Author's note: Ooh, the madness continues. Well, that's pretty much all I have to say.
Madripoor Rose: I got back into the comics game when my brother brought home a trade paper back of E is for Extinction. New X-Men and Astonishing X-Men are the only X-titles I read anyway. If you want to know how Scott got with Emma, it's mentioned (well not mentioned, done) in the end of "Here Comes Tomorrow", Morrison's last arc. If you want to know, it's actually –SPOILER WARNING- not something he originally wanted. But the only way to avoid the bleak future that presented itself was if Scott didn't give up hope after Jean's death. So The Phoenix uses her 4D mad skills to telepathically force Scott into loving Emma, therefore giving him a reason to 'live' again. –END SPOILER WARNING-
Ryan Schiff: Same reason Rachel tried turning Emma to a marshmallow.
Dark-bat: Hey thanks. Looks like I have another Peter/Kitty fan here. I have to be honestly though, this isn't a fic that's going to focus on their relationship, so if that's what you're expecting, then I'm sorry but you'll end up disappointed. Anyway, yeah, thanks again for the kind words.
Kirayoshi: I'm actually not a Claremont fan. Not really big on dialogue that goes like "Hang on to me…FOR YOUR LIFE!" But I did read God Loves Man Kills II, though I didn't notice any mention of her resistance (probably because I got bored halfway through). No offense if you enjoyed it, it's just not my cup of tea. But I do know that Kitty has this weird immunity to some forms of telepathy or whatnot, that's why she was recruited into fighting that Bogan person, right? (thank you, But hey, like you said, its not immunity, its resistance. Besides, I figured if Emma can give Kitty an uber-psi-migraine in Phoenix: Endsong, then I could do it here J Anyway, no problem with the whole relationship worshipping thing. I accustomed myself to those when I was still writing in the Resident Evil section.
Previously on… a normal day gets cracked wide open when Rachel Summers, AKA MARVEL GIRL, attacks headmistress EMMA FROST in broad daylight. Senior student and low-level pyrokinetic DERRICK GALLIS gets knocked out in the scuffle, but had no signs of physical injury on him. And even though there were no permanent injuries, it did leave both the faculty, and the student body rattled, as the possibility of an aggressor within the institute arises. It doesn't take long for the senior team to conclude that the attack was telepathic in nature, and targets people through an empathic, or emotional connection. With the toll of the days events getting to her, KITTY PRYDE tries to spend her early hours of rest training instead, an idea that she shared, unknowingly, with peter Rasputin, the recently deceased COLOSSUS. As the training session ended, Peter finds Kitty immobile, and rushes to her thinking something is wrong. Something was. Once Kitty realizes Peter in the room with her, she coaxes him into a comforting embrace. It was broken seconds later, as peter finds Kitty's hand phased into his chest, ready to crush his heart…
Chapter 4: "Cold-Hearted Longing"
Gritting his teeth, Peter closed his eyes, and willed himself into a mass of living metal. It, in effect, greatly increased both his strength and endurance, not to mention his size. Not that it made him invulnerable. Just as tough as hell. This mutant power earned him the fitting codename of Colossus, the requisite hard-hitter of the team. He always did wonder if it was just his skin that transmuted into a different substance, or if it was his entire physiology. He argued that if it was only his skin that changed, then the iron would poison his blood. No better time to find out. Kitty shrieked out in anger as she felt the man's heart turn to solid metal, rendering it impossible to crush, given her low level of strength.
"Cheater!" she yelled, pulling back as Peter grabbed onto her shoulders.
"Katya, calm down…"
"Don't talk to me! It's dirty!" she shrieked, phasing herself out of Peter's grip.
"…I don't want to hurt you, Katya…"
"You should be dead! Cheater! Cheater!" Kitty clenched her teeth and phased out of the older man's grip. "I have to make things right. You shouldn't be here. What if everyone else starts returning from the grave? We can't let that happen, no! Nope! Not ever!" she rambled on, as she frantically stepped away from the Colossus.
"Katya, you need help!"
"No! No help! Not from you! What if anyone saw us? What would people say? How obscene!" the troubled woman remarked, hugging herself once again.
"Please, do not force me to subdue you." Peter pleaded, putting his palms up in an attempt to show the young woman that he meant her no harm.
"Oh God, no, there has to be, a balance, yes! A balance. Alive is alive, dead is dead, alive is alive, dead is dead…" Kitty stopped for a moment, as if contemplating on something. "…why don't people stay dead, anymore?" she then asked, tilting her head, her eyes wide open.
"Kitty!" he stepped forward, but Kitty violently backhanded him, resulting in a loud crack that echoed through the room.
"You're dead! You're not supposed to be here! Nasty! Cheat!" she then cried, much too out of herself to even feel the pain from her nearly broken hand.
"…" Peter took a deep breath. "Just act. Don't let her hurt herself. Stop her. Just stop her…"
"Death is supposed to have meaning…" she whimpered, her anger once again giving away to despair.
"…" Peter had enough. He made a rush for the hysterical girl. But the issue of sanity aside, she was still an X-Man, and she still knew that she had a very potent power at her disposal. With a deep breath, she let herself fall back, allowing the floor to swallow her whole. The brilliant idea of using the Danger Room's Sonics to incapacitate him came a little too late.
"No!" Peter stopped in his tracks, and got on his knees, his hands pressed on the panels that Kitty sank into. It was, in effect, just like swimming underwater. Kitty needed to hold her breath in order to float through large, solid objects. Losing concentration for even a moment; could end up in a very messy death. And Peter was afraid that Kitty wasn't in the right state of mind to pull it off.
"Katya, come out!" he yelled, standing right back up and scanning the empty room. It frustrated him, the uncertainty of whether the young woman went truly insane and opted to drown herself beneath the ground, or is still very much resolute to end his existence. And as all true heroes do, when faced with either safety for oneself in return for the life of another, or the opposite alternative, he did not hesitate to wish for the latter.
"…Katya! Please…" Peter gritted his teeth, growling in frustration as he frantically checked the floors for any sign of the young woman resurfacing.
"Don't do this…I need you to be okay…"
Men's Dorm/00:32
Mark shifted from side to side, trying to be as comfortable as he could. It was half a minute later that he let out a loud sigh as he sat up from bed, rubbing his eyes in an attempt to wake himself up. He too, was unable to sleep. It was a tendency that most of the people in the campus suffered from. "…Every room should have a toilet…" he mumbled to himself, as he got off his bed, and lazily stretched his arms. The basic dormitory room had two beds on opposite sides, a common cabinet near the left end of the room, windows by the bed headboards, and the door where the right bed's feet faced. In his first day there, Mark immediately fought for the bed on the left side.It was the unhealthy side-effect of growing up with an urban legend about a sinful nun getting dragged out of the door by her feet. People really should be careful of what they tell impressionable young children. "…?" As Mark's eyes finally managed to adjust to the darkness, they slowly trailed over his roommate's bed, and found Derrick shifting uncomfortably in his sleep. "Derrick?"
Danger Room/00:33
The seconds stretched into an eternity as Peter braced himself for the possibility of an attack. "Katya, please!" Peter shouted, not noticing a pair of wraith-like hands coming out from beneath the floor. "…Kitty?" Peter looked down, and watched in horror as he saw the deranged X-woman's hands grab his ankles. "Oh no…" In half a second, he began to feel himself lose his tangible form, thanks to Kitty's ability to extend her mutant power to anything, or anyone that she whishes to phase. "At least she didn't kill herself…" came a cold, comforting thought, as Peter felt himself slowly sinking, getting dragged down into the darkness beneath the ground. If Kitty would let go of him in there, then his body would resume tangibility, effectively fusing with the floor, resulting in what could only be described as a messy way to go. One that Peter didn't wish upon himself at the moment. In any other place, Kitty could kill Colossus without breaking a sweat. All she needed was a little imagination with her powers. But they weren't just in any place. They were in a room built to be a weapon. And though he couldn't use the sonics to subdue her, with the risk of her sinking too far down for them to salvage, there were still other options to be had.
"No…Danger Room! Begin underwater simulation! Now!" he yelled at the top of his steel lungs, and before he could sink further to imminent death, the hard-light reflectors lined between the extendable floor panels began to expand. "What?" Kitty lost her concentration as she felt the floor melt away from her, eventually vanishing into thin air, turning into a blur of pure white light. Before she could even blink, what was once the floor got replaced by a sudden torrent of water, hitting her from all sides with the force of a car. And unlike Colossus, whose steel frame protected him from the assault of water, the impact forced her to lose the breath she was holding, and with the new setting, she was left unable to grab another breath. Peter closed his eyes, unable to watch the young woman struggle with the sudden change of environment. He knew that she needed to be stopped, and without a skilled telepath loitering in the area, he needed to take any opportunity that he got.
Men's Dorm/00:33
"Hey man…" His heart stopped as he saw blood trickle down from his best friend's nose. "Oh. Crap. Derrick!" he rushed to the young man's side, succumbing to fear as he watched him begin to convulse, like there was an invisible person holding him by the shoulder and shaking him violently. "Hey, hey man, wake up, come on!" Mark urged, pinning him down to stop from flailing. "Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap, help, help, someone help! Help!" he yelled at the top of his lungs, while keeping his best friend down. "Derrick, wake up." He ordered, leaning closer to his best friend's face. "Hey, wake up! Do you hear me? Derrick, wake up!" Mark leaned back, cursing under his breath. "Somebody, help!"
Underground Complex/00:35
Scott and Emma ran down the steel corridors, with Henry and Logan following them from behind. "You sure about this?" Logan asked, putting his flannel shirt on as he ran. "I mean, the girl's got some mixed emotions, she's taking ol' Pete's comeback the hardest." He suggested, leaving the buttons of his shirt open.
"Logan, I seriously doubt that homicide is included in those mixed emotions." Emma retorted, turning a corner. "At least we'll be sure." Scott followed, supporting his girlfriend's line of thought.
"Notice how all we ever try to do is kill each other?" Henry asked as he leapt ahead of the line.
"Yeah, and right now we're trying to stop someone from actually pulling it off." Scott responded, bringing up the rear.
"You mean Pete's down there with…holy $#, why didn't you people tell me this earlier? Let's go!" Logan yelled, picking up the pace. That was when Emma suddenly stopped, and turned, letting Logan go ahead of her. "…"
"…Emma?" Scott stopped as well, clearly wondering what distracted his girlfriend so much.
"…uh, go ahead. Go ahead!" he then ordered as the two other mutants noticed their team leaders dead in their tracks. "Hank, Logan, go." He said again, an order that the two mutants quickly heeded.
"Emma, what is it?' he then asked, turning back to the powerful telepath.
"I'm getting a trace." She reported, looking at the air as if seeing an invisible, blue thread of energy coming from the top of her forehead, all the way through the ceiling.
"You can see where it's coming from?" Scott asked, rushing to her side.
"Shh!" she scolded. Holding her palm up.
"So-" he tried to apologize.
"Shh!" she raised her palm higher, closer to Scott's face.
"…"
"Blast, I lost it."
"…That direction?" Scott asked, referring to the last spot that Emma stared at.
"Yes. Whatever it was, came through there."
"…The men's dormitories are up there."
Danger Room/00:36
Peter began to morph back into his organic state as the water began to settle. His Colossal form would have made him sink to the bottom, and since he still needed oxygen to live, he began to swim up to the surface, where he could abort the program. As his eyes adjusted to the salt water, he made out the form of a woman swimming toward him. The insanity that struck Kitty no longer settled for whether or not she could survive the ordeal. All it wanted was the X-Men dead, and it was quite resolute in its aim, whatever the cost may be. Peter felt his head beat harder and harder as he watched Kitty swim closer, her hand outstretched, ready to finish the job. "Damn it" Kitty made a dive for his heart, but Peter circled back, avoiding the phase-shifter's grip by just an inch. He wondered if she was intangible that very moment, and took a gambit even as his heart deeply contested, when he clenched his fist and punched Kitty in the gut. Apparently, she wasn't, and the gambit did pay off. A mask of pain covered Kitty's face as she sunk further down, giving more time for Peter to rush to the surface. He did not dare look back at Kitty as the lack of oxygen finally took its toll. All he knew was that he had seconds at best, to rectify the situation before there could be any permanent damage on the young woman whom he felt so strongly for.
Men's Dorm/00:37
"You sure?" Mark asked, sitting on the edge of his best friend's bed. "…yeah, don't worry…" Derrick groggily replied, wiping the blood from his nose. "Sorry guys…" he then said, turning to a few students who were huddled in the doorway, students who obviously heard and responded to Mark's plea for aid.
"I can just get Elixir and…" Todd suggested, gesturing with his thumb to the direction down the hall.
"It's okay, really guys, I'm so sorry you had to wake up for this." Derrick apologized again.
"…" Mark turned and stood up. "Sorry about that peeps, guess the show's over." He remarked. "I'll take you all out to pizza for lunch, my treat." He offered, to compensate for the fact that he just woke up a dozen or so students on account of a false alarm. Todd refused out of courtesy, leading the others to do so as well, and seconds later, the young mutants went back to their rooms.
"…Sorry." Derrick muttered in embarrassment as he watched Mark close the door and head back to him.
"…You sure that you don't need to go to the clinic?" he asked, scratching the back of his head.
"No, I…really…thanks, it's just a nightmare."
"….Nightmares make your nose bleed?"
"Uh, could be some… ultimate nightmare."
"Come on, don't joke about this. I mean, what if you were having a secondary mutation, or something?"
"Again, with the 'I'm sorry', and here's a second helping of 'thank you'." Derrick responded with a smile, thought it was pretty obvious that it was a smile meant to comfort a worried friend and not anything else.
"At least go and see a healer. Your nose looks like it's a reindeer's."
"…I'm fine, Mark. Really. It's just...my dreams get intense sometimes."
"Intense? I hope you don't mean intense, as in 'my power to generate fire uncontrollably goes nuclear and kills everyone around me when I dream', because that would suck. Mostly for me."
"At least you get to skip the quantum physics practical this Friday if I accidentally burn your face off."
"I wish."
"Heh."
" So…intense, huh?"
"…Yeah, I mean, intense. Like, extreme, and…it's been with me since forever."
"…What do you dream about?"
"…I forgot."
"You…forgot. You forgot this incredibly intense, nosebleed inducing dream thirty seconds after waking up?
"It's personal."
"…"
"I'm sorry for wigging you out."
"Okay. Sure…I'm getting you a glass of water, okay?"
"Yeah, thanks man."
"No problem."
Danger Room/00:39
Logan and Henry stood in shock as the Danger Room's massive doors slid open, revealing the two X-men inside. Peter was back to his organic form, breathing some oxygen back into Kitty's mouth. "…She needs air…" he muttered, gently putting her head back down on the floor and pressing his palms against his chest. "What the holy hell happened here?" Logan asked, recovering from the initial shock and running to his comrades' side. Henry followed suit. "Danger Room, lights!" he ordered as he moved to his teammates. There was no response. "Danger Room! Lights!" he ordered once more, this time to a successful result.
"Come on Pete, give me an update here!" Logan demanded, kneeling beside Kitty's body.
"Something possessed her to attack me." He simply responded, before he resumed breathing air back into her lungs.
"And what, you chucked her out to sea?" Logan asked, raising his voice.
"Logan, please." Henry pleaded, just as Kitty began to cough out what was supposed to be the water in her lungs. "She's coming to…" he then noted, helping Peter sit Kitty up.
"Hey kid, rise and shine, we've got a world needs saving." Logan remarked, placing a hand on the disoriented young woman's shoulder.
"God… what happened?" she asked in between her coughing. "I felt like… everything went…" she shook her head and looked at Peter with wet eyes. "Oh God…"
"It was nothing." Peter immediately responded in an attempt to comfort her. "It was absolutely nothing."
"Come on kid, we'll talk about this later, you just need to get yourself some sleep." Logan offered.
"No!" she suddenly yelled out, shaking Logan's hand off of her. "What happened? What did I do? Tell me what happened!" Kitty yelled in frustration with a voice that was barely above a croak, refusing any help from the other X-Men.
"You went mad." Interrupted a female voice, coming from the open doorway.
"Em?" Logan turned to find Emma, with Scott by her side.
"…Rachel suggested that emotions are the catalyst for these sudden bouts of insanity. It's why she attacked me. If that's true, then it explains why you were the next one to go sixes and sevens."
"Me? My emotions?"
"Yes. Your emotions. The ones that are so terribly unobvious, linguistic scholars are needed to decipher them." She sarcastically answered.
"…What? How dare you? You don't know what you're talking about…"
"Oh? Is that right? I felt it, Katherine. Something was out here, a big…bubble of psionic energy, creeping along the shadows, and I actually felt it feel excited! Excited about the very, very loud thoughts that you keep in your head! You knew very well that there's something in this campus that's preying on us. On what we think, on what we feel! And here you are, parading yourself like it's the red light district!"
"…" Kitty wanted to speak, but no words came out. Tactless as Emma was, Kitty knew that she was right. She left herself vulnerable in a situation where she shouldn't have.
"Care to argue further?"
"…I…" Kitty furrowed her brows and turned to Peter, their eyes locking for a second.
"Come on, 'Kitty', do speak up." Emma challenged, crossing her hands over her chest and raising her eyebrow. "God knows you need to get it out of your system. For all our bloody sakes!"
"Emma, shut up." Scott scolded, going over to Kitty and helping her up.
"But Scott!"
"Now's not the time for this!"
"…"
"Yeah, people might begin to think that you don't have a heart in there." Kitty bitterly remarked.
"That's enough." He commented, this time referring to Kitty.
"…Fine" Emma muttered under her breath, rolling her eyes.
"You are getting some rest, that's an order." He then instructed as he finally got Kitty to her feet. "And you…" he turned to Peter. "Help her to her room. Make sure she changes before you let her sleep." Peter nodded in reply, bending down, in both a gesture, and attempt to lift her up. Once more, she refused. Everyone stood silent as they watched their youngest member hug herself and leave.
Chapter 4, End.
Next Chapter – Todd gets to do something with his powers?
Author's note: It should be blisteringly obvious who the culprit to these psionic attacks is. Don't worry, it's intentional.