Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/2800055.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Major_Character_Death, Rape/Non-Con,
      Underage
  Category:
      F/M, Gen
  Fandom:
      X-Men_(Comicverse)
  Relationship:
      Kitty_Pryde/Kurt_Wagner, Jean_Grey/Scott_Summers, Logan/Ororo_Munroe
  Character:
      Kurt_Wagner, Kitty_Pryde, Erik_Lehnsherr, Red_Skull, Scott_Summers, Jean
      Grey, Piotr_Rasputin, Wanda_Maximoff, Pietro_Maximoff, Logan_(X-Men),
      Ororo_Munroe, Steve_Rogers, Raven_|_Mystique, Charles_Xavier
  Additional Tags:
      Torture, BodyMod, Slavery, Bigotry_&_Prejudice, Racist_Language, ANGST!!
  Series:
      Part 1 of Magneto's_Raiders
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-12-19 Completed: 2014-12-22 Chapters: 31/31 Words: 110037
****** The Shadow and The Kat ******
by Nightmare
Summary
     What IF? after WWII, Captain America, was lost to the ice of the
     North Sea? The Red Skull underwent surgery to take on his enemy's
     appearance and came to the United States to make a new Nazi Germany
     here on our shores. More than half a century later his plan has born
     twisted fruit in a world horribly different than it should have been.
     Young mutants Kurt Wagner and Kitty Pryde get caught up in the cruel
     machinery of the Fascist State, and it will take everything in them
     to try to survive, together.
Notes
See the end of the work for notes
***** Kurt - The Betrayal *****
Act I
What IF…?
What if Captain America never disappeared?
This story is based on a real What If, but from there it diverges sharply into
fan-fic zone.
History:
The Red Skull took Cap’s place right after WWII via clever plastic surgery. The
real Captain floated in his block of ice, while the world changed around him.
As “Captain America”, lionized hero of the grateful Allies, the Skull gradually
but inexorably turned America and its allies into a fascist regime. After the
war, the women working in the factories went back home, and domestic life
drifted into a Ward and June Cleaver mode, and then calcified.
Changes that began in the 1950’s in the main 616 universe were derailed. Rock
and Roll died stillborn when it was harshly suppressed as an obscene art form.
The Civil Rights movement abandoned the Dream when the Reverend Martin Luther
King Jr. was found dead, killed by a whore in a sleazy motel. The Skull, now
the U.S. president, declined to spend American lives in Korea, and later, in
Vietnam. Instead, he appropriated the idea of Shield from Sergeant Fury.
He built a Shield loyal to him, and backed it with the best technology, paid
for by the money not wasted in Asian wars, creating a private army that
outclassed anything in the world. The peace movement never happened, nor the
sexual revolution. Without the help of Roe V. Wade and the Pill, free sex was
too risky. Domestic life for women and children never really advanced past the
role of legal chattels, and in some cases slipped even further backwards.
When the mutants started appearing, they were treated worse than society was
already treating Jews, and people of color. They were considered sub-human, and
to be eliminated with prejudice. Xavier gathered his X-men, and Shield
surrounded the mansion and burned it to the ground. Only a few survived the
carnage and Magneto took them in, for in this world, his wildest paranoia was,
if anything, naively optimistic.
Most mutants who were discovered were killed. All that were left alive were
sterilized. Some had their services sold as labor by the government. Some of
the pretty ones were assigned to the personal harems of the wealthy elite of
Shield, which was now the worldwide military government. The unlucky few
considered malleable enough to program and dangerous enough to be useful as
killers were sent to the Heli-Carrier, where they were trained to be Hounds:
hunters of mutants, and political assassins.
Reed Richards and his friends were prevented from attempting their launch and
were never exposed to the cosmic rays. With no civilian nuclear programs there
were no gamma ray experiments to make a Hulk, and no radioactive spiders. Peter
Parker died when a meeting of the underground that was tipped off to the
authorities. Tony Stark became a member of Shield’s elite as a young man,
becoming a protégé of Steve Rodgers, a.k.a. the Skull, who now was President-
For-Life. Tony used his influence to force a marriage of convenience with Janet
van Dyne, after having her scientist boyfriend, Hank Pym, killed.
Shield laid siege to Greenwich for weeks, and took credit for the death of
Doctor Strange. They suppressed rumored sightings of demons causing an
implosion of the mansion. Thor battled the demons, and backed to the foot of
Bifrost, he turned to shatter the Rainbow Bridge to prevent the invasion of
Asgard. The Son of Odin and his foes alike both perished from the tactical
Neutron bomb strike at the site of the Battle of Greenwich.
The real Steve Rodgers was eventually found in his icy tomb but he wasn’t
thawed. He slumbered in a Shield laboratory where the Skull’s scientist tried
to pry the secrets of the Super Soldier Formula from his very flesh and blood.
From this single change in the world's history, most of the Marvel Heroes died
before they made an impact, or never had a chance to become heroic.
And dread Mephisto laughed on his throne at a world turned to hate…
* * *
In the dimness of the big tent, the young man’s heart raced as he climbed the
creaky ladder to the high trapeze. A tingle of excitement always went through
him when it was time to face the audience. He loved the skills of the acrobat,
and with all due modesty, he knew that he was good at it. Very good.
Good enough that he could work for a much better operation than this one-ring
fleabag of a circus, except for one little difficulty. A bigger circus would
mean more concentrated attention on him, enough perhaps that some of his awed
viewers might notice that his outrageous appearance wasn’t all due to his gaudy
costume. The agile blue tail that trailed behind him could possibly be a prop,
and the blue of his face could be make-up, but he didn’t want to get close
enough to the rubes form them to see any differently.
Performing in the circus was a dream of his. The whole experience was magic to
his teenager’s heart. The sights, sounds and smells of it pulsed in his veins
and drifted in his dreams. He worked the high wires because he loved it so, and
because this was one of the few ways he could help earn money for his gypsy
clan, despite the terrible risks.
Jimmy, his blood brother, could get any kind of work at the towns they camped
near; he looked as normal as their mother, Jimaine Szardos. Kurt knew he was
lucky the gypsies hadn’t left him to die. Grandmamma Margali told him many
times about how she found him, a little blue babe hidden near the camp. Her
daughter Jimaine had given birth only days before, and the foundling’s thin
wails touched her new mother’s heart. She nursed Kurt alongside her green-eyed
son, and raised them as brothers.
Hans, the owner of the circus knew the truth about him, and so did Rutger, his
son, Kurt’s trapeze partner. The new fascists of Shield weren’t popular with
most people, and especially so with fringe groups like carnies and gypsies.
They knew Kurt was a nice, harmless lad despite his odd appearance, and he
accepted a lot less money than his skills and draw warranted. Kurt knew he had
steady work here, whenever the clan camped close enough to the circus to make
the two-way trip under the cover of darkness.
He reached his perch, and smiled widely as the spotlight found him. The crowd
roared approval at him and his heart swelled with pride. They’d get a good show
with the Nightcrawler as the lead of the Trapeze act. He stood tall on the tiny
platform and lifted one gloved hand, the other hand gripping his swing’s bar.
The music swelled and he pushed off.
The sound of the crowd followed him like a benediction, as he and Rutger
performed their flying routine without a net. The spot followed him, dazzling
his eyes, and making the floor of the tent an unfathomable darkness below him.
The rhythm lulled him; swing, leap, grasp, swing, leap and return.
He was on the far swing now, his partner on the one he’d started on, when the
first hint of oddness reached him. The crowd noises were as familiar to him as
his own heartbeat, but this wasn’t the usual sound of gasping, peasant
conversation and barker calls. This sounded like fear, a fear that cut through
the endorphin rush that always filled him when he performed.
He signaled to Rutger for a pause, and swung, hanging from his knees. The music
continued, but without needing to concentrate on his next move he could hear
things better. Mutters came up from the crowd -- fearful, angry. Not the sound
of a rapt audience, at all. Straining his ears, he heard scuffling boots, harsh
low voices, and the unmistakable clacks that signaled the readying of automatic
weapons. Was?
“Turn off those lights!” barked a voice. The spots clicked off, and the house
lights came on, bring a more general light to the tent. “You up there, the
freak! This is Shield, and you’re under arrest!”
A stab of panic wracked Kurt, drenching him in nervous sweat. He could see the
agents all through the crowd. A twinge of pain crossed his face as he saw the
faces of the audience looking at him. Minutes before they were cheering his
skills, but now they were pointing at him, frowning and saying ugly things. He
flipped effortlessly around, and crouched on the swing, cringing from their
hateful words. The pose seemed to be threatening to the watching agents, for
they pointed their guns at him.
He had to get away; they were going to kill him. A dull ache blossomed in his
head, and a warm rusty flow came from a nostril. His tearing eyes darted around
the tent. All the entrances were heavy with Shield agents, and he could see no
escape.
“Come down, NOW!” shouted the spokesman. “Or you will be shot.”
In his mind’s eye, Kurt could see the door to the trailer outside that he
changed in, along with Rutger. He wanted to be there. Nein, he needed to be
there. Pain stabbed him again, as the image in his head took on a surreal
reality he could almost touch. Something… something started to happen to him,
then with the slam of a white-hot poker in his brain, that something, whatever
it was, failed and his vision turned dark. Then he was losing his grip and
falling from the swing to the sawdust an impossible distance below. The
uniformed leader cursed, and the audience shouted. It was a blood hungry sound.
One that said that the crowd who’d cheered his daring would be just as happy to
see him crunch down into the ring… and maybe, they always had.
Falling, he strained upward at the moving swing now hopeless centimeters above
him. Reality swam again and his world exploded in fire. Is this hell?
There was no pain in the eldritch flames that surrounded him, only a strange
comforting warmth that stole into him. Then it was gone, and he was still
falling, but now the swing was beside him. The crowd was eerily silent after
the flash and soft noise of a report, almost as if a cannon had been fired a
long way away. Stunned he watched the swing’s grip pass his head again. His
hands reached and missed, his feet were too clumsy in the concealing boots he
wore. Not again…
His tail snaked out and wrapped round and round the grip like a lifeline,
halting him with a suddenness that made him grunt. Trembling, he hung there for
a moment, and then he once more climbed up onto the grip, holding both sides of
the swing for balance.
“You got no place to go, mutie, so get down here, now.” Kurt’s golden eyes
picked out the speaker now, an officer holding the ringmaster’s gaudy bullhorn,
and his service pistol.
Climb down so you can execute me? Why not just shoot me now, and entertain the
audience with my fall?His mouth twisted in disillusionment, and he knew he’d
never think of the circus in the same naive way again. He looked around again,
seeking a way out, any way.
The tent billowed, wind flaps rustling in the breeze. They kept the tent safe
from all but the strongest winds, and were larger than they looked. Large
enough, perhaps, for a slender form to squeeze through. The fires burst around
him again, welcoming, concealing, and this time he was ready. He grabbed the
bottom of the flap before he could fall out of reach.
Blessing God for his slight frame, he pulled himself through it and found
himself on the top slope of the tent. Gunfire rang out from below him, and he
rolled quickly down the tent, hearing bullets tear through the canvas behind
him. He paused gingerly on the edge; he was still a long way from the ground.
The trailer was there, to the right. Surely he could hide there for a bit, then
use his new skill to get away.
He actually needed to see where he was going, it seemed. The time he near
fainted he was trying to go to a memory, not something he could see. BAMF! And
he was in the shadows of the trailer. Seeing no one around, he stepped to the
door and pulled it open. A Shield man stood inside, with a pistol leveled at
him. With a cold smile, he fired. Kurt felt stab of pain to his chest, and he
died…
* * *
The limp form was bundled into a van and the officer stood at the edge of the
grounds, while his men evacuated the circus. A dark haired man stood in the
shadows, non descript clothes doing nothing to hide the Romany accent in his
voice. “He came to the camp a few months ago. He was hungry, and the women folk
were too softhearted to turn him away. But me, I got family to worry about, and
he would be nothing but trouble for us.”
Stefan Szardos ran his hand through his hair, refusing to think about how his
sister and her bastard boy would react to the loss of the young mutant she’d
raised. “So I sell him to you, and you report that we gypsies are good solid
citizens, Ja?
The officer gave him a thick envelope, and smiled thinly. “You did a good job
here… Anton, did you say your name was?”
“I didn’t.” Stefan took the money, and turned away.
* * *
Dreams recalled him. Disturbing dreams. Chains, and cages. Mocking laughter and
endless droning. Tasteless gruel and bitter water. Rough hands, dragging him
along. Gradually he became aware that he wasn’t dead. He wanted to touch his
chest, but he couldn’t move his hand, either of them. He couldn’t move at all,
except a small length of tail at the very end. He was blindfolded, but he could
hear voices.
“You’ve almost kept the subject drugged too long. He was nearly dehydrated.”
“He’ll live, right? That’s the important thing.”
“Now, he will,” answered the first voice.
A third voice intruded. “Shit, what am I supposed to do with this one? Tattoo
him white? I ain’t got 'nough inks.” Rough fingers grabbed Kurt’s chin, and
only the blocks beside his head kept him from turning his face away to avoid
them. “What is this fuck? Fur? No tat’s gonna show through that. I say leave
‘im alone. He don’t need a mask to prove he’s a mutie.”
The second voice answered coolly. “A mutant, yes. But he has nothing to show
that he is a Hound. Aren’t there other ways to mark the skin?”
“Well, there’s branding, but that makes ‘em kinda shocky.”
“Not a good idea, the first voice said, “He’s still pretty weak due to the
transport from Europe.
Unreal, Kurt thought, Don’t they care I can hear them?
“What else?” said the second voice.
“Scarifyin’. Ya lightly cut the skin in the pattern you want, and maybe rub in
an irritant. Fur or no fur, I’ll bet it’ll heal up in ridges, as clear as any
tat.
“Good. Do it.”
“Right on! Hey doc, can I borrow a scalpel?”
“Don’t touch my instruments, they’re sterile.” Kurt heard a drawer open.
“Here.”
“Like’s he’s gonna be, huh?” Fingers unbound the blindfold, and Kurt blinked at
the sudden light. Besides the blurry form before him, all he could see was the
ceiling. “Eerie fuck, ain’t he?”
“Get on with it, will you? I have a surgical procedure to perform.”
The man who’d taken off the blindfold could have worked in the circus. He was
burly and bald, with blue green patterns covering his head and part of his
face. His short-sleeved shirt showed more tattoos on his neck and all down his
arms.
He leaned over Kurt, shiny blade in his hand, and beer on his breath. “Try not
to flinch, eh?” he chuckled. “I don’t wanna mess up the pattern.” A paper
rattled next to Kurt’s head blocks, and he squeezed his eyes shut as the knife
moved close to them.
Pain, and fire moved out and up from his eyebrow. The man was drawing lines of
blood on his face with the scalpel, and Kurt trembled, fighting the urge to
start screaming. Crimson flowed from the cuts, and the man stopped every now
and then to mop it off with a cloth that stung and smelled of rubbing alcohol.
Several lines sliced across his brow, his temples, and his cheeks. A line went
down his nose, and more bracketed his mouth. The last cuts were on his chin.
Fire traced along every cut, as if he could see them, inverted, from inside his
head. Kurt closed his eyes, and he moaned.
There was movement near his head again, and he snapped his eyes opened and saw
the tattooed man sprinkle something black on the cuts.
“Might I ask what that is?”
“Stab’lized powered charcoal, Doc. Clean enough, and it’ll make the scars
keloid up nice. His skin’s real dark, so he prob’ly don’t need it, niggers
usually don’t. But… his features look white under the fur, so just in case…
Hmmm. Vinegar might help.” [*]
“Just so he doesn’t get an infection. I don’t care to have him in my clinic for
an extended stay.”
Stinging sour liquid splashed into his wounds, and despite his best efforts, a
thin whine escaped from Kurt. “He’s all yours, Doc.”
The doctor moved into his line of sight. He was utterly unremarkable in
appearance, except the small round shield pin on the lapel of his lab coat near
to the embroidered Eagle. He briskly looked at the oozing cuts and taped gauze
over them. He removed the head blocks, and Kurt wasted no time in checking
around the room. It was a clinic. He could see the open door, and his eyes
widened as he willed the fire to come. A shock came from a collar around his
neck and nausea washed over him.
“No teleporting for you, not until we say so.” This came from a man in a Shield
officer’s uniform, sitting to one side, observing everything.
Kurt’s head lolled to the side, and he saw the paper next to his head. It was a
sketch of a face, with a starburst pattern inked over it, a pattern that
matched the lines of pain on his face. Gott, as if I wasn’t enough of a freak,
now this…
The tattooed man grinned at Kurt. “Welcome to the Vet’s, furry,” he said. He
pointed down Kurt’s body and to an instrument tray nearby.
Kurt was naked, strapped thoroughly to an examination table. His chest, upper
and lower arms were strapped tightly down, and his hands were taped into
leather bags. His legs were drawn up in stirrups, bound at the thigh, knee, and
calves to the metal armature, his feet also in heavy bags.
Past his right hip he could see his tail bound to the table with wide silver
tape. He could feel his tail trailed down the side of the table, and from there
to the floor, leaving only a few inches at the end able to move. It flopped
desperately back and forth like a landed fish.
More embarrassing than being naked was the posture he was forced into. His
buttocks were perched on the edge of the table and his genitals hung slightly
over the edge, exposed.
The instruments the tat man gestured at was a tray of surgical tools; shiny,
clean, and many of them very sharp.
“Was… what are you doing to me?” His voice trembled, and was higher than he
wanted it to be.
The first two men didn’t answer, but the tat man barked in laughter. “What
happens to any stray dog brought to the pound?” He stepped forward and put a
foot lightly on the lashing tail end. “The Doc’s here’s gonna make sure you
keep singin’ soprano.” As he spoke the doctor put a stool between Kurt’s
suspended feet and cleaned his scrotum thoroughly with a cold alcohol swab.
Kurt’s sharp teeth chattered as the whine returned to his throat. He breathing
sped up until he was nearly hyperventilating. “Oh, Gott im Himmel. Nein, nein,
nein…”
“Calm yourself, please. My… ‘colleague’ is kidding. You are not going to be
castrated, but merely given a vasectomy.” He continued prepping his
instruments, speaking conversationally to the officer. “You know Major, I had
my doubts about the policy to sterilize all mutants. Some subject’s gifts would
be useful if allowed to reproduce. But then I see someone, well, some-thing
like this… The policy is wiser than I realized.”
The doctor adjusted a light, and made a quick incision on the tender flesh he’d
cleaned.
Kurt screamed. No anesthesia?The pain of the earlier cuts was absolutely
nothing compared to this. He couldn’t make himself stop moaning.
“If he’s as different on the inside as he is on the outside I may have to
remove his testicles to ensure his infertility.” The doc moved the light
closer, and poked a gloved finger experimentally into the incision. The tat man
gulped and stepped outside, but the Major was unmoved by the sight. “Well, it
looks pretty normal in here. I should be able to finish a standard procedure
without difficulty.”
Kurt looked down in horror as the doctor pulled a blood-slicked tube from his
scrotum.
“There’s the first Vas Deferens,” he said. Bringing up his scalpel, he severed
it neatly, then lifted up a glowing electric wire, and seared the ends shut.
“Now for the other,” he said, and made the second incision.
The room echoed with Kurt’s howls. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath, and
then the room went mercifully black...
[DISCLAIMER: For the most part, these aren’t my characters, they belong to
Marvel. Only the dilemmas are mine.]
[*A/N: I know nothing about Scarification except what I looked up one night on
the web for this story. You wanna know more? Google it.]
***** Kitty - The Hounding *****
Deerfield High was such a drag. Kitty Pryde had felt important in Junior High.
A teacher favorite, she’d been on the student council, and easily had the
highest G.P.A in her year group. Now she was just a freshman, and the smallest,
youngest kid in many of her classes. She’d taken High School credits last year,
and she’d been able to skip some required first year curricula of the Chicago
school system.
She was a nobody again. Worse, she’d been labeled ‘the uppity frosh’ for daring
to intrude in classes she didn’t belong in. Some of the kids she used to feel
distantly superior to obviously relished the sight of her being put in her
place. Kitty had to admit, she’d been pretty rotten to some of them, and she
was beginning to understand how they felt.
Her cocoa colored hair fell over her eyes as she walked down the hallway. She
had so not counted on being set back to the bottom of the totem pole at the new
school. Sometimes smart people just missed the obvious stuff… Ouch. She
rebounded off the lockers next to her, dark brown eyes looking up at the
smirking sophomore who’d ‘accidentally’ slammed into her.
“Watch where you’re going, brains,” he snarled, and she didn’t bother to argue.
Rubbing her shoulder, she merely nodded, and headed for her class.
Class was halfway over when an odd set of tones went off through the intercom
system. Was that some kind of drill?
The teacher stopped mid-sentence. “Alright class, put your books and bags in
your locker, and report for the assembly. For you freshmen, don’t try to leave
the school grounds, because they’ll have today’s attendance reports.
“Who will?” Kitty whispered to her neighbor as they got up from their desks.
“Shield,” Jenny answered.
* * *
From the time kids entered the school system, they were tested at least once a
year. In middle school it was once a semester. ‘Twice the needles, twice the
fun’, the saying went among the kids. From ten years of age on, reference
photographs; front, back and profile accompanied the blood tests.
Kitty heard that in High School it came quarterly. They were randomly
scheduled, and no excuse was accepted. Students who were absent were tracked
down at their homes or other locations. Anyone who came up missing was assumed
to be a fugitive from Shield. Every district had an incident or two of that
kind a year, and the staff drilled the students with the unpleasant results.
She could see the black trailers parked next to the Gym. The kids filed into
the big building and sat on the bleachers. The principal said something about
civic pride and duty and introduced the Captain in charge of the testing.
“These are your formative years. High School testing is, by necessity, the most
important and the most intrusive you will ever undergo. As many of you already
know, your baseline photographs will have you in your underclothes. We will be
calling names in alphabetical order, this time. Raise your hands if you need to
use the restrooms and you will be given an escort to and from the facilities.
Remain orderly, and we’ll be done as quickly as possible. That is all.”
In my underwear? Oh God. Kitty buried her face in her hands. How could they?
* * *
“…and Pryde, Katherine. Your section is next. Assemble in a line at the side
door.” Kitty only half heard her name, but Jenny poked her and hissed, “It’s
your turn.”
She gulped and went with the others of her group. At the exit, they were
separated into two groups; boys and girls, and sent out three at a time to the
trailers. Her group was second. She paused in the entry room of the trailer. It
was about a quarter of the total of the trailer’s length, and featured a couple
of benches and some shelves and hooks for belongings. Also present was an armed
Shield agent.
“Strip to your skivvies, girls.” He leered as he said it, and then tapped on
the wall of the nearest compartment. “Come on Jerry, you got more porn to
shoot.” He looked back at the undressed girls, smiling cruelly at the well-
built blonde trembling next to Kitty. “You don’t think we use those pics just
for the records, do ya?”
Jerry’ came out of his room with an expensive looking camera. The smell of
chemicals drifted out after him and Kitty realized it must be a dark room. He
set the camera up on the tripod mounted to the floor, and motioned for the
blonde to come forward. He looked and sounded bored. “Stand at the end of the
hall. Put your feet in the yellow marks. When I tell you, turn and stand in the
red footprints, then turn again on my say, and stand in the green marks. Got
it?”
He didn’t wait for an answer, just bent down to focus the camera. The blonde
girl, Kitty didn’t know her name, scurried down to the marks. She stood in
place, and jumped to obey when he snapped orders. “Red,” and a little later,
“Green.” He leaned up and pointed to the compartment door nearest her. “Go in
that room.” Turning to the front he said, “Next.”
The guard motioned at Kitty, and she walked stiffly down to the marks. She put
her feet in the yellow outlines, and saw printing on the floor just beyond
them. ‘Stand straight & keep your hands at your sides.’ She slowly uncurled her
arms from around her slight chest and forced herself to face the camera. Click.
“Red,” he grunted. Kitty turned to face the right as the marks showed. She was
sure he’d taken more than one picture of the blonde girl in each position.
Click. “Green.” She turned her back to the camera, and heard him take the final
photograph.
“Middle room,” he said. “Next.”
Kitty stepped into the compartment as the last girl took her place at the
camera marks. The tiny room contained a table for the testing machine and two
chairs. One chair held a Shield agent, and he gestured with his head for her to
take the other. He studied the folder in front of him as she sat. “Jew, huh?”
he said with a slight sneer. “Too bad. You’re kinda cute.”
With that he launched into a prepared battery of questions. Did she get
headaches? How bad? How often? Any bloody noses? Ever had altered vision,
hearing, or other senses? Any more unusual perceptions? Kitty answered him with
a low voice, wishing she could just fall through the wall.
Her answers must have been acceptable, because he turned the folder to her.
“Review your answers and initial here, and remember this is a legal document.”
She initialed where he indicated. He took a small flashlight and looked closely
at her eyes, and into her ears. With a tongue depressor he looked down her
throat. He then asked her to stand, and patted her down brusquely.
“Place your hand on the plate,” he said, and pulled a strap in place across the
back of her hand. “There’s going to be a sting.” He pressed a button and the
needle stabbed into her palm. She bit back a whimper, as she felt blood drip
into the machine. A light came on and he freed her hand, giving her a cotton
wad.
He pushed a pamphlet at her. “Read this while we let old Vlad, here, study your
fluids.” She read the information about how it was her duty as a citizen to
report anyone she knew with mutant powers, including herself.
Minutes passed. The wall behind her shook slightly, rhythmically. The agent
looked up at her, and grinned. “Is she pretty?” he asked. She nodded. He made a
face, checking on the machine. “Lucky bastard,” he muttered. Kitty turned
crimson when she realized what he was implying. At least he wasn’t leering at
her…
A knock on the door sometime later roused a sigh from her tester. “Go get
dressed, okay? Sometimes Vlad takes longer than others.” She escaped into the
hall, and went to her clothes. The blonde was crying silently as she and the
other girl finished dressing. Kitty put on her shirt and socks under the bored
gaze of the machine gun carrying guard. The man with the gun called down the
hall, “They clear to go?”
“Not yet,” said her tester, leaning out of his cubby. “I’m still waiting on the
blood work.” Kitty picked up her school skirt when a strange staggered buzzing
noise came past him. Bu-buzzz, bu-buzzz, bu-buzzz. “Holy!” shouted her tester.
“Positive!”
Before Kitty quite realized what he meant, the guard leveled his gun at her,
and was snarling at her to freeze. The other girls cringed away from the
weapon… and the floor was moving up her body and past her head.
She stopped falling with a groan, crouching under the trailer, holding her
throbbing head. She heard the door above her slam open, and an alarm blared
loudly in the same staggered pattern as before. A man’s voice shouted hoarsely,
“Escape Event!”
The guard ducked to look under the trailer, gun ready. She dropped the skirt
she held and ran blindly, away from them, and off the school grounds. Nothing
impeded her flight, she just ran straight through any solid obstacle.
Blocks away, she panted in the shadow of a building. She was half naked and she
thought she’d die of embarrassment if anyone saw her like this. A lady just
didn’t show off her legs… except she wasn’t a lady, was she? She was a mutant,
who could walk through things. What did she think she was doing? She should
have surrendered there in the trailer, and now she was in big trouble. The gun
had scared her so much… but what could she do about it now?
Dad. He always knew what to do. She found her bearings, and started sneaking
back to her neighborhood. A white blouse and nearly-as-white bare legs were
going to make it hard for her to hide very well, though…
Her sleepy suburb of Chicago was thankfully quiet during school hours. Keeping
to alleys and shadowy areas, she found a place where she could see her house.
Shield was already there, and her heart thumped painfully.
Her mother was kneeling in the yard under guard. Her fingers were interlaced on
top of her head, and she was crying. On the hood of one of the vehicles were
the articles Kitty had left behind, her shoes, the skirt, and her school bag.
Another Shield car drove up, and her father joined her mom as hostage on the
lawn.
Kitty phased through the concealing fence and slowly walked to the sidewalk of
her house with her hands up. She approached her fate, trembling at all the
hostile eyes on her. In front of her parents, she stopped, staring at the
ground.
“Well, Kikes, looks like your mutie daughter has some sort of family loyalty
left. How sweet.” He threw a large ring on the ground near her. “Put that
around your neck, and click it closed,” he ordered, “unless you want to watch
us shoot them.
She picked up the ring with a shaking hand. It was a metal loop with
electronics attached. She put it on, and sealed the catch. A feeling of
sickness rolled over her instantly, and she swayed where she stood. Strong
hands grabbed her from behind before she could fall. With a flash of fear, she
tried to phase out the painful grip. Her belly heaved in complaint, and she
stayed solid.
The officer looked down at her parents. “So, your story is you didn’t see any
signs of her becoming a mutant?”
“None,” her father said, “Just as we told you.”
“Fine, you can get up. You’ll undergo more interrogation later until we’re
certain of that. Now say bye-bye to the mutie.”
Her parents rose and looked at her, helplessness and fear on their faces.
“Shalom, Katherine,” Dad said. “God be with you.” Mom nodded, still crying.
The officer looked disgusted. “Fucking Jews. Get her in the car.”
* * *
Hazy snapshots of memories were all that she could later recall of that night,
and much of the next day. She was processed at the Chicago Shield offices. They
clipped her brown wavy locks short, and deloused her. Kitty spent a restless
night in a holding cell, unable to eat or sleep.
The next day they gave her a gray jumpsuit to put on over her undergarments.
She was driven back to Deerfield High, where she was paraded in front of the
student body. She stood slumped in handcuffs, inhibitor collar visible on her
neck. She’d seen a glimpse of herself in a window, and barely knew the face
she’d seen. The captain was telling the kids that it could be them, if they
weren’t vigilant.
She lifted her eyes and looked at the kids who just yesterday were her peers.
Hateful looks and pleased expressions at her downfall marked most of them. Some
just looked away from her, like Jenny.
After that, she was driven to the airport, where they boarded a Shield
transport. She dozed in her seat until someone nudged her roughly. “Take a
look, kid. Your new home is just ahead.”
It was the Heli-carrier, a marvel of engineering. Fully as large as its oceanic
counterparts, it cruised the country thousands feet above the ground. Great
maneuvering props turned idly from the passing winds. She wondered how it
hovered in the air like that. It certainly wasn’t by the prominent propellers
that edged the upper deck. As soon as their plane landed, she was hustled
below.
In a shabby but clean room an odious man covered with tattoos gave her a
mocking grin. He readied his needles and began to work on her. The tattooing
hurt, and he wouldn’t stop, and it covered her whole face. He turned her to
face a mirror when he’d finished.
Her face looked like raw hamburger, all bloody welts, swollen flesh, and black
ink deeply introduced. She couldn’t even tell what she was supposed to look
like. He must have seen it in her expression, because he chuckled. “Over there,
sweets,” he said. A hand-sketched face bearing a starburst design was pinned to
the wall. “Yer a Hound, now.”
The tattoo was bandaged, and she was taken to a surgical room. Her clothing was
taken from her, and her arms, legs, and chest were strapped down to the table.
Someone put a mask over her face. The room swam around her, and she slept.
* * *
She awoke in a hospital ward, and her stomach hurt. There were two distinct
incisions on her belly, and she could trace the stitches through the thin shift
she wore. She’d been fixed.
The time she spent in recovery was sort of like the time she’d had her appendix
removed, except the staff never smiled, and never took no for an answer.
She still hurt when she was released to the dorms, but not as much. After she
was settled, a guard escorted her after she was settled to a large room. Two
agents awaited her, a man and a woman.
“Hound, we are your trainers,” said the man. “Now that you are healed, your
life is our hands. You will do as we say, or you will be punished. You will
develop your strength and abilities under our direction in an attempt to make
your pathetic life useful to Shield. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir” Kitty whispered. She never saw the ringing slap that burned across
her face.
“When you are addressed you will answer clearly. Do you understand that?”
“Y-y-yes, sir,” she said firmly. She winced, hoping he wouldn’t strike her for
the stutter.
“Better. Now, you were given your first conditioning session while you were
under for your surgery. Let’s see how much you remember of it.” He nodded to
his partner, and the familiar strains of the Shield march began playing in the
room.
Kitty blinked, and straightened up. She felt she should stand at attention for
the song, just as she would for the national anthem. A whispering voice in head
spoke to her. This is the music of those who saved you from death. Show respect
and you will live.
“Good reaction,” he smiled briefly. It was the first approving expression
directed her way since the day she was discovered to be a mutant. “Now let’s
see if you remember your oath.” He suddenly snapped a question at her. “Who do
you belong to?”
The mind whisper supplied the answer. “I… I belong to Shield.”
“What do they own of yours?”
Again, the words came from depths unknown. “They own… my breath.”
He scowled and she flinched. “That’s ‘my very breath’,” he corrected. “Say it
again.”
“They own my very breath,” she managed to say.
“How is it that you will live, mutant?”
“I live at their whim. I…” her voice trailed off, unsure.
“And how is it that you will die?”
“I… die… at their whim.” This was barely said above a whisper.
“Now say them together, and louder,” he ordered.
“I live at their whim, I die at their whim.” The truth of the words was like a
chill in her heart.
“How will you serve, in order to extend your miserable existence?”
“I will serve in whatever I am commanded.” She was glad she’d gotten all that
out without another prompt from him. And all the while, the music played in the
background.
“Now you will practice that some more… but you’re doing it all wrong!” The last
words were a furious shout. Kitty cringed away and whimpered.
He moved closer to her, eyes dangerous and his voice intense and low. “When you
hear the music of Shield, or see the banner of the great organization that saw
fit to spare your worthless mutant life, you should be on your knees!”
Hurriedly she knelt on the cold metal floor. The woman turned the record over
and a clear voiceover could be heard over the music. He loomed over her, eyes
still angry. “Now, you will recite along with the record until I give you
permission to stop.”
Kitty nodded quickly, and spoke along with the voice. “…I live at their whim, I
die at their whim. I will serve in whatever I am commanded. I belong to Shield.
They own my very breath…”
* * *
Rural Germany... Sparks leaped and popped from the campfire. The boy’s chestnut
hair fell in disordered locks over his shadowed eyes. Jimaine studied his firm
profile, so like his father’s. He looked up at the sky, and she resisted the
urge to join his mournful upward stare. He turned his face to her, and the fire
caught his eyes, like chips of emerald set ablaze.
“Do you think he’s alive, mother?” Jimmy said.
That was the easy question. “Yes. If they intended to kill him, they would have
done it at the circus. As long as he does what they want, he’ll live.”
“Do you think he’s alright?” His voice was husky, and moisture wavered, pooling
under his eyes.
She sighed. “I don’t know, son, but it’s a sure thing that they are not being
gentle with him.”
The threatening tears trailed down his cheek, forgotten. His eyes turned as
cold as the northern seas, even in the firelight. She shuddered at the grim set
of his mouth. He was so like her lover, the way he’d been when he left her to
fight for his kind, and Kurt’s.
So very like him.
***** Kurt - Training The Infiltrator; Nightcrawler *****
Months had passed since Kurt had come to the Heli-Carrier. Months in which his
groin stopped hurting and his scars healed. He sat on his bunk waiting for
lights out in the Hounds Dorm, his chin on his knees and his arms and tail
wrapped tightly around him. He’d suffered another session with the tattooed
man. Some of his scars didn’t ridge up high enough the first time, so they were
recut. But even that was healed now.
His tail tip twitched at the memory, and he grabbed it tightly to keep it
still. As soon as he could safely exert himself, they’d set him to strength
training and acrobatic practice. It was nothing he hadn’t done before, but the
fierce intensity of the work was new to him. He learned what was expected of
him as a Hound: to obey on pain of death.
The litany was a perversion and purest blasphemy. They sought to make Shield
his God, his religion, and his very world. If he were a stronger man, he would
have refused and joined the martyrs of the faith with the blessed Name on his
lips. Instead, he mouthed the words they wanted and repented in the night. To
live was a strong urge in him, and he felt… he felt that God still had a
purpose for him, in this life.
The foul oath wasn’t the only cross he had to bear in this horrible place. His
fellow Hounds didn’t seem to like him. Even now, hunched tight on his bunk, he
turned his head away in distaste from their ribald stories and jokes. His
neighbor on the next bunk laughed at him, “Aw, the altar boy’s gettin’ all
offended again.” The jokes only got filthier in response.
The guard ordered them to bed, and turned off the lights. Kurt lay down under
his covers, still curled protectively around himself. A Hound’s life wasn’t as
aesthetic as he thought. The others talked about mixed genders parties that
Hounds on good report could attend. After giving the clinic a negative sperm
count, he’d been eligible. He didn’t go the first time he could. The jests
indicated an abandonment of morals and a wholehearted embrace of casual sex.
Last month he had gone, for the hope of some companionship. Kurt stifled a
sigh.
When he arrived, at first the partiers had ignored him. Equal parts relieved
and disappointed, he turned to leave. A mannish looking woman stopped him.
“Wait, we gotta rule here. No one who comes is turned away.” The Hound tattoo
made her strong features even less feminine than her face structure deserved.
Her name was Karla, and she took him to one of the curtained alcoves. Many of
them were in use, and some of the couples weren’t bothering with the curtains.
He closed theirs, and found her immediately reaching for the zipper of his
jumpsuit.
He gently captured her hands. “Nein, please, I…”
“Don’t you want to fuck?” she said frowning.
“No… I just wanted some company.”
“Are you gay?” she hissed, “Because you shoulda said…”
“I just wanted to talk with someone,” he said. “I want to hear a voice that
isn’t full of hate and anger. I want to talk about the weather, or… anything,
that’s not about… killing.”
She looked away. “We don’t usually do that here. You’re cutting into my chance
for sex tonight.”
“I’m sorry,” he said sadly. “I release you from the rule. You can go.” He sat
down slumped on the bed, ignoring the multitude of suspicious stains on the
covers.
She stood at the curtain for a moment, ready to leave, and then turned back
around. “I’ll give you an hour, that way I can still try for some. An hour’s
all we have to give, anyway.” She sat down next to him, and looked at his tail.
“Actually it’s kinda nice to have a guy look my face for once.” She smiled.
He smiled back at her. Her eyes were a soft blue.
“So,” she said. “What do you want to talk about?”
* * *
It had lasted all too short a time, that awkward conversation. But the memory
of a rare act of kindness relaxed him finally, and he fell asleep…
…Until blankets were thrown over him, and fists began slamming into him. Kurt
was their favorite nighttime target, ever since they’d noticed how little
bruises showed through his indigo fur. He defended himself as best he could,
and hoped they would tire of it soon…
* * *
He entered the training room, and bowed low to his trainers, and the major he’d
met that first day. Turning, he kneeled fluidly before the eagle bedecked
Shield emblem on the wall. They listened to the words he spoke aloud, and he
was only glad they couldn’t hear the words that he spoke in his heart. “Vater
unser im Himmel, geheiligt werde dein Name. Dein Reich komme. Dein Wille
geschehe, wie im Himmel so auf Erden…”
It was a dangerous game he played. If they had made him speak the Shield oath
in German, he probably couldn’t have gotten away with it. They seemed happy
with his reverent expression and his flawless English recitation, while he
silently fed his heart with prayers in his mother tongue. It bothered him to
appear to bow to their false religion, but he knew that his true worship was to
God alone.
He remembered that eagles were in the scriptures, and that Paul had told
bondservants to obey their masters as if obeying God. The Lord had put him into
these hands, and there must be some purpose to it that Kurt didn’t yet
understand.
He rose and bowed to them again. He no longer wore the collar, for where would
he go? They had taken him to the top deck and let him look down at the ground,
spread below like a distant patchwork quilt. To take his own life was a sin,
and he was certain he would die if he ported off the Carrier.
They told him to warm up, and he began. A few winces and a hiss or two later,
and one of them stopped him. “What’s the matter with you?”
“My uniform is tight, and… my muscles hurt.”
Trainer Birne pulled him to their table and turned a bright light on him. He
squinted his sensitive eyes from the glare, and stood as they inspected the
fighting togs he wore and the puffy bruises on his dark face. Birne took a
blade and loosened some seams across his shoulders and along his thighs. “New
ones are being made, but you’ve grown faster than we’ve anticipated, and
getting good muscle.”
Kurt tried not to flinch as he probed his swollen cheekbone. “This come from a
guard?”
“No, mein Herr.”
Birne looked at the cold-faced officer. “This has gone on long enough. The
Hounds are beating him up at night, and it’s hindering his training. As if we
wouldn’t notice unauthorized marks on him.”
The officer looked at him appraisingly. “Strip to the waist.”
Kurt undid the top of his cat suit, and pushed it down to his hips. More
swollen patches were visible on his body, purple even under the fine, dark fur.
“Is what he said true?”
“Jawohl, major,” he said to his feet.
“Very well, you’ve made your point. He’ll be given separate quarters, and you
will be reassigned immediately. Report to Hound command for a new subject.
You’ve become too close to this one.”
“Yes, sir,” Birne answered, and left the room. A new trainer came in as the
major left. The man stared at him, then studied his files for a long time.
“Alright, Sunshine,” the new man growled. “Gear up and show us what you can
do.”
He finished his warm-up, and more adjustments made to his suit. It was
especially flexible at his joints, but was now far too confining in spots for
his growing frame.
His senior trainer put him on ‘rescue’ work today. An ungainly bundle equal to
his own weight was strapped to his back. He had to negotiate his obstacle
course with it, while automatic weapons and the trainers fired at him with
paint balls.
Kurt ran the course so burdened, twice. The first time he received a solid mark
of paint, and ten pushups, but the second time he only bore the splatters of
near misses. He was glad to get the bundle off his back.
He was allowed a chance to rest, and then he was set to a strenuous acrobatics
sequence, the moves called out at random from a list of moves he’d been trained
in. He was still panting from that when he was called to the trainer’s table.
The new trainer launched into an attack, snapping punches and kicks at him at
full speed and power. Kurt defended himself, blocking most of the blows.
Trainer Combs said offhandedly, “He won’t stop until you get a sold hit back on
him. Get him before he gets you.”
Kurt narrowed his eyes and took the initiative in the fight, returning the
attacks to the best of his ability. They traded several strikes, and then Kurt
ported behind him and knocked him flat with a roundhouse kick to the side of
the head.
“Very good,” Combs said, while the new man gave a little groan and sat up. “And
since you’ve broached the use of your power, we’re doing weight training
today.” Kurt fought off a sigh. He hated this part. The trainer threw him a
heavy sack. “You know the drill, port with that across the room and back.”
Porting with weights was hard, and they kept increasing them. Bamf. He appeared
on the big room’s far side, then he bamfed back. “Drop it,” the trainer said,
and he did in time to catch the next, even heavier bag. He ported across with
it, and stopped, his sides heaving, until he scraped up the focus to return.
“That’s just pathetic you know,” said Combs. “That’s only a hundred pounds, and
you’re sucking wind to get it back. The major wants you up to 150 pounds as
soon as possible. You need to be able to port another person with you on a
mission, or what the hell are we wasting our time on you for?”
Kurt stood very still. He knew what the fate was for Hounds who didn’t live up
to expectations: Their suspended death sentence was summarily carried out.
“I will do better, mein Herr,” he said. He hefted the bag again, and took it
across once more. Despite the throbbing pain, he brought it back as soon as his
eyes marked out a location. He appeared with it, and it dropped from his hands.
He crumpled in on himself, slumping into his characteristic crouch as his nose
dripped blood on the front of his suit.
“Alright,” Combs said, handing him some gauze. “I can see you’re making an
effort here. When you get the bleeding under control, go with your new trainer
to the weight room. I want you to do twenty reps on each machine, then you can
shower. After dinner, I’ll have your kit, and I’ll take you to your new
quarters.”
“Thank you, mein Herr,” Kurt said. He dabbed at his nose and caught his breath.
The weight room wasn’t a bad way to end the session. Twenty reps was a lot of
work, as tired as he was, but it was mindless effort. He didn’t think he’d be
able to handle anything else that required concentration or thought.
* * *
When he finished eating, Combs arrived, with Kurt’s locker and several boxes on
a hand truck that he passed to Kurt. They negotiated several halls, and took a
freight elevator to what had to be near the bottom of the Carrier. The hall
they arrived in was dusty and little used. The door they stopped at looked like
it was an afterthought.
“These were built as quarantine quarters for the staff. They’re full facilities
for two. You’re still required to have dinner in the dining hall, but you are
allowed to have your other meals here. Don’t skip any, or all your meals will
be in the dining hall.” He looked at Kurt to make sure he understood. “Most of
it was fully finished, but I’m told some of it is still a little rough. Just be
sure you take extra time to get to and from anywhere, because you’re way down
here now.”
Kurt nodded, and Combs left. He opened the door into a neatly appointed
kitchenette, complete with refrigerator and stove. To the left a narrow hall
eventually opened to a larger room. In the middle of the hall, a door revealed
a surprising large bathroom that he wouldn’t have to share with anyone.
Past the bath was a bedroom with two separate full mattresses. Returning though
the kitchen, he went past the separating bar, and entered the main room. Here
the plastering had stopped, and the far end of the room, where the ceiling
dropped abruptly from eight feet to a little over six, was paneled in bare
sheetrock. From the dusty hallway outside, to the far wall, no room was wider
than 15 foot. They had an air of being crammed into a narrow available space.
Kurt carried his trunk to the nearest bed, and looked through the boxes on the
cart. One held bedding, and another contained towels and washing gear. He took
them both, dropping the bathing box off in the open bathroom, and piled the
bedding on his trunk.
The rest of the boxes held some kitchen utensils and a respectable amount of
foodstuffs. It seemed he really would be permitted to have some independence
down here. All it cost him was the dubious company of his fellow Hounds.
He took his time, and began to put things away. It wasn’t home, but it was
better than the dorm.
* * *
It was noisy down here. Engineering was just on the far side of the outside
hall, and most of the Carrier’s power was generated ‘down below’. The second
time he woke up from some odd clanging noise he got up in his boxers and
started to pace the bare main room.
After a while, from sheer boredom, he jumped up and started to wall-walk. He
clung to the vertical surfaces with ease, scuttling on all fours around the
room’s walls as easily as he’d paced the floor. At the back wall, a slab of
sheetrock shifted under his weight, and he lightly jumped back from it to the
floor.
He came up to the slab, examining its edges and trying to make it rattle. He
struck it with his fist, and cocked his head at the hollow thump it made, and
the whispering echoes that followed. He hit it again, and listened to the
echoes more closely. What kind of space was behind the wall?
Kurt went to the kitchen and picked up the hand truck, and brought it to the
slab. He crouched beside the truck and ran his hands over it, considering.
Picking it up by the sides he turned it upside down, and slammed into the
sheetrock with the bottom edge, like an awkward dull axe. It made a
satisfactorily deep cut in the slab, and he brought it down again and again.
Soon he’d chopped a dark hole in the wall the size of his head. He reversed the
cart again, and rammed at the crumbling edges of the hole with the hard steel
handle.
The half-inch pipe of the truck seemed up the task. He could see the two by
four framing that the sheetrock was nailed to. Using the limited tools he had,
he cleared the slab and cross-board from the wooden frame section, and looked
out into the yawning dark beyond. He turned off all the lights, and allowed his
golden eyes to adjust.
It wasn’t completely black, because he could see a dim light filtering through
from far above. He slipped through, and seemed to be between two hulls of the
Carrier. The far hull was night-cold metal, but the inner wall was more room
temperature. It was a little wider between these walls than his rooms were.
Here, between the walls, bare iron girders, steel support cables, and air ducts
loomed in the spaces above him, gradually blocking out the faint light. A smile
curved his lips as he studied the nearby surfaces. He gripped the edge of a
great I-beam, and started to climb.
About forty feet up, another beam crossed the first. He crawled out onto it and
stretched on his belly. He let his arms dangle down on either side, but his
toes curled just over the ledges of the beam, and he wrapped his tail loosely
around it. He closed his eyes and sighed in pleasure. It was far too long since
he’d been able to climb for the pure enjoyment of it.
That noise… was that a bird? Getting to his feet he sought a way higher up. A
hundred feet above the deck below he was near the top of the space. Ten to
fifteen feet above him was a steel riveted ceiling, but in the outer wall was a
vent. Five yards long, and two yards tall, it was made of louvered vanes a mere
four inches apart. Sitting on a beam level with the vent, he could see the
moonlit clouds outside the carrier.
They must not be at full cruising elevation, because he could hear more
birdcalls, though none passed by where he could see them. The rich colors of
twilight were fading from the sky, and tears wet his cheeks at the beauty of
it. He sat and watched the sky until it was completely dark, sprinkled with
glistening stars. He gave silent thanks for the gift he’d been given, then with
a laugh he half-tumbled, half-flew down to the deck below. When he lay down in
his bed again, his sleep was deep and his dreams were scarcely troubled.
* * *
He woke up early, feeling refreshed, and made himself breakfast. He dressed to
join his morning work detail up above. He stepped out of his room, and jumped
at the sight of a workman standing near his door.
“Fuck!” the man said as he jumped back as well. Kurt bowed to him, and headed
for the freight elevator. “Wait… Hound! You’re to come with us,” the man said.
“I’m with the fourth cleaning detail, mein Herr.”
“Not anymore. Aw fuck Joe, he’s German… and he’s blue!”
“I don’t care if he’s the ruddy devil hisself…” Joe came into view, and goggled
at Kurt, who stood respectfully still. Joe swallowed hard, and continued.
“…he’s a warm body, and we’re always undermanned in the garbage room. C’mon,
you.”
The other end of the hall opened up into a large bay filled with bins and
plastic bags. The smell of rot was partly countered by the breeze coming in the
wide-open bay doors where flying trawls hauled off the detritus of life aboard
the carrier.
Joe took Kurt to a large pile of loose garbage. “We recycle everything we can.
Burnables go to the furnace room. Also, sort out the glass, plastic, and
metals, and do it by color of glass and type of metals. The bins are clearly
labeled… you can read English can’t you?”
“Jawohl, sir.”
A careless wave dismissed the title. “Just Joe. Useless stuff and general
garbage we have to pay to get taken away, so sort as good as you can, okay? You
do that until 11:30, then you kick off until your training session at one
o’clock. Got all that?”
“Yes… ah, Joe.”
* * *
Hours later, his fur was matted with various unidentified sticky substances.
He’d done his sorting to the best of his ability and reported to Joe for his
work chip. Joe gave it to him cheerfully. “You did good work out there, Hound.
I think this is going to work out.”
Kurt looked around at the not-quite-useless treasures scattered around the
man’s working space. “Ah, mein Herr?” he said softly.
“What is it?” Joe frowned at him.
“Does anyone want that?” He pointed at a box containing a turntable with a
broken arm, and stack of old records.
“Naw, help yourself, just some more poundage we don’t have to pay to get rid
of.” Joe gave him the box, some more records, the armature off another record
player, and a battered toolbox that didn’t close properly. “Anything else you
can use?”
“Perhaps, some extra blankets?”
“Sure, I got some over here…”
***** Kitty - A Social Gathering for Freaks *****
Kitty lay in her bunk, waiting for the day to begin. Deerfield High had been
heaven compared to here. Without question, she was the youngest, shortest, and
smallest female Hound. Half of the women in her dorm towered over her, and the
other half looked like they could break her in half. Two had made passes at
her, and laughed when she cringed away.
Her trainers worked her every day, and soon made it clear that the only result
of her phasing out of the Carrier would be to die. She ‘hovered’ when she
phased… weightless, suspended. It took an effort of will, like miming the act
of walking down stairs to descend to a lower level. At thousands of feet of
elevation, that was an awful lot of ‘stairs’ to walk down.
They took her collar off as a lesson, and made her stay phased as long as she
could; screaming at her to keep going until she simply couldn’t anymore. Twenty
minutes. They let her do the math. In twenty minutes she could barely cover a
quarter of the distance to the ground.
Soon, they told her, they would take off her collar during her training. They
would help her use her mutant power to its potential and make her into a weapon
for Shield. There were books in her locker. Anatomy books that showed the
circulatory and nervous systems throughout the body. Diagrams of the most
vulnerable organs and where best to strike in order to stun, maim, or kill.
Her workouts of late included pop quizzes on the anatomy material, with
punishing extra exercises if she answered wrongly, and early showers if she got
it right. It made her sick to her stomach to learn the stuff, but she learned
it.
The morning buzzer went off, and the Hounds stirred. After breakfast, they
formed up in teams, each to their own work squad. Kitty was on the second
laundry detail. They washed endless loads of gray jumpsuits and Shield
uniforms. They did a different type of cleaning with the training suits. It was
a chemical spray and rinse, then oiling and treating the leather material of
the outfits.
Laundry duty got her to lunch, and then she reported to her trainers. She
wasn’t proving very apt at the martial arts they were giving her. She found
herself flat on her back on the floor, with the trainer shouting at her to list
all the ways he could be disabled even from her posture below him. She
struggled through as many as she could remember before he let her up.
“You simply aren’t taking this seriously enough, Hound,” he said with a
disgusted tone. She cringed under his disapproval. “You know what will happen…”
‘I die at their whim,’ whispered through her brain. “Yessir,” she said.
He frowned at her, “I’ll just have to think of a better motivation for you.”
She didn’t like the smile that came over his face. “A much better motivator.”
He turned to his table, and grabbed a drink bottle. “You’re done, Hound. Go
shower and get ready for the Social. Now, that oughta be educational for you.”
The chuckle he gave after his drink chilled her.
* * *
The Social. She didn’t know what to think about it. The others said it was a
chance to meet the guy Hounds and have a little fun. She could understand that.
It was a way to blow off steam from a high-pressure existence. A Hound worked
and trained for a total of ten hours a day, five days a week, with double work
shifts on the weekends, with no more and no less than life itself as reward.
There were no holidays, no vacations, and only a chance for a semi-supervised
night off once a month.
So why did she get so nervous about the way they talked about it? She brushed
her cropped hair as the women prepared to go. The comments flying around made
her suddenly aware that it was going to be an adult party. Very adult.
“Coming, Kitty?” said her bunkmate.
“Umm,” Kitty said. “Uh, no. I think I’ll just stay here. And read.”
“Not an option,” the guard said. He gave her a red card. “This says your
trainer orders you to attend. Get in line with the others.”
“Yes, sir.” She formed up with the others, and walked with them to the Social
Hall, at least that’s what they called it. In reality it was a large, dimly lit
rec room lined with curtained alcoves. A long table held some luxury food items
a cut or two above the slop they served in the dining rooms. A shorter table
held a couple of kegs of beer, and some bottles of wine. Thumping dance music
played from the stereo.
From the first meeting of the two groups of Hounds, Kitty got an eyeful of the
lewdest, most blatant sexual behavior she’d ever been exposed to. Some of the
women had their suits opened to the navels with no brassieres. Men had the top
of their suits hanging from their hips, exposing hairy chests.
She was absolutely scarlet from embarrassment. She wanted to run, but she was
stuck here for the duration. One of the bigger males caught sight of her and
grabbed her by the wrist, dragging her to the middle of the room.
“Looky here, boys… the bitches have brought them a cute little girl puppy this
time. So, how old are ya girly, twelve?”
“I’m fourteen,” she said, pulling futilely at his grasp.
“That old, huh? Heh. I didn’t think you ladies could have any litters.”
Karla, her bunkmate, marched up on the man. “You know she’s not one of ours,
Brad[*], we only wish. But if you don’t let her go, I swear you won’t get any
tonight. She’s a Hound, just like all of us, so treat her like one.”
He let her go, and laughed. “Don’t worry, girly, the night is young yet. One of
us’ll prob’ly get drunk enough to give your skinny little ass a try a little
later.” He grabbed Karla around the waist and stumped off with her in a rough
dance.
Mortified beyond words, Kitty retreated to the snack table, picking up a plate
and piling some tidbits onto it. She sat against the wall, and turned away from
the sight of a Hound pinning one of the women to the wall and having sex with
her right there in the room. The woman wasn’t struggling, and she sounded like
she was enjoying it. “Get a room,” someone finally said, and they stumbled into
one of the alcoves, whose purpose Kitty only now understood.
Only her collar and the red card kept her in the room. She began to study the
items on her plate, wondering how long she could make them last when someone
came up to her.
“Kitty,” said her bunkmate. She looked up at Karla. “Look, we have a rule here
that no one is turned away. We’re all in this together, see?” Kitty nodded.
“Well, there’s a guy here who’s hard to fix up. So, I’m assigning you, as
junior-most lady Hound, to be his company.”
Kitty shook her head frantically, and Karla frowned.
“I’m not giving you a choice, ok? Besides…” and her strong features softened
considerably, “he’s very nice.”
She looked where Karla pointed, and she saw a slender form at the entrance of
the Hall. At first glance she thought he was pitch black, until he turned his
head and blue highlights shimmered through his wavy hair, and over his narrow
features. There was something strange about his feet, and his hands were shoved
into his pockets. Something thin and dark twitched behind him. A tail?
“He’s got a tail!” she squeaked. She looked up at Karla in shock.
“Yeah, he’s got a tail,” Karla said. “But like I said, he’s nice. So go on.”
Kitty got up stiffly, and walked over the fidgeting male. He seemed as nervous
as she felt, and a jolt of fear went through her as he lifted his eyes to hers.
They were a solid golden yellow, and gleamed softly in the dimness. She
swallowed hard, and kept walking. Surely, he couldn’t get any stranger…
…Surely he could. His ears swept upward in a delicate arch to a sharp point.
His skin… his skin was only a few shades lighter than his dark blue hair. At
closer range it looked fuzzy. All over fuzzy. It was hard for her to read
expressions on his scarred face, but he looked very serious, and maybe a little
sad.
She stood in front of him, and shifted her weight from foot to foot. She
offered him the plate of snacks still clutched in her hand.
“Dankeshön, Fräulein.” He gave a little bow, his accent soft and lilting. The
weird hand that reached out for the plate made her gasp, and take a step
backward. The golden eyes closed, and this time she had no trouble seeing the
pain that passed over his face.
“I… I’m sorry,” she said. “We’re all Hounds, right?” She stepped closer and put
the plate in his hand. It closed lightly on it, but he just stood there holding
it. What she’d first taken to be some kind of crablike pincer was revealed to
be a pair of extra thick fingers matched with an equally broad thumb.
“Are you okay?” He opened his bright eyes again, and looked into hers. She
couldn’t meet his gaze, and her eyes dropped. He was barefoot, and his long
feet sported two wide front toes, with thick horny nails. Each heel had an
extra toe pointed backwards, bent up tight against the foot, as if they weren’t
comfortable on a flat surface.
The tail was curling spirals around his right ankle, holding it in a
strangulation grip. With another visceral jolt of strangeness, she saw the tail
end bore the classic devil’s point… just like in all the drawings of Satan.
It was the last detail that shattered the spell of fear inside her. She tried
to stifle a chuckle. It was just beyond ridiculous, all of it. He couldn’t have
been designed to be anymore frightening if someone had tried. Her shoulders
shook with reaction and suppressed mirth.
His shoulders hunched and his eyes narrowed. “You find something amusing, ja?”
His voice was still soft, but there was a hint of a dangerous rumble under the
German accent.
She held out her hands in a warding gesture. “It’s just… Oh God, it’s like…
Someone was playing some kind of sick joke, and you… you got the brunt of it.”
She met his eyes this time, pleading silently for him to understand, while
still trying to control her laughter.
His posture slowly uncoiled, and his tail loosened. He let out a long breath.
Giving her a small smile, he put his free hand on his breast. “Oh, ja. Am I not
the living pinnacle of Mother Nature’s sense of humor?” He gave her another
bow; deep, graceful, courtly, with hand and tail flourishes. He made quite a
production of it, and she curtseyed in reply.
He lifted his eyes again. “Actually, I’m used to being the brunt of the joke,
and it’s nice to find someone who can appreciate the jest.”
The self-deprecating smile on his lips tore at her heart. This strange man… no,
this boy, because he couldn’t be much older than she was, bore so much pain
inside him.
He took a piece of cheese from the plate, and ate it neatly. The sight of his
fangs barely registered with Kitty, except she noticed they were cleanly white
and sharp. It was just another perfect detail taken from the ‘scare the hell
out of people’ design book. She thought she’d probably be more surprised if his
teeth were like hers.
“My name is Kitty,” she said. She took a slice of fruit from the plate. She
wanted to sit down, but she didn’t want to get any closer to the revelers
within the room.
“Ach, where are my manners?” he muttered. “I am Kurt Wag… I’m Kurt.”
“No, you’re not,” she said with a smile.
“Was… Pardon?” His dark brows furled in confusion. “That is my name.”
“You haven’t been rude to me,” she insisted, nearly giggling again. The more
expressions she saw on his face, the easier it was to understand them.
He stared at her, baffled and completely forgetting to be self-conscious. His
eyes flashed suddenly, and his mouth widened into a real smile. He pointed at
her with a big finger. “You’re making a pun,” he accused. “That’s not fair,
Kätzchen, English is not my first language. That would be like my making puns
in German about your name.” Did his cheeks just color?
“’Kätzchen’?” she asked
“It means kitten,” he explained. “Would you rather I used Kitty?”
“No, Kätzchen is fine.” She looked briefly into the room and flinched at a gust
of drunken laughter. “I wish we could go somewhere else.” He nodded, the look
of distaste on his face mirroring her own.
“Let’s try.” He took her hand and pulled her to the guard. Fuzz that she’d
thought might be bristly or stiff turned out to be soft velvet to the touch.
“Can we go somewhere else?” he asked.
“Got red cards?” the guard said. They both pulled out a red card. “Well, you
can’t go back to your dorms with those until curfew. You going together?”
“Yes,” he said, and this time she knew she saw the purple on his cheeks.
“It’s allowed, just don’t go anywhere restricted. Understand?”
“Ja, thank you.” He motioned for her to follow him and he led her through the
hallways.
“Where are we going,” she said, rushing to keep up.
“Someplace quiet and out of the way. My quarters.”
“You have separate quarters?” How did he rate that?
“They,” he hooked a heavy thumb back over his shoulder as they entered an
elevator, “… kept confusing me with the exercise equipment. Specifically, with
the punching bags.”
“Oh,” she said. They left the elevator into another hallway. He opened a door,
and gestured for her to precede him.
She hesitated for a moment, flushing. Was she really going into a boy’s private
rooms without a chaperone? He looked at her blush, and bowed his head.
“I promise to be a gentleman, Kätzchen.”
She smiled a little and shrugged. “It’s not like we didn’t see enough stuff at
the Social.” She stepped into the small but clean kitchen. A hallway to the
left ended in a hanging cloth, to the right a bar opened onto a living room
furnished in Early Rummage Sale.
He got some juice out of his fridge, and put it on the table. He added a
Tupperware bowl of lunchmeats next to the plate of cheeses from the party. A
bag of apples was the final offering. He took out some dishes and helped her
into one of the miss-matched chairs, then sat in the other.
He poured them each a glass of juice, and then made a thick meat and cheese
roll. He put an apple on his plate, and cocked his head at her. “Not hungry?”
She took an apple. “Do you have any meat without pork?” She couldn’t always
avoid it here, but she tried. He offered her some beef bologna, and she nibbled
on a piece as she watched him clean his plate, and a second apple, as well.
“So, what kind of jokes could you make in German from my name?”
He paused while pouring himself another glass of juice. He colored faintly, and
finished pouring. “Ah, well, even in English, I believe there are… other
meanings for some of the words for ‘cat’.” [**]
“Ah,” she said, coloring herself. Time to change the subject. “How can you eat
like that? Dinner wasn’t that long ago.”
“I have a high metabolism, and lots of activity means I need lots of fuel. Are
you done with the lunchmeat?” he asked, standing.
She nodded, and he laid out a few more apples, and then opened the fridge with
his tail. Picking up the bowl and apple bag, he put them away, letting his tail
swing the door closed again. He saw her looking at it, and smiled. “Yes, it
does come in handy at times.”
He sat down, and his yellow eyes watched her finish her apple over the rim of
his glass. She made a neat core of it, and put it down on her plate. His face
was so serious again. Now what?
He put his glass down with great care, and stood. He took a deep breath, and
held out his strange hand to her. “Will you dance with me, Kätzchen?” he asked
softly.
“Dance? Here?” She blinked at him.
His head inclined to the living room. “In there, actually.” His voice sounded
strained and his hand started to tremble. She took it in hers, rubbing her
thumb over the velvet on the back of his hand.
“Alright.” She started to push back from the table, and he hastened to pull out
her chair.
He led her to the next room and moved a large empty wiring spool out of the
way. He turned to a shelf, and started pulling records out of their sleeves,
stacking them up on the top of the record spindle. The arm on the player was a
different color than the rest of the unit, but as the first disk started
spinning, the arm obediently moved over and set down the needle.
A hiss, and a hum, and music began playing. It was a fast and sprightly Big
Band song, with lots of brass and strings. He held out his hand again, and she
took it without hesitation. They began to move with the music.
He was so graceful, she felt awkward. Her Dad had taught her the basics of
dancing, but she was nowhere near as good as Kurt.
They danced with one hand clasped together, swiveling in time. “Relax,” he
murmured. “Don’t be so tense.” He tugged on her hand, and spun her close to him
and let her spiral away until they were at arms’ length. Then he gently pulled
her back again.
His eyes were positively gleaming, and the look on his face could only be
happiness. She smiled at him, and he grinned back at her, his bright teeth
shining in contrast against his dark, scarred face.
The record finished, and they stopped, catching their breath. The arm lifted
and moved to the side, and the next album shivered down the spindle to the
platter. The needle found the new groove, and soft smoky jazz started playing,
the rhythm as definite as before, but slower.
Slowly, he pulled her closer, until their forearms were touching. His other
hand moved lightly to her waist, and she laid hers on his shoulder. They
turned, and turned again, body’s close, but not quite touching.
She looked up at him. His eyes were half closed, and his features were dreamy,
lost in the moment. It looked like a good idea. Something this nice couldn’t
last. She pressed closer, and leaned her cheek on his shoulder. He was a little
taller than she was, and it was a comfortable place to rest her head.
He gasped, stiffening, but she didn’t react, or pull away. She just kept
following the lead of his feet, leaning into him lightly. He relaxed, and his
lower hand moved around to her lower back. She felt his tail follow the
movement of his hand, and loosely wrap around her back and then his. He leaned
his cheek down against her hair.
She sighed and accepted the warmth of his embrace, giving herself up to the
music.
 
[*] In any of my fics, if a character is named 'Brad', it is safe to assume he
is most well and truly an *asshole*. (/Rocky Horror Picture Show)
[**] There really is such a word… Jogurt of the website Nightscrawlers told it
to me, but I don't find a good place to work it in until much later in the
story.
***** Kurt - Tripping the Light Fantastic *****
[AN: Yes, I know some of this overlaps the events of the previous chapter, this
is intentional… to show events from the other point of view.]
 
Kurt wasn’t going to go to the Social. It had been nice to talk to Karla, but a
single begrudged hour of someone’s time wasn’t worth the aggravation, at least
not this month. His trainer had other plans, apparently. When he had his dinner
that Friday, Combs dropped a red card on his tray.
“You spend too much damned time alone, Hound. Live a little.”
He nodded, his face unhappy, as Combs walked away. He went to his quarters and
changed to a new jumpsuit, then walked to the Social. He stood at the door and
looked within. It was as bad as it was last time, all lewd conversations and
lewder behavior.
He caught Karla’s eyes as she danced with some big bruiser. She was with Brad,
one his former ‘playmates’. She shook her head slightly, but held up a finger
to him, and mouthed, ‘wait’. When the song ended she peeled Brad’s hands off
her, and walked purposely to the dark corner of the room.
“Hey, altar-boy,” Brad called. “Come to get laid?” He laughed loudly at his own
joke. Kurt ignored him and waited for Karla to return. When he saw her again,
she pointed at a small form moving in his direction, before giving her
attention back to Brad. Obviously she’d set him up with someone else.
The girl-Hound was very young, without her full growth. She still wore her
collar, which meant her power was either very dangerous or she was a recent
acquisition. Her short-clipped brown hair tended to support the latter idea.
Under the tattoo, her face was innocent and frightened.
Her brown eyes got bigger and bigger as she neared him. She was taking in his
appearance, and seemed to physically flinch every time she noticed another one
of his ‘little oddities’. She fidgeted in front of him, looking like she was
about to cry. This was not what he needed today.
She offered him a plate of snacks, but when he thanked her and reached for it,
she gasped and took a step back. Kurt closed his eyes tightly. He couldn’t
believe how much her reaction hurt him.
“I… I’m sorry,” she said, her American Midwest accent sounding contrite. “We’re
all Hounds, right?” He felt her gently put the plate into his hand. He tried to
pull himself back together, and master the pain.
“Are you okay?” she insisted. He met her eyes, and she looked away, down at his
feet and nervous tail, her eyes widening again in surprise. She blinked, her
eyes draining of all expression, and something changed in her eyes. She gave a
little shake of her head, and started laughing silently.
Sudden rage bloomed inside him. He nearly shook with it as he crouched, ready
to fight. First she’d hurt him with her fear, and now she was mocking him? “You
find something amusing, ja?” he growled.
She raised her hands in defense and apology. “It’s just… Oh God, it’s like…”
The laughter spilled into her voice as she struggled to explain. “Someone, was
playing some kind of sick joke, and you… you got the brunt of it.” Sparkling
brown eyes met his deliberately, holding his golden gaze, and trying to convey
something that she couldn’t put into words. She put her hands over her mouth
and quivered.
Her words began to penetrate the pulse of his anger. She couldn’t be looking at
him that way if she was making fun of him. There was no trace of cruelty in her
eyes. But, what was she trying to say? Then the sense of it filtered through
his defensiveness at last, and his tension began to melt away. Gott, as if he
hadn’t had that same thought more times than he could count…
But… where had that anger come from? This place had gotten to him more than
he’d thought.
He sighed, and smiled to show he understood. “Oh, ja. Am I not the living
pinnacle of Mother Nature’s sense of humor?” He gave her a grand bow to honor
her for her insight, and she curtseyed back. “Actually, I’m used to being the
brunt of the joke, and it’s nice to find someone else who can appreciate the
jest.” He couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice, or his smile.
A new expression came over her face, one that sobered her. He couldn’t tell if
it was compassion or just pity, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He took a
slice of cheese from the plate she’d given him. The conversation had gotten far
too personal.
“My name is Kitty.” She ate a piece of fruit, and looked around. Whatever she
was looking for, it wasn’t in the Social Hall, because she edged away from the
room and all it contained.
“Ach, where are my manners?” She must think he was a cad. “I am Kurt Wag…” He
cut himself off. Last names meant nothing here. “I’m Kurt.” Only among each
other did the Hounds have even that much identity.
There was a glint in her eyes, and she smiled. “No, you’re not.”
“Was… pardon?” He blinked, puzzled. “That is my name.”
“You haven’t been rude to me.”
What was she talking about? He’d lost track of the conversation somewhere. He
hadn’t been rude? He wasn’t Kurt? Wait… she meant that he was not CURT! He
smiled broadly and pointed at her. “You’re making a pun! That’s not fair
Kätzchen, English is not my first language. That would be like my making puns
in German about your name.” He thought he could like her. She was clever,
funny… and cute.
She tilted her head, confused by him in turn. “’Kätzchen’?”
He made a broad petting gesture in the air. “It means kitten.” He’d called her
that without thinking when he’d gotten her joke. Maybe she didn’t like it.
“Would you rather I used Kitty?”
She smiled. “No, Kätzchen is fine.” She frowned cautiously into the room, and
murmured, “I wish we could go somewhere else.”
He could agree with that, he certainly didn’t want to join the others. And, she
had said ‘we’, hadn’t she? He realized with wonder that she had. He wished he
could take her to his rooms…
“Let’s try.” His hand not holding the plate reached for hers, and he led her to
the guard at the Hall’s entrance. “Can we go somewhere else?”
“Got red cards?” They both did. “Well, you can’t go back to your dorms until
curfew with those.” No kidding, dummkopf. As if he wanted to get anywhere near
the men’s dorm, anyway.
“You going together?” the guard said, with a slight emphasis on the final word.
“Yes,” he said, flushing from the shame of the man’s prying. When the guard
okayed the excursion, he could scarcely believe it. “Ja, thank you,” he said,
wanting to be gone before anyone could say otherwise.
He wanted to return to his refuge with her, away from all the filthy minds that
surrounding them. Mein Gott, was it so much to ask?
She gamely stayed with him, but asked, “Where are we going?”
“Someplace quiet and out of the way. My quarters.” He thought she might object
to the impropriety of it, but she didn’t.
After a pause she said, “You have separate quarters?”
“They kept confusing me with the exercise equipment,” he said, indicating the
way back behind them. “Specifically with the punching bags.” He grimaced a
little, remembering the smothering fear, blankets held over his head, too much
weight on him, and the battering pain.
“Oh,” was her only answer. He stopped at his door and threw it open, then
stepped back for the lady to enter first. She just stood there, only now
starting to blush about the situation. Once again, he could see how very young
she was.
“I promise to be a gentleman, Kätzchen.” He bowed slightly.
She tried to shrug off her fear. “It’s not like we didn’t see enough stuff at
the Social.” She walked in, looked left and then right, and then waited for his
lead.
He put the plate on his rickety table. Perhaps he should make a snack first, to
make her more comfortable. From the fridge he got juice, meat and apples. His
mother had made meals like this, back home. He helped her to sit, and poured
them both a glass juice. He put some of the party cheese into a meat roll,
added an apple, and he was all set.
He picked up the roll, and saw she was just watching him, bemused. “Not
hungry?” he asked. He was. He always got hungry when he was nervous.
She picked up an apple. “Do you have anything without pork?” He thought about
it, and offered her some bologna. She took a slice and took dainty bites, while
he fed his hunger.
“So what kind of jokes could you make in German from my name?” she said after
he polished off a second apple.
He stalled, while pouring another glass of juice, blushing. “Ah, well, even in
English, I believe there are… other meanings for some of the words for ‘cat’.”
She blushed, too.
“How can you eat like that? Dinner wasn’t that long ago.”
“I have a high metabolism,” especially when he was nervous. “…and lots of
activity means I need lots of fuel.” True, every word of it. It was just not
the whole truth. Well, she didn’t look very hungry. “Are you done with the
lunchmeat?” He stood and when she nodded, he placed a few apples on the table
for later, and put the food away with dispatch, and the help of his tail.
She stared at his appendage as it did the work of a hand. He smiled. He was so
used to it he sometimes forgot how amazing it was. “Yes, it does come in handy
at times,” he said as he sat.
It also betrayed his feelings. He kept it fully behind him as he sipped his
juice, watching her eat her apple. It lashed back and forth jerkily, acting out
the fidgeting he was otherwise suppressing.
He had an opportunity here, but he didn’t know if he should try for it. He
wanted to do more than talk, and he had repaired the turntable. His tail tried
to curl up in knots in sympathy with the actions of his stomach, and he stopped
it with a snap to get out the kinks. Some of his tension must have showed on
his face, because she was looking at him questioningly.
No time like the present. He stood, and extended his had to her. Softly he
said, “Will you dance with me, Kätzchen?” He steeled himself for disgust,
anger, or if he was lucky, perhaps her polite refusal. But at least he’d had
the courage to ask.
“Dance? Here?” She wasn’t turning him down, yet. She just… looked confused.
What? Oh, she meant in the kitchen. He nodded over to the main room. “In there,
actually.” His courage was just about drained out, and it was starting to show
in the quiver in his voice, and the shaking of his hand. She reached out to
him, and bestowed a caress on his hand.
“Alright.” She started to stand, and he leaped to attend, pulling out her
chair. He took her to the main room, checking to see that the blankets that
covered his makeshift back door were tightly closed. The between space could be
drafty at times.
The spool he used as a table was in the way, so he moved it. Then he crouched
by his turntable, piling up several records he’d thought might be good to dance
to.
The record started, a solid mainstream dance band, and once again, he reached
out for her touch. She smiled and held his hand without any hesitation, and
started to dance.
He felt awkward with her. The feelings that flashed through his heart and his
body as they moved together, hands lightly clasped, were beyond his ability to
analyze. He was responding to her, aroused by her proximity, and yet he could
only see innocent enjoyment in her eyes. He tried to remember his promise.
He’d seen better dancers, but she knew some moves. Mostly she was having a hard
time following his lead. “Relax, don’t be so tense.” He spun her about, so her
back touched his chest, and then away so they faced each other from the full
length of their arms.
They both stepped in, to the normal position. She smiled brightly, and he
beamed back, not caring that his fangs showed. The record ended, and a jazz
album started up, playing slow dance music.
He pulled her closer, giving her time to refuse the suggestion. He held her
waist, and she put her hand on his shoulder. In a way, this was more exciting
than the fast dancing they’d done. She was closer to him, and he thought she
was beginning to notice their closeness at last.
He slipped his mind out of gear, and danced on instinct. Sometime, probably
soon, the nightmare that was their reality would assert itself again. But,
until then he just wanted to be here, to be with her, to be doing this, with
nothing else mattering at all.
Softness pressed close to him, her chest against his, her face nestled into his
neck. Oh, Gott, did she know what she was doing, and what she was doing to him?
He tensed, ready for her to realize her mistake… but she only snuggled closer.
She had to know who she was doing this with. Her forehead was touching the side
of his neck; her breath tickled the fur at the hollow of his throat. It was no
mistake.
He slid his hands around her to the small of her back, and his tail followed
his embrace, holding them together. He leaned his lips down to the softness of
her hair, and tried to ignore the throbbing of his erection. They were close,
but they weren’t plastered together, so maybe she wouldn’t notice.
She leaned her head back so she could see his face. Her tattooed cheeks bore a
rosy flush that he knew was equaled only by his own. Oh, she’d noticed. He
shrugged, and lowered his gaze. She would probably turn away from him, now.
She shifted a little, rubbing her face against the fur of his neck. They moved
as if they were one being, bound together by hands and tail, by their leaning
weight, and by the jazz.
A distant age later, the album side ended, replaced by another fast record. By
unspoken accord they stopped, still standing close for a sweet moment. Then
they pulled away, looking into each other’s eyes.
“I would like some water,” he said huskily. “Would you, also?”
“Yes, please,” she said, following him into the kitchen. She leaned on the
counter as he put ice into glasses, and poured water into them.
He was thirsty, and the water cooled the heat that flushed through him. She
laid the sweating glass against her forehead, and shivered before she drank.
Maybe he wasn’t the only one feeling the heat.
The Big Band music played on in the next room, but they were more interested in
their water, and each other at the moment.
“Is it only that we are very lonely, and alone?” he wondered.
“Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe we see in each other a decent person. One that we
would have liked, had we met when we were free.”
He turned to face away from her, his mouth thinning. “If we had met before,
mein Fräulein, you would have run screaming away from me, for I have always
looked like this. Isn’t that true?”
He heard her glass placed on the counter, and then her hands snaked around his
slender waist and crossed over his chest, pulling him close to her. “It’s true.
I was shallow, sheltered, and spoiled; an academic overachiever and a Jewish
American princess. And I would have run screaming from the nicest guy I have
met in my whole life. I was just stupid that way.”
She was soft and warm against him. His tailed circled around one of her legs.
“You are Jewish?”
“Yeah. The only thing worse than being a mutant, is being a Jew and a mutant.”
“I don’t mind. I am Catholic, but my Lord is Jewish.” He turned within her
grasp to face her, putting his forearms on her shoulders. “We have some time
yet. I would like to dance some more.”
She smiled. “Me, too,” and she pulled him back to the record player. The next
album started before long, a compilation of the Andrew’s Sisters. The boogie-
woogie war tunes were fast and fun, and the ballads were soulful.
The two relaxed to the music, keeping a little tension between them, to fight
the desire to melt into each other again. They weren’t sure where that desire
would take them, but they weren’t ready to go there. At least, not yet.
The stack of records finished playing, and they slouched on his battered couch
in companionable silence. The ship’s intercom activated, and a stern voice
announced, “Fifteen minutes to Curfew.”
She sat up. “I don’t know my way back.”
“I do, I’ll take you.” He walked into the kitchen with her, and tossed her an
apple. “For later.”
“Can I have another? For my bunkmate Karla?”
He smiled and handed her another one. “For Karla. Tell her… tell her I said
thank you.”
“I will.” He led out of the depths, and through the halls until she said,
“Okay, thanks.”
He turned to her, eyes gleaming under his tousled hair. He snapped his heels
smartly together, and reached for her hand. She let him take it, and he brought
it up to his lips, and kissed it in a courtly manner. “Thank you for tonight,
Kätzchen.”
She blushed again, and leaned up to kiss his cheek. “Thank you, for the
dancing, Kurt.”
He watched her hurry away. Two bamfs and some four-footed running later, he got
to his room just before the five-minute warning. He nodded to the security
guards he surprised as he slipped into his room. They secured his door for the
night.
He went to bed that night remembering the feel and the smell of her, and of her
kiss on his face.
***** Kitty - Training the Assassin; Shadowcat *****
Kitty was almost cheerful through the works shifts of the weekend. Life here
was still hellish, but it seemed a little more bearable now. At her next
training session, she was called to the table right after she recited the
litany. “Sir? Ma’am?” She tugged at the sleeves of her newly issued leather
uniform.
“You may have noticed your new outfit,” Agent Howards said. She nodded. “You
are now going to be introduced to your weapons.” He gestured to the table where
a wide array of blades was laid out. “These little ones are straight shurikens,
a sort of small throwing knife. They go in the row of slots down both your arms
and legs. Put them on.” She began putting the sharp metal strips into their
slots, side by side, marching down her limbs. She could feel weight they added
to her.
“The larger blades are also for throwing, they have a greater heft, and
therefore greater impact. Your suit has sheaths for them, here,” he directed
her hand to openings at her upper back, three on either side of her neck. “And
here,” at her low back were more openings, three to each side. “And lastly, on
your outer thighs, two to the front and two to the back of each. Equip them.”
She blew out her breath when she put the last of them in. He smiled without
humor. “Heavy, aren’t they? All your trainings from now on, after your oath,
will start with you putting on these blades, and you’ll do your workouts
including their weight. The last four are your hand fighting knives. About
half-way between a dirk and a dagger, you’ll carry them in your boot sheaths,
and in these.” He and Agent Vaile took her wrists and strapped on them a bracer
/ sheath combo meant to hold the daggers ready to hand.
He gave her two of the big blades, and she put them into the sheaths built into
the outside her boots. She stamped her feet, trying to get used to them, and
felt the extra metal all over her body. “Here’s how you put them into your
wrists devices. Press the hilt like so, into the catches, until you hear the
click. They’re locked in place now. Push on that spot to release them. You’ll
be practicing with them, a lot.”
He put on the same sort of bracers, and filled them with daggers. “Alright.
Now, here’s the real trick to these. Dangle your hands at your sides, and shake
your wrists back and forth fast, like this. He shook his wrists, and the hilts
of the blades shot down into his hands. “You gotta be fast to catch them…” She
tried to imitate his movements... Clatter. “…before they fall on the floor,” he
finished.
Oops. She braced herself for his displeasure, but he only sighed. “Pick them
up. When I tell you too, you’ll do that until you can catch them reliably, and
I’ll decide when that is. One last change to your training.” He took off her
collar. “Your sessions will now include you power. Perform well, and you will
be allowed to leave it off. I believe you saw some Hounds at the Social without
them?” She flushed, and nodded. “Well, that’s something to strive for, then.”
* * *
Briefs and boxers and bras. Black uniform pants and dirty socks. Gray jumpsuits
and leather cat suits. It all came through the laundry room. Working here was
unpleasant, but only mildly so. At least she liked the company.
“How’s your training coming along. Getting any better at the target practice?”
Okay, so she could do without talking about her training, but Karla was only
trying to be nice. She guessed.
“Yeah, I am.” Kitty took a dripping load of clothes and stuffed it into a
dryer. “9 times out of 10 I can hit the target right in the crotch. Even Agent
Howards is impressed, and that takes some doing. I still don’t know if I like
having all those knives on me, but it’s not like it’s my idea.”
“There’s my girl. I’ll bet it makes him nervous.” Karla was sorting through
laundry sacks, pulling out some of the contents to get an idea of which load
they belonged in. She snickered. “Here, you deal with this one,” as she tossed
a bag to her.
Kitty frowned at her, and pulled out the contents. The jumpsuits said it
belonged to a Hound, and the boxers said it was a guy, although a slender one.
Then she spotted the tail hole opposite the fly. “Kurt…”
“Since you haven’t been able to stop talking about him, you can do his
laundry.” Karla grinned. “And maybe, you’ll find some evidence in there that
he’s been thinking about you, if you know what I mean.” She winked and waggled
her eyebrows suggestively.
“Karla! You’re awful.” Kitty threw a towel at her.
“Hey, I just talked to the guy for a while. You’re the one who slow danced with
him. So, did he use his tail?”
“Only to hold us together.” Kitty’s eyes got far away, as she went through the
rest of the bag. Ugh. The legs of some of his jumpsuits reeked. What had he
been walking in? She threw those into the ‘heavily soiled’ load.
“Do tell? How close?” Karla smiled.
“Hey, I don’t ask about you and Brad.” Karla took a deep breath as if to tell
her all about it… “And I don’t wanna know!”
“Coward.”
“You bet!”
* * *
“I belong to Shield. They own my very breath. I live at their whim, I die at
their whim. I will serve in whatever I am commanded.” She got up and loaded her
suit with blades. She was getting used to them. Their weight and their feel
didn’t hinder her as much as they used to.
She still didn’t want to think about what they wanted her to become. If she was
any less well adjusted, she might slit her own throat before they made her into
a murderer. Too bad ‘thou shalt not kill’ applied to one’s self.
Agent Vaile put up a target. “Use every blade, smallest to largest.” Beginning
with the shurikens, she peppered the dummy with spikes, running along all four
limbs. The twenty throwing knives she made sure to place around the torso, in
serious but not immediately vital locations.
The daggers snapped into her hands, and she reversed them and threw. Heart.
Left eye. She slipped her last two blades from her boots and snapped then into
place in her wristbands, because reloading in the field was something she was
supposed to practice. Right eye. Throat.
She still wasn’t as strong or had as much endurance as they wanted but her
anatomy drills were perfect, and they had no complaints about her throwing
skills and accuracy. Hand to hand was still something she struggled with. She
was sent to the floor less often than before, but still too much for her
trainer’s liking. Then there was her power. Well, her power wasn’t really under
her conscious control a lot of the time.
The turning her power on and off took too long. Her active phasing endurance
was about 25 minutes now, but they wanted her to be able to pulse in and out of
phase. She could phase to avoid some paint balls, but then got creamed as she
stopped moving to phase back in and throw knives at the auto-guns. It was still
a work in progress, Agent Howards told her.
Today she’d done her warm-up calisthenics, then a few laps around the big room
and some boffer sparring with Agent Vaile. A sheen of exertion was just
beginning to show on her face when Agent Howards called to her. “My partner is
going to put up several ‘smart’ targets for a timed trial or two. Watch for the
lights. When a target is green it’s an active target. Use your blades until the
light goes red. At irregular intervals, a new target will activate, so take
them out quick. If more than one target is active at a time, the motion sensors
will trigger the auto-guns. So you’ll have to retrieve your blades while the
test is going, before a new target activates, preferably. Begin when the tone
sounds.”
Kitty stood ready, and her hands stroked over her blades, making sure they were
all in place. Vaile set up the last of the targets, and walked to the table.
The tone went off, and one of the dummies lit up with a concealed green
floodlight. She stepped forward and began throwing.
She had to take them out as fast as possible, without using up all her weapons,
especially the important ones. The first few went red cleanly, and she was even
able to recover some of her knives in between targets. Then a new target lit up
shortly after she engaged the previous one. The first set of auto-guns swiveled
at her. She phased through the paint barrage, and while she returned to
solidity, another target activated.
The rest of the guns turned on her, and she was splattered by a crossfire of
paint. The test ended and Kitty trudged to the table where they hosed off the
water based marks. Howards frowned at her. “Be more aggressive, Hound.” You
can’t do everything you need to from a safe throwing distance. Just because you
can throw the daggers doesn’t mean you always should. Sometimes you get better
results when you get in close to the target.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Recover your knives and get ready to do it again.” She hurried to prepare.
Once more, she stood at the ready. Mindful of what he’d said, she stepped
closer to the targets. The first one was on the far end this time, and she
dodged around a couple of dummies to get good throws in. Two knives to the
chest, and it flashed red. The dummy next to her flashed green, and she popped
a dagger and stabbed it in the throat. Red. She had time to get her knives
before the next one activated.
Using a combination of close up stabs and distance throws, she made all the
targets light up red, and the guns never twitched. She turned to the table to
see what their reaction was. They weren’t paying attention to her; instead they
were talking to someone. The new man glanced over at her and said something to
them. Howards looked at the red-lit dummies and gestured her to turn around.
She did, showing there was no paint on her.
He nodded. “Better. Get your blades and stand ready.” She nodded in return, and
readied herself again, as they walked out of the room as a group.
What was going on? A rumble behind her made her turn to the back of the room. A
service door opened, and through it stepped a figure. He wore a tattered
sleeveless jumpsuit, but it was work-gang orange instead of Hound gray. He was
huge; over seven foot tall and about five foot wide. His skin was darkly
tanned, with a pale band of flesh at his neck.
The man was a mutant. If his size alone didn’t tell her that, the long horns on
his head did, and the splayed cloven hooves he had for feet. Massive muscles
rippled down his bare arms, and he moved easily, if heavily into the room. He
caught sight of her, and stepped nearer, squinting his dark eyes.
“Oooooh,” he rumbled. “Ox like. Ox like ‘em nice an’ young.” He rubbed his
crotch, and zipped his suit down until it was open to the groin. “They say Ox
could play today. Wanna play, pretty?” He reached down into his suit and
touched himself as he stalked toward her.
She backed up, her mind spinning in helpless circles. They wouldn’t let this…
this monster hurt her, would they? Well, there was all that about ‘I die at
their whim’, but this was some kind of whim!
He slowly closed the distance between them, and she could see something dark
red rearing up in front of his hairy belly. Where the hell were her trainers?
She hit a wall, and began sliding against it, still staring. As he reached the
silent dummies in the middle of the room, a spot light lanced down from the
ceiling and shown done on him. He was bathed in green light, and he stopped and
peered upward. “Why green light?” There was no answer, so he shrugged. “It a
pretty color.” He looked back at her and smiled with brown and crooked teeth.
Oh God. She knew what the light was for. Ox had been given to her as a target,
and if she failed… she’d get something a lot worse than a scolding from
Howards. He’d been saying something about her motivation. Kitty didn’t think
she’d have any trouble finding her motivation today.
She kept edging around the wall, studying him, but trying not to look at what
was bobbing there in front of him. It was as big around as her arm, for God’s
sake. It would kill her, certainly.
He bunched the muscles of his legs, and leaped twenty, thirty feet through the
air, landing with a clattering thump near her. Long hairy arms reached out for
her, but she ducked and phased, air-walking away, past the targets. He stood
for a minute, looking to see where she’d gone, confused. Turning around he
caught sight of her again.
“Pretty playin’ hard ta get?” He grinned, thumbing his chest. “Used to be Bull,
but then got cut. Now just Ox, but Ox can still hump the pretties, you’ll see.”
Unfortunately, she could see, but she was able to look beyond that now. Anatomy
lessons filtered back to her. Not only did the bigger ones fall harder, but
their vital areas were bigger, too. She took out three shurikens, and when he
stepped closer she whizzed them at him.
Shit. His skin was thick or something. Two bounced off, one nicked him and fell
away. “Ow.” He looked down at the spot of blood. “Pretty wanna play rough?” His
brows furrowed darkly. “Ox can play rough, too.”
He scraped his feet; right, left, right, then lowered his head and charged. He
snapped a target off at the base in a tackle that would have terrified a pro
linebacker, and sent it spinning away. She wasn’t anywhere near him for him to
grab, though. She’d seen him prepare to charge and moved.
Before he turned again, she sent one of her throwing knives into his back at
the kidney region. She’d meant for it to stick in to the hilt, but his hide
foiled her once again, only allowing a few inches to penetrate.
He bellowed a roar of pain and rage, and charged her with frightening speed and
grace. She phased through a few dummies, air-walking to the side. She thought
about phasing through the floor and out of the room, but realized that she’d
been given a test and a target. To leave was to fail; quite seriously this
time. Perhaps fatally.
He pulled the knife out, and tossed it from him. It went pin-wheeling away,
trailing splotches of blood. He smeared a crimson stained hand under his
splayed nostrils, and growled. “Ox gonna fuck ya, then Ox gonna kill ya,
pretty.”
He started leveling the dummies, removing her cover. He was inhumanly strong
and fast, and all she had was her phasing, her knowledge, and her blades. When
the last of the targets were laid low, he came to her, crouching, and ready to
react to any dodges.
She stepped up to him, and he blinked and grabbed at her. Whoosh. His big arms
went right through her, and he glared in fury. Then she went solid and pushed a
dagger into his side with all of her weight until it was deeply set. When he
screamed she fled, running in solid form to get some distance, because air-
walking was way too slow. She replaced the dagger with one from her boot, and
waited.
He pulled this blade out, too; with a gout of blood that she could smell half
the big room away. An analytical part of her mind wondered if he knew ripping
the knives out like that was making him bleed worse. “Maybe Ox kill ya first,
then he fuck ya!”
He gathered and leaped, and she was ready, half phased into the floor. Just
before he landed, she dove for where his backside would be, and as he thumped
down to the floor, she shoved a dagger deeply into the shallow wound the
throwing knife had made earlier.
Olé, she thought. Cut him and run. Hurt him, and then get some distance. He was
starting to slow down, or at least she hoped so, panting from his wounds and
the blood loss. He was fast, but he took time to build up speed. She was more
maneuverable, and the phasing added an element to her ability to evade him.
In a surreal way, this was a bullfight, and she was the matador. And if he
actually caught her, she would be just as dead as that matador, torn under the
hooves and horns of the bull.
He couldn’t pull this last blade out. It was set awkwardly behind him, deeply
buried. He paced towards her, still very dangerous, but leaving a trail of
blood drops and splatters behind him. He readied and jumped again. She thought
he was trying to close the distance to her again, so she sprinted to his
launching point. But, this jump was more of a low hop, and he reached down from
mid air and smacked her, sending her tumbling across the floor.
Kitty went sprawling from the impact; face and chest burning, feeling dazed and
waiting for him to land on her. She forced herself to look up when he didn’t.
He’d landed badly, it seemed, so she got up and ran over to him. He started to
turn with a snarl, and she kicked him hard in the side that was bloody, both in
front and back. He gave a groan and leaned over to cough up blood.
She kicked the hilt protruding from his back, and he moaned and slumped
further, retching. She snapped a dagger into her hand, and put a foot on his
shoulder. She raised the blade, aiming for the base of his neck at the spine,
and a red spotlight flooded them both. She hesitated, and then she raised it
again, wanting only to finish him for good…
“Stop!” Howards ordered.
Her trainers and the other man were at the door. Agent Vaile grabbed her arms
and pulled her away from her target. The stranger examined the big mutant.
“He’ll survive. He’s had worse. Good thing you got that little hellcat away
when you did, though, or I’d be out a worker.”
Kitty started to shiver. She looked at the gore-smeared blade still clutched in
her hand, and almost dropped it.
Howards said, “Teach her how to clean blood off of her blades.” The woman
nodded, and directed her to retrieve her blades. She did so, numbly, and
Howards handed her the one she’d left in the man’s back.
He smiled. “I knew I could find a good motivation for you.”
***** Kurt - Second Chances *****
Kurt whistled as he worked.
His suit sleeves were shoved up to his elbows while he sorted through the
recyclables. Brown glass went in the left bin, green to the right, clear in the
middle. He was off the main pile for now, until the boots Joe ordered for him
came in. He’d sliced his heel open yesterday, and the boss figured the doing
the job barefoot probably wasn’t a good idea.
He finished the glass and went to the paper bundler. Stuffing the paper and
cardboard products into the machine’s maw, he turned it on as Joe came up to
him. “So, Blue, whatcha' so happy about? Something to do with that party you
had?”
“Ja. I met a girl, a cute one. She’s nice.”
“That’s good. If you were mooning over a cute boy, I’d start to get worried
about you, ya know?”
Yellow eyes turned to him. “That’s not very funny, Joe.” But he smiled as he
said it.
“You two had a good time?”
“We went to my rooms and danced.” Kurt closed his eyes, remembering.
“You dirty dog! Takin’ a girl to your rooms…” Joe shook his hand as if cooling
it.
“It wasn’t like that! We just danced! With music from the record player I
fixed.”
“Uh huh, right. Danced.” Kurt glared at him, and Joe laughed. “Kidding!” Kurt
went on to his next task, but he felt Joe’s eyes following him for some reason.
* * *
Combs watched him as he came in, his stance on the balls of his feet adding a
few inches to his height. His left heel was lightly bandaged, but hurt enough
that he employed a little used skill in order to get around. Truthfully, it was
just as easy for him to walk like this as it was flat footed, but he’d learned
while young that he looked more ‘normal’ when he kept his heels on the ground
like everyone else.
“Doc says no fighting for you today. How long can you stay up like that?”
“As long as I have to.” There were several technicians by the table, along with
some unfamiliar gear. He looked away. Curiosity wasn’t encouraged in a Hound.
“Let’s start with some weight training.” He threw Kurt a big bag. He caught it,
his heel dipping low, but not touching the ground. “Port that across and back a
few times, as quickly as you can.” Kurt nodded and crossed the room and back in
quick succession. Bamf. Bamf.
He took a single cleansing breath, and repeated the exercise. Bamf… Bamf… He
closed his eyes and bit his lip and ported across again. He was starting to
feel faint, but he marked a point by Combs and returned. He dropped the bag
beside him and leaned down on his knees, not quite panting.
“Six ports of 120 pounds in less than a minute. Not bad. Okay…go over to the
techs and do what they say for the rest of the session. When they’re done with
you, go shower, you’ll need it.”
“Yes, sir.” Kurt walked over to them. They put him in a chair, and he was glad
of the rest. Taking tape measures, they performed a detailed set of
measurements on his hands and feet, all the way up to the elbows and knees.
When they finished, they had him strip to his boxers. They gave him a tub of
thick grease, and told him to work it thoroughly into his fur on his lower arms
and lower legs.
They put a waterproof covering over his bandage, and covered his hands and feet
with the grease as well. Putting his feet in shallow tubs, they put thin strips
of felt down the front and back of the greased areas. Then they coated both
legs from the knee down with wet plaster, like they were in casts. His arms
went into basins, and got the same treatment.
They techs never spoke to him, just at him. With “Left hand, now,” and “Don’t
move,” being typical comments. He had to sit there until the plaster dried.
When it cured, they carefully parted it at the felt seams, and packed the molds
away. He was told he could go clean up without a word of explanation given.
* * *
At the middle of the month, Kurt was given a set of work gloves and boots. He’d
doubted they could make effective boots for him, but they had. The footwear had
a wide open backpiece below the ankle, and a hinged heel connected at the sole.
He stepped into it, stretching his rear toe a little uncomfortably until his
foot was planted. Then he tucked the extra toe into the heel-piece and used the
heavy straps to mate the heel to the rest of the boot.
The last step was the steel rod built into the sole. When he shoved it home
into the socket in the raised heel, the boot was as sturdy as Joe’s. It meant
he had to go back to the main trash pile again, but he didn’t mind with his new
protection.
He had new gear in his training, too. The boots were more flexible than the
ones he wore at work, because they lacked the steel rod that prevented him from
curling his feet. Combs put him through acrobatic and gymnastic series to make
sure they didn’t hinder his movements in anyway.
The gloves were heavier than those at work, and looked like they came from one
of his beloved Errol Flynn movies. The brown leather boasted rounded steel
studs over the back of his hands, for fighting with. They started him punching
at boards with them to toughen up his fists. The way the boards splintered and
cracked as he drove the studs in was a frightening sight.
* * *
The Friday of the Social, Joe gave him a small box at the end of his shift.
“Take that home, and see if you can use anything. It’s just stuff I don’t need,
and it’s no big deal, ‘kay?” Once back at his quarters, Kurt opened it on his
table, and nearly wept. There were matches, a half dozen short candles, and a
third of a bottle of Old Spice. ‘No big deal’ indeed. Joe was pushing the line
with this, but Kurt wouldn’t tell anyone.
He put the matches on the bar, and spread the unlit candles around his main
room. He took the cologne to the bathroom, to use after dinner. Right now, he
needed to clean up the smell of garbage, so he could eat lunch and go to his
trainers.
Agent Brestin wore a padded suit when they sparred now, and Kurt was sure the
man carried bruises from the gloves, despite his protection. His porting weight
was up to 130 pounds, and steadily increasing. There was a tension in his
trainers, as if all their work was leading up to something, and soon.
He finished the day’s activities, and was called to the table. Combs looked up
at him from where he sat recording the session results. “You going to the
Social, Hound?”
“Yes, sir. I was planning on it.” Kurt didn’t want to meet his eyes.
“Good. This isolation of yours could have… worrisome effects on your stability.
It wouldn’t look good for my record if I let you snap. Go hit the showers.”
Kurt walked away, wondering what brought that on. Combs' concern was so NOT
touching. If Kurt lost his mind, it would be a black mark on the agent’s
service? Well, boo hoo, sir, he thought. I’m more worried about my staying sane
in this hellhole, thank you. Especially now I have someone to stay sane for…
* * *
Kurt arrived at the Social early. He wall-walked high up to a dark corner and
crouched still, blending into the shadows. He wondered if Kitty would be there.
He hoped so, because she was the only reason he was here. When others neared
him, he hooded his eyes, looking down at them through his lashes until they
moved away; never aware he was there.
Karla hooked up with someone as soon as she arrived. He smiled slightly, still
grateful to her for the introduction. Brad walked in later, and seemed to be
having trouble finding a dance partner. He didn’t feel sorry for the man, Kurt
knew that he wouldn’t leave tonight without some form of comfort, but the sight
of his current frustration was amusing.
A slender figure moved with slow steps to the entryway. It was her! He
somersaulted off the wall, landing in an open spot among the dancers. Curses
and startled looks were the acknowledgement of his sudden appearance, but he
didn’t care. He moved through the crowd, heading straight for her.
Just as she spotted him, Brad stepped between them. “Not so fast, fuzzy. You
monopolized the girl last time.” He took Kitty’s arm and petted her. “How about
you stick with a real man, baby? I’ll show you a good time.” Kurt’s fangs
flashed in a silent snarl… that faded as she spoke.
“Get. Your hands. Off me.” Her tone was flat and expressionless, but it was the
dark chill in her eyes that Kurt noticed. Gott, what had happened to her?
Brad purred condescendingly, “Aw, how cute…” She grabbed his little finger.
“Hey! Ow… Ow! Stop it!” She pulled it sharply in a direction Mother Nature
never intended. He tried to pull away from her, and she kicked his knee out
from under him, and stepped away before he could fall.
“Kätzchen?” Kurt said, and she looked at him, her eyes wide and empty.
Gradually focus returned and she nodded to him.
“Let’s just go,” her tone was subdued. Something was very wrong. All the warmth
and humor that had filled her was nowhere to be found.
They checked out with the guard and left for his rooms. Before they got into
the elevator he stopped her, putting his hands on the wall at either side of
her face. “What is wrong, Kätzchen? How can I help?”
She frowned at him slightly. “I… don’t want to talk about it here. Let’s… just…
get there. Please?” This last was said as a whisper, with her eyes closed.
“Alright. But we need to talk, I can see that.”
“Fine! I mean… I know, Kurt. I know.” She blinked and turned back to him, a
flicker returning to her eyes. “Is that… cologne?”
“Ja, Old Spice. I think it smells nice.”
She sniffed at him. “Mm. It does.” She sighed. “Can we get out of this
hallway?”
“Of course, Fräulein. Right this way…” He linked his arm with hers, and led her
to his quarters. When he opened the door for her, she didn’t hesitate at all.
She walked to his couch, and slumped in the corner. He followed her into the
main room. “Are you hungry?” She shook her head. “Thirsty?”
“I wouldn’t mind some juice,” she said, staring off.
“Juice coming right up.” He put the filled glasses on the spool and walked
around lighting the candles, seeing how the flames drew her gaze. He turned
down the lights and put on a soft classical record. When he was done, he sat on
the middle of the couch, facing her.
“Something happened to you.” He didn’t make it a question.
“Yeah.” Her voice was flat again, and she wouldn’t look at him. “This last
month they gave me knives. Lots of them. Shurikens, throwing knives, and
daggers. They’re all over my fighting gear. They’ve been teaching me to use
them. On targets and things.”
He nodded. “This month they gave me studded gloves for fighting.” The look she
gave him, of irritation and pure envy, stopped him from saying more. “Please
liebchen, go on.”
She nodded. “My trainers had been talking about my motivation. They said I
wasn’t taking the training seriously enough. That it was just a game to me.
Well, he found a way to motivate me.” She had a throw pillow gripped in her
hands, and she was twisting it.
“They sent in a mutant worker. Ox. Big guy. Two foot bigger than you in every
dimension. They told him he could ‘play’ with me and he was… ready and eager
to. But the lights… they put a green light on him, and that meant I should
fight him, and all I had were my knives…”
“Oh, Kätzchen…” She kept twisting the pillow, and kept talking at one of the
candles.
“I was scared out of my mind. I ran, but it didn’t help, so I started to fight.
The little blades did nothing. The middle ones hurt him a little, but not
enough. So… I got in close… and I stabbed him, deep.” She covered her face with
the pillow. “Oh, Kurt, the blood. It was everywhere. He just got angrier.
Wanted to kill me… and do the other. So I stabbed him in the back, and buried
it to the hilt.”
He tried to picture Kitty doing these things, and was having trouble with it.
Then he remembered the way she’d been with Brad…
“More blood. He hit me, and I thought I was dead, or worse. But he didn’t…
turned out the jump and the knives had gotten to him. I ran over… Kurt, I
kicked him when he was down, right on his wounds.
A seam on the pillow gave out, stuffing oozing from it. She stared at it,
horrified, and he pulled it from her slack grip and dropped it to the floor. He
took her hands in his, and she clutched them as if they were her only lifeline.
“You were defending yourself, liebchen. He would have hurt you badly if you
didn’t stop him. You did what you had to do.” A tortured grimace came over her
face. He could see the hollows on her cheeks and the dark circles under her
eyes. The stress she’d been living under must have been tremendous.
“But that’s… not… all.” She was forcing herself to speak. “When he was
helpless, unable to fight back… I… tried to kill him. I wanted to kill him.
They had to order me to stop, and drag me away from him. And the blood… so much
blood…”
He freed his hands from hers and reached to embrace her. She flinched away from
him. “No. I… don’t deserve it. I just came here so I could explain to you…”
He leaned back a little, regarding her face in the candlelight. “Kätzchen. Stop
feeling sorry for yourself. This place… it’s like a meat grinder. It chews us
up, out of all resemblance to ourselves. They grab a hold of us, and twist us
with unrelenting pressure.”
He picked up the torn pillow from the floor with his tail. “The unlucky ones
become like this… they can’t take the pressure, and they break. If they break,
they are killed. The rest of us bend, adapting to the insanity of it all. It’s
the only way to survive here.” He dropped the pillow. “They push us to our
limits, five hours a day, five days a week, and that’s on top of 45 hours of
work. We don’t choose the direction they push us in. We can only bend… or
break. You didn’t break.” He sighed. “Let me tell you Kätzchen… last month,
when you started laughing, there at the first?”
She nodded numbly, her eyes shining as she listened to him. “I thought you were
laughing at me,” he said. “I was already upset I’d been made to come there, and
your reaction to me… hurt me more than I can say. I got angry, very angry. And
afterwards, I couldn’t tell where the anger had come from… except this place…
does things to us. It puts things inside us, things that we wouldn’t ordinarily
have. It wasn’t you that tried to kill him; it was what this place has made of
you. You can either accept that person, and try to master the dark impulses, or
you will surely break.”
She turned her head away, and a tear trickled down her cheek. He reached for
her again, and she hesitated. Then she surged into his embrace with desperate
need. He was nearly over balanced, so he scooted them both back until he was
braced in the other corner, and she could lean on him all she liked.
Apparently, she liked. She clutched at his suit, and cried on it, sniffling and
sobbing like a child, while he stroked her back and her hair. He caught her
rubbing her runny nose on her sleeve and offered her the handkerchief from his
pocket.
She blew her nose, and then sat up a little. She reached for his zipper, and he
blinked, surprised, but letting her open the suit to his waist. Her face was
red and blotchy as she crooked her fingers on his chest, scraping gently into
the soft fur. He shrugged off the sleeves of the suit, and pulled her back to
him again, this time onto the velvet of his fur.
He let her cry until she had no more tears left. She lay on his chest with her
eyes closed, free from guilt for the first time in days. He put an arm around
her, and with the other he stroked her, changing from the right hand to the
left and back again, but always keeping her within his embrace. He worked his
blunt fingers through her hair to her scalp. He massaged her, working down to
her neck and shoulders. She shuddered and gasped when his patient hands
loosened her knotted and painful muscles.
He noticed that despite their closeness, he was only slightly aroused. He was
far more concerned about helping her than he was aware of her soft body at the
moment. He wished he could protect her from the horrors of this place, but he
knew he couldn’t even save himself.
He massaged her arms, taking her hands from where they were draped around his
waist, and massaged them too. When he finished everywhere he could reach, her
breathing and heart rate were slow and even. She gave a deep sigh into his
collarbone, and flexed her fingers idly in the fur of his side, tickling him.
He snorted and jerked upright. She straightened up and snapped her eyes open,
her breath coming fast, instantly tense. “Easy, Kätzchen.” He smiled and kissed
her forehead. “It’s alright, you just tickled me.” Using both hands, he worked
on her neck, shoulders, and arms again, helping to her relax once more.
“Didn’t mean to,” she mumbled. He leaned her back on the couch, and extricated
his legs from hers, standing. Dark eyes looked up at him, lost and bereft.
“I know you didn’t, liebchen. I’ll be right back.” He went to the record
player, and started selecting music.
“Nothing… fast, please,” she said, her eyes following him closely.
“My thoughts exactly.” He flashed her a grin and surprised a small smile from
her. The music began playing, and he reached down and wrapped his bare arms
around her waist, pulling her to her feet. He held her and pushed the spool out
of the way with a foot, using his tail to keep the glasses upright.
They leaned into each other as if the month intervening never happened, melted
together and moving in harmony. The feeling of this closeness had haunted his
dreams, along with her sparkling eyes and easy smile. The closeness was there
again, but it felt different this time. She felt fragile in his arms, as
delicate as spun glass. He fought with a fierce desire to never let her go.
Instead he willed his strength to flow into her, wanting, and needing her to
recover from this, and heal.
Greatly daring, he lowered his head and pressed his lips to hers. Time stopped.
For an endless moment, he luxuriated in the tingling fire evoked in the chaste
kiss. Then he pulled back and looked into her eyes, feeling his own pulse
pounding. Her eyes were wide with astonishment, and she brought a shaky hand up
to touch her lips.
“Ah… you looked like you could use that…” he said. She put her hands on his
neck and drew his lips to hers again. The fire was even hotter this time, and
he didn’t think he could bear the flames if he opened his mouth to her.
The kiss ended and she leaned into his neck again. A change crept over her, a
gradual confidence returning to her carriage and movements. “God, Kurt. Oh,
thank you,” she whispered against him. “You brought me back. I was lost and
drifting, but you brought me back.” She squeezed her arms around him hard, and
he hugged her back just as fervently.
They kept moving, and now he found himself weeping, quiet tears falling onto
her face. She looked up at him, concerned. “I was so worried about you,
Kätzchen… If you didn’t find yourself… They…”
“They would kill me. I know, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.”
“I would care. And Kätzchen… I would miss you, very much.” He bent to nuzzle
his face in against her soft neck, rubbing his face there.
“Hey! Kurt, your fur tickles!” She pushed on his shoulder, her face lit in a
weak smile. He beamed at her in return.
“Well, you seem to like it. I wanted to see what it was like.” He gave an
eloquent little shrug.
“Well?” She stopped the pretense of dancing, standing with her hands on her
hips.
He bent down, slowly, rubbing his cheek across hers, then down over her chin,
and into the crook of her neck. He rubbed his nose against her and breathed in
deeply. He kissed her neck, and she gasped, as his tongued tasted the pale
skin. He raised his face again, considering. Running his tongue over his lips,
he said, “Salty,” he smiled, “…and intoxicating.” She blushed deeply.
“Well, duh! I’ve been crying a river on you. Look at your poor chest fur.” Her
fingers tried to loosen the matting caused by her tears.
He caught her hands. “I’ll brush it out later. Right now, I don’t want to waste
a moment with you.”
She put her arms around him again, and leaned her forehead to his. “Thank you,
for all of it. I needed that,” she whispered against his mouth.
“It was my pleasure, Kätzchen.”
***** Kitty - Shelter from the Storm *****
Kitty was lost.
She was deep in a mist that blurred the outside world to her. It started in the
shower after the test, when she worked to clean the blood from her hands.
Scrubbing, with a desperation that found her digging her nails into her skin,
trying to scratch it off. She went into shudders when she saw the renewed
swirls of pink that dripped off her fingers and into the drain.
Vaile found her there, and got her dried and dressed, taking her to Howards.
“You pushed her too hard. She’s withdrawn.”
Firm hands turned her face upwards, but she couldn’t focus on anything. “Damn.
Take her to the Psychs. We need to know how bad it is… and just when she was
starting to amount to something…”
* * *
“The subject seems to be in a state of mild catatonia. She’s increasing
reactive to stimuli, however. I prescribe a night of isolation at the clinic,
then returning her to her normal routine. We’ve bandaged her hands, and I don’t
think there will be a recurrence of the self-destructive impulses.”
* * *
“Kitty… are you ok? You look lost. They said something happened… Can you talk
about it? C’mon, sweety, this is Karla…”
“Hound, you need to do more working and less talking.”
“Yes, sir. I was just trying to…”
“Orders are to let her do her work and to leave her alone.”
“Yes, sir.”
* * *
“She hasn’t responded to you? My reports say that you’ve been the closest to
her of her fellow Hounds.”
“Very little ma’am… and, um, that’s not quite true. There’s someone else. One
of the guys.”
“She met someone at the Social? Who was it?”
“The blue one, ma’am. With the tail. She seemed to like him quite a bit.”
“No Kidding? Well, I’ll just have to make sure she attends the one tomorrow.
You’ve been helpful, Hound.”
“You’re welcome…” Footsteps moved away. “…Bitch.” A sigh. “It sure feels weird
to talk about you like you’re not even there, when you are. Oh, Kitty…”
* * *
Loud pounding music. The stench of alcohol. She felt reluctant to go any
farther into the room, but she was unsure why. A man… boy… was before her.
Blue, with a tail. Something stirred in her. Trust. A flicker of hope, and
recognition, and despair.
Rough hands on her, a burly form blocking her view of the boy. A gravelly voice
that awoke irritation from the mist. She ordered him to let her go, and he
mocked her. She made him let her go.
The young man called to her, his accent soft and familiar.
Let’s go, she told him. She didn’t want to stay here, she wanted to be alone
with him… again?
Halfway to… wherever they were going, he stopped her. Stepping in too close he
spoke to her. Something clenched in her at the aggression… but the distant
trust won out. He said wanted to help. Kurt. His name was Kurt. Flashing,
caring eyes chipped away at the mist, threatening to expose her sins. Not now.
Not yet…
That scent… It smelled so good. He smelled of safety, and love… like her
father.
He led her to the private place, the place she could relax… Except she couldn’t
relax, because he wouldn’t want her here if… when… he knew what she had done.
She sat on the couch and didn’t look at him. She barely sipped at the juice he
brought.
Candles… Where did he get candles? …so pretty. Soft music. He sat near her,
attentive, concerned. Asking what happened, without really asking.
She told him about the knives. About what they wanted her to do… what they
wanted her to become.
He interrupted, saying they had given him fighting gloves… Let me finish,
damnit! You they gave gloves, me they gave knives… he fell silent again, and
listened.
She told him about Ox. About her fear, and the blood. About her cowardly
attack, and her despicable behavior to a fallen opponent. The pillow… she
couldn’t seem to stop destroying things.
Self-defense, he said. But… he didn’t understand… He was going to forgive her,
accept her… and the blood on her hands. She had to tell him. Tell him she
wanted Ox dead. That she’d made him helpless, and she was going to slaughter
him like an animal. That she refused to stop until they made her.
He reached out to her, and she pulled away. Not me. I’m tainted. Damaged. Blood
stained. I don’t deserve you. Oh, God, no…
The chiding tone in his voice was the last thing she expected. Stop feeling
sorry for yourself? He brought up the pillow again. Said they twist us until we
break, or bend. It made sense… his words dropping without sound into the
thickness of the mist.
She didn’t know that she had angered him so… Maybe he could understand. Maybe
he could forgive her… For the blood. For being so weak. For not staying the way
that she had been. And now she was crying, and she couldn’t stop.
Then the mist was burning away under the warmth of the sun. The sun was in his
golden eyes, so full of compassion. And he still wanted to embrace her, and oh
God, yes! His arms felt so good around her.
She cried brokenly onto his suit. The zipper and seams dug into her face and
she wanted them gone. She put her hand on his zipper, and banished a flashing
image of a meaty hand pulling down the zipper of an orange suit…
She bared his chest, and he helped her, dropping the top of it off his
shoulders. Then it was just Kurt against her. Warm blue fur, Old Spice, and his
soothing heartbeat pulsing under her ears as she cried within the circle of his
arms. He murmured softly in German as he stroked her hair. She didn’t
understand, but she didn’t need to. His voice was simply sweet music to her.
She cried herself out, legs curled up beside him, the rest of her basically
laying over his chest. As she quieted he kept one hand around her always, and
with the other he massaged her, loosening pains and kinks in her body that she
didn’t know she had. She lay still, half dozing and listening to his quiet
breathing as he worked the stiffness out of her.
She sighed contentedly, and scratched into the fur at his sides. He sat upright
suddenly and she panicked, heart thudding in her chest as she stared at him. He
smiled gently. “Easy Kätzchen. It’s alright, you just tickled me.” He kissed
her forehead and put both hands on her to relax her once more.
“Didn’t mean to,” came an unfamiliar voice; hers. She sounded so hoarse to her
ears, almost as if she were drugged. He gently settled the bulk of her weight
back on the couch, and stood up. Where was he going?
“I know you didn’t, liebchen. I’ll be right back.” Just beyond the end of the
couch he started loading up the record player. He wanted to dance? She wasn’t
sure she could even move right now.
“Nothing… fast, please.” She pleaded. She could handle slow music, probably.
“My thoughts exactly.” She couldn’t help but smile at brightness of his grin.
He physically pulled her upright, holding her against him as he cleared space
for them to dance. Then he took her hand and put his other around her waist.
Her other hand didn’t get as far as his shoulder; she left it lying on the soft
fuzz of his chest.
She leaned against him, feeling the magic between them happen again. He felt
different to her, or maybe he was feeling differently. His arousal wasn’t
pressed against her, but his arms held her tightly, protectively… possessively?
It was nice, more than nice.
Then, nicer still were his lips on hers, thrilling her to her core and burning
off the remnants of the mist that lingered inside her. His mouth was so warm
and soft, she wanted it to last forever. And deep within her she knew she was
waking up at last.
He pulled away from her, far too soon. She hadn’t gotten nearly enough of him
yet. He looked worried that she might be angry. He gave an embarrassed smile.
“Ah… you looked like you could use that.” She brought him back to her mouth and
lingered there for a while, tasting him.
She let the kiss end and nuzzled against him again. She whispered to him
softly, “God, Kurt. Oh, thank you. You brought me back. I was lost and
drifting, but you brought me back.” She hugged him tightly, and he returned the
embrace in kind.
Warm rain fell down on her. She looked up into his tears. “I was so worried
about you Kätzchen… If you didn’t find yourself… They…” They both knew that a
useless Hound was a dead Hound.
“They would kill me. I know, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.”
“I would care.” A sad smile crossed his face. “And Kätzchen, I would miss you,
very much.” What had she done to deserve such caring?
Then he nuzzled her neck as she liked to do with him, and his fur flexed with
his movements, stroking the tender flesh… and darn it, stop that!
“Hey! Kurt, your fur tickles!” She gently shoved his shoulder, a small smile on
her face. His wide grin warmed her.
“Well, you seem to like it. I wanted to see what it was like.”
They weren’t really dancing anymore. “Well?” she challenged. All right… tell me
what’s it’s like for you. He put his cheek to hers, and bent slowly, dragging
his soft fur down her face, her chin, and down to her neck. He nuzzled there
again, more carefully this time, taking in her scent. A soft kiss, then the
moistness of his tongue licking her; sparking a shock through her.
When he lifted his head he looked like a connoisseur of fine wines.
Thoughtfully he licked his lips, and smiled. “Salty… and intoxicating.”
She blushed so hard she felt like she would burst into flames. “Well, duh!” she
said, to defuse the tension within. “I’ve been crying a river on you. Look at
your poor chest fur.” She worked at the flattened fur, hoping that some of that
hadn’t come from her nose…
He stopped her. “I’ll brush it out later. Right now I don’t want to waste a
minute with you.”
She leaned back against him. “Thank you, for all of it. I needed that.”
“It was my pleasure, Kätzchen,” he replied.
A gust of air cooled her reddened face. She turned her head to see the blankets
on the back of his wall flapped slightly, then settling again. “What… what is
that?”
He led her to the back wall. “They built this place in between the outer hulls,
at the bottom of the Carrier. It was meant for sick staff, but it was abandoned
before it was finished. I tore down a section of the wall so I could get into
the space between. There are many things to climb on, which I like, and a vent
to the outside.”
“Can I see?” she said, looking at the blankets.
“If you wish, but it’s very dark, especially at night. It’s even dim during the
day for me.” He tapped his upper cheek. “And I see well in the dark.”
She pushed the blankets aside and stepped into the heavy darkness. He chuckled
at her expression, and his eyes were glowing, really glowing in the dark. “I’ll
go get a candle for you.” He was gone for less than a minute, and returned with
one of the votives in a plastic bowl.
The naked flame swayed fitfully in the sporadic gusts of air. Tall support
struts and heavy cables cast dark shadows that twisted around with the movement
of the light. Kurt curled his feet around a cable that reached up diagonally,
moving up effortlessly. She saw now what his feet were truly meant for.
“Be careful,” she called nervously. Twenty feet up, the cable met a beam, and
he was clinging to it, one foot still on the metal wires.
He paused to smile at her. “Ha! I was climbing like this when I was a toddler.
Drove my poor mother to distraction trying to keep me safe. My love of heights
is why I joined the circus trapeze troupe.” He was climbing the beam vertically
now. “Let me get a bearing on the midpoint, and I’ll teleport you up.”
He was too far away from her. She started air-walking upwards, the phasing
keeping the flame from dancing. “Teleport?” she said, her voice gone spectrally
hollow with the use of her power. He reached his goal, and looked down at her,
the flame catching his golden eyes.
“It’s my mutant power; to move from place to place instantly. And… I think I am
seeing yours, ja?”
“Yeah, they took my collar off. What I do is phasing, moving through solid
objects. She reached his level and carefully aligned her feet to the surface of
the big I-beam, then went solid. “Okay… Did I ever tell you I’m sorta scared of
heights? Just how high up is this?”
“Forty feet. And no, Kätzchen, I don’t think it’s come up before.” He took the
candle, and let her lean on him to keep her balance. The surface they stood on
was only 12 inches wide.
“Like about you running away to join the circus?” She couldn’t help but to
smile.
“I didn’t run away to the circus, I just traveled there from the Gypsy camp.”
He looked off, a melancholy expression on his face.
She snickered. “Gypsies? Now you’re kidding me, right?”
He frowned at her. “I would never kid about the people who took in a little
blue foundling, and raised him as part of a loving family.”
She kissed his cheek to apologize for her skepticism. “I’m sorry, Kurt. In
America, tales like that are the stuff of corny jokes and old clichés. Boys
running away to the circus, people being raised by Gypsies, those are only
found in exciting, and usually fictional, stories.”
“Well, I am here to say it’s not always fiction.” He fingered his almost non-
existent earlobe. “I could show you where I used to wear an earring, but the
hole grew over. Jimmy will be so disappointed that we aren’t a matched set
anymore.”
“Jimmy?” She wondered how Kurt could be a part of a matched set with anyone… he
was unique.
“My brother. Well, my foster brother. Mother raised us both.”
She could hear the warmth in his voice, he loved them. “I don’t have any
siblings. Must be nice.”
“Ja. We fought sometimes, but we were brothers. We looked out for each other.”
He looked so sad now, speaking in the past tense, like he was mourning the
dead.
She gripped his arm gently. “Can I see this vent, before I lose my nerve?” She
was unsure what she was doing in this spooky place, except to see a part of his
life, something that brought him joy.
“Um, yes. Kätzchen, it’s quite a bit higher that this, so forgive me for
asking, but…” He took a deep breath.
“Doyouweighlessthanonehundredthirtypounds?”
“I don’t even weigh that much when I’m soaking wet, so yeah. Why?”
“I can port us up there, and back down afterwards, so you won’t be frightened.
I know the top beam well, I spend a lot of time up there.”
“Will it be safe for us?”
“My current weight limit is 130, and that means six ports carrying that much,
the breadth of the training rooms, in under a minute. These ports will be less
weight, less distance, and spread further apart. I can do that very easily.” He
smiled confidently.
“Okay,” she said. “I trust you Kurt, take us there.” She snuggled closer.
He nodded, holding her firmly. Bamf. Disorienting otherness! Then almost as
soon as she registered that, they were standing on another, colder, beam. It
was dark, and the candle was out. “Ach, the candle, and I didn’t bring any
matches. I can go get some…”
“Don’t you dare leave me up here, or let me go!” She thought she sounded just a
little on the panicked side.
“I will hold you as long as you like, Kätzchen.” He put the cool candle in his
pocket, and let the bowl fall into the darkness. She could hear it hit and
rebound off unyielding steel all the way down. She shivered in fear, clutching
his velvety arms.
“Don’t worry, liebchen. If we fall, I’ll just port us to the bottom. I have
very quick reflexes that way.” He scooted them both to the side a little bit,
and carefully crouched, still holding onto her. She sank shakily to her knees,
trying to bite back a whimper. “The metal here is cold, so come sit on my legs,
and lean against me. Then you will feel warm and safe.”
She started to rise again and wavered. He solved her vertigo by lifting her up
and settling her on the firm bunched muscles of his thighs, pulling her tight
against his chest. Slowly she stopped trembling. Inside the circle of his arms
she felt secure.
“The vent is in the outer wall. It’s as tall as we are, and several yards long.
If you look out and little down, you can see the lights of a city below us.”
Her eyes adjusted to the dark, and she did see a carpet of yellow lights laid
out in patterns under the sky-ship they lived in. “How beautiful,” she
breathed. “But why can’t I see the stars?”
“It’s overcast. Can you smell the water in the air? I think it will rain soon.”
The hovering clouds in the distance lit up with a silent flash, and seconds
later, they heard a deep rumble. Little by little, in a march towards them, the
yellow-specked carpet blurred, and finally the rain reached the Carrier.
Only hints of the rain carried over to them from their vantage point, mist
blown in by the gusting winds. It was a welcome touch of weather, a kiss from
Nature that she had missed for too long. The vent might be frighteningly high
up, but she understood why he frequented it. It was a grounding reminder that
there was still a world outside the metal walls.
“So. I was raised by the Romany. Where did you grow up?”
“It isn’t as interesting as your youth. I lived in Deerfield Illinois, a suburb
west of Chicago.”
His eyes flashed with excitement. “Really? Wow… Oh, with gangsters and G-men!
Have you ever seen any famous mobsters?” he said breathlessly.
She giggled. “Now who’s been reading too many romantic stories? I swear you’re
as bad as those old radio dramas Dad listened too. That was in the ‘30’s, Kurt,
before the war. Chicago is just like any American city now. Safe. Boring.”
“Oh.” He shrugged. “Home is always boring before you leave it.”
“Yeah.” She’d done it too, she realized. Talked of her family in the past
tense, like they were dead. After a silence, she spoke. “I thought of you this
month, before the… test.” She laughed. “I did your laundry. What were those
suits dipped in that stunk so much?”
“Garbage. I’m the only Hound who lives down here, so I work with the trash men.
Where do you think I get all my beautiful ‘gently-used’ furnishings?” He was
quiet for a while too. “I thought of you, too. How nice you are. How pretty,
and how nice you are to me.” His lips brushed her face.
She tried to swallow the lump in her throat. “Not half as nice as you are,
Kurt. I… I think about you when I go to sleep. When I think I just can’t go on
anymore…” She turned her face to him, and kissed him softly, sadly. There was
little passion in the kiss, only a heavy weight of emotion that she couldn’t
express any other way, at least, not right now.
“I, too, liebchen,” he whispered when their mouths parted. He covered her face
with slow kisses, and licked away the tears he could taste on her cheeks.
“Salty,” he rumbled, “…and still intoxicating.”
His words and the way he said them made her quiver. “Oh God, Kurt, I…” He put a
finger on her lips, stilling them.
“Hush. We have no guarantees here. We have only what we have. Don’t make it
worse for either of us by saying something too soon, before we’re certain… what
God’s will is for us.”
“Are you sure God has anything to do with us?” Her bitterness showed in her
voice.
“Of course,” he said. “In the depths of my torment, He brought me an Angel.”
She had to smile at that, he sounded so sure. He cocked his head suddenly, and
she heard a distant, broken sound.
“Verdammt. It’s the curfew notice. Time to go Kätzchen. I’m going to stand up,
and port us to the curtains. Alright?” She nodded. He straightened his legs,
still holding up her weight, without apparent strain. She had just time to
wonder at his strength when… Bamf. And then they were elsewhere, in heavy
darkness with music nearby. He parted the curtains, and led her out and back to
the upper decks.
“Auf Wiedersehen then, mein Kätzchen. Until next month.” He gave her a quick
buss on the lips and hurried away. She went back to the dorm, still thinking
about what he’d said. ‘My kitten’. He’d called her his kitten. Oh God, did he
mean that?
* * *
After lights out she heard a soft sound above her, as Karla swung down and
crouched next to her. “Is that Old Spice I smell, Kitty?” she whispered.
“Yeah. Kurt was wearing some,” she whispered back. She sighed. “I love Old
Spice.”
“Me too, and it smells like he rubbed it all over you.”
She heard quiet laughter, and she blushed in the dark. “It was kind of a mutual
thing. And Karla? Thanks for trying to help me.”
“No problem, sweetheart. I’m glad he could help you come back to us.”
“Me too.” She yawned hugely.
“Good night, Kitty.” Karla climbed back into the bunk above her.
“G’night.”
***** Kurt - Politics As Usual *****
Kurt’s alarm startled him awake, rousing him from the tatters of a very
pleasant dream featuring Kitty. He sat up, glaring at his erection and his
tail, the end of which was waving about as stiffly as his front. He stumbled to
the shower, setting the tail to curl around him and satisfy the morning
tension, while his hands were busy with his washing. Now his Engel was seducing
his dreams…
He had tried to thank Joe, but his supervisor gruffly ordered him to get to
work. He remembered, it was supposed to be ‘no big deal’. He nodded his
understanding, and Joe stopped scowling at him. He tempered his giddiness with
the reminder of the kind of place this was.
Monday’s practice had been routine, but on Tuesday, Trainer Combs kept popping
in and out of the session. Kurt’s nervousness spiked on Wednesday, the tension
making his fur crackle with electricity. He went through the preliminaries, and
Combs called him over.
“Hound, you are needed on a mission later this month. Major Hedrick has had
enough dallying. You will be tested out at 150 lbs by Friday. Today, you’ll
make 140. To encourage your performance, we’ve changed the weaponry around
here. No more paintballs.” He lifted a pistol that looked extremely real.
“This holds rubber bullets, and so do the auto guns.” He fired at the floor,
and the rubber projectile twanged off the deck and off the far wall before
losing its momentum. “We’re going to try a bit of extra ‘motivation’ on you.
These will leave painful bruises, so if you hesitate too long during the test,
you will get a warning shot nearby, then we’ll shoot to hit you. Go to your
mark and pick up your weight.”
Kurt picked up the bag easily, as sweat wicked along his exposed fur to help
cool him. His physical strength had long exceeded his porting abilities, but it
seemed that would soon change. Bamf. He took it across, wincing in pain at the
difficulty. He returned, and a dull ache started to form behind his eyes. He
shook his head and ported once more; half way done. Taking a deep breath, he
crossed again, giving a soft moan as the pain sharpened. He could do a 10-pound
increase over a month, but inside of a week?
Combs started to draw a bead on him, and he went again… or tried to. Wuff… The
cloud of his teleportation began to form, and then faded. Kurt breathed hard,
staring at Combs as the man pinged a bullet off the deck inches from him. Fear
spiked in him, and he got across. A groan marked his arrival, and he almost
dropped his weight. One more time…
His vision swam and he tried to port, finding his focus impossible to summon.
The rubber bullet from Brestin whined off the floor. Combs aimed again, this
time directly at his torso. He looked at the man, gasping in pain and exertion,
silently pleading for mercy.
There was no mercy here. Combs fired dispassionately. The impact rocked Kurt
backwards, his ribs protesting the blow. Brestin smirked, and aimed about a
foot and a half lower. “Nein…” The gun fired, but Kurt wasn’t there to receive
the bullet. He appeared, mostly on his mark, and collapsed limply to the floor.
It took awhile for him to awaken from his faint.
He felt shaky and nauseous, and they judged him not fit for anything else for
the day. They told him to go to bed, and not go to work in the morning. He
rested in fitful naps, separated by large meals. He wished more than anything
that Kitty could be here to help him, as he had helped her. There was still
most of the month to go until he could see her again. He survived by tucking
the jumpsuit he’d worn to the Social under his pillow, for the faint smell of
her that clung to it.
He reported to training Thursday, and performed as full an exercise set as he
could. His reflexes were still a bit off, but the workout helped him to center.
He was dismissed without any porting practice. The next day he was back to a
full schedule. Friday’s training was a repeat of Wednesday’s, with the addition
of a pistol with real bullets, and ten more pounds of weight. The early
teleports seemed to go easier, more smoothly. He’d heard them speak of stress
unlocking a new plateau of ability, and the last week seemed to have done that
for him. He got through the first four ports quickly, and just avoided a
warning shot on the fifth.
All his strength seemed to flow out of him. The last port was always the
hardest. He flinched from the force of a rubber bullet on his chest. “Better
move, Hound,” Combs said. He lifted the live ammo pistol. Kurt ignored him,
trying to find the concentration to port. The bullet grazed his arm, tearing a
streak through suit, fur, and skin.
“The next one goes into your thigh. Don’t be there.” Kurt’s eyes locked on his
trigger finger. When it began to squeeze he harnessed his fear of the bullet
into the momentary clarity needed for the teleport. He slumped down to his
hands and knees, but he remained conscious.
“Alright. Now we’re getting somewhere. The major would still like you up at 200
lbs, but that can wait for a bit. Skip your morning work shift tomorrow. On
Monday, we begin your Mission training. You’re done for now.” He nodded
gingerly and slowly went to change.
* * *
Kurt reported to training Monday, and repeated the oath. Ave Maria was his
German prayer of choice for the day, as he countered the corrosion of the
litany. It was harder to do than usual today, as his concentration was shaky.
After the opening exercises, Combs called him over. “Your mission role this
time won’t be combat oriented, but in the future, it will be. Try these on.” He
handed him metal gloves.
He put on the gauntlets and looked at him. They were made for his hands;
articulated metal plates on a leather base. The palms were left without
plating, but the backs of his hands were covered with knobs of steel. At Comb’s
direction, he went after the punching boards. They crunched beneath his blows
readily.
“Nice. They seem to fit well enough… okay, off with them. From now on, you’ll
wear this pouch on your working suit. Get used to it there at your waist. It’ll
carry special equipment that you’ll be issued.” Kurt strapped the pouch on at
his waist.
“This is your mission commander,” Combs said. “He’ll be sharing in the training
this week.”
“Hound, you’ve been given a codename; Nightcrawler. This is a proud moment in
your life as a Hound. You hear me?”
“Jawohl!” Nightcrawler, he thought. Isn’t that a sort of worm? How very
unflattering.
“The main equipment you’ll learn this week will be your break-in kit, and the
grapple. Your ability to climb walls will be useful, but primarily you will be
making sure the team follows you to the target location. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.” Breaking in? But to where?
“You’ll be porting and climbing to spots on the approach, then deploying lines
to allow the team to catch up. Once you’ve made the approach, you’ll employ
your kit to affect the actual entry. There are others on the team that can do
it, but this is a skill we want you to learn. Now, this is a diamond tipped
glasscutter. These are lock picks, with large handles to ensure you can grip
them well. You’ll also have a bulb of paint for cameras, oil for lubricating
hinges, and wire cutters for alarms.”
Kurt nodded, settling in to learn the devices. He learned about doors and
windows, alarms and locks, and even safes. His hearing played a large part with
the safes; the tumblers were easily audible to him.
* * *
The following week, he was excused from regular training. Instead he drilled
with the mission team, learning layouts and floor plans. They practiced with
the grapple and the transfers over horizontal and vertical distances. Kurt
learned they were breaking into a New York skyscraper penthouse, and about the
exact type of alarms and locks, the brand of safe, etc. Once entry was
achieved, the team would complete the mission from there, but he was to obey
any commands of the team leader.
Friday evening, Kurt was called to the mission room. The Shield flag was
displayed, and he knelt and recited the oath. When he rose they put a collar on
him. “This is an explosive collar, Hound. Should you try to flee or perform
contrary to the interests of the mission, it will be triggered remotely and you
will no longer have a neck. Am I understood?”
“Jawohl, sir.” So much for his faint hope of escape.
“Get ready, and follow us…”
He put on his cat suit and his new equipment. Then they moved to the flight
deck and took a transport to the New York City airport. The team boarded black
vans, and Kurt was kept in the back where no one would see him. They drove into
a parking lot under the target building and took an elevator to the roof.
Kurt had only moments to gaze at the beauty of the nighttime city. He was
brought to the edge and shown where he was to port across to the building
kitty-corner and down to them. He borrowed the night vision scope to get a firm
lock, and handed it back. Shouldering the grapple, he ported across.
He sighted on them across the distance, and fired the soft grapple. They tied
it off on their end, and he did the same on his. One by one they came across,
joining him on the target building. The ledge they stood on went all the way
around the building ledge. From here on up, the building was only half the
length and depth of the public areas below them.
Taking a rope, he wall-walked up at the stone corner, trailing it behind him.
The level he made next was a wide balcony that surrounded the private residence
of the target. He tied off the rope, and began using the bulb of black paint to
darken the camera lenses watching the doors. The rest of the team reached the
balcony, and the leader signed for him to break in.
The locks on the sliding doors were extremely easy to open. One of the team
oiled the tracks as he worked, and slid the doors open as soon as the locks
gave. The leader kept him at the entry room while the agents fanned out
throughout the house. Kurt heard silenced gunfire, and groaning noises of pain.
A frightened man in nightclothes was shoved into the living room, and tied down
to a chair. The commander injected him with something and they began to
question him. The rest of the team gathered files and papers from the rest of
the residence. Kurt smelled blood in the air. They had killed people, and he
was the one who’d given them the access. He understood Kitty in a new way now.
The guilt was beginning to clench his stomach. From the questions they were
asking, the man was publicly moderate about mutants and privately in favor of
mutant rights. He was wealthy and influential, and Kurt knew he would also be
dead before the night was out. Shield never tolerated dissent, and they were
more than curious about who was in league with him.
The team commander told Kurt to come with him. They went into a well-appointed
study with a massive oak desk with its drawers all opened, and fine leather
furniture. A portrait leaned on the floor, exposing a safe on the wall. “I need
quiet, please,” Kurt said, and put his ear to the dull gray door. The practice
on this model made it easy; he knew the exact sound the tumblers made when they
locked into place. He got it open and was pushed out of the way as they rifled
through the contents, discussing them. He crouched to the side and watched them
impassively.
A faint noise got his attention, and he looked towards the desk. A coin of some
sort rolled from underneath, on its edge, and a small hand reached from under
the oak in an attempt to catch it, and was quickly withdrawn. A pair of eyes
looked out from under the desk. It was a child, Kurt was sure; small enough to
fit underneath, old enough to keep quiet. He stood and leaned over the
commander as if he were interested in what he was doing. “Will you…!? Find
someplace to sit down, Hound,” the man said with irritation.
“Jawohl,” Kurt said, and walked to where the coin had stopped rolling by the
desk. He palmed it as he sat, holding it up behind the desk where they couldn’t
see his arm, so he could look at it. It was thick, with an ancient Greek helm
in odd but bold colors on one side, and an ornate capital ‘M’ on the other. He
had no idea of its importance, but he knew he wouldn’t be giving it to the
team.
The child peeked out at him. She was concealed to normal eyes, but she was
plainly revealed to Kurt. His mouth curled into a slight smile that he quickly
allowed to drop. She was glaring at him, and he locked eyes with her to show
that he knew she was there. She put her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide
with fear. A good part of his attention was spent watching the team as they
studied the documents. He’d rather die than to betray her presence, so it was
important that he didn’t appear to be acting strange to them.
His tail moved to the back of the desk he sat near. One of the team gave him a
quick glance, while he stared at the carpet as if he were bored. He made his
tail move like a clumsy snake along the carpet, then rise up a little and wave
at her with the tip. His concealed arm reached out and bopped it gently on the
end, then shook a finger at it. The tail drooped, chastised.
He risked a glance at her and gave a tiny shrug, then grabbed the tail and
pulled it over to him by hand, while the tail writhed quietly as if to get
free. She covered her mouth again to keep from laughing. He let his tail go,
and the tip swiveled back to him, poking him on the arm. He brushed at his arm,
as if to shoo something away. The tail poked again, harder, and this time he
looked at it. The tip angled up at his face, and then pointed broadly at the
hand still holding the coin. He acted surprised that he still held it, and
carefully laid it down within her reach behind the desk.
She snatched it up and tried to snap it in half, using all her strength in
vain. She looked to be near tears, and shoved it back at him, pantomiming the
breaking gesture, peering into his face. He picked it up, checking on the team,
and tried to do it one handed. He couldn’t, and he didn’t dare try with both
hands. He put the coin halfway into one of the snaffle clips on his uniform and
used the leverage to break it in half.
It warmed in his hand briefly, and a faint odor of scorched circuits reached
him. The pieces were matte black now, featureless. He put them on his tail end,
and brought them to her on this surface. She took them and smiled at him,
turning them over in her hand. She pointed back at the team, then at him, and
shrugged a question. He tilted his chin up and scratched his neck fur just
under the collar. His face was somber as he stared at his feet, but he could
see her nod in understanding from the corner of his eye.
She pointed at his tail, and made a ‘come here’ gesture. He moved it over, and
felt her touch it, petting the furry length of the end. She hugged it to her
briefly, and he curled it around her and squeezed. Footsteps sounded in the
hall, and he moved it away, gesturing for her to move fully under the desk. She
did so, and he watched the agent report to the commander.
“Come on, Hound,” the man said, and he joined them as they left the study. The
target still sat in the chair, his throat cut and his chest covered with blood.
Between his feet was a bomb set to go off in an hour. Kurt’s gut clenched. His
efforts to save the girl would be useless if she was still here when the bomb
went off… Maybe she’d have the sense to leave when they were gone.
The team went out on the balcony into a light layer of overcast. He had thought
the night would stay clear when they were outside earlier. They went down the
rope and he untied it, and crawled down, coiling it up as he went. The motor
pulleys got the team across to the other roof and he unfastened the near end of
the thin grapple cable. They pulled it over to them, and he ported over to the
launch building, as the clouds thickened, threatening rain.
He looked over to where they’d been, and thought he saw a red light bobbing on
the balcony before he ducked into the helicopter that waited to take them to
the airport. They took off in the transport just as dawn was breaking over the
city. Through the windows of the plane he saw a bright flash as the top of the
building exploded. He ducked his head and prayed fervently for the child’s
safety.
He ate a meal on the way back, and they left him alone. The deaths on his
conscience pained him like a physical wound. Poor Kätzchen. How would she feel
when they made her do the killing? Especially when it was a man like this,
someone who might have been a friend, if not with them, but with their kind.
After they landed, they gave him an access card reserved for Hounds who’d done
well on Missions. Then they dismissed him, as he wasn’t needed for the
debriefing. He took a hot bath, but he couldn’t sleep. The souls of the dead
haunted him. The little girl’s eyes accused him of betrayal as she died in fire
and violence in his imagination. His fingers rubbed together, wishing for his
rosary…
In his kitchen he kept a ball of twine, and he unraveled a length nearly equal
to his height. Folding it in half he found the middle of the string. He made a
little loop of cord and tied it there. Then he made two more, smaller loops at
the same point, but to the sides. One more little loop at the top and he looked
at what he had. If he straightened out the loops, it resembled a little cross.
Then came the hard part. Up both lengths of the cord from the middle, he began
a pattern of four small knots, and one larger. He had to untie them and start
over on occasion, to make the sides even, but he kept at it until hunger forced
him to stop. After he ate, he worked at it again until he had 24 knots total on
each side of the center. He knotted the ends together and cut off the excess.
His hands ached from the tension and the careful control, but he had a little
rosary now.
Kurt took it with him and entered the between space, then ported up the top.
There he kneeled, giving proper prayers for the dead. He begged for the
forgiveness of his sins, and for protection in this fell place. When he
finished, he crouched in front of the vent and fingered his makeshift rosary,
receiving comfort from the sheer familiarity of the ritual.
“Gegrüßet seist du, Maria, voll der Gnade, der Herr ist mit dir. Du bist
gebenedeit unter den Frauen und gebenedeit ist die Frucht deines Leibes,
Jesus... Heilige Maria, Mutter Gottes, bitte für uns Sünder jetzt und in der
Stunde unseres Todes. Amen.”
 
***** Kitty - Brother Of My Soul *****
Kitty came in with Karla an hour early to the Social room. They had volunteered
to do the set-up for the month. They swept, put up tables, and wrangled the
food and drinks. Kitty tidied up the alcoves and sprayed the curtains and
blankets with air freshener that she’d liberated from the bathroom. Just
because they were Hounds didn’t mean no one should make an effort to improve
the ambience. The guys might not notice, but she thought the ladies would
appreciate it.
She’d found a dusty box of streamers that hadn’t been bothered with in far too
long. She was picking out colors when she sensed someone behind her. Whirling
around, she found Kurt standing there, with a somber smile on his face. She
squealed and flung her arms around his neck. He winced at the sharp noise, but
his arms tightened around her hungrily. “Sorry love.”
“I missed you, too, liebchen,” he said with a chuckle.
“Can you help us with this? I’d like to make the place into less of a pit
today.”
“It already smells better. Did someone launder the bedding?”
“Me, probably. They get so grotty from all of this…” her hands gestured
vaguely.
He looked confused at the unfamiliar word. “Nasty, disgusting, grotesque;
grotty,” she explained.
“Ah,” he said. “An apt word for it.”
“Good evening, Kurt. What are you doing here so early?”
“Mission privilege, Frau Karla.” His face was carefully neutral, but his tail
twitched.
“So, you two have things to discuss later.” He nodded gravely. “You can’t take
her off until we’re done, though. We want to finish the decorating.”
“Then permit me to assist and speed things along,” he said with a bow.
“What’s going on? What’s wrong?” Kitty was getting concerned.
“Missions are troubling things, sweety. As troubling as some of our tests.” She
gave Kitty a significant look. “He probably needs to unburden on you, like you
did last month.”
Kitty looked at him, stroking his jaw line. He let his tension show in his face
for a moment. “Okay, let’s do this, so I can go help my elf…”
“Ich bin elfenhaft? Ah… I am elvish?” She touched the edge of his ear tenderly,
stroking lightly up to the point. He shuddered and his tail went into a
convulsive attempt to tie itself into knots. He grabbed her hand and held it to
his chest, his eyes blazing intensely. “Not here.” He took a deep breath and
released her, picking up the streamers. “Tape?”
“Right here.” She watched, as he did in minutes what she and Karla couldn’t
have done in an hour, if they had a ladder, which they didn’t.
Karla loaded up the double turntables, and started the music. Kurt reached out
for Kitty, and they danced a bit in the big room. They finished with a close
embrace and a deep kiss. “Kätzchen,” he groaned softly.
Applause made them start in surprise. Karla smiled at them. “I am so happy for
you two. Kurt, you’re a far cry from the uncertain lad I met a few months ago.
It makes me sorry I didn’t give you more of a chance.” She winked. “Kitty, I’m
really glad that you found someone. Now get along before anyone else gets here.
He needs you.”
They waved and hurried away to the lower levels of the Carrier. “I sometimes
think it’s appropriate,” he said as they left the elevator. “That one who has
been called a demon should live in the depths of this, our Hell.” His rueful
chuckle sounded a little forced.
Kitty stopped him outside his door, pushing close to him, pinning him against
the wall. “You’re not a demon, Kurt. Never that. You’re my Elvin prince…” She
kissed him timelessly. He swept her up in his arms, opened the door with his
tail, and carried her to the couch, all without breaking the kiss.
She pulled away finally, laughing. “A man of many talents, I see.” He colored
purple under the blue fur, and she touched his cheek to feel the heat of his
blush. “Modest, too.”
“Und mein Kätzchen is in a playful mood today, ja?”
“Ja.” She smiled. “Why do I get the idea that I’m going to learn a lot of
German with you?”
“It would only be fair, I know a lot of English… and there are moments when it
is impossible to translate one’s thoughts from the native tongue.” He kissed
her just below her ear, smiling as she shivered from the feeling of his breath
and his lips.
“Okay…” she said pulling back a little. “We need to talk about your mission, or
we’ll just make out the rest of the evening… not that it would be a bad thing.”
“’Make out’? I’m afraid my English slang is weak, liebchen.”
“American, actually. I don’t think the British say this.” She touched his lips,
and waggled her eyebrows, all the while blushing furiously. “Sex play, with or
without the sex.”
“Hmm. Tempting… but later.” He smiled a little, and sat back. “At the beginning
of the month, they forced my port weight up to 150 lbs, with the addition of
rubber, and real bullets as incentive.” He shrugged off the top of his suit and
showed her the bullet crease on his arm, the fur on the healing mark lighter
and shorter than on the rest of his arm. She pressed her fingers to her lips
and then on the mark. He squeezed her hand in silent thanks.
“When I achieved the goal they’d set, they began training me to open doors and
safes. They gave me lock picks and things like that. My job on the mission was
to cross distances the team couldn’t make on their own, quietly, and help them
to follow me. I ported across the roofs and sent them a grapple. If they had
fired it from their side it might have alerted someone. I walked up the wall
with a rope for them to climb. Then I opened the door for them.”
He closed his eyes. “They were after one man, but they killed everyone else
there. They drugged and questioned him and killed him as they left.” He sighed
deeply. “I only hope the little girl got away.”
“Little girl?” Kitty asked. She could see how this was bothering him. He might
not have killed those people, but he felt the guilt for them nonetheless.
“Ja. After I opened the safe I saw a child under the desk. I sat near her, and…
communicated with her, quietly. I didn’t want to betray her presence, and see
her die as well. But… they left a bomb in the building, Kätzchen . I saw the
explosion. Gott, I hope she wasn’t still there.” He sounded close to tears. She
pulled him into her arms.
“Hey, love. You did what you could. She wasn’t scared of you?”
“No… it’s strange. She smiled when I played a joke, and even pet my tail.”
Kitty mock frowned, and grabbed his tail. “Okay, now I’m jealous… she pet you?”
She stroked the end of his tail slowly with feather light touches. He groaned.
“Nein… not like that. She was only 8 or so, Kätzchen . She pet it like it was a
cat or a dog, not… like you are. Mein tail is sensitive, but like a finger is
sensitive. My reaction to the touch depends on the context.” Kitty kept
stroking him, hearing his breathing grow slightly ragged. “If someone were to
tap my finger, fine. It is just a touch. But if someone, like you mein liebe,
were to nibble and lick my fingers… that would be sexy… erotic.”
“Like this?” Kitty brought the twitching tail up to her mouth, and put a gentle
bite on a bottom corner of the spade, and continued to do so along the angle up
to the tip. Kurt sat frozen, watching her, as she transferred her attentions to
the other side and repeated the journey. When she nipped the end and then ran
her tongue up the center, he reached out and grabbed her.
One large hand slid from her waist upwards to cup the underside of her small
breasts. The other curled around her and up to her neck, then rubbed firmly
down her back to fondle her bottom. He alternated from kissing her hard to
breathing heavily against her ear. “Ja, just like that, you little minx. So
soft…”
Kitty gasped at his caresses. Her bosom was something she was sensitive about.
The other lady Hounds were years older than her, and she didn’t think her chest
compared with any of them. She touched the hand cupping her. “You… you like
them? They’re not very big…”
“Of course I do. Kätzchen , the thing about breasts is that they should fit the
woman who has them. You are young and small still, and they fit you perfectly.
But most importantly, they are yours. That makes them very special to me.” He
grinned and leaned forward, rubbing his face against the softness of her
breasts.
She giggled and pushed at him. When he leaned back, she bit her lip. “Okay,
close your eyes and cover them with your hand.” Her face was flushed red again.
“Why?” He frowned a little and his tail curled around her ankle.
“Just do it, buster… You’ll like it.” He complied with her wishes, sighing
heavily.
She took a breath, and unzipped the top of her suit, shrugging out of it as he
had done. She reached behind her and undid the clasp of the military issue bra
she hated. She made it into a little bundle and put it in the thigh pocket of
her jumpsuit, and pulled her top back on, with the zipper down enough to show
what little cleavage she had.
Kurt was quivering, his sensitive ears obviously hearing the zipping and
rustling noises she made. “Okay, you can look now.’
He pulled his hand away and snapped his eyes open. His jaw dropped and he
stared with a fierce desire that made her feel very female, and mature. “Danke,
liebchen,” he said with husky gruffness. “I like my present very much… may I
open it?” His hands crossed part of the distance between them; making squeezing
motions he didn’t seem aware of.
She hesitated, still embarrassed to show all of herself. “A little… sorry,
Kurt.”
He smiled reassuringly. “A little is more than I’ve ever had liebchen. It will
do.” He pulled her close and put his nose against the soft flesh now revealed,
breathing in deeply, drawing in her scent. He turned his face and planted hot
kisses on the inside curves of her breasts, his hands coming up to rub them
through her suit.
She leaned back into the corner of the couch, drawing him with her in a
reversal of their positions the month before. Her hands played in his dark
hair, stroking the sides of his face and neck. He slowed his caresses, seeming
to sense her mood. He opened her neckline a little more, and laid his face on
the smooth skin at the top of her chest, his head tucked just under her chin.
His hands lowered and encircled around her, holding her.
She whispered then, “Let it out, Kurt. The pain, the fear, the anger; let it
go.” Warm wetness dripped on her skin, pooling into tracks and trickling down
her body. The evidence of his trust and need stirred fierce emotions of
protectiveness, making her understand how he’d felt before with her.
She swallowed a lump, trying to find words to help him, and realizing they
applied to her just as well. “Whether it is our hands that do the killings,
love, or we are just facilitating others, the sins are not ours. We are forced
to be here, forced to learn these horrible things, and forced to do them.” Her
hand dropped and traced the scar on his arm.
“They give us no choice. They will hurt us or kill us if we don’t do what they
say, and to kill ourselves would be to add even more sin to our souls. So we
just try to survive, beloved, and try to keep our secret selves whole. That is
all we can do.” He nodded his head slightly from where it lay against her, and
wept until the tension drained away.
He lay against her as she cradled him to her bosom in a posture that was at
once motherly and intimate. He moved then, his tongue licking his tears from
her skin. He started to chase after the tear tracks that had curled down around
her ribs or between her breasts but she tugged on his hair. “Nuh-uh, guy. I get
to keep those. I believe the phrase goes ‘I’ll brush it out later’.
He chuckled weakly, and lifted his head, pressing his damp lips to hers. Their
tongues slid against each other in a manner they were beginning to really
enjoy. “Salty…” she said.
He nipped her lower lip. “That’s my line.” He sat up besides her and stretched,
baring his fangs in a snarl of pleasure / pain as his back arched backwards
into an impossibly deep curve.
She got up and stretched herself, drawing his eyes. She went to the record
player and started stacking up records and starting the music. She bent down
and untied her boots. “You get to go barefoot,” she said as she pulled them
off. “It’s hard to feel sexy wearing combat boots.”
“You look sexy anytime, to me,” he said. He lifted a furred foot for her
inspection. “It’s very hard to make shoes for these feet, liebchen.”
She grabbed his foot and looked at it closely. She tugged curiously at the rear
toe, and it curled to squeeze her fingers. When she rubbed down the middle of
his sole he hissed, his foot jerking in her grasp. “Ticklish?” She grinned.
He flashed his fangs back at her in cheerful challenge. “Are you? Because if
you tickle me, I’ll return the favor, with interest.”
She let his foot go. “Very, actually. I’ve been told it’s a surefire way to
make me cry, when I laugh so hard I can’t breathe anymore.”
“Then I won’t tickle you, because it breaks my heart to see my Kätzchen cry.”
His hand came up to cup her face as he smiled into her eyes. She leaned against
him, and they listened to the music.
The record ended, and a new one began. A harsh tattoo of drums began playing
and they both sat bolt upright when the Shield march started to play. He jumped
to his feet and dove for the record player. He snatched off the stack on the
spindle and handed them to her. Lifting the needle arm, he picked up the
offending disk. He loaded the stack back on the spindle and started the music
again.
“’March Around The World: A Collection of the World’s Greatest Marches’,” he
read off the label, and then snapped the record in half, dropping the halves on
his spool-table. He stalked into the kitchen, returning with a hammer and a
waste bin. Sitting back on the couch, he smiled viciously, and took the hammer
to half the record, reducing it to powdered fragments and shards of vinyl.
She watched him pound out his frustrations with amusement. He turned and
offered her the hammer with a courtly flair. “Would milady care to take a turn?
I found it to be most satisfying.”
“Why, certainly, sir,” she answered archly in kind, and giggled. She smashed
the record hard, picturing every cruel, sadistic moment of her life since she’d
been discovered. It was only a symbol, but a symbol of something they both
loathed with a passion, and to make even a token stab back felt very good,
indeed.
When her half was equally destroyed, he brushed the debris into the bin and
returned it and the hammer to his kitchen. “Well,” he said. “I guess I hadn’t
listened to all the records Joe gave me. That one didn’t have a sleeve, and I
only knew that I wasn’t in the mood for marches. Sorry liebling.”
“S’okay. Who’s Joe?” She cuddled close again, needing his nearness.
“The boss in the garbage room. He’s… nice to me. He’s not a Shield agent.” He
gestured around the main room. “All this is his generosity. This was a bare
room when I moved in.”
“I thought everyone on the Carrier was an agent.”
“Would an agent tend the furnaces, or deal with the trash? They feel they are
above that sort of thing, so common workmen do the dirty work they can’t get
Hounds to do.”
“Yeah. I can’t picture that creepy tattoo guy being an agent.”
He snorted. “Or the doctor. He seems more like the mad scientist type to me.”
She traced the ridges on his face that parted the fur and marked him as a
Hound. His eyes closed and he shivered in remembered pain. “Did it hurt, love?”
she said.
His lip curled. “Of course it did, but not nearly as much as the vasectomy.”
“You remember it? They knocked me out for the tubal.”
His yellows dulled, and he lifted them slowly. “Kätzchen , I watched him do it.
With no painkillers. I fainted halfway through, thank Gott.”
“Bastards. Sadistic sons of bitches. I’d love to see them rot in Hell.”
He raised an eyebrow. “That would mean that you were there to see it, and mein
Engel would never be in such a place.”
“I don’t know about that, love. Aren’t we already in Hell?”
“Maybe, but it is Heaven to me, when I am with you.” He chuckled. “Our
relationship is strange. It’s moving so fast, Kätzchen. This is only, what-
- our third meeting? And yet…”
“…And yet, it seems like we’ve known each other forever. I know. And I’ve let
you get to second base already…” She gave a mock embarrassed look, smiling.
“I’m such a scarlet woman.”
“Only when you blush, liebchen.” He kissed her. “How about a dance?”
“Okay, but you pick something. My last try didn’t go so well.”
“I know just the one. Wait here, I’ll be back.” He went to the player and
cleared off the stack. Searching through his collection, he found the one he
was looking for, and opened space for them to dance. He reached for her hand as
castanets began to clack softly behind him.
“What is this?” she said, as a single clarinet joined in with a sweet slow
melody.
“Ravel’s ‘Bolero’. Very long. It starts soft and ends loud. Now, hush.”
It was a very long song, slowly building in intensity, while never varying from
the steady, stately rhythm. Layer upon layer, one instrument built on the last,
in a dozen variations of the basic melody line. They danced closely,
experiencing the buildup themselves, as they pressed closer or touched more
intimately as the song went on. At the crescendo finale, when the whole
orchestra was playing, he collapsed to the floor in a heap – as the song itself
seemed to do [*] – drawing her down on top of him. He panted theatrically,
feigning exhaustion.
She looked down into his face, laughing. “You are a very silly man. Surely you
aren’t comfortable there on the floor.”
He looked up at her warmly, squeezing her hips. “I would happily lie on broken
glass, if your softness was touching me, Kitty.”
She stared blankly back at him. His words were like hot knives, which healed
instead of harmed. She scrambled to her feet, and fled to the kitchen where she
got herself a glass of juice. He’d given an ‘oof’ as she’d gotten up, then
silently followed her, sitting near. She didn’t look at him, but she knew he
was there.
“Did I say something wrong, Kätzchen ? Because I meant those words… down to my
very soul.”
She hung her head, shivering. “I know. It’s just… no one has ever said anything
so… sweet to me. No one has ever cared for me like it seems you do, not even my
parents. And I’m scared. I’m scared of the intensity of your feelings, and the
intensity of mine.”
She offered him the glass of juice and he took a drink. She spoke softly. “It’s
frightening to feel that I can’t live without you, when either one of us could
be dead at any time. Part of me thinks we’re making a mistake, getting so
close, and the rest of me wants to be wrong.” Her voice lowered to a whisper.
“Maybe the other Hounds have the right idea, taking and giving only casual
comfort, with no strings attached.”
“They have less to lose, liebchen, but also less to gain. By never lowering
their barriers to each other, they are always alone at their very core. I don’t
want to be alone.”
“Then why do we play this game?” Tension made her voice seem shrill in her
ears. “Why should we care what fucking base we’re on? We want each other, we…
love each other. Let’s just take the comfort we can give each other. Tonight.
Now.”
 
[Hell of a place to stop, ain’t it? Hehehe.]
[*] Great song. I highly recommend it. The version I have is 18 minutes long,
no joke. It just keeps building and building until it just shudders to a stop
(like sex). There was a famous 1984 Olympics Ice Dancing routine to the song
that made me feel like a voyeur at a seduction. The British pair, Torville and
Dean, won the gold with it, and rightly so. [Watch it here: https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2zbbN4OL98 ] And, I think they took part of the music
from ST: TOS’s ‘Amok Time’ from it (the Vulcan ‘Pon Far’ music).
***** Kurt - One Heart To Another *****
Kitty and he were close to one another, happy, and then she’d run from him,
putting up a barrier between them. She was scared, he could smell the fear, but
she seemed equal parts scared of him and scared for him. She talked about how
slowly their relationship was progressing, doubting their actions.
The Hound’s way was not for him, not right for them. “They have less to lose,
liebchen, but also less to gain. By never lowering their barriers to each
other, they are always alone at their core. I don’t want to be alone.”
She seemed upset, near tears, and at war with herself. “Then why do we play
this game? Why should we even care about what fucking base we’re on. We want
each other, we… love each other, let’s just take the comfort we can give each
other. Tonight. Now.” She looked at him, her eyes and face both hot.
Kurt drew her to her feet, facing him. He cupped her face, and stroked his
fingers down the sides of her neck and out to her shoulders. He held the neck
of her jumpsuit and began to slowly pull it open, off her shoulders, baring her
to him. He kissed the exposed skin on the top of her shoulders, still
shuddering from the intensity of her emotions, and he continued to push her top
down.
She chewed her lip, and just before he revealed her breasts she whimpered and
grabbed his hands. He stopped instantly, looking into her eyes. “This is why,
mein Kätzchen . We are not ready yet. We are young, scared, and inexperienced,
and as much as we care for one another, we simply need more time to make it
right.” He tugged her top back up over her shoulders, but left the zipper down
somewhere around her navel.
She started to reach for the zipper; to do what, Kurt couldn’t guess. She
stopped, and took his hands, kissing his palms. Slowly she brought them closer,
brushing her suit open and placing his hands firmly on her areolas. “Touch me…
please?” she whispered.
“As much as you want, and no more, mein liebe.” Her comfort zone seemed to
consist of still having the suit up, at least on the edge of her shoulders, but
she’d granted him full access within those boundaries. He kneaded her breasts,
to the sounds of her moans, cupping them easily in his palms. He shifted his
right hand and grasped her hard nipple between his thumb and finger.
She gasped when he pinched it lightly and twirled it. Encouraged, he did the
same with her other breast. Her eyes rolled up and her knees began to buckle.
He put his arms around her to hold her up… the kitchen was not the place to do
this, obviously. His bed? No… that would probably violate her current zone of
comfort with him. He scooped her up and took her to the couch, setting her
down.
“God, Kurt… that was… wow.” She leaned into his kiss.
“Kätzchen , I don’t know about these bases you refer to, but… there are ways we
can make each other feel good without intercourse.” He sat near her, not
touching her sexually, but nuzzling her neck.
“Baseball terminology,” she said between kisses. “First base is heavy kissing.
Second is touching above the waist, third is touching below the waist… you can
guess what ‘homerun’ is… Deal, love. I can handle third base.” She blushed and
glanced down his body. “In fact, I think I’d like to…”
He shivered. She wanted to touch him there? But first things first… “Lay down,
mein liebe, stretch out.” She did so, her face flushed and the scent of her
arousal clear to him. He stretched out beside her on his side, and put his
hands on her breasts again, squeezing her roundness and tweaking her nipples.
He nibbled her ear, her neck, and her collarbone. Her fingers trailed though
the fur of his shoulders.
Her soft moans were punctuated by a shuddery groan. “Kurt…” He levered himself
above her, looking down with a smile. He nudged her knees apart with one of his
own, planting it between her legs. Bracing himself with one hand, he brought
his mouth down to take its place on her chest. As he nuzzled and licked her
nipples, her top fell off her shoulders, but if she noticed, she didn’t seem to
care.
Giving in to his own urges, he rubbed his erection against her hip, taking care
to press between her legs as well. With another gasp, her hands came down and
clawed at his waist, scritching him through the fur. After more rubbing, her
hands moved to his hips, pulling him down against her harder. He obliged,
letting nearly his whole weight assist the friction between them. Her own hips
moved, and her back arched up to his body, his touch, and his mouth. “More.
Faster,” she pleaded.
“Ja, mein Kätzchen .” He increased his efforts, panting with exertion and
sensation.
“Aaahhh… Oh!” She shuddered violently, convulsing, seemingly forgetting to
breath. Every iota of her was taut with the tension of pressing against him as
hard as possible. She collapsed finally, breathing fast, her cry of completion
yielding to quiet sighs and moans. She pulled him closer, and he snuggled in,
still gently grinding his arousal against her.
He leaned up to kiss her, and the hairs on the back of his neck rose from the
liquid heat of her tongue seeking for his. The warm wet wrestling distracted
him for a while, then he pulled away long enough to speak. “Liked that, did
you, Kitten?”
“Mm hmm. Better than wow. Better than anything.”
“I’m glad I could do that for you.” He groaned then, against her neck. “Ah,
Kätzchen.” Heavy lidded eyes looked into his, seeing the need still in him. She
slid her hand down his body, pushing him back enough to find and press on his
hardness. Her hand moved on him, testing his length and size. She found the
buttons of his suit fly, and unfastened them, slipping inside. Now only his
boxers separated them but her trembling fingers reached within those as well.
He gasped when she touched him, and he poured heated kisses on her neck and
chest. She stroked him lightly, diffidently, and he moaned in frustration.
“Tell me what to do, how to touch you…” she whispered.
“Wr… wrap your sweet hand around me, near the base,” he said hoarsely, and
groaned when she did, and squeezed there. “Now, hold tight, and slide your hand
up to the end, then… then back down again.” Her hand stroked his hot flesh,
sliding the loose skin up and back and he quivered in pleasure. She kept
stroking him, needing no further encouragement.
“Ja, mein liebe, touch me like that. Gott!” Words failed him then, and he
devoured her mouth. Then he used his own to taste every part of her he could
reach and not break the critical connection of her hand on his erection. His
breath quickened and he laid his forehead against her neck. “Faster, Kätzchen ,
I’m close… ahh… Kätzchen , Ich liebe dich.” His hips bucked as his orgasm
surged over her hand. He jerked a few more times, and finally lay still,
panting.
She nuzzled his face, and waited for his breathing to quiet. “Um, Kurt?” She
wiggled her fingers against his softened member, still covered with his sticky
emissions.
“Ah, wipe the worst of it off on my shorts, liebe. When I’m ready to let you
go, you can clean up in my bathroom.” She blotted her hand on his boxers and
pulled it out of his clothing. She looked at the residue, and touched her
tongue to it, making a little face. She smiled slyly and looked up with
mischief sparkling in her eyes. He chuckled, “And if you say ‘salty’ I will
spank you, liebchen.”
She snickered softly and then snuggled tightly against him. “Was that good?”
“Better than wow, liebe. Better than anything I’ve ever felt.” He sighed,
stroking her back. “My imagination did your talents no justice. I commend you.”
“Beginner’s luck,” she said, blushing.
“Then I eagerly await the skills more diligent practice will gain you.” He
hugged her tightly, then loosened his hold and leaned back. “Go wash up,
Kätzchen. We both reek of sweat and sex.” He patted her bottom as she got up,
pulling her top back in place but not closing the zipper. She snorted in mock
annoyance at him.
He listened to her wash, and she came out shaking her head in amazement. “You
lucky… you have a bathtub. The dorms only have gang showers. I’ll have to spend
one of these months just taking a long hot bath.”
“Only if I get to watch, liebe, or maybe join in?” He waggled his eyebrows. “It
is my bathtub.”
“Down, boy. You look entirely too eager to see me wet and naked.” His eyes
defocused, contemplating the image she’d invoked. “Okay, I did NOT say that.”
“Too late, mein liebe, you did. Ah, the stuff of my fantasies…”
“Kurt!” She flamed red, looking uncomfortable.
He stood, and put a hand on her face. “Is it so hard to think that I see you as
a desirable and beautiful woman?”
“I… Yes. I’m a fourteen-year-old girl, Kurt. I was one of the scrawniest, least
developed girls in my year, let alone my school. And… especially compared to
the ladies, when I look in the mirror, I don’t see a woman. I see a child.”
He kissed her forehead. “Children don’t have orgasms, liebchen.” She looked
away. “Go to the bathroom while I get a change of clothes. I want to show you
something.” He walked her to the little hallway, and left her there while he
grabbed a new suit and a pair of boxers. He put them by the bathroom sink and
stood behind her. He turned her to the mirror, and slipped her top off quickly,
ignoring her gasp.
“Look at yourself, Kätzchen . You can’t have gone three months in the Hound
program without changes. I see differences in your since we first met, and
that’s only been two months. Do you wear the same size brassier that you did in
school?” He feather-touched the top of her shoulders, and she shivered.
“No, but…” He reached around her and pulled her top up to cover her breasts,
holding it here, but left her arms and shoulders still bare.
“And scrawny? Hound training builds muscle. Tense your upper body, as if you
were lifting the weight bar. She lifted her arms and flexed, her muscle
definition easily visible.  “I think the children of your school wouldn’t know
you, you’ve changed so much.” He kissed her neck and stepped back.
She pulled her top back up, looking thoughtful. “What about you? How have you
changed?”
He sighed. “I was always athletic, but I’ve been here for more than half a
year. I also have the advantage of gender, and a year on you in age. Before I
came here, I didn’t look like this.” He struck a body builder pose, and she
took a quick breath at the sculptured definition of his upper body, only
softened slightly by the downy blue velvet that covered him.
“Whoa,” she said, with a little smile. “That’s very… nice.”
He relaxed, and made shooing gestures at her. “And now I’d like some clean
clothing, so go listen to the music unless you want to stay and watch… or
help.”
“Tempting,” she said. “But later.” She scritched her fingers though his chest
fur as she left.
“And stop stealing my lines!” he said, chuckling. He washed, and put on the
clean outfit. He saved the suit for use under his pillow, but the soiled boxers
went into his laundry bag. He came out with his top down around his waist
again, but feeling much cleaner.
She was sitting on the couch, her knees pulled up and her arms wrapped around
them. Her eyes were defocused in the distance. He curled up next to her,
curious what she was thinking. She glanced towards him, “Would you like me
outside of all this? If… we had met before, and discounting your appearance.
That isn’t a factor for me now.”
“It would be a factor in the scenario you suggest.” He shrugged. “I always take
my appearance into account, I have to. But what is it that you really want to
know?”
She grimaced, but whispered, “Is it just that we’re the only ones available… of
nearly the same age?”
“Ah. Let me think.” He closed his eyes and pondered her question. “If I had met
you before, and by some miracle you weren’t repulsed by… this,” his hands and
tail did a parallel gesture indicating his mutation, “yes, I would be attracted
to you. A gypsy tribe is like an extended family. The girls near my age all
seemed like cousins to me, and none of them were very interesting. But when you
smile, liebchen, your face lights up amazingly. Your eyes glitter so, and your
mouth is so expressive.”
He leaned over and stole a kiss from her. “You are so clever, and funny. I like
that very much… I always love a fine sense of humor, like that of my mother and
brother. Und as for your body, pretty Kitty… let us say, that many mornings I
have to do what you did for me, because of the images of you that sweeten my
dreams.”
She blushed and he pulled her into his embrace. “If I have to tell you again
and again how lovely you are to me, I happily accept that duty. Truly, liebe, I
find your doubt of yourself hard to understand. But even more difficult for me,
is how you can accept me… how my appearance is no longer a factor, as you say?”
She looked surprised. “I dunno… I don’t see it as being weird anymore, just…
nicely different. Everything I know about you tells me that… you fit yourself.
You’re a part of a cohesive whole that just happens to look like you do. If you
were an accidental collection of random freakish attributes, why is it that
everything you can do so perfectly complements everything else?”
“My mother used to say something like that. I am built to the general
parameters of a man, she told me, but the fine details were changed, as if to
make me fit for something else. Some other way of living, perhaps. I don’t know
about that. I only know the fear and disgust I see in the eyes of strangers
when they see me. It is hard to judge myself well when that happens.” He caught
his tail in his hands and looked at it.
“Why should you care how others see you?” she said.
“Why should you? Your peers judged you scrawny and immature, and despite
evidence to the contrary, you cling to that perception. We are taught from the
time we are born that we should judge things the way the world does. If I were
to let myself do that, I would have to agree I am a demon and a monster.” The
tail curled around one wrist and then the other.
“But, you’re so well adjusted… you like yourself, mostly. The only time I see
you getting bitter is about the way others see you. How’d that happen?”
“Love, my Kätzchen .” He gave her a sweet smile. “The love my mother and
brother gave me, the support of my family and tribe, and the love of Jesus, who
loves us all no matter what we are, or do. He is endlessly ready to intercede
for us with the Throne of God. Saint Paul the Apostle said, ‘Be not conformed
to the World, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind’. To me that
means the judgment of the world is not to be trusted.”
“I once heard a saying that went… ‘A person is smart. People are dumb’. It had
something to do with the collective IQ of a group dropping the larger it got. I
see your point, though. I’ve heard lots of stupid things that ‘everybody knows
is true’ about girls, Jews, mutants… and fuzzy blue elves.”
“Oh? Does that mean I am no longer alone in this condition?” He grinned. “And
what do ‘they’ say?”
“Hmm. They say that they are great kissers, and better dancers. They’re
unbearably handsome and sweet, and they have the cutest German accents…”
“I think that perhaps what ‘they’ say in this case sounds a lot like you,
liebe.”
“Oops, have I been spreading rumors again? I’ve got to stop doing that. You
heard what Karla said. If more ladies find out about your charms, I’ll have to
beat them off with a stick.” She mock snarled, giggling.
He gave a dismissive wave of his tail. “Such a lady would have to do much to
approach you in my affections. Perhaps if she served me German beer and
bratwurst…”
“You… you beast!” She squealed and leaped at him, tickling and nipping
everywhere she could reach. He fended her off, and then joined in, tickling and
kissing her unmercifully.
She stopped suddenly, gasping for breath, tears of mirth streaming from her
eyes. He pinned her down underneath him and licked the tears away. She made a
face and squirmed, trying to shake loose his grasp, to no avail. She strained
harder, and he just smiled. She smiled back and a flush colored her cheeks as
she considered their positions.
“Ah,” he said. “Do I want to wash up twice tonight?” He was hard again,
something he knew she could feel pressing against her. He was lying fully
between her legs, his weight firmly lodged where it would do the most good.
“Mm, Kurt…” She brought up her hands and began scratching through the velvet of
his neck, and working down his shoulders to his back. His arousal faded
slightly as he simply reveled in the sensual pleasure of what she was doing. He
laid his forearms on the couch next to her torso, and held part of his weight
up while letting her fingers do as they wished to his back. She laughed softly
at the blissful moans he gave as she worked as far down as she could and all
the way back up again.
He sighed in pleasure and wrapped his arms around her and neatly flipped them
around, so that he was beneath her. He brushed her top down again, and began
rubbing her bare back, kneading the muscles and giving light scratches with his
wide nails. She wriggled in approval, making little blissful sounds of her own.
The last time he’d done this, she’d been too wound up to really notice anything
except she didn’t hurt anymore, but now she acted much like her namesake,
giving her whole attention to his caresses.
She laid her head down on his chest and breathed slowly, rocking her hips a
little on the hardness under her. He finished rubbing her back and arms, and
helped her get her top back up to her shoulders. “It’s probably getting late,
Kätzchen ,” he said as he kissed her.
“Mm. Let’s just lay here for a while, until it’s time to go,” she said.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m not in a hurry to get up either.” He wrapped his arms
loosely around her and they settled into more comfortable positions.
* * *
The candles burned low and sputtered out.
When the fifteen minute alert sounded in the hallway, a blue tail curled by the
slumbering forms on the couch. Not even that stirred when the five-minute
warning echoed in the hall.
 
--End Act 1.
***** Kitty - Rude Awakenings *****
ACT 2
Interlude on the Small Screen
Picture this: A Public Service Announcement during prime time television hours.
[Film rolls on the American Midwest plains.  Mountains brood in the distance,
over a golden field of ripe wheat, and fluffy clouds drift in crystal blue
skies.  The focus tightens to down to a figure standing in the wheat.  The
powerfully built figure wears a set of fine blue chain mail trimmed in red and
white.]
A deep male voiceover speaks:
"Like the man who inspired it, the organization of Shield is dedicated to
preserving the American way of life, from threats both within and without this
great nation."
[The face is slightly indistinct.  It’s an actor, obviously.  The man he’s
portraying may be aging well, but not this well.  The camera spins slowly
around him to pause and focus in on the shield he wears.  Red, white, and red
rings circle around the deep blue center that bears a single white star.]
"But now, more than ever, Shield, and its founder need your help, the help of
the American people.  Every citizen owes a duty to protect our homeland, and we
need your help now."
[Fade to EXTREME CLOSEUP of a blue-cowled brow; the blue mask framing a pair of
clear blue eyes, narrowed in paternal concern.]
"There is a threat to each one of us, to our children, and our very way of
life.  The plague called the X-gene can be eradicated in our lifetime, if YOU
stand with us.  Now is the time.  Watch your neighbors, watch your co-workers
and watch your children."
[The camera cuts back to the shield, and slowly reverses its spiral, until the
figure squarely faces the camera, and points gravely out to the viewer.]
"It’s up to you to prevent this contagion from spreading, and to protect your
fellow citizens against the traitors among us who sympathize with them, and
work to bring this disaster down on us all.  He needs YOU to call if you know
of anyone that we should be interested in."
[The camera moves in, to center on his stern face, and he nods briskly at the
viewer.  A number flashed on the bottom of the screen.  1-800-4SHIELD.]
"The number is on your screen.  Call now."
* * *
A few hours into Saturday’s work first work shift, a concerted effort was
underway to find Kitty. She had last been officially seen leaving the dorm the
previous evening to set up for the Social, but hadn’t checked out with the
party guard as she had the previous two months. Her bunkmate confirmed that
she’d left with the Hound Nightcrawler once more, but that they’d left before
the event was properly started.
Her trainers met up with his, who’d just been alerted that he also hadn’t
reported to work. Outside of Kurt’s door, Combs explained the original nature
of the quarters, and why he’d been placed here. They entered, and Combs and
Vaile turned to the right, while Howards and Brestin went to the left.
Brestin checked that the bathroom was clear, and Howards could see that neither
of the beds had been slept in. The far one wasn’t even made. They turned back
to the kitchen where the other two agents were standing. Howards raised an
eyebrow, and Combs pointed over the bar into the main room. On a battered, much
repaired couch, their two lost sheep lay asleep, him spooned behind her.
Kitty’s suit gapped open, and one of his furred hands was tucked somewhere
inside it. His top was off completely, and her boots were tumbled on the floor.
He had a leg tucked over hers, and his tail was curled around one of her arms.
“Aw, ain’t it 'tweet…” Brestin whispered. “Fuck me, though. Is this gonna be a
problem?”
“That has yet to be seen,” Howards said, and sighed. “Okay, on the count of
three, we bust in their screaming and scare the Hell out of ‘em. 1-2-3!”
The reaction of the Hounds was gratifyingly startled. Kurt sat bolt upright and
crawled up the back of the couch, smashing his head against the wall before he
finally stopped. Kitty lurched forward, falling face first onto the floor. She
looked up owlishly, and squirmed to zip up her front while still lying prone.
“Up on your knees, you worthless mutants!” Howards bellowed. “No one gave you
freaks permission to skip a work shift, so you’re both in big trouble!” They
scrambled to kneel before the couch, sparing each other a sickened glance
before looking at their trainers, terrified.
Kitty tentatively began reciting the litany, and he joined her quickly. “I
belong to Shield. They own my very breath. I live at their whim, I die at their
whim…” Their voices blended in an alto-tenor harmony as they repeated it over
and over.
Combs snapped at them. “You keep doing that, Hounds, and maybe we’ll believe
you.”
The trainers withdrew into the kitchen. “So what are we going to do about
them?” Combs said. “Keep them apart? It seems to me that they’ve been keeping
each other going.”
Howards scratched his chin. “I know for damned sure that your guy kept me from
having to kill mine last month. She went a little psycho after a test, but
after they met up last time, she was okay again.”
“Looks to me like a case of overactive hormones. Maybe we can use that against
them,” Brestin said.
“Lust isn’t a good enough leverage,” Vaile said. “Better yet, we use their
affections as our hold. C’mere guys, look at them. Even now, with all the
trouble they’re in, they can’t stop touching each other.” Sure enough, a furry
tail was curling around her ankle. Her bare foot was crossed over to stroke it.
Their hands slowly stole together and clasped as they continued reciting the
oath.
“You got an angle Vail?” Combs said.
“I have contacts in the Major’s office. Both of them have displayed a deep-set
resistance to their programming. If we held each of them as hostage for the
other’s behavior…”
“That could work,” Combs said. “But we’ll have to get the Major’s permission.”
Vaile smiled. “Believe me, they’ve been looking for a hook to get those two
going, and we’re about to hand it to them on a silver platter.”
“Now that’s an excellent suggestion,” Howards said with a smile. Brestin nodded
his agreement.
* * *
Shouting woke her up. Her trainers were there, and other people. They were very
angry and she didn’t know why. She felt Kurt’s warmth behind her, and that was
wrong, they shouldn’t be waking up together; he’d get in trouble. She lurched
away from him, falling forward off the couch, feeling an inordinate amount of
skin touching the floor. God, my suit’s open! She struggled to zip it up while
still down on the floor.
Howards was shouting at her to be on her knees and she hurried to obey. By
reflex she started reciting the litany, and the anger seemed mollified
somewhat. Kurt knelt besides her, his voice joining hers. She’d fallen asleep
in his arms, and Howards was saying something about missing work. It must be
Saturday morning. Her trainers, and the others who seemed to know Kurt huddled
in the kitchen, discussing something. In her experience, when trainers went
into quiet conferences, it was never a good thing.
There was a touch on her ankle, and she risked a glance at Kurt. His hands were
at his sides, and his posture was stiffly upright, but… It was his tail, coiled
around her, holding on desperately. She shifted her foot, so she could rub back
against it. She shivered in shock and fear, and his hand moved to her, brushing
his knuckles against her. She turned her hand and held his. They couldn’t
exactly get into any more trouble right now, so they might as well do what they
could to comfort each other.
Surprisingly, the trainers didn’t berate them for the contact. They simply
ordered them to follow. They went to the clinic holding hands, but they were
separated when they got there. Vaile took her into the exam room, and a nurse
prepped her for a pelvic. She wondered what in the world they were doing that
for? The doctor performed a brief internal exam, taking a scraping of her inner
lining. Then she was told to dress, completely, so she put her bra on too.
In the hallway, Kurt was finishing a set of one hundred push-ups. “…Ninety-
eight, ninety-nine, one hundred.” His eyes sought hers as he got to his feet,
and she gave him a tiny smile. They were ordered to follow again, to the Psych
department this time. In the waiting room, they were made to sit on opposite
sides of the room. A guard stood watch to make sure they stayed in their
places.
A silent, torturous hour later, Kurt was called to a counseling room, leaving
Kitty alone under the unsympathetic gaze of the guard. She sat quietly, numb to
whatever would happen to her. It was Kurt she was worried about. Images of his
punishment haunted her mind. It wasn’t fair that her stupidity would get him in
trouble, or worse…
Sudden heated voices floated down the hall, and one of them was Kurt, his voice
filled with anger and despair. She fidgeted in her seat, worry for him making
her frantic. Being stunned by the guard, however, was unappealing. She bit her
lip and made herself stay put. Putting her face in her hands, she fought tears.
She would not cry in front of them, any of them.
Kurt came out finally, every line of him expressing dejection. He sat down and
wouldn’t meet her eyes. She was brought to a room, and she gulped. The four
trainers were here, looking at her like she was a tasty treat. Presiding over
them was Major Hedrick, and behind him was an officer wearing silver stars.
Unconscious authority rolled off him in waves.
The major directed her to stand before them, and he looked her up and down. “So
what was it that you thought you were doing?” he said abruptly.
“We fell asleep, sir. It was an accident.” Her voice was thin and cracking.
“This isn’t back home, Hound, where the worst that will happen is grounding or
extra chores. There are serious consequences to misbehavior here, like harsh
physical punishment. Is that what you want?”
“No, sir, I would not like that.”
“Yet you invite it, by flouting the rules. Not only that, but you got your…
companion in trouble, too. Mr. Brestin is looking forward to a collared combat
session with your paramour that he won’t soon forget.”
The younger of Kurt’s trainers grinned wolfishly.
“Sir… it was my fault. Blame me.” Her voice trembled, but she raised her chin.
The officer in the shadows snorted. The major glanced back at him, and smiled
coldly. “Really now? Because that’s just what he said.”
Kitty’s eyes widened, and her stomach performed flip-flops. He’d said it was
his fault? Oh, Kurt.
“The simplest first step would be to isolate you two from each other. Your…
infatuation with each other has made you blind to the realities around you. You
will both endure rigorous extra training, of course.”
“Yes, sir. Of course, sir.” She felt like she was dying inside. To never again
see him, or touch him… The very thought was agony unlike anything she’d ever
known. It scared her how much she let herself feel for him, and how far inside
her defenses he’d gotten. And yet, she could regret nothing. If she never saw
him again, she would still be warmed by the memory of him.
“You tell me your version of what happened last night, for the record.”
God, what happened was so personal to her. Face flaming, she tried to give a
factual accounting of their actions. What she’d been feeling wasn’t the point,
nor was what exactly they’d said to each other. She left out only the session
before the mirror, and destroying the record.
“Let me try to understand this. You both risked your lives to stay together,
and all you did was fondle each other? The doctor confirmed you didn’t have
sex.”
“We… I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I was waiting for the warning, and…” Her
voice trailed off, and she shrugged helplessly. Moisture stung her eyes, but
she fought it. Tears were weakness, and they would only mock her for them.
“I don’t get what she sees in the furry freak anyway,” Brestin muttered.
“Granted, she’s no catch either, but jeeze, she must be some kind of slut to
let a creature like him feel her up. And it’s not like he was the only guy she
had access to…”
Her face flushed hot again, but from anger this time. She glared down at the
floor, unwilling to worsen her situation by arguing with a trainer. Rage
simmered while the others idly disparaged her choices.
“Maybe it’s a latent yearning for bestiality,” Howards drawled finally. “She
couldn’t get to an animal so she picked him?”
“He’s not an animal,” she muttered through her teeth at the floor.
“What was that, Hound? Did you address someone?” The major said quietly.
She lifted her face to him, eyes fairly snapping sparks, her temper only barely
held in check. “I said, ‘he is not an animal.’”
“We are all animals, Hound,” he pointed out. “Some of us are just closer to our
hairy forefathers than others. However, it’s nice to see a little passion in
you. You’ve been going through the motions here, doing what you’re told…
barely, but your heart has not been in this.”
He spread his hands wide. “Psychology is important when dealing with Hounds. A
worker can be compelled to work, but a Hound has to take ownership of their job
to be truly effective. It’s my job to find the key that makes you do that.”
She felt a prickle of fear creep over her scalp. The satisfaction in the
major’s tone couldn’t be a good thing, for either of them.
“I’m going to spell something out for you,” he said, steepling his hands. “You
have no rights here. We can do what we please to any of you. Torture,
mutilation, and death are the least of what we have, can and will do to Hounds
in the course of our mission. Therefore, from this moment on, the
responsibility for his safety and well-being is laid squarely at your feet.
Your actions will determine his treatment.”
“But… that’s not…” She closed her mouth with a snap. Stupid, stupid!
“You were about to say, ‘That’s not fair’?” His lips curled up. “The first idea
before me is to return him to his dorm where he will be more closely monitored.
The second notion is based on my memories of how distressed he seemed on his
arrival, when he thought he was going to be castrated…”
The blood drained from her face. She looked into his eyes, knowing that he knew
that he had her. Even if she were never again the recipient of his desire, she
would do whatever it took to make sure that didn’t happen. She lowered her
head, squeezing her eyes shut. Here was the crux of it, then. Would she be
their murderer; for the sake of love, and for him? A quiver in her shoulders
escalated into full body shudders, and she wrapped her arms around herself to
keep from flying apart. In her heart, she already knew…
She would.
Still quaking, she dropped to her knees. “I belong to Shield. They own my very
breath. I live at their whim; I die at their whim. I will serve them in
whatever I am commanded. I belong to Shield…”
“Enough,” he said. “But do you really understand that now?”
She lifted her eyes to them, and tears leaked down her cheeks. She accepted her
weakness, and allowed the misery in her heart to show naked on her face. If
anything, the smile on the major’s face got colder. “Please, don’t hurt him,”
she whispered brokenly.
“That, Hound, is up to you. I’ve seen a thousand mutants come to this carrier,
and I’ll tell you a little secret. They all harbor a tiny little escapist
fantasy. One of those is that all this is a bad dream, and that one day they’ll
wake up safe at home. Or, they think somehow they’ll be rescued, and they’ll
get to live in some fairy tale land where mutants and people can live in
peace.” He laughed darkly.
“You were in the former category, I think, and you just woke up. You’ve still
been back in Chicago in your heart of hearts, where homework and chores were
your biggest problems. You are not dreaming; this is your real life. Now, I
think, you believe this is real. Now, you know you’re a Hound.”
She flinched, part of her still wanting it not to be true, but she nodded.
“You will throw yourself whole heartedly into your training. You will suggest
to your trainers anything that you think of that will make you a more effective
operative. And you will remember every day, that he is safe and unharmed only
because of you.”
“Yes, sir.” Her last shred of hope had been systematically demolished.
He pressed a buzzer, and a guard entered. “Rise, Hound.” She did and followed
the man out the door. Kurt wasn’t in the waiting room any more. She was taken
to a brig cell, and locked in. It was a tiny chamber, five feet long by four
feet wide. A fold up bunk used three foot of the width. The far end of the
remaining space held a steel toilet. Perched above that was a small sink, that
she’d have to straddle the bowl in order to reach. The hallway end of the room
was made of floor to ceiling bars, eliminating any shred of privacy.
She sat, and then she pushed up the bunk and paced, and then sat again. When
she couldn’t hold off anymore, she used the facility, burning with humiliation.
Anyone walking by would be able to see her.
What had she done? What had she promised? But she couldn’t let him be hurt
because of her. He was the only warm and decent thing in her life now. She
cared for him. She loved him.
* * *
“That was simply masterful, major. The way you played the two of them was a joy
to behold,” Combs said.
“Indeed,” the general said. “Well, played. Amazing how they succumbed to the
same basic script.”
“Thank you, sir. I must commend trainer Vaile, she might have a future in this
department. But while this is a good start, it is only a start.”
“What do you mean?” the general said.
“We’ve got to hold them in a delicate balance. In the first place, we have to
make them believe that their respective sacrifices are materially benefiting
the other. But, if we keep that tension up too long, without allowing them to
continue developing their bond, that sacrifice might turn into resentment, and
then we’ve lost them. It’s important that we allow them to continue their
relationship, however distasteful it might seem to us. It makes them
emotionally vulnerable.”
Howards leaned back. “Do we continue to allow them to meet at the Socials? We
can either require them to stay in the Hall, or send a guard to round her up at
curfew.”
“I’d say so, but…” the major shook his head, frowning.
“But you don’t think they’re fully bonded yet, and the pressure you just
applied might crack them apart,” Vaile said.
The major smiled. “I knew you had a talent for this.”
The general put his finger down on the table, instantly commanding their
attention. “Command wants them as mission partners. You will see to it that
happens.”
The major sighed. “It’s really a pity they didn’t have sex. They’re both
virgin, and highly interested in each other. That sort of thing would help them
bond together.”
“We could wait until next time, and see if they do it…” Combs said.
“That could be too late,” Vaile said immediately. “If they get bitter and
disillusioned within the next month, it will be very hard to reacquire them. Or
worse, they could decided that the leverage we’re holding on them makes them
too vulnerable, so they’ll close themselves off.”
“Is she correct?” the general asked.
“Yes, sir,” the major said. “If we lose them now, it might be over for these
two. They might not even be useful as Hounds, let alone partners.”
“Then change the rules. I’ve already authorized an exception once for him. This
incident is, in a way, the result of that decision. Here’s what I have in
mind…” In succinct terms he outlined his idea.
The others shook their head at the audacity of it. “It could backfire on us,
sir, if the experience sours them on each other…” Howards said.
“Then that failure will be on me,” the general said, shrugging. “But I didn’t
see a couple of casually horny teenagers today, I saw star-crossed lovers.
After this evening we will know, one way or the other. Howards, Hedrick… see to
the preparations. I want everything to be perfect for them.” He stood up with a
smile. “The fish have nibbled. It’s time to set the hooks.”
 
***** Kurt - “Amuse me.” *****
Kurt knew he shouldn’t have lost his temper, but when they insulted Kätzchen’s
appearance and heritage, it made him burn. Then when they were torn between
making fun of his taste in females or suggesting that an animal like him was
probably the best she could do, he exploded.
He sat in his tiny cell, thinking about what happened next. They seemed pleased
that they cut him to the quick, and didn’t speak of his flare of temper. They
changed tactics then, emphasizing the trouble they were in, and speculating
idly about what kind of punishment they could deal to her. He took all the
blame; he had the better hearing, and he should have heard the warnings.
When the major smiled, Kurt shivered from the coldness of it. They had a plan,
it seemed. Any further infraction by him would result in punishments to her.
Furthermore, from now on, he was to actively assist the trainers in their
efforts to mold him into a weapon. His heart was full of pain, but he gave them
his vow to serve them fully, to protect her. They had his surrender, at last.
He could not, and would not, let her be hurt because of him. Love was far more
worthy than selfishness, so he chose to act out of love. He looked up when they
brought him his lunch. It was tasteless fare, worse than usual, but he ate it
without really noticing. He wondered where she was, and what they were doing to
her.
The day stretched on and he fought to stay alert. Months on end of ten hours
activity a day made this enforced idleness just another form of torture. The
little room was too small to really move around in, so he amused himself by
walking across the floor, crawling up the wall, crossing the ceiling and down
the other wall, but it got old fast.
When they brought him dinner, he was so full of nervous energy that he’d been
doing exercises just to burn some of it off. Dinner was a little better than
lunch, about the quality they served in the dining rooms. As soon as he slid
his empty tray out past the bars, they came for him. They took him to an end
hallway, and he saw Kitty as they led her from the other direction.
The room they were brought to boasted a large table and a broad dark window
along one wall. The same group of people was there from earlier. This time the
general was in the center, and he smiled unkindly. “It has taken a good deal of
time to devise an appropriate activity to assign for the two of you. I’ve come
up with an idea that I think is just perfect, but not all my subordinates
agree. Major; your objection is noted, and I’m glad we could come to an
agreement. Agent Brestin, you are excused.”
“Thank you, sir," Brestin said. "It was an excellent dinner, and it’d be a
shame to spoil it.”
“Your loss,” the general said, and he gave the two Hounds a long searching
look. “Are the two of you aware of your respective religious backgrounds?”
“Jawohl, sir,” Kurt said. Kitty nodded.
“And you,” he said to Kitty, smirking. “Did you know he’s uncircumcised?”
“Um. No, sir, I did not,” she said, her face red.
Combs chuckled. “And you gave him a hand job?”
She looked down, and then answered the question. “I didn’t see him, sir, and
even if I had… I wouldn’t have known the difference. Sir.”
The general flipped a switch, and the lights came on in the next room, visible
now through the window. It was made of brushed metal; it covered the floor, the
walls and ceiling. A steel chair was bolted to the floor near the wall,
festooned with loose straps. The most prominent object was a thinly padded
metal bunk also bolted to the floor near the far wall that also featured an
array of dangling straps and bindings.
“That is an interrogation room. Subjects who are less than forthcoming in this
interview room are taken there, where more… persuasive methods are employed.
That room will see use, tonight.”
She took in a quick breath, and his tail lashed behind him. Would he be made to
watch them torture her? Ach, nein…
After a long tense moment, the general finally broke his silence. “The two of
you will go into that room, you will undress, and have sex. We will observe
your performance here, so be sure to entertain us.”
Kurt’s jaw dropped, his tail stiffening with shock.
“I don’t believe this…” Kitty whispered.
“Believe it. Your… hormones got you into this mess, so you will take each
other’s virginity before an audience. Look at it this way, Nightcrawler, think
what an act this would be at the circus? The blue-furred gentile demon
deflowering the young Jewess…” He broke into cruel laughter.
“Your jobs will be to amuse me. Perform well, and certain benefits may become
available to you. Fail to entertain us… and the results to both of you will be
dire. So, a lot rides on your efforts to please.” He laughed again at his
unintentional joke.
Kurt glanced at Kitty. Her face was red and expressionless, her hands clenched
into fists at her sides. His face was also hot under the fur.
The major stood. “My department is concerned about the damage this… performance
might cause, so I have arranged a measure of privacy for you.” He started a
record player that held several albums on the spindle. “There is a direct comm
channel between the rooms, but if you speak quietly, you will be unheard by us.
However, you will be able to hear directions should you seem to be at a loss of
what to do.”
At a signal, the guard escorted them through the adjoining door. He left them
alone in the room, and through the intercom, they heard another door shut soon
after, over the music. The window went dark, but he could feel the eyes on
them. The general’s voice came then. “Undress her, slowly.”
Kurt faced her, tilting his head a little away from the watchers. “I’m sorry,
Kätzchen,” he said softly. He brushed a few short strands of hair from her
face, and then took hold of her zipper. Slowly he dragged it down, past her
bra, past her belly button, all the way down to the end just above the broad
elastic at her waist.
He reached for her neckline, brushing her collar wide, out to her shoulders.
Her eyes were squeezed shut, and he couldn’t tell if her trembling was from
fear, humiliation, or anger. He thought perhaps it was from a little of all
three. He pulled the top off her shoulders, and down her arms so it hung at her
waist. His own body was already eager for her, something he was bitterly aware
of.
He put his fingers inside her suit’s waistband, and crouched down, taking it
down to her ankles. Only then did he realize she was still wearing her boots.
He pushed at the suit so he could reach her laces, and untied them. First he
removed one boot, then the other. The suit was slipped off her, one leg at a
time.
He took her socks off, realizing he could smell her musky sex. His nose was
about level with her revealed panties… the same ones she’d worn when they were
'making out' the night before. He straightened up and moved behind her,
unclasping her stiff bra with a little bit of fumbling. Coming in front of her
again, he drew it off her shoulders and off of her. Her hands came up to cover
her breasts, and he heard a quiet sob.
He put his hand on her neck, drawing her forehead to his. “Shhh, liebchen. This
is me, and I love you,” he whispered.
Her eyes looked into his, pained and tense. “Kurt… I love you, too… But this…”
one of her hands moved to gesture stiffly.
“This must be. Trust me, Kätzchen. I will be loving.”
She nodded, and he leaned back. He reached for her panties, and pushed them
down her long legs. He could see the curly brown thatch they had hidden, as she
leaned her hand on his head and stepped out of them. He couldn’t resist taking
a deep breath in, and running his hands up her; legs, hips and sides as he
stood again. She was so beautiful.
“Now, do the same to him,” came the general’s voice.
She reached for his zipper, her hand visibly trembling. In tugs and starts, she
got it down, and then froze. He lifted her hands to his collar, and thus
prompted, she mechanically took his top off, but her eyes were glazing,
becoming distant. She was retreating the only way she could. He turned to the
window, gesturing at her blank face. “If we may have a moment to speak? This is
overwhelming her.”
“Very well, but make it quick. You don’t want me to get bored.”
He took her in his arms, and turned his back to the watchers. Leaning in, he
kissed her softly. “Stay with me Kätzchen, please. I don’t want them to hurt
you. Ach, I couldn’t bear it if they hurt you.” He claimed her mouth again, and
this time she responded, kissing him back and opening her mouth. Her arms came
up to his neck, and when the kiss ended, she was there behind her eyes again.
“I… I don’t want them to hurt y… you… either,” she stuttered.
“I must ask you something, Kätzchen. It is important.” She nodded, confused,
but curious.
“If… if we could… would you marry me? Be my wife?” His eyes gleamed as he
searched hers.
“M… Marry? Here? Kurt, we’re too young...” Now she looked wholly confused.
“Ah, throughout most of history, we would have already been married at our
ages. Just answer me, mein liebe. Would you… will you marry me?” He stroked her
face with gentle fingers.
“If we could… If they let us… Yes, I would. I will. Yes.” Tears ran down her
face, and she leaned her face against his shoulder.
He fairly thrummed with joy. She said yes! His eyes burned into hers. “Listen
to me, liebe. Marriage is between a man, a woman, and God. No one else. Ignore
them. They are no longer important. Love me now with a clear conscious, mein
betrothed. If you focus on pleasing me, as I will on pleasing you, despite our
circumstances, then that is the most we can do. It will simply have to be
enough for them. Ja?”
She frowned, thinking. Her hands ran through the fur of his chest absently, as
she processed this concept of his. Her eyes brightened, and the ghost of a
smile curled her lips. “Ja, meinKurt, mein elf…” Her arms wrapped tightly
around his neck and she leaned into a passionate, eager kiss that thrilled him
to his toes and his tail-tip.
His tail came up around her bare waist, and she unwrapped it gently. She
reached for his waistband, and slid the suit over his hips, stopping midway
down his thighs while his tail pulled itself free. His white boxers were
straining at the front, and she spared them a glance before pulling the suit
the rest of the way down. He had no footwear to get in the way, so it was easy
for him to slip it off.
She looked back up from his feet, and steeled herself visibly. She reached for
his shorts, and carefully eased them down past his hardness. Her eyes just
studied him for a moment, taking in the purpling flesh and the rounded scrotum
behind it. He gave a little smile. Her fascinated expression was so… endearing.
“Kätzchen, the boxers…?” he said.
She started in surprise, and flushed. “Sorry.” Briskly she drew them down, and
he stepped out of them. He reached a hand down and helped her stand. They both
stared unabashed, looking at each other with hungry expressions.
He put his fingers under her chin, smiling into her eyes. Her mouth quirked.
“’Sokay,” she said. “I won’t leave you now. We’re in this together.”
“Together,” he agreed, and scooped her up in his arms. He put her on the bunk,
enjoying the feel of her soft skin against him. He joined her, instinctively
placing himself with his back to the window, blocking the view.
“Ahem,” the general said over the comm. Kurt sighed and moved to her other
side. His mouth tightened in a thin line as he realized the visual they made;
her pale pink form silhouetted against the midnight blue of his body.
She reached up, tangling her fingers in his wavy hair, drawing him down to her.
He gave her a hot kiss, and then his eyes narrowed to slits as he rained kisses
onto her face, her neck, and her chest. Her hands roamed over the silky fur of
his back and shoulders, ruffling the nap, and scritching gently through to the
skin underneath. He caressed her breasts, the incongruous pink of his tongue
searching for her nipples. She groaned softly, just for him.
His tail curled over him and stroked up and down her legs, tickling lightly and
squeezing her. She giggled. “Bad elf. No tickles.” He looked up, fangs bared in
a wicked grin, chin covered in saliva from his suckling. She grabbed his tail
and used the end to wipe his chin.
He allowed her to, and then pulled it from her grasp, snorting in amusement.
“Don’t bother liebchen, it’ll just happen again. If fact…” He licked his lips
and smiled. “Might as well give them something to watch.” With that, he
wriggled down her body, rapidly running out of room. He sat up, stroking her
flat belly, assessing the situation.
Kurt hopped off the bunk and stood at the end. “Move down to me,” he said, and
put his hands on her knees, putting gentle pressure on them to part. She moved
towards him, and let him spread her legs. She was trembling again, but her eyes
were shining with trust, and need. When she was where he wanted her, he
squeezed her knees, and leaned down.
First he craned his head up and kissed and licked at her belly button. Then he
moved his mouth downwards. Long, wet licks moistened her lower belly, and then
traveled through her pubic hair. He breathed her scent in deep, his nose
literally buried in her thatch, shivering all over with desire. He put a
reverent kiss on the lips of her sex, then started licking.
He was glad that his life among the gypsies made him more conversant with
female erotic anatomy then she seemed to be with the male variety. Well, at
least in theory, he was. He’d heard some racy exploits and tales from the older
men with his keen hearing, and had even managed to watch a couple of trysts
from the vantage of a tree fork. The practical experience was proving to be
beyond what he’d ever imagined, though. He’d always thought the frantic
movements and urgent noises to be funny, but no longer. After last night, he
knew he was equally as capable of being reduced to a whimpering ball of want by
what they were doing.
He found the little nub of her clitoris easily enough, and settled down to the
pleasure of making her writhe and moan under his devouring tongue. His hands
rubbed along the inside of her thighs, up across her belly and under her to cup
and squeeze her bottom.
After a bit of this, he wasn’t entirely sure Kitty even remembered they were
being watched, her reactions were so uninhibited. Her hands came down to clutch
his hair, and she called his name when she shuddered and bucked under his
mouth. He lightened the pressure he was giving her, helping her to finish her
orgasm. She sighed and dropped her head back, every muscle relaxed.
In a flash, he was up beside her again, holding her tightly. He found himself
pressing his arousal against her hip, rocking in his need. She turned her face
to him and gave him a languorous smile. She took a deep breath, and slid her
hand down his body, playing with the nap all the way. She wrapped her hand
around him, and he hissed his approval. She levered herself up, and tugged on
him gently.
“Hey! That is not a handle, Kätzchen.”
She chuckled. “Sit on the edge, and hang on, love.” She got up off the bunk and
gathered their scattered clothing, bundling them on the floor between his legs
as he sat where she directed. She kneeled on this improvised cushion, and put
her hands on his thighs. Her back was to the window, and she looked up and
whispered softly, “Love you, fuzzy.”
He smiled down at her and then watched, amazed as she lowered her head to his
groin, kissing the head of his cock. Her tongue licked out and stroked along
his shaft; tasting him, and drawing deep moans from him. She held him at his
base and sucked him into her mouth, laving him with her tongue. He put his
hands on her shoulders, and stroked her neck with his thumbs.
She could take about half of him in her mouth, but from what he’d heard and
seen, that was pretty good for her first time. Her other hand came up and
gently squeezed his balls. His tail snaked around her body, flicking and
stroking her nipples, his feet gripping her hips and drawing her closer. A
tingling began at the base of his spine, traveling up his back and down his
tail.
“Kätzchen, get ready… Ah!” She didn’t move her mouth away, but she couldn’t
manage all of what he fired into it, either. She swallowed some, and the rest
dripped from her mouth. She looked up at him, a thoughtful expression on her
face. She plucked his boxers from under her knee and wiped her chin.
She rose, cocking her hip saucily to the side and leaning on his shoulders.
“Now, we’re even,” she whispered. With an effort, he kept looking into her eyes
instead of her breasts, so tantalizingly near his face. She leaned down and
kissed him warmly, their respective flavors mingling on their tongues. It was a
long, deep kiss, and when it ended they were both breathless.
She winked at him, mischief radiating from her eyes. She didn’t even have to
say it; and they both burst into quiet laughter at the unspoken word that hung
between them. He nuzzled her breasts. “I didn’t think you’d do that,” he said.
“I didn’t think anyone would ever do that for me.”
“Never say never, lover,” she said. “And you did it for me, it was only fair.”
“Ah, but you were delicious.” He licked his lips and grinned at her blush.
“Well, the natives are probably getting restless. Shall we get on with the main
event, love?”
He snatched her hand, and brought it to his lips, pressing a soft kiss to her
knuckles, and then to her palm. “Of course.” He was glad his proposal helped
her to find her center. What she would have resisted doing with a mere
boyfriend was acceptable with a fiancé.
He’d also felt uncomfortable going this far without a more formal relationship
between them. But with their promise, with her simple ‘yes’, everything had
changed. He felt a sense of sanctity about them, and a bond beyond anything
he’d ever known. If he were to lose his life, he would die knowing her for his
wife, even after only these few moments.
He stood, pressing close to her, his arms wrapped around her. Putting his lips
close to her face, he said softly, “Kitty… I have to know… Did you understand
what I meant, and did you… did you really mean it?”
She looked him in the eyes. “I know what you meant, and I meant the same. With
or without anyone’s permission, Kurt, I’ve joined my life to yours. Whatever
happens, I will have known the love of a husband… and I would have chosen you,
even in a better world. Is that what you wanted to know?”
He gave a joyous smile. “Ja, meine Frau. In my heart, we are already one.” He
lifted her up and once more put her on the bunk, taking his place on her far
side as she whispered her answer.
“And in mine, Kurt. And in mine.”
***** Kitty - Song of Songs *****
Kurt was amazing. In one quiet question, he took an impossible situation and
made it okay for her. They might not have a future together… they might not
have a future at all… but right here and right now, this was their wedding
night, and no torment or mocking watchers was going to keep her from it.
Between the time that she said yes, and when he asked her if she meant it, she
thought about her answer. Almost immediately she knew how very serious the
matter was to him. Nearly as soon, she realized how serious it was for her.
Without the strength he gave her with his name… and what was his last name
anyway? Without that strength, she would have failed this test… for both of
them.
His faith was founded on the ideals of her people, and she knew that both
religions taught that marriage was forever. As he laid her once again on the
rude pallet that was their wedding bed she quivered in fear and excitement. Be
damned if she would have done this for merely their amusement, but damned if
she would NOT do this, for her husband.
The music played over the comm as he lay beside her. She turned into him and
burrowed into his embrace. She wanted this, she wanted him, but the fear of it
all still gripped her. He stroked her and murmured encouragements in English
and German. Gradually, so gradually she didn’t notice as first, his kisses and
his touch turned towards arousing her. His touch of his hands was thrilling to
her; so confident they were on her body.
He nipped her and breathed in her ear, running his hands firmly over her,
learning her by touch. He leaned down to her chest again, and gave her breasts
nearly his full attention. The little bit left over resided in his tail, which
slithered up to tease and stroke between her lower lips. She cried out in
sensation, only aware of a triangle of fire burning in her body; her nipples,
connected to each other, and each to her clitoris.
He gave a low laugh that vibrated through her. She looked down, drinking in the
sight of him trying so hard to please her. His eyes glanced up, and the hot
suns of his eyes warmed her clear through. The feel of his fur against her was
heavenly, and she wriggled against him just to revel in it.
He helped her build up to a quiet orgasm, and then switched his caresses. A
damp tail came up to flick against her nipple, and his free hand sought for her
wetness. His fingers felt differently there. They were warmer than his tail,
but not as warm as his mouth. He continued the steady attention to her
pleasure, but a finger also worked on stretching her entrance.
A thrum of anticipation went through her. This was the real deal, not the
fumbling games they’d been playing up to now. In finding, and pressing into her
entrance he communicated to her how close their consummation was. Patiently he
kept at it, and looked up. “Tell me if this hurts, Kätzchen.”
“Okay,” she whispered. “Mm, that feels good.”
“You know that it will hurt, some, when I… enter you?”
“I know. But I’m… looking forward to it. To you.”
He lifted his mouth to hers, their tongues dancing together. “As am I.” He
leaned up to get a better angle, and firmly pushed his thick fingertip into
her. The tight muscles stretched around him, and he pumped shallowly into her
for a little bit.
“Oh,” she breathed, her eyes wide and her hand clutching his silky shoulder.
He froze, his face anxious. “Does it hurt?”
“No… Just… feels different. Different than anything. Don’t stop.”
“As you say, mein liebe.” The gentle penetrations were performed with sweeps of
his thumb over her clit, his face frowning in concentration.
Her body clenched him tightly in a sharp spasm of ecstasy that took her by
surprise. “Oh. Much better than wow,” she said when she caught her breath.
His body trembled in restraint, and she felt a little scorched from the heat of
the longing in his eyes. His erection was rock hard against her, and he was
drawing in deep breaths, his nostrils flared wide. He was soaking in her scent,
and he liked it.
She swallowed, and tugged on his shoulder. “It’s time.”
He tensed even more. “Are you sure?” His voice was shaking.
She laughed quietly. “I think so, but you’re gonna pop a blood vessel if you
don’t do something soon.”
He moved between her legs, and she spread them wide for him. His eyes were wide
and his tail lashed the air. His manhood was a darker purple than before, and
it looked to be so stiff it hurt.
“Love me,” she whispered. He leaned down, trying hard to control his eagerness.
Taking himself in hand, he slid the head along her moistness, and then aimed it
into her. He bit his lower lip, and applied steady pressure inward. His penis
was thicker than his finger, and she stretched again around him. God, he was in
her, this was it. Just a little further now…
He pushed in, and she felt a little twinge of something other than stretching.
“You’re there.”
He nodded jerkily, and partly withdrew. Before she had a chance to complain, he
spoke softly. “It is best done quickly. Are you ready?”
Was she ready? She was, but she wasn’t, but don’t tell him that. “Yes.”
He took a breath and plunged in, tearing sharply through her hymen. Tears
sprang from her eyes, and her knees squeezed on his sides, halting him. “Gimme
a moment,” she hissed. Gentle hands wiped the tears away. “Better,” she said.
“Getting better.” Her legs loosened again, and her hands pulled him closer.
With a bit of bravado, she smiled, or tried to. “Come on, lover, show me what
you’ve got.”
He pulled back and then pushed in again, with a far gentler motion. The pain
was a distant burning sensation, rapidly being eclipsed by the pleasure of his
presence. He started a steady rhythm, and she found herself rocking along with
him, moving in counter to his thrusts.
The fur on his arms and chest was damp with sweat, and his eyes were golden
slits. “Ich liebe dich, Kätzchen. Sie sind wundervoll.” He put his hands under
her legs, and pushed them up higher, rocking her pelvis up and changing the
angle of his penetrations.
There was no pain, now. She felt like she was flying. They were making love and
it felt fantastic. The gentle scrape and pull of his velvet-covered body
between her thighs was good. His hardness moving deep inside her was even
better. Even the way his jaw tightened as he struggled to control his mounting
urgency was exhilarating.
“Is it… good?” he said gruffly. She felt his tail thrash across her legs.
“Oh, yesssss,” she purred. His jaw gaped in a salacious grin at her tone, and
he sped up. A hot/cold flash stole over her, and started burning along her
nerves. “Oh God! Kurt…” She came, clamping down on him hard, then pulsing
around him. He let out an inarticulate groan as his release followed quickly
after.
They panted, still straining together, striving for a moment more to become a
single being. Then it was over, leaving them gasping and drained. He was
whispering to her, and she understood only words here and there. ‘Love’, and
‘I’, and ‘Kitten’, all mixed up with a soft torrent of German that sounded like
sweet music to her.
“I love you, Kurt. I love you,” she whispered back. He slipped out of her, and
lay besides her again. His tail reached down and grabbed his sacrificial
boxers, and carefully, gently, he cleaned her off, then himself and the bunk
padding. The undergarments were spotted and streaked with traces of pink when
he finished, and he dropped them carelessly over the side.
He pulled her over on top of him, and held her closely. He stroked her and
kissed her with a gentleness that faded into slumber. She was happy to have his
love, his presence and his touch. She started drifting off, too. She spared a
thought for the observers, the first time she’d thought of them in a while. The
music wasn’t playing anymore, and the intercom light was out. Humph. Good
riddance…
* * *
The general turned to Major Hedrick, after the two of them dropped into sleep.
“Opinions?”
“Oh. Um, that will help their bonding, quite a bit. I was afraid that she was
going to withdraw again, but he took care of the problem. Whatever he said to
her after that seemed to cure her of the tendency.”
“I can read lips,” Combs said, “but they faced away a lot of the time they were
talking.”
“Do you believe it’s important?” the general asked.
“No. They’re Hounds, how important could it be?”
“Someone needs to stay and watch, but the rest of us can go,” the general said
as he stood. No one mentioned his condition, but he wasn’t the only one in the
room displaying signs of vicarious arousal.
“I’ll stay,” Hedrick said. “I’ve some notes to write up on your… experiment.
Are her things here already? Good.”
The other flushed watchers filed out of the room. The major looked over at the
sleeping young couple. “This next step should be interesting.”
* * *
Her bed was hard and lumpy. She reached up for her pillow, and found a furry
arm under her head. She opened her eyes. She’d have to amend that. The bed was
hard, and Kurt was lumpy. She’d slipped off his chest while they napped, and
now was snuggled beside him, neither of them wearing a stitch.
Now that her body wasn’t singing in ecstasy, she was aware of some new aches
and pains. The ones inside her she could understand, but what was with her
inner thighs? Apparently, being spread that way stretched her leg muscles in a
new way, because they hurt.
She thought maybe he’d nipped one of her breasts a little too hard, because she
found a scratch she didn’t have before. Ah, the perils of a husband with fangs.
Husband. Yes. He was her husband. She was his wife. A smile curled her lips and
she began to nibble on his chin and jaw line. She’d just reached his ear when
his eyes opened.
“Wuff?” he said sleepily, his hands rising to fend her off.
“Do you really want to do that?” she breathed into his pointed ear.
He froze, and breathed in deeply. “Kätzchen,” he murmured. His eyes focused,
and he smiled at her. He leaned forward and kissed her. “A much better
awakening than last time, ja?”
“Speak for yourself, lover. I hurt all over… but I’m okay,” she hastened to add
when his face turned almost comic in concern.
“Are you alright, liebe? I tried not to hurt you…”
“I’ll live. Besides the… inside, I have some pretty sore muscles, and this…”
She showed him the scratch, and he immediately bent to kiss it.
“I’m sorry about this. I should have been more careful.”
The door to the adjoining room opened slightly, and they stiffened. The major’s
voice came in to them. “Please get dressed.” They got up and fumbled into their
clothes. Kurt skipped his stained boxers, stuffing them into the thigh pocket.
Kitty took longer to dress. Her legs shook with fatigue when she put weight on
them and bending over hurt. A lot. He helped her pick up her clothes, and he
sat and put her socks on for her while she got her bra and suit top pulled on.
She got her boots on, but only lightly laced them, stuffing the excess strings
inside.
She limped into the other room with him. The major observed her movements. “Do
you need to visit the clinic?”
“I don’t think so, sir,” she said. “I think it’s mostly strain.”
“Very well, follow me, both of you.” He led them to the hall, where a familiar
battered hand truck waited, loaded with a trunk and some boxes. “If you’d take
that, Nightcrawler?” He took them through the carrier, and soon Kitty started
recognizing places. This was the way to Kurt’s quarters.
They stopped outside his door. “From now on you will be sharing quarters with
him. The two of you are excused from work tomorrow, both shifts. She will
report to the clinic Monday morning if she still feels unable to work by then.
Otherwise, she has duty with her laundry detail. Besides that, the standard
rules now apply to both of you. Dinner is in the dining hall, but your other
meals may be here. Allow extra time to go to and from anywhere in the upper
decks. Any questions?”
Kurt said no, and she shook her head, bouncing a little, with a wince. She was
going to stay with him, here? How did she get so lucky? The major left, and
they watched until the elevator doors shut on him. Kurt turned and kissed her,
and with great ceremony, he carried her over his doorstep. Then he put her down
and brought in the truck.
“Draw a hot bath, liebe. That will be just the thing to soak those aches of
yours. I’ll get things put away.”
“Oh, you’re a life saver. I’m starting to feel like a creaky old lady.” She
held onto the wall, and moved to the bathroom, after he carried her trunk past
the sheet/curtain. She started the water, and got it filling while he rummaged
in the hall closet and carried in extra towels while she was trying to undress.
He put them down and assisted her.
He smiled at her. “You certainly don’t look like an old lady.” He helped her
settle in to the tub, and she sighed with relief. He undressed, and put a
folded towel on the tub side at the tap end. He sat on it, facing her, perching
comfortably on the edge, his legs stretched out, and his feet gripping for
balance. He smiled as she soaked in a warm silence. His tail trailed in the
water, making little currents around her.
“You keep smiling like that, and your face is going to hurt,” she said after a
while. It was probably about time to actually wash, anyway.
“I can’t help it, I am so happy you are here, and they are allowing us to be
together. I don’t trust the reasons why, but I don’t want to think about it
just now.”
“Me neither. Gotta have some dastardly plot in mind. They’re Shield.”
“Ja. It’s in the job description, I think.” His tail end slid around her knee,
making curling motions. “I’m sorry you hurt so much.”
She shrugged and started washing. “It’s the way God made us. Makes us think
twice about getting involved in sex before we’re ready. I feel better after
this soak, love. The strain will ease, and the inside will heal. Your turn.”
She levered herself up, and she did feel a lot better. She got out of the bath,
and he took her place, handing her the towel he’d sat on. He didn’t linger,
just washed quickly and got out again. They helped each other dry off, more or
less, chuckling when their respective efforts proved to be more of a hindrance
than a help, especially on her part. Apparently, there was an art to drying a
full body coat of fur.
His belly growled when he was mostly dry, and her hands were shaking. “We need
to eat something,” he said, steering her into the kitchen.
“I had dinner, and I’m not hungry,” she complained.
“You’re body needs fuel, whether you feel it or not. That’s what the shaking
hands mean.” He frowned, looking off. “You have low blood sugar.”
“Where did you learn that?” she said. She sat wrapped in a towel at his… at
their kitchen table, as he rummaged through the fridge, feeling a twisted sense
of déjà vu.
“I was an aerialist and an athlete. Those who stress the body for a living need
to know how to properly care for it.” He poured juice and pressed the glass
into her hands, then poured some for himself. He put two pears on the table and
made two quick meat and cheese sandwiches. “Fruit, for quick energy, and the
sandwich for sustained stability.”
She sipped the juice, and then finished it thirstily. She picked up the pear
and took a bit. “What, no apples?” She smiled at him mischievously.
He answered with a serious smile. “Not this week, although from you…
pomegranates would be better, O fairest among women.” He stroked a hand from
her temple to her shoulder.
Ouch. “Kurt, stop it. Don’t tease me.” She looked away, her eyes stinging from
unshed tears.
He flowed around the table to meet her eyes, staring into her. “I do not tease.
I speak from the eyes of my heart. Solomon said it rightly: ‘Behold thou art
fair, my love. Behold, thou art fair.’ Look in my eyes, Kätzchen. I speak the
simple truth.”
She looked. His whole posture expressed his earnestness, and there was only
warmth and love in his golden eyes. She lowered her gaze.
“I know you don’t understand it, liebe. But no more do I understand why you
love me, despite… this.” He gestured at himself. “I merely accept the happy
fact that you do, with humble gratitude. You have accepted my love, and my hand
in marriage. Please accept my ardent admiration.”
“All right, Kurt,” she managed a smile for him. “I thought you had better
taste, though.”
He grinned at her. “Are you fishing for another compliment? But, I wouldn’t
know about my taste. You, however, taste excellently.” He licked his lips.
“Kurt!” she said flushing. Then she remembered something. “Kurt, what’s your
last name?”
“Hm? Wagner, like the composer. Kurt Wagner. Why?”
“Wagner.” She pronounced the ‘w’ like a ‘v’ the way he did. “Just wanted to
tasted it on my tongue. Kurt and Katherine Wagner.”
He smiled, cocking his head to the side. She sighed. “It’s a girl thing, I
guess. Since we change our name when we marry, we like to test what it sounds
like. This sounds good.”
“Yes it does. Kätzchen Wagner. That sounds very good. But if I may ask, what
was your maiden name?”
Pryde. P-R-Y-D-E. My name was Kitty Pryde.”
“Okay. Frau Wagner, eat your sandwich.” His tail-tip pushed it closer to her.
“Jawohl, meister? Wagner… Is that right?” He play-frowned at her and she
hurriedly took a big bite, trying not to choke as she giggled around it. She
swallowed and kept eating.
“Herr Wagner would be the appropriate address, liebe. I’m not your master.”
She nodded, and finished. She put her plate in the sink, and was caught by
surprise by a huge yawn.
He came up behind her and put his arms around her. “Time for bed, mein liebe?”
He kissed her neck.
She turned in his grasp, and the towel fell from her. “I guess I am,” she said,
and danced naked from his arms, leaving him holding the cloth. He growled,
dropping it, and stalked after her.
She passed the curtain and was met by a curious sight. The near half of the
room bore the homey little touches of someone living there, but the far side
looked abandoned; neat, but unused. That was all she had a chance to see before
he snatched her off the ground and tossed her onto the bed.
She squeaked, and was pounced on by a naked furry elf. He wrapped her in his
arms, growling softly, as they squirmed under the covers and cuddled close.
She thought he was touching her breasts when she fell asleep…
***** Kurt - “With this string…” *****
His Kätzchen was a very tired woman last night. They had barely settled in bed
when she fell fast asleep. When his gentle advances produced no reaction, he
resigned himself that two wonderful experiences would be it for the day. But
there was always the next day to look forward to. He could get used to living
like this.
Her sweet form was snuggled up to him when he woke early in the morning. He lay
still, watching her breath, remembering the joy that filled his heart when she
accepted his proposal. It was hard to believe he’d found such happiness in this
place of torment. Her dark eyes opened, and sought his. Her arms came around
his neck and she met his mouth with hers. His hands roamed over her and she
wriggled pleasantly against him. “How are you feeling this morning?” he said.
She pulled away, reluctantly, and got up. “Let me see.” She did some stretches
and bends with barely a wince, while he watched her avidly. “I’m still a little
sore in my middle and thighs, but exercise will probably take care of that.”
She looked over at him, noticing the tenting of the sheet, and smiled. “Just
what you had in mind, huh?”
“Ja!” He flicked the sheet out of the way and reached for her. He felt
insatiable around her, like she was as necessary to his continued existence as
the air he breathed. Now that they were unobserved, he spent a long time
exploring her body, needing to know every part of her. She cooperated, giggling
at his absorbed expression and trying not to flinch when he inadvertently
tickled her.
When he finished, she dug her heel into the mattress for leverage and pushed
him onto his back. “Your turn, Fuzzy!” She took her time, he hands running over
him, feeling the development of his muscles and seeming to catalog all the
place he appeared sensitive. The final straw for him was when her expedition
encountered the base of his tail.
He was lying on his belly, and she’d worked her hands up from the tailtip, to
the base. He jumped when her fingers absently stroked the fur just under where
it grew out of his spine. As he panted, she did it again, harder this time.
Curling her hand tight at the very base, she drew it down the firmly first foot
or so of his tail, and something inside him snapped.
Growls rumbled from deep in his chest. He writhed from under her and firmly
pinned her down. Flaring yellow eyes stared into startled brown. He bent his
head down and bit her neck, just shy of breaking the skin. The purring growls
continued, but he managed to speak around them. “Rrrrr. If you, ah… rrRRrr,
touch me therre… like that… Rrrr. Then, Kätzchen, therre arre… RRrrrRRR,
consequences…” His tail slipped up her leg to the juncture of her thighs.
“Whoa, love,” she said laughing, as he nipped and bit at her chin, and ears, as
well as her neck. “I think I found your ‘on’ switch.” She was already damp, and
with the touches of his tail at her entrance she was fast becoming sopping wet.
He pressed his lips to her, claiming her tongue, and sweeping his over the
surfaces of her mouth. Some part of him wondered at her calm laughter… Why
wasn’t she afraid of him when he almost was at the way he was acting? “Rrrrr…
You’rre not afrraid?”
Her eyes held his. “Kurt, you would never hurt me, I know this. And I wanna see
what happens when we just… let it rip.” A finger traced down his spine, to his
tail, and she gave him a gentle grip there.
“RRRrrr…” His blood roared in his ears, and he levered her legs apart. He
pressed himself at her entrance, and pushed steadily in with a deep groan of
need. He spared a bare moment to see if she was alright. When she pulled him
closer, urging him on, he gave into the raging desire her touch had aroused. He
was distantly dismayed he could be capable of such a feral display of passion,
or rather, of lust. But, he knew that she’d walked into it with her eyes open.
He’d given her fair warning, after all.
There was no finesse to this raw coupling, but she gave as good as she got. She
bit and clawed back at him as she rose to meet his pounding thrusts. She
muffled her scream of ecstasy around a bite-full of his furry shoulder, and his
howl of completion echoed and re-echoed off the walls of the room. He collapsed
on her, the effort to breath tearing at his raw throat. When his brain began to
function again, a sense of shame crept in. What had he done to her, and to
them?
She stroked through his hair, following the line of his ear on his scalp. She
kneaded his neck and shoulders; all the while making happy little hums and
sighs. In finally penetrated his mind that she wasn’t at all upset with him. He
moved off to lie beside her.
“K… Kätzchen?” He looked at her, his eyes confused and guilty.
“Shh, lover. It’s okay.” Her mouth was soft and seeking under his. “God, that
was intense. What a ride!” She grinned at him.
“But… I was… Mein Gott, I acted like the beast they say I am. I’m ashamed,
liebe, I could have hurt you. All I could think of was my pleasure.”
“Lover, I’ll tell you a secret. My mom reads romances, and I’ve read a few.
Getting it a little bit rough is a big, big turn on, if we trust the guy who’s
doing it implicitly, and I trust you. They’d have to give you a lobotomy before
you’d ever hurt me. I have absolutely no complaints. That was way good for me.”
She chuckled. “I wouldn’t want it like that every time, but… wow!”
He looked into her happy eyes, and felt his guilt dissipate. But still… “I
don’t know if you’re sick for liking that, or if I’m just oversensitive,” he
said finally.
“Neither, or a little of both. I don’t know. Just trust yourself, like I trust
you.”
“Losing control frightened me. What if you had needed me to stop, and I was too
far-gone to listen?” He laid his head on her shoulder.
“You would have in a heartbeat, love. You don’t give yourself enough credit.
Search yourself, and see what I see in your eyes.’
He tried to imagine himself hurting her, or even being indifferent to her pain,
and drew a blank. He’d rather gnaw his own arm off, and she’d known this of him
before he did. He sighed. “You have such faith in me, Kätzchen. I hope I am
worthy.”
“You are more than worthy, husband. I’ve placed my life in your hands.”
“As you hold mine in yours. Ach, you are better for me than I deserve.”
“Okay. Let’s not have the ‘who’s worthy’ argument, ‘cuz it could go on all
day.”
“Still, I’m sorry the way I acted. I… want it to always be good for you.”
“It was more than good for me. And I hope you’re not sorry enough to never do
it like that again,” she smiled slyly, and started slowly, running a finger
down his spine…
He moved like a serpent, slipping out of her encircling arm and teasing hand,
and pinned her under him, glaring into her brown eyes. “I forbid you to do that
again, my wife!” He watched her expression turn stricken, before he allowed a
tiny smile to curl his lips. “Unless we are in agreement, and you really mean
it. That is fair, ja?”
She stared at him blankly before thumping a fist on his chest. “You are a mean,
cruel man! Forbidding me like that.” She glared at him.
“It is more a matter of personal respect, liebe. Triggering my ‘on switch’ as
you say, should be mutually consented to.”
Her glare subsided. “Still it’s not fair, abusing your husbandly authority…”
He laughed. “Little minx! Who was abusing whom, with your wandering hand?” He
shared a lingering kiss with her. “Now wait, and I’ll fix breakfast.”
He got up and stretched, and as he left he heard her say, “A man who cooks… how
lucky is that?”
* * *
Breakfast was simple, but filling. They ate together in silence, just enjoying
the company. He kept looking over at her, to see if she was still there, or if
it was some kind of wonderful dream. He caught her doing the same thing. When
they finished, he cleared the dishes, and held out his hand to her. Time to use
the other things he’d prepared along with breakfast.
“Come to the couch with me.” She followed him and sat watching him. He had his
twine on the spool-table, and a pair of scissors. He cut a piece off that was
about four inches long, and a second one that was a few inches longer.
“We cannot have a formal wedding of any faith while in this place, but we can
still be married. The old folks in Germany remembered what it was like under
the Nazis, or heard tales from people of faith in Communist Russia. In times of
oppression, prisoners must make their own way.”
He took the shorter length of string in his hand. “Give me your left hand.” She
extended it to him. He tied the string with a snug square knot around her ring
finger, and then turned it until the loose ends were at her palm. “With this
string, I thee wed.” She chuckled at his pun, but her eyes shone with tears.
“Keep this with you, liebe. If someone asks, you wear it to remember something.
If you can’t wear it, stuff it in your pocket. If you lose it, that’s okay, I
have more twine.”
He gave her the longer piece, and held out his left hand. She hesitated, and
tied it around the outer finger. She slid the string around. “With this string,
I thee wed,” she said softly. “But what are our vows?”
“I promise to love and cherish you, all the days of my life. I will care for
you, and respect you, as I would myself.”
“I will love you, and honor you, until death do us part. I promise to respect
your well-being and opinions as I would my own.” Tears leaked down her cheeks.
He clasped her hands with his, and closed his eyes. “May the God of Abraham,
and of Jesus bless our union. We glorify you, O Lord, in whatever we do.” He
took a deep breath, and when he spoke again his sorrow was plain to hear.
“There… there may not be children, Gott, but may this marriage bear the fruit
of Love. Amen.” He bowed his head further, and wept.
She moved to him, flinging her arms around him, and they cried together, for
the misery that was their now, and for the joys that would never be. When they
got themselves under control again, she sniffled and said. “You may kiss the
bride.”
“Dankeshoen, mein Frau.” He lifted her chin and kissed her, thoroughly and
long. “There. Do you feel married now? Because I do.”
“Yeah…” she said. “And thank you, for always remembering… my faith.”
“There is so much in common, liebe, it is easy. And I could have done worse. My
Savior’s mother was a nice Jewish girl.” He smiled at her and she chuckled
again.
“You’re not…” she started to say, then changed it. “Are you going to ask me to
convert?”
“Are you going to ask me? I wasn’t planning on it, Kätzchen. You grew up in a
Christian nation. I’m sure you’ve had lots of opportunities if you wanted one.
I won’t insult you by preaching salvation at you, unless you want me to."
She gave him a tentative look. “Would you mind adding some Jewish traditions?”
[*]
“I’d be honored if you were to share them with me,” he bowed his head to her.
She smiled broadly. “Okay! I need to get some things.” She bounced into the
kitchen and rummaged around. “Do you have anything that will protect your foot
from something sharp?” she called back to him.
“I could put on my work boot…” he said, getting up. Something sharp?
“Perfect. Get one of mine, too, please?” She carried some stuff in, covered by
a cloth, as he passed her, heading for their bedroom.
He brought back the two boots, and she looked at his curious footwear, before
drawing him to the middle of the room. “Stand here, love. Don’t move.” She
began making a slow circle around him. “This has its roots in Ancient times.
Back then it would be the first time I saw you, and this is my chance to
inspect you.” She started the third circle. “It also means that I’m entering
your orbit, your sphere of influence, and that you have become the center of my
world.” She stopped after the seventh revolution. “Seven is the number of
completion.”
“What do I do?” he said, touched by the symbolism.
“Some modern ceremonies have the groom doing the same, in the spirit of
egalitarianism.” She smiled, but left the choice up to him.
He smiled back, and pressed on her shoulders to set her in place, and then he
began to circle her. Looking, really looking at this lovely girl who’d joined
herself to him. Seven times he moved around her, then he stopped, and bowed
deeply.
She curtseyed to him, and then frowned, thinking. “Now there’s the stuff about
her veil, and the canopy, and his mantle, and most of it doesn’t apply to us
since we’ve already been together… so, it’s on the cups.”
She led him back to the couch, and uncovered the stuff there. Two small plastic
glasses, and his bottle of juice were there, along with the cloth napkin.
“Guess we’re lucky this is grape juice this time. It’s supposed to be wine.”
She poured a little in both glasses. “The first cup we share is supposed to
formalize the betrothal, and sanctify us.”
She shrugged. “But it has another meaning. The Cup of Joy means that the joys
we share, are joys that are doubled, for both of us.” She handed him the glass,
and he sipped from it, and then handed it back to her. She drank from it also.
She picked up the second glass. “This is shared during the seven blessings, but
you’ve already said blessings over us. There’s a second meaning to this one,
too. This is the Cup of Sacrifice, and as we drink, we know that because we’re
together, the sorrows we share are halved, for both of us.” She handed it to
him. “Drink half.”
Caught up in the ceremony of what she was doing, he did, and gave it back to
her. She finished the juice, and then wrapped it in the napkin, tucking the
ends inside. “Put your boot on,” she said, and she put hers on. When they were
safely shod, she put the wrapped glass on the floor. “Stomp on it. Break it.”
He gave some good hard stomps, and let her take a turn. When the glass was
reduced to shards, she said, “Mazel Tov!” and then picked it up. Kurt looked at
her quizzically as they took their boots off. “That means, congratulations!”
She laid the wrapped bundle on the table, and opened it, revealing the pieces.
“Like everything else, this has more than one meaning. First, I guess, is that
it’s a reminder of the destruction of the Temple. It also means that our old
lives are gone for good. There is no turning back; we are bound together for as
long as it takes for this cup to be made whole again.”
She picked up a piece, and put it in her pocket. She handed him another. “While
that ‘made whole’ line is said, in practice, two pieces are given to the Rabbi.
He keeps one, and throws the other in a river. I guess that part is to show
that the bond can never be completed, and therefore ‘finished’, without the
intervention of the faith, and an act of God.”
She rose, drawing him to the blankets that curtained off the hull space. “We
don’t have a river, but we have the vent. If we throw these out, it really
would be an act of God to reunite this thing. Take us there?”
“Certainly, Kätzchen.” He took her in his arms, and ported them up to the top
beam. She air-walked over to the vent, holding her shard. He leaped at the
vent, jamming a hand in between the vanes, and hanging there like that. She put
her piece between the slats, and so did he. They let the plastic shards go, to
tumble and fall to the ground so far below.
He ported back to the beam, and she phased back to it. He held her for a long
moment, and then took them back to the deck. “Urg… That is so strange.” She
clung to him, catching her breath.
“Is that all?” he said softly, fascinated with the traditions she’d shown him.
“Oh, the bride and groom would be put in a room together, to indicate their new
intimate relationship, and the symbolize they are to be accorded the privacy
due a married couple.” She shrugged again, which he took to mean that she
didn’t think the point really applied to them. “Anyway, now, I really feel
married.”
He walked her back to the couch, and settled in the corner with her in his
arms. “You didn’t say anything about rings. Are rings exchanged?”
“Rings? Yes. But it’s like the circling thing. The bride gets a plain gold band
on her right hand and in a modern ceremony, so does the groom.” She nuzzled his
neck. “It comes between the cups, somewhere around when the wedding contract is
read.”
“A contract? Sounds like a business deal.” And rather cold blooded, he thought.
“Marriage can have all sorts of legal complications, especially if there is
property or inheritances involved. It’s like a cross between a prenuptial
agreement, and the vows in your sort of ceremony. Both parties can put things
in it that they want said; promises and the like.”
He thought for a while, breathing in her scent. “Do you want the string on your
right hand?” Part of him was afraid she did, and he wasn’t sure why.
“What? No. Oh, no.” She doubled up her left hand in a protective fist, turning
and kissing him. “Kurt, you’re Catholic, and I’m Jewish. Those facts aren’t
going to change anytime soon. Our marriage, and our lives, will be a blending
of our traditions… so it’s right that our wedding is, too. This string-ring you
gave me was for your part of it, and I won’t change it for anything.”
A vast sense of relief came over him. He chased the feeling until he pinned it
down. “I was afraid… that you would not meet me halfway… that I would have to
do all the accommodating. I know that sounds selfish, Kätzchen.”
“No it doesn’t. Love, this isn’t going to be easy. We will both have to work
hard to make this marriage work. There will be times when we fight, but I will
always love you. I may be angry, but my love will still be there.”
“And mine, mein liebe. I can see our love lasting through anything.”
“Yeah, and we have another advantage. When one of us does something stupid, and
the other blows their top… all we have to do is remember where we are… for
petty misunderstandings not to be so important anymore.”
He sighed. “I wish you could meet my family. Mother Szardos would love you.”
“I… am not so sure I can say the same thing. Mom and Dad were real big on the
‘passing for normal’ thing. You take some getting used to.”
“Ja. Don’t I know that one…” He felt her wriggle on the lump under her. His
hands came up from around her waist to her breasts. “So. Want to retire to our
bed, while we still have a honeymoon? But no tail thing, liebe. I want to be
able to take my time with you.”
She mock pouted at him. “Spoilsport. But you have a deal.” She hopped up from
his lap. “Race ya!”
He bolted after her in a mad dash…
 
[*] Any confusion is hers; she’s young and her parents aren’t very observant…
Don’t buy that? Okay, the mistakes are all mine. I’m not Jewish (mostly Celtic
bloodlines) but I looked up a dozen plus pages on Jewish wedding traditions,
and sorta gleaned what I thought might be relevant for them. Anyone who
actually KNOWS this stuff please tell me about anything that’s outta line,
plzkthx.
***** Kitty - Trainers and Tormentors, part 1 *****
There was an alarm going off by her ear. Kitty was suddenly aware that she was
late for school… She jumped upright and stopped still… at the sight of Kurt
blinking blearily up at her. Oh, right. She was indeed late for school. She’d
missed about a third of her freshman year of High School by now…
“Vas, liebe?” he said. He sat up and leaned back on his hands, stretching.
The lean muscles of his body were a feast to her eyes. If only he knew how
yummy he was. “I, uh, thought I was late for school,” she said with a sheepish
grin. “I haven’t heard an alarm clock in months. Usually we’re rousted awake by
the guards. Now, c’mon sleepy. We have to get ready for work… I’d rather do
that than go to the clinic, any day.”
“Nein,” he said. “I set the alarm a half hour early….” He put his strong hands
around her waist, and pulled her closer, kissing her neck.
“Hey… didn’t you get enough of me yesterday? I’m gonna be bow-legged.”
“Never,” he breathed in her ear, and proved his words by doing a nice try at
devouring her lips, his hands roaming down her back. His tail got into the
picture then, sliding up the inside of her legs and doing naughty things where
they met. She gasped, and relaxed into his loving touches.
* * *
They kissed again at the door of their quarters, and parted. She went to the
elevator, and he turned the other way, to the garbage room at the stern. Kitty
made her way to her workroom. Once there, she returned the soft greetings of
her fellow workers and headed for Karla. The guard watched them for a while
until they got thoroughly into the work.
“Are you okay, sweety?” the older woman asked when he moved away. “I got
worried when you didn’t show up Saturday, and then they collected your things…”
“Yeah. It’s been a long weekend, though.” She made a face. “Kurt and I fell
asleep together Friday night, and our trainers woke us up Saturday morning.”
“Oh my God, Kitty. What happened?” Karla’s eyes were round in surprise.
“I got a pelvic, and we each got the third degree, and some brig time. Then…”
She flushed deep red and moved a load of clothes to the dryer. “Then, they made
us… have sex, in front of them.” Karla’s face expressed her shock, but she
didn’t say anything to that, she just went on with the mechanics of the job.
“It was my, well, both of our first times. I was pretty sore, so they gave us
yesterday off, and moved me in with him. I’m not complaining.” She smiled.
“Yesterday was fun.”
Karla chuckled. “So he made you a woman, huh?”
“Many times. He’s a randy blue goat, my Kurt.” She winked. “And the tail…”
“Oh, hush. You may get to live with your lover, and I don’t understand THAT at
all, but some of us have to wait for the Socials.”
“I… I’m sorry, Karla. I didn’t mean to rub it in…”
“It’s okay. It’s a good thing you’re a cute kid, or I could start to get
jealous at that whole ‘I’ve been fucked silly’ look about you.” Kitty pretended
to dump a soggy load on her, blushing furiously.
“Mind you, I’m not saying that look’s a bad thing… but if you keep it up, it
could get annoying.”
“I’ll try to remember. We know that there’s something more going on, something
sneaky, but we’re just trying to enjoy it while we can.”
“Good idea. There’s no such thing as permanency here. You remember that, too.”
“I will.” Kitty was quiet for a while. “You’re my best friend here.”
“Besides him, you mean? I know, kid. I feel the same way.”
“I’m from Deerfield, Illinois, right near Chicago.”
“I’m from the capitol of Kentucky. Say, do you pronounce that Louis-ville or
Louie-ville?”
“Um… Louie-ville?” Kitty gave her a confused smile.
“Nope, Frankfort. Sucker. People always fall for that one…”
“Why you… that was mean.” Kitty glared at her, trying to suppress her smile.
Karla gave her a wicked smile. “Did you have a pet as a kid?”
“I had a cat. She was just about to have kittens.” Kitty looked down, folding
clothes.
“Ah. Then you’re used to dealing with fur, and tails…”
Kitty gave her a blank look, and then shook her head, smiling. “Not like this
though…”
“I’ll bet… I used to have a dog when I was little…”
* * *
She had lunch in the dining hall. It didn’t make sense to go down below just to
have lunch with him, and then hurry back up for training. At least, not today
it didn’t. She changed into her fighting togs, and entered the big room.
Kneeling as she always did, she recited the oath, and reported to Howards.
“Stretch out, Hound. Show me how well you’ve recovered.”
“Yes, sir.” Hedrick must have mentioned her limp.
Agent Vaile wasn’t there. Instead, it was the younger of Kurt’s trainers. She
felt an antipathy for him, well, more than she usually felt for an Agent. The
man watched her as she stretched, with a predatory eye that made her
uncomfortable. Like he was… checking her out.
Howards nodded. “Good enough. I’ve a new assignment for you, from the General,
since you’ve come to his attention. You’re going to learn to phase another
person with you when you walk through things.”
Okay. Yeah. Whatever. “Yes, sir.”
He tossed her a bag. Oof. That was heavy. “That’s 50 pounds. Take it through
those barriers over there, all five of them.”
She nodded, and walked through them all, and came back to him. He looked at her
face, and grabbed her wrist to check her pulse. “Not even phased, huh? Heh.”
She hated people who laughed at their own jokes. “Take this one now.” He gave
her another bag.
This one was twice as heavy. There wasn’t much trouble taking this bag through
the walls, either. She was having more trouble just carrying a bag nearly equal
to her weight several yards to the start point than she was phasing with it.
While phased, it weighed only a fraction of what it did when solid.
Howards raised his eyebrows as he watched her stagger back with the bag, and
drop it. “Guess we need to increase your weight training, but you’re such a
little thing… Brestin, you’ll get her strength up. I’ll write you up some goals
to get her to.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll work her real good.” He smirked.
“Um, sir,” she said quietly, with a reluctant tone. He nodded at her to
continue. “If I phase them over there to begin with, it doesn’t matter how much
it really weighs.”
He looked at her appraisingly, and nodded curtly, acknowledging her point.
“Still, it would be better if you were stronger. You’re not the twig you were
when you got here, but Missions are heavy work.” He gestured for her to come
over, and gave her both the bags, steadying her when she stumbled. “Try it with
these.”
She did, taking them through the walls, and got the bags back to Howards. She
frowned and dropped them, willing them to turn solid before they phased into
the deck. They thudded to the ground. “So, the main problem is just picking up
the weight? Okay… we can work on that. Load up your knives and take up your
boffers. Brestin, give her a good workout.”
Putting her knives on was almost as well worn a procedure as the litany was.
Howards liked her to be at her full fighting weight when dueling with the
Agents. Brestin picked up his padded sticks and walked to the circle. “Come on
at me, girly.”
She circled him and feinted. After the first exchange, she knew she was in for
a hard time today. Brestin was very good at knife fighting, and he had weight,
reach, and years of skill on her. He fought like the chalked boffers could do
her real damage, and was trying very hard to deal her some.
On her part, some of the edge of fear she’d had with Ox came back to her. There
was something about his eyes, and the way he looked at her, making her feel
like a piece of meat. She didn’t like it, not one little bit. The cool
calculation that had taken her then, of when to strike and where, was hers
again. She leaned on it hard, and put everything else aside. This was the
dance, the bullfight, the time to see whose blood would be shed, and she didn’t
mean for it to be hers.
Then it was over. In a quick exchange he smeared chalk on her neck from ear to
ear, and she’d lost. “Damn!” she muttered, irritated he’d taken her so easily.
Howards clapped. “Nice job, girl. You put some real effort into that, but you
haven’t worked up a sweat yet. Keep her at it until you’re ready to stop,
Brestin.”
“Yes, sir!” he said. He turned back to her, and saluted with the boffer. “En
garde!” And he charged at her with no further warning… She lost this one, too,
and the next. The fourth match, she got him with a tricky stab to his side as
she slipped by him. It seemed to annoy him, and he pasted her the next time,
bulling her over with his size. The last match was a mutual ‘kill’; she had her
point in his throat, while he had his jammed in her chest. He nodded
acknowledgement of her score, and backed off.
She was sweating now, almost panting as she fought to catch her breath. “Couple
jogs ‘round the room,” Brestin said. He went to the table to pick up the
clipboard Howards prepared for him. “Then we go to the weight room.”
She padded around the training room. What had Karla told her? ‘There’s no such
thing as permanency here.’ Wasn’t that the truth… She didn’t like her new
trainer, and less so all the time.
She took off her knives and changed into her sweats in the locker room. In the
weight room, he told her the new weights and reps, and Kitty bit back a groan.
She started doing them, though. There was no other choice. He watched her
closely as she worked the weights.
She didn’t think anything of it, at first. Vaile watched her, too, especially
when her reps/weights were changed, to make she didn’t strain herself. A Hound
had to obey, but a trainer responsible for getting one hurt or killed without
orders was in big trouble. They were considered valuable property to Shield.
But Brestin… A dull flush marked her face behind the evidence of her exertions.
It was where he was watching her that bothered her; her chest as she worked her
pectorals and upper body. Her crotch when she used a machine for thigh splits.
She could feel his eyes on her ass on yet another machine.
There was a glint in his eyes. One she’d seen in Ox, and at the Socials. Naked,
predatory, male interest. She’d never seen a look quite like it on Kurt’s face.
He had a similar look, but it was always alloyed with his love, and constant
adoration. This sort of look… made her feel that the male in question didn’t
care if she had a brain, or feelings, or a capacity for pain. It made her feel
like an object.
“So,” he said. “You seem to have recovered from your… trauma on Saturday.” He
nodded at the lower part of her body.
“Yes, sir.” She did not want to have this conversation, but she had to answer.
“Very strange, though, the way they set that fuzzy little monster to do it. If
they wanted you ‘trained’ in that way, they could have gotten a… volunteer.”
Kitty decided that wasn’t a question, and kept working at her weights.
“’Course, if you want some more ‘training’ like that, I could oblige you…” His
voice trailed off suggestively.
She was hard pressed to prevent a shudder. She was disgusted at the very notion
of this man thinking she could want him. Ew. She took a breath. “Ah, thank you,
sir. But I think it’s all I can do tonight to get these reps finished. Sir.”
He smirked at her. “Then we’ll just have to work on that stamina, now, won’t
we?”
“Yes, sir, Agent Brestin.” Why her? She wasn’t one of the pretty ones. The
beauties were never wasted on being Hounds. They were trained as ‘comfort’ for
the upper echelons of Shield. She finished with her weight work and just sat at
first. This was twice the work she was used to, and she was sore and tired.
“Okay, Hound,” he said. “It’s time for a nice hot shower.”
That sounded like a good idea. She went to the shower room, and was partly
undressed when she realized he’d followed her again. He raised an eyebrow at
her when she froze, and she made herself continue, trying to ignore him. She
finished stripping, and went into the tiled shower area, and started washing.
The walls around it were four feet high, just tall enough to mount the
showerheads and soap dishes, as well as provide a modicum of modesty.
That faint protection was no help at all when he stepped right up the wall and
watched her. She started to try to hurry through it, but he stopped her. “Take
your time, Hound. Mustn’t neglect your hygiene, right?”
Despite herself, she kept an eye on him from her peripheral vision. He was
moving a little oddly, behind the wall. His right shoulder rose and fell with a
rhythmic motion that gradually sped up. It hit her suddenly, what he was doing.
The pervert was jacking off, practically in front of her.
The worst thing about the situation was that if he ordered her to do anything…
she’d have to do it; no question, and no recourse, either. He grunted softly,
and smirked again. She turned away as he finished, and walked out. Just when
she thought the place couldn’t get any worse, she was proved wrong, again.
She leaned against the tiled wall, and slid to the floor, huddled in on
herself. She was still in the spray of the shower, and she stared at the swirls
pouring into the drain. If he did more than hint at his interest… and why the
hell was he interested in her? If he took it farther… Damnit, she was thinking
in circles again. She clutched her left hand to her breast, and drew strength
from Kurt’s love. He wanted her, and loved her, and that was all that mattered.
She got back up and washed again, feeling soiled from Brestin’s eyes on her.
She hurried through the rest of her shower. It was almost time for dinner, and
she didn’t want to be late. She had dispensation from the General to eat with
Kurt at the Missions dining room. It was mixed genders, unlike the normal ones,
and the food was pretty good.
She didn’t have a rank card yet, but part of the General’s experiment was that
they were to spend a lot of time together. The named Hounds tended to ignore
her, or stressed that she was a mere trainee while they had code names. Kitty
didn’t care, as long as she was with Kurt. She leaned on the wall outside,
unable to enter until he used his card for them both.
He came slowly up the hallway, hands in his pockets, and his tail twitchy. He
stopped when he reached her, and looked in her brown eyes. Dull confusion and
discomfort in his golden eyes was replaced by concern when he saw the distress
in hers. “Kätzchen?” he said softly.
She shook her head. “Later. Maybe. It’s just… training as changed.” That wasn’t
all that was wrong, but it was all she wanted to say for now.
He nodded, and took her arm. “Mine, too. Sucks, doesn’t it?”
She laughed. Did he learn that from her? “You have no idea.” By the time dinner
was over, they were almost back to normal. She felt the weight of another
burden in her life, but with Kurt beside her, she could handle it, and then
some.
On the way home, he put an arm around her. “You’re limping again.”
“They nearly doubled my weights regimen. So, yeah. The… uh, other reason I was
limping doesn’t bother me anymore.”
“It didn’t seem to be a problem this morning, liebe. I’m very glad.” He smiled
as they left the elevator.
“I bet...” she smiled. “I told Karla what a randy blue goat you are.”
He snorted. “Goat? I thought I was an elf, mein Kätzchen.”
“That, too.” She sighed when the door closed behind them. “I just want to soak
in the tub, mess around, and sleep.”
“If Saturday is any indication, you’ll be tempted to skip the middle step.”
She gave him a heated look. “Oh, no chance of that, love. Tonight… I need you.”
“Sounds promising. You get undressed, and I’ll draw your bath.”
She kept hold of his arm as he started to leave, and he turned to her. She
kissed him, lingeringly, with all the feeling and affection that was in her
expressed by her kiss. He blinked when they came up for air, a tender smile on
his face. She traced the smile with her fingers. “I love you, Kurt, with all of
me.”
“I love you too, Kätzchen.” He embraced her, holding her close. She clutched
her arms around him, taking comfort from his presence.
When she leaned back, he went to the bathroom ahead of her. She undressed in
the bedroom, and followed him in. She soaked in the hot water, watching him as
he watched her. “Aren’t you going to ask me what’s wrong?”
He stroked her cheek. “No. You know you can talk to me about anything. When
you’re ready to, you will.”
“Thanks, love. I don’t want to talk about it tonight, I think. I need to chew
on it some more.”
“It doesn’t look like it tastes very good,” he said.
“You’re right about that. Well, I’m done here. Go turn down the bed?”
He leaned down to kiss her, and then helped her to stand. “I will await you,”
then he slipped out.
She didn’t want to tell him about Brestin. It would make him angry; maybe angry
enough to try something stupid. And the trainer hadn’t really done anything,
yet. She sighed. So, why did it feel wrong not to tell him?
She came into the bedroom, and found him sitting on the bed. She turned off the
light and made her way in the dark by the beacons that were his eyes. She
encountered the edge of the bed, and moved down into his arms. He didn’t seem
to be in any hurry to turn his attentions to the intimate, and neither was she.
Eventually they did come together, and that was quiet, too; peaceful and
loving.
They held each other for a long time, just sharing the warmth of their contact.
His breathing finally began to setting into the gentle rasp of his sleep. She
snuggled closer to him, rubbing her cheek of the soft fuzz of his chest, and
her fingers moving lightly through the softness of his fur. His tail came up,
and rubbed along her lower back, and she smiled. Even in his sleep, he returned
her caresses.
Marrying him was the best thing she’d ever done.
***** Kurt - Trainers and Tormentors, part 2 *****
It was worth getting up early to see the look on her face when he told her they
could take some ‘personal time’ this morning before work. If there was nothing
keeping them from being together, he meant to seize any opportunity to hold
her. Making love to his Kätzchen was something he would never get tired of.
Cheerfully he ate the breakfast she prepared, and kissed her goodbye at the
door. A tremor went through him as he heard the elevator door close. Once out
of his sight, anything at all might happen to her. They probably wouldn’t
injure or kill her, not with all the expense of training invested in her, but
anything short of that was entirely possible.
He arrived at the garbage room, and checked in, getting to work. He hummed
along with the music they played over the speakers. Some sort of news talk-
radio program was playing in Joe’s office, and it provided a low-level counter
noise he couldn’t quite understand.
Near noon, Joe gestured at him to come up to his office. As he neared, he
finally picked out some of the broadcast. “…ther news, the Chairman of the
Senate again questioned Director Murray of Shield about the lack of progress
against the Mutant Raiders. The…” He heard Joe curse, as the man scrambled to
turn it off. He kept any reaction off his face. Mutant raiders? So that’s why
Joe would never give him a radio.
“You asked to see me, sir?” he said, ignoring the nervous look on Joe’s face as
he moved away from the radio.
“Yeah.” Joe shut the door. “I wanted to hear from you just what happened this
weekend. First you don’t show up, and then you come in this morning like
nothing happened. No one tells me anything about it, of course. So, spill.”
“Remember the girl I met?” Joe nodded. “She was down here again Friday, and we…
fell asleep on the couch together. She missed work, too.
“Oh boy. Bet they put your asses to the fire for that.”
“Ja. They were not happy with us. They questioned us and put us in the brig for
hours. Then they directed us to entertain them… by making love where they could
watch us.”
“Yer shittin’ me… They did what?”
“Nein, they did. Our first times, too.” He shrugged. “Then they moved her in
with me, and gave us Sunday off together. She still has to work upstairs, but
she spends her nights with me.”
“And I bet you’re just all upset about that.” Joe grinned at him.
Kurt returned his own smile, and then he affected a saddened expression. “We
are just terribly heartbroken by it.”
“So that’s why you had such a happy tail today, huh?”
“Was? Uh, what do you mean?” Kurt tilted his head, confused.
“That tail of yours tells the world how yer feelin’, if they care to look. If
you’re mopey, it hangs down, and if you’re happy it bounces around and shit.
Happy tail; happy you. Get it?
“Ja. I get it. Excuse me if I don’t tell her that one.”
“Bet she’s already figured it out. Girls are like that.”
“Probably. Is that all? I’d like to get my lunch?”
“Yeah, get on outta here, and don’t have too much fun, ‘kay?”
Kurt laughed. “Is there such a thing?” Joe just shook his head as he left.
* * *
He washed up and ate lunch. He kept watching the door, but she didn’t show up.
It would be silly for her to come down, only to leave again, but it didn’t stop
him from wishing she would. He left only when he had to and not be late for
training.
Kneeling, he paid his respects to Shield with his lips, while praying to God in
his heart. He feared this practice stretched the promise he’d made to renew his
commitment to the training, but he didn’t think that it broke it. It was a
promise made under duress, after all.
Agent Brestin wasn’t there; instead it was Kitty’s lady trainer, and another
female agent, in addition to Combs. He started his day by picking a series of
progressively harder locks, followed by a very tough safe with a strict time
limit. He managed to open it with a half minute to spare.
Then he went through his acrobatics series on the special equipment mounted on
the ceiling and walls that very few used beside himself. All three of them
pocked at him with the paint guns. He had a feeling it was a kind of
entertainment for them to try to shoot him. His innate sense of showmanship
urged him to play with the exercise; to tease them by almost letting them hit
him, but his common sense talked him out of it.
Combs called him over by the table. “You’ve gotten to the point that you can’t
be challenged in combat by any but the best trainers. As of today, you’ll be
sparring with other Hounds. Today, and for a while, your opponent will be
Stalker. I believe you may be acquainted with him…”
“Hey, altar boy,” a familiar voice drawled behind him.
Kurt’s tail thrashed once, and then he clenched his jaws to prevent baring his
fangs. If it wasn’t his ‘old friend’, Brad. For a second, a thrill of fear went
through him, as he remembered the late night get-togethers the man used to
arrange for him.
But only for a moment. He wasn’t the same boy now who had shivered in fear of
the man. Brad had done a lot to make his and Kätzchen’s life here miserable.
Perhaps it was time to return the favor… He turned around, and gave him a bare
nod. The man looked almost impressive in his fighting gear.
He was a good head taller than Kurt, and much more massively built. He carried
his bulk fairly well, but there was a hint of plodding to his step. Kurt
noticed a slight thickening of his neck that told him much. He was worked hard,
they all were, but they didn’t keep Brad on as fine an edge as he was; too
little adrenaline, and too much good food.
All of that noted, this would not be easy. Brad was a lot bigger than Kurt,
obviously stronger, and a seasoned fighter. This would be interesting, and it
was time to get started. He went to the table and put on his metal gauntlets,
flexing his blunt fingers within the intricate jointings.
Brad rolled his shoulders and cracked his knuckles. “Nice mittens, boy. Your
little hands not tough enough to do the job?” Kurt ignored the jibe.
“Nightcrawler, huh?” Brad continued. “Named you after your tail?”
“Very funny. What about you, oh Stalker-after-parked-cars?”
“I’m a hunter. I track down runaway mutants.” He tapped his head. “I can sense
‘em wherever they go, and I can subdue ‘em when I find ‘em.”
Combs chuckled, and both Hounds looked at him. He just gestured for them to
take the start places they were already approaching. “Seems you two are ready
for this little encounter. So start already.”
“Jawohl, Herr Combs.” Brad was a mutant hunter, the traitorous scum.
“My pleasure, Agent Combs.” Brad grinned evilly.
Kurt stood loose, ready to move. He whispered so only Brad could hear him.
“You’ll find I’m not so easy a target when I’m not trapped in bed sheets.”
“We’ll see about that, runt," his foe said in an equally quiet voice. "I’ve
missed your cute little cries of pain.”
Kurt ported behind and above him and clouted him the back of the head with his
gauntlet, at the same time he kneed Brad in the back with his full falling
weight. Then he ported in front of his opponent again, as Brad started to turn
to his back, and punched him in his deceptively large gut.
Kurt almost dodged the reflexive backhand from Brad. It clipped him a little,
but not enough to daze him. He danced backwards, and Brad charged, a huge fist
coming in an undercut blow that would crush ribs if it connected. It didn’t.
Kurt flipped into a handstand and launched both his heels in a slam to the
solar plexus, jolting Brad backwards.
So, the pattern of battle formed. Kurt couldn’t stand toe to toe with the big
man, no more than Kitty could with Ox, but he could hit and run, and try to
stay out of reach. But the more they fought, the faster Brad became. The
frustration of not being able to lay his hands on Kurt was inspiring him to
reach levels of effort that he didn’t think Brad had reached in a while.
Big hands caught him around a muscled thigh, and Kurt was swung by it to the
floor, hard. He panted as Brad smirked, drawing back a fist. Kurt ported to the
top of the gym equipment, and watched as Brad punched the floor with a barely
pulled blow. The big man growled, and turned unerringly to his foe. Kurt ported
to one of the top corners of the room, and Brad turned to him again.
He couldn’t runaway forever, but Brad couldn’t get to him here, either. Stalker
loped over to the corner, and pulled something from his belt. He activated it
and threw it up at Kurt. It expanded into a net, crackling with energy. Kurt
ported back to the gym equipment. “So that’s where you get your habit of
beating up people who can’t fight back. I should have known.” The red flush of
anger on Brad’s face was reaching comic proportions.
Brad growled again and moved to the equipment. “When I get my hands on you,
little monkey, I’ll pull that tail out by the roots and tear off your dick.
Then we’ll see how much the little Jew cunt likes you.”
“Only if you can catch me, oh hunter of snails.” Kurt’s voice was light and
mocking, but he felt as winded as Brad looked. He wasn’t sure how much longer
he would be able to avoid the man. At close range, Kurt would be a world
trouble.
They played a little hide and seek among the bars and rings. Kurt used his
speed and agility, conserving his energy to teleport. His caution paid off. In
a canny move, Stalker cornered him, out of sight of the trainers. “This is it,
runt,” he whispered. “A little training ‘accident’… and your Kitten’s up for
grabs, and I mean to do the grabbin’...”
Kurt narrowed his eyes, and tried to find a space in this nook of bars and wood
that he could port to, and escape. The fur on his neck stood up as he realized
he couldn’t see around Brad, and the man’s hand was closing over his face. He
ported blind, several yards out and a few feet up, his facing to the equipment.
He landed lightly, as Brad screamed in frustration, fighting his way out of the
press of equipment.
Kurt closed his eyes and thought about what he’d just felt. He could tell
exactly where he was porting in relation to where he started from, his head
mapped the exact distances in three dimensions. The only thing he couldn’t tell
was if there was an obstacle in his way, which explained his initial need to
see his target. But if he was in an open space like he was now, his matured
power could pin point port locations much faster than he could mark them with
his eyes.
Brad broke out of the equipment and closed in on him. Kurt kept his eyes on
him, and spread out his spatial senses. Brad slowed, confused by the sight of
Kurt just crouching there, waiting for him. Then he lunged at the boy. Bamf. A
kick to the back of the neck… Bamf. An elbow slammed squarely in the shell of
his left ear… Bamf. A metal gauntlet to the side of the nose… Bamf… Bamf… Bamf…
Each port marked a blossom of pain in Brad’s body, from a wildly different
direction and orientation.
Brad’s hunter senses weren’t working at all. They only told him Kurt was near
and close to hand, and he already knew that. The tang of blood scented the air,
some from Brad, some from Kurt. Unable to lay a hand on the dervish whirling
around him, Brad tried to back up to a corner of the room.
“Hold!” Combs shouted. Brad huddled on the floor, hands clasped over his
bruising head and face. Kurt appeared panting a few yards away, fangs bared and
his nostrils red with seeping blood. “Both of you, approach the table.” Brad
was treated for minor skin tears and scrapes. Kurt only needed a cloth pressed
to his nose until it stopped bleeding. “Stalker, you need to work on your
speed,” Combs said. “I’ll note that in your file.”
“Yes, sir,” Brad said, glaring at Kurt.
“Nice work, Nightcrawler. That multiple porting routine will be a nice addition
to your combat skills. Do a half set of weights, and shower up.”
“Yes, sir,” Kurt said. He ignored Brad. The fear had been cleansed from him.
Bigger the man might be, but he wasn’t tougher than Kurt was. His weights set
didn’t take long. Vaile supervised him, and talked quietly to her companion. He
took a long hot shower, soaking the bruises out of his muscles. He came into
the dressing room with a towel wrapped around his middle, and started the long
process of drying off enough to get dressed.
He was mostly done when they approached him. Vaile and her friend observed him
with little smiles on their faces, smiles that he didn’t like. He froze,
sitting on the bench, a towel over his hair, his hands simply holding it here,
now that he wasn’t rubbing it anymore. Vaile plucked the towel from his hands,
and her friend came in on his other side. He stiffened when he felt exploring
hands touching his back.
Soon two pairs of hands were… petting him. It was the only way he could
describe it. He clutched his left hand into a fist and remembered Kätzchen.
They scratched through the nap of his fur and smoothed it back down, all the
while never a saying a word to him, only exclaiming at the softness of him to
each other. He might as well have been a plush toy, and they didn’t bother to
ask him, of course.
He fought against enjoying the experience, but it wasn’t hard to do. The
humiliation of being petting like an animal, without his consent, did much to
stifle his reaction to being stroked. He made an unconscious sound of annoyance
when the woman from the Pysch department started toying with his tail.
She raised an eyebrow at him. “So, what sort of things did you say he was doing
with this?”
Vaile laughed. “It’s like another hand, or a tongue, and he can send it
anywhere while the rest of him is busy…”
Kurt closed his eyes and made himself sit quietly, enduring their attentions in
stoic silence. Except he couldn’t help but to squirm when the woman breathed
hotly on the end of his tail. They laughed at his reaction. Patting him
condescendingly on the head, they turned and left the dressing room. Kurt
shuddered in revulsion and rage, then got himself under control and dressed. He
didn’t want to be late for dinner with Kätzchen.
He went to the mission dining hall, taking his time, and thinking. The...
incident that had just happened disturbed him. It bothered him that the petting
might lead to… another kind of petting. One that he would be equally unable to
decline. He didn’t like the idea. His personal space had been pretty much
respected, except by Brad and his friends. It was hard to train a fighter when
they didn’t have any sense of worth or self-dignity left.
It was these thoughts that led him to Kätzchen, leaning on the wall outside the
dining room. Her eyes had much the same distress that had to be visible in his.
He said her name softly, but she deflected his question. She didn’t want to
talk about what was bothering her, and in truth, neither did he.
He ignored the glares from Brad’s table, as they ate together. The bully was
saying something disparaging about Kitty to his friends, just loudly enough for
Kurt to hear. He didn’t give Brad the satisfaction of seeing his annoyance, and
he kept his tail wrapped around his lady’s leg.
As they went back to their quarters, he gave her his arm. “You’re limping
again.” She blamed the extra weights, reassuring him that otherwise she was
fine. “It didn’t seem to be a problem this morning, liebe. I’m very glad.”
“I bet…” she said. “I told Karla what a randy blue goat you are.”
“Goat?” Did she have any idea how much they smelled? “I thought I was an elf,
mein Kätzchen.” That too, apparently. She was eager for a soak, and he resigned
himself for an early bedtime. She reassured him of that, too, with loving words
and a kiss that warmed him all through. She held him tightly, with a hint of
desperation, but he was willing to wait until she was ready to talk about it,
and he told her so.
After her bath, they made love, slowly and deliberately. He brought her to
satisfaction, but he felt that something was bothering her, even as he loved
her. He fell asleep holding her, worry making his sleep restless.
***** Kitty – The Hands of Mercy *****
Kitty was on the edge well into the next week. Agent Brestin still leered at
her, and made lewd suggestions, but never went so far as to initiate any
contact. She couldn’t bring herself to tell anyone, but the two people closest
to her could tell she was disturbed by something. Her tension communicated
itself to them, just as theirs communicated to her.
Kurt was also nervous about something he hadn’t told her about. He was
solicitous as always, a constant comfort for her, but something was weighing
upon her husband. She tried to be there for him, as he always was for her.
Karla was really focused on her own performance, and as edgy as Kitty had ever
seen her. “I’ve never really done well on my missions, Kitty,” Karla told her.
“I never completely failed, but I’ve never earned my mission card, either. I
just gotta do it, this time.”
It wasn’t clear to Kitty what was so important to her friend, but she tried to
support and encourage her anyway. On Thursday, Karla gave her a hug as she
left, despite the guard’s glower. Tomorrow was the mission day. “Good luck,
Karla,” Kitty said.
“Thanks, sweety. I think I’m gonna need it.”
* * *
It was lonely without her. Without her friend to talk to, it was five hours of
damp, noisy drudgery. Dirty clothes came in, were sorted, washed, dried, sorted
again and sent back to the wearer. Every part of the work was unpleasant in
unique and interesting ways.
Saturday morning shift was a repeat of Friday. It was just work now. Karla
should have been back today… She knew better than to ask about her. That was a
big no-no. You never asked where a Hound disappeared to. They just did
sometimes, and often they never returned. As Kitty was leaving her lunch, Major
Hedrick and Trainer Howards intercepted her. What was Howards doing here on a
Saturday?
“Hound,” Howards said. “Let’s go back to the dining room.” The other lunching
Hounds left the room as they found a clean table to talk. A work detail came in
and started cleaning up, carefully ignoring Kitty and the men.
The major nodded at Howards, and the agent did the talking at first. “We are
here to offer you an opportunity, girl. A situation has come up, and it has
been determined by the major’s department that the most advantageous way to
exploit it is by offering you a chance to earn your Mission card, by performing
a special test, today aboard the Carrier.”
She could get her own Mission card? That would be nice. But… what would she
have to do? “What is the nature of the test?” she said.
The major spoke this time. “To fully understand what we are asking, you have to
understand what happens to a Hound or a Worker who is no longer of any use.
They are not simply executed, they are studied, to see what makes their
mutations function. Once the mutant is dead, the study is continued post-
mortem, but they much prefer to begin the studies before that…”
Kitty shuddered. Shades of Doctor Mengele[*]…
“We have in our custody a Hound who has ‘washed out’, and is no longer useful
to the program. The research department is clamoring for the rights, but your
trainer has a previously standing claim on such a person to provide a
graduation test for yourself.” He leaned back in his chair. “My department was
called in to make sure that you were able to handle the assignment.”
Kitty frowned. “And what is the assignment…?”
“A useless Hound is a dead Hound, as you well know. It is the manner of death
that is the question here. So, what will it be for them? Live vivisection, or a
fast, clean death… by your knives?
“You want me to…” Oh, God. “Why me?”
Howards took up the argument. “Because, for all your target practice, and the
duel with Ox, you’ve never killed. We didn’t give you those blades as a fashion
statement. We want you to kill with them. You need the actually experience to
get you over the hump, and Major Hedrick here thinks that by posing it as a
favor to the target, that it might be easier on you. Up to you, though.”
“Ca-can I see the… target first, before I decide, and talk to them?”
Howards looked at Hedrick, and the major nodded. “Yes. That will convince you
that the target has agreed to this form of execution, as opposed to the other
option.”
Part of her wanted to be sick. More of her was trembling on the knife-edge
between withdrawal and hysteria. She felt like pieces of her wanted to fly
apart at the seams and never return. Blood. It all came back to blood. She
stared down at the table. This was the choice she’d made, to protect Kurt.
“I want to see the person, talk to them, first. Before I decide.”
They looked at each other. Hedrick cleared his throat. “I believe that you know
her.”
Kitty grimaced, her eyes screwing shut. Karla. They wanted her to kill Karla.
But if it was that or let the butchers at her… “How do I know that this…
vivisection thing you mentioned is real?”
Hedrick nodded again. “I thought you might ask that. I brought some
photographic records. They’re disturbing.” He put a photo album on the table.
In it were page after page of subjects, each starting with a ‘before’ pictured,
and ending with the ‘after’. In between were several shots of the procedures
done on the mutants, who were obviously awake and aware of them. The pictures
showed some faces that were screaming, and some that were weeping. All wound up
dead in the closing shot. Eventually.
Kitty closed the book with trembling hands. “Can I see her now?”
Howards nodded. “She’s set up in your training room.”
Kitty walked with them to the room. She went to the dressing room first, and
put on her cat suit, and all that it entailed, settling the wrist sheaths on
her arms. Then she went into the training room. Karla was bound onto a brace,
sort of a gurney tilted up at a steep, nearly vertical angle. She looked beaten
up. One arm bore heavy bandages, and there were marks of combat everywhere
Kitty could see. Over her belly were three neat parallel cuts through her
uniform that had barely marked the flesh underneath.
Kitty couldn’t help but try to analyze what had made the marks on her stomach,
and elsewhere on her friend. Some kind of tri-bladed knife, maybe? Karla looked
up, and Kitty’s belly knotted at the despair she could in her eyes. Karla
nodded to her painfully, and Kitty approached her.
“Hey… Kit.” Her voice was hoarse and halting. “Don’t… believe. Everything… you
see. S…stay…”
Her last word was interrupted by Hedrick. “Ask the question you came here to
ask.”
Kitty bit the inside of her lip. What was she about to say? “Do you want…
this…” She patted the blades on her arms, “Instead of… the other… the
research?”
Karla looked her full in the eyes. “Trust you. Make it… quick. Clean. Don’t
trust… them.” Her eyes closed. “M’sorry. Please.”
“Well, Hound?” Howards asked. “The first kill is always the hardest. If you
decline this, your next opportunity may not be so easy on you.”
Kitty wanted to scream at him, you think this is easy? But it was. She had to
do it. Karla was her friend, and she couldn’t let her die a slow and merciless
death. She just couldn’t. “I’ll do it.” Her tone was flat and distant.
Karla looked up again, a glimmer of gratitude in her reddened eyes. “Thanks,
Kit,” she whispered. “Sorry. So sorry.”
Kitty nodded brusquely, and paced off to her target practice range. “Close your
eyes,” she ordered. “I don’t want you to flinch.” Karla screwed her eyes
tightly shut, her breath coming in gasps of anxious fear. Kitty looked for her
center and found it, with an effort, in Kurt. Shikt. The daggers snapped to her
hands. Cleansing breath. Heart. Left eye. Bright blood splattered from the
wounds. Karla lurched in her bonds, and gave a painful gasp, then collapsed
limply, her last breath leaking from her in a sigh.
Kitty flinched, but made herself finish the pattern. She drew the other two
daggers from her boots. Right eye. Throat. No movement from the body. No sound
except the wet thunks of steel striking flesh. The throat wound hardly bled at
all, and it was dark and sluggish.
“Excellent marksmanship, Shadowcat,” Howards said. “Retrieve and clean your
blades.” Kitty picked up a towel from the trainer table, and walked up to the
corpse that had once been a friend.
The dagger in the throat came out pretty easily, with a scrape against
cartilage. The ones in the eye sockets withdrew with a sucking sound that made
Kitty struggle to keep her lunch. She had to give a yank to the blade
protruding from the ribs. It was caught on the rib cage a little, but then
pulled free. She took them to the table, and cleaned them thoroughly. She
wanted no telltale trace left to remind her of this… crime of compassion.
Some orderlies came in and cranked the brace down to the horizontal and wheeled
it out. Kitty followed it with her eyes. Shalom, Karla. May you be in a better
place. She could feel Hedrick watching her, so she turned around and looked
right back, raising her eyebrows at him.
“You may be controlling your reaction,” he told her, “but be assured, there
will be one. It’s human nature.”
Oh. So, now I’m human. News to me. She nodded.
Howards handed her a Mission card. “You can have the afternoon work shift off.
The Hounds lounge is a good place to hang out. It’s next door to the Mission
dining room.”
“Thank you, sir. That sounds like a good idea.” She took off her knives and
went to the showers, trying to wash the stench of guilt from her. No luck. She
changed into her jumpsuit and went to the lounge. There were televisions here,
and magazines, all of which appeared to be heavily censored. Nothing resembling
'news' was allowed to reach the Hounds. She curled up in a chair and blankly
watched sitcom re-runs. It was going to be a long time until dinner…
* * *
This time she loitered inside the dining room, waiting for Kurt. A guy Hound
she didn’t know tried to shoulder her aside on general principles, even though
she wasn’t in his way. “Watchit, no-name.” She dodged and tripped him so he
stumbled.
“Got a name, so fuck off,” she said.
“Little Kitty’s got some claws, now?” Brad laughed as he heard this. “I don’t
believe you.”
She showed him the card. “It doesn’t matter what you think, Brad.” He snatched
it out of her hand, and held it out of her reach, laughing. She grabbed him and
phased them both knee deep into the deck. “Now, what happens if I let you go,
Brad? They’ll have to cut ‘em off, and then the research guys’ll get you. Give.
Me. The. Card.” He did, and she lifted them above the floor, and dropped him.
She air-walked to the door, and finally went solid when she saw Kurt. She gave
him a hard hug. When they pulled apart, he took the card from her hand and
looked at it, then gave it back to her. He smelled… sooty. “Hi love,” she said.
“Liebchen,” he murmured, and kissed her on the cheek. “Let’s eat.”
Dinner was quiet, and so was the walk home. When he closed their door, he put
on some music and took her to the couch. “Can I tell you about my day at work,
Kätzchen?”
She nodded. Anything, so she didn’t have to talk about her day.
“It was a regular day, until the second shift.” She flinched, but he continued
as if he hadn’t noticed. “Late in the shift, we got a ‘special disposal’
delivery. Joe and another guy usually deal with those, but the guy was out sick
today. Joe called me to help him with it.” He played with his tail, not looking
at her.
“We wheeled it to the furnace room, and I smelled… death, and blood. There’s
this incinerator, with a sliding tray, like… a crematorium. We picked up the…
body, and the sheet slipped off. I saw her.”
Kitty covered her face with her hands. He knew.
“Despite the wounds, I knew her face. I must have said her name, because Joe
asked me if I knew her. I said, yes, she’d introduced us to each other. She
was… our friend.” He took Kitty in his arms again, and she shivered when she
caught the faint smell of smoke in his hair. “We put her through the fire,
Kätzchen. It reeked so, even with the blowers running.”
He was quiet for a while. “Joe left, during. When her ashes came out, he
scooped some up in a little tin, and gave it to me. ‘Nobody does anything for
them,’ he told me. ‘Maybe you can think of something’. Then he had me scrape
the rest of the ashes into a bucket, and throw them overboard. That’s how dead
Hounds are treated. Like rubbish.”
She clung to him desperately, burying her face in the velvet of his neck. “I
recognized the knife pattern you’d told me about,” he said. “So, I know you
were the one that did it. When I saw the card, I knew they gave it to you for
doing it. But… will you tell me… why?”
“There’s this research department here, Kurt. Doctors and scientists. They
study mutants, and their powers, living and dead. They love to dissect them.
Dead, if they have to, alive if they can. They wanted her, to cut her up alive.
Howards had a claim for… some Hound under a death mark, so I could… have my
first kill. I saw the pictures, of them doing things… and they were awake and
screaming. That was why I even thought of doing it.”
She pulled back and looked in his eyes. “She asked me to, Kurt. They let me
talk to her. She said… that I’d make it quick and clean. She said… please.” She
was crying finally, shaking.
He looked back at her face for a long moment, and nodded. He reached into his
thigh pocket, and removed a little candy tin. “Here’s what’s left. The rest of
her must have… landed already. Ach, mein Kätzchen, you must feel so terrible.”
She nodded jerkily and burst into racking sobs. He held her and whispered words
of comfort to her. She just wanted it to go away, as he’d helped her chase her
other nightmares away…
But this one wasn’t leaving. Now, truly, there was blood on her hands, and some
remaining fragment of innocence left within her, died. This one she couldn’t
dismiss, because she’d been given the option to refuse and she’d consented to
the act. She had no one to blame for this sin, but herself, God help her. “I
feel so old and ugly,” she whispered. “I’m a murderer.”
“You did it out of mercy, Kätzchen, not a desire to kill.”
“She’s still dead, and nothing will change that.”
“From what you told me, she would be dead now, anyway. She was granted the
choice of her death, and she asked for you, her friend.” He took her cold hands
in his, ignoring her flinch. “These are the hands of mercy, liebe.”
“Killing is still killing.” Thou shalt not kill…
“Even the legal system recognizes degrees of killing. Willing killing is
murder, yes, but something like this, they call it manslaughter.”
“Sounds even uglier.” She sniffed and scrubbed her nose.
“But it is why you did it, liebe, that makes all the difference. Mein
Kätzchen?”
“Yes?” How could he look at her, after…
“I love you. I will always love you, no matter what you’ve done. Now, come to
bed with me, wife. The morning comes early.”
“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Kurt.”
“Nor I, without you, my schatz.”
 
[*]For more of the Angel of Death, check out Wikipedia.
***** Kurt - A Marriage Made In Hell *****
Kitty woke up with a scream. She scrambled up and lashed at the fragments of
nightmare that wakefulness was chasing away. Kurt sat up and wrapped his arms
around her, and pinned her thrashing body until his soft worried voice
penetrated her terror. “Hush liebe. It’s all right. It’s just a dream.
Liebchen, be calm, shh.”
“K… Kurt? Oh, God, I dreamed… I dreamed…”
“I can guess, my liebe. The ‘I’m sorry’ kind of gave it away.” He held her
tight as she shuddered in his arms. He looked at the clock and decided it was
too late to get back asleep. Scooping her up, he carried her to the bath and
sat her down while he ran a hot bath. He put her in it, in front of him, so he
could keep holding her.
She leaned back against him and wept, brokenly. Now that she was awake, he
didn’t try to quiet her. She needed to cry, needed to let it out. All he could
do was let her grieve, and hold her. When she was cried out he washed her,
soaping off the sour sweat of fear that slicked her skin. He washed her hair,
running his hands through the damp chestnut curls. Her hair was growing out of
the short plush they had clipped it to, and he could see that it would be wavy.
When she was clean and relatively calm, he slipped out of the bath. Drying as
fast as he could, he prepared a hot breakfast. “It is ready liebe, come and
eat.” Kitty wandered out to the table, wrapped in towels. She sat and stared at
her plate numbly as he dished food into it. “Eat, liebe, or I’ll… I’ll tickle
you.”
Her brows furrowed at her plate. “You wouldn’t.” She muttered.
“Do you want to test me? I’ll be forced to use even more drastic measures, if
you don’t eat.”
She started muttering, and he could only pick out words here and there. “… mean
cruel elf… … blue fuzz-butt…” But she picked up her fork and started eating. “…
not hungry…”
He smiled. “Complain about my blue fuzzy butt all you like, Kätzchen, as long
as I can see you eating. The body needs fuel, even if you’re upset. Maybe more
so.” She ate most of it, and pushed the plate to him. He scooped what was left
onto his plate, and when he finished that, he filled it one last time.
“It’s a wonder you aren’t totally round with all that you eat.”
“Enhanced metabolism. It gives me energy. Without all that I eat I’d be a very
sad, sluggish elf.” He stood up and hunched far over, one hand pressed to his
back, the other holding his tail like a crooked rubbery cane. He took a few
tottering steps around the kitchen, looking for all the world like some old men
she’d seen in the retirement home.
She chuckled, covering her mouth as her shoulders shook.
“Eh, girly? What’s that? Are you laughing at me?” he piped in a high querulous
voice. “It’s not nice to make fun of your elders!” He pointed at her with a
twitching finger, waggling his eyebrows ferociously. She burst out laughing,
and threw a cloth napkin at him. His tail snaked up and grabbed it, and he
straightened up so he could give her a grand bow. “Danke, danke. I’ll be here
all week.” He came up behind her and cuddled her, nuzzling her neck. “Feel
better, liebe?”
“Yeah… just… not much to laugh about, today.”
“I know Kätzchen, but we live to laugh again.” He leaned around and caught her
mouth with his. The kiss was sweet, and lingered, while back in the bedroom his
alarm went off.
“That still set a half-hour early?” He nodded, and she pulled him into the main
room. “Cuddle with me, before we have to go to work?”
“You don’t have to ask me twice. Holding you is my dearest delight.” He
embraced her. She hummed and leaned against him, losing some more of the
crippling tension she’d woken with.
His sense of timing nudged him when it was time to dress. “Come along, liebe.
We need to get ready.” She met him at the door, later, and he took her hand.
“Tonight we’ll do something to commemorate her, all right?”
“Sounds good. I knew you’d think of something.” She looked down. “I can’t see
past my guilt, yet.”
“Give it time, Kätzchen. Just… give it time.”
She shrugged. “Time is all I have to give, and even that isn’t mine. She
squeezed his hand, and walked to the elevator.
* * *
Kurt’s work shift dragged on. He tried to remember every time he’d seen someone
pitch a bucket of ash over the railing of the open bay. Dozens, it had to be
dozens of times. And every time, it might have been the remains of a fellow
mutant, thrown careless away. It made a man want to give it to hate, Gott knew.
He was used to the stench, but he really didn’t care all that much about
separating the glass and cans today. It was just something to be done, whether
he wanted to or not. Never a stranger to hard work, he’d cut plenty of firewood
and tended to lots of horses during his years with the Romany. He’d never felt
taken advantage of there; the work he did benefited everyone, directly or not.
Here, he was grimly aware that his work served only to line the pockets of his
masters. It was the worst kind of slavery.
By lunchtime he’d worked up to a fine snit of temper. His tail lashed as he
stalked from the bay. He reached his quarters, made a few sandwiches, and
ported to the beam opposite the vent in the hull-space. Getting angry would
help nothing. He pulled a blanket from his cache in a high intersection of
girders, and watched the ground pass by below as he ate his lunch.
When he finished, he took the knot-work rosary from his pocket, and began
reciting prayers, bending his mind to calmness. It wasn’t Joe’s fault. The man
was decent to him and he almost worked Hound’s hours, except Kurt was sure that
he was paid, and got overtime. He was pretty well centered by the time he
reported back. He did his job efficiently, with no wasted movements.
Joe called him to the office at the end of the second shift. “It’s real obvious
you ain’t happy today, and I can’t say as I blame ya. See that little book? Put
it in your pocket. I don’t know nothing about it, clear?”
Kurt put the small white book in his thigh pocket. “Crystal, mein Herr.” Kurt
saw Joe grimace. “Sorry Joe.”
“No problem. Now, scat, and stop scaring my workers.”
Was? He looked around as he left. It looked like the bay workers had gotten a
reminder today that Kurt was a Hound, trained for combat. He put a smile on his
face, and waved as he left. A few waved back, but most were doggedly not
looking at him. Verdammt, that as all he needed, to be scaring the few decent
normals he had contact with by his thoughtless actions.
He went home, and put the book in his secret stash high up in the beams. Then
he cleaned up and hurried to the Hall to dine with Kätzchen. She was waiting
for him, as always. She looked tired and depressed, but she greeted him with a
kiss, and they got their food.
As people left the hall, Brad stopped by their table. “I heard what happened
yesterday. Man, she’s got more balls than you do, altar-boy.” Kitty looked up
at him with a scowl, clutching her dinner knife like it was one of her weapons.
Kurt reached over and delicately, but firmly, removed it from her hand. “Remind
me you said that, Herr Stalker of slugs, the next time you and I spar, hmm?”
Brad smirked, but walked away without further comment. “I’m going to have to
give him a serious beating tomorrow,” Kurt muttered.
“Kurt, he’s bigger than you, he’ll cream you.”
“Didn’t stop me from pasting the floor with him on Friday. Eventually.”
“Eventually? Is that what was bothering you?”
“Eh? Ah, no. That was something else, and I’m still thinking about it. Can we
go now?” He got up and pulled out her chair.
“Sure. We have plans tonight.”
* * *
Up by the vent, Kitty cuddled in a blanket, as Kurt took a moment to study the
little book by the indirect starlight. It was a tiny thing, a few centimeters
across and slightly taller than it was wide. It was less than a couple of
centimeters thick, but crammed full with nearly transparently thin pages
printed in a small but readable typeface.
“What is it, love?” she asked him.
“Something Joe told me to take. It’s a copy of the Book of Common Prayer, 1952
Episcopal edition.” He looked at the gold foil name printed under the cross on
the cover. “Issued to one Kimberly Anne Johansson, and apparently never used.
[*] He leafed through the table of contents. “Ser Gut. This has all the Psalms,
so it’s something we can both use.”
He smiled at her, and thumbed through more pages. “’Burial of the Dead’. Ach,
this goes on for pages and pages… let me find where it gets to the point. Here
it is.”
“Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of
misery. He cometh up, and is cut down like a flower; he fleeth as it were
shadow, and never continueth in one stay. In the midst of life we are in death;
of whom may we seek succor, but of thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly
displeased? Yet, O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty, O holy and most
merciful Saviour, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death. Thou
knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts; shut not thy merciful ears to our
prayer; but spare us, Lord most holy, O God most mighty, O holy and merciful
Saviour, thou most worthy Judge eternal, suffer us not, at our last hour, for
any pains of death to fall from thee.”
Kitty was sniffling, and she fidgeted with the tin in her hands.
“Unto almighty God we commend the soul of our Sister departed, and we commit
her body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure
and certain hope of the Resurrection unto eternal life. …Amen.”
“Amen,” she echoed.
He tucked to book away, and leaped to the vent, snatching hold of one of the
vanes before he fell. “Set her free, Kätzchen. In death, if not in life, she
has the wings of an angel.”
She nodded and opened the tin, air walking to the vent beside him. She
sprinkled the ashes into his hand, making sure they turned solid as they fell.
He thrust his hand out against the wind, and held it like that for a while,
then opened his hand to release the gritty particles to the night sky.
Kitty air walked back to the beam, and shivered. Kurt took the tin from her,
and put it among his treasures. Then he wrapped his beloved in his arms and
ported them down to the deck. Kitty leaned on him as they came through the
blankets into the main room.
“Kurt… I… need to tell you something. Sit with me?”
“Certainly, Kätzchen.” He curled up on the couch beside her.
“Friday… Agent Brestin was acting as my trainer. Sparring with me. He’s better
than I am at combat.” Kurt took her hands, feeling them tremble. “After the
weights… he went into the shower room with me. Watching me. He’d been making …
suggestions… about being with me…”
She stopped because Kurt’s eyes were narrowed and his tail was lashing again.
“You see? This is why I didn’t want to tell you. You’ll get all mad and do
something stupid and he’s a trainer and…”
He put a finger on her mouth to stop her nervous babbling. “Kätzchen. I’m not
stupid. Please give me more credit than that. I may be angry, but that doesn’t
mean I will act on it. Okay?” She flushed with shame, and he wrapped her in his
arms. “So, is that all?” Slowly, she shook her head. Kurt sighed. “What else?”
“He came right up to the shower…” She made a face. “And he… gratified himself…
while he watched me.”
Kurt’s eyes were still narrowed. “Did he do anything else?”
“No. Not yet. But…” she spoke reluctantly, “I think it’s only a matter of time
before he does. He can do what he wants to me, and he knows it.”
“Ja… and it fits the pattern. Agent Vail was one of my trainers Friday. She and
a woman friend from the Psych department came to me while I was drying. They…
played with my fur. Petting me like a cat, talking over me like I wasn’t there.
I also think it’s a matter of time before they do… something more.”
“What can we do about it?” Kitty said. She sounded close to tears.
“Do? Ah, Kätzchen. We can do nothing; we are Hounds, and not masters of our own
fates, or our bodies. That was true even before we were wed. I think that our
vows to each other can only apply to what we can control, and to what we are
given the option of choosing. Whatever we are coerced to do… we must forgive
each other for. He rubbed his hand over his face, and sighed deeply. “My wife,
I forgive you, in advance, of any forced infidelity that might occur. I only
pray that you tell me about them, and grant me the same courtesy.”
She flung her arms around his neck. “Of course… Oh, Kurt, I know you’d never
want to be unfaithful, and I forgive you now.” The embrace lasted a long time,
and when she pulled back, he sighed again. “Something else?” she said.
“Ja. I fear they might find… my ‘on switch’…” He looked down. “That would
appear to them like… I was consenting to be with them.”
“We know better,” she said. “I learned my lesson. Doing that to you, without
your consent is coercion and it doesn’t matter what they think.”
He nodded and laid his head against hers. “It’d be so much easier if this was a
normal marriage, and we didn’t have to discuss contingencies… against the
certain event of… being raped.”
She snorted. “Since when has anything about any of this…” she gestured around
them, “our relationship, or situation… been normal? Abnormal IS the norm with
us.”
“That is the truth, Kätzchen. It’s senseless to fret about things that we can’t
change. But…” he pointed a finger at her. “There is something that we can
change about the way we are living. Here we have both been keeping these stains
on our souls to ourselves this weekend, and therefore have been making
ourselves miserable. And not only ourselves, but our partner as well, because
I’ve been worried about you, as you have been worried about me. I promise to
try to talk to you about what is bothering me from now on. We are so close,
liebe; we can see it in each other. It is better brought out into the open,
than kept hidden.”
Kitty ducked her head, and nodded. “Okay, I promise not to hide things from you
anymore. We’ll just have to work them out.” She picked up his hand and stroked
the soft velvet with a sad smile. “I do feel like a failure. We’ve only been
married a little while, and I’ve already found something to screw us up.”
His hand reached up and caressed her face. “Nonsense, Kätzchen. This is just a
course correction; it happens all the time in marriages. People change,
circumstances alter, but a living relationship adapts with these changes. I
watched a lot of couples in the clans, and they would go through these
difficult times. The ones who lasted where the ones who worked it out,
together.”
“My parents never had talks like this,” she said frowning. “And their marriage
was fine. Is fine… I hope.”
“They never went off alone to their room, or out for a drive, say, for a
private talk when things got a little tense?”
“Yeah, but I always thought it was, well, mushy stuff. Not this kind of …
course correction.”
“Probably a little of both, mein Kätzchen. Clearing the air and dealing with
the problems that cause the tensions does tend to lead to the ‘mushy stuff’, as
you say. Although I don’t think they did you any favors by concealing from you
the give and take of a relationship.”
His tail snaked around her waist and squeezed. She pushed at the blue coil,
smiling. “Hey, you leave my folks outta this, you… blue fuzzy elf!” The tail
just coiled more snugly around her. “They never did anything to you.” The
tail’s end started poking at her sides. “No tickles!”
“How about kisses instead?” he said, tail poised mid-poke.
“Deal. Blackmailer,” she mock pouted at him before she let him kiss her.
“Guilty as charged.”
 
[*] Name altered a bit from the name that’s actually on the cover of the copy
that I picked up at a used bookstore. Quoted bits are from pages 332 and 333.
***** Kitty - Partners: The Two Shall Be As One *****
Kitty woke curled behind her husband, her arm draped over his side and her hand
loosely holding onto his tail. Sleeping with Kurt was a sensuous experience,
her flesh against his soft fur. He warmed her in the night, giving her dreams
of velvet twilight.
She picked up the clock and softly sighed when she was there were only minutes
until the alarm. The faint noise of her setting it down was enough to wake him.
A faint amber glow picked up the ripples in his pillowcase even before he
turned his golden eyes to her.
He could see the clock from his side, and his sigh echoed hers. “Morning,
Kätzchen. Unfortunately.” The leathery textured surface of his palm stroked
down her arm, and ran over her side, resting there.
“Unfortunately?” She looked at his face, the gleam of his eyes picking out the
strong lines of his nose and cheekbones, and gave some of his curls a lambent
glow, while the rest of his features receded into the dark around them.
“While we dream we are free, liebe, or we can be. We can be back home, or in
some perfect world where we are still together. It is when we wake, that the
true nightmare returns.”
“Yeah. And, oh joy; it’s Monday.”
“Exactly, liebe, it’s time to face the trainers again.” That quieted both of
them.
The alarm went off, and Kitty turned it off. “I think I’m going crazy, Kurt.
And I think it’s exactly what they want me to be. I miss her… but… as soon as I
threw the knives I wasn’t thinking of her as a person, but only as a target.
When they had me get my knives, it was like it wasn’t Karla anymore. It was
just… a corpse.” She shuddered, and his hand tightened on her side.
“Protection, Kätzchen. Could you have let yourself think of what you’ve done?”
“I… didn’t want to. I pushed it away. I could learn to be a killer. Learn to be
so hard that blood doesn’t bother me. I think it’s already starting, and I’m
scared of myself.”
“I accept you. No matter what you’ve done. No matter what you will do. I trust
you. You’re a gentle girl; you couldn’t even stand to hurt my feelings when you
met me, even though you were so frightened by me. You are not to blame for what
you are made to do.”
“But… it is my hands… and my choices.”
“Are you really choosing to do these things? If they weren’t threatening us,
would you do them?”
“Well… no… If I could help it, I wouldn’t.”
“If you can’t help it, because of whatever duress, then… It. Is. Not. Your.
Fault. Okay, Kätzchen?”
She sighed, and laid her head on his shoulder. “Yeah, I suppose so. Tell me
when we have to get up, okay?”
“Ja, mein schatz. Ich liebe dich.”
“I love you, too.”
* * *
Kitty arrived at her training room, and put her knives on. The door opened as
she put on the last of them, and Agent Combs walked in, followed by Vaile and
Kurt. He carried his changing bag, and went into the locker room to store it.
He looked good in his leathers, but the knobbed steel gauntlets gave him a
menacing air… just as the knives did for her, she was sure.
Howards called for their attention when Kurt returned. “Now you’ve both
achieved mission status, we can get started on joint training. First test:
Nightcrawler, port her to the barrier wall over there.”
He stepped closer and put an arm around her waist. He closed his eyes for a
moment, and ported them over to where he was told. Combs came over and checked
his condition. “She and her gear are well under 170 pounds, which is your
current limit. You didn’t have any problems porting with her?”
Kurt shook his head as he stepped away. “No, sir. Not at all.”
“Very nice,” Howards said. “Shadowcat, second test: Phase the both of you
through the barrier.”
“Yes, sir.” She put her arm around him, and phased. “Walk slowly and
deliberately,” she told him. Air walking was a bit tricky, but he moved with
her through the wall. On the other side, she made sure no part of them was
inside anything, and she let them solidify.
“That was strange,” he whispered. His tail shook itself out.
“Tell me about it. Porting is weird.”
“If you two are quite finished?” Howards said. “Get back to the table, we have
a session to undertake here.” Technicians were setting up walls and auto guns
around the room, as Howards laid out the practice mission for them.
“Auto guns are on across the room, with paint pellets. Don’t get hit, it’s a
fail. There are three walls between here and the back corner. You are directed
to use various means of getting past them, including a minimum of one port and
one phase. Other than that, discretion is permitted. Once you reach the final
area, Nightcrawler will disable the security alarms, and retrieve the documents
from the safe.”
Howards turned to her. “There will be defenders in the last room. Shadowcat,
you have to keep them off your partner while he works. To complete the mission,
one of you has to come back to the table with the documents. We’ll do it at
least a couple of times, training time permitting. Is all this understood?”
They both nodded, and she tried to commit the plans to memory. The first couple
of times they flubbed before the second wall. The sight of him in action
distracted her; he dodged the paint balls with a facet of his easy grace that
was only now clear to her. He was made to move like that. In the second
attempt, he jumped in the way of a pellet barrage that would have flown right
through her.
She waved her arm through him, causing him to back up in surprise. “I can dodge
things, too, you know,” she said as they went back to get the paint wiped off.
“Get serious, you two,” Howards snarled. She and Kurt were wiped down by their
respective tormentors in a fashion that left little of the implied threats to
their imagination. Kitty shuddered at Brestin’s hands roaming her with a towel,
and Kurt’s eyes narrowed as Vaile rubbed a bit harder than necessary on some
areas of him. She met his eyes, and he nodded at the look of steely
determination on her face.
The next attempt through together was like silk. They passed the three walls,
and Kurt got the security disabled, but when Vail and Brestin jumped out at
Kitty with boffers, Kurt turned away from the safe to help her.
“Fail!” Combs called. “Nightcrawler, your job here is to open the safe, not to
play the hero. Start over and do it again.”
Once more at the start line, they evaded the auto guns again, and got to the
last area. Kurt disabled the alarms, and then turned to the safe. The trainers
engaged Kitty, and she defended him with a fierce determination, boffer in each
hand. She was marked up in chalk, but she never managed to receive a killing
blow.
“Got it,” he said, pulling out the packet of papers.
“You go,” she hissed. “I’ll follow.” If I can, she thought, but she knew that
he understood that. He ported back to the table and after a few more exchanges;
Brestin got a ‘death’ blow on her.
“Kill!” Shouted Brestin. “Got you, girl.”
“Yes, you did, sir,” she said as she got up.
She came back to the table, where Howards glared at her. “What about your
phasing ability?” he asked. “Once the documents were retrieved, you had no
business sparring with them anymore. You should have phased and ran. We’re not
training your to waste your life.”
She winced. That had been stupid. Once more, they ran through the exercise, and
once more the trainers leaped out at Kitty. She kept them off of him while Kurt
worked on the new safe Combs set up. He ported to her side with the papers, and
backhanded Vaile out of the way. “Take them,” he said, and grinned. One look at
his grin told her what he was up to. She took the packet and ran for the table.
She handed Howards the papers, and Kurt appeared, marked up with chalk, but
satisfied.
Howards frowned at him, this time. “You took a risk in making that hand off,
Nightcrawler. A change of possession like that is just one more thing to go
wrong.”
“Yes sir,” he said politely, “but I was experimenting with contingencies. We
are both able to get out of a mission with a goal such as this, and I was
trying to give us experience with the opposite role.”
Howards sighed. “Well, I can’t fault your logic, or your initiative. And, your
orders were vague enough that you could get away with it.” He looked at Brestin
coming out from the walls, rubbing his arms and sporting a purpling bruise on
his face.
“There may come a mission where you are explicitly ordered to leave your
partner behind, if the goal is considered valuable enough to sacrifice a Hound
for. Keep that in mind. Your connection to each other will not be permitted to
interfere with your greater duty to Shield.”
* * *
They were sent to shower off. No one came to bother them while they were
together, or maybe the trainers were too busy nursing their bruises. They went
to dinner, and she felt rather upbeat for once. They had come through a trial
together, and she felt like they’d accomplished more than just some stupid
training mission.
She took his hand on the way 'home'. “We really did something today, love. We
put our distractions aside and came together in battle.”
“If you say so, Kätzchen. I don’t feel so optimistic.”
“What do you mean? You even got a chance to knock Brestin around.”
“Ja, and my story didn’t fool Howards for a bit. He knew what I really wanted
to do, and he may even know why. I realized something today, liebe. Our
trainers may have carnal lusts for us, but do you honestly think they would
pursue them without permission? For example, if Brestin molested you and it
hurt your effectiveness as a Hound, he’d be in serious trouble.”
Kitty stopped in her tracks. “Oh my God.”
He nodded. “If they ever do molest us, it’s because someone in Psyche gave them
the go ahead. None of this is accidental. But please, don’t stop there. We can
talk about this in our rooms.”
Kitty’s face turned grim, and she didn’t say another word until their door
closed behind them. “Bastards. God damned bastards. What I wouldn’t do to kill
them all…”
He looked concerned. “Have they made you into that much of a killer?”
“No. Yes. I don’t… It’s just… all these mind games are enough to make me
scream.”
Kurt got some juice out of the fridge. “It all goes back to after the last
Social, when they found us together. That’s when things started to get strange.
We know that they are using us against each other, but we couldn’t figure out
why they let us… no, why they made us be intimate.”
Kitty sat down heavily in the chair across from him. “You’re saying they wanted
us to be together, and since we didn’t get that far on our own, they made sure
of it? Just to make us more vulnerable to them?”
“In order to train our powers, they had to take the collars off,” he said,
looking into his drink. “But without them, there is very little keeping the two
of us, in particular of all the Hounds, from taking the proverbial leap off a
tall cliff. I could port outside. You could phase. Yes, we would die, but they
wouldn’t have us anymore. We two are the best suited for a one-way get-away.”
“I don’t want to die, Kurt. I’m not that far gone.”
“But you’ve thought about it. I know, because I have, too. I can look ahead to
a time when the pressures and the pain become too much for me to bear. If it
was just myself to worry about…” He didn’t have to finish the thought.
“But you have to worry about me now, as I have to worry about you. Damn it! And
we played right into their hands.” She put her hand into her pocket, and pulled
out a neatly tied bit of string. “As if being lovers wasn’t enough of a
connection, we’ve made vows to each other. Promises not meant to be broken.”
She held up the string, studying it.
He took his own loop of string from a pocket and slipped in on his finger. “I
have no regrets. Ever. These weeks with you have made this Hell a little more
bearable. What joy I take from this time of my life, comes from you.”
“Oh, Kurt… I didn’t mean…” She hurriedly put on her ring. “I never meant that I
wanted to take it back.” She got up and went into his arms. “You are my
strength. You get me through this. I love you. But knowing this… makes it a
little bitter now.”
“He kissed her softly. “And for me, mein liebe. But it is best to know the
nature of the obstacles that face us. I think… that our affection for each
other is an object of curiosity to them. They don’t understand what love is, so
they are picking at our relationship as one studies an insect, seeing how much
damage it can take before it dies. They will test our resolve, and tempt our
fidelity. They have already begun this. Gott, it all makes sense, now.”
“But they don’t know how strong it makes us, and how much we support each
other. They don’t know that we consider ourselves married. That’s gotta be an
advantage on our side.”
“Ja. Ja, Kätzchen, that’s it! The love and the commitment we have. They only
see it as a physical thing, as a weakness to make us vulnerable. But, what we
have is spiritual and sacred. It makes us far stronger than it weakens us. They
don’t know that. They can’t know that.”
“It’s just our little secret, lover,” she said, and kissed him. He held her
close and lingered at her mouth.
“Wait a moment, liebe, I want to get something.” He ported away, and was back
shortly with the little white book.
Kitty looked at him. “I looked at that yesterday… I found the part you read for
Karla. You… skipped some things when you read it.”
“I did,” he agreed. “We agree on our God, and we can both agree on the ideal of
a Savior, but you are still looking for yours. So, I skipped the bits that
specifically mention mein Lord Jesus, in the interest of ministering equally to
both of us.”
“Thank you, for that,” she said.
He smiled. “I don’t like believers who beat people over the head with the
Bible. The scriptures are the bread of God. It is meant to nourish and be
enjoyed; not suffered through. Anyway, I’d like to read something from it for
us.”
“Go ahead, love. I’ll understand any… ecumenical editing you do.”
He nodded and read, “‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the
sight of God, to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony; which is an
honourable estate, instituted by God. …It is therefore not to be entered into
unadvisedly or lightly; but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in
the fear of God.’”
He set the book down. “And from my own heart, Kätzchen, I add this. For we each
have left our families, and made our lives together. ‘The two shall become
one’, the Bible says. And maybe together we can survive that which would
destroy either of us alone.”
“Amen on that, Kurt.” She smiled and took his hand. “Hey, I can think of a good
way to spend the rest of the evening…”
“Mm? And what exactly would that be, my schatz?” Kitty could see from the
bounce of his tail, that he had a darned good idea.
“Well,” she said, and unzipped her jumpsuit to a daring level. “I’m sure we can
think of something… And just for a little while, we can forget about this
place.”
“I’m all for that, my wife. We have been too tense, for too long.” He turned
out the light, and led her to their bed.
 
--End Act 2.
***** Kurt & Kitty - Interludes: Vignettes in Torment *****
ACT 3
For eight months they were allowed to live together; months in which their bond
only became deeper. Time where they trained and went on missions together, but
never just the two of them, alone. Despite everything, it also time where being
a Hound became a bearable thing to be.
However, changes were happening to the Hound program that they weren’t aware
of…
* * *
Kurt:
Kurt and Kitty finished their training program of the day. A man they didn’t
know entered the room. He stood with their trainers, wearing major’s insignia,
and the symbols of the Psych department.
“My name is Major Rudolf, and you are now in my care.” Kurt thought his name
was most fitting. He was indeed red-haired, and he had an air of the predator
about him, especially the way that he smiled so easily, but it never quite
reached his eyes.
He displayed his toothy smile to them. “The records I have on you two show
you’ve been given extraordinary privileges, and yet, I don’t see that you have
yielded extraordinary results. Now that my illustrious predecessor has been
promoted to headquarters, I’ve been given the mission to get the most out of
the Hound assets of this Carrier.”
He walked around the two of them, surveying the dark leather suits, emblazoned
with a torso-length ‘H’ of a Hound, as if their respective facial markings
didn’t mark them well enough. His eyes marked Kurt’s feet and tail, and strayed
over Kitty’s developing curves.
“The grotesque German and the Jewess mutant,” he said, and snorted. “There may
have been a rationale for your special treatments in the past, but I don’t see
the need for them anymore. Your initial placement together resulted in a nice
improvement in your efforts, but I believe the program is better served by
separating you, now. The Socials are there for a reason, so if you earn it, you
can still meet again, the same as the other Hounds. There are reports your
permissive circumstances have hurt morale of the other Hounds.”
Kurt’s throat worked silently, and he swallowed hard. He could hear Kitty’s
teeth grinding together.
“As of today Nightcrawler, you are remanded back to your dorms. Your things
will be delivered by dinnertime. You will work with a new detail. Shadowcat,
your current living assignment is unchanged and you’ll start working in the
disposal department. Your training will resume separately, with some new
trainers.” He turned to the waiting trainers.
“Howards, Combs, you’ll be given new subjects. Brestin and Vaile are now the
senior trainers, and are hereby given full discretion, under my new guidelines.
Am I understood?”
Agent Brestin smiled broadly. “Yes sir, thank you sir.”
They were sent to the showers. His tail dragged low to the ground. He couldn’t
look at her; as much as much he’d feared this moment, it was incredibly painful
when it came. Kitty kept her eyes on him, her tears washed away by the water.
They went to dinner in silence, hand in hand. The misery that exuded from them
seemed vastly amusing to Brad, because he appeared to be in a jovial mood. The
glare they jointly threw at him only made him laugh harder.
He was met at the door by a security guard with his trunk. Kurt stepped to
embrace her, and the guard shook his head. Instead he gave her a searing look
and a touch of his fingers to his lips, before he was forced to turn away.
* * *
Kitty:
She returned to the quarters, and wandered through the rooms. His trunk was
gone, but his toothbrush and comb were still in the bathroom, she supposed that
he’d be issued new ones. Her fingers stroked over them, while tears streaked
down her face.
When she went to bed, she curled up around his pillow, and sobbed for hours. In
the morning she walked down the hall she’d seen him walk so many times, when a
man in workman’s garb came from the other direction.
“Hello, girl,” he said. “Would you be Shadowcat?”
“Yes sir.” He must have come to guide her to the workplace.
“Aw, don’t ‘sir’ me. I’m Joe, and you’re supposed to come with me.”
“Yes… Joe. He… told me a lot about you.” She fell into step with him.
“I’ve heard him go on about you, too. He sure loves ya a lot.”
She swallowed hard, and tried not to start crying. He stopped in the hallway,
and fished a hanky from his pocket. “Oh, hey. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have
brought it up. Painful subject, huh?”
“You could say that,” she said. She scrubbed her face with the handkerchief,
and pulled herself back together.
“You okay now? Okay, here we go. You ever sort recyclables back home?”
“Yes… yeah.” The ‘sir’ world was so ingrained; it was hard not to say, even to
a workman.
“Well, this is a lot like that. Cans here, glass there; and then it gets
subdivided. Stuff that burns gets bundled together in this machine, and one of
the guys takes it to the furnace room. That’s where a lot of our hot water
comes from, ya know?”
“I didn’t know that.” And she couldn’t make herself sound very interested,
either.
“Well, I’ll leave ya to it. All the bins are marked, so it should be easy.
Look, I’m not a hard ass, so… don’t work too hard, 'kay?”
“I won’t, Joe. I just… need some time.”
“Gotcha. Just do yer five hours, and get used to the smell. Let me know if you
need anything, okay?”
* * *
Kurt:
“If it ain’t the ‘too good for you guys’ altar-boy. Welcome back, I missed
you.” Brad’s smile showed he remembered the thumpings Kurt had given him in
their joint practices, and meant to get some interest. But Kurt was much more
assured of himself and his powers. Before lights out, he’d memorized the room,
and stretched out his spatial senses for the exact dimensions. After lights
out, he waited, feigning sleep.
An instant before the first blow landed, he ported, leaving his attackers to
choke on the fumes. From the top of an empty bunk across the room, he watched
their confusion.
“Where’d the fuck he’d go?”
“He’s over there,” Brad said. “You can see his eyes…”
Bamf. “Now, I’m over here. BOO!” The darkness made it simple. He was far faster
than Brad, who was the only one who stood even a slight chance of catching him,
and others were easy targets. Anyone who stayed in their bunks, he left alone,
as well as those who wisely left the fray, but the rest of them felt his fury.
Click. The lights came on to the sound of one last port. “What’s going on
here?” shouted the guard.
Kurt sat up on his bunk like those who’d been awakened by the lights. No
bruises would show on his knuckles, and the sprawled attackers couldn’t exactly
explain why they were all out of their bunks, or why most of them needed minor
medical attention.
The guard herded out those who were bleeding, and wrote down the names or
training numbers of those who caught out of their bunks. He looked at Kurt,
whose bunk was the epicenter of the disturbance, but he only got a shrug in
return.
Kurt’s sleep wasn’t interrupted at night anymore in the dorms.
* * *
Kitty:
They were training separately again. Kitty had exceeded Brestin’s combat skills
a few months ago, but she continued sparring with experts in other martial arts
styles. Her new senior trainer seemed to be playing it straight, following the
game plan Howards had used, until he told her to hit the showers early.
She was nearly done washing when Brestin came in. “Follow me, Hound. No, don’t
bother with a towel, you won’t need it.” Nude and dripping wet, she did what he
said. He took her to a massage table, covered with a sheet. “Lay down on your
back.”
He was still fully dressed when he pulled out his cock and put on a condom.
“I’ve been waiting to get into your pussy, little girl,” he said with a smirk.
“You be nice, and nothing will happen to your little blue friend.”
She shivered in tension, and looked away when he climbed on top of her. He did
nothing for her enjoyment; he just used her, thrusting firmly inside her until
he was done.
“That’s a good girl. Mm, you got a sweet snatch. Maybe I’ll bring Tyler along
the next time we do this little exercise.” He pulled off the sodden condom and
tossed it onto her belly. He chuckled as he straightened his clothes. “You go
get cleaned up, Hound. Don’t wanna be late for dinner with your boyfriend.”
Her hands clenched into fists as he walked away. She picked up the soiled
rubber and threw it into the trash. Murderous rage burned in her eyes when she
went back to the shower room.
* * *
Kurt:
By Major Rudolf’s directive, they were to be treated like all the other Hounds.
That included dinner in the Missions dining room. This was the one place mixed
gender of Hounds were allowed to meet outside of the Socials. Kurt waited for
her; anxious after a day without her presence. Brad scowled when he entered,
stitches visible over one eye, and under the other.
Kurt ignored him, and as soon as he saw Kitty, he knew something was wrong. She
stalked down the corridor, angry eyes flashing. “Kätzchen?”
She turned to him, her look softening, and gave him a brief hug. PDA wasn’t
permitted here, and no extended contact was allowed. They got their food and
ate while talking.
“The contingency… has happened,” she said. “Brestin.”
He closed his eyes in pain. “Did he hurt you?”
“No, not at all,” she said. “Not at all.”
She sounded confused, angry, and… resentful? “Is anything else wrong?”
She sighed. “No, love. And if this is the kind of thing that’s going to happen,
I can handle it. It makes me angry, but that’s about it.”
He cocked his head in confusion, but she just shook hers.
“I’ll be okay,” she said. “But just be aware, they’ve been given the go-ahead.”
“I will, liebe, not that there’s anything I can do about it.”
“I know. Neither can I. We just have to live with it.”
* * *
Kitty:
“Joe… I thought of something that might help me.”
“Hey, if I can, sweets. What is it?”
“Can you get me a journal, or some kind of blank book? I used to be able to
talk to him about what was bugging me, but I see him so seldom, now.”
“You know that anything you write down, they can and will look at.”
“That’s okay, I’ll mostly be writing to myself, I guess. I just gotta get it
out of my system and not let things curdle up inside of me.”
“Sure, I can do that. Come talk to me tomorrow.”
He gave her a package the next day. In it was a fat journal and a set of pens.
They looked new, and she had the feeling he’d bought them special for her.
While it was true they could and would read the book, they had to find it,
first. When she wasn’t actually writing in it, she kept it in the secret stash
in the intersections of beams, nearly a hundred feet high up in the Hull space.
In it she could put all the things she needed to tell him, but that she didn’t
have the time or the privacy to say.
‘Dear Kurt,
‘I know you were confused by how I was acting, but that just wasn’t a good
place to tell you what is really wrong. No, he didn’t hurt me. It didn’t last
long enough to hurt, or for anything else, either.
‘I’ve been spoiled by you, but in a good way. You always take such care to make
sure that making love is always good for me that I had a skewed idea of what
sex is.
‘I thought it would always be good, and I didn’t want that to happen with
anyone but you. But… the bastard didn’t do anything to me, or for me. He just
used me to come in, and it was over when he was done.
‘I guess… in a weird, sick way, I was frustrated, and it’s only going to get
worse. He’s using me as a sex object, and I can tolerate that, but it makes me
miss you and your touch, so much…
‘Nothing he does will change how I feel for you.
‘I love you always,
‘Kitty.’
* * *
Kurt:
Kurt knew what was coming. First of all, Captain Brand, Vaile’s friend from
Psych was present for his training. Secondly, he could read the looks they were
giving him during the session. When he was finished with the exercises and the
weights, the junior trainer was dismissed.
They followed him into the dressing room, and Vaile smiled coolly. “Hello,
Blue. Now that you’ve worked so hard, it’s time for a little play.”
They bracketed him. “Get undressed,” Brand said.
He took off his combat boots and gloves, and then took off his leathers. He
stood there in his stark white boxers. They giggled at the contrast it made
against his dark fur. His tail twitched slightly from side to side, projecting
his nervousness. “All of it,” Vaile said when they could stop chuckling.
He sighed and slipped the garment off, then straightening. Months living with
Kätzchen had cemented what his mother had always told him; that his form,
though quite different, was beautiful in its own way. He stood poised,
unconscious grace and self-pride evident in his posture.
He accentuated his differences, rising to the balls of his feet and flexing his
rear toes. Any hope of repulsing them with his mutation was quickly dashed,
when they reached in to stroke his body. Their hands rubbed through his nap,
loosening where it had been matted flat by the leathers.
He was unmoved by their attentions. He knew that the whole situation was false,
that this abuse had been crafted by so-called psychologists as part of the
continuing efforts to degrade and manipulate him. That fact turned him coldly
off what was normally a sensual and erotic experience for him.
“Well, look who’s being a bad boy.” Brand said.
“We’ll just have to work on that,” Vail said. She rummaged in a carry-bag, and
took out a choke collar and a leash.
“You mustn’t forget the lash,” Brand said, grinning.
“Oh, yes. The lash.” Vaile pulled out a braided whip that was somewhere between
a toy lash, and a real bullwhip. He sighed again. It was going to be a long
time until dinner…
* * *
Kitty:
‘Dear Love,
‘There is blood on my hands again. I was on a mission with Brad, hunting down a
rogue mutant. I could only barely sympathize with the guy. Mutants may be
getting a raw deal, but that’s no cause to be murdering school children.
‘He called himself The Culler, the sick bastard. I guess he felt if he killed
all the normal’s children, all that would be left would be the mutants. All I
could think about was that not too long ago, I would have been one of the kids
in those schoolyards.
‘His power was heat force. Not fire, but sheer radiated heat, projected from
his hands. I’m glad that you didn’t come, ‘cause fur is real flammable, and
besides, you get along with Brad even worse than I do. We were taken to a
morgue where they had one of the children’s bodies.
‘The boy was charred halfway through him, from where the guy laid his hand on
the kid's head. That was enough for Mr. Stalker to get a read on his power, and
started to track. After a while, we found him.
‘Brad’s charged nets did nothing to him; he just burned through them. He
couldn’t burn my knives, they must be heat-treated. I had to keep phasing so he
couldn’t blast me, and I couldn’t get too close to him. Finally Brad caught him
with a tear-gas grenade. (Watch out for him to use those, by the way, they’re
new.)
‘I put a dagger in his neck while he was rubbing his eyes. The neck wound
distracted him, and the Shield forces finally cut him down with their guns. The
by-standers cheered Shield, but they only taunted us. They had to get us out of
there in a hurry. Those people really hated mutants, and I couldn’t really
blame them for it. All those kids…
‘I feel sorry for the guy; because of the way he was twisted by this warped
society. But I could never condone what he was doing. So yes, I killed him. I’m
not sorry about it either, he needed to be stopped. But on the other hand, I’m
not happy about it, either.
‘I hope you can understand this,
‘Love you desperately, Kitty.’
* * *
Kurt:
It had been a month since they were separated, and he’d been forbidden to
attend the Social. After dinner on the Monday after, guards with their trunks
confronted them. The senior one spoke to them. “By order of Major Rudolf, your
assignments are being switched. You, are to go to the women’s dorms, and you,
are to go back to that hole in the wall of yours.”
Kitty smiled faintly at him, and left with the guard who’d brought her trunk.
Kurt followed his escort back to the quarters below. It was mostly as he’d left
it, but there were some things that told him of her loneliness. His comb and
toothbrush were unmoved in all this time, just as he remembered. On their bed,
his pillow was arranged to lie beside her, giving her some illusion of his
presence.
It wasn’t until he went back to his accustomed perch on the beam that he found
what she’d left for him. At the base of the steel column where he kept his
stash of treasures, a pillow and blanket had been lashed to the beam with cord.
Curious, he looked inside the girder intersection, and found a plain thick
book, and a collection of pens that hadn’t been there before.
Most of the book was filled with pages of blank lines. On the inside cover, was
a note. ‘Thank Joe for this gift, love, he got it for us. You were right, by
the way, he is a sweetheart.’
He settled down on the pillow with the book, breathing in the scent of her that
clung to these things. He read the words she’d written to him, some of them
colored by her anger and disgust at this place, and others full of her love and
longing for him.
He added to the collection of tearstains that marked the pages as he read. When
he finished what she’d put there, he took one of the pens, and began to think
of what to write back to her. He had so many things he needed to tell her.
Brad, and the fight in the barracks, how much he missed her in the night, and
the thing that was happening with Vaile and Brand.
‘Dearest Kätzchen,
‘What a wonderful idea, and what a wonderful place to hide it. I have much to
tell you about, since the last time we were able to speak freely to each
other…’
* * *
Kitty:
Another month, another transfer of assignments. It was draining both of them to
live like this. She could see in the mirror, the way her face was drawn and
shadowed. She saw it in him, too. He was rail thin, despite how much he ate,
and his fur looked… patchy.
No one grumbled about them getting privileges, anymore. It was obvious that the
special attention directed at the two of them was nothing to envy. It was also
clear that the only thing keeping them functioning even fairly normally, had
been each other.
The other Hounds shut up Brad when he made sarcastic comments, and they were
ignored when they clung to each other during dinner. Someone in charge must
have noticed, too, because their respective tormentors eased up on them a
little.
Kitty took a flashlight and a blanket to the beam. He had to have found the
journal; this was his favorite place. She settled on her cushion, and opened
the book with trembling hands.
Yes!
He’d found it, for there on the pages after hers were his thoughts, his
feelings, and his responses to what she’d written. His spidery script was
sometimes hard to read, and he had a habit of putting German vowel marks in
words that didn’t need them, but she could understand it well enough.
His writing told her what the last two months had been like for him. She
learned about the incident with Brad… why that snotty bully! He deserved those
stitches. She hoped they hurt a lot. He also detailed his sessions with his own
tormentors, and how they humiliated him, putting him on leash and collar.
She read how much he loved and missed her. He hadn’t known what to say about
her mission. What the man was doing was wrong, without doubt, but he wished
there was some other way he could have been dealt with. Still, he accepted her,
and always would.
It was too late to write back to him tonight, so she put it away, and went to
bed. On the bed stand was his remaining Old Spice, and a note. ‘If they change
us up again, as I think they will, use this on my pillow. That way you can keep
my scent with you, as I kept yours with me.’
Kitty cried, and sprinkled the cologne on his pillow, as he’d suggested. She
hugged it fiercely to her as she fought her way to sleep.
[A/N - I know I pour on the Angst pretty hard in this story, but just to let
you readers know, this is the lowest ebb. From now on, things gradually start
to get better.]
***** Kurt - Blood Stains *****
At the end of the third month they were separated, Kurt was brought
unexpectedly to a Mission briefing room. Kitty was there, but when he tried to
greet her, the Mission leader interrupted him. “Pay attention to the briefing,
Hounds, both of you.”
They both nodded, but Kurt knew it was hard for anyone to tell just where his
eyes were looking, and he made use of that advantage. Kitty looked pale and
strung out… and as twitchy as he felt himself. He didn’t know how long either
of them would be able to live like this.
The leader started the briefing. Blah, blah. This was of utmost importance to
Shield. So what? They were to hit the compound of a man designated a traitor to
Shield. He was a well-placed officer, and son of a ranking General. His crime
was he’d married a woman who recently revealed to be a mutant, and had two
young children by her. The objective were to arrest the disgraced officer,
apprehend the mutant and her spawn, and seize any papers or effects that might
link the man to the mutant resistance.
To one side, Kurt was given a rundown on what kind of security the compound
had, and on the other, Kitty and the combat specialists were briefed on the
number of guards at the estate, and their armament. This mission was evidently
very urgent, as the target might learn at any moment that he’d been discovered.
They were concerned he’d disappear north, with his family, where the renegade
terrorist Fury was rumored to lair.
As soon as their briefings were over, they were loaded onto separate planes,
and launched. A technician placed the expected explosive collar on him. If he
got too far away, boom. If he somehow got it off, hers went boom. Clear? He
nodded. That was very clear.
* * *
The compound was near Atlanta, Georgia. They landed in the evening, and the
teams boarded a series of vans and trucks for the last leg of the journey. In
the hours between midnight and dawn, Kurt crawled over the wall near the rear
gate. He bamfed into the guardhouse and swiftly knocked the men unconscious. He
neutralized the alarms and opened the gates for the vehicles.
He was on his way for his next job at the house, when he heard silenced
gunshots from the guardhouse. He blended with the shadows, and teleported to
get in close to the estate building, near a wiring box. He picked the small
padlock and clipped through the electrical lines, killing power for most of the
house. Now he would be in his element.
He watched from high up on the exterior walls, as Kitty and the combat team
skirted the compound’s perimeter with night-vision goggles, taking out any
patrols. When the outer area was clear, they went inside the house, looking for
resistance or sign of their targets. He shadowed the group with his beloved in
it, from the ceiling and upper walls.
She was holding back when she could; injuring when she had to, and letting the
agents do most of the work. If he saw anyone unseen threatening her team, he
would drop down like a hunting cat, and knock them out. The agents he didn’t
care about, but he didn’t want Kitty to get hurt.
She must have heard him one the times he intervened, because her glowing lenses
turned his way. He widened his eyes and smiled toothily at her, she nodded and
turned to catch up with her team. In the core of the house, the team found
people destroying documents. The leader whispered, “Split up, people, time is
of the essence here.”
Kitty headed off alone, and again he followed her from on high. His job in this
phase of the operation was to support, but just who he was to support was
unspecified. In other hallways they could hear reinforced doors being battered
down by hand held rams. She didn’t have one, but then, she didn’t need one
either. When she found a barricaded door, she stopped and looked around for
him. He dropped beside her, and she pointed at the door. He reached for his
lock picks, and she stepped through the obstacle.
He could hear voices on the other side, high pitched. It was the sound of panic
maybe, or of children. He focused on getting the lock open, knowing Kitty would
have removed anything placed that physically barred the door. He heard the lock
click, and pushed the heavy door open to a tense tableau lit by scarlet
emergency lights.
Two small children huddled behind a sleep-disheveled woman in nightclothes, who
was holding Kitty back at gunpoint. The opening of the door drew the woman’s
gaze, and her aim wavered. Kitty took a step forward, her goggles hanging from
their straps. The woman focused her attention again on her. Kurt leaped the
outside wall up to the ceiling, and flipped into the chamber over the upper
lintel. He began to silently creep across the room's ceiling to get behind the
panicky female.
“What are you doing here?” the woman said. “You’re a mutant, why do you want to
hurt these children?”
“I’m a Hound,” Kitty said. “I don’t want to hurt them, but my orders are to
take them into custody. I cannot disobey.”
“You could just run away, disappear,” the woman said. “I saw how you got into
here. They can’t hold you.”
Kitty pointed at her neck. “Explosive collar. If I get too far away, then I
lose my head. Literally.” Kurt was easing down the wall behind them now, and he
saw her eyes flick towards him. “So, tell me, are these your children?”
“Mine? No,” the woman said. “I’m their nurse and guard. And I won’t let you
take them from their parents.”
“Lookit the funny man!” the smaller of the two kids said, pointing behind them.
Kurt froze on the wall, as the woman backed up where she could see both of
them, dragging the bigger child, a boy, with her. The smaller one, a girl,
stared up at him fearlessly, and didn’t seem to notice the other two had moved
away from her. He stepped to the floor besides her, and picked her up. Carrying
her behind Kitty, he put her down in a chair. “Stay there, please,” he said.
“We don’t want you to get hurt.”
She smiled. “You talk funny. Emmy, Dunc’n, he talks funny!”
The woman snarled silently. “I know what they’ll do to them… and to her. It’s
better than they die now, then to be subject to that.” The gun turned towards
the boy… and time and motion seemed to slow…
…Shitk. A dagger popped into Kitty’s hand, and she raised it to throw…
…The girl behind them screamed in sudden terror…
…The boy’s eyes turned as large as saucers as the snub-nosed pistol aimed at
his head…
Kitty’s arm snapped forward, and he ported, ducking down low to fit into the
space between the woman and the boy. If he had to interpose his body to take
the bullet, so be it. The blade slammed home as he wrapped the boy in his
embrace. He heard the gun go off, and a hot brand slid over his shoulder. The
boy trembled in his arms, and started whimpering against him.
“Are you okay, Kurt?” Kitty’s voice was hoarse with worry. He turned to look at
her and nod. She was shivering, and her faced was turned a deathly pale around
the Hound tattoo.
“My shoulder’s creased, but nothing major.”
“Good. Take them out of here. I have to… get my blade.”
“Understood.” He rose with the boy in his arms, and shifted him over to one
hip. Walking over to the girl, he held out an arm, and she surged up to him. He
carried them both into the dark corridor, and waited while they clung to his
shadowy form.
Kitty walked out, her goggles back in place, and she adjusted her wrist
sheaths. “Kurt… look here. I found it… in a pocket.”
He stepped nearer, and saw she held in her hand a coin. An engraved ‘M’ was on
one side, and a red and purple Greek helm on the other. “That’s what I saw
before, liebe. The very same thing.”
“It’s probably evidence… but, I don’t care.” She put it in a buckle of her
leathers, and snapped it in two. A curl of smoke rose, and the sides turned a
charcoal black. She dropped the pieces in the foliage of a potted plant, and
turned to him. “Where are the others?”
He cocked his head, listening. “This way.” He wrapped his tail around Kitty’s
hand to lead her along; her grip was clammy and tight. The four of them walked
through the dark halls; the only sounds were the sniffles of the children and
her soft footfalls.
They came into a large red-lit room, and a weeping woman called out. “Duncan,
Rose!” They reached out to her, saying as one, “Mommy!” Kurt held them tightly
despite their squirming until he reached the woman’s side, then he crouched and
set them gently down. They clung to her, crying, each babbling a different
version about what happened to ‘Emmy’.
“Shut those brats up!” the mission leader snarled. Their mother hushed them,
and the three watched sadly as the battered, but breathing, form of the
family’s father was laid down near them. “Good, we got the traitor, the mutie,
and the kids, so that’s all of them. Any remaining resistance?”
“No sir, we’re processing evidence now,” said one of the other agents.
“All right. Hounds, you’re done now. Sit over there and be quiet.”
“Jawohl,” he said, and nudged Kitty out of her daze to sit with him near the
prisoners. He watched her, concerned. She needed a good cry, but she wasn’t
withdrawing, not fully anyway. She was understandably upset about what she’d
had to do. He drew her next to him and leaned her head on his shoulder. Her
hand found his and squeezed desperately.
Kurt looked up as he felt the woman’s eyes on them. She looked at him, then at
her as if looking for something, but what, he couldn’t tell. She nodded
slightly, and said to them quietly. “You two are little better than kids
yourselves, aren’t you? Despite what they’ve done to your faces, I can see it.”
Bitterness quirked his mouth. “Ja, that is so, but we feel much older than we
are.”
“There’s so much pain in both of you,” she said. “What happened to Emma?” She
nodded down to the sleepy children, “They either didn’t see, or didn’t
understand.”
“She held a gun on my partner,” Kurt said. “When Rose saw me, and Emma knew she
was outnumbered, she… turned the weapon on the boy.”
“I stopped her. I had to,” Kitty said flatly. Where only the woman could see,
she snapped a blade into her hand, and flipped it into a throwing grip.
“I see.” She looked down to the sandy haired head of the boy snuggled against
her. “Thank you, for that. At least I get to see them and hold them, before…”
Kitty made a strangled noise that sounded like it started out to be a sob. She
busied herself with putting her knife away and locking it in place.
He curled his tail around her waist and pulled her closer. “Come here, liebe.
Rest with me, before they make us part again.” She leaned closer, and buried
her face against his neck.
“She’s so sad. Is she gonna cry?” Rose said.
“Maybe later,” he told her. “When she’s alone. She doesn’t like to cry in front
of others.” He could feel the warmth of Kitty’s breath on his neck fur. He
kissed her hair, breathing in deep. It had been so long…
“Even in front of you?” the girl said.
The child was like a mastiff after a hare. “She cries in front of me, when we
are alone together,” he said finally. “But we haven’t been alone together
lately. We are prisoners, like you are. We have no say in what we do.”
“Up and at ‘em Hounds.” One of the Shield lieutenants had come over to them.
His lip curled as if confronted with something particularly disgusting. “If you
can peel apart from each other, that is. We’re heading out.”
“Jawohl, mein Herr,” Kurt said. He helped Kitty to rise, and then took a
deliberate step away from her. She squared her shoulders and looked up, a mask
of composure firmly in place. Back at the vehicles, they were placed in
separate vans for the long trip back.
* * *
After touchdown on the Carrier, Kurt was told to wait on the flight deck. He
leaned against a wall until he heard shouting from the other plane. “…damned
freak is gonna scrub my deck until it shines! The nerve of her, throwing up on
my plane. And the way it reeked, even after the bitch tried to clean it…”
Uh oh. Kitty must have had a reaction. Kurt hunted for a janitor’s closet and
got out some cleaning supplies. He presented himself to the irate pilot, who
was still chewing her out. She stood at attention near the transport, eyes
downcast. He cleared his throat and the man rounded on him angrily, before
turning pale and stepping back.
“Gah! What kinda…” He swallowed hard, and Kurt couldn’t help but to smile
tightly. “Fine, you help the clumsy freak clean up my airplane. He stalked off;
muttering to himself, “Worst part of the job, dealing with all the damned
muties.”
“And Auf Wiedersehen to you, too, mein Herr…” Kurt murmured. “Here liebchen,
you take some of this, bitte.” She grabbed the mop and the jug of cleanser, and
trudged back to the plane where she’d just endured a several hours-long flight.
All the hatches were opened, and it still smelled like vomit. “You really did a
number on this plane. What have you been eating?”
“I haven’t been. This was just bile, and water.” She poured the cleaner full
strength into the bucket and soaked the mop into it. She started grimly
scrubbing at the soiled spot.
“Hey! You!” said a muffled voice.
Kitty barely twitched, but Kurt turned to the open hatch. A flight deck worker
stood there, one hand covering his nose and mouth, the other holding some dark
plastic sheeting. He walked over to the worker, whose eyes got larger the
closer he got. “May I help you?”
“Um. The pilot says there’s a load of bio trash aboard. Uh. Get it for me.”
“Anything you say,” Kurt said. The cleaner Kitty was liberally applying to the
floor was helping to counter the odor of sickness, but even through it, he was
able to find the trash bin along with the paper towels she’d used to wipe
things up. Months in Disposal inured him to most stenches, but he still made a
face as he carried the bagged materials out to the man.
The worker held out the sheeting; it was a heavy-gauge trash bag, and Kurt
dropped his bag inside. It was quickly sealed and the man made his getaway.
Kurt took some fresh toweling, dipped them lightly in the solution, and started
to wipe the surface of everywhere he could reach, which was nearly everywhere.
When he finished, the only places he could still detect the stink of what
happened, were on Kitty herself and the mop she’d used.
“Hang on, Kätzchen. Let me dump out that bucket and rinse the mop. If you go
over it one more time after that, you should be done.”
She stopped, and wearily sat on a bench. “Okay.”
He took the mop and bucket back to the closet and rinsed them out thoroughly.
Then he hurried back to the plane. He wasn’t sure he trusted her to be alone,
and even beyond that, he would take any opportunity to be with her, even while
doing this.
She put a bit more cleanser in the bucket, and gave the wet mop another good
pass over the section of floor. He stepped over to her with a cleanser-dampened
towel, and wiped off the chest of her leathers, where she’d splattered bile on
herself. He took an exploratory sniff, and smiled. “We’re done, I don’t smell
anything anymore.”
“Then… I guess we have to put this stuff away.” She looked terribly tired, and
groaned when she stumbled, heading for the hatch.
He wanted to weep at the state she was in, or to wrap her in his arms and never
let her go. He could do neither, so he steadied her, and took some of the
cleaning supplies from her for the trip back to the closet. Just outside the
narrow door, they were confronted by a group of agents. Their senior trainers,
Major Rudolf, and… the General himself stood by, watching them.
Kitty nodded in bare acknowledgement of their presence, and went into the
closet with Kurt to put the cleaning supplies away. Then she came out and
dropped to her knees in front of them, her head sagging. He joined her on his
knees, unable to keep his tail from twitching in anxiety. The Major looked down
at them, his eyes glittering with an unreadable expression. “You’re not done,
Hounds, there are stains on your equipment. See to cleaning it.” Kurt nodded,
and he and Kitty went back in, but he kept his ears open.
“Major, the last time I saw these two, their morale was good, considering, and
they each had another 20-40 pounds more weight on them. Now, they look like
they’re headed for illness or nervous breakdowns. Your treatment policies are
not supposed to be counter-productive to their effectiveness.” The General
sounded distinctly displeased to Kurt.
He whispered, “Kätzchen, wash your blades.”
“Sir, they performed well today, exceeding expectations,” The Major said, his
voice slightly tense.
He ran water in the sink, and Kitty frowned in concentration, as she bent to
the task. Over the sound of running water, he strained to listen to the voices
outside.
“Exceeding yours expectations, perhaps, but not mine. They do better when
they’re not eaten up with tension. The doctor believes she’s showing signs of
developing ulcers, and according to the combat medic, there was blood in what
she spewed on the plane. I’m giving you a chance to fix this, Major. Don’t
disappoint me.”
“Yes, sir. Brestin, Vaile, obviously you were given too much responsibility,
too soon.” Kurt smirked. He’d bet they resented the hell out of that; they were
only doing what he’d given them a blank check to do… but blame rolled down
hill. “You’re dismissed.” He heard the sound of salutes and receding footsteps.
“They will be assigned new trainers immediately, sir.” Kurt took off his
gauntlets and worked at cleaning dried blood and bits of skin from between the
jointed plates.
“Correction,” the General said. “Headquarters wants them treated as a single
combat unit. Deal with them as partners, and not as separate Hounds. As for
trainers, give ‘em back Howards and Combs, and them only. Those two were tough
but fair on them.
“Yes, sir, that shall be done immediately. Do you… wish them to resume their
former living assignments?” Rudolf’s tone was strained and bitter. Kurt held
his breath for the answer.
“You mean those exceptional arrangements that I personally authorized and
endorsed?” The General’s voice was deceptively soft. “Yes, I think that will be
best. Have them both take their work shift at Disposal, also. They don’t need
to be scrambling all over the ship to get to their workplaces.” The General
made a thoughtful sound. “Give them the rest of the day and tomorrow off, and
they are to report to the clinic in lieu of work on Monday. I want them back up
to peak as soon as possible. Headquarters has plans for them, long term plans.
So you will kindly pass any policies concerning them to my office before
implementation. Am I understood?”
“Perfectly, sir.” More footsteps receding, and the door opened. “Are you done,
Hounds?”
“I need the oil, so they won’t rust,” Kitty said. The Major scowled at the lack
of honorific.
Kurt turned off the water. “They’ve been cleaned in water, sir, but we could
use the oil that was in the missions room.”
“Very well, see to that, and your trunk will be delivered shortly,
Nightcrawler. When you’re done, you’re dismissed for the day.”
“Yes, sir, Major.” He led her to the missions briefing room, where their
supplies were still laid out, and handed her the bottle of cleaning oil. He
worked the lubricating oil into the joints of his metal gloves. When he’d
restored the condition as best as he could, he laid them on the table. “Take
the knives off, liebe. It’s almost time to go home.”
“Home…” she echoed. He judged her to be out on her feet, but she still laid the
blades out in a precise order. Her suit looked strange with all the loops and
pockets emptied out. She unstrapped the wrist sheaths, and turned to the
changing room.
“Just change clothes, Kätzchen, we can bathe when we get there.”
She nodded and peeled off the cat suit. He frowned at how thin she was,
although he knew his own condition was little better. He put his arm around her
once they were back in their jumpsuits, and she seemed content to simply lean
against him, as he led her home.
Two people waited for them at their door. Combs had his trunk, and Howards was
pushing another hand trolley loaded up with food containers. And not just any
kind of food; there were two jugs of whole milk, fresh strawberries and eggs,
and boxes of frozen steaks. The General seemed to be very serious about getting
them up to condition quickly.
Combs shook his head. “You two look like hell,” he said, his voice gruff and
flat.
“Thank you for noticing, sir,” Kurt said. “We feel like hell.”
Howards held out a paper. “This is from the clinic. It’s a high protein, medium
carbohydrate diet plan for the both of you.” He snorted. “It’s even sorta
kosher, or at least, it lists her as being ‘allergic’ to pork. Keep her on the
milk, use the pepto for stomach pains, and if you notice any more unusual
bleeding, take her to the clinic right away.”
“Yes, sir,” Kurt said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me…” He opened the door, and half
led, half carried her inside and into a chair in the kitchenette. She put her
head on the table, cushioned on her arms. Kurt hauled in the trunk, and
unloaded the trolley around her and on every available bit of counter space.
“Is there anything else, sirs?”
“No, carry on, and get some rest, you two,” Combs said.
“I was planning on it, sir.” He closed the door quietly as they walked away.
She was trying to put things away in the fridge, and he took over that chore,
finishing quickly. He crouched down next to her. “Do you want to wash up
tonight, or wait until tomorrow?”
She looked down at her hands and watched them tremble. “Tomorrow… I’m just so
tired.”
“Alright, liebe, tomorrow it is. Come on, now. It’s time to rest.”
In the bedroom, he smiled at the scent of Old Spice on his pillow. He switched
it with hers, because it would be too strong for him to sleep on. He snuggled
her next to him, feeling a lump in his throat at the rightness of her being
there.
He thought she might break down and cry, but he was only half-right. She didn’t
have the energy for hysterics, so she pressed her face against his warm side
and cried softly, but steadily until she fell asleep. He held her close for a
long time after that, until sleep claimed him too.
***** Kitty - Revelations *****
The familiar scent of Old Spice was the first thing Kitty was aware of. Only
secondly did the purring rumble and warmth of her husband register as well. Her
eyes snapped open, and she reached with desperate longing for his velvet-
covered form. She scritched through the fur with her fingers, and rubbed
against his back with her face, taking in his natural musk.
His shoulders shook with mirth and he turned in place to catch her hands, and
meet her mouth in a warm kiss. That stilled her, and she relaxed into it,
tasting him as she had so longed to do. To be here with him, to hold him so
closely… Except for her nightmares, she’d dreamed of little else for months.
He broke the kiss, chuckling. “Good morning, Kätzchen. I missed you, too.”
She pouted at him. “Missed you…? Love, ‘missed’ is way too weak a word for the
way I’ve felt about you.” She leaned up to kiss him again, urgently, her hands
roaming him, holding him tightly.
“Easy, Kätzchen… I’m not going anywhere.”
“Good, because I need you, Fuzzy, desperately.” She reached down between them,
and he intercepted her hand.
“Please, Kätzchen… let’s take this slowly… a lot has happened since the last
time…”
Kitty froze, stiff with tension. Her voice was cold when she answered him.
“Does this have anything to do with what was done to us while we were apart?”
Kurt frowned. “Yes, it does, liebe, but what…”
She rolled away from him and threw back the covers. “As if I had any choice in
what they did? I thought you’d understand that.” She stood up, and walked to
the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.
She ran the bath, shaking in need and fury. She’d been so afraid of this, that
he’d reject her for being… impure. She slipped into the steaming water, and
fought back tears. Her dreams had become her nightmares.
Kurt came into the bathroom with mugs of hot chocolate. She kept her gaze away
from his elegant nudity. “A peace offering, liebe. I think we are
misunderstanding each other again.”
She ignored the cocoa, as tempting as it smelled to her empty belly. “What’s to
misunderstand? I’m soiled goods, now.”
He sat on the edge and splashed water with his tail. “Und I am not? We were
both molested, liebe. What happened to you was not the reason I need to you to
go slow. No, it was… what happened to me.”
“Their fetish games? Sounded kinky to me.” She looked at him finally, and his
agitation was obvious.
“It was beyond kink. It was sadism fit to warm the black heart of de Sade. I
don’t… I don’t even know… if I can even… function, liebe.”
She leaned towards him, and took his free hand. “It was that bad?”
“Ja, it was that bad. Aversion conditioning can be nasty stuff.”
Kitty sat back and picked up the cocoa, sipping. “I’m sorry, Kurt.” Tears
glittered in her eyes. “I just wanted to be with you so much, and at the same
time I was so afraid you’d reject me…”
He gave her a strained smile. “Now, now, Kätzchen. You know that if anyone can
give a Jew a run for their money in the guilt department, it’s a Catholic.”
“Too true, love.” Kitty sighed. “The journal worked some, I guess, but there’s
a lot… I couldn’t bring myself to write down, even for you. I need to tell you
what they did to me, so you’ll understand." He nodded, drinking from his own
mug.
She looked off into the wisps of steam. “It was Brestin and Smith. They… were
usually most of the way dressed, and they used condoms, as if touching me skin
to skin would contaminate them. I was always naked, vulnerable. Sometimes they
would play with my breasts, but generally they didn’t.” She sighed. “Like I
said in the journal, making love with you gave me… expectations. But the way
they used me, it was so frustrating. I wanted pleasure so much. I think I was
on the verge of doing whatever they wanted, just to be touched. I tried not to
respond, but sometimes, habits kicked in…”
She looked down, her face red. “Those were the only times they made sure I
orgasmed.”
“And with me, you feel you don’t have to hold back your appetites any longer.”
“Yes! You’re my husband… it’s alright to want to be with you.”
It was his turn to sigh. “Diabolical. The short version of what they did to me,
was condition me to fear an aggressive woman. It’s no coincidence, I think.”
Kitty put her empty mug down on the floor. “What do you mean? What did they
do?”
He shivered, his eyes staring blankly. She leaned forward, putting her hand on
his velvety arm. His arm felt chilled as he looked off, his eyes hollow and
dull. She reached out with a foot and started the tub draining, then rose to
her feet and drew him up also. In an awkward dance of exchange, she reversed
places with him, getting him inside the tub, while she straddled the edge. When
the water emptied out, she set it to filling once more.
“Sit down, love,” she ordered, and he did, hissing as the hot water reached his
sensitive places. She cushioned her bottom with a towel and sat on the edge,
both feet in the water between his. She caressed his long toes with hers.
He sighed finally, relaxing in the hot water, and giving her a rueful smile.
“Sorry Kätzchen. I didn’t mean to lose it like that.”
“Of course not.” She poked at his tail with her foot, as it slid along the far
edge of the tub. It shifted behind him, and he sat up a little to let it move
to his other side. The spade end rose dripping from the warm water, and she
took hold of it.
“They would strip me down to a collar with two leashes.” He stared at the tub
faucet as if it were very interesting. “They would arouse me, touching me… but
if I made any motion to touch them, or ease myself… they would haul tight on
the leashes, and whip my genitals.”
His eyes closed. “Did you ever see handlers with a fractious stallion? No,
you’re a city girl. They put a special bridle on him, one that pinches tight
around the nose with a tug of the lead. But one lead alone cannot hold him, he
can just charge the one who’s holding it, and make his escape. But with two
leads, they can keep him controlled, balanced between the handlers. If he makes
for one of them, the other one can inflict terrible pain. The collar that they
put on me was a choke collar, and between the two of them, they could throttle
me to unconsciousness, and did so a time or two, just to prove they could.”
She caressed the spade, rubbing the fur up against the nap, and smoothing it
down again.
“My only viable option was to stay still and let them do what they willed. If I
even got an erection when they told me not to, they would punish me. It wasn’t
a big whip, but when applied to such tender flesh, it would hurt a lot. And if
I tried to resist or defend myself, I was choked until I couldn’t breathe.”
“Did they… find your, um,” she took one hand off his tail to gesture at his
backside, “uh, your ‘on’ switch.”
The tail curled over her hand before he answered, squeezing. “No, they weren’t
interested in learning such things about me. They focused on molding my
behavior.” He squirmed in the water, embarrassed, and uncomfortable. “I’ve…
become afraid of being aroused.”
“And I just wanted to jump your blue bones.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry,
Fuzzy. I was so selfishly angry when you asked me to slow down. I… I just
wanted…” A sob choked her voice. “Just wanted to be touched!’
He reached out and stroked a tear from her cheek. “That I can manage. Come to
my arms, liebe. Let me hold you.”
She stared at him, surprised. “In the bathtub?”
He shrugged, a half smile on his lips. “Why not?”
Kitty shook her head, smiling back at him. She climbed into the water in front
of him, and scooted up against him. She leaned back against his chest, swirling
the water around his legs, watching the short nap lift and wave in the current.
His arms wrapped around her nude form, and rubbed her neck, her shoulders.
He nuzzled her neck, kissing her earlobe and along her jaw. She shivered
against him, but not from cold. “They’ve done their worst against us, liebe. We
won’t let them win, or ruin what’s between us. I love you.”
She lifted up to peck his lips, emotion shining in her eyes. “Oh, God, I love
you, elf!”
He stiffened at the passion in her voice. “Easy, Kätzchen; easy. Just give me
time to relax.”
She nodded, and leaned back on his chest, stroking the wet fur and simply
enjoying the contact.
He shifted a little, finding a better position for his tail against the back of
the tub, drawing in a deep breath and letting it out in a sigh. “Only someone
who loves me would be willing to cuddle in tepid water and smell my wet fur.”
She snorted from where her head was pillowed on his chest. “It’s clean wet fur.
It’s not like you smell like a…pet or anything.”
He chuckled, a little. “Well, thank you, Kätzchen. I’ve had enough of collars
and such for awhile.”
It was her turn to stiffen. “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean…”
He put a finger to her lips, and gave her a small smile. “I know.” He stroked
down her arm, then between her breasts. She froze at the overture, not wanting
to scare him. His finger traced her ribs, then came up and ran along her
prominent collarbone from shoulder to shoulder. “You are so thin, mein schatz.
I’ve never seen you so. You seemed to eat well at our dinners…”
“And half the time I’d lose it when I got back here. I’ve had a sour stomach
for while.”
“Very well, then. I am hungry, and I’m fixing myself something. You are having
some, too, and a large glass of milk.”
She looked up, confused. “Since when do we have milk?”
“Since yesterday, liebe. You don’t remember that great load of food Howards
brought?” He urged her to stand, and snagged the folded towel with his tail,
handing it to her.
“Howards was here? I don’t remember.” She wrapped it around herself, and got
one for him.
“Combs, too. They are our new trainers, and no one else; just them. Herr Rudolf
tasted the General’s boots down to his knees yesterday. That is why we are
together again.” He smiled as he dried himself.
“Well, good for him. I guess it’s not always terrible here.”
“Just mostly.” He tucked the towel around his waist and went to the kitchen.
The perishables had been put away, but the counters were still littered with
boxes of pasta and canned goods. She looked through the items, amazed at the
quality and the variety. It was definitely unusual fair for Hounds.
He started her out with an apple and a big glass of whole milk. She sipped and
nibbled, watching him bustle around, tail sweeping casually by his ankles under
the hem of the towel. He nuked some potatoes and diced them up along with part
of an onion, and got the mess frying in vegetable oil and margarine. She gained
weight just looking at it. Two of the frozen steaks were defrosted and soon
were sizzling in a pan as well.
Kurt set the plates down with a satisfied smile. “I didn’t put any pepper on
this, and not much of garlic.” He tapped her half-empty glass meaningfully.
“Season to taste, carefully.” She smiled and started eating. He had easily
twice the amount of potatoes as he’d given her, plus a stack of toast, juice,
and an apple and milk glass to match hers.
“Making up for lost time?” she said. His normally slender frame was almost
gaunt, his ribs easily visible above the towel.
“Oh, I have been eating, liebe,” he said. “Circumstances or not, my background
won’t let me refuse to eat, and my physiology makes it dangerous to regurgitate
what I’ve eaten. Hypoglycemia is nothing to play with.” He took a big drink,
smiling at her with an endearing milk mustache, before he licked it off.
“I once told you that nerves wear on my metabolism. When I’m anxious or
concerned I go into a constant state of tension and alert. Thus, I burn more
calories even if my activities don’t change. Since they separated us, I have
had nothing but nerves.”
She understood the feeling. The time apart, after they had so thoroughly
entangled themselves in each other’s lives and hearts, had been simply
horrible. “I know what you mean,” she said softly.
“If your stomach acts up, let me know. There’s medicine for it, and milk.”
She nodded, and then frowned. “Aren’t we late for work?”
“No work today, liebe. And tomorrow morning you’re going to the clinic for your
stomach. Other than that, we don’t have to be anywhere until training time
Monday afternoon.”
She shook her head, and her tone was bitter. “The General again, no doubt. A
second honeymoon.”
“Ja, it was him. And some rudimentary concern for our health, I imagine.”
“Got to keep the animals healthy, I suppose.”
“Kätzchen, please. Don’t dwell on it. It doesn’t help.”
A sudden spike of anger made her words harsher than she meant. “What does?” She
reached out to him in quick apology.
He took her offered hand, and raised it to his lips. “Love does.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Kurt, that was mean.”
“It’s alright.” He stroked her hand. “Have you had enough? Not too much?” She
shook her head. “Then I have an idea,” he rose, helping her up as well. “Why
don’t we get dressed, and dance the way we used to?”
He pulled her to the bedroom, but she resisted, smiling. “No.”
He turned back to her. “You don’t want to dance?”
Her smiled widened. “I don’t want to get dressed.” She pulled the towel from
around her and draped it over a chair, looking at him.
His eyes looked her up and down, gentle, caressing. Loving. He freed his own
towel, and arranged it next to hers, standing unashamed.
She gave him her hand again, and let him lead her to the main room. She moved
the table out of the way and he put music on the turntable.
Happy music; not too fast, began playing. His taste was perfect, as always. She
gave herself up to it, and to him. She was blushing at the taboos she felt she
was breaking, but it was exciting, too. “This is so naughty,” she whispered,
leaning in to brush his chest with hers.
His wicked grin shone in his dark face. “I like naughty girls.” His hand ran
down her to grope her ass. She giggled and shimmied as he held her. He let her
go abruptly and changed records. The music of Bolero started; the quiet flute
and castanets.
She slipped her arms around his waist, and his arms slid around her back. They
had come full circle. After all the intimacy, and after all the fear, they came
back to this; a meal together, and dancing to Ravel’s classic. She was clinging
to him, to the promise of love and joy he represented. He was cradling her in
his arms, holding her tight to him. She could feel his heart beat as clearly as
her own.
They barely moved, and were scarcely dancing. They were pressed too closely for
that. Slowly, he dipped his head to her neck. He brushed his lips across her
skin. His hands moved, stroking across her back, her shoulders, and her waist.
She remembered his fierce passion, and oh, how it hurt to see him hesitate like
this. Those bitches must have wounded him so much. But she could heal him.
Their love could heal them both.
The movements were stronger, the dancing clearer. Bolero was mounting up;
building, building. She licked along his neck, tasting him, feeling the dense
blue fur under her tongue. He shivered as she did it, and again when she blew
cooling air on the wetness.
“Kätzchen…” His voice was husky, echoing with the same need that she was
already feeling.
She rubbed against him, slowly, deliberately. Her kisses trailed down to his
collarbone. She bit him there, quickly, just enough to make him gasp. His tail
slid up and stroked her thigh, curling around and squeezing. She smiled against
him. It was always a good sign when his tail got involved. It was so closely
tied to his unconscious mind.
He let out a ragged sigh, and was caught in a jolt of shudders. Tightly bunched
muscles under her hands finally began to relax. He put his mouth next to her
ear, his breath tickling. “Ich liebe dich.”
“I know, Fuzzy elf. I love you, too.”
His soft erection was getting firmer, pulsing against her. She paid no outward
attention to it, though part of her was focused on nothing else. This was sweet
torture, for her and him, but the longer it went on without pain and without
fear, the better he’d be.
It was trust they were building, the trust that had been destroyed in him. He
was remembering what it had been like to be together, she felt. Remembering
that she’d never hurt him. “You know I adore you, don’t you, my husband?”
“Ja, mein schatz, mein Frau.” The deep husky words made her shiver. Bolero was
louder; a good part of the orchestra was involved now, but still building and
building. His tail on her thigh found traces of moisture, from sweat or desire,
she wasn’t sure.
He breathed in deeply, his nostrils flaring. She knew how keen his sense of
smell was; he’d know. A rumble started in this chest, his hands roaming her
more pointedly, cupping her bottom and just skirting the underside of her
breasts. She moaned a little, and he responded with a deep and passionate kiss.
The tail coiled upwards a little, the spade freeing itself to explore. She
gasped when it traced the curve of her lower belly, just above her pubic hair.
The timpanists were booming with the orchestra now, but she barely heard them
over the sound of her heart.
His erection was hard now, throbbing with his desire. The whole orchestra was
playing now, triumphantly. He growled deep in his chest and swept her up in his
arms. He carried her off to the bedroom just as the song executed its dramatic
collapse.
“’Bout time Fuzzy,” she whispered.
“Hush, Kätzchen. Just… hush.”
***** Kurt – Fall Of Darkness *****
It took a good deal of time until Kätzchen finally had enough of him, and only
some of that was spent engaged in sex. They’d spent much of it just happily
entangled, reassuring each other of their devotions. She fell asleep with a
smile, and he found once he faced his fears, they melted away as he lay in her
arms.
Kurt sat crouched at the foot of their bed, his tail wrapped around her hand as
a tangible link between them. They still had much recovering to do, physically,
mentally and emotionally, but they were on the way now. Or at least as much
along the way as was possible, here. Soon enough it would be time to face the
world again, and all its cruelties.
He gazed at her sleeping form, relishing the sight and feel of her. It was
nearly Monday morning, and but he’d had so much rest the last couple of days
that he woke well before the alarm. She had an appointment at the clinic today,
but he felt the change in circumstances and diet would be healing enough for
her. She was young, and she’d bounce back.
Shifting positions gingerly, he knelt down and lowered his head. He prayed
silently… If there was any way, Oh Gott, to be free, and still be together, let
it be so. We can and will endure as long as we must, if necessary, but oh, to
be free… Lord, let it come to pass. He lifted his eyes to her sleepy smile. He
smiled back at her, and squeezed her hand with his tail.
“I hope He’s not offended by naked praying,” she said.
“He who formed me in my mutter’s womb? I don’t think so.” He climbed over to
lie next to her, holding her.
“Aren’t you cold? You’ve been out for a while… your pillow is cold.”
“I can take more cold than you… my fur and metabolism keeps me warm.”
“Just like you keep me warm, Fuzzy.” She nuzzled closer, rubbing her face
against him. “It’s Monday, isn’t it?”
“I’m afraid so, liebe. But since the clinic isn’t open for sick call until 9:
00am, and that leaves us a lot of time yet. We can enjoy a lazy morning for
hours yet…”
“Mm… I can think of some things to do…” She turned his head and nibbled along
his ear, making him shiver with sensation.
“You…” he said with a rumble, as he took firm hold of her with hands and tail,
“… are insatiable.”
“You bet, lover,” she purred, smiling up at him. “I thought you liked that.”
“I do…” His mouth fell on hers, and no more was said for a while.
* * *
Cleaned and dressed, they walked in step to the Clinic. He sat in the waiting
room while she was admitted, and tried to remember if the guard was the same
man he’d done exercises for when they were found together. He’d about decided
he didn’t care one way or another, when she came back out with a pink bottle
and some papers.
“More pepto?” She nodded and stowed it in her leg pocket. “We’re to go to Admin
now,” she said, indicating the papers. He set off with her and wondered what
was wanted of them now.
When they checked in at Admin, a young lieutenant came out and led them to his
office; he said his piece in a bored tone. “Based on your exemplary records in
the service of Shield, you are hereby designated as senior Hounds. Here are
your pins.” He laid down two small brass circles, with the enameled red, white,
and blue of the Captain’s Shield.
“This designation enables you to skip two work shifts each weekend, which you
are to coordinate with your supervisor. Early or late, or both in one day;
however you work it out with him. Give me your name cards.” They did, and he
cut them in half, giving them new ones, with an image of the pin on the cards
as well as their pictures and information.
“By the order of General and the Training Department, every Friday evening you
are to report to the Psych Department for a conditioning renewal session. This
conditioning is to prepare you for an upcoming mission. That is all.”
“Yes sir,” Kurt said, putting on his pin.
“Thank you sir,” she said. She looked at him and put hers on as well. The
lieutenant stood up, “Dismissed.” He looked pointedly at the door. They left.
Down the hallway, Kurt caught her eye. She raised her eyebrows, and he made a
deliberately florid dismissal gesture with his tail. “That is all,” he mocked,
in a whisper, looking down his nose at her. She covered her mouth as she fought
to control a bout of the giggles. A guard they passed gave them a stern look as
they hurried out of his sight.
* * *
It was honestly a relief to have their old trainers back. The men were tough
and even mean at times, but at least they weren’t liable to pull any ‘extra-
curricular’ stunts. Howards and Combs were both well of aware of how their
relationship kept them stable and grounded. Free of the crippling apprehension
they’d both been under, he threw himself into the routine of his training with
an abandon that seemed to surprise everyone.
Kurt had been wasting far too much energy in fear and resentment these last few
months. Now he could just perform to the best of his abilities. It wasn’t a
large crowd, but holding back had never been his style, not when he could give
something his all.
“My, what sharp teeth you have…” Kitty said with a grin. “I’ve certainly been
seeing them enough today.”
He stepped closer to her, tilting his head closer to her, “All the better to
eat you with, my dear…” He smiled at her blush. “It’s simply… this is as
straight forward as it gets, liebe. We are good at this, so we may as well
enjoy ourselves while we’re at it.”
“If you say so,” she said, then with more confidence. “Yeah, why not.”
The practice went on until after a particularly flamboyant tumbling maneuver,
he’d bowed to the trainers. He grinned, enjoying their shocked expressions.
“Alright, Nightcrawler, this isn’t the circus. Bowing to the crowd is not an
effective combat tactic,” Combs said with a drawl.
He didn’t make the sarcastic reply that he could taste on his tongue. He simply
raised an eyebrow at the man. “Yes, sir.”
Howards shook his head, trying to suppress a smile. “Go hit the weights, you
two, I guess we need to work you harder. Although I’ll tell you one thing, I
wish you’d have shown this much enthusiasm when we first started training you.
“We were different people, then,” Kitty said. She leaned her head on his
shoulder, and he put an arm around her.
“Increase all your reps by 20, and be prepared to work your butts off
tomorrow,” Combs said.
“Jawohl,” he answered with a smile, and they went to do their weights.
* * *
The rest of the week continued in the same vein, with the training getting
progressively harder in the attempt to absorb their excess energies and make
them fit for this big upcoming mission.
When Friday came, they both reported to the Psych Department. They were
separated and Kurt was lead to a partially reclined leather chair that had been
modified with him in mind, with the removal of the cushion at the low back. He
was directed into the chair, and his arms and legs were strapped down. A
medical tech gave him an injection, and left the room. The lights dimmed and
three large monitors flickered to life in front of him. One was centered on the
chair, and the other two were hard on the left and the right.
His head began to swim from the drug, while fast cut scenes of a patriotic
nature flashed on the screens, marching from screen to screen from one side to
the other, then changing directions, or bursting out from the center. The
eagle-bearing flag of Shield, Captain America, Mount Rushmore, the reflecting
pool of Washington DC, the launching of the Heli-carrier, the signing of the
Surrender Treaty of Europe, Hounds kneeling, reciting the litany; these and
many more images were shown to him.
Kurt began to silently recite the rosary to himself. The words were so
ingrained and familiar that not even the drug and the images could confuse
them. If this was only the opening salvo, this was going to be an intense
session. A voice began to drone on about his debt to Shield, to whom he owed
his life and everything that he had. He was never to forget that his duty was
to kill the enemies of Shield. Images of specific enemies were shown; Mutants
fighting Shield agents, and killing civilians.
A movie clip began to show on all three screens. A tall man walked purposely,
his massive body gleaming with the bands of metal he seemed to be made of. His
eyes darted from place to place, and he moved protectively in front those who
followed him. A slightly smaller man came next, his step graceful and majestic.
He wore the helm that Kurt had seen on the mysterious coins, and a long flowing
cape that nearly brushed the floor. Next to the second man walked someone
almost as tall, a wiry man with white windswept hair, whose movements were
quick and full of energy. Rear guard was a lanky man, who wore thick goggles on
his face, lit from within with red light.
“Our enemies are deceptive. They exist only to lie and to kill those not cursed
with mutation.”
It seemed that Shield was ready for the men. A tremendous flash turned the rest
of the scene black as pitch in comparison, and the camera jumped and fell to
the ground. When it focused again, the first man stood gawking down at a hole
burned through his midsection. The metal flickered and melted away, and he
turned to flesh, collapsing to the floor with a gush of blood from his mouth
and the wound.
Now exposed, the helmed man tried in vain to protect the bared and blacked
bones of his right arm and side with his other hand. The man with white hair
had reacted quickly enough to shove the other two away from the center of the
fatal flash, but now with most of his throat burned away, he reached out
desperately to the man with the helm. He barely managed to touch the other’s
arm before he, too, fell.
The man in the back was holding his face, his cheek raw and red, his hair
scorched and the goggles smoking faintly. The helmed man snarled, and made a
beckoning gesture. Metal objects from all around flew to him, even his helm
becoming subsumed into the shining mass before him. He thrust his hand away,
and the mass surrounded the goggled man, even as he struggled to resist. The
sphere of metal shot away, breaking through part of the roof and wall of the
building.
Alone now save for the dead, he straightened with an effort, facing the
direction of the blast, and the camera. Blood stained lips turned up in a faint
smile of victory before agents rushed past the camera like jackals upon a
wounded lion, clubbing him down to the ground, as the scene went dark.
“Even with their leader killed, they claim he yet lives. It is a myth they use
to perpetuate their doomed cause.”
The screens lit again, with grainy surveillance film of a white room;
apparently some kind of morgue. On steel tables the corpses of the men Kurt had
just seen killed lay with the terrible expanse of their wounds readily
apparent. Nearly naked, only brief cloths covered their loins, except for the
marker drawings on their flesh anticipating the post mortem examinations
apparently yet to be performed.
The heavy door to the room tore open like wadded notepaper. A man with the same
helm and cape walked in, and looked down at the bodies. The metal tables spread
out like blossoming flowers, quickly folding petals around their burdens and
detaching from the floor. The man turned and left, the capsules following
behind him as the shot faded.
“Whatever trickery they used to make it appear their leader yet lives must be
exposed for the good of Shield. This new leader must be terminated at all
costs. But he is not the only target you must be aware of.”
A crowd of agents writhed around a figure, and fell like flies around him. The
camera zoomed in on a snarling rictus of a face, splattered with blood and
crowned with stiff crested hair. Protruding from between his knuckles were long
bony spars dripping with blood.
Weapons gouged into his body, and bullets pounded into him, but the injuries
healed almost as soon as they took hold. The only thing that matched the rain
of brass shell casings were the fall of deformed slugs as the mutant’s flesh
rejected them. The last of the agents dropped and he spun about, looking for
more prey. Seeing none, he lifted his head and roared in savage triumph.
“Our enemies are more animal than human, and they harbor lesser breeds among
them as well.”
A negress floated upon snapping winds, her light brown skin contrasting to her
dark garb and stark white hair and eyes. Her expression was one of fury, as
lightning forked down from around her, holding off the pursuit of two figures
below her. The camera focused on them as they reached their vehicle.
One was a red headed woman, well endowed with curves. The other was a figure
that had been shown before, lanky and tall. Only one side of his goggles where
lit up with red, and a shock of white hair showed on his temple above the
darkened glass and scarred cheek. The black woman landed beside them, and the
clawed man gestured them to come inside the machine as the scene cut away.
“These four are your primary obstacles. You must destroy them in order to kill
their new leader, the false Magneto. You have a personal interest in their
deaths, as well.”
Another clip of the man with claws, showing how he used his weapons to rip
through clothing and flesh. Then the scene cut to video of Karla, before she
was bandaged. There was something familiar about those sets of three parallel
cuts that were visible on his friend.
“She was a Hound, just like you. Our enemies did not care. They crippled her
and left her for dead. You must do your best to rid the world of this scourge.”
The Shield March began to play, the center screen showed him and Kitty on their
knees reciting the litany in profile. On the side they faced, the Shield flag
waved proudly against a blue sky. On their other side showed the now familiar
helm, containing a grinning skull.
“You know your duties, you know your mission. Only your best efforts will do
against this challenge. You must give it your all.”
The screens went dark, and all that remained playing was the sound of his and
her voices reciting the litany over and over. Kurt recited his own words of
allegiance under his breath along with it, as he always did. ‘Ave Maria:
Gegrüßet seist du, Maria, voll der Gnade…’  Not even now would he let their
poison take a stronger hold on his mind.
His head began to clear, and he fought to retain the images he’d seen, that
threatened to fade into his unconscious. He wanted to remember what they were
trying to put into his mind. Only then, could he really think about it, and
make his own decisions on what he’d seen. The two Magnetos for instance.
Clearly both had the ability to manipulate metal with but a thought, but hadn’t
one of them been a smaller man?
And there was something… wrong… about the implication that the savage one was
responsible for Karla’s wounds, but he couldn’t quite figure out why? It was
something about the images that were fading faster than he could pin them down.
The lights came back up and the tech unstrapped him. “Come with me,” the man
said brusquely. Kurt followed until his keen hearing caught the sound of
Kätzchen sobbing. He brushed past the man, following his ears until he found
his beloved.
She sat slumped in a chair like the one he’d been in, weeping. She was no
longer bound, but what she’d been shown rooted her more effectively than
straps. He put his arms around her. “Shh, liebe,” he said. She flung her arms
around him, and he could feel her teeth grinding in tension against his
shoulder. “It is all right, Kätzchen. My session was rough, too.”
“Oh, Kurt,” she whispered. “They showed me who hurt Karla.” The anger in her
eyes was fierce, and it made him feel uncomfortable, as he was still
unconvinced of that.
“They also showed me… the one they say harmed her.” If she registered the
qualification he’d added, she didn’t show it.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said. “I don’t like this place.”
“Nor do I, liebe.” He gave a last suspicious stare at the equipment before they
left the room.
* * *
When they went to work on Saturday morning, there were far less regular workmen
in Disposal. A lot of gear was being packed and shipped down to the surface. It
looked like the Carrier was being stripped for action, and changes like that
always made him nervous. Kitty worked on the standard sorting chores, while he
found his boss on a break. “Joe, where are the workers?”
Joe looked at him with a harried expression. “Non-essential personnel are being
evacuated. Hell, I’m even supposed to teach that snotty lieutenant over there
how to do my job. Punk.” He sighed. “You two try to keep out of his notice,
‘kay? He don’t like Hounds.”
“I understand. But… do you know why this is happening?”
Joe snorted in derision. “Since when do they tell me anything? Get on back to
work now.”
They didn’t work either of the late shifts on the weekend. It was a compromise
they’d made, so they’d each get half their Sabbath off. As days progressed,
they could hear down in their rooms a lot of clangs and noises from the under
parts of the Carrier. Helicopters buzzed nearby, and cranes were doing
something to the exterior, but they couldn’t tell quite what.
Kitty didn’t want to talk about the conditioning. Kurt wrote down all that he
could remember in his cramped German script in the journal. He didn’t want to
lose any more of it than he already had. He didn’t know why there were being
fed these images, but he felt it would be important to remember.
Monday, at lunch, before they went up top for training, the sounds were outside
their bit of the hull. He ported them to the beam and they watched, as workmen
on cables guided a large metal plate on to their vent, and bolted it in place.
Bit by bit, the light visible between the slats faded, until it was completely
darkened. It was darker now than he’d ever seen this area, even during moonless
nights.
“Um, Kurt?” His lady’s voice was shaky, and he quickly went to her.
“It’s alright, liebe. I’ve got you.” He lifted her to her feet, and ported them
to the deck below. “Damn them for taking our sky away.”
“Yeah…” she hugged him hard. “Come on. It’s time to go if we don’t want to
rush.”
“Ja, it is.” There was nothing permanent here. Kitty had told him Karla said
that to her, before the end.
How very true that was…
***** Kitty – Magneto’s Raiders *****
She and Kurt arrived at training Monday morning, both anticipating what the
session would bring. Kitty gave a grim smile at the cutout posters of their
primary opponents on stands, near an odd looking map on the table. Labeled
“Magneto’s Headquarters,” it looked like a rocky island, depicted in three
dimensions: top, side, and bottom. Kurt cocked his head and looked confused.
Howards smiled, and flipped a chart over top of it, the Heli-Carrier depicted
in a similar manner. Her love’s eyes widened, “A floating island?”
“Close, Nightcrawler. Orbiting.” Howards turned back to the first map again.
“Our scientists say this is an asteroid that the original Magneto drew into our
orbit. His abilities allowed him to hollow it out and use it as a fortress. He
called it Asteroid M.”
He fed a film reel into a player, and a magnified view of the starry sky showed
on a television screen. The image panned until it came to a patch of occluded
stars. The picture magnified, and a light sensitivity function activated when
the rough edged mass blocked out all but the faintest background stars. It was
an unevenly shaped rock, pitted with ancient craters. As the camera’s zoom
reached its limits and the image began to blur, man-made alterations to the
rock could be seen. Small windows, and what could be air locks pierced the
surface layers, and constructions of mysterious purpose dotted the exterior.
He continued, “The short version of this mission is you’re training to travel
to and infiltrate the asteroid, and kill the false Magneto and his Raiders.
This is a big priority with us, and you two are the key. No one can keep you
two out of someplace you want to get into, and we’ll be working hard to prepare
you for what you are likely to encounter.”
Combs nodded and stepped forward. “We captured pieces of one of their shuttle
planes, and were able to repair the air lock mechanism and reverse engineer it.
The rocket shuttles our forces will be using are built to be compatible with
their locks, so you’ll be training in low gravity flights and providing entry
at the locks when you get there.”
Howards called them over to the chart. “This represents years of surveillance
and patient study. Most people, Congress included, don’t appreciate the
difficulties involved in destroying an enemy that you can’t reach. They’ve
launched their attacks with impunity from Asteroid M, knowing we had no way to
strike back. They had the moat of space on their side, and the superior
position by way of gravity. We’ll be covering the information here, and you’ll
be taking packets of the info back with you to study in your quarters.”
Kitty looked down as they went over the chart, concentrating so hard her face
was a mask. Kurt stood beside her, his tail coiled around her hand. She gave a
brief squeeze, then freed her hand to point at an area of the chart, and asked
for clarification…
* * *
Tuesday, and two of the enemy portraits were front and center in the training
room. Howards handed them a new pair of information booklets. The labels said
“Cyclops and Psion,” and featured severe photos of the one eyed man and the red
headed woman.
Beginning the briefing he pointed to the male, “He has called himself Cyclops
since we first discovered him at Xavier’s when he was a boy. An orphan of
questionable mental stability, he has none the less grown to be a formidable
leader, one to be reckoned with.”
The next gesture indicated the woman. “She has called herself by a few names,
but nothing consistent over the years. Shield Intel labeled her ‘Psion’,
because of her mutations, and she’s adopted the name due to an obvious lack of
originality. She came from a middle class family that managed to disappear
before Shield could track them down from what was left of Xavier’s records.”
Combs took up the discussion, unveiling a chart of their known activities.
“Since Magneto took them in, they’ve been actively working against Human
interests. You can see here, how he dropped out of sight five years ago, after
the Raider’s leadership was executed. He started showing up again a year later,
but he was a different mutant. His right eye no longer projects the dangerous
red energy, and we are pretty certain he can no longer see out of it, either.
He’s approachable on the right flank, so keep that in mind. It’s a weakness you
can exploit, if you can distract her or lead her from his side.”
Howards again indicated Psion’s portrait. “While he is present at nearly every
raid they undertake, she shows up much more rarely, generally only at the
bigger terrorist attacks. Intelligence things she and the black woman had
offspring about 15 years ago. Notice the five-year gap in her sightings? Some
of the psychs have tentatively attributed her spotty appearance to some form of
maternal instinct, postulating she stayed behind with the offspring.”
Kitty felt her shoulders grow painfully tense. This red haired woman was
everything that she was not: classically beautiful, with a fabulous body… And
not only were all mutants in Shield custody treated more harshly for the
actions of these few renegades, but she had the… the nerve to have a child…
when she, and Kurt, and all the rest were forever barred that… Her teeth grated
together in barely suppressed rage. She could hate the woman just for that.
Kurt brushed her hand with his, and she tore her heated gaze away from her
enemies to look at him. He looked worried, the scars on his brow were furrowed
with it, and his lips moved in a silent question. “Liebe?”
She nodded that she was alright as Howards cleared his throat. “If I might have
your attention please? We have a lot of material to cover… That’s better.
Shield’s files record that the first time these two were encountered was in
Westchester, New York, at Xavier’s ill-conceived ‘School for Gifted
Youngsters’.”
Kurt’s frown only deepened as he watched her, but she needed to concentrate to
learn this material…
* * *
After lunch Wednesday, she sped through the hallways. Only one in every three
lights was lit in most of the corridors, and every fixture that could be
removed was gone. “What’s the hurry, liebe?” Kurt said.
“They said they were covering the savage today. I’m eager to learn more about
him.”
“You are… eager to learn how to fight a fellow mutant?”
“Mutant or not, he’s a monster who glories in blood and pain,” she snapped.
Kurt stopped short, and his golden eyes blinked at her. “And you know this…
how?”
“It… it’s obvious! Those films; the way he mowed people down…”
In a patient voice, he spoke softly. “The ones he fought in the films were
Shield agents, so it could merely be self defense. If I had known how to fight
before they found me, I would have… resisted, instead of trying to run. Not
that running did me any good…” He idly scratched his chest, as he usually did
when he remember his capture.
She shook her head, irritated. “You’re just being dense. Anyone could see that
he’s just an animal…”
He sighed and looked away, leaning against the wall. “Ja, an animal… All he’d
need to complete the image would be a coat of fur und a tail…”
A shiver ran through her at the bitter irony in his tone. He stared down at his
hands, which toyed with his tail, smoothing the soft fur that covered it.
“I… I didn’t mean you… Kurt…” She touched his velvety cheek, needing him to
know that she didn’t believe that about him…
He looked up at her again. “I’m just saying that you should keep an open mind,
and not buy into everything they say. After all, I have far more cause to be
called an ‘animal’ than Herr Klaws does, just on my looks.”
She took a deep breath, trying to let the anger go and nodded. “I’ll try.”
He smiled faintly. “Okay. Let’s go.”
* * *
When they arrived, it was classroom time again. This time the cutouts on the
stands were of the black woman and the hairy man. If the portraits were life
sized, then he was much shorter than she expected, definitely shorter than the
woman. “These two are called Storm and Wolverine,” Howards said. Pausing he
gave a brief smile. “And yes, he really is that short. It’s the first time
everyone says about him, but don’t underestimate him because of it. The bone
claws that spring from his hands are extremely hard and dense, making them
dangerous weapons. They can be cut or broken, but his mutant regeneration can
repair them as easily as the rest of him, although it seems to take a little
longer with them.”
Combs passed them their briefing documents. “We think he’s Canadian, and that
he first escaped our custody in the Sixties. There was an outfit interested in
training him as a tool, much like a prototype Hound, but they couldn’t pin him
down. It’s too bad, really. The plans they had for him would really have been
something.”[*]
Kitty cocked her heard. “The Sixties? He doesn’t look that old.”
Howards nodded, and tossed another folder down. “He doesn’t look to be this old
either, but this is conclusive proof that he served with Canadian units in the
Second World War.” Kurt flipped the folder, and they examined the yellowed
enlistment and service photos of the burly man in a foreign army uniform. As
one, they looked up at the cut out.
“That was taken four months ago,” Combs said, “and not one wrinkle or gray hair
betrays the fact that he stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-day. It’s
disgusting, really.”
Howards gave him a look. “The negress is from Northern Africa. She has the
uncanny power to manipulate the weather and conjure atmospheric effects. While
you’ve already been shown what he can do, she’s a much more tricky problem.
Strong winds, freezing temperatures, and electrical arcs are all part of her
arsenal. Don’t try to fight her from a distance; she excels in that style of
combat. Instead, we recommend that she be rushed and physically incapacitated.”
Combs nodded, “We say incapacitate her, because you won’t be facing her alone.
If you ignore her and fight the others while she provides windshields and
covering fire, you’ll be in trouble. So, keep her occupied or knock her out
fast. After you’ve defeated the others, you can finish her off then.”
“We think these two are mates, and that he’s the father of her offspring. He
seems more protective of her than he is for the other raiders. You might be
able to take advantage of that.” Howards caught their eyes to emphasize his
point. “Keep in mind here that the goal is to know the enemy.”
Kitty felt her jaw tighten again, but she struggled to remember what Kurt had
said to her. A glance to the side showed worry along with tension on his face.
She sighed. It would be so easy to give in to the hate that threatened to boil
up from within…
* * *
Day four, and the two cutouts on display both appeared to be of Magneto, but
there were subtle differences. “The one on the left,” said Howards, “Is their
leader before the executions five years ago. The other is a more recent image.
You can see for yourself, the second man is slighter and shorter. We are
certain the new leader is an imposter. The real Magneto is dead, there’s no
doubt about that. What we don’t know how the duplicate is mimicking the
original’s abilities, but the displays thus far have convinced us that he has a
full mastery of the powers that are associated along with that costume.”
“Regardless of who he is, or how he’s doing it, he’s cashing in on his
predecessor's legacy. “Just as the first one did, he’s attempting to show that
mutants can successfully resist the power of Shield.” Combs paused for effect.
“He must be killed. They can’t have an infinite supply of ersatz Magnetos, at
least not ones who can use the powers. Go over these briefings, and get a feel
for what he can do. We’ll answer any question you might have about him.”
Kitty frowned. “But, my knives…”
Kurt nodded his agreement, “Ja, and my gauntlets…”
“…Are made of a super strong, electrically resistant non-magnetic alloy,”
Howards said. “Even super magnets can’t touch the stuff. Your weapons are
expensive beyond belief, but then, all your training has led up to this point.
For this mission you will not wear the explosive collars. They might be able to
trigger them remotely, prematurely ending your mission. We feel that you are
sufficiently motivated that they won't be needed." She nodded absently, as
Howards continued, "Now save the rest of your questions until after you read
the material…”
“Yes, sir,” they said in chorus.
* * *
Friday afternoon, she and Kurt walked to the Psych Department. She wasn’t
looking forward to it. She still had jumbled nightmares about the last session.
She shivered as they took her to the conditioning room, with the chair facing
the screen. The tech strapped her in, and gave her the injection. He watched
until her eyes started glazing, and left, activating the session. Some unknown
amount of time later, Kurt was helping her to rise.
She couldn’t stop crying, and she felt sick to her stomach. She stumbled as he
led her away, and she growled, pulling away from him. Planting her fists and
forehead against the wall, she felt herself tremble. She was stronger than
this, dammit! She was a Hound, and it was time she started acting like it. She
drew in tearing gasps of air, and fought for composure. Kurt let her be, though
she could feel him nearby, waiting. Oddly, the knowledge didn’t seem to comfort
her.
Her face felt like stone when she drew herself up again. The pain she saw in
her husband’s eyes was a faint discomfort, but most of her concentration was
devoted to the singular effort to keep functioning. She gave him a short nod.
“I’m all right now, let’s go.”
“As you say, liebe.” His voice was soft and subdued. Thankfully, he had nothing
else to say during the descent to their quarters. When they arrived, he put on
some music and fixed them snacks. She ate absently; hardly knowing what she was
putting in her mouth. He wouldn’t be able to leave it alone, she knew, and she
didn’t have long to wait. Soon enough, after they sat on the couch, he broached
the subject she was manifestly unready to talk about.
“If… you want to talk about it, Kätzchen, I’m here. I was able to remember some
of what they are putting in our heads, and if we…”
“No.” She shook her head and turned away. “Look, I don’t remember, and I don’t
want to remember. I’m barely hanging on as it is.”
He gently persisted. “It might help if…”
“Please, Kurt. Don’t… don’t hurt me like this.” A whimper escaped him, and she
felt queasy.
“I would never want to hurt you, mein liebe, I’m sorry.” His voice sounded of
sad acceptance. “I’ll be back, there something I need to do.” He rose and
picked up a candle stub, and walked into the between space that she had avoided
since the utter darkness had fallen.
The record player was giving off a rhythmic hiss by the time he returned. He
drew her to her feet, and led her to their bed. “We have time to nap before
dinner. We can use the rest.”
She slipped onto the covers besides his warmth, and sighed. “Rest… is nice.”
* * *
A notice was posted opposite their door the next morning. They were to skip
work, and head for mission training. The space gear and shuttles weren’t
mockups this time; they were the real deal. Kurt looked surprised that
everything was happening so fast, but Kitty felt only relief that the
preparations were over. If anything she felt excitement… one way or another, it
would all be over soon.
Screens showed that the sky outside was turning black. From conversations
around them, they learned that the Carrier had been rising gradually all week,
clawing its way to the upper limits of the atmosphere. The fuel tanks of the
rocket-propelled shuttles were insufficient for a long journey and a lot of
maneuvering. The Carrier needed to provide as high a launch base as possible,
closing the gap to the Asteroid in high orbit.
They were instructed to don pressure suits over their fighting leathers and
board the hardened command shuttle. There was less room inside this one. Its
hull armor was the thickest of the flotilla. Besides themselves, it held the
Strike Commanders and the Special Ops teams. Kurt and Kitty were there to
overcome any obstacles in gaining access to the Asteroid’s interior.
A technician trained in air lock operations gave a last rundown on what
problems they might encounter - to a bulkhead in their general vicinity.
Kitty’s mouth quirked. The way some of these agents acted, you’d think that
mutation was contagious or something. Half the time they didn’t want to
acknowledge their existence, which was fine with her. Kurt was quiet, unusually
so. She found she was glad, actually. She needed to keep her focus sharp if
they were to accomplish their mission.
Launch caught her unprepared. She was running her anatomy lessons in her head
when the lurch came. Kurt swept his arm across her and kept her from impacting
on her harness. She gave him a nod of thanks as they roared away from the
Carrier. The thunder of the rockets was all that could be heard for ages, then
the primary burn stopped and they were on their way, through the lower orbit
and heading up.
Engagement with the enemy was easily discerned. Comm chatter between the
shuttles picked up and their vehicle executed a few dodges to evade weapons
fire from the target. Kurt pointed with his chin at a video screen she hadn’t
seen before, where the rocky body of their goal steadily grew as they
approached.
A sudden rise in the pitch of the chatter got her attention. One of their
escorts was in trouble, and before another shuttle could come to their aid the
pilot’s panicked voice cut out with finality. The hush that followed was only
broken when one of the demolition guys started grousing. “Why couldn’t the
stinking muties have been on that shuttle? But no, they had to be safe, here on
the command shuttle…”
The mission commander twisted in his straps to give the man a glare. “And you’d
get the air lock open how? With explosives? Yeah, that’ll help, won’t it? The
Hounds are specially trained for this mission, so shut yer yap!”
“Yessir,” the grumbler said, but he and the others still glared at the two of
them.
Kurt stirred in his seat, his tail twisting about in a serpentine way that
earned them even more evil looks. “Something’s different,” he whispered to her.
“I can feel ‘down’ again. We’re out of full freefall and falling down towards
the Asteroid.” As if to confirm him, the pilot reported retro-braking
maneuvers.
The chatter seemed to indicate that they were too close for the fixed
emplacements to target them. For long minutes, the sway of Kurt’s tail recorded
the tiny movements of their craft. With a soft clang, they were still. The
technician unstrapped and pulled himself to the air lock. After a few minutes
he reported that they had successful engaged the Asteroid’s door mechanism.
“Dig in, Captain,” the Commander said. The pilot flipped a switch and the ship
shuddered as multiple explosions erupted around the air lock. The commander
grinned at his startled men. “We’ve sunk our fangs in like a tick into the
surface of this rock, and it’s gonna be real hard for them to get rid of us.”
They laughed at his joke.
He looked over at the Hounds. “Shadowcat, you’ve got the first door. Phase into
the lock chamber and get it open.”
“Yes sir,” she said, and undid her straps. Curiously enough, she didn’t feel
dizzy. The weightlessness of her power seemed to acclimate her to the micro
gravity. Kurt came with her, gracefully using only the slightest movements to
soar easily to their goal. He helped her seal of her helmet and checked her
airlines. The yellow eyes behind his thumbs up gesture were melancholy, but
clear.
She nodded and turned to the lock. Taking a breath, she ducked her head and
walked through. Once in the chamber, she looked around. It was set to vacuum,
and locked to prevent entrance. She initiated the air cycle, only to have it
stop and reverse back to vacuum, by remote control, no doubt. She opened the
emergency panel and triggered a manual override.
Air flooded in and normalized, and she turned to the locks on the door. Again,
there was a manual backup, as if the designer never anticipated that
infiltration might come from within. A short while later, the door opened to
Kurt’s relief, and the Commander’s approval. “Good work, Hound.” She nodded,
taking off her helmet. He looked past her, and she ducked out of his way.
“Nightcrawler, is that little window big enough for to see through and
teleport?”
“The space beyond looks very dark, mein Herr, but I will try.” He pulled a
flashlight out of his tool pouch, and stepped past Kitty into the chamber. His
tail drooped as he entered, and he paused. “Commander? I think there is nearly
normal gravity here.”
“That’s impossible,” the technician said with scorn. The Commander fished some
coins from his pocket. One he tossed over his shoulder, where it drifted
lazily, then slowly fell to the side of the shuttle pressing against the rock
mass of the Asteroid. The second he tossed at the air lock. It started to drift
up, and then its arc ended with a normal sounding clatter as it bounced sharply
off the decking.
“Hmmm,” was all that the Commander said before he nodded at Kurt.
He peered through the little window, shining his light beam first this way,
then that. Finally he nodded, and BAMF! He was no longer in the lock chamber.
She had a moment to shiver from his absence, and then the inner air lock
started to open and a soft light shown through the glass.
Kurt grinned as he bowed theatrically to them from the interior corridor.
“Welcome to Asteroid M, mein Herren und Dame.”
 
[*] The Weapon X project. (X-Men 2) No Adamantium for you!
***** Kurt – Assault on Asteroid M *****
As he made his welcome to the interior of the Asteroid, Kurt saw past the
Commander that the opposite air lock was opening. The invasion plan dictated
that the command shuttle would be the point of contact to the target body, and
the other shuttles would connect to it, and others to them, until they were all
linked. Each of the other vessels in the flotilla had multiple air locks to
allow them to link up and to funnel troops through the single air lock to the
inside of the Asteroid.
He nodded to Kitty, and they moved to wait by the side. Special Ops hurried by
them, splitting to the left and the right, scouting for resistance and possible
cover. The air lock technician worked to prevent any disconnection of the
mechanism, and the Commander coordinated the logistics of moving men and
supplies through the prime shuttle to the corridors. Kitty’s form was taut,
like a drawn bowstring. He rubbed circles on her back and she gave him a brief
nod, barely acknowledging his presence. Ah, Kätzchen, have I lost you?
The Commander came back to the airlock and made eye contact. “Shadowcat,
Nightcrawler; you know what your mission is, don’t wait for us. Go after your
targets, while we do the room to room fighting.”
His lady nodded, and looked for the marker that Special Ops left that indicated
a hallway leading into the central areas of the habitat. Without looking at
Kurt, she made for it, and he leaped up on the wall to shadow her. Just before
the inner bulkhead closed behind them, Kurt picked up the sound of gunfire. It
seemed that the Shield troops had already encountered resistance.
When the heavy door showed secure, he sub-vocalized into his communicator. “I
will dim the lights, so put on your night goggles.” She nodded, pulling them
over her eyes while still turned off. He loped forward and disabled the ceiling
lights with the tools in his belt pouch. Every fourth light he left lit, but
sprayed with a dark blue paint that allowed only a faint glow.
Kitty spiked shut the doors they encountered, and then phased through to find
that they were unoccupied. At the end of the lateral hall, they passed through
another bulkhead that intersected at an encircling corridor, similar to the
first one they encountered. It didn’t take her long to identify the next radial
hallway, which led deeper into the Asteroid.
For the first time they encountered resistance. Kurt was halfway through the
darkening hall, when a defender entered, scouting with his weapon raised. Kitty
withdrew, phasing partially into a shaded section of wall with only her face
exposed. As the man approached, Kurt saw her lift one of her dirks. Bamf! He
ported behind the man and clubbed him down with a careful blow of his
gauntleted fist. He took a net capsule from his pouch and bound the unconscious
man.
“I would have taken care of it.” Her voice was flat and disapproving.
“Ja, but he was not one of our targets.” Kurt landed softly beside her, and
touched her face. “Besides, I didn’t want you to kill him.”
He saw a trace of discomfort in her brown eyes before she moved away from his
hand. “That will come soon enough.” She lifted her blades. “What do you think
these are for?”
He nodded sadly, and once more jumped up on the walls. Before he could finish
darkening the lights, a red beam stabbed out from the far bulkhead, sizzling
against the wall near Kitty.
She phased reflexively, and took off towards the enemy. Kurt had to nearly
gallop on the ceiling to keep up with her. As they reached the bulkhead, a
gruff voice drawled, “Too late, Hounds,” and it slammed shut. Explosive tremors
could be felt through the barrier. Neither of them was surprised to find that
it would no longer open; it seemed to be welded solid. She tried to phase
through, but the heat drove her back.
Kitty paced impatiently until the metal cooled, and brusquely gestured for him
to join her. “I’ll have to phase us through. Port us to a shadowy spot as soon
as we’re clear.”
“Jawohl,” he said, and moved close to her so she could put her arm around him.
The ethereal lightness of her power took hold of him as she walked up to bring
them through near the ceiling in the space opposite of them. They had trained
for this, and when they were in the open, she released him. He took the brunt
of both their weights as he clung to the wall, and looked for a destination.
This circling corridor was lit only with red emergency lights, and a dark space
was easy to spot. Bamf! He lowered her and she dropped to the floor.
“Hell!” the gruff voice from earlier cursed. “They’re still on us, Cyke!”
Another bulkhead slammed shut and sealed as before.
Kitty cursed, and went to it, but again she was forced to wait until it cooled.
“We should dodge to the side,” he murmured to her, “so as not to come out at
the same spot.” She nodded her agreement, and waved him down. He joined her
again, and she walked them well to the left of the cooling door. Turning back
in to the hall near the ceiling, she peered through, and brought them clear. He
ported them to a shadowy niche, but held onto her when he saw movement down the
already darkened corridor. Kitty squirmed in his grasp, and finally phased
through his arms to get back to ground level.
A crack of electric blue hissed through the air as a lightning bolt surged down
the hall, making them both groan from the glaring flash. “Come no further
Hounds, if you want to live.” This voice was feminine and colored with a
distinct accent.
“The weather witch,” Kitty said, and he agreed. “This is it!”
The far bulkhead shut, but it didn’t seal as the others had. Instead, the
closure seemed to be a silent challenge. Whatever happened on the other side
was of their choosing. She stepped forward, her hand on the control. Looking
over her shoulder she nodded to the door. “Coming?”
“Right behind you, Kätzchen.” If she heard the resignation in his tone, she
didn’t comment on it.
They walked through the door into a large  round room lined with storage.
Waiting across from them were the Raiders. These were their first targets;
Cyclops, Psion, Wolverine, and Storm. The lighting was bright enough that she
pulled off her goggles and laid them on the floor. Her dirks were suddenly in
her hands, and she glared at the hairy mutant.
“All right,” Wolverine said. “Yer far enough way from yer masters now. If you
wanna be free, you can ask for asylum. Don’t know why they sent Hounds this far
in, when ya could just join us.”
“I will be dead before I let you go free from your crimes,” Kitty hissed.
Icy blue eyes narrowed, and he nodded acceptance of her challenge.
“And you?” the tall man asked. The one red glow of his goggles looked past
Kitty to where Kurt stood obscured in her shadow.
“I will fight with her,” he said. He came out beside her, fully expecting the
shocked gasps his form elicited. He crouched, tail lashing, accentuating his
animalistic appearance, and displayed his bright fangs.
Kitty half turned to him. “I got him, you take the witch.”
“Ja,” he replied. He leaped up to the wall and raced off to the right, waiting
for Kitty to draw the Wolverine off before tackling his own target. As soon as
enough space formed, he ported in and clocked the white haired woman with his
gauntleted fist.
She was faster than he thought she’d be, and he only landed a glancing blow to
her head. Winds and electricity surged around her as she faced against her
opponent. The other couple edged away from the fall out of Storm’s defenses,
and he increased the distance from the other battle by micro-porting backwards,
luring her on.
Kurt soon found himself dodging bolts and wind blasts. His acrobatics were
tested to the limit as he sought to incapacitate her while avoiding her
strikes. He also had to keep an eye out for the sporadic distance attacks of
Cyclops and Psion.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked him raggedly at one point, as they both
gasped for air. “It’s clear that your heart isn’t in it.”
He scowled. “Because I can’t live without her.” He ported to her, knocking her
down and battered her face before a red blast knocked him off of her. In a
flash, he was back up on the wall.
She’d cried out at the blows, and the Wolverine had turned. “’Ro?” It was all
the opening that Kitty needed. She buried one of her dirks deep in his belly,
and snapped another into her hand before a container flew into her, pushing her
back. The hairy man staggered back, and pulled the bloody knife from his body,
clutching the wound with one hand, and brandishing the claws on his other.
A moment later the bleeding stopped and the wound was closing. Kurt could
hardly credit his eyes. He knew the man healed fast, but…
A sparkling bolt caught him full in the chest, the electrical surge making his
whole body arch in tension. He lost his grip on the wall and fell. Kurt looked
up into the eyes of an enraged goddess, her power swirling around in the
cavernous room in an awesome manner. One of her eyes was blackening, and other
swelling bruises marred the lovely face around the eerie white eyes. He felt
sick to his stomach, knowing that he was the one who’d done that to her.
Over his comm channel he heard Kitty hiss, and he saw the Wolverine wade back
into the fight. His claws were showing red now, with her blood. Kurt’s breath
came fast with the conflicting needs, first to watch over his Kätzchen, and the
definite need to keep an eye on an angry Storm. A whiff of burned fur told him
that the last bolt had done more damage than he realized. A faint hum spurred
him to port away, barely missing another bolt. He fled, fully on the defensive
while he struggled to get his wits back. She couldn’t do more that shove him
around with her winds when he ran like this, but with his focus so divided, he
wasn’t getting an upper hand, either.
Unfortunately, his standoff with Storm meant that the other three Raiders were
able to concentrate on Kitty, and she was being hard pressed. He ported again,
and turned to see Wolverine’s claws dig into her right thigh, ripping through
the leather of her suit. This time she whimpered, and that was all that he
could stand. Enough of play, he had to help her.
With a feral snarl, he ported above and behind his tormentor. Landing, he
wrapped around her, his weight driving her to her knees. His arm snaked around
her throat, throttling her. A hard pitched object from Psion caromed off his
forehead, leaving a gash. His grip loosened, and Stom twisted under him, her
hands crackling with the energy she was summoning.
He drew his fist back for another blow when he heard the wheezing thud of
Kätzchen’s defeat over the channel. The moment in time froze; with him perched
atop Storm and poised to strike, but he couldn’t help staring, stricken, across
the room at his fallen partner. Why Storm didn’t finish him off right then he
had no idea. All he saw was the berserk Wolverine stalking forward to finish
his foe. “Nein!”
BAMF! He was between the hunter and his prey, crouching over her, his hands
raised in supplication. “Bitte! Please! Do not hurt her. I beg you…” Wolverine
growled threateningly, but Kurt stayed his ground, between death and his
Kätzchen.
“Enough, Logan.” Storm had crossed the room, and laid a hand on her mate.
“They’ve had enough.”
Wolverine looked at her, and the fury of his growls increased. “’Ro! But, look
what he’s done to you!”
“He fought for her, as you did for me. But now is the time to talk, not fight.”
She put her hand on his bristly cheek. “I forgive him.”
“Well, I don’t. How do ya even know he feels things the same way we do? He’s
so… different.”
“I looked in his eyes, and saw into his heart. Use your senses, my love. Is he
really so different?”
Scowling, Wolverine faced him, and looked at him, hard. Kurt straightened up in
his crouch, steadily returning the icy glare. He pulled off the metal
gauntlets, and tossed them away. “I don’t need these anymore. All I need is
her.” He watched the feral man step closer, his nostrils flaring as he sniffed
at them. Slowly the bony claws retracted into his hands. Cyclops and the others
looked relieved.
“You’d die for her?” Wolverine asked in challenge.
“In a heartbeat,” Kurt answered. “There is none so dear to me as my Kätzchen.”
Wolverine snorted. “Well, your half-pint is a pretty mean fighter.”
Kurt nodded to him. “My Kitten can be fierce. They found a lie to turn her
anger against you. It is only now that I can see the falsehoods…”
Kitty moaned and stirred, and he turned away from the Raiders to comfort her.
“Shhh, liebe. It is all right now…” Her brown eyes blinked in confusion at
first, then focused on the figures behind him. She stiffened, reaching for her
knives to start the fight again.
He held her wrists in a tight grasp, while using his feet and tail to pin her
down. “Nein, Kätzchen. It is over. The fight is lost. Surrender.”
She struggled, glaring at him. “Traitor! Shield never surrenders!”
“Und we are of Shield now? I thought we were their prisoners.”
She blinked at that, and then recited dully, “I belong to Shield.”
Kurt hissed in frustration. What could he say to counter the poison in her?
Inspiration struck him and he interrupted the litany. “Dearly Beloved...”
As if he hadn’t spoken, she continued. “They own my very breath.”
Kurt persisted, “We are gathered here today...”
“I… I… live at their whim, I di…die at their whim.” She winced at the
stuttering, as if expecting a blow.
“To join this man, and this woman…”
She shook her head, the sweat beading on her face. Her voice was faint, but
still clear. “I will serve them in whatever I am… I am commanded.”
He put his face squarely in her line of sight. “In the bonds of Holy
Matrimony!”
“I belong…” she blinked again, focusing her gaze into his golden eyes, “to…
Kurt?”
“Yes!” He grinned hugely and gathered her tight in his arms. “Ja, mein liebe,
we belong to each other.”
She gingerly hugged him back, and stared wide eyed over his shoulder at the two
Raider couples, standing with arms around each other’s waists, watching them.
Tension made her stiff, and he kissed her cheek. “What, liebe?”
“But, what about Karla?” Tears welled in her eyes as she whispered. “I failed
her.”
“Nein, Kätzchen. They lied. You told me her body was marked by trios of clean
edged cuts, Ja?” She nodded. “Look here at your thigh. His claws are not sharp
like blades, but like spikes. They puncture and rip; but they do not cut
cleanly. They lied to you, even then. It was them, all along.”
“Oh, God.” She buried her head in his neck. “She said things weren’t what they
seemed. 'Stay'... They staged it so I would hate him…”
“Who’s Karla?” asked Cyclops. Kitty had begun to quietly sob against him, so
Kurt answered.
“A fellow Hound, and a mutual friend… She introduced us. She failed a mission,
washing out. That meant her usefulness was over, but she wasn’t dead yet.” He
sighed, resting his cheek against her brown hair. “Failed Hounds are dissected
to ‘further science’, cremated, and the ashes pitched off the garbage bay. They
prefer their subjects still breathing for this, if possible. They presented
her, apparently injured by Wolverine, and offered Kitty the opportunity to kill
Karla cleanly, instead.”
He took a breath, and looked up at them. “She accepted.”
The red-head shuddered, and leaned hard against Cyclops. “I can feel so much
pain from them, Scott.” He held her closer.
“It was my first kill, a… mercy killing.” Kitty made a face. “When they told us
about you Raiders, they blamed you for her failure. I hated you because I
thought you were the ones, who made it so I had to… do that.”
“Bastards,” Wolverine growled. Nothing more needed to be said after that.
Kurt reached for Kitty’s knives, removing them from their sheaths and tossing
them over by his gauntlets. She helped him, and together they freed her from
the weight of her weapons.
“Never again,” Kurt said, “unless you choose them.” She nodded, and pulled him
down for a kiss. “Kätzchen!” he said when she let him go. The others laughed at
his embarrassed tone.
“We should tend to their wounds,” Storm said. “If this is over?”
“Jean?” Cyclops said. She looked off.
“Reports throughout the Asteroid are that the invasion has failed. None of the
shuttles got away, and we have lots of prisoners to question.” She nodded and
then smiled at the Hounds. “Our leader welcomes you among us, but he tells me
to warn you that we need to know you better before you are fully trusted.”
“A sensible precaution,” Kurt said. “We thank you.”
Wolverine stuck out a hairy hand, and Kurt took it, letting the man help him to
his feet, even as he helped Kitty. She was limping, and he took as much of her
weight as he could from her.
“So how old are you two, anyway?” Cyclops asked.
“Aw, what does it matter, Cyke?” Wolverine grumbled. “Let’s just get them
patched up.”
“We’re getting there, but it matters that they look young enough to be our
kids, Logan.”
“I just turned sixteen,” Kitty said after a bit. Kurt looked at her, his
question in his eyes. “Last week. I forgot to tell you.”
“Then… I will be seventeen, in a month and a half.”
“Christ, you’re just children,” the man called Scott said.
Kitty moaned quietly, and Kurt lifted her up in his arms, placing a soothing
kiss on her forehead. Turning to Cyclops, he said wearily, “If we are but
Kinder, mein Herr, then why do we feel so old?” Kitty nodded, her head resting
on his chest.
“How long were you with them?” Scott said, leading them into a more brightly
lit corridor.
“Myself, over two years, and Kätzchen, about a half a year less. We have been
wed for just over one year.”
“We weren’t together for all of it,” Kitty said quietly. “That’s how they would
punish us, by keeping us apart.”
“They let you get married?” Jean asked. “I didn’t think they allowed that.”
“They don’t,” Kurt said. “We spoke our vows to each other, witnessed by God. As
much as we could, we have been faithful to them.”
“’As much as you could’?” Scott said. “Right in here.” He opened the door into
a well-appointed medical clinic.
“Some of our trainers had a thing for molestation,” Kurt said flatly. The
compassion he could see in Storm’s eyes nearly made him stumble.
“Let me, kid,” Wolverine said, reaching for Kitty. Kurt hesitated, and Kitty
tensed. The gruff voiced dropped to a low rumble, “C’mon Half-pint, he’s about
ready to drop, himself. Least I can do for that hellava scrap you gave me.”
Kitty looked up at him and nodded. Kurt surrendered her weight, and flinched
when an arm wrapped in support around him. He looked into Storm’s blue eyes as
she smiled in encouragement.
Wolverine put Kitty down gently on an examination bed, and Jean stepped up to
look her over. “I’ll need to open your suit a little.”
“Just take it off,” Kitty said, and gingerly stepped down to do just that. Kurt
leaned on the bed beside hers, and began to remove his as well.
When he noticed the raised eyebrows, he shrugged. “Modesty is not encouraged
among Hounds, and we are wearing undergarments.” The older men looked away at
the sight of Kitty dressed only in a bra and panties, to see that the blue fur
on Kurt really went everywhere, if his sweat-soaked white boxers were any
indication.
“No cup?” Wolverine said to him.
Kurt nudged the leathers with his tail as he perched on the edge of the bed.
“Built into it.” The gruff man nodded.
He noted that Jean had covered his lady with a sheet, and was only uncovering
her enough to deal with her lacerations. To his eyes, none of her wounds were
very deep. She must have done an excellent job of evasion.
Storm began treating the gash on his forehead. It appeared to have been seeping
since he’d gotten it, judging from the amount of blood she wiped away from his
face. He squinted as she brought up a bright light to study it. “I don’t think
it will need stitches,” she told him.
“Ser gut,” he said. She put a pad on the cut, and wrapped gauze around his head
to hold it in place. “Mein ears!” he protested, and she reversed a little to
ensure that his pointed ears were outside the bandage.
“Anything else?” she asked. “I can only remember fully striking you once.”
“Ja, I have a burn, here,” he gestured to his right pectoral.
She turned the light to his chest, and frowned. “I, um, will have to shave
you,” she said.
He sighed. “If you must, but as little as possible, bitte.”
Kitty giggled weakly. “How you gonna be my Fuzzy if you’re shaved?”
“Hush, Kätzchen. Don’t tease me.” He waggled a finger at her, making her laugh
all the harder through the tears.
Wolverine glared at Cyclops, who looked at the women for support, and didn’t
find any. The one-eyed man held his hands up in surrender. “All right, I agree
with you. They really are a married couple, despite their ages.”
“There was any doubt?” Kurt said. Scott wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Hmph.” He
scuttled back from Storm and her clippers, and reached into his suit’s utility
pouch. Pulling out a length of twine, he bit off two lengths, and reached for
Kitty’s hand. “With this string, I thee wed,” he whispered as he knotted the
shorter length onto her.
She took the other, and tied it on his outer finger. “With this string, I thee
wed.” Leaning up, she met his mouth for a timeless moment where nothing existed
but the two of them. He held her close until she gently pushed him away. “Let
her finish. You still smell like charred fur, and I can see the blisters where
she shaved you.
“Ja, mein liebe.” He settled to sit fully down on the bed, nearly drooping with
weariness as Storm finished tending to his burn, and took a blood sample from
him. He attempted a smile. “It has been a very long day.”
“Looks like it, Elf,” Wolverine said. Kurt and his lady looked at him
questioningly. “The, uh, ears.” He gestured vaguely at his head, and then
scowled at the chuckling teens.
Cyclops snorted. “Mr. Nick-names strikes again.”
“You think so, Scooter?” Logan said. The other man glared daggers back at him.
Jean ignored the bickering and brought up a wheeled-chair. “Sit here, Kurt, and
you can hold Kitty.” Neither one of you are really up to walking.”
“As you say, milady.” He held his Kätzchen, and let himself drift while they
were pushed to a room. The chair was moved near the bed, and they were wished a
good night. They waited only for the door to close before he helped her take
off the uncomfortable military bra. Once they were both relieved of the rest of
their undergarments, she cuddled close to him.
He didn’t know which of them slept first.
***** Kitty – Tasting Freedom *****
Faint traces of pain dragged Kitty awake. Her thigh hurt. Reaching down in the
dark, she encountered a coiling tail overlapping her bandage. “Kurt, could you
move that, please?”
“Umph?!” Kurt snapped awake, the coil tightening by reflex. His eyes shone
brightly in the darkness of the room.
“Ow! Move your tail off my bandage, Fuzzy. Now!”
“T… taurig, Kätzchen… sorry.” The offending appendage unwound carefully. “Ach.
What time is it?”
“Not a clue, lover. You’re the one with the mostly reliable inner clock.”
“’Mostly’, she says,” he grumbled. From the glow of his eyes, his head was
propped up on his hand as he looked at her. A faint glow on bunched cheeks told
her he was smiling.
“You remember our first Bolero, last year?” she said.
“We were both very tired, and I didn’t have an alarm set. Besides, I cannot
bring myself to regret the consequences of that evening.” His hand reached out
and stroked her face. “I think, though, that it is very early morning, Carrier
time.”
“Is there a bathroom off this room?”
“I will check.” He rolled out of bed, and the light of his eyes retreated with
him. “Yes, liebe, a sink, a commode, and a shower. No tub, but much better than
the brig or a gang dorm.” She tried to rise, but collapsed back on the bed. He
was there with her, suddenly. “You need to use the facility?”
“Yes, but my leg is so stiff, and my left shoulder.” He helped her get to where
she needed to be, then back into bed against him.
“I feel so strange,” she whispered. “Everything is different now. I hope it's
better.”
“As do I, Kätzchen.”
* * *
The next thing she knew there was a knock on the door of the faintly lit room.
“Kurt?”
He rose, wrapping himself in the clinic sheet that had been around Kitty the
night before, and went to the door, looking back to see that she was covered.
She had the blankets up to her ears, so he opened the door slightly. She heard
Wolverine’s gruff voice. “’Ro found some clothing she thinks you two can wear.
I thought you’d like to clean up and wear them, ‘cuz… I bet dried sweat in yer
fur sucks.” A box changed hands in the doorway.
“Indeed it does, Herr Wolverine. Bless her, from both of us.”
“Call me Logan. So, there’s a clock. We’ll send someone to bring you to
breakfast in an hour.”
“Danke schoen… Logan.” The older man grunted in reply, and Kurt shut the door.
He turned on the light switch, and shook out the box on the bed. There were new
boxers and pants for Kurt, already altered for his tail, and a light polo shirt
to go with them. For her, a delicate set of satin underwear her size that had
her blushing from the speculative look it put in his eyes. There was a pale
blue blouse and a longish plaid skirt. Shoes and socks were the finishing
touches of her outfit.
Lastly, along with the clock, was a bottle of Old Spice. He reverently picked
up the bottle. “How did they know?”
Kitty shrugged. “The briefing mentioned his enhanced senses. Maybe he smelled
it in my hair, from my pillow.”
Kurt looked skeptical, and sniffed her hair. “Ja. I can just make it out. The
shower has handrails, but I’ll be ready to help you. I’ll wash after.”
He helped her into the bathroom again. She examined the wounds on her thigh,
and decided they could have been worse. “It won’t hurt them to air dry, after I
wash.”
She pulled the bandages off, and he examined her left shoulder. “Scratches,” he
said. “They will probably heal completely.” She flexed her limbs until some of
the stiffness retreated.
She kissed him, and then entered the shower. It was blessedly hot, and she
leaned on the bar and simply soaked until she felt more human. She washed
thoroughly and she when she felt clean she came out, only to be promptly
wrapped in soft towels. “Thank you, love.”
“You’re welcome. I have the rest laid out for me.”
She nodded and drew his head down, looking under the bandage on his forehead.
“Not too bad,” she said, taking it off. “What about your chest?” That bandage
was already gone, leaving a spot of paler blue skin already prickling with new
hair growth.
“Whatever she put on it worked well,” he said. “The blisters are gone, anyway.
I’ll risk it, to get clean.”
“All right. I know how you hate feeling dirty.”
“Unless it is in a good cause, mein liebe.” He bowed low over her hand,
bestowing a kiss. The heat in his golden eyes had her ducking her head in a
blush. He was still chucking when he stepped into the shower. Hearing him hum a
tune, she smiled. He only did that when he was in good spirits.
She finished drying and was getting dressed when he came out, wrapped in
towels. He reached a hand out while drying himself to prevent her from putting
the blouse on. The soft bra and matching panties met with his approval from the
warm way he smiled at her.
She pushed his arm. “Finish drying, Fuzzy, or should I say ‘Soggy’?” He bared
his fangs playfully, and she finished dressing. She hadn’t worn anything…
feminine like this since…since High School… all those ages ago. In the bathroom
doorway, she looked at her image in the mirror, only to recoil away with a sob.
“Kätzchen!” Kurt leaped to her side, catching her in his arms, and frowning
concernedly at her sudden tears.
She held her hands over her face, sobbing into them. “It doesn’t matter.
Nothing matters. No matter what I wear… all anyone will see is this!” She
traced her fingers over the tattoo marks.
“Mein liebe…” He held her close, and then urged her back to the mirror. He
stood behind as he had once before, encouraging her to face her perceived
faults. “Did you forget?” He drew a finger down the centerline that ran from
her hairline down to the tip of her nose. “This is the only way I’ve ever known
you.” His fingers traced the diagonal marks from the bridge of her nose out
across her cheeks, smearing though the lines of her tears. “You see the face I
fell in love with.” He made another stroke over the chevrons on her chin.
“Others may see you as a traitor to our kind because of them, but I know that
they are no more, and no less, than the brands of our slavery.”
She reached up and stroked the ridged scars on his face. She lowered her head
briefly, then met his eyes in the mirror and nodded. “I guess since there’s
nothing I can do about them, I’ll ignore them.”
“That’s the spirit. We may have been captives, but we have nothing to be
ashamed of. We didn’t choose it.”
She turned to him and tested his belly fur with a finger. “Are you dry, yet?”
“I keep getting interrupted and there’s a lot of fur…”
“Let me help.” She took hold of some of the towels and scrubbed him vigorously,
except where he was injured. His right chest and forehead she blotted.
“Ach! Stop! The cure is worse than the disease!” He gently batted her hands
away, and finished the job himself. “I’ll air dry the rest of the way.”
“Well, get dressed, they should be here soon.”
He stepped into the boxers and then the pants, his tail wriggling out of the
holes. He pulled the polo shirt on, and he was done.
“Show off.” He only replied with an elaborate shrug. She had to admit; he
looked very good in casuals, helped out by the fact that his scars weren’t as
obvious as her tattoos. She tossed him the cologne, and he put some on.
He cocked his head towards the door, and she checked her outfit one last time.
When the knock came on the door, he opened it, and then stepped back in
surprise. She came up to him and looked out on two young men about their ages.
The taller of the two was about Kurt’s height, but would potentially be broader
of shoulder, and showed signs of a heavier build. Shoulder length red hair
framed a face that left no doubt as to his relationship to both Cyclops and
Psion. The other boy was just as obviously the son of Wolverine and Storm.
Taller than his father, he was nearly as heavily muscled. His steel gray hair
was cut in a mullet style over his permanent tan, and incredible blue eyes were
set deep under thick black brows.
Both of them were goggling at Kurt, which was only to be expected. They finally
tore their stares from him to look at her, and she felt a frisson of discomfort
as their eyes first locked on her face, and only took in the rest of her as an
afterthought. A faint appreciative smile on the face of the shorter boy
prompted Kurt to snake an arm around her waist. “Und you are?” he said archly.
“Oh, I’m Warren. Warren Summers,” the red head said.
“Mack Munroe,” the other added, in a familiar economy of words.
“We are Kurt and Kitty Wagner. I am pleased to meet you.” She gave him a nudge
on the ribs, which he ignored.
“Your dad said something about breakfast?” she asked Mack, while linking her
arm with Kurt’s.
“Yeah. Most of us eat together, ‘To build up the community’,” he said,
obviously quoting someone.
“But you don’t thinks so?” Kurt asked as they followed the boys.
Warren shrugged. “I guess it’s all right. I mean, we don’t have to sit with the
folks if we don’t want to.”
“It’s a good chance to see the girls,” Mack said. “Seen ‘em all, though, ‘cept
you, and you’re married, I guess.”
“Definitely married,” Kitty said, squeezing the arm linked with hers. Kurt
rewarded her with a smile.
“Pity,” Mack said.
Warren cuffed him on the shoulder. “I swear you say that to everyone with a
double x chromosome set.”
Mack didn’t seem to notice the impact. He pointed to a set of double doors up
ahead. “Here we are. It’s a come as you are, serve yourself informal thing.”
“Thanks guys,” Kitty said. They stopped outside the doors while the two boys
went in. She looked up at Kurt who was smiling faintly.
He leaned his forehead against her. “Were we ever so young, liebe?”
“Once, about a zillion years ago,” she said. “Let’s face the music.” Fighting
not to show her apprehension, she pushed the doors open, and she and Kurt
stepped through. The whole room was staring, just as she feared they would be.
Kurt smoothly drew her forward, nodding at the boys, who were sitting near a
group of other teens. She waved at the table on the end where some of the older
folk sat, including the four Raiders in casual dress. Her love urged her to sit
at an open table, and left her there while he got his food. She was glad she
was sitting, so her trembling didn’t show. Half the people were staring at her
face, and it was all she could do not to hide it in her hands. The other half
stared at Kurt, taking in his mutations, and the silky way he moved. He came
back with a tray of food and drinks for both of them.
“The food looks very good, Kätzchen,” he said.
“Not hungry...” It was true, she felt sick to her stomach.
“They won’t stop staring if you just sit there. Give them time to get used to
us. I’m sure they’ve seen odd things before.” He nodded his head at the
Raider’s table. There was another red head at that table, but her hair was more
russet than flame red. She smacked the hand of a young silver haired boy whose
fork moved in and out of speed-blur mode in fits and starts.
“Eat at human speeds, Peter Maximoff,” she said.
“I’m not doing it on purpose, Aunt Wanda!” the boy complained. A gentle wave of
laughter crossed the room.
Behind her, a chair scraped back. “Hey Dad,” called Mack. “If I’d’ve known a
tattoo could get so much attention, I’d’ve asked for one a while ago. Can I get
one?”
Kitty looked to see Wolverine’s reaction. He looked slightly amused, and said,
“Not one like that you can’t.” Storm glared at her son, and Kitty turned to see
the gray haired boy lifting a glass to her and Kurt.
She quirked her lips into a strained smile. “Trust me, Mack. You don’t want
one. I wish, more than anything, that I didn’t have it.” She turned to Kurt.
“Except… then I wouldn’t have met you.”
He pulled her against him, “Meeting you was the only bright spot in that
nightmare existence.”
She hid her face in his neck for a bit, then kissed his cheek and went to get a
tray. Coming back with a plate of fruit and toast, she jumped when a high-
pitched squeal of “Mr. Tails!” rang through the room.
She and Kurt turned to see a young girl race up to them and throw her arms
around Kurt, hugging him hard. “Mr. Tails, you got away from the bad men!” Kurt
could see that Kurt looked as confused as she was. In fascination, she saw how
the girl’s hair continuously flowed from one shade to another, including colors
only normally obtainable through chemicals. Clutched in one of the girl’s hands
was a stuffed-toy… something, with a fuzzy blue head, and an equally blue tail
flapping behind.
Kurt’s eyes widened, “Kätzchen, this must be the girl from the condominium! I’m
so glad you’re all right, liebchen.” He grinned at the child broadly and hugged
her back.
She leaned back and looked at him. “You talk funny.”
He winked. “Why, are you laughing?” He spotted the doll, “And who is this?”
She showed them the doll. It was a comical rendition of Kurt, with cartoony
proportions. “This is Mr. Tails! He’s my protector.”
“Ah, indeed. May I?” She handed it to him. He stood and held it up against his
chest. “Is it not a most astounding resemblance, Herr Logan?”
The feral man let out a loud guffaw. “Looks just like ya, Elf!” He nodded to
his surprised wife, “Considering the maker hadn’t seen ya yet.”
Kurt bowed to Storm with flourishes. “Excellent handiwork, milady.” He sat,
giving the doll back to the girl.
“I’m Melanie,” she said.
“I am Kurt, and this is my wife, Kitty.”
“You’re such a ham,” Kitty said with a laugh.
“Oh dear, that is a problem,” he said, frowning with concern. When she looked
at him quizzically, he delivered the punch line. “You are Jewish, mein
Kätzchen.” Then he winked slyly at her.
“You!” She socked him in the arm. “Quit it.”
He ducked his head, mock-mournfully. “Yes, dear,” he said meekly, looking
serious for all of a second or two. When he laughed, she laughed with him.
“Can I sit with you?” Melanie asked. The innuendo had flown straight over her
head, but the teens were still chuckling about it.
“Certainly, Melanie, if it’s all right. Where is your tray?”
A woman brought it over and smiled at them. Kitty felt relaxed, knowing that
his clowning had been more than just for Melanie’s benefit.
* * *
“… and Mr. Tails sleeps with me at night to keep the bad men away,” Melanie
told them later.
“What a coincidence,” Kitty said. “This one sleeps with me.”
This time the girl did catch the adult comment. “Ewww.”
Kitty shook her head. “No, he’s soft. Feel his arm.”
Kurt didn’t move as the girl stroked him cautiously. “Oh, he is soft, and
fuzzy! You’re lucky.”
“I most certainly am,” she said, smiling at her husband. He bowed his head to
her deeply.
“Ich liebe dich,” he said, and bent to kiss her.
“Hey, you two,” Logan’s gruff voice drew them back to the moment. “Melly, yer
done eatin’ so scat back to your school group, ‘kay? We got business with your
new friends.”
“All right,” she said resignedly, then her tone turned hopeful, “I’ll see them
again, soon?”
“They ain’t going nowhere,” Logan said. “This is where they belong now.”
“’Kay. Bye!” Melanie skipped off, Mr. Tails flopping in tow.
“Auf Wiedersehen, liebchen,” Kurt said softly, his eyes following her.
“Mr. Munroe?” Kitty said. “What now?”
He snorted. “Munroe’s her name. I’m just Logan; first, last, or middle, nobody
knows… least of all me. Anyways, I’m here to tell ya the boss wants a talk.”
Kitty was curious. “The, uh, Magneto? The new guy?”
Deep-set blue eyes watched them closely. “You know about that?”
“The leadership… ambush was filmed,” Kurt said carefully. “As was the incident
in their morgue.”
“Huh. Yeah, this is the new guy. He’s got the right stuff, though. C’mon.”
The room he took them to was a comfortable den, decorated in masculine leather
and wood. The other three Raiders were there, as was ‘Aunt Wanda’. Sitting
behind a wide desk, was Magneto. The look of the cloak and the dark shadows
cast by the helm gave the man an air of mystery. It was hard to tell, but his
eyes appeared to be light colored. This, then, was the man who dared to
continue to defy Shield.
“Mr. and Mrs. Wagner,” he said, his voice a lighter tenor than she expected.
“I’m pleased to meet you. Have a seat.”
Kurt caught her eyes with a look of surprise as they sat across from him. Kitty
tried to think if they’d given their last names to anyone but the boys. Their
host gestured at folders on his desk. “The shuttles gave us access codes we
were able to use before they expired. Cyclops headed a mission to hack the
Carrier’s computers last night, before it finished dropping back through the
atmosphere.”
He nodded at the one-eyed man, who gave him a tired smile back behind his red-
glasses. The scars behind the smaller set of lenses, one darkened, showed more
clearly how badly he had been injured in the years-ago attack.
Wanda smiled at Kitty and her husband. “As you alerted us to the situation with
Melanie, enabling us to extract her before the building exploded, we were able
to help the other family you were involved with, also. We are only now
realizing that ‘Mr. Tails’ was the same as your partner, Kitty. You might want
to know that they’re aboard the Asteroid, but they eat in another dining room.”
“Are they all right?” Kurt asked, frowning. “I was worried about the children.”
“The husband is still recovering from his injuries. Other than that, they’re
fine.”
“Thank you,” Kitty said. “I was worried about them, too.”
Magneto opened the folders. “Kurt Wagner,” he read. “Captured at a small circus
in rural Germany. Thought to have been recently adopted by a small band of
Gypsies. Katherine Wagner, nee Pryde, of Jewish descent, discovered at
Deerfield High School outside of Chicago. Nice GPA, Madame.”
“Thank you, sir. I was proud of my academics…” her voice trailed off.
“You can continue your educations here, both of you. You might want to know,
Madame, that Shield has your parents under observation, but that’s all.”
“Kitty, please. No reprisals?”
“Kitty,” he nodded. “Even they understand that your parents had nothing to do
with your disappearance on a mission Shield sent you on.” He handed Kurt a
printout of a photo, showing two men exchanging something. [A/N: From Chapter
1.]
Kurt pointed at the civilian in the picture next to the Shield officer. “That
is… my uncle Stefan. Their information is wrong, by the way. I lived all my
life with the gypsies. My Mutter is his sister.”
The eyes under the helm narrowed slightly. “Are you aware you’re a second
generation mutant? If your mother is a gypsy born, then it was your father…” He
pulled the helm off, and stood, revealing brilliantly green eyes and short
chestnut hair. He was younger than the other adults present, in his early
thirties, perhaps. He was much shorter than Cyclops, and only topped Wolverine
by a inch or two, without the heavy build.
Kurt stood, eyes wide in surprise. “Jimmy? No… but, you look like my Bruder.”
[Chapter 2.]
Green eyes bored into gold. “Jimaine had twins?”
“How do you know of…? But no, Jimaine only had a son. I was a newborn foundling
that she adopted.”
“I was… her lover. I didn’t know that she was pregnant.” He looked at Cyclops.
“Did Magnus know?”
“No, Jon. If we would’ve known, we would have found some way to convince her
mother to let her go with you.”
Kurt sat slowly, “I finally get to meet Jimmy’s father. She still loves you,
you know.”
Jon smiled sadly. “I can’t imagine why, after I left her.”
“But what does Uncle Stefan have to do with this… and what is he doing with
this man?”
Jon pointed at a corner of the photo. “See the tent? This is the circus you
were captured at. He’s taking payment for betraying you to them. And, if he
would sell out one mutant…”
“He might betray Jimmy, too?” Kurt’s tail lashed. “We must warn them. Grandmama
Margali takes a dim view of treachery. I need to tell them…”
He looked at Kitty, but she was thinking of something else. “You thought he was
your son,” she said sternly to Jon. “And you weren’t very pleased about it.”
Jon shrugged, “He’s the right age, and if Jimaine was his mother…” He sighed.
“It’s just…”
“Just what?” she said. “Surely you don’t judge him for his looks?”
“No,” he said with sincerity. “Call it vanity. It’s just… every man hopes that
his children will take after them, at least a little. You’ve seen Warren and
Mack…”
Kurt put an arm around her shoulders. “It’s all right Kätzchen, I understand.
Jimmy does greatly resemble you, sir.”
“Then it’s time I saw for myself. Logan, get a ship prepped.”
“Sure, bub, but you ain’t goin’.” The Wolverine looked stubbornly at his
leader.
“Logan!” Green eyes flashed fire, but the older man didn’t budge.
“You set the rules. The Chief Raider doesn’t go down without a full escort, and
Cyke ain’t fit to go, as tired as he is. So, you wanna wait on him to rest up,
or do you want it now?”
“Dammit, Logan. As soon as possible,” Jon bit out, scowling.
“Price of command, bub, like you used ta say to Mags after he adopted you.” He
turned to Kurt. “I suppose you want to come along, and she’s joined at the hip
to ya.”
“We would like to accompany you, yes. Kätzchen… you do, don’t you?” His eyes
were pleading; hopeful.
“Of course, love. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” She smiled, watching his
face light up with joy.
“Oh, Kätzchen, I so look forward to introducing you to them.”
“Yes, certainly. Tell her on the way, won’t you?” Jon said, impatiently waving
them out.
Kitty smiled. “Does Jimmy have that kind of patience?” she whispered to Kurt as
they hurried after Logan and Storm.
Kurt unsuccessfully concealed a grin. “Sadly, yes.” She heard Logan snort in
amusement.
“’Kay, you guys have had shuttle training, right?” They nodded.
“We should give them another examination, to see if they’re all right,” Storm
said.
“Make it quick, darlin’. The boss man’s in a hurry, and I don’t blame him.”
A quick exam proved them healed well enough for the trip, and soon they were on
the flight deck, ready to go. The Raiders assembled to see them off from the
observation room. Scott and Jean were there, Jon, and Wanda with her nephew,
Pete, the speedy youth.
“Be back directly, folks, plus a few passengers,” Logan said over the radio.
Storm made sure they were all securely strapped in, as he cycled the bay to
vacuum. “’Sides, Cyke, you couldn’t have come along for this trip anyway.”
“And why is that, Logan?” the serious man said.
Wolverine chuckled. “’Cuz yer just too stiff to get along with Gypsies!” Scott
gave him a one-fingered salute as Logan opened the bay hatch, and the Raider’s
ship launched into space.
Kurt’s trip home to Germany had begun.
***** Kurt – Reunions *****
They approached Germany just as night fell over the European continent. Ororo
dozed in the back with Kitty, while Kurt tried to help Logan find the Gypsy
camp. There were a myriad of obscure factors to dredge up that guided the
tribe’s movements… like the season, the last digit of the year, and some of
Grandmama Margali’s favorite foods. Kurt narrowed the locale to the vicinity of
a couple of tiny hamlets, and they were checking for campfires in the area.
Kurt squinted his tired eyes, straining for familiar signs of life.
“Elf, what do ya make of that?” Logan said.
“Huh?” Kurt peered into a dim clearing in the forest where a small light waved
back and forth and changed color. Yellow, blue, green, and then yellow again.
“Land, mein freund! That is the safe signal my family set for me!”
“You sure, Kurt? Yer Uncle Stefan might know that one…”
“Herr Logan, have I mentioned that my family practices magic? Only I would see
that pattern from one who meant me no harm, and I was taught from a very young
age never to reveal it. Uncle Stefan is no Seer, so why would he know to give
such a signal, even if he knew it?”
“Magic? Yer kiddin'.” Logan sounded incredulous, but he brought the shuttle
down anyway. The running lights revealed a stooped and aged woman holding an
oil lantern. She gestured to them to come out.
BAMF! Kurt could hear Logan coughing on his smoke as he ported to the rear to
wake up the women. “Kätzchen! Madame Ororo, we are here, and my grandmother is
waiting for us.”
“Margali?” Kätzchen said. “That’s nice…” she trailed off in a yawn.
“Come on, we must hurry. You don’t keep her waiting. Bitte, liebe?” His voice
took on a pleading tone.
“Ok, ok! Sheesh…” Kitty smiled and hugged him.
“Alright, Elf. Have to say though, she don’t look like much.”
“Logan!” Ororo said chidingly, as they exited the vessel.
“You might be surprised, Warrior,” the old woman said. She set down the lantern
and held her arms out for Kurt, who gladly entered her embrace. “Oh, young one,
how you have suffered… and is this your pretty bride? Come here, little
kitten.” Kitty came forward and let the woman hug her and bestow a kiss on her
cheek. Kurt beamed proudly at how well she was accepted.
“The camp is concealed from the air, but come and I will lead you to them,” the
old woman said.
“How do ya manage that?” Logan asked her.
“My grandson already told you. Magic. It runs strong in my family.”
Logan’s eyebrows raised, but he held his tongue at his lady’s warning glance.
After a few hundred yards through the woods, they entered a large clearing full
of light. It was filled with an old fashioned Gypsy camp, with campfires,
torches and candles illuminating painted wagons and strings of big, stocky
horses. A sizeable tribe garbed in riotous colors turned from their activities
to look closely at the strangers, but they relaxed when they saw who led them.
Many gave Kurt quiet greetings that he readily returned.
Curious children stared at the snowy-maned dark lady and her scruffy mate,
while some of the young men winked at Kitty. She stayed close to Kurt, holding
his arm. Margali stopped at a fancy wagon. “Come out my daughter, there is
someone here to see you.”
A beautiful blond woman came to the doorway with a mixing bowl in her hands.
She gasped and thrust it behind her, and rushed down the steps to envelope Kurt
in her arms. Logan grunted in surprise at the boy who came to the door after
her. Jimmy was Jon Magnusson’s son; of that there was no doubt. The boy shoved
the dish into the wagon and leaped down to tackle his brother. The two whooped
and clapped each other on the back with glee.
Margali smiled kindly at Kitty, who wisely stayed out of the fray. “My
grandsons are full of passion, aren’t they?”
“Well, I know Kurt is,” Kitty answered shyly.
“Mama, Jimmy,” Kurt said. “You must meet my wife. This is Katerina Pryde-
Wagner. Kätzchen, this is my mother and my brother.” Kitty exchanged hugs with
Jimaine and her green-eyed son with a smile.
Jimmy hooked a thumb at Kurt, and put on a skeptical look. “You married his
fuzzyness? Even now, when he’s uglier than ever?”
“He is not!” Kitty said. “And I like his fuzzyness.”
“Watch out, Jimmy. My kitten has sharp claws,” Kurt said with a smile. He
turned to his wife. “Don’t mind him. He’s just embarrassed he’s such a klutz.”
His tail made a dismissive gesture, but his eyes gleamed with humor.
“Am not! ‘Normal’ is not the same as being clumsy…”
“Children.” The bantering stopped at a single word from Margali. “We have
guests for dinner,” she said, making a gesture that included Logan and Ororo.
“And then we will have a meeting of the clan. No-one is excused.” She stepped
up to Jimaine. “Prepare a meal fit for a daughter of Abraham,” her eyes
indicated Kitty. Turning to Kurt, she made a little bow. “Will you forgive me,
grandson, if I take your wife off until dinner? I would like to spend some time
with her.”
“If she wishes, Grandmother, it is alright with me.” He smiled at Kitty, and
spoke to her softly. “It’s okay, she won’t bite.” Kitty nodded nervously.
* * *
Kitty followed Margali to the grandest wagon she’d seen yet, where the woman
bid her be seated and served her some tea. She felt those ancient eyes could
see into her very soul, and she couldn’t help but to shiver when Margali asked
to examine her hand. She thought of herself as a modern Jew, but there was
something about this woman… gingerly she stuck out her hand.
Margali’s warm hands were dry and wrinkled like old parchment. She gently
peered at Kitty’s hand, back and palm, and then released it with a smile.
“Would you like a cookie?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Kitty said. She wasn’t going to ask. She wasn’t!
“You are faithful enough to your heritage not to ask what I saw, but I will
volunteer a few things. I can see that you love him very much, and I foresee
many happy years together. Things will get better than they are now, but more
than that, is not for me to reveal.”
Kitty nibbled on her cookie, and sipped the flowery tea. What was that supposed
to mean?
Margali contemplated the steam in her cup for a few minutes. “Perhaps it will
help if you think of me as a prophet. Even Balaam acknowledged the authority of
the Creator of all things, and could not but speak as he was bid, despite his
wishes otherwise.”
Kitty nodded. Strangely enough, that did make her feel better.
“Now, what may I give you, to welcome you into our clan?”
“Oh, nothing, please. It isn’t necessary…”
“Nonsense. I have some things that fell into my hands during the last Great
War, that belonged to your people, and I have found no-one worthy of them
since.” She reached into a drawer and drew out a golden necklace. The pendant
was a solid silver plaque with six points, adorned with a delicate gold
filigree Star of David. “Wear it with pride, granddaughter.”
Kitty reached out and took it. On the back was the maker’s mark and a date;
1637. “It’s so old! And so beautiful…”
“Wear it please. It would honor me if you would do so.”
“Thank you.” Kitty gave it back and bowed her head. Margali smiled and slipped
it on her, smoothing the chain so it hung evenly.
“Lovely. When your Kurt comes to collect his bibles, I also have some books for
you. There are a few Hebrew scrolls and an old German Torah in my library that
I have no use for. He can help you learn to read the latter, no doubt.”
“He’s got more than one bible?” Kitty asked. “Why would he need more than one?”
“He has one in German, one in French, and one in English, I believe. He said it
was part of his language studies.” The old woman smiled behind her hand.
“Sounds like him,” Kitty said. “He speaks French?”
“Yes, but his accent is terrible,” Margali said, as if confiding a secret. “Now
it is time for dinner, and as delightful as you are, I must return you to your
husband.”
* * *
When Kurt was reunited with Kitty, he was wearing a colorful vest over his
shirt. He instantly spotted the necklace and examined it carefully. “Thank you
Grandmama, it is a lovely gift.”
“A precious thing for one who is also precious. It is fitting.”
During the meal, Kurt noticed how Stefan never looked at him. First Logan, then
their ladies noticed where Kurt was watching. Kitty turned to him, and Kurt
nodded. After dinner, the older children took the youngers to bed, but Margali
told Jimmy to stay.
“Send the bastard off with the rest,” Stefan snapped. Margali ignored him, but
Jimaine radiated her displeasure.
Margali began the meeting. “You and your guests have news for us, Kurt. Speak.”
“I will not hear one who abandoned and betrayed us,” Stefan rose, as did his
mother, Margali.
“You will sit Stefan Szardos, and the truth will be heard.” She pointed down,
and reluctantly, he sat.
“Two years ago, Shield came for me at the circus,” Kurt said. “Last night I
found out it was one of the tribe who betrayed me.” He drew out the printout
from a pocket, and handed it to Margali, who handed it to Jimaine, while Jimmy
looked wide-eyed over her shoulder. Margali took it back and handed it to the
circle. It was passed from hand to hand until it reached Stefan at the head the
circle.
He scarcely gave it a glance before consigning it to the flames of the firepit
they sat around. “It proves nothing.”
“But brother, two years ago, you purchased a new wagon, and a fine team of
blacks. Where did you get the money?” Jimaine said.
“Do not dare to question me, oh suckler of fatherless bastards and monstrous
freaks! I don’t answer to you.”
“How could you, uncle? He was one of us!” Jimmy said.
“He was never one of us, and neither are you!” Stefan spat at Jimmy.
Margali held up her hand. “It is true you do not answer to your sister, Stefan,
but you will answer to me.”
“No more, you old hag! I will seize control of the Way and destroy those who
threaten the tribe.” He gestured at her, and a bolt of eerie energy struck at
Margali, who slowly rose to her feet, and somehow continued to rise until she
towered above them all. A green glow sprung around her suddenly younger form,
and the horns of a ram graced her head. “I am the Mistress of the Winding Way,
and the only threat to the tribe that I see is you!” Stefan cringed at the
thunderous voice. “I have been patient, Stefan, waiting for you to confess your
crime, but your stubbornness will be your undoing.” She drew a wavy line in the
air that glowed after her finger moved on, and split a fragment of it off,
twisting it into an endless möbius loop. “You wish to be Master of the Way?
Then I set your feet upon this part of it until you understand the gravity of
your betrayal.” There was a flash of green, and Stefan was gone.
Kurt could feel Kitty tremble in fear of what had become of the little old lady
who’d served her tea and cookies, and even Logan looked pale. Slowly Margali
shrunk in on herself, and wearily sat down, just Kurt’s Grandmama once more.
“James,” she said in her normal voice, “You may go with your mother, or stay
with the tribe now that you are no longer at risk from Stefan.”
“Mother?” Jimaine said, in a shaky, hopeful voice.
“I have kept your from following your heart long enough. Too long. Go to him.
He loves you yet.” She smiled a little. “Just be sure to visit me often. We are
but steps apart upon the Way.”
“Oh mother, thank you!” she hugged her mother fiercely, showing no fear of what
the woman could become. “Jimmy, will you… come to see your father?”
“My dad? Does he want to see me?” Jimmy looked uncertain. “He’s never come to
see us.”
“Of course he does, brother. He didn’t know about you… he even thought he might
be my father when I said Jimaine was my mother.”
Jimmy stuck out his chin. “Ha! I bet he looked ill as the thought of fathering
a troll like you.” But the smile in his eyes belied the teasing words.
“Speak for yourself, Jimmy-boy,” Kitty said with a smile. “My Elvin prince is
far handsomer than you.”
Logan looked at Ororo. “Just when did I lose control of this situation?”
“When we landed, dear,” she said, and Margali nodded in amused agreement.
The meeting broke up in confused farewells, with Jimain shrinking her wagon to
toy size, and giving her team of horses away. Margali gave Kurt a box of books
and papers for him and his wife, and then she was sending them on their way.
Once in the shuttle, night enfolded them as they lifted off the ground and
turned towards the stars.
...
Once again, Kurt witnessed the great rock looming large in the viewer, but this
time it was with a sense of coming home. He took Katchen’s hand in his and met
her smile. Jimaine and her son stared at the asteroid, in awe of the idea that
people actually lived there. They entered the airlock, and exited, finding the
same welcoming committee as the one that had seen them off. Jon cried out as
Jimaine ran into his arms and kissed him passionately. Jimmy hovered in the
doorway with Kurt, until Jean saw him and gasped. “Scott, look!”
“Good Lord,” Scott said. “He looks just like you, Jon.”
Jon Magnusson looked up and stared, awestruck. Jimaine purred to him, “Is there
any doubt whose son he is, my love?” He shook his head, and took a few hesitant
steps towards his son.
Jimmy stumbled forward, and regaining his balance, put out his hand, only to be
gathered into a bear hug that he gingerly returned.
“Do you see how clumsy he is, Katchen?” Kurt said, innocently.
Logan snorted as he walked passed them. “Only when you’re pushin’ him, Elf.”
Pete Maximoff frowned in thought. “Does that make him my cousin?”
“I guess so,” Jon said, “since your grandfather adopted me, and I took his name
in tribute.”
“But his last name was Lehnsnerr,” the boy looked puzzled. “And I’m a Maximoff…
do you have Uncle Jon’s old last name, or his new one?” he asked Jimmy.
“Neither, My surname is Szardos, like my mother.” Jimmy winked at Kurt,
guessing where the next question was going.
“She’s your mother too, and your last name is Wagner,” Pete said to Kurt.
“Yes, she raised me,” Kurt said, “but no-one knows who my parents are, Pete.
Wagner is a common Gypsy name, meaning ‘Man of the Wagons’.” He nodded at
Kitty, “That includes you now, liebe.”
“I gotta headache,” Pete said, leaning on his Aunt.
“You ‘n me both, squirt,” Logan said, mussing up Pete’s silver hair. “How about
some Ice Cream to make it worse?”
“Oh, boy! Ice Cream! CanIhavesome,AuntWanda?” The words blurred together in his
excitement.
“Certainly Pete. Just don’t eat it too fast. Or ‘Uncle’ Logan will have to deal
with the real headache you’ll get.”
Logan did a poor job of looking guiltless, especially with the smirk he was
wearing.
“I could use some coffee, Jimaine,” Jon said. “Why don’t we all go to the
dining hall?”
The group straggled down to the dining hall in pockets of conversation. Kurt
and Kitty walked close together, smiling at the sight of Jon and Jimaine,
holding hands and acting as in love as the two of them. The mood seemed
infectious, and as he entered the dining hall, Kurt could see that down the
hallway, Jean was pressed against the wall, her face flushed and tendrils of
her hair moving like live things, as Scott kissed her thoroughly.
Kitty looked at him watching them, and started to follow his gaze. He urged her
into the room instead. She looked her question at him, and he murmured into her
ear. “Let us just say that even a man with one eye can see when his wife has
needs.” He gave her a feather-light kiss on the neck.
“Oh,” she said, just as quietly. “How lucky does that make me? My husband can
see in the dark, and sometimes he doesn’t even need to see.” She rubbed his
nose with hers.
He rumbled deep in his chest. “We should explore this thought later. Tonight.”
“Sounds like a date, lover… whenever night is around here.”
Besides the welcoming committee and their guests, the room was also host to a
group of the Asteroid’s teens, who were having an animated discussion over a
pile of pizzas. Kitty followed her nose to the pizzas, and Kurt followed her.
They did smell good.
“Umm, hi!” Kitty said. “Would you mind sharing the pizza?” She smiled
hopefully.
Mack smiled back. “Put up some chairs and grab a slice.”
“You have no idea how much I’ve missed having pizza… you ever have any, Kurt?”
“Nein, but it certainly smells wonderful.”
Warren waved at a cute blonde girl next to him. “This is Becky Smith, she’s
been with us for a while. And… that’s Illyana Rasputin. She’s been here since
she was little. Girls, this is Kitty and Kurt Wagner.”
Kurt smiled at the first blonde, with shoulder length hair and intense blue
eyes, and could immediately tell there was something wrong with the second
girl. Her long pale hair was carelessly twisted out of the way at her nape, and
her faded blue eyes didn’t really focus on anything, or anyone. The girl named
Illyana sat hunched in on herself, oblivious to Mack’s protective stance next
to her. She picked apart the pizza on her plate, slowly eating it a pinch at a
time.
“She’s autistic.” Mack said. “They say she was born normal, but something
happened to her after her brother rescued her from Russia, and…” He shrugged to
indicate that her condition was the result of the ‘something’.
Warren nodded around a mouthful of pizza. He swallowed and said. “Nothing we
can do is helping her, but we keep trying.”
Becky looked at Kitty’s necklace. “Well, I guess half the pizzas are out for
you.”
Kitty laughed. “Yeah I’ll skip anything with identifiable pork on it, but
everything else if fair game.”
Becky smiled mischievously. “Is Pepperoni kosher?”
Kitty considered, frowning. “I don’t really know, and what’s more, I don’t
really care!” She scooped up an oozing slice of Pepperoni and olives. “Dig in,
love.”
Kurt surveyed the offerings and took a slice, starting at the point as the
others were doing. “Mmmm,” he said, his tail wrapping around her waist.
“Wunderbar.”
“Something good, brother?” came a familiar young voice.
“Jimmy! Try some, it’s delicious,” Kurt said. “This is my brother, Jimmy
Szardos, from Germany. He’s a Gypsy, like me.”
The local teens hadn’t heard this news before, and looked interested as Jimmy
took a bite of pizza.
“This is good. Yes, we are Gypsies, and Kurt here ran away to the Circus.”
“Fah! That isn’t true. I just worked there. I came home to the camp every
night, until…” he couldn’t continue, and his hand went to his face.
Kitty gave him a hug, silently comforting. Jimmy looked contrite and squeezed
Kurt’s shoulder. “Sorry, little brother. I didn’t mean to bring up bad
memories.”
He nodded, but his eyes were still shadowed. “I know, Jimmy.” His mother and
Jon came up to the table and appropriated some of the pizza. Kurt gestured at
the Raider’s leader. “Are you two getting reacquainted, Mama?”
Jimaine’s soft smile shone with happiness as she nodded. She hugged Kurt
closely to her, and he sniffled a little. He wanted to believe once again that
nothing could hurt him in his mother’s arms, but the last two years had taught
him differently.
Jon sat on one of the tables and changed the subject. “Kurt, even though you
aren’t my blood-son, like this rascal here,” he pointed his pizza at Jimmy,
“you still are a second generation mutant.” Warren and Mack gave each other
shocked looks.
Kurt kissed his mother on the cheek and sat back down next to Kitty, enfolding
her in his arms. “I am? I didn’t know there were any other free Mutants in
Germany, but then, I didn’t know that you’d once been there, either.”
Jon nodded. “I’ve been looking at your blood samples, and comparing them to our
database of mutant genetic patterns. I was able to find one related to you on
the maternal side.”
“Und the paternal?” He looked down as Kitty ducked under his arm to grab
another slice, offering him the first bite, which he accepted.
“No mutant genetics there, but your mother is well known to us. I haven’t heard
anything about her in a year, though.”
Kurt’s attention was partly caught by a jittery movement. Becky was bouncing
her leg nervously and frowning. “The suspense is killing us, mein Herr. Do you
know her name?”
Jon smiled. “Your mother, Kurt Wagner, is the mutant Raven Darkho…”
“NO!” screamed Becky. “You’re lying! Just because he’s blue… you can’t pin that
freak on her!”
Kitty broke free of his embrace and squared off against the bigger girl. “Don’t
you dare call him a freak! You’re a mutant, too, or you wouldn’t be here." Her
hands twitched, reaching for knives that weren’t there.
Kurt put his hands on her shoulders. “Don’t hurt her, liebe.” The teen boys
stared at him, disbelievingly. To all appearances, Becky had the advantage.
Logan approached the disturbance. “Half-pint there damn near put me down for
the count in a full-on fight, and at least got a TKO on me… you wanna risk
goin’ up against her, Becky?”
The upset girl looked at the adults poised to stop a fight if it started, and
her shoulders slumped. “He can’t be Raven’s son… I would know! She’d’ve told
me…”
“And just how do you know Ms. Darkholme, Becky?” Ororo said.
The girl pulled a plain ring off her finger. As soon as it came off, Jimaine
and Jimmy gasped in surprise. “Magic…” said Jimaine. “Margali’s magic.”
Becky’s appearance shifted significantly, her chin taking on a more pointed
shape, and her skin turning a light blue color. Tears trailed from her still
intensely blue eyes, and she whispered, “She’s my mother…”
Jon reached out and touched her arm and a crackle of power jumped between them.
“I’ve never been able to pin down your power before…” His body blurred and his
shape changed in fast succession from his son’s, to Warren, Logan, Kurt, and
Mack. “Can’t change apparent gender, like Raven can.” He reverted to his own
appearance.
“That’s because I can’t,” Becky said, sniffing. “Same gender only.”
Kurt looked at Jon curiously. “I’m a power mimic,” the older man said. “Used to
have the code name Mimetic. I have to touch at first, but I can learn to just
remember the power.” He smiled sadly, and reached out his hand, and a metal
saltshaker flew over to him. “Even that of those who are gone from us.” Turning
to the blue-skinned girl, “I’m sorry, Becky, but Kurt is Raven’s son. You might
even be full siblings. I’d have to do a blood test on you to see, though.”
“What I wanna know if you’ve been spying on us for her,” Logan growled.
She shook her head, “No… Mom was going somewhere dangerous, and wanted to know
I’d be safe… so she sent me to the Raiders, with one of her rings.” She buried
her face in her hands and sobbed. “I haven’t heard from her since then… she was
supposed to come and get me…”
“You know she works with Shield sometimes,” Logan said. “Maybe you just became
a liability so she cut you loose.”
“No! Mom loves me, and Marie,” Becky said. “That’s why she left. Shield caught
Marie, and Mom went to get her back. But, she’s been gone so long.”
“Your mother must have gotten that ring from my mother,” Jimaine said. “If what
you say is true, this Raven makes a habit of leaving her endangered children
with others who will keep them safe…” She rubbed Kurt’s arm. “Kurt was left
near our camp; a newborn, who still had his umbilical attached.”
Becky hung her head.  “She always told me how lucky it was that I would
reflexively change appearance to match hers. When she changed, so would I, we
always fit…”
Kurt sighed. “So you could hide with her, and she kept you. But I can’t change
my appearance, so I was left behind.”
“Sounds like her,” Logan said. “Cold-blooded bitch…”
Ororo said, “Some would say that you’re cold-blooded, Logan, but maybe we never
got her full measure.”
“Why did she leave you with us, Becky?” Jon said.
“She may not have trusted the Raiders, but she said she could rely on them to
care for a child, at least for awhile… but it wasn’t supposed to be this long.”
She started crying again, and Kurt found himself holding a sister he never knew
he had.
***** Kitty – Nevermore *****
Kitty and Kurt sat across from Becky on some of the beds in the Med Ward, while
Jon looked at the blood sample under a microscope. Nodding to himself, he
worked some controls and the results came up on a computer screen. There was a
99 point 99 something chance that she and Kurt had the same mother.
“That’s pretty conclusive,” he said. “but I can’t say why I never looked at
your blood before, Becky.”
“’Cuz Mom had all my identification and medical records to give you, so you
never bothered. She was afraid you might be able to identify her blood
characteristics.” Becky still sounded depressed, but at least she was calm now.
Jon kept looking at the ‘scope, muttering to himself. “Not the same father, not
even close. No mutation in this one’s genes, either… but there’s something very
unusual about… ow… ah no, not again…” Jon grabbed his head and teetered in his
chair.
As if in slow motion, Kitty saw Logan jump forward and caught Jon as his leader
pitched towards the floor. “Bandages!” Logan commanded, and Ororo handed him
some. Grimly Logan forced Jon’s jaw open and the stuck the rolled fabric in
before his teeth clamped shut again. He held the slighter man tight as Jon
twitched and writhed uncontrollably. “Easy Jon,” he rumbled. “Don’t fight it,
just let it happen. You know it’s worse when you fight it…”
Kitty held onto Kurt’s hand tightly while Mack and Warren looked uncomfortable.
Jimaine had her face buried in her son’s chest as the seizure went on. Becky
looked like she wanted to be sick.
Jon slumped limply, gasping in relief. His green eyes blinked open wide and he
spat out the cloth, trying to speak. “Mu… mu… mutate!”
Logan helped him up and put him on a bed. “Slow down, kid. Takes a while for
the tongue to catch up to the hyperactive brain.”
“M’only ten years younger’n Jean,” he slurred, glaring at Logan.
“Which makes all a’ya kids, compared to me. So what got to you, this time?”
He took a breath and tried to sit up, and Logan worked the bed controls to help
him do so without strain. “Her father’s genes show sign of advanced gene-
surgery…sort of an anti-mutation. Whoever he is, he’d be…hyper human. It’s very
strange… Never seen anything like it.”
“Any clue who he is?” Logan handed Jon a glass of water. Jon shook his head,
and steadied the glass enough to drink.
He looked up at his family’s frightened faces. “I told you I sometimes had
‘episodes’, Jimaine. It’s not epilepsy, exactly, it’s a defect of my mutation.
I may be a certified genius, and I’ve improved on nearly everything that Magnus
ever built, but if the inspiration strikes too deeply, I get like that…”
He put the glass down, and took a deep breath. He folded his hands shut in
fists with the thumbs on the side. “Most brains are like this,” he said,
putting them together, knuckles flush against each other, “each hemisphere
resting near each other, but separated by the bi-cameral gap, which in brain
activity terms is a yawning chasm that separates the logical side of the mind
from the intuitional side.”
He opened his fingers, and interlaced them loosely together at the first
knuckle. “My brain has thousands of extra connections bridging the gap,
allowing unprecedented interactivity between the hemispheres. It allows me to
get these fantastic intuitive leaps of knowledge… only equaled by my ability to
swallow my own tongue.
He rubbed his head ruefully. “Sorry, I scared you like that.” He looked at
Jimaine uncertainly, with his hand reached diffidently out to her.
She came forward and took it, holding it up to her cheek. “I didn’t know it was
so bad. I was so frightened…” Kurt squeezed Kitty’s hand. His eyes gleamed as
he watched them. Kitty knew he approved of their relationship.
“It usually isn’t…” he said. “That blood work was so interesting, though.” He
closed his eyes briefly. “Jimmy should be scanned. Has he ever shown signs of
seizures?”
“Never,” Jimaine said. “Mother said that Magic comes very easily to him,
though.”
Jimmy came up and took his father’s other hand. “I seem to see the patterns of
things in ways that she had never seen.”
“He was that way with mathematics, too,” Kurt said.
“’Ro?” Jon said. “Set up the MRS.” To Jimmy, he said, “It’s a Magnetic
Resonance Scanner, a way to see the inside of things, even soft tissues,
without X-rays. Safer, too.”
Ororo set up controls by a large tube set into one wall. “Jimmy? It will feel
like a bright light passing over you, but that’s all.”
Jimmy shrugged and climbed onto the thing’s bed. It slid inside, and light
shone from around his lower body. He clambered out as soon as possible, and
shivered. Ororo quickly resolved the head portion of the scan, displaying it on
the screen. Turning the filters, she tuned the image to the inside the skull.
She rotated it, and fiddled with it some more, looking confused.
“Ha!” Jon said. “That’s what’s wrong. Go back to the front view, scan through
the eyes and keep going. Stop. What do you see?”
“I don’t know Jon, it’s strange…”
“What you usually see there is the bi-cameral gap… but, Jimmy doesn’t have one!
My brain has a partial gap, but his brain is totally integrated. He doesn’t
have my defect.” He wiped his face with a hand. “Believe me, son, that’s one
thing you wouldn’t want to inherit.”
Jimmy came back over to him, and poked him in the arm. “That’s okay, Papa.”
Jon’s face lit up at his words, and he hugged his son fiercely. A sigh escaped
Kurt, and she could see his joy for Jimmy was tempered by melancholy.
“So, do you know who he is?” Becky said softly.
“Hmm? Oh. No, Becky. I’ve never seen anything like it, though. He must be a
fascinating specimen. I only wish we could ask Raven about him.”
She stuck her chin out. “Why don’t you? You can find her, and find out what you
want to know.”
“It ain’t that important, Blondie,” Logan said. “Why should we stick our necks
out for her? It’s not like she didn’t do us dirty for every time she helped us
out.”
“So, because she wasn’t for you, she’s against you? Mom had to be careful, she
didn’t have this rock to fall back too when things got too hot.”
“She was offered refuge on the Asteroid many times, when she said things
similar to that,” Jon said. “She’d get rude and decline.”
“She didn’t want to be beholden to anyone, and she didn’t want you to dictate
her comings and goings.” Becky sighed and looked at Kurt. “Maybe I don’t know
as much about her history as I thought, but I heard her say once that everyone
she ever trusted had betrayed her. Mom couldn’t hide what she was until she was
thirteen, but before that she was more... pet and prisoner than she was a
daughter. She only sent me to you because she had all she could handle trying
to find Marie.”
Her eyes filled with tears, and Kurt pulled Kitty over to her. “Sister?” he
said.
Becky looked into his eyes, and lifted her hand to his scarred cheek.
“Brother.” He immediately wrapped her in his arms, and drew her closer. She
sniffled, and hugged him back, then pulled away. “I don’t want your wife to get
jealous,” she joked.
Kitty snorted, and gave her a hug. “Any sister of his is a sister of mine.”
Becky smiled at her, but her expression turned tight when she looked back at
Jon. “I guess the real question is, do the Raiders only help the mutants they
like, or do they help all who are in need?”
Jon winced visibly, “She’s right. Magnus and Charles would have wanted it this
way. But… where do we start?”
Jimaine held up Becky’s ring. “We start with this, and with the connection
between a mother and her children; their blood will call to her. Also mother
Margali made two of these rings, and there will be a connection tying them
together.”
Jimmy nodded, “I’ll do the blood trace, and you do the magic trace, but we’ll
need our scrying gear.”
Jimaine smiled at her lover, “Is there a place I can expand my wagon?”
Jon blinked. “You brought your whole wagon with you?”
* * *
Kitty sat against Kurt as the magic users set up their equipment. “You don’t
use magic, do you?” She asked him.
“Nein. Magically, I am inept. I have no talent at it.” He tilted his head.
“Maybe my porting is magic-touched. I’ll ask them about that later.”
Two world globes sat on each side of the table, one by each experiment. Jimmy
tossed powders and herbs into a brazen dish and muttered invocations to set up
his spell. “Give me you finger, Kurt, as you are the elder of her children.” A
clean lancet from the Medical Ward pierced the blue finger, and three drops of
blood fell into the bowl.
“Becky? Think hard on finding your mother.” Another lancet, and three more
drops of red fell from the lighter blue finger. Jimmy spoke more in an ancient
form of Rom that Kurt appeared to barely understand. When he was finished, he
used an eyedropper to pick up a little of the bowl’s contents and let a drop
fall near the globe.
At first gravity took hold of the dark red drop, and then it turned in the air
and orbited the painted sphere for a second before it landed on the globe.
Kitty shuddered in reflex at the relative darkness of the ritual. Blood...
Jimmy looked at the spot on the world image. “The United States, East Coast,
middle region,” he announced.
Jon looked up from the other side of the table. “Interesting.”
Ororo provided Jimmy with maps centering on the American Eastern Seaboard, and
he used the dropper again. The drop corkscrewed through the air, and precisely
marked a region labled ‘Washington DC’. Silently, Ororo found a map of the
city, and Jimmy used another drop. It splattered an area by the downtown, near
several government buildings, but not clearly indicating any one in particular.
“The government district,” Ororo said.
Jon nodded. “We got the same result here, and it isn’t good news.”
“One last thing to try,” Jimaine said. She put the ring near her son’s bowl. He
nodded and used the dropper to take up some of the blood mixture again. The red
spot landed nearby, but didn’t touch the ring.
“So she doesn’t have the ring anymore, that’s bad,” Jon said. “She most likely
is a prisoner of a Shield official.”
“Might not be enough of her left to make it worthwhile,” Logan said. Becky
glared at the older man, and he shrugged. “Ya got take it in consideration.
Maybe they’re experimentin’ on her.”
Jimaine asked her son. “Was the blood decisive, or did it take a while to
locate her?”
“It was decisive, Mama, so her physical health is alright.”
Jon nodded. “So we know she’s alive, and where she is. We have to make plans.”
“You really buying into this mumbo jumbo, kid?” Logan said scowling.
“Independent experiments came up with the same results. It’s not conclusive
evidence, but I’m not ready to dismiss it as coincidence. Besides, old friend,
I’m told you’ve seen Margali when she’s angry, too,” Jon said, smiling. “I’m
willing to believe her daughter and grandson have abilities science can’t
understand… yet.”
“Hmph,” Logan said, but he nodded.
* * *
“Where ya been, Dad?” Warren said. “You missed all the excitement.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that, son,” Scott said, looking at his wife with a smirk,
and she smiled back at him fondly.
Warren covered his face in his hands. “Geeze, don’t you two ever give it a
rest?”Mack snorted, and said, “Count yourself lucky, Red, at least you don’t
have to smell it every time your folks go at it.”
“Keep yer nose outta my business, boy,” Logan growled to his son.
“Keep your business outta my nose, Dad.”
“Gentlemen,” Jon said. “Mack, get some of the scent blocker I made for your
father out of stores. That should help.”
Kitty leaned back against Kurt, her shoulders quivering with her silent
laughter. Kurt caressed her belly with his tail, and bent down to whisper in
her ear. “It is so nice to see normal human interactions again, ja?” She nodded
her reply, relaxing against him while the Raiders made their plans.
She started paying attention again when Jon suggested she and Kurt should join
in the operation. “The two of you are a formidable team,” he said. “The very
things they trained you in make you very useful in this mission.”
“I want to go,” Becky said. “Logan gave me good marks in Combat, and now I’m
not hiding my powers, I can help them infiltrate.”
The older Raiders frowned at the idea, but Kurt leaned forward. “She won’t be
going in alone, and she has the ring. While Shield chases me, she can walk
around unnoticed with Kitty watching over her.”
“You trained her, Logan,” Jon said. “What do you say?”
“If she listens to them, it should be okay, they do have the experience.”
“Who’s in charge between you?” Scott said.
“That would be Kurt, this time,” she said. He grinned “This time,” she said,
and winked.
“Scott nodded, “Just establishing the mission chain of command. I’m the overall
field commander, even if Jon and his lady come along.”
Jon chuckled and shrugged. “He’s the strategist. I’m just a overblown
technician who suffers from intermittent shorts.” He mimed a spastic head jerk.
Scott smiled. “So you’ll direct your team, Kurt. Is that okay, Becky?” She
nodded. “They have a short range Cerebro unit in D.C., but with several groups
of us, their forces should be divided and confused…”
“What is a ‘Cerebro’?” Kurt said.
A grimace crossed Scott’s face, and when he answered his voice was low and
tense. “Scavenged technology from Charles Xavier’s mansion. They can’t make it
work all that well, but it’s good enough for their purposes. It’s basically a
sensor for active mutant gifts. He… wanted to find mutants, and help them…” The
glow behind Scott’s good eye faded, and Jon put a comforting hand on the older
man’s shoulder.
* * *
In the darkling hours just before dawn, two Raider shuttle came down low over
the Nation’s Capitol. Searchlights stabbed into the air, seeking any sign of
the light refractive vessels. One ship paused briefly over the grounds of 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue, and three dark clad figures jumped out before the shuttle
sped away.
Air-raid sirens shattered the quiet morning. Jimaine’s last minute charm had
narrowed Raven’s location to the White House, lightly populated at the moment
because of President’s Rodgers absence on a diplomatic visit out the country.
Kurt and Kitty wore their Hound uniforms, with the torso high letter “H”
removed from the fronts, and substitution of the Raiders ‘M’ on their belts,
instead of Shield’s Eagle. Little could be done about their markings, but
Kitty’s face was darkened to obscure the distinctive tattoos.
A nervous Becky morphed into the image of a female government functionary with
a White House level access that Jon had forged for her. She walked briskly to
the access of the august building while her friends skulked in her wake. She
showed the guards her forged identification, and she stood in the open doorway
for a few moments, complaining about her boss calling her in to secure some
critical files during the emergency.
Kurt ported himself and Kitty inside when he sighted a likely spot down the
hallway. “We’re in.” Kitty whispered in the hushphone Becky wore. Becky nodded
to the guards, and moved inside. Kurt shadowed his sister while Kitty ducked
into room after darkened room, looking for some sign of their goal. They met up
in a quiet alcove as sounds of conflict echoed from the neighborhood.
“She won’t be in a public area,” Kurt said. “Someone like her will be the…
property of a senior official…in other words, quite possibly Herr Rodgers
himself. We should look in his quarters.”
“You really think so?” Beck said. “That bastard…”
“Focus, mein sweister, we need to find our mother first. Get angry after you
know how she is, and we’re safe.”
Kitty thought back to the building plans she’d seen just before they were let
out of the shuttle. “We can get down there, but we’ll have to go through a few
guards.” She patted down her knives, and Kurt checked his gauntlets.
He nodded, satisfied with his equipment. “We make a methodical search. Keep our
chatter to a minimum, so we can monitor the Raider.”
Kitty continued her solo search, listening to the battle outside…
...
“…Hooeey, but they’ve got their best gear out today!” Wolverine said. “What’ya
bet that those big robot things got human pilots?”
“No bet,” Cyclops said. “Only we have computers good enough to run something
like that. Shield doesn’t exactly encourage advancements in technology.”
“Goddess! They have miniature anti-aircraft emplacements, and they are very
maneuverable. Watch out in the shuttle, Psion?”
“Not moving fast enough to catch me,” Jean said. “Taking Witch on a flyby.”
“Got it,” Wanda said. “They should have trouble with their firing controls now.
All that machinery must be very delicate…”
...
…Kitty focused on the here and now at the sound of a footstep. She located her
target and dropped him with a precise application of a knife hilt to the back
of the head. “One down,” she whispered.
“One sighted,” Kurt replied in kind. “Distract him, sister.”
“Excuse me, sir,” Becky said in her best ‘silly female’ voice. “I seem to have
lost my way…”
A male voice said, “You’re not supposed to be down he… ungh.” She heard a thud
as the man’s voice stopped.
“Und you see to have lost your consciousness, mein Herr. Move along ladies,
time is of the essence. Time to be quiet again.”
“Yes sir,” Kitty whispered… as she listened to the Raider’s chatter once more…
...
The harsh sound of Wolverine’s snarls dominated the Raider’s channel for long
minutes before it cut off abruptly.
“They’ve got a new ground weapon,” Cyclops said. “It’s giving him a hard time.
A harness mounted mini gun, firing some sort of electrified rounds. He’s still
trying to get to the gunner, but they shot off his communicator, and part of an
ear. I’m giving him back up.”
“I’m watching your back, Cyclops,” Storm said.
“How is team three coming along?” Jean said.
...
“We are nearing Herr Furher’s quarters,” Kurt said. “The Target must be in
here. Nightcrawler out.” They gathered at a reinforced door in the sub levels
of the building, with a security keypad. “Phase through and open the door.”
Kitty nodded, and slipped through the door. There was no keypad on the inside,
so she just opened it for them. Kurt and Becky came in and he gestured them to
split up, one to the left and one to the right of him, each to a different
doorway.
Kitty went through the door he indicated, and cleared several rooms, when she
heard a surprised exhalation from Kurt. Sprinting back to the entrance, she
charged in the direction he’d gone. She found him uncomfortably facing the
doorway of a bedchamber, keeping his back turned to a nude woman by the large
bed.
The woman stared at him, stunned. She was a little taller than Kitty, and her
skin was a medium blue all over; lighter than Kurt’s, but darker than Becky.
Her hair was dark red, and her eyes were a familiar yellow.
“Cover yourself, Madame,” he said harshly. “We are taking you out of here.”
Kitty saw her nod and Raven donned a wrap around nightgown and robe. “This is
all he allows me,” she said. Kitty patted Kurt’s arm, and he turned to consider
the delicate shackle that connected her wrist to the bed-frame by way of a long
serpentine chain, that seemed to give her access to most of the room, and a
nearby bathroom, but no further.
Becky came in behind Kitty, and called out. “Mom!”
“Focus!” Kurt snapped. “Save it for later! Blood is being shed for this time we
are spending here.” He nodded to Kitty and she approached her mother-in-law.
She took hold of her arm, on either side of the shackle, and air-walked a step
into the air, pulling Raven along with her. “Step up,” she urged in her
spectral voice, and Raven followed her, eyes wide as the band stayed behind
them and fell to the ground.
Kitty let Raven go solid, and the older woman dropped back down to the floor
level. She rubbed her wrist, at last free of the band. Kitty then allowed
herself to solidify.
“Time to go, ladies,” Kurt said.
“Wait!” said Raven she quickly emptied out a pillowcase. “If you’ve come all
the way here, take something more important than only me. Behind that picture,
is a safe he keeps things that might be important. I could never reach it.”
“Very well,” he said. He took down the idealized portrait and quickly cracked
the safe. “Ah, the many things that Shield taught me…” he muttered.
He took the pillowcase and dumped the contents into it… mostly. One large
object wouldn’t fit, and Raven pulled it out. “Becky, take this, it’s
important.”
Kitty gasped. It was the shield… THE Shield; the red, white, and blue symbol of
Captain America. “Why that?”
“Why not?” Raven said. “Do you think he deserves to have it?”
“No time to argue! We need to leave, now,” Kurt said.
“Agreed.” Raven’s form morphed into a secret service agent, and ‘he’ followed
the young Raiders out of bondage.
“Pick up soon, Psion. Target aquired, ETA in 5,” Kurt said.
“Acknowledged. Picking up ground team and vectoring.”
When they got to the ground floor, Storm awaited them at the entrance, over the
unconscious guards. Together, they waited for the shuttle to arrive.
Raven’s breath hitched oddly, and Kurt turned to the stony face of the agent
she was portraying. She reverted to her own form, and they could finally see
the tears streaming down her face. Becky embraced her, “Just a little longer,
Mom. This is Kurt, your son.” Raven could only answer with a sob.
“I’m sure she knows,” Kitty said. “But it’s more than that, isn’t it?”
Raven nodded, still weeping silently, and Storm helped to steady her. Gunfire
across the street followed the shuttle as it shot over the wall and landed
nearby. Kurt and the women hurried inside to see Wanda wiping clean the gore
from a still growling Wolverine in the back.
Cyclops was in the front with Psion, and as they lifted, he fired his blasts
through the special windshield. They joined up with the second shuttle, as she
turned them upwards at an angle and velocity that soon outpaced the
conventional fighter planes following.
“I hope yer worth it,” Logan snarled at Raven after the pursuit ended and they
headed to orbit.
“I’m not. Not after all I’ve done,” she said, tears still falling down her
face.
“Humility ain’t a trait I’m used ta hearin’ from ya, Raven.”
“The last year as his slave have taught me to be humble.”
His hostile expression faded, especially when faced with Becky’s glare. “Ain’t
ya gonna greet yer mom?”
He was sitting next to Kitty, watching his mother with a sad look on his face.
“I… don’t know what to say. Jimaine is the only mother I’ve ever known. It will
take time… time to know her, time to understand why…”
“I couldn’t keep you safe,” Raven said to him, through her tears. “Your
appearance endangered us both… I knew you’d be safe with Margali’s band… but I
couldn’t stay…”
“Why not?” Kitty said.
“Because whatever they think,” she said, nodding to the Raiders, “It’s my
fight, too.”
“You’re right, Raven,” Storm said, “It is your fight, as well. But now you need
to rest. Will you accept a sedative?”
“Am I hysterical?” Her voice was plaintive. “I can’t seem to stop crying.”
Raven wiped her eyes tiredly.
“Maybe a little,” Storm said. “You’re not alone anymore, and trust has to start
somewhere.”
Raven nodded, clutching her daughter’s hand as Storm gave her a shot. Kurt
stood up to buckle her into her seat and recline it. She blinked blearily up at
him, a little smile on her face before she fell asleep.
* * *
The next day, she and Kurt went to see her. She was propped up on her bed, with
Becky pressed next to her on the bed, holding her hand. Jimaine sat nearby,
quietly telling her stories about wild escapades of Kurt and Jimmy when they
were little.
“Mother,” he said, and they both looked up. He grew still at their looks, and
Kitty could see the tension melting from him. He smiled and gave them both an
embrace. “Kätzchen, let me introduce you properly to… my other mother. Raven,
this is my wife, Kitty.”
Raven’s eyes widened, as Kitty clasped her hand. After a year being married to
Kurt, his mother seemed… almost ordinary. “You got more family than I can shake
a stick at, Fuzzy.
“And they are all your family now, too, liebe.”
Raven studied her, noting the Star of David, and the evidence that she’d also
been a Hound. “Shield has left deeper marks in your eyes, than it has on your
body.”
Kitty nodded, and quietly offered, “If… you want to talk sometime, from someone
who’s been there, on the inside of a collar…”
“I’ll… consider it, thank you.” Raven smiled at Becky. “You have another
sister.”
“I know, Mom. Say, why did you have me bring that?” She nodded at the Shield,
displayed on a dresser, across the room.
Raven smiled. “That is your inheritance, Rebecca.” She gave a dramatic pause.
"It belonged to your father, a great hero named Steve Rogers.”
Kurt swiveled to meet Kitty’s eyes with a look of shock to match her own.
…President Steve Rogers, of Shield!?
***** Kurt – For the Red, White, and Blue *****
Kurt’s tail thrashed. “My sister was fathered by the man who created Shield?
The… fiend who is responsible for all of this?” Becky looked ashen under the
pale blue of her complextion.
“No, not him,” said Raven. “He’s a fraud. I’m talking about the real Steve
Rogers.”
Jimaine stood up. “A moment, please. If this is as important as I think, we
need to discuss this with the leadership. Becky, take the shield. Kurt, Kitty,
help me with Raven…”
Raven frowned at her, and got out of bed. “I’m not an invalid!” she said, and
then her voice softened considerably. “Just suffering from questionable sanity,
but that’s different.”
His mother was hard to offend. “Allow your children to be solicitous,” Jimaine
persited. Raven nodded, and they followed Becky to Jon’s office, and she
knocked on the door.
Jon opened it, his eyebrows raising at the gathering at his door. “Beloved?” he
said to Jimaine.
“Raven has something important to say,” she said. “I think you should call the
others. I have a feeling… that this is going to change everything, and we all
need to hear it.” He invited them inside, and called for the rest of the Raider
leadership to join them.
When all were assembled, Raven started again. “I was just telling the children
who Becky’s father was. His name was Steve Rogers.” She held her hand up, and
waited for the exclamations of surprise and disgust to subside. “The real Steve
Rogers.” She picked up the shield from her daughter and looked at it. “Like any
villain, my captor liked to gloat, especially after… sex.”
Kurt’s gut twisted in sympathy at the grimace on Raven’s face when she spoke of
what she had to do for the man, and nodded for her to continue.
“Our President-For-Life wasn’t born to that name,” she said. “He was a German
Nazi, and during World War II, he fought Captain America as the Red Skull. The
Captain disappeared at the end of the war, and the Skull took over his
identity.”
“Dammit, I shoulda known,” Logan said. “I fought with Cap in the War, and he
was a good, decent man.” He smiled a little, “In a lot of ways, you remind me
of him, Scott. Same kind of overgrown boy scout, too serious for his own good.”
Scott seemed surprised by the sideways compliment. He nodded thanks to his
friend.
Jon looked off. “The last reported sighting of the Captain before he showed up
in the US to begin his career, said he and his young partner, Bucky, fell off a
ship into the North Sea and weren’t immediately recovered. Rodgers appeared
later with a story of surviving the Sea, but the kid was never heard from
again.” He tapped his head. “Eidetic memory.”
Raven nodded. “Apparently he was frozen in a block of ice, and was eventually
picked up by the Shield Navy. I’ve seen him, still in the ice, in a lab near
D.C., a place that I found… about sixteen years ago.” She smiled at her
daughter, and stroked blond hairs away from her face. “You take after him, you
know.”
“How could you conceive... of a frozen corpse?” Storm asked.
“He’s remarkably well preserved, and they even theorized he might be in a state
of suspension.”
“And you know this, how?” Jon said.
“I joined the lab team for a time. He’s in a block about eight feet long, and
four feet wide, and four deep. Parts of it are chipped away, to retrieve that,
for one thing.” She nodded at the Shield. “He still holds part of the strap in
his hand. There are bore holes and such all through the block, as they siphon
various samples from him. They’re trying to find the secret of ‘the formula’,
which I presume to be the fabled super soldier formula.”
She looked down and cleared her throat. “I, um, was given the task of
extracting some gametes. While I was at it, I procured some for myself. I let
part the sample thaw, and checked it in a microscope, and found it viable.” She
shrugged. “I had missed the feel of a babe in my arms…” She looked at Kurt. “I
smuggled the sample out and made use of it.”
Jon shook his head. “No wonder Becky's blood sample gave me a fit. Her dad’s
DNA was changed by the formula, and some of that carried down. That explains
why my copy of her power doesn’t include the enhanced strength and reflexes she
has. That’s not from her mutant power, which is a subset of yours, Raven. She
gets it from him.”
“You sure take the cake, lady,” Logan growled. “Doin’ that to a man like him…”
“He didn’t object,” she said. “I don’t regret it, considering I was treated
like any mutant when I was captured.” Her hand rested briefly on her belly, and
Kurt winced.
Becky looked confused. Kitty sighed, “She was sterilized, just like I was.”
“You’re…sterilized? But you’re only…”
“Sixteen. Kurt and I both were.”
“And you’ll never…?” Kitty shook her head, while Kurt studied his feet. He
would never see a kinder of his in Kätzchen’s arms…
“Nor will Marie,” Raven said. “I was told... she’d be made into a Hound.” Becky
started crying, and her mother embraced her.
“Marie is the foster sister you’ve told us of, Becky?” said Jon. Becky nodded.
“She was caught in a surprise screening,” Raven said. “I tried to always be a
part of the teams covering the girl’s school, but I missed that check. Becky
can’t be detected on the blood test as long as she wears the ring, so she
passed.”
Jon chuckled, “She even fools my tests, and I can pick up the gene much earlier
than they can.”
“I raised Marie from infancy. I wouldn’t let them just take her.” Raven nuzzled
her daughter’s hair. “I sent Becky to you, and went to get her back. It was bad
luck that an agent saw me change, and triggered my capture.”
“Whether he’s in suspension or not, Jon, we need to get him,” Logan said. “If
they ever managed to reproduce the formula, that would be bad… And in the worst
case scenario, at the very least, I owe the man an honorable burial.”
Jon bent his head and considered the matter. At last, he nodded, and looked
expectantly at Raven. She stroked Becky’s hair, and looked coolly back. “I’ll
tell you where he can be found, if, your people will rescue Marie from the
Carrier.”
“You ain’t in a position to bargain, Raven.” Logan snapped.
She frowned at him, and then smoothed her expression with a visible effort.
“Which is why I’m asking… I’m begging, that you get her out of there. Please.”
“Don’t beg them, Mom," Becky said. "If they’re going to do it, it’s because
it’s the right thing to do… just like rescuing you.”
Jon held up his hand. “Let’s look at this rationally, the Carrier is a big
target, requiring a lot of planning, personnel, and resources…”
“I want it to go down. Crashed. Destroyed. DEAD,” Kitty said. It almost didn’t
sound like her voice; it was so flat and lifeless. Kurt met her eyes, and she
stared back into his. “Too much pain goes on there, and if it’s gone, it will
be much harder for them to train Hounds. Just the fact that it’s the Carrier,
so far from any possibility of escape, is all that kept some of us aboard.” Her
hand moved, as if holding a blade.
“Yesss…” he said, his eyes narrowed. “I would like that, too. There are some
sentimental things I would like to recover, some people I’d like to make sure
to get out alive… but besides that…” The grin on his face felt positively
wicked. It would be so satisfying to see it burn…
Jon smiled patiently, and continued. “In general terms, Raven, how is this
lab’s security, especially when compared with that of the Carrier?”
“Weak,” she said with a sigh. “It uses the ‘plain sight’ defense. If you put a
lot of security somewhere, and people will wonder what you’re hiding.”
“Minimal security, on the other hand,” Jon said, “says, ‘Nothing to see here,
move along’.”
“Precisely,” she said. The security isn’t trivial, but compared with their hard
points, it’s nothing.” She leaned forward. “I understand what you’re saying.
Taking the lab can be done now, but the Carrier will take some time to prepare
for.” She looked at Logan, who was keeping a neutral face.
“So… I’ll make a gesture of trust,” she said, settling back in her seat. “The
lab is in Virginia. It’s the Browning facility near the Langley CIA campus. I
suspect CIA headquarters would be a fine diversion for the real mission.”
“Thanks, Raven,” Logan said. “I expect that wasn’t easy for you. And for what
it’s worth, you got my word I’ll do all I can to free the girl.”
A faint smile crossed her face. “Your word is worth more to me than your
realize; I trusted you with my daughter.”
* * *
“Of course, Kätzchen and I would like to help… but how are we going to move
him? A block the size she described would be half a ton of man and ice. It
would be an unwieldy burden, to say the least.”
“I’m stronger than normal,” Becky said. “I can help.”
“Ya ain’t that strong girl…” Logan said. “I oversee yer weight training.
Hauling a slab like that on your back just ain’t gonna work.”
“If I skip the HQ raid, I could manage it,” Jon said, nodded at the helmet on
his desk. Kurt recalled how he’d taken the fallen dead from Shield’s morgue,
and agreed.
Jimmy cleared his throat diffidently. “I… can move that kind of burden.” Jon
looked at him in surprise. “It’s a porting spell Margali taught me, it’s for
moving timber, getting wagons out of ditches or hauling draft horses up steep
embankments.”
“He’s good at it,” Jimaine said. “As a sorcerer, he’s nearly a master.”
Jon frowned, and then sighed. “I accept your expert opinion, even if I don’t
like it.”
“Warren and Mack aren’t going to like it, either,” Scott said.
“Neither of them have manifested their full power yet,” Jon said. “Having
duplicated both of their powers, I know they aren’t ready yet. Besides, Jimmy’s
older than they are.” He smiled. “It’s kinda ironic that the youngest X-Man has
the oldest kid.”
“I could say something about you not using contraception correctly,” Jean said
with a smirk, “but I bet Jimaine had something to do with that…” The gypsy
woman merely smiled mysteriously in response.
“And moving right along…” Jon said. “Scott, do whatever you feel will be most
effective at the CIA. Kurt, I guess you’re in charge of the infiltration team
again?”
“Nien,” Kurt said. He pointed at Kitty. “It’s her turn.”
She gave him a heart-melting smile, and kissed him. “Thanks, love.”
“Not a problem, you are trained as well as I am,” Kurt said. “Either of you
have a problem answering to her?”
Becky shrugged. Jimmy chuckled. “I imagine both of us are comfortable with
female authority.” That got Becky to laugh along with him.
Scott said, “I think we’ll openly step in at the lab only if the kids draw
security. As for the HQ, I’d like to blow up the place, but quietly this time.”
His wife laughed. “How do you ‘quietly’ blow someplace up?”
Straight faced he told her, “When you sneak in to plant the bombs,” then he
winked with his good eye.
“That ain’t gonna be easy,” Logan said, “or as much fun as I was hoping for,
but let’s do it.”
* * *
In the dead of night, once again, they entered the research center, under an
obscurement spell from Jimmy. At the section that Raven described, Kurt went
ahead to take on the first of the alarms. When he returned, he shielded his
sensitive eyes while Kitty turned on the lights.
The front part of the lab was full of tables, cabinets, and workstations, with
the best scientific equipment that Shield had to offer. It was chilly in the
room, as cold air seeped from the back. Glass walls marked off the refrigerated
area, interspersed with open doorways hung with clear, heavy-grade plastic
sheeting.
By common accord, they went to the glass wall, to see for themselves the legend
that rested there. The ice block sat on freezer coils, and frosty air was
directed at it constantly. Becky shivered, and even Kitty looked cold. Jimmy
muttered a warming spell for them, and Kurt brushed past the sheeting to check
for more alarms.
When he found none that guarded against touch, Kurt brushed away the hoarfrost
obscuring the surface of the ice. The man within the ice hung suspended on his
back, his heels hanging lower than his head. His arms were limp at his sides,
and his head tilted slackly back, exposing his throat.
His mouth was closed in a firm line, and his eyelids were shut, but a strong
character could be seen in his handsome face. He looked exactly like the old
War pictures from his heyday, having aged no more since then than Logan.
His US military uniform was torn and charred to show glimpses of the familiar
chain mail underneath. Between the block’s pitted surface and the man inside,
boreholes and chipped spots permitted access to the frozen flesh. In some of
them, pipettes and tubes were left in his skin, creating aggravated wounds from
decades of pitiless extractions and experimentation.
“Can we take those out of him?” Becky whispered. “It’s obscene to have all that
stuck in him.”
Kitty nodded. “He’s like Aslan on the Stone table, just before the crack of
dawn… I do agree with you Becky, but we need to get him out of here first.”
Becky sighed in assent, and parted the sheet strips to go in for a closer look.
“Wait,” Kurt said. “Let me check for more alarms.” He spent nearly half an hour
pouring for anti-personnel measures. There were more alarms, but the most
troubling item was the explosive charge set amongst the refrigerator coils
under the bloc. With every one’s help, he pried up some floor plates and access
panels, and squirmed under to get a better look.
“It’s a good think they planned on servicing this equipment. A-choo!” He
sniffed and wiped his nose on a cloth. “But the servicemen would have to be
slender. A broader man couldn’t fit in here.” Finding what he was looking for,
he continued his report. “Ach… Diabolical. The charges are shaped not only to
go out, to kill those around the block, but the biggest charge is directed up,
in such a way as to surely destroy him.”
It was only a few minutes more work to neutralize the explosive, and loosen the
lower clamps before he carefully wriggled his way out. More clamps were on the
outside of the block. Kurt gave Jimmy the tools to tackle them, while he wiped
himself free of the dust and grime. Kitty brushed the worst of it out of his
hair, after stifling a snicker.
"That's the last of them, brother. Now it's time to set him free," Jimmy
stepped back and intoned ancient words that made Kurt's fur prickle. His
brother's face was a study of concentration as scarlet ribbons shot from his
fingertips, wrapped around the ice and, after a pause, lifted it up.
"This is where you come in, step sister," Jimmy said through his teeth. "I can
levitate it, but I cannot easily move it. It possesses all of its normal
inertia, so it will be difficult to guide. I can restore the obscurement spell
over us, but only just barely. Kurt, you and your lady will have to make sure I
don't walk into anything."
Kurt grinned. "You see, Kätzchen? I told you he was clumsy..."
"That's not very funny, Kurt," Jimmy growled, his voice strained and his eyes
were fixed on the block.
"Be nice, Kurt. Don't make fun during a mission." Kitty reached for her comm
piece. "Blackbird, ready for pickup in ten."
"Gotcha, half-pint. We'll be there."
"Forth of July on schedule?" she asked.
"For the Red, White, and Blue..."
* * *
Kurt pushed open the delivery doors, and stood aside so Becky could push out
the treasure they'd come for. A small flash alerted them to the position of the
shuttle. They loaded the block in a refrigerated section. Cyclops pointed his
light near the security cameras.
"I took care of those on the way in," Kurt said. "The lenses are blackened."
The explosion of CIA Headquarters was gratifyingly bright, and afterwards the
shuttle turned back to space. The trip back to the Asteroid was quiet. Jimmy
was exhausted, and Becky was in no mood to chatter. Finally, Kurt detected a
growing tension between the two male older Raiders. Finally, Scott cleared his
throat and sang, "Oh, Canada..." He stopped abruptly at the introduction of
three sharp bone tips to the underside of his chin.
Kurt cocked his head, and then looked at his lady, who shrugged.
Logan growled, and retracted his claws. "That's One-eye's way of reminding me
that I'm Canadian, and that Americans have the monopoly on the phrase 'Red,
White, and Blue'."
Kurt smiled. "Jimmy and I are German, Logan's Canadian, and Ororo is from
Africa, so I think we tie the Americans on board."
Becky shook her head and pointed towards the silent figure in the block.
Kurt colored, and bowed his head to his sister. "I am corrected."
* * *
Jon took one wide-eyed look and had the block wisked to his lab. Becky refused
to be excluded, and nobody cared to argue the point with her. The block was
placed in a newly constructed, giant-sized Magnetic scanner, while the chief
Raider puttered around with his equipment, making as many non-intrusive scans
as possible.
A blip on one machine brought him around in a hurry to stare at it. He sat in
tense silence, rubbing his temples; waiting. Logan put something like a boxer's
mouthpiece next to him, but Jon ignored it. He drummed his fingers on the
console and at long last another blip was heard. "I'll be damned," he said.
"He's alive." His fingers flashed over the controls, bringing up an image of
the Captain's heart, seemingly frozen and still. He sped up the image until the
minutes blurred on the time display, and they could see the faint convulsions
of a beating heart.
"You're going to have to wait on that burial, decent or otherwise," Jon said to
Logan. Becky burst into tears, and Kurt and Kitty comforted her.
"Really glad to hear it, bub. That's one of the best men I've ever known."
"Now the real work begins. Becky, you can go now. He's alive, and I promise
he'll stay that way. Check back tomorrow when we've gotten some of the ice
off..."
She shook her head stubbornly. Jon sighed and spoke more sternly. "This is
going to take days, if not weeks, and forgive me for being blunt, but I doubt
your father would like you to see him clearly with a tube stuck in his
scrotum."
Kurt winced in sympathy, and steered his sister to the door. "Maybe you should
tell your mother about this, seeing as she may have been the one to put it
there. Besides, she might appreciate some warning that she may have to answer
to the donor about her use of that 'sample'."
* * *
Either Becky alone, or she and her mother, joined Logan and a procession of
awed residents in checking on the Captain daily. As his wounds were uncovered
they were treated and some of his more exposed areas were shielded from view.
To Kurt it seemed like an agonizingly slow process, but Jon explained it was
the safest way to revive him. Still, daily the ice receded, and when it was
gone, the ugly marks of sampling and older signs of burns on his back began to
heal.
When his color and vital signs were near normal, but still he showed only faint
signs of awakening, Logan called a meeting of the Raiders. "People, look. I
don't think he'll have a problem with us being mutants, because he's worked
with all sorts in the Invaders. Atlanteans, mutates, an' androids an' the
like."
"We can only hope so, Logan," Jon said. "What is it you want?"
"The man's lost more than half a century. Between the Skull, an' Shield, an'
what you did to him, Raven, he's in fer some nasty shocks. The fact is, the
only familiar face here is me. When he's ready to wake up, I wanna be there.
An' just me. Not his daughter, whom he won't know, not his fan club; me. You
can watch over cameras if ya want, but yer gonna have to leave 'im to my tender
mercies."
"He's doomed," Scott said. It said a lot to Kurt about Logan's determination
that he didn't even give his old friend a dirty look.
"He knows me; he knows I'm a straight shooter who will tell him the truth. I'm
the best chance of getting him up to speed, and you all know it." He glared
around the room, jaw set, daring anyone to say otherwise.
"I was hoping you'd volunteer," Jon said.
"Volunteer? Hell, I insist!"
Becky nodded. "Mom talked to me about it, so I understand."
"Everybody else agree?" Jon asked. "If you don't, talk to him." He pointed at
the Wolverine with his thumb.
When there were no objections, Becky gave him the Captain's shield. "He'll want
this. Thanks for helping me put a new strap on, Logan."
"No problem, pumpkin. Thanks for takin' such good care of it. I'll bet he'll be
proud to know his daughter."
"You think so?" Her voice quivered as she brushed moisture from her eyes.
"After he gets over the surprise? Yeah, I do," he said.
Jon stood as the others started to leave. "Okay, Logan, you're on call from now
on. We think it's only going to be a few days before the formula that preserved
him will bring him around."
"I'll be ready," Logan said.
* * *
Two days later, Kurt and Kitty sat with the other Raiders in a conference room.
On the monitors they could see Logan sitting next to the Captain's bed, turning
the shield in his hands as if it would reveal a secret to him if he could just
get the right angle on it.
The blond haired man on the bed was slightly propped up with pillows, his large
capable hands resting limply on the covers.
Logan put the shield down and took a drink of water. When he put the glass
down, he cocked his head at the form on the bed. The bio-monitors in the
conference room relayed an upswing of readings. "Up and at 'em, Soldier. I can
hear from yer breathin' that you're awake."
The big hands clutched the covers, and eyes of purest blue snapped open to
stare challengingly at Logan, the room and then focus back on Logan again...
***** Kitty - Legacies *****
Over the monitor, Kitty watched as piercing blue eyes darted the room, taking
in the damaged olive-drab Army uniform folded neatly on the shelf, next to the
vivid colors of Captain America‘s costume. They next surveyed the shaggy haired
man sitting near him, the shield leaned against his chair. Logan laid the
shield on the bed, and the patient’s strong hand wrapped around the strap,
bringing the disc to cover his chest defensively.
“Where am I?” he said.
Logan pulled a cigar out of his pocket, and stuck it between his teeth, unlit.
“I’m here to debrief ya, Rogers.  You remember me?”
“Sergeant Logan, Canadian Special Forces,” the man said. “Why aren’t there
members of my own service here to do that?”
“None are available, bub; fortunes of war. Ya see Rogers, you’ve been out of it
for a long time. Long enough for me to be out of the service. I’m here, because
ya know me. I fought beside ya, and they’re ain’t that many left who can say
that.”
Steve Rogers looked at his hands, holding the shield close to him. He flexed
his knees and rolled his shoulders fluidly, as if assessing himself. “Can’t be
that long, Sergeant. I’m still fit, if a bit sore.”
The cigar waggled in Wolverine’s teeth. “You’d be surprised. And it’s just
Logan. I ain’t a sergeant anymore.”
“It isn’t proper… Logan. There’s a war on…”
Wolverine shook his shaggy head. “Not anymore, there ain’t. Least not the one
you’re thinking of. We won. Then we lost. Everybody lost.”
“Come again?” Steve furrowed his brow, and looked around again.
“We won the war, but the peace was lost. It all goes back to the Red Skull, yer
old enemy.”
Steve’s piercing gaze fixed on him again. “What about him?”
“Ya can look all this up, later, but I’ll give you the short version. You
disappeared at the end of the war, around ‘45. No sign was found of yer
sidekick, what’s ‘is name…”
“Bucky,” Steve’s voice sounded hollow. “His name was James Buchanan Barnes. He
was sixteen.”
“Yeah. I’m, uh… sorry for yer loss. Anyway, with you gone, Skull got a doctor
to change his face to look like you. As ‘you’, he was hailed as a hero in
America and the Allied nations. Your name and reputation got him into Congress,
the Senate, and even the White House. And at every step of the way he spread
his poison after him. Fascism needs an enemy, and he found one; Mutants.”
“Mutants?” The honest confusion in his eyes made Logan pause.
“Meta-humans? People with powers given by their genetics? Like Spitfire.”
“She got her powers by taking a transfusion from the Human Torch.” [See Note.]
“She was what we call a Mutate, then. When I fought in the war, I was already
I-don’t-know-how many years old. I had these, too, but I was careful not to be
seen with ‘em.” He popped his claws on one hand, and Steve shifted the shield
to a more protective posture.
“Keep yer shorts on,” Logan retracted two spars, and punctured his other hand
with the third, skewering it clean through. Steve watched in horrified
fascination as he drew back the last claw, and let him see his torn knuckles
and stab wound melt away to undamaged flesh. Logan brushed the dried blood to
the floor, and all sign of the shed blood was gone.
“Me an’ my kind are the new Jews to the American Reich. For fear that folks
like me will murder people in their sleep, your countrymen traded away their
freedoms. The U.S. is a police state, and the dictator in charge wears your
face.”
Steve leaned forward, jaw bunching and eyes flashing. “How did it happen?”
“One step at a time, every step a tiny one… it’s been sixty years, man. That
amount of time is bound to bring changes, and with a smart Nazi like Skull
orchestratin' the dance…” Logan shrugged.
“Sixty… years?” Steve rubbed his eyes. “Sixty…”
“That’s most of it. One last thing you need to know about. About twenty-five
years ago, they fished you out of the North Sea in a block of ice. Skull had
‘em studying you, trying to learn the secret of the formula. They took blood,
pieces of yer skin, meat and bone to look at.” Logan smirked. “Even some of yer
little swimmers.”
“I beg your pardon?” Steve looked shocked.
“You heard me,” Logan scowled. “’Bout sixteen years back, a mutant broke into
the lab you were at, and, um… made use of the little soldiers, and they
saluted. She’s got a daughter, almost sixteen years old. Got her mom’s
complexion, and your hair. However Raven got her, though, she’s yours, too,
Rogers.”
“A daughter…” Steve frowned. “That isn’t funny.”
“Am I laughin’?” Logan tossed two things onto the bed. One was a photo of Raven
and Becky, and the other was a current copy of the New York Times. “There’s a
lot of folks here who can tell you about the new world, but none of ‘em
remember the real Captain first hand.” He looked up at the Security Camera.
“Turn that thing off, and let a man get dressed.” Logan laid a change of
clothing on the bed.
“But you’re already dressed, Uncle Logan,” a boy’s voice piped over the
circuit.
Logan popped his claws and growled, “Pete…”
* * *
The monitor in the conference room went dark. Kitty looked at Kurt, whose
golden eyes were distant in thought. She leaned against him, and wrapped her
arms around his slender waist. He responded with a gentle kiss. Her question
must have been in her eyes, because he shook his head a little.
“Not just yet, Liebe.” He looked in his belt pouch to check that his small hand
light was there, and nodded when he found it.
Becky was jittery, her hands twined with her mother’s. Raven was looking at
Kitty, and when their eyes met, Raven slowly looked over at her son, and when
she looked back at Kitty, she smiled. Kitty blinked as the older woman looked
back down at her daughter.
Jimaine came over to her, and kissed Kurt’s wavy hair. “It seems both his
mothers approve of you, daughter,” the gypsy woman murmured. Kitty smiled
against Kurt’s muscled shoulder.
Kurt looked up at the woman who raised him, and then looked over to the woman
who gave him birth. Raven was quietly talking to Becky, sadness in her eyes.
Kurt kissed Jimaine on the cheek, and came over to crouch over by his other
family. I’ve only just met you both, but you are my blood and kin. Whatever
happens, you will have my love and support. Mama Szardos taught me that love
expands to cover all those who share in it. My love must be very big now,
because of all those that I love.” He wrapped his arms around them both, and
hugged them.
Becky grabbed him around the neck, and when she let go, Raven diffidently
reached for his hand, but he’d have none of it. He took her jewel-like face in
his hands and reverently kissed each of her cheeks. “Mutti,” he said softly.
Raven’s eyes were suspiciously moist. “She’s your mother, not I.”
“I guess I’m just lucky enough to have two Mutti’s,” he said. He straightened
up and struck a proud pose. “Und how important must I be? For step-fathers I
have the leader of the Raiders and the fabled Captain America!”
A cleared throat behind him caused him to turn, and see Logan entering the
room, with the Captain himself standing frozen in the doorway. Kitty could see
it took all of Kurt’s courage to stay and face the man. She came up and took
her husband’s arm.
“This is Kurt Wagner,” Logan said. “He’s been that way all his life, and was
raised by Gypsies. He and his young wife were treated very badly by Shield.”
Jimaine went to stand by her own love. “I don’t need to tell you that Gypsies
have no love for Nazis or anyone like them. I will never forgive them for the
harm they caused to the sweet boy I raised.”
“Mama…” Kurt muttered, embarrassed. Kitty suppressed a giggle and kissed him.
“Let’s be seated,” Jon said, pulling out Jimaine’s chair, and Kurt emulated his
chivalrous gesture. Everyone found their seats, leaving one next to Logan for
Rogers. Steve took his time getting to it, studying the people in the room.
Ororo’s hair and eyes surprised him just as much as the three shades of blue
that made up Raven and her children. He looked sharply at Kitty’s tattooed
face, and she faced him steadily back.
Kurt’s tail came up to her shoulder as he sensed her tension, and followed her
gaze. Her husband stood up, catching everyone’s attention. “Forgive me,” he
said to Jon, “but there is something I must say, and ask, before you get down
to business.”
Jon nodded. “Say what you need to say, Kurt.”
Kurt turned to Rodgers, and pulled out his flashlight. He turned it to his dark
face, and shone it around his features to reveal his own Hound marks. “I know
your face, Herr Rodgers,” he said softly. “It is displayed in many of the rooms
of the facility that did this to us. Your face looked down benevolently upon
those who carved our faces with their brand, upon those who made us learn to be
killers, and on those who tortured us in fashions I doubt you care to imagine.”
He settled back down in his chair, and embraced Kitty.
“My question to you is, what is your opinion of this? Is the fact that my
Käztchen and I were born Mutant ‘freaks’, and were raised a Jew and a Catholic,
respectively, sufficient justification for what was done to us?”
Steve watched him quietly, a measuring look replaced by sad sympathy in his
eyes. “Nothing justifies the things I’m seeing.” He sighed. “I don’t hate the
German people. I have German blood in my own ancestry. I hated the Reich, and
the Nazis who stood for it, but for what they did, not for who they were. I
don’t hate Jews or Catholics. Freedom of religion is an important part of the
American Constitution. There have always been bigots, and there probably always
will, but I’m not one of them.” He looked pensive, then stood and came over to
them. Getting down on one knee, he put his face on their level. “As one of the
Invaders, I fought with people who looked and were very different from me, but
who believed with me that Evil should be opposed wherever it was found.”
He reached for Kurt’s hand, and shook it firmly, and then shook Kitty’s hand
with a gentler grip. “I don’t hate Mutants, I have no reason to. Kurt, I don’t
hate you for being German,” he said, and then looked at Kitty. “Nor do I hate
you for being from…?” He gave her a little smile, and seemed to see the girl
behind the tattoos.
“I’m Kitty Wagner, from Chicago.” Her voice sounded husky, even to herself. The
power of this man’s personality…! There was no deceit in him.
A look of pain crossed his face. “I can see how young you both are, and I think
it’s a tragedy that you’ve been hurt so." He reached up and touched the shield
on his back as he got back to his feet. “This stands for Freedom, and Justice,
and they seem to be rare commodities these days. But as long as I carry it, I
will fight for those ideals.” He looked around the room. “Logan tells me you’ve
been fighting a war against impossible odds, and taking tremendous losses. But
I swear by the America I grew up with, that I will side with you in that war!”
Logan snorted. “Kind of an abrupt decision, there, ain’t it, Rogers?”
He looked at the Canadian. “I know injustice when I see it. The Government run
by the man who stole my face kept me frozen. You people freed me. And I know
what the horrors of war looks like, and I can see it written on the faces of
your young friends. My instincts tell me it’s the right decision.”
“I’m very glad to hear that, Mr. Rogers,” Jon said.
“Becky!” Raven said, futilely trying to keep her daughter still, as the girl
rose to her feet.
She came up to Rogers, ashen tones of nervousness dulling her pale blue skin.
Clearing her throat she said, “I’m Rebecca Darkholme. You’re… you’re my
father.”
He met her eyes and stared into them. He lifted his large hand, which Kitty
knew could be so gentle, and lightly brushed over her cheek, and across blonde
hair of a shade very close to his own. “Except for your complexion, you look
like one of my cousins… her name was Becky, too,” he said. She gave a little
smile and leaned up to kiss his cheek. He looked at Raven, who looked back at
him, unabashed and unashamed. He watched her gaze soften as her eyes turned to
her daughter.
“I… I’ve never been a father before,” he said to Becky, “especially not to
someone as pretty as you.” She blushed a light purple, and he smiled broadly.
“But I promise I’ll try to be a good one, if you’ll let me.” He spread his
hands wide, not quite holding open his arms, as if afraid of rejection. He
needn’t have worried. She surged closer and hugged him hard. He wrapped his
arms around her gently and laid his cheek on her fair hair, closing his eyes.
“I’m trying to hold a briefing here, people…” Jon said in mock exasperation
“Aw, give it up, Jon,” Logan said. “It ain’t happening. Even Scott was
laughing.
Jon shook his head, smiling. “It can wait. Why don’t we celebrate, instead? A
hero has been found, and families have been reunited. I can’t think of a better
reason to hold a party.” He was seconded by a chorus of cheers.
* * *
The dining hall switched to party mode easily, it seemed. Only the youngest
residents of the Asteroid and their minders stayed away, on account of the late
hour. Steve accepted the greetings of the refugees with aplomb, yet at the same
time seemed embarrassed by all the attention. He was like a humble ruler
mingling with his subjects, Kitty thought.
Kurt found her sitting on a table, watching Rogers, and he smiled. “Should I be
jealous?”
She frowned, running her thumb over her band of twine. “He has the charisma of
a king,” she said, and pulled him closer so she could whisper in his pointed
ear. But my idea of sex appeal has a darker hue, my love…” He shivered from her
breath, and pinned her where she sat with a deep kiss. Her legs wrapped tightly
around him as they forgot their surroundings for a moment.
“Decorum, please, love birds,” Jean said as she passed them. “You’re making the
other teens jealous.”
They untangled, blushing. “Perhaps we should retire, and soon,” Kurt whispered
to her. She nodded, rubbing her face against his scarred cheek. She was pressed
so close, she felt his sudden tension almost as soon as he did. “Jimmy…” he
said softly.
He pulled her over to his brother, who was slumped alone with his head propped
on a hand. Kurt leaned down to catch his eyes. “Jimmy, are you all right?”
Jimmy nodded slightly, emerald green eyes blood shot as he winced from the
movement. “Ja, Kurt. Just a headache. Think I’ll go to bed soon. You two
probably should be going, too, unless you’re going to give us all a show…” He
tried to laugh, unsuccessfully.
“You’re just jealous, brother,” Kurt joked. That earned him a dark look from
Jimmy.
“Maybe I am.” Jimmy stood up and grabbed for some napkins. Pressing them to his
nose, he made his way out of the busy room.
Kurt looked after him, mournfully. Kitty embraced him. “He’ll be all right,
Kurt. Let’s take his advice.” Her tongue kitten-licked his ear.
He turned back to her, worries forgotten for the moment. “Kätzchen…” He ported
them to the hallway, and they hurried to their rooms.
* * *
Kitty awoke tangled closely with Kurt. She watched the fine hairs on his
shoulder move under her breath. Tracing her finger through them, she made
patterns in his velvet until he awoke with a gasp, jolting her wide-awake.
“Jimmy!” he said.
“What?” she said, feeling stupid. What did Jimmy have to do with anything?”
“He needs help,” her husband said, throwing on his clothes.
Wait, he was leaving? “You haven’t showered yet.”
“No time. If you’re coming Kätzchen, then hurry.” His eyes were impatient and
serious as she quickly dressed. She jogged after him as he hurried to his
brother’s door. He pounded on it with no response. “Phase us through,” he said
shortly to her.
“Um, wait, what if he’s…” she blushed.
“You’ve seen worse, Kätzchen,” he said. "Bitte!"
She grabbed his arm and phased them through. He stepped to Jimmy’s bedroom
doorway, and then gasped and pushed his way through to the bedside. She reached
for the light switch as the smell of blood and sickness reached her. “Light,”
she warned.
“Yes,” he acknowledged, hooding his eyes from the glare. He reached for Jimmy
and positioned him so his bleeding nose would drain downward. His pillow was
stained crimson, and his breathing was wet and noisy. “Get help, and both of
his parents. Tell Jimaine I feel magic, but I think part of this is mutation.”
She turned away, ready to run for aid, but shouting in her head as a backup.
“Jean!”
“Kitty?” Jean sounded surprised. “What’s wrong?”
“Jimmy needs medical attention. Severe bloody nose, and labored breathing. Kurt
feels magic, suspects mutation, and says Jimaine and Jon should come.”
“Go back to Kurt, I’ll send for the others,” Jean said.
“Thanks, Jean.” She came back into to Jimmy’s rooms. “Jean’s sending for help.”
The blood soaked pillow was on the floor, and Kurt held his brother’s head on
his lap.
“Good, get some damp towels, please.” They both washed the dried blood from
Jimmy’s face, and cleaned his nostrils, helping Jimmy to breathe easier.
“How did you know?” she said softly, after putting the bloody things in the
bathroom, and washing her hands.
He smiled a little. “When a Gypsy sorcerer swears an oath of blood-brotherhood
with you, you have to expect a little magic to go along with it.” He stroked
the chestnut hair. “It only works when we’re in proximity.”
“Is he really jealous of us?” Kitty was saddened at the thought she might have
caused a rift between them.
“Was?No… he’s more jealous of… our togetherness. We were sure that he’d find
his special someone first. He’s seen her in his dreams for years. And I… well,
I was pretty sure that… I would always be alone.”
“Never, fuzzy.” She nuzzled his neck affectionately.
“Are you two trying to make me sick?” came a weak voice. “Romance each other
somewhere else, please.” Jimmy coughed harshly, and hawked up something that he
made a face about. Kurt handed him a towel, and he spat it out discreetly.
“Some gratitude,” Kurt said in a light tone. “Would you rather I let you drown
in your blood?”
“So you could drown me in sweetness? What a choice…”
A bustle at the doorway got their attention. Jimaine sat by her sons and
questioned them in Rom. Kurt shrugged with his answers, and Jimmy sounded
uncertain.
Jon reached a hand out toward him. “He’s activating a mutant power of some
kind. I can‘t tell just what without touching him, and I don‘t want to risk it
while he’s reacting like this.”
“Whatever it is, it’s bound up in his magic,” his mother said. “Kurt was right
about that, but Jimmy isn’t clear on how.”
“Dreams…” Jimmy said. “People talking to me in my dreams, from far away.”
“What are they saying?” Jon said.
Jimmy shook his head. “Unclear. They’re too far away. I can’t understand them.”
“It’ll come, son,” Jon said. “Let’s get you looked after.”
* * *
A few hours later, Jimmy felt much better. “I think Grandmama may have
suppressed my mutation until now,” he said, laying on a medical bed. “Isn’t
this a late manifestation?”
“Yes, and she did you no favors, if she’s responsible,” Jon said. “You ready to
be scanned now?”
“I guess so,” Jimmy said. He held out his hand, and his father took it. A twin
cry came from both of their throats, and Jon collapsed on the floor, spasming
in seizure, as Jimmy clutched his head with a sob. Jean and her assistants
helped make sure Jon wouldn’t swallow his tongue.
Jimaine approached her son, only to be pushed back by wildly flaring magic.
“Too many voices!” Jimmy shouted, “All shouting at once!” His nose ran with
blood again, then suddenly stopped. He crouched over, hunched on the ground,
muttering to himself indistinctly.
Kitty watched anxiously as Kurt moved to him slowly, holding a damp cloth. No
force repulsed him, and Kurt once more wiped his brother’s face. “Jimmy?” he
whispered. Jimmy shook his head, putting a finger on Kurt’s lips. Over her
love’s shoulder Kitty could see the gem green of his eyes tinge to hard blue,
then swerve towards dark brown, to a different shade of blue, then back to his
normal green.
Jimmy clutched at Kurt’s shirt and pressed his face in Kurt’s shoulder. His
lips were still moving, but not even his brother could understand his words.
Kurt just held him, rocking Jimmy while he struggled to cope with what he was
becoming. Finally, Jimmy relaxed, shuddering in the aftershocks.
A faint lambent glow sputtered into being around him, and he pushed himself
back from Kurt’s embrace. Eyes of eerie blue met Kurt’s yellow, and Kurt
shuddered atavistically. “Raven’s blood, I take it?” Jimmy said. There was a
spectral quality to his voice, and it was deeper than his normal tones.
“Meine Haare stehen am Ende!” Kurt said, and scrambled away to rejoin Kitty,
smoothing down his prickling fur wherever it was exposed.
Jimmy rose with a grace uncharacteristic of him. He smiled at Jimaine and she
took a step backward. “Forgive me, Madame, but his magic has taken him down a
path not meant for you to follow.” He turned to Jon, and settled near him on
one knee. Jon looked up at Jimmy's altered aspect, still twitching in the
aftermath of the seizure. “How are you doing, boy?" said the hollow voice.
"Finally found something you couldn’t manage? I said that would happen one day,
do you remember?”
“M… Ma… Magnus?” Jon said, incredulously.
“Close your mouth, son. Jean, you’re looking lovely today.” Rising again he
gestured, and a gurney melted, slipping under Jon to lift him to a bed, and
then away to reform again as it was.
“My God, it is Magnus…” Jean said.
“That’s my son!” Jon said with difficulty. “He has his own life to live!”
“Be at ease, boy,” the spirit said, lifting a hand. “I’m just visiting. This is
his power, combining magic and mutation to provide a place for the Dead to
speak and act in the world of the Living. I’m only here on his invitation… but
I wanted to say, I approve of you taking my name, Jon.”
The eerie manifestation died out, and it was only Jimmy again. “They all wanted
something from me at once, but three of them forced the others back and helped
me to learn how to control… how to call them up, and how to banish them again.”
“Who…?” Jon asked.
“Magnus was one of them… and Doctor Strange. Papa, Magnus is so proud of you.
He adopted you into his family, and after he died, you took care of them, and
kept the Dream of freedom alive.
“And the last?” Jon persisted.
Jimmy smiled. “He’s proud of you, too. ”The spectral sign fell on him once
more, and a spirit smiled at warmly at Jon and Jean. “It is good to see that my
X-men survive, even though I did not. James shared his memories with us, and I
know about Jean’s marriage to Scott, and about young Warren Summers.”
“Professor…” Jean started crying. “His full name is Warren Robert Henry. Oh,
Professor, I’ve missed you. We’ve missed you all.”
“Thank you, Jean. Jon, it’s not good for James to speak for us too often. But
our powers are his to borrow, in the cause of fighting the wrongs that caused
our deaths. You must train him to perfect his control, and how to properly use
what we lend him.” The spirit of Charles Xavier looked off. “There are two more
spirits that have something important to say to you.”
Jimmy’s head slumped a little, and then lifted again. “Thank you, little
brother, for looking after Wanda, and my son, Pete,” a new spirit said.
Jon smiled. “You’re welcome, Pietro,” the spirit smiled back.
The spectral glow changed again, and the presence around Jimmy seemed… taller.
“And I give you thanks for your care of my sister, Ilyana.”
“And you’re welcome, Piotr, we take care of her as best as we can,” Jean said.
“Oh,” Jimmy staggered as the last spirit left him, and Kurt ported over to
catch him and put him back to bed.
“Thanks, Kurt,” he said, and looked over at his father in the next bed. “Don’t
try to mimic me, Papa. Our powers are too close. The Professor doesn’t think
you can gain templates from the spirits, either… the similarity of our powers
would interfere.”
“Makes sense,” Jon said. “I do wish I could mimic his power. I was still a
little kid when Charles died, long before I activated.”
“I don’t know if we’ll overlap much, I can’t duplicate the Living.” Jimmy
frowned, “Hero or Villain, it doesn’t matter on the other side. They’ll all
lend me their powers. I have my three allies to help me, and my training in
magic to protect me from… involuntary possession.”
Jimaine stroked his hand. “You’ve become a Medium, then?”
“More than that, Mama. I don’t just speak for them, I can act for them, and act
as them, as well. They give me their legacies to change the world for the
better.” He smiled at her. “And that’s what I will call myself… Legacy!”
Kitty snorted, and then began giggling outright.
“Kätzchen?” Kurt said, confused. “What’s so funny?”
“Just… something our Trainers said…" She mimicked a male voice, "‘The Raiders
can’t have an infinite supply of ersatz Magnetos...’ Heh…” Tears rolled down
her cheeks. “I guess we’ll show them.”
Kurt joined in her laughter, and soon the others did, too.
 
-End Act 3, and of 'The Shadow and the Kat'.
 
[Note: Jim Hammond, the original Human Torch, was an android, who was very
close in form to humans. A transfusion of his synthetic blood was given to an
injured English woman, Lady Jaqueline Farnsworth, and caused her to become the
meta-human 'Spitfire'. She could fly very fast, with fiery effects, among other
powers. (The Spitfire name came from the top British fighter plane of the WWII
era.)
On a related note, the Torch ‘deactivated’ after the war years, and in the
normal 616 universe, his form was the basis that Ultron used to create the
Vision, while the new android's mind was based from a engram recording of Simon
Williams, A.K.A. 'Wonderman'. (That became a little awkward when the energy
being that Wonderman became once again took on a physical form.)
The android Torch was first spotted in the MCU in the first Captain America
movie, at Howard Stark's 'flying car' demonstration. He was the male figure in
red shown in the big glass tube in the middle of the Exibition Hall. Like many
of us, I look forward to seeing the MCU's version of the Vision in the second
Avengers Movie.]
End Notes
     [A/N: You may notice that I always capitalize Shield, but never write
     it as an acronym. That’s because my version of Shield isn’t one. In
     this world, Captain America (a.k.a. The Red Skull), founded the
     organization based on Nick Fury's concepts, but he named it directly
     for the Shield he wore, as a way to symbolize its "protective"
     function in his twisted society...] 
     [See info on Marvel canon “S.H.I.E.L.D” (and the various things those
     initials have stood for over the years) at toonpedia dot com, among
     other places. This story is complete, but last updated in 2005,
     before the MCU was in existence, so as I go through my new edit I'll
     add any required references both in A/Ns and in the story. It might
     help to think of this story's Shield as to be wholly comprised of
     Hydra, which is really rather apt, considering recent developments in
     the MCU.]
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