Disclaimer: I have no X-Men of my own. They all belong to Marvel. But, since they're not using Colossus anymore, I really wish they'd give him to me. No money being made here. Sure that's a big surprise to everyone.
Guess what? No one dies in this chapter! It's a miracle!
Paper Flowers
Chapter 15 – Through The Fire
It was just after sunrise when Logan, frustrated, heartsick, and exhausted, made his way through the dingy motel lobby and into the even dingier stairwell.
With a weariness that went bone deep, physically as well as emotionally, he made his way up the three flights of narrow stairs to the floor where his, Kurt's, and Amanda's rooms were located. As he entered the narrow hallway, he turned to his immediate left, his feet almost shuffling as they carried him toward the correct door by autopilot.
He paid no mind to the stained, threadbare, carpet under his feet, the cracked, graying plaster of the ceiling over his head, nor the faded, peeling, wallpaper, which might have once been yellow, but was now just a dishwater beige. All he was interested in was getting to his room and falling into bed.
Logan couldn't even remember the last time he'd felt this tired and worn, or this discouraged. Usually, he was the one who never gave up, never said die, who fought, tooth and nail, until the end. No matter what.
But, after what he'd witnessed last night, all the determination had drained right out of him, like water through a sieve, leaving him empty.
How could he fight something like this? How could Kitty?
The feral X-Man had been asking himself those questions over and over again all night long as he searched nearly the entire city of Hammer Bay for the girl who was the closest thing to a daughter he would ever have.
He hadn't found her, of course. He hadn't really imagined that he would, but that didn't mean he wouldn't try, wouldn't keep trying. And those questions were still circling in his mind, round and round, but there weren't any answers to be had.
There probably never would be.
Stopping front of the door to his room, he took the key from the front pocket of his blue jeans and fumbled with it for a few moments before managing to get the stubborn lock to turn and release. Pushing the door open, he stepped inside, kicked it closed behind him, and went straight to one of the two double beds in the room.
With a grunt, he sat down on the faded bedspread and pried off his boots, glancing at the other bed as he did so.
It obviously hadn't been slept in, but Logan wasn't surprised. He'd known, as soon as Amanda had shown up, that it wouldn't be long before those two were together again. Truth be told, he'd been damned glad to see her, for the Elf's sake as much as Kitty's.
Kurt had been floundering recently, not really knowing quite what to do with himself, what with the breakup of Excalibur and trying to reintegrate with the X-Men. Going from team leader to just another body in spandex, so to speak.
Then, there was that damned idea of becoming a priest that he'd toyed with for a while. That had been an obviously bad idea. Obvious to everyone but Kurt, and the Elf had been the only one surprised when it hadn't panned out.
Now, he needed someone to anchor him, to remind him occasionally that he was Kurt Wagner, the man, as well as Nightcrawler, the X-Man. Amanda had always been able to do that for him before. With any luck, she could still do it now. And, besides, Logan liked Amanda. Always had.
Not bothering to pull the covers back, the Canadian X-Man lay down on the bed and closed his eyes. He'd get a few hours sleep, touch base with the witch and the elf, then pick up his search for Kitty.
If he had to, he'd knock on every door in Hammer Bay until he found her.
Logan had no doubt that he would, eventually, find her. That was a given. He was a born tracker, the best at what he did. What he would do once he found her was another matter completely and he hadn't quite got it figured out yet. But he would not give up.
The situation might be hopeless, there might be nothing he could do to help her at this point, but he would not quit. Not yet. Not until he was assured, without even the lingering shadow of a doubt, that there was no other choice.
Not until he knew that the darkness had taken her and there was no hope of getting her back.
Then, he would keep the promise he'd made her.
The sun was well up by the time she finally made her slow, miserable way back to her motel. Other than the fact that it was daylight, Katherine Pryde had no idea what time it might be.
She'd spent all night, as well as the very early morning, walking the dark, silent city, thinking.
Over the course of the night, she'd cried at least a million tears. For herself. For Logan. For Peter. For a future that she so desperately wanted, but could never have. For everything, and everyone, that had been, or would be, destroyed by this whole mess before it was all over.
She'd been with the X-Men for a decade and Shadowcat could easily count on one hand, and have fingers left to spare, the number of situations that had left her feeling totally helpless and defeated
Unfortunately, this was one of those situations.
Normally, she was a fighter, the first one, other than maybe Logan, to jump into the fray, ready to kick ass and take names. But, how did you fight something like this?
No matter what she did, no matter how much thought she gave the matter, Kitty couldn't see any way out. She was trapped, as neatly as a rat in a maze. And by someone, something, she didn't even understand.
Kitty knew that, as soon as she closed her eyes, she's see that face again, would see those dark eyes, boring into her very soul. Would feel the call of the darkness that he represented. The call that a part of her wanted so desperately to answer.
Who was he, this Vargas that seemed to hold such power over her? And what, exactly, did he want with her, other than the obvious? It wasn't just the Soulsword. There was more to it than that. She knew it, could feel it. But what?
That, she told herself, was the million dollar question.
It all connected together, the dreams, the Soulsword, this mysterious and dangerous Vargas, Destiny's Diaries, even this Amulet that she wore.
The problem was, she just didn't know how, or for what purpose. All she had were random pieces of a huge puzzle, but all the connecting pieces were missing and she had no idea how to find them, or if she even could. And time was, most assuredly, running out. That was more than obvious from her actions in the last twelve hours.
Last night, she'd betrayed Peter, betrayed herself, betrayed everyone and everything she'd ever believed in and she still didn't know why. She'd nearly gone with Vargas, nearly let him convince her that she wanted him. She'd barely escaped him. Wouldn't have escaped him if it hadn't been for Logan. It didn't even bear thinking about what would have happened to her if he hadn't come along. And what scared her the most was the feeling that, in the end, she would have welcomed it.
Kitty was frightened, angry, frustrated, and very deeply ashamed. For what she'd done, for what she had allowed a complete stranger to do, she would never be able to forgive herself. So how could she possibly expect forgiveness from anyone else?
Maybe, Pryde, it's time to stop crying and start dealing. You're stronger, tougher, than this.
The thought came to her as she passed quickly through the quiet lobby of her motel, stopping at the small elevator nestled in a little alcove off to one side. She decided that, maybe, that wasn't a bad idea. Nothing could be gained by sitting around moping and feeling sorry for herself.
As she pressed the button for the fifth floor, Kitty tried to make some coherent sense out of everything that had happened in the last weeks, tried to put it all together in a way that she could relate to. Maybe, if she could do that, could start dealing with this whole thing intellectually, instead of emotionally, she could find some answers.
She was supposed to be a genius, for Christ's sake. Surely she could come up with an better idea than crying, bemoaning her fate, and running away in denial. That kind of behavior would only work against her, not for her.
The elevator doors slid open with a rather disturbing groan and she stepped inside the almost claustrophobically small metal box, wincing as even her negligible weight made the whole contraption seem to sway on it's cables.
Note to self. Next time, use the stairs. Don't want to die quite yet.
When the doors finally, laboriously, slid closed again, and she was sufficiently satisfied that she wasn't going to be crashing to her death in the next few moments, Kitty let her thoughts turn back to the problems at hand.
It wasn't like her to come so close to just giving up, to be so ready to admit defeat. Then again, she hadn't really been feeling much like herself for the last little while.
With uncanny ability, one that she wasn't even consciously aware of, she effectively turned off her emotions, flipping a mental switch and letting the analytical side of her nature take over, as she weighed the problem, along with what few clues she had, looking at her options, trying to decide on her best course of action.
She took each thing in turn, picked it up, turned it around, mentally weighing them against one another, looking at it all from every possible side.
In the end, what she came up with was that she was at a standstill, with everything, until she could contact her father. The Soulsword, Logan and her friends, everything, would just have to wait to be dealt with after that.
There was one thing, however, that she could do with the next twenty four hours or so. Hopefully, something constructive. She could go back to the one hope she had, the one thing that might be able to give her an idea of what came next, the only clues that she had to any of it.
She had until tomorrow, she had seven volumes of Irene Adler's Libris Veratitis, a mostly functional brain, and a laptop. No time like the present to do a little more work.
Sleep, right now, as much as her body wanted it, was not an option. Even tired as she was, Kitty had no desire to ride the nightmare train again, and, besides, she needed something to keep her busy so she didn't go stir crazy. If anything could do it, those diaries could.
The elevator came to a jarring, jerking stop, doors seeming to wheeze their last, dying breath as they slowly opened, admitting her into the dim, grungy hallway. Her room was only a few feet away and it only took her a moment to reach the door. She slipped the key out of her pocket and finally managed to get it to turn in the rusty lock. Shoving the door open, she went inside, pushing it closed behind her and turning to slide the deadbolt home. Just in case.
With a sigh, she went back to the little table and sat down in front of the laptop, opening the cover and waiting for it to wake up from it's automatic "sleep".
In the relative silence, her stomach gave a loud growl of protest, trying to remind her that she'd had neither dinner last night nor breakfast this morning, but she resolutely ignored it. She could eat later, when there was nothing else to do.
A few swift, sure movements of her fingers, and Kitty had called up the program she'd designed years before to work with the first volume of Destiny's diaries that she'd found, though, in actuality, it was volume three of the set.
There didn't seem to be any particular order to the diary entries themselves. Though the volumes were numbered, each one could contain information on the past, present, and future. Any one page might speak of what would happen today, as well as what would happen a hundred years from now. The fact that there was no coherent, discernible, pattern to the information only made it more infuriating to work with the books.
Curious, she called up parts of those initial entries. She hadn't looked at that particular information in quite a while and decided she might as well refresh her memory. Maybe there was something there pertaining to her present situation that she'd overlooked before.
The first passage that came up gave her pause, a wry smile curving her full lips.
What Price, the Dream
When the Center does not hold?
Shall the Circle stay Unbroken?
Kitty snorted, almost amused, but more disgusted. What price the Dream, indeed. She'd seen the price, paid it in blood, and the circle was hardly unbroken. Apt, for certain, but it hardly gave her any pertinent information.
With the tap of a few keys, another passage popped up.
A Winter of Rebirth
Brings forth a Spring...
of Desolation???
Again, vague, cryptic and hardly informative.
Kitty scrolled quickly through several more passages, but didn't find anything that seemed to even remotely pertain to what was happening at present. In fact, most of the passages were general enough that they could have pertained to many different things at almost any time.
Yes, the Diaries were just as confusing, just as cryptic, as they'd ever been.
Why on earth does everything have to always be so complicated? Just once, I'd love for someone to come up and say "Hey, Armageddon is coming tomorrow at 2:00 PM sharp in Boise, Idaho. Tell all your friends."
But no. What do I get? Weird, horrifying dreams of somebody else's life and information like "From the ashes of Despair, The rain of Renewal." Gee, thanks so much, Irene. How very nonsensical of you. Somewhere, God must be sitting back and laughing his ass off.
Though she knew it was hardly Irene Adler's fault that the diaries were so nearly useless, Kitty needed someone to blame at the moment, and Destiny had been elected. But, in truth, the woman who'd written the Libris Veratitis hadn't understood them any more than anyone else. Like Mystique, she'd nearly driven herself insane trying.
Giving up on the first diary, Kitty reached once again for the second one, glancing at the small pile of books stacked on the little table as she did so.
There were still five more to look through after this one, and it had taken her days just to make what little progress she had. It didn't take a genius to figure out that she probably wouldn't ever get through them all. And there was still that problem of this strange language that looked so familiar, but whose identity and translation continued to elude her. It was so very frustrating.
It made her want to bang her head against the table repeatedly until she either came up with the answers she needed or passed out, but she settled for simply laying her forehead on the computer keyboard for a moment, trying to push down the nearly overwhelming sense of despair that was slowly trying to engulf her.
The task before her looked impossible, but Kitty tried to tell herself that she'd faced impossible before and won. Though, even inside her own head, she didn't sound very convincing.
She only partially succeeded in tamping it all down again and, when she looked up, even what little tiny speck of hope she still held seemed to vanish in a puff of smoke as her blood froze in her veins.
There, on the screen in front of her, was a passage from the first diary. A passage that she hadn't called up, but that chilled her to the bone.
From the Sky
Steel strides ashore
All that Lives is Scoured Away
A Land made Barren evermore.
But it wasn't so much the words, as the accompanying sketch that had her blood running cold and her heart leaping into her throat.
It was a representation of a large building; tall, a modern skyscraper, a long spire atop it. It could have been any one of a dozen different buildings, in any one of a half-dozen, or more, cities. New York, Chicago, LA, San Francisco, Dallas, anywhere.
And, beside and slightly behind it, the depiction of what could only be the worlds largest Sentinel.
It was crude, almost cartoonish, like no other Sentinel Kitty had ever seen. But there was absolutely no mistaking what it was, despite it's odd looks. She had seen enough of them in her life to know.
The monstrosity stood easily as tall as the skyscraper beside it, beams of energy stabbing from it's eyes onto the city below. And the city was burning, engulfed in flames, in pieces, as the killing machine destroyed everything within it's path.
Kitty studied the drawing carefully for a moment, then, with shaking hands, she reached for her hard copy of the Diary it came from, intending to find the entry, see if there was something else there that might give her more information, a location, an identifying landmark, anything.
Suddenly, her own problems seemed petty and worthless. Compared to this prediction, anything less than an extinction level event was of little consequence.
There was a feeling of urgency boiling inside her. It had taken root the moment she'd seen the images on the screen. A feeling that this wasn't a prediction of some far off event, years or even decades in the future. The feeling was one of imminent danger.
Before she could do more than flip through the first few pages of the diary, however, there was a sharp rapping on her door.
Sliding her chair back and cursing under her breath in a mixture of gutter Hebrew and Japanese, she started for the door, intending to give whoever, or whatever, was on the other side a none to gentle send off right back the way it came. This was a hell of a time for company.
"Who is it?" she yelled out as she strode across the room, her mind on only one thing; the prediction and images from that diary, and nothing else. Caution went completely out the window. "And what the hell do you want?"
The male voice that spoke from the other side of the door, though, got even Kitty's attention.
"Katherine Pryde, Shadowcat of the X-Men, you are hereby summoned to the palace," Though the voice held a hint of hostility, it was firm and commanding. "on the orders of Lord Magneto."
Though he felt as if he'd only been asleep for a few minutes, it was early afternoon before Logan finally woke.
He knew it was only his imagination, a manifestation of his mental and emotional exhaustion from the stream of one-two punches that life had thrown him repeatedly over the last week, but the Canadian X-Man could have sworn he was beginning to feel every bit of his considerable age.
There were some things, he supposed, that even a healing factor couldn't take care of.
With a grunt, he flung back the covers he'd somehow become entangled in, climbed out of bed, and made his way into the hotel room's small bathroom, stepping directly into the tiny shower stall. He turned the cold water on full blast, letting it clear his head and bring him back to some semblance of wakefulness as he stood under the icy spray.
It only took him a few minutes to finish up, dry off, and begin getting dressed again. He was just slipping on his black t-shirt and pulling on his jeans when Kurt appeared in a cloud of sulfurous smoke and the customary soft "bamf" of air.
"Logan, you are up. At last." Nightcrawler plopped down on his unslept on bed and watched his long time friend as he finished dressing. "You look tired, mein freund. I was hoping you would have good news for us. But, judging by your expression, I suppose not."
There were lines around the feral X-Man's eyes that hadn't been there yesterday, and his face looked unusually haggard. The German mutant felt his spirits plummet as any hopes he'd held of receiving a little good news for a change crumbled to dust. Whatever Logan might have to tell them wasn't going to make any of them any happier.
In an uncharacteristically weary gesture of frustration, Logan ran one hand through his dark, unruly hair, exhaling heavily. When his dark eyes met Kurt's golden ones, his expression was set and extremely grim.
"I tell ya, Kurt, for th' first time in years, I feel wore out. I ain't never been in many situations that I actually thought were hopeless, but I'm afraid this just might be one. That it's Kit, that I can't think of anything to do that could get her outta this mess......" He paused, dropping his eyes, his hand jammed into his jeans pockets, as he seemed to study the faded pattern on the worn carpet. "I'm a fighter. A scrapper. It's all I know how ta do. But I can't fight this. Not physically. And I don't know any other way."
"Perhaps," Kurt began, very quietly, his own heart breaking just a little more at the underlying note of defeat in his old friends voice. "this is not a battle we can fight for her at all. Perhaps this is a fight she must win or lose on her own."
It nearly killed him to say it. No one wanted Kitty back, safe and well, any more than Kurt Wagner. He would gladly lay down his own life, if it would help her. But he didn't think it would. He wasn't sure what would.
The more he and Amanda worked, studied the information they had, what they knew, what they suspected, the more convinced he became that the only one who could fight this and stand any chance of winning was Kitty herself. But the question was, did she have the strength it would take to do it?
Any other time, he would have said yes, but he had seen Illyana fight this same battle. And he had seen her lose, had watched helplessly as the darkness slowly claimed her.
Kitty was strong, as strong as they came. So had Illyana been, and, in the end, she had lost. How could his Katzchen hope to hold out against such a force? At some point, the temptation of power would become too great for her to withstand. It was inevitable. They had all watched it happen more than once before, to more than one team mate.
"Maybe so. But I ain't ready to give up just yet. I can't. Not until I know, absolutely, that there's nothin' else we can do. I ain't willin' ta just let her go. Not without a hella'va fight." With that, Logan crossed to the door, calling back to Kurt over his shoulder. "C'mon, Elf. I'll tell you and 'Manda what I know, and, maybe, between th' three of us, we can come up with somethin' we can use."
For a long moment, Kitty stared at the door, eyes narrowed as if she could see through the faded paint and wood to what was on the other side, maybe set it on fire with nothing more than the heat of her gaze, as irritation washed over her.
The prospect of being taken before Magneto didn't engender even the slightest amount of fear in her, as it might have some others. She'd known the man far too long, fought him far too often, for that. But it did really piss her off.
She should have known. She should have guessed that Erik would know she was here. He always made it a point of knowing everything that went on around him, wherever he was. Gennosha, simply because it was a country instead of a secrest base, would be no different. In fact, if Kitty had to guess, she'd say that he would be even more wary and alert than ever.
Especially now, with the world possibly standing poised on the brink of a genetic war.
But what the hell did he want with her?
Soundlessly, she padded across the floor and looked through the the little spyhole set in the door at eye level. On the other side, she saw an average size man, brown hair, brown eyes, handsome enough, but nothing to get overly excited about, dressed in the generic red and purple uniform of the Acolytes.
Her initial reaction was the urge to either ignore him outright, or to tell him, and Magneto, to go straight to hell. Do not pass GO, do not collect two hundred dollars. But, she knew that wouldn't do any good. If he actually did go away, which she doubted, he would only return with reinforcements.
In Genosha, what Lord Magneto wanted, Lord Magneto got.
With a sigh that was more annoyance at being interrupted by this unexpected turn of events than anything else, Kitty phased her arm through the door, grabbed a fistful of the unsuspecting Acolyte's maroon red shirt front, jerked him into the room and slammed him up against the nearest wall, hearing the air exit his lungs in a soft, astonished, whoosh.
Obviously, the man wasn't as all prepared for the possibility of this type of reaction from her in answer to his announcement and Kitty watched in almost amusement, and with a definite sense of malicious satisfaction, as his eyes got very wide and his mouth formed a little O of surprise.
Absently, it crossed her mind to wonder if this particular Acolyte might have incurred Magneto's wrath in some way and been sent to try and fetch Kitty as his punishment. After all, Erik would have known she wouldn't just come along quietly.
In a one swift move, Kitty jammed her forearm against his throat, not tight enough to choke him but just tight enough to give her the leverage she needed to keep him pinned against the wall. Getting right in his face, almost nose to nose, she literal snarled at him.
"Give me one good reason not to break you in half."
As the man only stared at her in mute horror, making little mewling, choking noises as he seemed to be trying to sink into the wall behind him, Kitty finally took a good look at her appointed Acolyte. And was slightly taken aback by what she saw.
He couldn't be more than a year or two older than she was, if that, lean of build and actually rather timid looking. Definitely not one of Erik's personal guard. Too small framed, not nearly aggressive enough by half, and much too easily taken by surprise. It was almost insulting.
"If you're all Magneto sent here to arrest me, then you are in deep shit, bub." She enunciated the words very carefully, as if speaking to a slightly retarded child. Still, she wasn't sure he understood her. He just kept staring at her with wide, unblinking eyes, his mouth still hanging slightly open.
The silence stretched on as the startled man's mouth began to work soundlessly, reminding her of a goldfish she'd had once, before she joined the X-Men. It was not a flattering comparison.
Really, this was ridiculous. If Erik was going to send her an Acolyte to pound on, the least he could do was give her someone who would make an effort, at least a token effort, to fight back. This guy was just pathetic. Kitty was almost starting to feel sorry for him. Almost.
Finally, the intimidated young Acolyte managed to choke out a few words, though they were a long time in coming, and not very understandable when they arrived. "N-No..I mean...Y-Yes...well...Miss....uh..."
Oh, good. Now he's babbling.
Heaving a deep sigh, Kitty took pity on the poor man and let him go, stepping back to give him some breathing room. Unless he was one hell of an actor, this one wouldn't give her any trouble. He was barely coherent and shaking like a leaf in his purple boots.
Kitty watched him for a moment, hands fisted on her hips, as her stammering visitor struggled to recall his grasp of the English language, without any immediate success.
Jeez, Erik. This is pitiful. Hope this one isn't an example of your average Acolyte these days.
"Look," Kitty began in a slightly milder, less intimidating tone than before. "take a deep breath, count to ten, and try again."
Nodding, the young man took a moment to collect himself, though any dignity he'd arrived with had long since departed and he seemed resigned to that fact. It took him a few moments to return to some semblance of normal, but he finally did and, when he spoke this time, Kitty actually understood what he said.
"You are Katherine Pryde? Shadowcat?" he asked tentatively, inwardly bracing himself for another attack by this small, but strangely psychotic, woman. He breathed a sigh of relief when Kitty simply nodded, staying where she was.
"Yep. That's me. Want to tell me what this is about?"
"Lord Magneto wishes to speak with you on a matter of great importance and requests your presence at the palace at your earliest convenience." He managed to recover enough of his dignity to say it with an appropriate air of formality.
Again, Kitty's eyes narrowed suspiciously as she watched the young man, considering his words. It could be a trick. Erik could be baiting her, intending to throw her into a cell, use her as some kind of icon to rail against Charles Xavier and his vaunted dream. It wouldn't be the first time.
But, if that's all he wanted her for, he could have sent a squad of guards, and probably would have. He'd know this poor, pitiful excuse for a solider, still standing braced against her hotel room wall as if afraid to move, wouldn't even cause her to break a sweat as she kicked his butt out into Magda Square.
"You're not a soldier, are you?" Kitty asked him in an almost gentle tone of voice, though she had an idea she already knew what his answer would be. No army on earth, not even a desperate one, would have this man as a fighting soldier.
"No." he replied, somewhat taken aback at the question. "I'm just a courier, a page. Like a messenger."
Kitty winced inwardly. Oops.
"Then, I think I owe you an apology. I just automatically assumed that you were one of Magneto's guards. If I'd known you weren't, I would never have ambushed you like I did."
"Ummm...It's ok." He said it almost like a question as the shaken Acolyte blinked at her, unsure whether or not to trust this sudden change of attitude. "I suppose I should have made myself more clear."
"What does he want with me?" Kitty asked, but the young man only shook his head, still eyeing her with a decidedly nervous expression.
"I'm sorry, ma'am. I don't know. I was simply sent here to extend his invitation and escort you to the Presidential Palace."
Kitty nodded, her face adopting a considering expression as she turned toward her dresser. "Well, I guess we'd better not keep him waiting, then. Do I have time for a quick change of clothes?"
Her escort nodded warily, still keeping a close eye on her, in case she came at him again, obviously half convinced that she was insane. "Of course. I'll wait for you out in the hall. Take your time."
As the young man left, rather quickly, Kitty pulled open the battered dresser drawer, taking out her uniform and katanas. If she was going to the palace, she might as well dress for the occasion.
And she couldn't help but wonder, as she changed, what on earth Erik Lensherr was up to now.
Kurt, Amanda, and Logan sat around the little, scarred, rickety table, the remains of their picked over lunch, of which they had all eaten very little, spread around them at random.
They'd spent the last couple of hours exchanging stories and information. Logan had filled his two companions in on his encounter with Kitty the night before, leading to a general disappearance of what little morale, and hope, any of them had left. Still, none of them were ready to throw in the towel.
Now, Amanda and Kurt were filling him in on what information they had gathered, as well as their best guess theories. Their conclusions didn't really seem any more promising than Logan's experiences the previous night had been and they were a hell of a lot more confusing, which was saying a lot.
"Now, let me see if I get this straight," Logan looked from Amanda to Kurt, trying to process the complicated, convoluted theories they'd just thrown at him when he'd had all of five hours sleep in the last forty eight hours. "yer tellin' me that Kitty, Illyana, and Rachel are all somehow connected to Irene Adler's diaries, the Soulsword, and the Phoenix? And that all of 'em are mixed up together fer some purpose or reason we don't have the first clue about?"
When they both nodded as if he'd just grasped the secrets of the universe, Logan had the sudden urge to poke his eyes out with his own claws. "What am I missin' here? 'Cause I just don't see th' connection."
Across the table, Amanda took a deep breath and fought down the inclination to snap at him.
They were all operating on little to no sleep - not to mention the worry, guilt, and an almost panicked sense of urgency that sat on their shoulders like vultures, waiting for them to fail, waiting for the weakness that would allow them to pounce and send them all into full blown despair - and it was making them irritable, edgy, and impatient.
The last thing they needed right now was give in to it and start fighting amongst themselves.
The sorceress just knew, she could feel it in her bones, that they were getting close to solving this thing. Or, at least, a lot closer than they had been. They couldn't afford to screw it all up at this juncture. Not if Kitty was to have any chance at all.
Once again, she pulled up her screen of sorted information, looking over it carefully to make sure she was correct in what she was going to say. Satisfied that she was, she launched back into her theory from the beginning.
"We're not positive of the exact connections either, Logan. But the one thing we are absolutely positive of is that there is, indeed, a connection. There's too many common threads weaving those three particular girls together, many of them over different timelines and dimensions, with Kitty as the central figure in all of them."
Taking a deep breath, Amanda began to count them off one by one. "Kate Rasputin who was a mother figure to Rachel in the timeline she was from. The Cat who raised Illyana in Limbo. The Shadowcat from Nate Grey's timeline that co-led the mission to rescue that timeline's Illyana from Apocalypse."
"The fact that the Phoenix force was instrumental in securing Kitty for the X-Men and then later bonded with Rachel, who, along with Illyana, was one of Kitty's best friends. The way that Rachel seemed to have no problem reading Kitty's mind, picking up her thoughts at random, when no other telepath, including Professor Xavier, Cable, or Jean Grey, seem to be able to do it unless Kitty consciously allows them to."
"And," Kurt put in. "don't forget, of course, Kitty's bond with the Soulsword. The way that Rachel was able to control the Soulsword when Doom tried to destroy Limbo, when she should not have even been able to touch it. Then there is Kitty's connection with Irene Adler and the Books of Truth, as well as Illyana's connection with those same books. The fact that Illyana couldn't physically injure any human being, except Kitty, with the Soulsword. And, of course, the whole verdammt Inferno debacle."
"Wait." Amanda shot him a quizzical look. "What about Inferno? I don't remember you mentioning anything about that."
"I could have sworn we discussed that." Kurt adopted a thoughtful look, resting his chin on his steepled hands as he tried to remember the million and one things they'd went over during the night. "Gott, maybe we did not get to it before I became incoherent. I honestly do not know a this point."
"No," Her brow creased in concentration, she scrolled down her screen of compiled information, looking for any references to Inferno. "I don't see anything, Fuzzy. Guess we missed that part."
"Not a surprise, Liebe, considering we were both sleepworking by the time we stopped." Rubbing a hand across his still tired eyes, Kurt continued. "There was not really all that much to tell. Just as everyone else got pulled into it, so did Excalibur. Rachel went to help baby Nate, and we followed Rachel. And, of course, Illyana and the other X-Men were there, though we didn't know that at the time, since we still believed them to be very dead."
Turning his head slightly, Nightcrawler smirked at Logan, who rolled his eyes in turn. "Yeah, Yeah, Elf. Damn, would ya get over that already. That was eight years ago. Water under the bridge."
"There may have been something under the bridge, mein freund, but it was not water." was Nightcrawler's prompt retort.
Shaking her head in a mix between exasperation and amusement at the two men - who acted more like little boys when they were together for any length of time - Amanda smiled despite herself. Between those two, there was never a dull moment.
"All right, boys. Try to stay on topic." The former stewardess turned to her erstwhile boyfriend, waiting for his attention to shift in her direction. "Are you saying that Rachel, Kitty, and Illyana were all in New York, during the Inferno?"
"Ja." Kurt nodded. "But all in different places. In fact, we did not all reconnect until it was all over. By then, Illyana had already reverted to her younger self."
"Strange." was Amanda's only comment, as her brow furrowed once again in either concentration or puzzlement, though Kurt wasn't sure which.
"Whadda ya mean, 'Manda? Is that important?" Logan was watching the young sorceress closely as she worked through the information before her.
He didn't normally put much store in all this mystical bullshit, but right now, it looked like the only hope they had of helping Kitty. And, besides Kitty and Illyana, there wasn't anyone else who had any experience with the Soulsword.
"I don't know, Logan." Amanda was quickly typing in this new information, adding it to her growing list of facts and data. "Maybe. Maybe not. But, it seems to fit into my theory."
"'Manda, is there any way possible," Logan asked, almost in desperation. "that ya can explain this theory of yers in plain, simple English? So I might have a chance of understandin' what th' hell it is?"
She was hit with the almost overwhelming urge to laugh at the desperate, pleading look on the feral Canadian's face and the former stewardess realized that she was becoming rather punchy. They were all going to have to get some rest soon if they intended to keep functioning.
"I'll try, but I make no guarantees. Especially on two hours of sleep." Pulling out a clean sheet of stationery, Amanda began to sketch out her improvised chart again as Kurt watched, a sardonic look plastered on his face.
"Ah, we are again awed by the amazing, stick figure sketches."
"Shut up, Fuzzy." Amanda never missed a beat as she launched straight into her explanation, drawing all the time.
"Basically, my theory is that, for a reason we don't yet know, Kitty, Rachel, and Illyana are all connected to one another and to the Phoenix force, the Books of Truth, and the Soulsword, with Kitty seeming to be the central, catalyzing, figure in the whole thing. It's as if each girl belongs to a different object, they just don't, for some reason, know which one. And, because they're all so interconnected, each girl has an affinity for all the objects. So, like trial and error, through the years, the different objects have been moving back and forth, trying to find their match..."
"Yer losin' me again, 'Manda. And I asked fer it in English." Logan stated flatly, stopping her in mid lecture as she turned to glare at him in irritation.
"Arrgghh!" Amanda growled in frustration, crumbling the paper tightly in her clenched fists, causing the corners of the feral Canadian's mouth to twitch slightly as his dark, bushy eyebrows shot up.
The lovely sorceress was so annoyed, both with this whole situation and trying to make sense of this tangled, mixed up, jumble of information, that she was ready to either pull out her hair or lunge across the table and throttle Logan.
She was trying to explain the knowledge gained by a lifetime spent studying the mystical arts to two complete neophytes, in a very limited amount of time, using small words and soundbites. It was driving her totally insane.
Taking a deep breath, she staunchly resisted the urge to try and remove Wolverine's adamantium from his skeletal system with a pen knife, and reminded herself that it wasn't his fault. He was not a magically inclined individual. She would just have to be patient.
"Ok. Let's try it this way. Here," She pulled out another piece of paper, drawing three stick figures across the top, lining them up in a row, side by side. "we have Rachel, Illyana, and Kitty. Are you with me so far?"
Logan nodded and she continued, drawing another three figures below the first ones, a book, a sword, and what Logan thought, at first, might be a chicken, but soon realized was probably supposed to be the Phoenix.
"Good. Now, we also have the Soulsword, the Books of Truth, and the Phoenix." She shot Logan another look from under her dark lashes. "Got that?"
He smirked at her this time as he again nodded. "Each of these objects, or forces, which we can safely label as at least somewhat mystical in nature, belongs to one of these three women. You could say that they were bonded to them..."
"Why?"
At the older mutant's question, Amanda's head shot up, eyes flaring hotly, ready to rip his head off and see if his damned healing factor could grow it back if he was trying to make jokes when she was barely hanging onto her temper, and her sanity, by a slim thread.
She quickly saw that he wasn't, however, and gave him the only answer she had. "I don't know. For some purpose we aren't aware of yet. But, for right now, let's just say that they are, ok?"
"Ok."
Kurt, sitting between the two, was watching the by-play and trying his very best not to fall on the floor and burst into hysterical laughter, knowing that, if he did, it would probably mean his death at his girlfriend's hands.
If they all three made it another two days together, in these confined quarters, and under the present circumstances, without killing one another, he would be amazed.
"Where was I?" Amanda was looking blankly at what she'd been doodling, having completely lost her train of thought and unable to coax it back.
"Three mystical objects bonded to the three girls." Kurt supplied helpfully, fighting the smile trying to curve his mouth. Thankfully, neither Amanda or Logan noticed.
"Oh, yeah. Each object, or force, or avatar, whatever you want to call them, is meant to be wielded by specific person." She saw Logan open his mouth again, and she held up her hand, indicating for him to stay silent. "Again, for reason's we aren't aware of yet." She watched him until he nodded again, before restarting. "Only, none of them seem aware of what belongs to who. So, you end up with these avatars going to the wrong people, who can't fully control them."
"Wait." Logan stopped her again and Amanda sighed heavily, sagging wearily in her chair. "Yer sayin' that the Soulsword didn't belong to Illyana? That it belongs to Kitty , instead?"
"From what we've learned, from what we know and have seen first hand, that would seem to be the case. It would also explain," Amanda continued, seeing that Logan finally seemed to be following along with her. "why it came to Kitty each time something happened to Illyana, and would also, at least partially, explain most of the other anomalies where Kitty, Illyana, and the Soulsword were concerned. This theory, which is all that it is right now, would go a long way, as well, toward explaining why Jean Grey was unable to interact with the Phoenix force without serious repercussions, yet Rachel seemed to manage it with no problems."
"I suppose that does make sense." Kurt offered thoughtfully, turning the theory over in his mind, considering it from several different angles, as he'd been doing for hours on end. "Except that it does not explain why Kitty cannot wield the Soulsword any more successfully than Illyana could. Also, that leaves the Books of Truth with Illyana and, other than Inferno and maybe another incident or two, I do not know of any particular attraction, or connection, that she had with the diaries."
Amanda nodded. He had a valid point. One she'd thought of long and hard herself. But she also thought she might have the answer for that as well, but she needed more time to work on it. Time they may not have.
"The problem there is, we've only had a chance to really look at one Book, out of a total of thirteen. We have no idea what the others may say. I wish we'd have thought to try and find the five Mystique gave Charles before we left Westchester. They could have been invaluable. We do know that Illyana did have contact with both Irene Adler as well as the diaries. But, of all three girls, we know the least about Illyana's real background - as far as her time in Limbo with Belasco, Cat, and Storm - than any of the three."
"And," she continued, "I'm still convinced that the key to solving the mystery of why Kitty and Illyana couldn't safely wield the sword, when I could, may still lie with this mysterious Bloodstone Amulet. It's the only thread common to the two of them, but not to me." Exhaling heavily, she leaned back in her chair. "I really, really wish I had some information on the amulet. I don't even know what it looks like..."
"Well, hell, 'Manda. I can help ya with that. I got a damned good look at it last night."
Amanda sat up with a jerk, staring at him hard. "Logan! Why didn't you mention this before?"
Her sharp demand had Logan's eyebrows shooting up again as he answered her with slow deliberation. "Well, darlin', I sorta had other things on my mind than describin' Kit's choice in jewelry and fashion accessories."
With a tired chuckle, Amanda nodded, realizing she was being rather irritating and that Logan was doing his best to remain patient. "Sorry. I know you did. I didn't quite mean that like it came out. Can you tell me what it looked like, as much detail as you can? Maybe that'll help me identify it."
"I can do better'n that. If ya'll gimme a piece of paper, I'll draw ya a picture."
Surprised, Amanda slid him a blank sheet of paper and Logan spent the next several minutes sketching out a very passable representation of the amulet in rather intricate detail.
He was so intent on his task, that he didn't notice Amanda's expression slowly move from curious interest, to intent consideration, and finally, into a full blown scowl.
But, when he was done, turning the sheet of paper around and sliding it back in front of her, neither he nor Kurt missed the way she suddenly blanched, all the blood seeming to drain from her face in an instant, leaving her deathly pale, her wide blue eyes standing out in sharp contrast to her pallor.
"Oh...my...God." Amanda studied the drawing, the round amulet, attached to a thick link chain, the representation of a set of scales embossed on the front, etched lines, like rays of light, seeming to emanate from all around them, and she felt her heart go stock, dead still inside her chest.
The amulet, she knew, would be gold, as would the chain. It would open like a pocket watch and was about the same size. Inside would be a silver pentagram, surrounded by ancient symbols. And at each point of the pentagram would be insets for stones. Five in all.
"Amanda? Liebe?" Disturbed by her sudden pallor, her unnatural stillness as she studied the drawing, Kurt placed his hand lightly on her arm, trying to draw her attention, afraid she was about to pass out, but his words went unheeded. She simply continued to stare at the sketch before her, sick dread washing over her in a thick, suffocating wave.
"How many stones did you say were in place in this amulet?" Her voice was oddly calm and even, though quieter than normal, considering the turmoil raging inside her.
They were in serious trouble. Kitty most of all.
"Three, if I remember right." Logan supplied, watching her closely. He could smell the fear, almost panic, rolling off of her in waves and he wondered what the hell that amulet could be that it had her so scared so fast. "'Manda, you know what it is, don't ya?"
"Oh, yes." She stated evenly. Finally, she lifted her face from the drawing, and both he and Kurt were happy to see some of the color return to her face. But she was still obviously terrified and her reaction was making them edgy as well. "It's known as the Beatrice Amulet. There's a very long story behind it, and we don't have time to go into it right now. We have to find Kitty and we have to get this amulet away from her, destroy it if we can. We've got to start looking. Now."
Amanda shoved her chair back from the table and stood as Kurt looked on, somewhat stunned and uncomprehending, his own nerves on edge. He sensed an urgency about her that he'd seldom seen and he knew she wouldn't be this agitated if things were not very serious, but the import of her words had gone completely over his head.
Not so with Logan as he watched her as well, his senses picking up even more than Nightcrawlers. There was urgency, fear, almost an edge of hysteria, coming off the normally unflappable sorceress that set his own instincts on edge. It told him all he needed to know for the moment.
If things were that serious, he knew of only one course of action to take, only one option that gave them the possibility of finding Kitty as quickly as it seemed they needed to. It took him less than a second to make his decision.
"All right. If it's that important, if it'll help Kit, then let's get suited up."
When Amanda's gaze met his, she saw the glint of steely determination there that she found familiar and rather comforting, and she breathed a silent sigh of relief. Wolverine had a plan. If she hadn't been so terrified, she would have smiled.
Kurt however, only appeared confused, incomprehension written plainly on his face. "But, I thought you wanted to keep this low profile, Logan. We cannot go traipsing around Genosha in costume. Magneto would be on us in a second if he knew we were here."
Logan smiled then, humorlessly, as he regarded his friend. "Pal, Mags knew we were here no more'n ten minutes after we stepped foot on Genosha. He ain't stupid. An', besides, he won't have to send nobody after us."
"And why is that?"
"'Cause we're goin' ta him."
From behind the red tinted lenses of her sunglasses, Kitty studied the milling crowd gathered in Magda Square. There must have been, literally, thousands of people crammed hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder, into the commons, waiting for Magneto to make his daily appearance.
Men, women, teenagers, and children; large and tall, young and old; from all races and religions, from every cross section of humanity in Genosha and around the world, many of them dressed in the red and purple uniform of the Genoshan military, they waited with baited breath for their leader, their muted conversations filling the air with a soft, humming sound that was like nothing so much as a hive of busily working bees.
Off to one side, across the commons, stood a large, boisterous group of children, a school group, Kitty would guess. Probably on a field trip, here to see the great man himself. Something they could tell their grandchildren about. How, once, when they were young, they beheld the great Magneto. Their messiah. Their liberator.
It was easy for her to understand how these people might feel that way. Erik Magnus Lensherr was an intelligent, charismatic man who could rally people to his side with the simplest of words, the smallest of actions.
After the slavery, the poverty, the horrors of war, that the mutants of Genosha had endured, he would, indeed, seem like a savior.
Magneto had come in and done what no one had thought possible in the devastated, war ravaged country, torn asunder by the never ending struggle between the mutant population and the human population that had enslaved them for so long.
He had picked the tortured land up, brushed it off, kicked out nearly all the baseline humans, and returned it to at least a semblance of it's former glory. From the ashes of slavery, he had forged a haven for mutant kind.
It was too bad that he was now, most likely, about to lead them directly into a genetic war the likes of which the world had never seen. Kitty was very afraid that he had ended the war in Genosha only to take it global.
The short walk from her motel to the palace had given her a few minutes to ponder what Erik might have up his sleeve as far as she was concerned, why he would be calling her here, if not to arrest her, but Kitty hadn't really been able to come up with anything that made sense.
Of all the X-Men, Kitty and Peter were the only ones left who would still be considered on anything near cordial terms with Magneto. He had saved both their lives after they were severely injured during the Morelock Massacre, nearly selling his soul to Dr. Doom to keep Kitty from discorporating completely and using the last bit of strength he had to try and heal Peter's metal changform. He had gone with her to a reunion of Holocaust victims to help her locate information on the fate of her great aunt Chava, who'd died in Auschwitz. And, of course, Peter had spent over a year as one of his Acolytes.
Though they had fought on opposite sides in the past, and would probably do so in the future – possibly the near future – they had also fought on the same side for a time. Kitty knew the man, the actual person, inside the persona of one of the worlds most powerful mutants.
Erik Lensherr was not an evil man. He was simply a disillusioned, frightened man with a great deal of power, weary of watching mutant kind endure the persecution, head toward the same nightmare, that had taken his family during the Holocaust.
If he had wanted her as a prisoner, if he was planning a hostile act toward her personally, she would have known it immediately. For all his misguided intentions, he was a straightforward enemy.
So, what did he want with her, then? Kitty couldn't even guess.
Having made their way through the crowded square, Shadowcat and her escort, whose name she still didn't know and who was making a point of keeping a reasonably safe distance between them, climbed the wide, white, marble steps of the palace to the glassfront doors set into the massive, gray granite structure.
To Kitty, the design of Genosha's Presidential Palace had always seemed reminiscent of the Empire State building, tall and slender, with a slightly Art Deco appearance, a long spire reaching skyward from it's apex. It was a classically elegant design that suited Magneto's personality.
As they approached the soldiers standing guard at the entrance, the young X-woman was fully expecting to be challenged, doubting that they would allow her into Magneto's presence armed with her katanas, regardless of the fact that he was the master of magnetism. But, to her surprise, the two guards simply opened the doors for them and stepped aside, not even glancing twice at her weapons.
Her escort walked her to the elevators, saw her inside, and punched a code into the control panel's keypad. Then, he stepped out, leaving her to continue alone with only a nod of farewell and an immense look of relief.
Pushing her sunglasses to rest on top of her head, Kitty waited patiently as the elevator made it's smooth journey upward. She was expecting it to stop on the tenth floor, where the so called "Throne Room" was located, the place where most audiences with Genosha's ruler took place.
However, she was again surprised when it continued on past that floor, as well as thirty or so more, taking her straight to the penthouse. Magneto's private quarters.
Immediately upon the elevator coming to a stop, the door sliding quietly open, she was met by a tall, heavily muscled man dressed in the more formal and ornate uniform of Magneto's private guard.
"If you will follow me please." The Acolyte didn't bother to wait for her answer before turning and striding down the hall, trusting that she would follow obediently, his long, red cape trailing after him.
With a shrug, Kitty fell into step behind him as he led her toward a set of ornately carved mahogany doors a short distance down the hall. Opening the right-hand most door, he motioned for her to enter and she stepped cautiously into what was, obviously, a private sitting room.
Kitty turned back to him questioningly, seeing immediately that she was alone, but, before she could say anything, the guard simply announced, "Lord Magneto will be with you momentarily," shut the door quietly as he backed out, and was gone.
With nothing else to do at the moment, she took the opportunity to glance around the room, taking in the comfortable looking, light brown leather sofa, the thick beige carpet, the neutral colored walls, mahogany occasional tables, and the artwork scattered along the walls.
It could have been a typical sitting room in any apartment or home nearly anywhere. There was nothing here to indicate that the owner was anything but an ordinary man. Everything was surprisingly, refreshingly, normal.
How deceiving appearances could be sometimes.
Walking to the wide front window that occupied one entire wall of the spacious room, Kitty stood, looking down onto Magda Square far, far below.
From this vantage point, she could see the huge collection of assembled humanity in it's entirety. Strangely enough, the crowd actually looked larger from up here than it had when she was down there in it.
All those people. An entire army at his command, for good or ill. Would the X-Men end up fighting these people, their own kind, before it was all over? Sadly, Kitty was afraid she knew the answer to that question all too well. And she wondered if she was looking at the army of the apocalypse.
Had Raven Darkholme sacrificed her life to cure Legacy, only to give Magneto the means to destroy the entire world as they all knew it? Was this the prediction the shape shifter had seen in Destiny's diaries? Was this the pale horse?
"And I looked; and beheld a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death...and Hell followed with him...." It came out as a soft whisper, the verse popping into her mind unbidden as she stared down at the army of mutants on the ground below.
From behind her, a deep voice picked up where she had left off.
"And Power was given to them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth. Revelations, 6:8."
Kitty looked up, unsurprised, catching his image in the glass as their eyes met in his reflection. "Hello, Erik."
"Hello, Katherine. You look well."
Dropping her eyes, Kitty resumed her avid study of the milling throng. "Looks can be deceiving."
She felt two firm hands drop onto her shoulders as he stepped up close behind her, his own eyes following hers to the gathering far beneath their feet. "You sound troubled, child. And I see you have come dressed for battle. Are you so distrustful of my intentions?"
With a sigh, Kitty let herself relax, unaware, until that moment, how tightly she'd been holding herself, how tense she'd been. Despite her conscious conviction that he'd meant her no harm in bringing her here, habit had forced her to prepare for a fight. It was her training, and her nature.
"Just force of habit, I suppose," she replied, looking again to the reflection of the face belonging to the man who was the X-Men's greatest enemy. And who had, once upon a time, been their greatest friend.
He looked so harmless, standing there in his tan slacks and light blue knit shirt, wavy white hair combed back from his face, and his light blue eyes shining with intelligence. Looking as he did right now, no one would ever guess the power that he held. He could easily have been anyone's father, grandfather, uncle; just another normal man, similar to any other. Only this man was anything but normal.
Here was one of the most powerful mutants on the planet, Omega class, able to manipulate matter on a molecular level as naturally as other people drew breath. A walking, talking force of nature. Wielding power beyond most people's imagining. The top predator in the food chain. And he knew it.
Magneto looked her over somewhat curiously in turn, taking in her costume, so unlike anything she'd ever worn before, the twin katanas resting in their scabbards on her back, the thick spill of chestnut hair down nearly to her waist, and her expressive, golden eyes that seemed so troubled.
He knew the look, the feeling, well. It had been his own companion for far too long. And he wondered what secrets, what sorrow, she was holding within herself.
"Yes, old habits do die hard I'm afraid." he agreed with a nod, and a slight curving of he corners of his mouth, as his eyes dropped briefly back to the crowd below.
The double meaning of his statement - that they weren't speaking only of their propensity to look at everything as a battle, but also of his almost instinctive need to lead, to gather followers and try to bring what he considered his people out of persecution, whatever the cost. And of the X-Mens just as strong need to stop him. - wasn't lost on Kitty.
The two mutants eyed one another for a moment, each taking the measure of the other and finding themselves evenly matched in determination, intelligence, and strength of will. Inside him, she knew, was a good, well meaning heart, but it was his head that often got him into trouble.
All at once, Erik Lensherr smiled, transforming his face from stern to open and approachable in an instant, effectively dispelling any lingering tension in the room. "So, tell me Katherine, have you escaped the X-Men finally? Come to join me at last, perhaps?"
They both knew he was teasing her now and Kitty laughed lightly. "You never give up, do you? Wasn't getting your hands on Peter for a while enough for you?"
"I will not be happy until I have converted every one of Charles Xavier's students to my cause. You should know that by now." he returned, still smiling broadly. "How is Peter? It's been quite a while since I've seen either of you."
He asked the question conversationally and was surprised by the obvious distress that it seemed to cause his young guest. There was no missing the shadow that passed briefly across her face as her smile faded, pain flashing in her eyes for a moment, sharp and bright.
"He's fine. Or, at least, he was when I left a few days ago." Her gaze went to the sky, seeming so close now that she could reach out and touch it, as she fought the tears that were suddenly burning behind her eyes.
She'd done everything she could to think of Peter as little as possible these last few days, for exactly this reason. If she did, the pain was so sharp, so huge, that she could barely function. If she gave in to it, it would destroy her long before the Soulsword ever could.
"Forgive me. I didn't mean to upset you." Magneto apologized sincerely, his voice soft. "Have there been problems between you?"
The genuine concern in his voice touched her and Kitty wished, not for the first time, that they didn't have to so often be enemies. He was not a hard man. Not really, though he often seemed that way out of necessity. During the time he'd been the headmaster at Xaviers, he'd been much more concerned with the welfare of his students, and his teams, than the Professor ever had.
And Kitty would always be grateful to him, not only for her own life and for Peters, but for his concern for Illyana and his efforts to help her control her growing darkness, something Professor Xavier had never really bothered with. He'd treated them as human beings, as individuals, instead of simply soldiers. Erik had always seen the people, the children, where Charles tended to simply see the abilities, the the mutants, the warriors.
What a force he could have been for good, if he'd only put his mind to it.
"Not exactly." Kitty finally replied, her voice holding a note of defeat that he could never recall hearing from her before. "I'd really rather not talk about it, if it's all the same to you."
"Of course." He quickly changed the subject, having no wish to distress her further. He knew Kitty well enough to know that, if she didn't want to talk about it, there would be no prying it out of her and this was apparently a subject that upset her deeply. "Is there anything I can get you? Something to drink perhaps?"
"No. I'm fine, but thank you." Taking a deep breath, Kitty turned around, tilting her face up as she studied him seriously for a moment before she spoke, hoping she wasn't about to start a fight that she didn't really want. "What are you trying to do here, Erik?"
When he didn't answer her, only met her gaze levelly with his own, Kitty sighed in weary resignation, knowing she was probably wasting her breath. "You're only going to get them all killed, you know, along with yourself. And, in the end, it'll only make things worse for the rest of us left behind."
This time, it was Magneto who sighed in resignation as his face took on a far away look and a great sadness seemed to settle over him like a cloak.
"What choice am I left with, Katherine? You've been in this fight since you were little more than a child. It was obscene that you should have ever been put in such a position at such a young age, or at all, but Charles had no choice. Just as I have no choice. Everything else has been tried, over and over again, only to fail. I fear we are at the point where it is us or them. And they are the ones who have put us here."
"Do you really believe you can change anything by declaring war on the world?" Kitty laid her hands on his upper arms, leaning toward him as she spoke earnestly, urgently. "If you ride that pale horse, we both know the hell that will follow. All they're waiting for is an excuse."
"Be that as it may, I honestly feel I have no choice. Genosha is not large enough to hold the entire mutant population of the world, nor should it have to. It is our world as much as theirs, and we have a right to live in it without fear of being slaughtered on the street simply because we exist."
Magneto spoke with conviction, but also with a kind of reluctant acceptance. In the position the world was currently in, mutants on one side, baseline humans on the other, there was no right answer. Battle lines were being drawn every day and it was quickly coming down to a simple matter of survival. They could not share the planet in peace, so one of them had to go.
Erik Lensherr was determined that it not be mutant kind. He would fight until his dying breath to prevent this holocaust, as he had not been able to prevent the Holocaust that had claimed his entire family.
"I know things are bad. I know they look hopeless. But there has to be a better way than a war that will, in all probability, not leave any of us alive." Kitty replied, knowing she was fighting a losing battle, but unwilling to give up until she'd at least tried to make him see one last time. "You're a powerful man, a wealthy man, with an entire country at your disposal. There's gotta be a better use for all that than war, destruction, and death. Haven't we had enough of that already? There has to be something better."
As she had been earlier, Magneto was now staring over her head, at the clear blue sky, white clouds floating by like puffs of cotton caught in a gentle breeze.
But he wasn't seeing the view. Kitty understood that. He was looking back at some atrocity from his past, one of the many that haunted him night and day. Though, whether it was one he had perpetrated or one that had been perpetrated upon him, she didn't know.
"Would that there were." he replied at length. "Would that there were."
His quiet words had her hanging her head as she realized that what was coming was inevitable. She couldn't stop it and he wouldn't. "Then, may God have mercy on us all."
As silence settled over them, Kitty turned once again toward the large front window, looking out at the clear, cloudless day, the sunlight streaming down, and thought what a strange feeling it was to see such a lovely, nearly perfect picture, and know that the world sat on the brink of disaster, waiting only on the man behind her to cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war.
It was a lot of power, a lot of responsibility, and, ultimately, a lot of guilt, whichever way it ended, for one man to bear.
"Enough of this." Magneto announced at length, shaking himself out of his reverie and giving her shoulders a light squeeze, making Kitty turn her attention back to the older mutant. "I did not call you here to talk of war, of the world's mutant/human relations crisis, or any of the million other problems we are forced to deal with each day."
Kitty allowed herself a small smile at the sudden change of mood and played along with him. "Then what did you bring me here for? I'm pretty sure it wasn't my pleasant company and charming personality"
"Because," he replied with a smile of his own, turning her around to face him again and looking down at her with what she could only call a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. "I believe I have something that belongs to you."
"I don't think so." Kitty answered slowly, trying to think what he could be talking about. She wasn't missing anything. Not that she knew of, anyway. And, even if she was, she couldn't imagine how Magneto could have gotten hold of it. "If I am, I can't imagine what it is."
"All the same, I'm sure it's yours." He told her firmly as his next comment left her even more confused. "I will be most glad to return it to you, as well. I'm afraid it's beginning to give me a bit of trouble."
Kitty looked at him askance as he led her to the door of an adjoining room and stepped back, motioning for her to open the door. "If you wouldn't mind? I'm afraid my presence is none too welcome."
Now, Kitty was positively scrutinizing him, unable to guess what he might be up to, but he only continued to smile at her in that same strange, almost mischievous, way.
"Ok. Whatever you want, I guess." Carefully, having no idea what might be waiting for her on the other side, Kitty turned the knob and slowly pushed the door open, peering into the dim, apparently empty, room.
It took a moment for her eyes to adjust from the bright light of the sitting room, to the almost twilight of the bedroom, but when they finally did, her knees nearly buckled and she had to hold onto the door frame to keep from hitting the floor.
There on a large, ornately carved bed, in the middle of a pile of what, judging by their color and material, could only be some of Magneto's costumes, sat someone that she'd thought never to set eyes on again.
"Oh, my God.....Lockheed?"
She was frozen in place, one hand covering her mouth, her other hand clutching at the wood of the door frame, hardly daring to breath as she stared at the little, purple lump sleeping soundly in the middle of the nest of clothing. Sleeping. Breathing. Not dead. Alive.
Kitty tried to move forward then, but her legs wouldn't hold her. If Erik hadn't caught her, she would have simply crashed to the floor, overwhelmed by the flood of emotions that washed over her like a tidal wave as the realization hit her. This was real. Not a dream. Lockheed was here, just a few feet away.
The master of magnetism led her to the bed and she sat down next to the little pile of clothes and dragon, reaching out one shaking hand to stroke his head as tears streamed down her face and her breath tore out of her in ragged, gasping sobs. She was almost afraid to touch him, afraid he might disappear like so much smoke if she did. But he didn't disappear. He was warm and soft and real.
As soon as she touched him, his slender head snapped up with a growl, his glowing, golden eyes narrowed menacingly. But when his gaze fell on Kitty's face, the little creature's whole body seemed to light up and Lockheed launched himself into his mistress' arms with a cry of delight and unbridled joy, nuzzling her cheek, licking the tears from her face, and cooing to her as she clutched him tight, sobbing into his soft, warm body.
She had no idea how long she stayed like that, holding her little dragon, her companion and dear friend that she'd never thought to see again, sobbing brokenly, uncontrollably as all her bottled up emotions came pouring out in the wake of her profound relief and joy at finding Lockheed alive. How it was possible she didn't know, didn't care. All she cared about was that he was here, she was holding him, and he was alive.
Vaguely, she was aware of Erik handing her tissues, of his presence in the room, of Lockheed hissing and growling at the older mutant any time he felt that Magneto was getting just a little too close to him and his Kitty. But it was a long time before she was able to get herself under control enough to do anything but clutch her dragon and weep.
Finally, as her sobbing subsided to random sniffles and hiccoughs, she seemed to regain some control over herself and Erik left her for a few moments, returning with a glass of cold water. Kitty took it gratefully, sipping it slowly, letting it soothe her raw, burning throat. As she handed the empty glass back to him, all she could manage to croak out, as she looked up into his light, crystal blue eyes, was one single word.
"How?"
Magneto, the man so many people considered a soulless monster, smiled down at her fondly as he set the empty glass on a nearby table.
"One of my guards found him, some weeks back, hiding in a culvert. Not knowing who, or what, he was, the young man brought him to me." Erik smiled indulgently at the little dragon, who eyed him suspiciously and growled low in his throat, causing Genosha's ruler to chuckle in tolerant amusement. "Of course, I immediately recognized him, but he was severely injured."
The white haired man's face sobered at this, and Kitty could easily guess that Lockheed's injuries had, indeed, been very grave. She'd seen him take the blaster hit, aimed at him by one member of a cell of human resistance fighters that had attacked a small mutant-human settlement she'd been visiting, in hopes of locating her father, or his whereabouts.
For days, she'd scoured the area, neither eating, sleeping, or resting, trying to find her dragon, or his body, without success. In the end, she'd been forced to give up the search, only able to assume that he had been killed. It had torn her heart to pieces as few other things ever had.
Now, hearing that he'd been lying somewhere, injured, scared, alone, that she'd left him there like that, Kitty felt even worse. Looking down into his scaly, iridescent purple face, she again felt tears burning behind her eyes as guilt stabbed through her.
"Oh, Lockheed, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to leave you. I swear." As fresh tears slipped down her cheeks, the little dragon, seeing his mistress' distress, warbled to her softly, nuzzling her, trying to tell her that it was all right, that he knew she hadn't left him on purpose, that he loved her and knew she would come for him eventually.
"Why didn't you call me?" Kitty turned back to Magneto, swiping the tears from her eyes as Lockheed crawled onto her shoulder, curling himself around her neck contentedly. "I would have been here in a second."
"Katherine, he was very nearly dead when we found him. Honestly, I didn't think he would live. I know how attached you are to him and I also knew you wouldn't have left him if you'd believed he were still alive. I didn't want to get your hopes up in the event that we weren't able to save him." His brow furrowed in confusion, then as he continued. "I did try to reach the mansion a day or two ago, but, strangely enough, no one ever answered."
"That's because there's hardly anyone there. Nearly all the X-Men have left." she explained as he looked at her in surprise. "Storm took most of the current team – Sage, Bishop, Rogue, Thunderbird, Psylocke, and Beast - to Spain. They've broken away from Charles completely. Wolverine, and probably Nightcrawler, are here looking for me, as I'm sure you already know."
Kitty leveled a knowing look in his direction from under her dark lashes, but Magneto's only answer was a slight twitching at the corners of his mouth, causing her to shake her head and roll her eyes, unable to stop the slight smile that curved her lips.
"Peter....well, he left for a try at a normal life. I hope." She sighed somewhat wistfully, pausing for a moment before continuing. "Gambit went home to New Orleans. Iceman went back to his accounting business. Cecelia may still be around, but she's got her own apartment, so she doesn't stay there nights. Charles and Jean have been gone for over a month on some mysterious 'fact finding' trip." She shrugged her shoulders, causing Lockheed to shift around her neck. "And I'm here. There's probably a few people at the school, but that's about it."
"Are you saying that the X-Men have disbanded?" he asked incredulously. His question startled her, but then she considered it for a moment, realizing that it was, actually, an accurate assessment of the current situation.
"Yeah." she replied, surprised that she hadn't thought of it before now. "I guess I am."
"And what about you?" He asked, tilting his head to one side as he looked down at her, sitting there with her little purple dragon draped securely around her neck as she absently stroked Lockheed's head. "What plans do you have? I am assuming, of course, that you aren't planning on making Genosha your permanent home."
"No." she confirmed quietly, her other hand, all unconsciously, closing over the amulet she still wore around her neck. "There are....things... I need to work out. I'm really not sure where I'll go from here, but I won't be staying in Genosha."
In a rather uncharacteristic gesture for him, Magneto walked to her and knelt down, so that they were eye to eye. Reaching out, he gently removed her hand from around the Bloodstone Amulet, taking it in his own palm as he studied it.
"This looks very familiar."
"It was Illyana's."
At this, he nodded, but his eyes narrowed slightly, never leaving the ornate, golden amulet. "Katherine, I'm not sure how to explain this, but there is a strange.....I suppose the only accurate word is 'resonance'....to this piece of jewelry. Though that isn't entirely accurate, either."
He stared at it for a moment longer, his expression puzzled, as he allowed his perceptions to shift, seeing not the actual piece of jewelry, a solid object, but a criss crossing of magnetic lines, patterns of force and energy. But they were jumbled, corrupted, wrong. What should have been smooth, aligned, and level, was, instead, bent, twisted, and broken. And he didn't know why. Never before had he seen anything quite like this.
"I believe you should remove this thing from your person, child. There is something most assuredly not right about it. I fear it may be dangerous."
Kitty gave a little snort, looking him directly in the face. "I know it is, but I can't get rid of it. I wish I could."
For a moment, the older man searched her face, seeming to try and gauge whether or not she was being serious. Apparently, he decided that she was. "If you're in need of help, Katherine...."
But Kitty only shook her head, removing the amulet from his hand to rest once more against her skin. "Thank you, but no."
Her voice was polite, but firm, and Magneto knew that he could not force his help, nor his advice, upon her. Though he was more worried about that strange amulet than he would care to admit. Very little actually made him nervous, but that thing did. "Very well. But keep in mind what I said. This amulet is not what it seems."
Erik stood once again, and Kitty got up as well, moving toward the door. "Thank you, Erik." Impulsively, she went to him, hugging him tightly. After a moments stunned surprise, he returned the embrace. "I can never repay you for what you've done for Lockheed. You've given me back my best friend and I'll never forget that."
The tall man patted her gently on the back, then stepped away as the dragon in question let out a particularly menacing growl, followed by a hiss of annoyance.
"You are more than welcome, though I should be thanking you. For the last few days, I've been dodging streams of flame at every turn, and I still haven't found two of my costumes." Despite his complaints, the powerful mutant chuckled. "He has made his displeasure with my company quite apparent."
Turning her head, Kitty tried to give her dragon a stern look, but ended up smiling indulgently instead as she scratched him under the chin. "Ungrateful dragon. That's no way to say thank you to someone who saved your life."
Lockheed's only reaction was to open one eye, glaring balefully at Magneto as he puffed a little stream of smoke from his nostrils and uttering a distinct "Pfui", before closing his eyes again and dropping his head back onto Kitty's shoulder.
The two mutants only laughed, shaking their heads indulgently at the little creature and his distinctive opinions. Reluctantly, Kitty turned back to the man who should, by all rights, not have cared one way or another about her or Lockheed, or any of the X-Men, but who had always been, if not their friend, then at least less of an enemy than many, and kinder to her than most.
"I really should be going. I've got some work waiting for me back at the hotel that I desperately need to get to."
Magneto nodded, taking her elbow and leading her back into the sitting room. "If you'll give me a moment to change, I'll walk you down." He smiled at her then, eyes twinkling as he laughed at himself a little. "I fear I'm late for my daily worshipping."
Kitty dropped her forehead into her hands as her shoulders shook with laughter. How on earth could she refuse a request like that? It was truly a shame that the rest of the world couldn't see this side of Erik Lensherr, instead of the madman he was invariably perceived to be.
True to his word, he reappeared less than ten minutes later in full Magneto regalia, complete with cape and helmet. She smiled at him a little sadly as he held his arm out to her, and she let him lead her out of the room and into the elevator.
How much simpler it all would be if they could simply be Kitty and Erik, instead of Shadowcat and Magneto. But it never seemed to work out quite that way, and she knew that, the next time they met, if there was a next time, it would mostly likely be as enemies.
They rode down in silence, both already feeling the distance, the wall that invariably sprang up to separate the X-Man from the would-be mutant ruler of the world. And Kitty felt as if she were closing out one more chapter in her life.
Like the pages in a book, she was moving through her past, looking it over, then putting it behind her. Almost as if she were shedding her old life in preparation for something else. What would happen, she wondered, when she turned the last page?
The elevator came to a gentle stop and they stepped out, again wordlessly, moving down the hall side by side, unconsciously matching their strides.
If the two had been paying any attention to the Acolytes they passed as they strode toward the front of the huge building, they would have caught the questioning, slightly uneasy, looks aimed their way as Magneto's followers wondered at the free roaming X-Man at his side. It was not exactly a common sight and it caused more than a little speculation as to what might be going on.
Just as they reached the wide doors leading out onto the commons, Kitty stopped, tugging gently on Erik's sleeve to get his attention. He stopped as well, turning to her with a questioning expression and she looked once more into those keenly intelligent, ocean blue eyes, her own face holding a hint of silent entreaty.
"Will you do me a favor, Erik? Before you make a decision, do something you can't take back, will you think, long and hard, about what it might mean for the rest of the world, and whether you can live with the consequences?"
After a moment, Magneto nodded gravely, taking her request in the spirit in which it was meant. "I promise you, Katherine. I will do nothing lightly. I am well aware of what my actions may mean to this world. And I ask something of you, as well. Think on what I said about this amulet." With a nod, he indicated the Bloodstone Amulet, hanging just above the swell of her breasts. "I fear it is more dangerous than you can know."
She nodded as well, following him outside as he turned and strode through the doors, his personal guards, already assembled and waiting for him, falling into step with them and surrounding the two mutants as they moved to the head of the wide marble steps.
The roar of the crowd, upon their first sighting of their leader and chosen savior, was deafening, rising in crescendo until Kitty thought the noise would bring the entire building down on their heads. It was like a physical force, hammering at them mercilessly.
On her shoulder, Lockheed lifted his head, glaring out at the crowd with annoyance writ large on his face. Kitty could imagine that he was grumbling, in his own, grumpy way, about the unwelcome disturbance, but she couldn't hear anything above the the heavy wall of sound blanketing them.
Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Magneto managed to quiet them, but the roar didn't stop with the crowd's silence. It was still there, inside her head, and Kitty wondered if maybe her eardrums had ruptured. Then, she noticed that the glass in the building's doors and windows were vibrating violently, and she knew it wasn't her imagination.
She and Erik exchanged a puzzled, concerned look, then began scanning the area, trying to locate the source of the bass rumble that seemed to be growing louder with each second that passed.
Reaching up to the top of her head, Kitty pulled her sunglasses back down over her eyes, hitting a button on the side of the frame that activated the micro-circuitry built into the glasses, allowing her to access their long range vision capabilities.
Sage had designed the glasses for Storm's team, as a means of communication and including several enhancements that would provide them with even more resources that they could use in a variety of situations. But it had been Kitty who built them and made them work. She was about to give hers their first field test.
By this time, nearly everyone in the area was looking around them in confusion, unable to pinpoint where the steadily increasing roar was coming from without success. Turning her face to the sky, Kitty turned in the circle, scanning the sky. When she turned toward the front of the palace, she froze, staring at the building before her.
A large, tall building, a modern skyscraper, with a long, tapering, spire set at it's apex.
Her heart dropped to her feet and she went cold inside as, in her mind, another image superimposed itself over the building in front of her. A picture from Irene Adler's diary, the one she'd seen on her computer screen, less than two hours ago.
The images were nearly identical, the lines of the drawing fitting almost perfectly over the shape of the actual building they represented, and she suddenly knew exactly what they were hearing, knew exactly what was coming at them just as fast as they could propel themselves through the air. Death was coming for them all, not on a pale horse, but on swift, steel monsters whose only purpose was the annihilation of every mutant on the planet.
Kitty turned back toward Erik, toward the thousands of people gathered in Magda square, and screamed out the only word she possibly could, the one that would fit in her mind at the moment.
"SENTINELS!"
A/N: I have realized, looking back at chapters 13 and 14, that those darn things are way too long. In retrospect, I should have broken each one down into two chapters to make them easier to read and to avoid putting my readers into comas or causing them to explode from story overload. In the future, I will endeavor to keep in mind that updates don't have to be fifty pages long and I don't have to cram everything into one epic-length chapter.
To my reviewers: To those of you who are left and weren't rendered unconscious by the last two chapters before this one, let me say a great big "THANK YOU!" You are the reason I have stuck with this. To the rest of you: I know you're out there. I can hear you breathing. Don't be frightened to review. I won't bite. Really. I'm quite harmless.
Araya-Michiru: Well, now I'm dying to know what your first guess was. Glad some of the confuzzledness (??. I think I'm lapsing into an alien language now.) is going away. It should get progressively better from here on out. I hope. Don't hesitate to let me know if it doesn't.
B(): Sorry about your day, but glad you liked the chapter. I have wicked, evil plans for Vargas. Heheheh. In the comics, he was rather intriguing, but then he just disappeared, along with some weird, alien warrior that looked like Storm. I think they're shacking up together somewhere in Madripor.
Darkstorm5000: I'm so glad you're enjoying the story, especially if you lived through those two massive chapters and made it this far. I have a whole rant on the extremely lame way that they killed off Peter in UXM #390. It was just pathetic and I will never forgive Marvel. I'm keeping a list of all the horrors they've inflicted on my favorite characters. It's a loooong list. Thanks for your kind words, and I hope you enjoyed chapter 15.
Kirayoshi: By the end of this, Vargas will deserve all the horrors and beatings we can possibly visit upon him. Trust me, he'll get his in spades. Yeah, I love Kurt and Amanda and think it's a shame that they've sent her off to Limbo, literally and figuratively. The Elf could use some love right about now from what I'm seeing in the comics. They're always good for some laughs when they're together and I figured we could all use a little levity about then. God knows, I could. Poor Logan. He's got worse coming very soon, so think of him as I write chapter 16. Now, what do you think about Lockheed's return? I must know. But black hair and veins on Kitty?? (makes little cross with her fingers.) Nooooo! Well....maybe.
Lia Fail: Glad you liked the dream sequence and those diary riddles. Those things took me forever and I still have more I have to make up. We'll have more dreams in later chapters, and they'll help explain what's going on. Plus, we'll have more characters being blessed with them. I have to agree with you about the Promethium Exchange story line from Excalibur. That had to be the most lame use of the Soulsword and Limbo in history. I almost decided to ignore it, but I needed that part about Rachel. I tried to make it as interesting as possible, which I honestly wasn't quite sure how to do. But I'm glad to know it worked out ok. The problems with Kitty in X-Treme X-Men has, IMHO, been the fact that they keep insisting on portraying her as a #&! teenager and it's just not working. I've seen some of Whedon's pages and, so far, they give me hope. I can't wait till Astonishing hits the stands. I just wish they'd given Kurt to Joss, too. Maybe he could give him his sanity back. Thanks for hanging in there and I hope you enjoyed chapter 15.
T.A. Pixiestix: Yeah. Still no cookies. Very depressing. Think I'll go get some tomorrow. Yes, creepy Vargas is back and will be popping up at random throughout the story from now on. And, yes, he's the same guy from the dream and he is not what he seems. We all love Logan. He's a really fun character to write, too. But think of him. I'm running him through the grinder next chapter and he's going to be a very unhappy Wolverine for a little while. It makes me sad, but I have to do it. You have my sympathy on the biology. My most prominent memory from my high school biology class (for reference, that was sometime around the same time they invented the wheel and discovered fire.) is of my friend making earrings out of his biology frog. Not my favorite class.
Coming Soon: Chapter 16 – S Is For Sentinel. The big, mutant hating robots are headed for Genosha and it ain't gonna be pretty. Much fighting and angst ensues and an important decision is made that will change more than one character's life forever.