With Friends Like These…

Kitty sighed and glanced at the piece of paper in her hand. It was 1 in the morning, the body of the agent had been processed by Logan and Emma's best laid plans, and now she had a call to make. On the paper was a number she hadn't really needed to have written down. It was kind of ridiculous, really. She had only asked Emma for the number, which the Institute had on file from Wisdom's time with X-Force, to make sure that it hadn't changed. …It hadn't.

Steeling herself for the ridiculously tense conversation to come, Kitty closed her eyes and dialed. Three… Four… On the fifth ring, a grizzled voice came across the connection.

"Bguhaway?"

"No. This is serious, Wisdom."

"Damn well better be…"

"Well, it's not a damn booty call." Kitty sighed, exasperated.

"Pity, that." Kitty could hear the smirk, but it must have disappeared as quickly as it originated, "What is it?" He was all business now. Kitty was surprised to feel herself more than a little disappointed, but she pushed it out of her mind. Think, Pryde! You have bigger issues right now!

"We got a little present yesterday afternoon."

"Oh? Pryde, I'm not in the mood for games right now, luv. Just tell me what the fuck is going on."

"I'm holding a business card in my pocket. It has a really interesting sun on it." Dead silence greeted her on the other end before an animated stream of cursing filled the line. Eventually, he managed to form it into a proper response.

"Right, then. What now?"

"Well, Wisdom, we send a plane for you, you get on it, and before you kvetch at me anymore, you remember that it's four hours earlier here than it is there." Kitty sat up straight as she prepared to call down to the hangar for the Blackbird to be prepped. Pete cut her off.

"No. Don't send your fucking plane. I'm calling in a favor. I'll get there."

"Fine. There's really nothing we can really do until you get here, so I'll just go back to bed. Call if you run into trouble and we'll send the Blackbird."

"Right. Be careful, Pryde. I know I don't have to tell you that, but…"

"I'll be fine, Pete. See you in about 7 hours." A commercial flight would take longer, but knowing Wisdom's connections, he could be there much sooner.

"Yeah. Wisdom out." The connection clicked out and Kitty got out of her chair. The walk back to her room was a long one. She was exhausted. She walked through the door to Piotr's room, not even bothering to open it. He was still asleep, as he'd been when she'd left. For obvious reasons, it struck her as easier to call Pete when Piotr was asleep and it appeared to have worked.

She slid into bed next to him and his arm fell around her waist. I hope he hurries was her last coherent thought as she drifted off to sleep.

She was awakened about 30 minutes later by the alarm system in the mansion going off at top volume. Piotr was already out of bed getting dressed by the time she made a mad dash for her room.

She was in uniform fairly quickly and jogged down the hall. The rooms where the students slept had already been locked down by the security system. She picked up the pace a little, and hurried along the hallway with her eyes open, scanning the scenery the way that Logan had taught her what felt like forever ago.

She eventually ended up in the foyer downstairs where she discovered Scott and Piotr dealing with at least a dozen more black-clad assailants. She jumped right into the fight and, almost immediately, brought the odds into the X-men's favor.

She had only been fighting for about 10 minutes when she noticed that Piotr was not metal. She turned to him and shouted in Russian.

"Piotr? Why aren't you two using your powers?"

"Inhibitor guns!" He yelled back, "They've temporarily shorted us out!"

The fight continued for an extended amount of time, when they finally found themselves down to the last 12 Black Air goons. Scott and Piotr were dealing with many of them when 5 advanced on Kitty. Piotr, casting a look around, noticed the considerable odds that his girlfriend was facing. He called over his shoulder in Russian to her.

"Katya? Are you alright?" He tossed the goon closest to him through the plate glass window directly in front of him.

"I'm fine, Piotr!" She called back, punching her current partner in the throat and moving to the next. "Help Scott!" The team leader did, in fact, look a little bit overwhelmed, taking on two at a time and looking around for aid. Piotr knocked another unconscious before doing just the opposite.

He stalked over to Kitty and pulled the one closest to him backward. The gigantic Russian kicked the goon's legs out from under him and Kitty looked up from where she was currently rendering yet another fighter inoperable and glared at the Russian. "Piotr! What the hell are you doing? Help Scott! NOW!"

"But Katya," Piotr was dumbfounded, "You are in trouble…"

"I am fine." She hissed, punching another who advanced behind her, "You need to help Scott. Now GO!" She kicked the same goon in the head. "If I needed help, I would ask for help! I said I was fine, so I'm fine!" Piotr stood dumbfounded, doing nothing.

Meanwhile, across the room, Scott was being cornered by three of the troopers, and desperately searching for a way out. They were advancing and looking to each other with anticipatory glances. The way that they figured, this was gonna be easy.

"Umm… I could really use some help here, guys…" Scott shouted warily to his teammates. Just as he was beginning to get extremely killed, one of the men let out a choking noise and fell to the ground. Logan stood smirking in Scott's direction.

"Needed help, Scooter?" The Canadian grinned and Scott knew he'd hear about this for at least the next six weeks. The two of them easily dispatched the remaining duo and cast their gaze towards the other side of the lobby.

Kitty had clearly, either alone or with Piotr's help, taken care of her assailants and was now apparently working on Piotr. Logan grinned, "Petey's in fer it over there."

"You think?" Scott was surveying the damage done, once again, the interior of the Mansion and not really paying attention to what was sounding like typical Kitty and Piotr to him.

"Oh yeah. She's pissed big time. She might even kill him." Logan lit a cigar and nudged the goon closest to him with a toe. Satisfied with the lack of movement, Logan walked over to the other side of the room and picked up his hat. Heading to the kitchen, he pretended not to be listening to the argument, but it was kind of hard not to overhear Kitty's indignant shouting.

"I can't believe you, Piotr! I told you I had it! If I say that I've got it, then I've got it! The last thing I need is someone looking after me!" Piotr, for his part, was looking completely and totally confused at the woman standing with her hands on her hips in front of him.

"Katya… you were in trouble. I could not allow anything to happen to you."

"It's not up to you to decide whether you can allow anything! I am a trained fighter, Piotr. I could take you out without even thinking really hard about it and I hardly think that I need your help dealing with three or four badly trained morons! Am I always going to be 15 to you!" Piotr's mouth opened to deliver his reply, but he never got the chance.

"Well well well…" Both of them turned at the voice from the door. "Looks like you lot've been startin' the fun without me." Pete stubbed out his cigarette with his foot. Piotr's face instantly turned to a scowl.

"Wisdom." The Russian turned to face one of his least favorite people in the world. Pete started walking across the room. Kitty still hadn't looked up.

"Hullo, Pryde." Pete lit another cigarette, "We have to talk." His eyes flicked to Piotr, "Without our own personal ambassador to the Soviet Union." Kitty's eyes shot up and she scrutinized Pete for visible ulterior motives. "Awww… fer chrissakes, luv. Would ya trust me for three seconds, here? It's for your own good, after all. You're just the only one what needs to know this." Kitty relaxed for a second until Pete decided to hold true to form, "Besides, if I wanted to get yer alone, I'd come up with somethin' a little more creative than that an' you'd be powerless to resist." He winked and Kitty instantly trained her eyes to her boyfriend, who was currently looking as though the words "It was an unavoidable battle casualty, Officer," were shooting through his mind. She had to diffuse this, and fast.

"Piotr," she came up behind Piotr and put a hand on his arm, "Why don't you go find out if Scott and Logan need any help cleaning some of this wreckage up and checking on the kids?" She was still a little bit angry with him, and clearly something was going on. She needed to find out what it was. Piotr almost growled and stomped off in search of Logan, Scott, and vodka. Kitty turned to her ex-boyfriend with a look that clearly stated, 'Did you have to?' Pete had seen that look on her plenty of times and raised his hands in defense.

"Sorry, luv. Couldn't resist. I'll make nice, like. Promise. Now, can we please talk? There is stuff you should know goin' on around here, and I don't think you're gonna like most of it."