SURPRISE VISITS

By Yannick Lamarre

NOTE: This series takes place before the events of Uncanny X-Men #1

“Pete? What in the world are you doing here?” Kitty asked Pete Wisdom, standing before her on the X-men’s doorstep.

The sun wasn’t even entirely up yet, and a glimpse of it was starting to show on the horizon. Wisdom looked the same as he always had, long dark trench coat and scruffy look. But this time there was something else in that look. She saw it at once.

“Look, um, Kitty, I don’t know how to say this, but…” he began to say.

As if on cue, Lockheed began to stir in Kitty’s arms, and she looked down on him. Wisdom noticed for the first time how bad she looked that morning, as if she had been beaten up or something, and the image of a steel giant beating him up back on Muir Island rose in his mind like a dark nightmare. He ignored the vision and saw that Lockheed wasn’t looking so good either.

“His escape mustn’t have been so easy,” he suddenly realized.

Kitty returned his attention to him when he failed to complete his sentence.

“What? You came here to tell me something, right? Go ahead and say it,” she told him, smiling slightly.

“Kitty, I’m here to take Lockheed back,” he told her, and he saw in her surprised look that this wasn’t what she was expecting.

“Might as well get it over and done with,” he thought darkly.

“What?” Kitty asked, not sure she’d heard that one right.

“I’m here for Lockheed,” he repeated. “I’m working for W.H.O. now, and well, Lockheed IS an alien, even if I don’t see what they’d want in that hairless rat, I was sent here to get him.”

She took a step back, holding Lockheed protectively against her.

“I’ll look over him, make sure nothing bad happens to him! I know what he means to you, Kitty!” she assured him.

She looked straight into his eyes, and he remembered suddenly that he hated when she did that. Kitty was good at seeing right into his soul.

“Pete, you knew what my answer would be before coming here. Why did you bother at all?” she asked him, her eyes not quitting his.

Wisdom was the first to look away, looking up to stare at the fading stars above.

“It might be because… I wanted to see you again,” he said, returning her eyes on her.

They stood gazing at each other for a moment, and then she nodded.

“Wait here, I’ll go get dressed a bit more, then I’ll be right back. We’ll go take a walk, talk a little,” she told him, turning around to head back inside.

“Sure,” he answered, a small smile crossing his lips.

When she came back outside a few minutes later, Lockheed sitting on her shoulder, she was wearing simple blue jeans and a white t-shirt with an X logo on it. They started walking together, catching up on recent events in both of their lives, and how everything is not going the way they had imagined it.

“So, when did W.H.O. reform anyway?” Kitty asked at some point as they stood in front of the mansion’s swimming pool.

Lockheed was flying around the pool, testing his wings after his injuries. Wisdom looked at him with a wary gaze as he spoke.

“Short after Excalibur disbanded. They felt something was needed to fill the void,” he explained. “They got me soon afterwards.”

Kitty nodded, but her mind wasn’t all present in the conversation. It was still set on her father, his insane behavior, the way he had ordered her killed. It made no sense. She hadn’t mentioned what had happened to her to Pete yet, and didn’t feel much like it either. She could feel the special connection between the two of them was gone. Wisdom took a deep breath and turned around to face her.

“Kitty, I came here for a reason other than this chit-chat, and I think I’ve avoided it long enough. When we… separated, back on Muir… Nothing’s been the same for me since. There’s this void I can’t fill, and god knows I’ve tried. I get myself drunk every god damned night, and I finally realized there’s a clear reason for that. I guess I… Well, I’ve missed you, Kitty,” he finally got out, taking out a cigarette and sticking it between his lips, lighting it with his lighter and looking away.

Kitty stared at him for a second. She had actually expected this kind of development, and she could see that this had been hard for him to admit. She had missed him too, but something was missing. The feelings she had for him before were simply… gone. He probably knew it too. She had sent him away after all.

“Pete… I…” she started to say, but she was interrupted by the sudden appearance of an helicopter over the school grounds.

It had a S.H.I.E.L.D. logo on it, and it flew right toward the two of them. Lockheed flew back to Kitty’s shoulder, growling at the flying vehicle. Wisdom’s cigarette was blown away by the wind, and he swore angrily. This wasn’t the first time an important discussion with Kitty was interrupted by S.H.I.E.L.D. It slowly landed a few meters in front of them, sending water from the pool all around them. Some of the other X-Men were coming out to join them, most surprised by both the helicopter’s and Wisdom’s presence.

“What do they bloody want?” Wisdom screamed to be heard against the noise the helicopter was making.

Kitty shrugged in answer. This was the last thing she expected this morning. Two men she didn’t recognize came out of the flying vehicle and approached her. The X-Men joined Kitty and Wisdom’s side.

“Friends of yours?” Nightcrawler asked her, and Kitty shook her head.

Wolverine knew something was up, and walked in front of the group. The two men reached Kitty.

“Are you Katherine Pryde?” they asked her.

“Yes,” Kitty answered.

“Would you please come with us?” they asked, but their behavior basically meant that this was more of an order than anything else.

“What for?” Kitty asked, and the two men stared at each other for a second before the second one replied.

“We think Ogun might be overriding our systems again,” they replied.

This Wolverine heard, and he stepped forward.

“You bubs have better take me along. Me and Ogun go way back,” he told them, but they shook their heads.

“We have our orders. Miss Pryde only,” they answered.

“Listen, bubs, I…” Wolverine started to protest, but Kitty stopped him.

“It’s okay, Logan, I’ll handle this on my own,” she told him, turning around to face Logan.

He looked at her for a second then nodded.

“All right.”

“I’m tagging along. Under the W.H.O./S.H.I.E.L.D. treaty, I have a right to a sight-seeing tour of the Helicarrier, and I’m taking this opportunity,” Wisdom said, showing his W.H.O. badge.

Kitty looked at him, but he simply smiled and looked at the two men.

“All right, but no one else,” they both said simultaneously.

They climbed back into the Helicopter, followed by Kitty, with Lockheed on her shoulder, and Wisdom. It rose into the air as the X-Men watched it go. Storm looked at Nightcrawler.

“Where they like this back in Excalibur?” she asked him and he nodded in answer.

“All the time.”

They walked into the metallic corridors of the Helicarrier, heading for the computer core. There had been some minor changes since Kitty had been there the last time, but everything was still pretty much the same.

“You wouldn’t happen to know where Rigby Fallon is, would you?” Kitty asked the men leading them.

“Fallon? Kid left us a while ago. He was sent into Yugoslavia to retrieve a lost agent of ours along with a few others. They needed a computer expert. But when he came back, one of three survivors, well, he wasn’t made of the right stuff, apparently, and he quit,” a new voice explained, coming out of another corridor to join them.

“Nick Fury. I’ll be damned,” Wisdom whispered in awe. “Here I thought you were dead.”

“I want the world to keep on believing that for a while. So watch what you say to your bosses when you get home,” Nick warned, looking at Wisdom suspiciously.

“Nice to you see you again, Colonel Fury,” Kitty said.

“You think you can help us, Pryde?” Fury asked.

“Well, I’ll do my best. I did it once, after all,” Kitty answered.

Nick nodded, and opened the doors to the main computer room.

“He’s locked all of our systems and has maintained us around New York. Said he would do so until you showed up. He’s been a ghost in our systems since last time you were here, but up until now he caused no problems,” Nick Fury explained.

The twin doors mechanically opened, revealing dark computer screens. No one else was in the room.

“He wants to see you alone,” Nick said, staring at Wisdom as he said it.

“No way, I’m staying,” Wisdom said, and Nick frowned.

“Listen kid, around here, I’m boss, and when I say you’ll leave, you leave. Same goes for the dragon!” Nick ordered, and some men walked in the room to take Wisdom away.

“Come on, Pete, I’ll be all right. I don’t know why you wanted to come here in the first place,” Kitty reassured him. “You too Lockheed, wait for me outside, I’ll be right there.”

Lockheed looked into her eyes and Kitty nodded at him.

“My Kitty has changed,” Lockheed thought suddenly, but didn’t say a thing, even though he could talk.

He chose not to. This wasn’t the right time. Him and Wisdom both walked out of the room and waited outside. Lockheed perched himself above the door, staring down at Wisdom. They were left on their own.

“So, does she know you can talk yet, you flying rat?” Wisdom asked the purple dragon.

“No,” Lockheed answered.

“Thought so. Still bent on torturing me,” Wisdom said.

Lockheed stared at him for a second, and then smoke came out of his nostrils.

“You work for bad men who almost killed me. I escaped them. I not getting caught ever again,” he suddenly warned him. “Ever.”

Wisdom took a step back when he saw the flames in Lockheed’s eyes. He was an angry little bugger.

“You mean they did this to you?” he asked the dragon, feeling a little foolish talking with a purple dragon.

Lockheed nodded and looked away from Wisdom, who lighted himself a cigarette.

“I’ll be damned.”

“So, Ogun, what do you want?” Kitty asked the blank screens as she put her hand on the retinal scanner.

The computer quickly read her hand and scanned her voice, and it recognized her instantly. An image on Ogun appeared on the screen, but he was not wearing his red mask. Instead he had a white kimono and bandanna, and he sat as if in meditation. His face was green, like the last time she had seen him in these computers, but now he had a sense of calm, of inner peace around him.

“Kitty. Welcome. I’m glad you made it here. I need your help,” Ogun said, and Kitty took a step back from the computer in surprise.

The voice was calm, completely in control. No trace of anger or hatred appeared in it.

“My help? What kind of help?” Kitty asked him, still unbelieving what she was seeing.

“You seem surprised, Kitty. I am no longer the being you knew. I followed the advice you gave me the last time we met. I remained here, in these computers, working at banishing my dark side, to banish it from my soul. In a sense, I succeeded. We became two separate entities in this virtual world, and I managed to render him powerless. To make him so little that all he could do was hide in fear from me. But he escaped somehow. He must have found an human host to escape this system, and is now probably out in the real world,” Ogun explained, never opening his eyes, unmoving except for his lips as he spoke.

Kitty took a few seconds to let the information she had just received sink in.

“An… host? Who? Do you know?” she asked, and this time he opened his eyes.

“I…” Ogun began, but he never had time to finish.

The computer screen suddenly scrambled, and tons of data suddenly started filling the screens, until one by one they returned to their normal status and control was returned to the Helicarrier.

“No! Ogun, tell me who it is!” she screamed at the computer screens, but no answers came. But she had a good idea anyway, and it scared her.

With the Helicarrier’s systems restored, Kitty, Wisdom and Lockheed were returned home as the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters flew away into the afternoon sky. Time had passed much faster then Kitty had realized. Kitty and Wisdom both stood in front of the mansion’s front gates, and Lockheed watched them from the front porch.

“I guess you’ll have to report a failure to your boss,” Kitty told Peter, who nodded.

“That’s what I expected to do anyway. I’ve got my nice “Sorry-guys-couldn’t-do-it-the-dragon-wasn’t-there” speech all prepared,” Wisdom said with a smile. “I’m more pissed that we got our discussion interrupted again.”

“Listen, about all that… Um, I don’t know how to say this, but… What we had, back in Excalibur, was special. Something I’ll probably never have again. But it’s over now. I just don’t feel it anymore,” she told him, looking into his eyes as she did so.

Wisdom nodded.

“Yeah, I know, I couldn’t feel it either,” he said, taking out yet another cigarette. “Guess this is goodbye then.”

“Yeah. If you see any of the others, or Moira, tell them I said “Hi,” okay?” she asked him.

“Why in hell would I want to see that crazy Irish woman and her poisoned coffee?” he asked with a mocking smile, and Kitty returned it.

“Stay in touch,” she told him. “Or I’ll call Muir and tell her you said that.”

“Yeah, sure. What about you? Will you be okay?”, Wisdom said.

“I’ll be just fine,” she answered him.

They hugged each other, and he left. Kitty watched him go, a small smile on her lips. This was another page of her life turned. Lockheed flew to her, and they both returned to the mansion.

NEXT: Kitty’s father, and the Friends Of Humanity, strikes, in a way you’ll never believe! Plus the reason behind her father’s actions are revealed, as it all winds down to the explosive finale of Kitty Pryde: Shadow Of the Cat! Be there!