Kitty kept up a running commentary as she showed Luna around the mansion: kitchen, dining room, rec room, library, elevator (to the basement where the classrooms and the Danger Room were located). All of the bedrooms were upstairs. It wasn't just about the floor plan, but also the rules: training, school, meal times, chores, curfew. And if she needed anything at all, Kitty and Kurt were usually available.

Luna didn't say very much, but Kitty assumed that was mostly due to the jetlag. California was three hours behind New York. Besides, this was a lot of information to get at once. Kitty left their newest recruit to unpack and stopped by Hank's office on her way back downstairs. The door was cracked open so she knocked.

"Yes?" Half-buried under a pile of papers on his desk, Hank pinched the bridge of his nose briefly between two fingers before he looked up and saw her. "Kitty, please come in."

"Are you okay, Mr. McCoy?"

He smiled, "I'm fine." She looked at him expectantly and he acknowledged with a rumbling sigh, "I'm afraid it's not easy to fill Charles' shoes."

Kitty gave a small smile in return. "Have you heard anything new?" Like where Jean and the Professor were, or when they'd be back? She bet that things would've gone better with Luna if Jean was here.

"It's going to be a couple more days." He seemed like he was about to say more, but instead he shook his head slightly. "What can I help you with, Kitty?"

"Oh," that's it? "Nothing, really. I just wanted to let you know that Luna is getting unpacked."

"Wonderful. And what about Miss Blaire?"

Kitty shook her head. "She's not here yet."

"Hm." He frowned slightly. "Let me make a call. Something must have come up."

Something had come up.

Carter Blaire was at a deposition all day. Mr. McCoy couldn't reach him until after six. Once he got off the phone, he brought Kitty, Kurt, and Scott up to speed. According to Mr. Blaire, who made the arrangements for his daughter to transfer to the Xavier Institute, they'd gotten in a fight yesterday. Alison had snuck out and was currently staying with friends in (he suspected) Brooklyn. Mr. Carter had an idea of where his daughter would be, and Mr. McCoy sent them to talk to her.

They took Scott's car.

Kitty was in the passenger's seat, and Kurt sat in the back, leaning forward with his hands braced on his knees so they could talk over the radio. Scott didn't say very much. He seemed distracted. She 'casually' turned to Kurt and said, "Mr. McCoy told me it's only going to be a couple more days."

"For what?"

"Until Jean gets back," 'duh'. "And the Professor." She looked at Scott in profile, but his gaze was fixed on the road.

"I'll believe it when I see it," Kurt replied, leaning back in his seat, "That's what they said when they left." The trip took a lot longer than anyone expected, he was right, but Kitty rolled her eyes. Being reminded of that wasn't going to cheer Scott up.

"Well, I believe Mr. McCoy," she replied confidently, glancing between Scott and Kurt, "We should throw them a 'welcome back' party or something. Jean would totally love it," plus it could double as a meet-and-greet for the new students. "There could be dancing."

Kurt snapped his fingers in agreement, "And food."

"What do you think, Scott?"

"Hm?"

"About a welcome back party for Jean."

"Oh." Scott turned on the blinker and checked his blind spot before merging into the next lane, squeezing between two cabs. He had to drive around the block again to find a parking spot. "No. Let's hold off on any big celebrations until she's home." And I've had a chance to-

"Have you talked to her?"

Scott shook his head stiffly.

"Are you worried about her?"

"She's with the Professor," was all he said. But that wasn't a 'no'. Kitty exchanged a look with Kurt, but before she could say anything else, Scott pulled into an empty spot on the street just as a Ford Focus drove off. "Kitty, you'll get us inside. Then we'll split up and look for Alison," the idea was that they'd get to meet her, talk to her about the X-Men, and hopefully convince her that the Institute was the place for her (at least for now).

Kitty was concerned they wouldn't be able to find her. They weren't even sure she was here. Without the Professor, Cerebro was out of the question which meant that all they had to go on was what Alison's dad said.

The "venue" was some old restaurant whose bottom floor got converted into a performance space on the evenings and weekends (max capacity: 100 people, standing room only). The 'friends' Alison was staying with, according to her dad, were in a band. Tonight they were performing. Kitty, Kurt, and Scott went around the back to avoid paying the cover charge at the door, and she phased them into the building.

"Dude." That was Kurt.

You couldn't tell from the outside, but they'd just walked into a… concert. The band was mid-set: two guitarists, a keyboardist, and a drummer were playing this catchy, upbeat song that reminded her of the kind of music she liked to listen to on the radio. Kitty was practically pressed up against the wall, there were so many people crowded into the room. There were portable LEDs by the stage, but most of the light wasn't coming from that. It was the singer. There was this girl in a white halter top and matching skinny jeans, curly blonde hair and crazy blue eyeshadow. The drums grew louder and the bass cut in, and she belted out a chorus, throwing her hands in the air. Multi-colored strobe lights spiraled from her fingertips to the ceiling.

The audience whooped and screamed enthusiastically. Found her. It was such a weird feeling to be in the middle of all this because Kitty was used to… well, people did yell at her and her friends. But it usually wasn't because they were impressed. Being a mutant was not easy (especially not in New York). It seemed like every time she turned the TV on there were headlines about another anti-mutant rally, or a bill, or a speech talking about how dangerous they were, the usual stuff.

But this was… fun. Alison Blaire's powers lit up the entire room, and everyone was into it.

"Front row seats, coming right up," she said, taking Kurt and Scott by the arm and phasing them through the crowd to the stage.

Scott was the first one to notice them. There were two guys, early-thirties, crew cuts, standing together off to the left, and definitely not here for the music. They weren't part of the crowd. Alison finished her last song and passed the microphone to a guitarist named Bruce, then she left the stage.

Almost immediately, the two guys moved towards her. Scott saw it first, and he nudged Kitty and Kurt towards off-stage. "Let's get over there," he said, and by the time the X-Men muttered their 'excuse me's to make it the last few feet, one of the men grabbed the girl by the wrist and was saying something to her very quickly. Kitty didn't hear what 'it' was, but Alison wasn't having any of it.

"Let go of me!"

"Leave her alone." That got their attention, and Kitty glanced between Scott and the two men. Alison continued to twist her wrist in an effort to free it from the first man, who was blond. The second took one look at Scott and pulled back his jacket – it was brown and really ugly – to reveal a gun holster.

"This is above your paygrade, kid."

Kid? Nobody called Scott 'kid'. Who were these guys and how many terrible movies on Spike TV had they been watching? Yesterday there was nothing but Steven Segal on for hours. She didn't know how Kurt could watch that stuff. He thought it was hilarious, she thought it was just... bad.

Anyways, these guys looked like reject extras from one of those movies.

Scott didn't even flinch, but one hand did go to his sunglasses. "I said, leave her alone."

"You're gonna bruise my mic hand! Get! Off!" The bass guitarist played a string of notes against the backdrop of the crowd and that was enough for a shocking white light – brighter than a photographer's flash – to burst out of Alison's hand. It disoriented her would-be captor and he let go of her hand with a groan, and Kitty was seeing spots too.

"Stop!" Before Alison could take off, the second guy had drawn his gun – but before he could point it at her, a red blast knocked it right out of his hand and the weapon skittered across the floor. It was Scott.

"Nightcrawler, get her out of here!" Scott ordered.

Kurt ported from Kitty's side to Alison's, who stifled a yelp. "Hey, my name's Kurt," he said by way of self-introduction, flashing the blonde a big (reassuring) smile before he touched her shoulder and the two of them disappeared in a bamf of smoke. The guy who'd lost the gun let out an outraged sound and barreled towards Scott.

Kitty took on the second one.

He drew his gun, too. "Hey!" Kitty wanted to get his attention before he turned anything on Scott, who'd just blasted his opponent back into the stage so hard that it shook the whole platform. The music stopped. Eyes swiveled over to them – and someone saw the weapon.

"Gun!"

Everybody started to panic, surging towards the exit at the back of the venue.

"Where is she?" The blond guy demanded of Kitty over the sound of the chaos.

"She's long gone. Who are you? What do you want with her?"

"Tell me where she is!"

He pointed the gun at Kitty. She could see right down the barrel. She wasn't scared for herself, exactly, but if the bullet went through her it could still hurt someone who was trying to get out of here. So she phased into the floor before he could shoot and she pulled herself up behind him. Then she reached through his body and grabbed the gun, yanking it out of his startled grip. He yelped. He seemed pretty comfortable with mutants – they both did – but being phased through was not something you forgot. It even weirded her friends out. He spun around and Kitty was holding the gun, expression hard.

"Who are you and why are you after Alison?"

He turned his head in both directions and that's probably when he saw his 'friend', unconscious and slumped in a pile of splinters that had blown through the middle of the stage. Scott joined her and Kitty gave him the gun. Rather than answer her, he took off at a run throwing himself into the remains of the crowd before they could stop him. That left them with one bad guy, and he wasn't getting up anytime soon.

"What do we do with him?" Kitty asked.

"Leave him for the police."

"Shouldn't we take him with us? Maybe he can tell us something…" Scott shook his head.

"We need to get Alison out of here," he took one look around the emptied concert space and the damage his powers had done, "Besides, we don't need to be here when the police arrive." He was right. It would probably cause a lot more trouble in the long-run if they took this guy with them. The X-Men were everybody's favorite scapegoats, and they didn't need to add 'kidnapping' to the list of things the media would run with on this.

"Okay."

Kurt ported into the empty room a moment later, and with him was Alison. "Can you cut that out? It smells so bad," she protested irritably, waving a hand in front of her face.

Kurt ignored her. "Everything alright? We waited but…"

"Everything's good," Scott confirmed, "Let's get back to the car."

Kurt ported the three of them to the sidewalk beside the convertible. Alison must not have been too shook up over her ordeal because she called shotgun. Kitty and Kurt exchanged a look. They had a lot to talk about when they got back to Bayville: who was after her and why, how they found her, and what that meant.