Chapter 13 – Kurt of the Halloween Party
Author's notes – Yay, more reviews. As requested, here is the next chapter. Enjoy!
Kurt knocked on the door, and smiled slightly nervously when it was opened by a tall boy of about his own age, who was dressed up as a vampire. "Yes?" the boy said politely, then seemed to remember that he was supposed to be a scary vampire, and waved his flowing cape in front of Kurt in a dramatic manner that Mrs McCann would surely have appreciated. "Oh, I mean," at this point he adjusted the fangs in his mouth, and pulled a frown that would have been scary if it wasn't so cheesy, "I von't to driiink your blood!" He leaned in closer, and winked down at Kurt, "How was that?" he asked.
Kurt grinned, "Not bad. I take it this is the place where the Halloween party is happening." He waved the piece of paper that Kitty had given him absently in front of himself.
"Cool, eastern European accent, shouldn't it be more Transylvanian than Austrian though?" the boy asked.
"German, not Austrian," Kurt corrected, as the tall boy bowed down theatrically to let him in. Kurt smiled to himself, looking around the tacky cobwebs and black drapes that covered everything; there was a candle in the shape of a skull in one corner, a small group of boys listening to the scary tale of The Demon of Bayville under a rather large fake spider-web in another corner, and some laughing teenagers bobbing for apples underneath a couple of jack-o-lanterns in the centre of the room. Kurt turned his attention back to the tall boy, who was looking at his reflection in a mirror, and adjusting his fangs. "You know that vampires are not supposed to have reflections, don't you?" he asked, stifling himself from giggling when he saw his companion blush slightly under his white make-up.
"Shhh, we disguise ourselves as soulless reflection-less monsters to scare the kiddies," he said, "and what are you supposed to be, some kind of demon?"
Kurt momentarily felt hurt at the comment, but, after all, this was the right environment for people to dress up as demons, "It's something I've had for a long time," he said; it was, technically, the truth, "I thought it would be appropriate for the party tonight."
"Looks good," the boy replied, "you're even waving your tail. How are you doing that?"
Kurt looked behind himself, and frowned slightly. He always seemed to wave his tail when he was feeling nervous or unsure of himself, but the Image Inducer had hidden it when out in public until this night. Kurt turned back to the boy, and shrugged, "I don't want to give away my secrets," he said, grinning up at him in what he hoped was a friendly manner.
"No, I guess not," he replied, clearly mesmerised as he watched Kurt's tail move from left to right, "anyway," he turned his attention back to Kurt's face, "I see you have an invitation there. Did someone give it to you? Do you have a friend that you intend to meet here?"
"Kitty," he said, "I mean, Katherine Pryde, we're in the same class for English and Drama, she asked me to come here tonight."
"Cool. She a friend of yours?" he asked, leading the way pass the apple-bobbers.
Kurt sighed, "I hope so," he said.
The boy gave him a slightly curious look, accentuated by thick make-up. "Right, none of my business," he said. He pointed to a bench where Kitty and her friends were sitting and drinking some kind of fruit drink from a punch bowl, "They're over there. If you need anything, just come and see me. My name's Oliver, by the way," he said, shaking Kurt's hand by way of greeting. Oliver then looked down at Kurt's unusual hand, and nodded appreciatively, "Nice attention to detail you got there. Might have trouble holding stuff though," he added.
"I'm sure I'll manage, I've spent a while getting used to it," said Kurt, honestly, as Oliver went over and joined the teenagers who were bobbing for apples. Kurt sighed once more, steeled his courage, and made his way towards Kitty.
As he slowly walked towards her, his sharp ears suddenly picked up their conversation, and Kurt frowned at what he was hearing.
"…What I want to know is why? I mean, is it just us? Is it just limited to those who hate the X-Men?"
"Yeah, because that really narrows it down," came the sarcastic reply, "just limiting it to those that hate the X-Men."
"I meant rather than those who just hate mutants in general," came the sharp response.
"Well, there's enough of either group. And let's not jump to conclusions, there's no indication that it was some purposeful thing, it might just have been some freak, I don't know, mutant-stopping equivalent of an electrical storm or something. But from what I can tell, no permanent harm has been done."
"No permanent harm?" Kurt recognised that as the voice of Scott, "All of a sudden I can go without glasses, then one minute later my eyes are shooting laser beams right out of them again. You should see my clock radio, or what's left of it. Shot it to pieces."
"You said it was old anyway, and that you intended to get a new one soon."
"That's not the point. Look, suddenly all of our mutant powers just stop working, and the next minute they're back again as though they never went away. I mean, what if that had happened when Kitty was phased in a wall? It could have killed her!"
"Well, she wasn't. We're all fine."
"Except my clock radio."
"But what if it happens again? It could have been a lot worse."
"I still say that we have to find out if it's just us that was affected by it."
"It's not just you," Kurt stepped towards them slowly, his tail moving from side to side nervously. Suddenly, they all looked up from their conversation, watching him with varying degrees of wariness. Kurt waved nervously, "Um, hi?" he began, and then lowered his voice, looking around himself nervously, "you were not the only ones whose mutant powers were affected that day, mine were too."
They looked at each other, then back at him, "Uh, Kurt?" asked Scott.
"Yes, it's me," he replied.
"Nice costume you got there."
"Thanks."
There was a moment of awkward silence. Kurt then waved his invitation in the air nervously, "Um, Kitty invited me to this party, said it would be a chance for us to talk."
Kitty narrowed her eyes, then widened them a moment later, "Wait, that was you?" she asked.
"You don't have to talk to him if you don't want to," said Scott, folding his arms and clearly glaring at Kurt from behind his glasses.
"No…I think I do," Kitty replied slowly. She turned her attention back to Scott, "Trust me, I can handle this," and without another word to Scott, walked toward Kurt, and pulled him to one side. She stared him up and down. But she was dressed in a green and black witch's costume herself, so surely she thought Kurt was similarly disguised. Didn't she? Kurt started to feel panicked momentarily, then managed to get his breath under control. Mrs McCann was right, he needed to find friends and allies, needed people he could trust, and right now, Kitty was pretty much all he had. That meant he had to be honest with her, no matter what the consequences might be.
"Um, nice costume…" Kurt muttered as he smiled at Kitty nervously.
"Yeah, you too. Now why were you disguised as a girl?"
"It was an accident," Kurt admitted.
"Oh?"
"I wanted you to like me," said Kurt, wringing his hands together nervously, his tail moving back and forth in agitation, "but you said that we could not be friends because I was a member of the Brotherhood. So I thought that I'd change who I was…"
"Into a girl?!"
"I didn't know I could do that, it was an accident," said Kurt. He sighed, looked at her carefully, and shook his head, "look, you know that watch that I always wear…"
Kitty looked down at his wrist, and then back up to his face, "The one that you're not wearing now…" she began slowly.
Kurt nodded, "Well, it can do some pretty clever stuff. I thought that if I was able to disguise myself as someone else, then you would be friends with me. I didn't mean for it to make me female."
"You can't be friends with someone by pretending to be someone else," said Kitty, sounding irritated.
"It's not just about me, though," Kurt began, "I need your help, and I don't really have that much time left."
"What are you talking about?"
"I need your help to stop a giant robot."
Kitty stared at him in stunned silence for a moment, "That…was the last thing I expected you to say," she admitted, "is that some kind of German metaphor that I'm not familiar with?"
"No, I'm serious, and I'm literal," said Kurt, shaking his head slowly, "and I don't know who else to turn to right now."
Kitty looked at him for another long moment, then shook her head, and sighed quietly, "Okay, I did agree to help you, even if you were a girl at the time," she said, "tell me everything."
Kurt sighed, and looked down at himself, "Right, everything," he muttered uncertainly, "no more lies or half-truths. For a start, you see this costume…" he began uncertainly.
Kitty nodded, "It's nice," she said, "but I really don't see what that has to do with a giant robot…"
"I'll get to that part," Kurt said, quickly, "but you see this costume…well, it isn't a costume…"
Kitty looked at him in silence again for a long moment, and then nodded thoughtfully, "That…actually explains a lot…" she said slowly.
Kurt looked up at her in surprise. He had expected her to be scared, or to think that he was joking; he hadn't been expecting her to be so…understanding.
Kitty grinned, "I've noticed you," she said, taking his hand in her own, "there were a number of things which didn't quite make sense until now. Like how you would pull away whenever anyone tried to touch you, or why you refused to do any contact sports. At first I thought you might just have some kind of problem with physical touch, but, as I watched you in rehearsals, I realised that that didn't quite make sense.
"I thought you'd be more surprised, more scared," Kurt admitted thoughtfully.
Kitty shook her head, "You're not the only mutant I know who is blue and furry. There's a teacher at our institute who looks not that different to you. He's one of my favourite teachers."
Kurt looked at her for a long moment. She was clearly a lot tougher than she looked. "Well, the giant robot I was telling you about," he began slowly, "it's under the Brotherhood Boarding House, there's this sort of underground chamber down there. There's a bunch of mutants who think that it should be used against people, so that mutants like me will no longer have to hide their appearance. But it's a lot worse than that, they want to change the social order, want to make it so that mutants are the ones in charge, and so that everyone else is, um, what's the expression? A second class citizen…the ones that survive, that is…"
Kitty looked like she was going to reply, when Oliver suddenly rushed over to them. He looked worried, as he ushered Kurt and Kitty towards where the rest of the X-Men were still arguing, "You've all got to get out of here, right now," he said, sounding panicked, "The HDL are here, and they're after blood!"
The mutants looked at each other uncertainly as they were being ushered away. Scott turned to Oliver, "Wait, how did you…" he began.
"There'll be time for questions later," Oliver replied hastily, "right now, you have to get away from here as soon as possible. I'll hold them off for as long as I can, but you'd better get as far away from here as quickly as you can. I'll catch up with you later and explain. Now go, go!"
With that, Kurt followed the X-Men out the back of the house, and then through passageways and overgrown paths, as they ran away into the moonlit night.