, her son had said in his simple way before limping off to mourn.  She remembered searching for the beast called Nakor at night for years before she found him.  He greeted her and called himself Nakor.  It was the only word she understood in his strange words, for all that they sounded vaguely familiar.  He had mistaken her for his own kind like he had her son.  It sickened her think he thought she was a murderer of children and a render of families.

She started to rip the thin marble slabs from the wall.  Wasn't it enough that he had torn apart her first real family?  Echil was never the same after Cramir died; she was never the same.  Now Nakor threatened everything again.  Mystique opened her eyes suddenly, remembering Katherine.

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It had been ten minutes.  Exasperated, Katherine asked the heavens, "Where's my guardian angel when I need it?"

*That is the first time anyone had called me an angel.*

Katherine, though relieved the woman was there to help her out, was sorely ticked off.   She replied sickly sweet, "And the last time too because when I get my hands on you, you're going to Hell.  Where were you!"

There was a brief silence on the airwave before the Blue Bitch answered cryptically, *A situation came up.*

"Yeah, it was a werewolf flying into a brick wall inches from my face!" she snarled back.  Her sunglasses slid down her nose and she angrily jabbed them back up.

*Judging by the presence of the girl's car, you apparently succeeded,* the woman said smoothing, trying to change the topic of conversation.  Katherine wasn't having any of it.

"Yeah," she agreed sarcastically.  "If succeeded means the target was kidnapped by a super powered mutant, then sure.  Otherwise I repeat:  Where the Hell were you!"  There was a long moment of silence, and then another.  Katherine blinked.  Surely the woman hadn't...  "Mystique?"  The was no answer.  The woman had, she had cut the connection.  "Bitch!" she growled.

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Mystique's fingers flew over the computer, searching for any sign of the kidnapped fille.  Her eyes widened, and she double, then triple checked what she thought she saw.  Her eyes did not deceive her.  Katherine had actually managed to get a trace on a Night Child's prey.  The sense of foreboding she had suddenly felt when the girl said Nakor carried off her target lessened a little.  If cards were played right, it could come out all right.  She briefly entertained dark thoughts of exterminating the vampire's entire colony as the moving dot of light blipped on the computer map of New Orleans, but then she remembered that Katherine wasn't a killer.

She turned the audio communication between her and the girl back on, ready to inform the girl on what she needed to do.  She clicked the mouse and instantly heard an ear splitting, *MYSTIQUE!*

The woman in question winced.  The system was set up so she could hear the faintest whisper and listening to a shout hurt.  Thankfully, she managed to turn the volume down by the time Katherine screeched her name again.  She interrupted the girl by asking, "Katherine, was the girl drunk?"

There was a pause and Mystique could almost see the double take.  *Huh?*

"If she isn't," she went on, "then you don't have any time.  Was the girl drunk?"

*Actually, I think she was.  What does that have to do with anything?*   

"It bought you a few hours," Mystique replied, then pressed, "How drunk?"

*How should I know!* the girl cried indignantly.  *What do you mean it bought me some time?  I have time.  Wait for the ransom note to come out, then hum-ho.  There I go to save the day.*

The Blue Woman looked at the hardwood of her desk with an eye to bash her head into it.  She stopped herself only at the last moment, deciding not to form a bad habit.  She had forgotten that Katherine didn't know about the supernatural part of the world.  How utterly stupid of her; in New Orleans, such ignorance could have killed Miss Pryde and already almost did.  "Katherine," she said softly, trying to explain.  "That thing doesn't want to ransom the girl, it wants to eat her."

There was a very uncomfortable silence.  *...Oh. ...What the--"

"There's no time," Mystique interrupted.  "Its kind can not digest alcohol, so it must wait for the victim's BAC to drop to almost nothing.  Unless it's absolutely starving, it will wait a few hours beyond that."

*Wait.  Why are you calling Nathan an it?  What do you mean his kind?* 

Sensing that the girl meant to ask more questions, Raven intervened by saying, "You don't have time to hear out the explanation.  I need you to get back to the club.  Interrogate the bartenders, see how much she consumed."

*Uh…"

Mystique's attention perked up.  That was a very interesting sounding "uh" that she wanted to know all about.

*...I might have someone a step better.  If he would wake up and turn back into his human shape.*

The woman sat back hard, realizing with a faint trace of horror what the girl meant.  "You took Lycaon with you," she said numbly. 

*I can't just abandon a  mutant to vets or a zoo.  When he morphs from a wolf to human, there's going to problems.*  Again with the believing a supernatural creature was a mutant.  Mystique frowned.  The girl needed a crash course in mythology and soon. However, it definitely was not the right time.  She pulled up a quick file she had made on Leo earlier before Nakor's appearance had thrown her into a rage.   His biological mother was a human.  She quirked her eyes at that piece of information. 

"He fully transformed," she said in disbelief, unable to accept that a half-breed lycanthrope could become a full wolf. 

Not catching her drift, Katherine replied, *I don't think it was on purpose.  He had a little...accident with Nathan.  I close my eyes and the next thing, I know, there's a hurt four foot beast where an almost dead wolf-man was.  I think Nathan did something.*

It took a moment for her to connect Nathan with Nakor, then she blinked.  The blood, Mystique realized.  Even in a low concentration, a Night Child's blood would speed up the fast healing abilities of a Lycaon to the point of a miracle.  Why the beast would help anyone, even a lycanthrope, was beyond her, but at least she knew what had happened.  It was more than what she could say for Katherine.

*In any case,* the girl went on, *he's still injured and unconscious in the back of that girl's car.  I'm in the hotel's back.  I need to get him up to my room without being seen.*

Mystique sighed.  It was probably the least she could do.  She was about to literally plunge the girl into a nest of blood sucking vipers.  Nodding, she answered, "I'll handle it.  There's a sort of nasal spray in your kit.  Use it on him; it will knock him conscious in seconds.  The wolf is a sort of instinctual part of him.  If you wake up the brain, you should wake up the human side.  Don't ask me how I know.  Just be careful and try to keep him from destroying the room.  There's a company in New Orleans that repairs damage with no questions asked, but they still keep records.  The less traces you leave and the less I have to pay for this, the better."

She heard a faint whoosh when the girl nodded.  *That's great Mystique, but there's something...*

Mystique rolled her eyes, and then instantly wanted to slap herself for it.  "No time," she reminded the girl.  "The team should be coming out of the building now."

*I see them, but Mystique, it's really--* 

She cut out the voice and went to work on tracking exactly where Knave's fille was being taken by Nakor.  As she did, she muttered something about young people and priorities.

}:{           )|(           \:/          }|{            \:/           )|(           }:{

        Damn.  I'd meant for this to be longer, but its late, I have school tomorrow, and I promised to post.  It's probably riddled with errors.  Sorry. 

However, on the bright side (hmm…I like saying that this chapter), it means I'll post the second part that much quicker, as in about two days.   

Oh, and I promise, promise(!) to stick in some Rogue and Remy in chapter 23 for you guys.  It means I'll probably cliffhang the part about whether Mell gets eaten or not (she's an OC, it could go either way) but –hey, what ever makes you guys happy.

And I'll post some review responses here tomorrow (3/29/04).

And that OC chick named LeBeau?  Yeah, I'm insane and I like OC characters way too much.  On the bright side…sorry…I pretty sure she's going to get killed off.  I like killing OCs almost as much as I like writing them.  It's why I write so many, so some of them get to live…you're all backing away now so I'll just say goodbye.

Bye!!!!