Roughly
ten minutes later, the X-Van pulled up in the garage of the
Institute. Jamie was waiting for them.
"You better come
inside," he said. "Something's wrong."
"What
is it?" Scott wanted to know.
"Um... we're not sure. But
it's like someone is messing around in here and nobody knows what's
causing it. Mr. Logan is really mad."
Sighing, Jean pushed
her sunglasses up the ridge of her nose and opened her door. "Well,
we better see what the problem is."
In the backseat, Kitty
nodded. "Whatever. And then I gotta make sure Evan didn't rip
out much of my hair with that window."
"I said I was
sorry!"
"You will be if it happens again."
Picking
up her bag from beside her seat, Kitty sighed and slid toward her
door. She made no move to reach for the handle, instead intending to
phase right through it.
Instead a hugely powerful blast of red
energy shot from her eyes and tore the door off its hinges.
Jamie
had been standing outside the door; still pushed by the blast, the
van door neatly collected him as it went, sailed across the garage,
and embedded itself in the wall.
As the blast died down, everyone
stared at the cracked plaster of the wall, the buckled and ruined van
door, and the tip of one of Jamie's sneakers, hanging three inches
off the floor from where he was pinned between the two. Then they all
turned and looked at Kitty.
Kitty fainted.
----
Kitty
opened her eyes to a world bathed in red. The walls, the bed she was
lying on, the ceiling, everything she looked at was simply another
shade of red, as though all around her had been bathed in blood. For
a second her heart skipped a beat, wondering if that blast fired from
her eyes had destroyed her vision; that she would never again see in
colour.
Then she realised someone had just strapped Scott's visor
to her head, and she sat up.
"Was wonderin' when you'd
wake up," Rogue observed from where she was sitting on her bed
in their room. Kitty blinked at her.
"You're wearing... a
T-Shirt?"
"Yup. Whatever's happenin' with our powers, I
got mine cancelled out. Ain't no problem with my skin, at least for
the minute."
"What?" Kitty swung her legs off the
bed and massaged her temples. "What are you talking
about?"
"C'mon." Standing up from her bed, Rogue
nodded at the door. "The Professor can tell ya what's going
on."
Kitty frowned and followed her. "Wait, is this like
what was happening to the Brotherhood?"
"No idea.
Couldn'ta been their fault, 'cause things were goin' crazy over here
before we got back. Somethin's screwy, anyhow. An' don't be surprised
if somethin' weird happens 'fore we get to the Professor's
study."
"Wait a minute, wait!" Kitty stopped dead.
"Omigod, Jamie! Is he okay? I, like, totally killed him! Is he
hurt bad? Is he gonna be okay?"
Rogue opened her mouth to
answer; before she could, Jamie's voice echoed in through the open
door from somewhere down the hall.
"Eat it, bub!"
Rogue
closed her eyes and thumped her head gently against the wall. "Trust
me. Jamie ain't hurt, despite everyone's best efforts. Little
bastard scored Logan's powers and he's runnin' around sniffing people
and tryin' to slice stuff up. If anyone figures out how to switch us
back, Bobby's probably gonna kill him."
----
"Are
you feeling alright, Kitty?" the Professor asked.
Kitty
blinked at him. "Didn't we just see you in the kitchen -"
"Yes,"
he said sharply. "You did."
"...huh?"
"And
also in the Gazebo, the Library, and supervising the Danger
Room."
"You got Jamie's powers, didn't
you?"
"Unfortunately."
"How's it feel not
having telepathy anymore?"
"Very strange." He
nodded at her visor. "Oh, and I'm fairly certain you can take
those off."
Kitty frowned. "You think so? Wouldn't it
be, uh, dangerous?"
"No. Scott lost control of his
powers in an accident. You appear to have inherited his powers, but
not the accident. You should have control over them."
Carefully,
Kitty pulled off the visor, and sighed in relief when she failed to
destroy anything. "So what's going on, then? What's causing all
this?"
"I'm not certain." the Professor shrugged.
"As near as we can place it, it began in the Danger Room. The
New Mutants were running through a sim, Ray fired up his powers, and
everyone suddenly jolted as though they'd been electrocuted."
Rogue
nodded at Kitty. "Remember? It was about five minutes after we
left the 'Hoods house."
"Indeed," the Professor
agreed. "From that point on everything went haywire. Before we
knew what was happening, everyone's powers were completely out of
control. We don't know why."
"But..." Kitty
frowned. "It couldn't have been that. The Brotherhood tried to
fight us, and -"
"I know," he cut her off. "I've
discussed this with the others. Scott and Jean are trying to make
contact with the Brotherhood now to see if they have any idea what
may have caused this. The rest of us are just trying to get some kind
of a handle on the situation."
Taking this all in, Kitty
sat back in her seat and looked at Scott's visor. She raised an
eyebrow.
"So if I have Scott's powers, whose did he
get?"
"Mine," Rogue answered. "I got Rahne's.
Kinda weird turnin' into a wolf like that. Not that she's
complainin'... she got Ray's powers."
"We don't know who
has made which switches yet," the Professor put in. "Some
are obvious... Jean's eyes started glowing, so we know she has Kurt's
powers. Scott managed to drain Rahne at one point, revealing that he
had Rogue and Rahne had Ray. And Jubilee..."
----
"Jubilation,
please. Open the door."
"No!" The girl's voice was
firm. "I am not coming out until we find out how to reverse
this."
"This is not helping anyone, Jubilation. It's not
that bad."
"Yes it is!"
"No it is not. I
have had to deal with this before. And this will be only temporary, I
assure you. You will not have my powers forever. Now will you
please come out and discuss this?"
"No!"
Sighing,
Hank turned away and walked back down the corridor. He'd tried his
best, but for some reason Jubilee just didn't want to see the upside
of becoming an enormous blue gorilla.
Kids these
days.
----
"...as for the others, well, we're not
quite sure on everyone," the Professor continued. "Logan,
Kurt and Evan are still unknown, and they're a little cautious about
trying to find out in case their powers are dangerous. Roberto seems
to have retained his own powers, as has Storm. It's quite
confusing."
"Who's got mine?" Kitty wanted to
know.
"We're not sure yet. I'm sure we'll find out soon
enough. At least your powers are unlikely to cause any long-lasting
damage, so long as there's nothing electronic
involved."
----
Upstairs in his bedroom, Logan
swiped a hand through his matted hair.
"This is stupid,"
he growled. "It don't matter whose powers I got. We'll work it
out soon enough."
Ororo rolled her eyes. "Logan, this is
important. Will you just try?"
"I am trying. I ain't
used to this. Passive powers, remember?"
Two of the
Professor's clones were also present; one steepled his hands under
his chin. "Logan, tell me. How do you 'pop your claws', as you
often put it?"
Logan shrugged. "I flex."
"Then
flex now," the Professor encouraged. "The others seem to be
able to activate their new powers by getting in the same mindset they
were in to activate their old ones. Give it a try."
Sighing,
Logan closed his eyes and concentrated. For a long moment, nothing
happened.
Then his clothes abruptly dropped away from his body and crumpled to the floor.
Logan's eyes snapped open in horror
as a look of barefaced dismay plastered itself on his features.
However, his face fell only a split second before he did, dropping
straight through the floor of his bedroom and into the ground level
of the Institute.
Ororo managed to snap her jaw shut and blink as
the screaming started to float up from the kitchen downstairs.
Shaking her head, she glanced at the Professors next to
her.
"Kitty," they all said in unison.
