Chapter 4 Friday After School

Disclaimer: It all belongs to Marvel, except for my original characters, of course. But if Marvel wants to use them, they can. Feel free to post this, or any other Glaivester fic, anywhere, but please notify me so I can brag about it.

Kitty was very pleased with herself. She had managed to get Cain to agree to go with her. It wasn't really a date, but it was sort of intimate and would be nice.

She was going to temple that evening.

She had never really cared about such things before. Her family was not particularly religious. They did celebrate the more popularly known holidays, such as Hanukkah, but only in the sense that they went through the motions. Most of their decorations were indistinguishable from Christmas ones, although they tended more to lights than to anything specifically Christmas-y like Santa Claus and obviously nothing of a religious nature.

But having almost been killed by a virus designed specifically to hurt her people, Kitty began realizing that she had never really given much consideration to her Jewishness. Now she was beginning to question whether that was the right thing to do. It bothered her that an aspect of her identity that people were willing to kill her for, she generally ignored.

So she decided to go to temple. Perhaps she wouldn't enjoy it, she surmised, perhaps it wasn't something she'd want to do. Perhaps she would never appreciate the more observant ways of some Jews. But she felt that she owed it to herself to at least see what it was all about.

As for Cain, he had recently become interested in religion. He realized that he had never really thought about it much, and as part of his continuing rehabilitation from his out-of-control behavior earlier, had decided to check out what different religions there were and see what it was all about. He had already followed Kurt to mass and Jamie to a Baptist sermon. Now he was willing to try to see what Kitty's faith was. So he was going with her to see what it was like.

[A/N I am not right now going to try to describe their experience at temple. Being a Baptist, I am not really an expert in what a Jewish service is like. It may be similar to a Christian service, or it may be very different, for all I know. But not wanting to be inaccurate, I am going to forego the description until I have done a little more research, at which point I will update this chapter. If any of my readers know more about this subject than me, feel free to explain in the reviews].

Kurt, on the other hand, was looking forward to a date with Wanda. He would quickly see what Laura wanted for the club, and then after discussing it with her, would "BAMF" home to play with Talia and then to get ready.

So when he left school, he immediately sought out Laura. She was there, right outside the entrance of the building.

"Hi, Laura. Vhat did you vant to talk to me about? How can I help you start a club?"

"Well, can we talk somewhere a little more private? I don't want Dad to see you talking to me. He'll freak out."

Kurt nodded and touched Laura on the shoulder. Then he teleported them both to a spot about a mile away near a park.

"Well," asked Laura, getting all doe-eyed, "I was thinking. What is the easiest way to make someone appear non-threatening?"

"Er... I don't know."

"Show them that they can be sexy. I mean, no one would see mutants as threatening if they saw them as sexy, right?"

"Huh?"

"What you need to do, Kurt," and in saying this, Laura stroked Kurt's hair, "is that you need to show the world that you are a furry blue love machine."

Kurt stared at Laura as she began to unbutton her blouse. BAMF. He disappeared, leaving her in the clearing by herself.

"Hmm..." Looking at the sulfurous smoke Kurt left behind, Laura got a little upset, and then just smiled and relaxed. So this wasn't going to be easy. All the sweeter when it finally happened. She began walking back to her house.

That night, while Kitty and Cain were at temple, Tabitha was in the danger room with Remy, playing a duel between her explosives and his. Each was able quite easily to dodge the other's projectiles, and to throw more back at their opponent. Tabitha was having a great time, and was about to suggest that they put on bathing suits and play like that, when the lights flickered for a second and then went out.

Everyone rushed to the foyer to see what was the matter.

Suddenly the lights came back on and Magneto walked through the front door, holding his head. "Oooooo... it hurts."

"What happened?" asked Wanda, somewhat less than interested. Magneto was here to babysit his granddaughter along with Mystique, but Wanda had been hard-put to be convinced to let him. She suggested that her father might, for all she knew, put Talia in a mental institution while they were away.

"I... I was hit by a dart or something." Magneto did not have his helmet on, and so was vulnerable to such attacks from behind [A/N in keeping with XME, Magneto can resist most telepathy with or without his helmet, so his helmet mainly protects him from physical attacks]. "I lost control of my powers temporarily. I think I may have cut your power off or something.

"Yup. You did," responded Wanda.

Xavier, who was in his bathrobe, wheeled over and looked at the back of Magneto's head. "I can't see any problems," he said quickly, "but maybe Hank should check you out."

He motioned to Hank, who took Magneto downstairs to the infirmary.

"Maybe this means that Wanda and Kurt's date should be cancelled," commented Mystique, who was standing there wearing uncustomary jeans and a tank top.

While Magneto was being examined to the infirmary, Logan, Scott, Remy, and Piotr, the latter two of which were staying over the weekend, walked around outside trying to see if they could find the attacker. Jean and the Professor were using Cerebro to find anyone, but they were not successful, and everyone else was searching the inside of the house in case the attacker had come in, except for Jamie, who was watching TV with Talia.

Mystique, who was paired with Storm, suddenly noticed something. "You know, I didn't see Rogue in the foyer..."

They rushed to Rogue's room and got there to find Sauron hovering over her. Mystique ran in and hurled a punch at Sauron, knocking him back. He immediately fled out the window, but Mystique by mistake brushed against Rogue with her arm.

Mystique gave a gasp and collapsed to the floor. She immediately morphed into... well, into a nude Mystique. Apparently she had not actually been wearing any clothes when she had come down the stairs when the lights went out, and had just morphed their appearance.

Suddenly it hit Storm that the professor had been wearing a bathrobe when they had gathered in the foyer. "Naaaaa, it couldn't be..."

As it turned out, both Rogue and Magneto had been drugged with something that appeared to be slowly draining their mutant powers, as well as, in Rogue's case, temporarily knocking her out. But even after she regained consciousness, Rogue's powers were lessening, until finally, about an hour later, they were gone.

"Don't worry," said Beast, "from what I can discern, this should only last another twenty-four hours at most. I don't know why Sauron would do this... or more precisely, why Sinister would have this done."

It was decided that Sauron probably would not trouble them any more that night, and so Kurt and Wanda left on their date.

It was rather unremarkable, but that was good, given all of the excitement that had happened recently.

Wanda ordered pasta, and Kurt ordered fish. He had eaten a pizza beforehand so that he wouldn't be too hungry at the meal and order three or four servings.

What they didn't know were that both of their parents were having interesting experiences at the mansion.

First, Mystique had left Magneto to spend "quality one-on-one grandparent time" with T.J. She went up to the Professor's room and when Jean walked by a few minutes later, she heard some very strange noises. Logan walked by at the same time, and sniffed the air.

"Oh, no!" Logan's eyes narrowed. That bi- I mean that witch was just acting all along!"

Jean looked at Logan. "Who? I can't read whoever is in there..."

"It's Mystique! That concerned mother act was just a ruse so she could invade and kill the Professor!" He clawed open the door and burst in, with Jean close behind.

Suffice it to say that Mystique was indeed doing something to Xavier, but it wasn't killing him. Suffice it to also say that Xavier was not entirely paralyzed from the waist down, just his legs. And finally, it warrants mentioning that Logan and Jean ran out of the room, holding their burning eyes.

Later that evening, Xavier explained to Logan.

"You have to understand, I get really, really lonely sometimes."

About half an hour after leaving Magneto alone with Talia, Mystique came in to play a game with her. Magneto left, and suddenly his eyes glossed over. He walked up the stairs, and into Rogue's room, where she was napping. She got up and stared back at him with the same glassed-over eyes.

Ten minutes later, he left the room, and imagined that he had just gone up to use the facilities. For her part, Rogue assumed that she had not woken up at all.

[A/N So this story contains Xavtique, and Rogueneto (kind of). Yes, that was what Rogue and Magneto were doing. Three guesses as to what is going to happen from it].