Kitty awoke the next morning in strong need of coffee. She passed Laura on her way downstairs.
"Morning, Laura. You're up early."
"Hey, Kitty. I was just looking for you, mind if I ask some advice?"
She noticed Kitty's tired look.
"You feeling okay? Wild night at the Hideaway?"
"Hm? Oh! No, not in that way. It didn't go so great though. The staff is having some real disagreements about the direction we ought to take the school."
"Boring adult stuff, sounds like."
"There's a lot of that, when you grow up," Kitty muttered.
"Doesn't sound appealing. I think things were better when it was just us here."
"It was fun, but we needed to bring in more people eventually. Kurt and I could just about handle five mutants."
"True enough. But that's not actually what I wanted to bug you about. I'm kind of worried about Cecily."
"Ah," Kitty decided the coffee would have to wait. They took a seat in the stairwell.
Laura explained how their trip to Boston had gone the previous week.
"They shut her out, which isn't right. So why do I not feel right when I see her shut them out right back?"
"It's funny," Kitty eventually said. "Cecily was trying to convince Rachel to do the same thing with Cyclops a few months back. Open up to him. Wonder what changed?"
"She thinks it's a whole different thing. She's like that. Her problems are always smaller than yours. But it just makes me… arrgh!"
She punched the banister. Kitty put her hand across Laura's arm to motion for calm.
"Well, how do you feel? You think she should try to mend things with her family?
Laura shook a lock of hair in front of her face.
"It was always just me and Father on the road. Never really knew my mother, even. I never had a 'real' family. A mom, a dad, a house, 2.5 dogs, whatever the expression is. But she did. So I guess I feel like she shouldn't give up on hers that easily."
"It sounds like you already know what you should say," Kitty shot her a knowing look.
"Yeah, but I don't know how to say it to her. I'm not usually the responsible one."
The great tenor of the mansion's doorbell vibrated up the foyer.
"Hold that thought," Kitty said. "Really though - we should finish this conversation. It's great that you're looking out for your friend."
Laura was left alone in the stairwell.
She heard Kitty's voice call from inside the house.
"Coming!"
Kitty opened the door, and felt like she was hit with a brick.
On the step was a young woman in her mid twenties, with blonde hair framing her face in straight bangs. A pair of dark eyes looked up at Kitty expectantly from beneath the bangs. She wore a black tank top with a Pink Floyd print, and faded jeans despite the heat of the May afternoon.
Kitty blinked. She knew this girl.
"Yana?"
"Hi, Kitty," she said softly.
Kitty quickly shut the door, as though the wooden structure would keep all the weirdness inside, and jumped down the stairs to give the girl a hug.
"Yana! Oh my gosh, hi!"
Illyana Raspopova was Kitty's best friend from college. She started during Kitty's second year, and the older girl took her under her wing. They had fallen out of touch in the last several months, the return of the X-Men playing no small role in that.
"It's great to see you, Yana! But things are really crazy right now. What are you even doing here?"
She flashed a small smile. "I was thinking about you recently. So I looked you up, found out you were teaching in New York. Only you're not teaching, are you? I saw you on the internet! You're a superhero!"
Uh oh.
"It's really kind of both," she stammered. "Er, I mean, aren't teachers the real superheroes? Hey, what are you talking about, anyway?"
"And what do you mean you saw her on the internet?" Emma's voice rose behind them. The psychic was hanging out of the doorway burning a hole through Kitty with her eyes.
"Uh oh," Kitty said again - aloud this time, realizing what that meant.
"Film! What kind of bloody hipster sod still uses film?"
Emma was pacing about before a library computer, enunciating every word with icy cruelty. The headline 'X-MEN SIGHTING IN BRAZIL' stretched across the monitor. Below it was a perfectly clear image of Kitty and Hisako rushing Bobby Da Costa out of a home.
"People still do that, she knows that, right?" Chris whispered to Doug Ramsey. Cypher had been called upstairs to evaluate the flaw in his facial obscuring technology.
"It was a calculated risk," Cypher replied. "The odds that someone would be in the area, with a camera, and at this favorable of an angle, are extraordinary. The photographer must be quite the hobbyist."
While all this went on Illyana sat to the side, watching intently. Kitty noticed her and wrangled the assembled mutants' attention.
"Hey, everyone, could we pause a moment before we traumatize my roommate?"
She turned back to Illyana.
"Illyana, I guess we should thank you. If you hadn't come to visit, we might not have found about these pictures until someone more dangerous used them."
"Oh, well thanks, I think."
Illyana was tempted to just leave it there. But she had come this far.
"But I didn't come just to see you. You see, I'm like you. I'm a mutant."
Kitty looked at her.
"What?"
"I'm a mutant," Illyana repeated. "I didn't know you were one in school, so I didn't tell you."
"But that's… that's crazy. We were together all that time and neither of us knew?"
"That certainly changes things," Emma said. "I was afraid I was going to have to wipe your memory and send you on your way. But you, a mutant, and a friend of Kitty's at that?"
"Small world," Cypher shook his head and smiled. This was much better conversation than wringing hands over a photograph.
The voice of Nightcrawler came from outside the library.
"Katzchen, I heard we had a visitor, that's…"
The fuzzly blue mutant had frozen in place when he saw Illyana.
"Everything alright, Kurt?"
"Y-yes. Sorry. I just… I… who is our guest?"
"Oh yeah," Kitty turned back to her friend.
"Illyana, this is Kurt Wagner, Kurt, Illyana Raspopova. She's a mutant, apparently, and my good friend from college."
"From college. Of course…" Kurt exhaled and his shoulders fell somewhat.
"Hello," Illyana giggled. "I remember Kitty talking about a boy named Kurt. Her description didn't quite, erm, do you justice, however."
"Ah yes," his normal grin returned as he shook hands with the girl. "I suppose she might have omitted a few things. Will you be staying with us long?"
"Actually, I was thinking she could stay with us for the summer," Kitty replied. "Dazzler has room in her class. She's got powers, but she hasn't been able to use them to their full extent. That is, if you would like that, Yana. I don't know what you have going on right now."
"Yes," Illyana nodded enthusiastically. "I have nothing going on. Being able to use my mutant abilities again would be great. I can help around here as well, if you need it."
"Then it's settled," Kitty clapped her hands. "Emma, would you draft up some papers for her?"
Kitty brought Illyana around for the introductions, then showed her to her room.
"Well this day sure was a surprise," Kitty chuckled.
"Not a bad one I hope," Illyana smiled.
"No. It was a great distraction from some recent goings on."
Illyana gave Lockheed a scratch on the chin.
"I don't know how you survived without this cute little guy," the blonde said.
"I got to visit him on holidays. Or those weekends I disappeared. He was my one tether to this world. I only wish I could have known you were part of it, too. I feel bad about having hidden it from you."
"Sometimes you don't have a choice," Illyana said sadly.
Lockheed cooed on her arm.
"He is a cutie, though."
"It's odd," Rachel said to no one in particular.
"What's that?" Hisako asked.
She motioned towards the third floor of the house, where Kitty and Illyana were catching up.
"There's something off about Miss Pryde's friend."
"Did you look in her head?"
"No. Just at her aura. Or tried to, anyway. That's the thing. I've never seen anyone who didn't have one. I've seen all sorts of different colored energies in people. But I don't see anything when I look at her."
_Cerebro Files [Cypher]
_Civilian Name: Douglas Ramsey
_Mutant Ability: Universal Language Comprehension
_Young Douglas' mutation is peculiar. Though he demonstrates neither the ability nor the inclination to engage in combat, his knack for understanding and interpreting language makes him not just an extraordinarily powerful mutant but perhaps one of the most powerful people on Earth, should he put his mind to it.
[ADMN_X/0822-2005]
_Douglas must have followed the Professor's advice, as he was working in a high-level analyst position with Homeland Security when we first made contact with him. He's a charming young fellow, though I wonder if that isn't just because he knows exactly what to say and when to say it…
[ADMN_F/0303-2024]
_Mr. Ramsey mainly uses his talent with languages to decipher the machine language of Cerebro. Much of its core programs were locked by code only Professor Xavier and Hank McCoy likely knew the ins and outs of. He's the one who first accessed these archives.
[ADMN_R/0130-2024]