Disclaimer:Bard College, no offense is meant. All characters belong to Marvel.
Two years ago, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
Kitty knocked on Professor Lensherr’s door. “Anyone home?”
“In here, Katherine,” the rich voice called out.
Kitty thought she heard a tightness in his voice, and crept quietly into the house, through the kitchen to the living room. The professor sat in front of the television, watching CNN.
“The governor has not yet issued a statement about these latest murders of suspected mutants--”
“Oh no,” Kitty whispered. She slid down on the couch next to the Professor.
His mouth was set in a grim line; his blue eyes were cold and brooding. “Animals,” he growled. “Filthy animals.”
Kitty felt a knot of cold fear in her stomach. She’d never seen Erik Magnus Lensherr angry. He was potentially the most powerful shifter on the planet. The master of magnetism. The former terrorist Magneto. Her philosophy professor. “Sir?” She touched his arm lightly.
He shook his head and flipped off the television. “I’m sorry. Did you need something, Katherine?” And now her easy-going, silver-haired professor was back, his blue eyes focused on her, an encouraging smile on his lips. But the anger still lurked beneath the surface.
“I just wanted to invite you to the Friday night dinner the Jewish Students Organization is putting on. I’ve been going around campus putting up fliers.”
“Thank you, Katherine. I’ll be there.” His eyes wandered back to the blank television screen.
“Sir?” She slid her hand into his, gave it as light squeeze. She didn’t know what to say.
He smiled at her. “Don’t worry, Katherine. I’m not going to race off to New York to deal with it personally. You don’t have to nursemaid me.”
“That’s not what I meant!” she protested.
“There is something you can do, Katherine. Something that would help me sleep much better at night.”
“Which is?” She’d only known the Professor for a semester; she was completely out of her depth.
“I want to teach you how to fight, how to protect yourself.”
“This is Bard College,” she reminded him. “Annandale-on-Hudson. A happy haven for intelligent freaks of all kinds, human and shifter. I don’t need to protect myself. And in case you forgot, my shifter power is intangibility.”
“And if you’re cornered? If something happens to your abilities? We’re only two hours away from New York, Katherine. And you won’t be a student here forever. Humor me.”
“Why me? Why not the others?”
“Because Professor Grey is right. Training shifters to use their abilities can’t become training them for combat. We are trying to win over public opinion, make them accept shifters. We can’t do that if they believe we’re training you for shifter battles that will catch normal humans in the crossfire. But you, Katherine, I want to sleep secure in the knowledge that no one can take you against your will. One less face in my nightmares.”
“But why me?” she repeated.
“Because you’re Jewish.” He turned away, dismissing her. “I’ll see you in class tomorrow. Think about my request. If you agree, come here tomorrow evening.”
Kitty left the house slowly, her whole body tense. She couldn't imagine the Professor being afraid of anything. It was hard to believe he still had nightmares about things that happened fifty years ago. "I wish he'd talk about it," She murmured to herself as she headed up the road. "No one should suffer alone like that."
Present day, Tokyo, Japan
*You just had to check for yourself, didn’t you?* Kitty cursed herself as she fled through levels of skyscraper. *You couldn’t just believe that Wolverine guy when he said Dad was dead.* At least those horrible mob goons couldn’t follow her. Not until she turned solid and hit the streets.
“Yiii!” she screamed as the masked ninja appeared out of nowhere. He grabbed her--
Her fingers moved by reflex, gripping his hand and wrenching his fingers into a lock. He slid out of her grasp as easily as if he were the ghost, not her. Erik Lensherr had taught her well. Her hands and feet struck vital organs, eyes, temples, nerve points. No hesitation. He evaded her easily. Fear blossomed in her. Then he blew a cloud of smoke into her face, and the world faded to black.
She awoke in a warm bed. “Mmm, where am I?” Everything was so fuzzy.
There was someone sitting beside her bed. “Mornin.”
“Wolverine?” She searched her memory for his real name. “Logan?” She sat up. “I had a horrible dream.”
“Tell me.” His gravely voice unnerved her. She’d met the man a handful of times; he was one of Xavier’s students. Not an enemy, but not a friend, either. What was he doing here? Where was she?
“I dreamed we were fighting in a house. I don’t know how to fight. But I was winning. And then I stabbed you, and you rammed the blade into yourself and hit me on the head.” She wrinkled her nose. “Horrible.”
He opened his kimono, displayed blood-soaked bandages that spanned his chest. “Something like this?”
Kitty paled. “I did that. I really stabbed you. Ogun--”
“He’s dead. I killed him.”
“How did we get here? What do you want with me?”
“A friend drove us here. She’s gone now. I’m here as a favor to a friend, kid. I’m going to rip you to pieces, and we’re going to see if there’s anything decent left in the wreckage.”
“And if there isn’t?”
Snikt. His claws gleamed in the morning sun.
“Oh.” She swallowed. “I want to call my friends. They must be so worried about me—”
“No. Can’t let anyone know you’re here, know you’re alive, until you’re well.”
“Why not?”
“You’re dangerous now. You shouldn’t be around them until you’re better. And if I have to kill you, I don’t want a war startin’ over you. Don’t want any trails leadin’ back to the X-Men.” Before Kitty could protest, Logan added, “The X-Men fought you and your friends once. We won. Do you want them to die for you?” He waited while she fought down tears of despair and hatred. “Get dressed.” He stood and walked out of the room, grunting a little at the strain that put on his wounds.
When Kitty calmed down a little, she got out of bed and found a gi, a practice uniform, a few feet from her. She put it on. She was hungry. She walked out of the room hoping breakfast was first thing on the agenda.
It wasn’t. “Come on,” Logan growled, exiting the house and breaking into a jog. Kitty started running to keep up. It was snowing, and the cold bit Kitty’s skin. She could keep pace with Logan -- barely -- but as the run extended over hours and miles of land, Kitty started weaving back and forth, stumbling and eventually falling.
“Help me up,” she cried.
He didn’t even look back.
Anger flooded through her. He was leaving her to die here? She got to her feet, ignoring the pain in her ankle. She hurried after him, intent on killing him when she caught him.
She didn’t catch him. The path circled back to the house, and when she got there, Logan was gone. Cold soup and sushi waited on the table, one portion. Kitty sank to the floor wearily and picked up the bowl, drinking straight out of it.
She was cold, exhausted, hurt. Dad was dead. Ogun had killed him a long time ago. She closed her eyes, remembering. Ogun had terrified her, broken her. Taught her to fight. He’d called her daughter ... how long had she been missing?
Logan appeared in the doorway. “How long was I gone?” she asked.
“A week.”
Only a week? It had all been in her mind? “And Ogun’s really dead?” she asked.
“Not quite. Ogun’s body was killed. But his spirit’s still out there, trying to get in.”
“Me,” Kitty whispered. “He’s going to take me over.”
“Yup.”
“How come he hasn’t already?”
“Friend of mine put a spell on you to keep him out for a while. Not permanent, though. We’ve got to fix you before it breaks.”
“When does it break?”
“I dunno. Probably two minutes before you try to kill me again.”
Kitty felt sick. “Out on the trail I wanted to kill you. That’s what kept me going.”
“Mm,” he made a noncommittal grunt. “Eat your food, then meet me in the next room.”
Kitty forced herself to eat, feeling sick. Ogun could take her over at any time. Maybe he already had. Maybe he was sitting in the back of her mind, watching and relishing her terror and anger. She finished the food and walked into the next room.
A dojo, lit by sunlight through open doors on two sides. “Match me.” Logan said. He began a series of moves, and Kitty followed them as best she could. “That’s a Shaolin style. Ogun doesn’t know it.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Ogun was my teacher. Every time you fail, every time you get angry with me, I want you to do this until you’re ready to stop feeling sorry for yourself and get on with it. I’ll teach you more moves later.” He stood back. “Now do it till I say you’ve got it right.”
That night, Kitty eased herself into bed, aching, exhausted, miserable. She could hear Logan in the next room, talking on the telephone. “I miss you too, darlin. Yeah, I figured Mags would go looking for her. But he doesn’t know squat about Japan. He’ll never find me here. Yeah, I know, darlin, we have to finish this before Magneto and the other Bard kids pick a fight with the X-Men to get her back. We can’t tell them what’s going on. Yeah, I will. Bye.”
Kitty scrunched up into a little ball and tried to go to sleep.
The next few days were a blur of physical torture, meditation and martial arts. Kitty forced down her grief, her fear, her anger, her desperation every time it surfaced. She couldn’t take the chance that they were really her emotions. If she were wrong, either she or Logan would die.
But slowly she built up muscle; slowly the moves became more fluid, graceful. But every night she woke up screaming with nightmares of killing Logan.
Despite the nightmares, the torturous exercises, she never showed the slightest hint of anger at Logan for what he was putting her through. It worried him. She should be feeling frustration, rage, suicidal depression. If she kept those feelings bottled up, she couldn’t confront them or clean them out of her system. They’d build and fester until they poisoned her and brought her back to Ogun.
Logan, in turn, pushed her harder and harder, trying to make her explode before she became too set in this new, repressed mold. Three hours of sleep a night. Nutritious but entirely inedible food. Training sessions that lasted for hours in the snow, criticizing even a centimeter’s deviation from proper form. Until finally she leapt on him, kicking and scratching with desperate hysteria. “Leave me alone! Leave me alone! I can’t do it anymore!”
In this state he easily flipped her on her back and sprang his claws, brushing them against her throat. “Temper, Kitty,” he reminded her, uncompromising.
Her eyes widened in fear and filled with tears. Logan grimaced and sheathed his claws. “Pull yourself together. Break’s over.”
One morning at breakfast, Kitty suddenly put down her chopsticks and looked across the low table. “Your wound? Has it been healing okay? I haven’t even thought--”
He opened his kimono, displayed his hairy, perfect chest.
“Thank you for finding my father. And for everything you’ve done for me.”
He looked at her for a long moment. Then a faint smile crossed his lips. “Yer welcome, darlin’.”
“When I came here, you said you were doing this as a favor to a friend. Who?”
“Illyana.”
Kitty conjured up the image of the blonde teenager. “I don’t get her. I mean, she does this for me, but every time I meet her, it’s like I’m pond scum. Like she’s disgusted with me.”
“Not disgusted. Disappointed.” He leaned back on his heels. “I think you’re ready to hear this. Illyana spent half her life in hell, literally. An alternate reality. She was supposed to be a living portal for demons. But her teacher made her strong enough to fight it off. Until the sorcerer who’d sunk his claws into Illyana broke her teacher. Eventually Yana killed the woman, banished the sorcerer, and came home.”
“So she knew what it felt like. She knew I needed a teacher. But how could she know that, months before I came here?”
“She didn’t. Her teacher in Limbo was Cat. Cat Pryde.”
Realization dawned. “Me. A different me. And she’s pissed because I don’t measure up. She wants to turn me into Cat?”
“Yup.”
“Well I’ve had enough of remaking myself in someone else’s image for the year, thank you. If that’s what you’re doing here, you can just kill me now, cause I’m not gonna cooperate.”
Logan grinned. “That was better. Thought you were never gonna speak up.”
Kitty glared. “So why are you doing this?”
“Told you. As a favor to her.” He finished his food and stood up. “She told me to find your dad. She asked me to find you after you went haring off on your own. She’s the one who put up the ward to keep Ogun from eating your soul before I could fix you. She wants you to come back to her as Cat. But she’s going to get what she needs, not what she wants. And so are you.”
“And what is it you think I need?” Kitty growled.
“You’re a killer. Like me. Like Yana. Even before Ogun dry-cleaned your brain. Probably even before Magneto--”
“--Erik. His name is Erik.”
“Before Erik started messing with your head. If you don’t learn how to channel it, you’re a danger to yourself and everyone around you. And you’re going to turn bad damn quick.”
Kitty stood up abruptly and headed back to the dojo, starting her forms. She kept going until sweat blinded and stung her eyes. When she came back out again, Logan was gone.
“I’m never going to be able to feel anything again, am I?” she asked him a few weeks later. “I won’t be able to let myself.”
Logan slapped her without warning, hard enough to knock her down.
“What the hell was that for?” she yelled, jumping to her feet and putting up her fists.
“How do you feel?”
“Fuck you!” she snarled.
“How do you feel?”
“Pissed off!”
“Why?”
“You had no reason to do that!” She grabbed him, tussled him to the floor. Finally she punched him back, hard, in the stomach. Then she released him and backed off, waiting to see what he would do.
He relaxed and straightened. “Not bad, Pryde. Sure you don’t want to push it further? Show me what it’s like to be scared and angry?”
She blinked in surprise. “No, I don’t.” She leapt over to him, threw her arms around him. “I can tell the difference! I know what’s me and what’s him, and I can draw the line!” She laughed out loud.
Logan’s arms around her were strong, controlled. But for a moment she felt him relax and hold her. He released her after a moment, walked into his room. He came back with a white envelope. “Open it, Pryde.”
She tore it open. Two plane tickets to JFK airport. “Logan?” Her voice shook.
“Time to go home, kiddo.”
She threw her arms around him again, kissed his cheek before backing off, embarrassed at her exuberance. The look of surprise on his face was worth it.
Logan headed back into the other room, dialed the phone. “Hey Rogue? Yeah, it’s me. Tell Grey’s kids I’ve found Kitty.”
Kitty went through the turnstile, looking around. Then her eyes lit on a shock of white hair. Erik. He looked so old, suddenly. She walked slowly towards him, fear twisting her stomach. She’d changed so much, would he be able to accept that? And what about the others? But when she got close, he grabbed her and hugged her tight, rocking her back and forth. “If you ever frighten me like that again, Katherine, I may be forced to hurt you severely,” he murmured.
“I missed you too,” she whispered. “Thanks for coming after me, even if you didn’t find me.”
Erik looked up as Logan walked over to them. “Thank you, Logan.”
“Mm,” Logan grunted, tousling Kitty’s hair as he drew close. “Be seein’ ya, Pryde.”
She nodded. “Thanks, Logan. For everything.” A splash of color across the crowd caught her gaze. Blond hair and mournful, hopeful eyes. “I’ll be right back. There’s just someone I have to talk to.”
She walked over to the blonde sorceress. “Hi Illyana. I wanted to thank you for what you’ve done.”
“It was nothing,” Illyana replied, guarded.
Kitty scowled. “I’m not your teacher. If I was, I’d have given you a good spanking a long time ago.” *I’m as bossy and selfish as she is. That’s probably where she got it from,* Kitty thought to herself. “But maybe I can be your friend...” she extended her hand.
Illyana paused. “I’d like that.” She shook Kitty’s hand, gave her a faint smile. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I killed her. She was my best friend and I killed her. I killed all of them.” Her voice was choked with tears.
Kitty hugged the girl. Illyana jerked away at first, then relaxed in Kitty’s arms. “I think we’ve got a lot to talk about.” She gave the girl a farewell squeeze and then headed back to Erik. Logan was gone. Kitty looked around and saw Wolverine talking to Illyana, walking her out of the airport. “That girl’s got issues. She’s got a lot to learn. But then, so do I.”
“What was that?” Erik asked. He hadn’t heard her.
“Nothing. Come on, let’s go home.”
End.