FALLING THROUGH THE SKY

By Yannick Lamarre

A few minutes before…

Shadowcat stepped into the dark area beyond the entrance. Silence welcomed her. She was phasing, gliding strangely through the floor as she approached the center of the room. She thought the effect was chilling to onlookers, and she wanted the Skrull scared. This could very well be a trap anyway, and phasing would be a good thing in any case. Lockheed flew just above her, and let out a small burst of flame to illuminate the area around them. What she saw made her pause – a gigantic metal structure filled up most of the warehouse they were in. An opening in one of its sides seemed too inviting to be true, and she decided it probably was. The day Kitty Pryde needed an opening was the day that, well, the day that’d she lose her powers. The thought though sent a shiver through her spine. Her phasing HAD been out of whack lately. She needed to concentrate to phase sometimes, and other days it just came naturally. Kitty actually dreaded the day it didn’t come at all.

Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, she approached the Skrull ship. No sounds came from within, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. All of this screamed obvious ambush. She stared at Lockheed, who stared at her. He could not go through the wall on his own. If she brought him, he would have to land on her shoulder, or in her arms. Lockheed seemed to understand, and he came down on her shoulder. She smiled at him and nodded.

Then she concentrated. Kitty passed her hand through the ship. It went through as it always did. So far so good. She continued walking in, and soon both her and Lockeed found themselves in a strange, closed room. Actually, it looked more like a prison than a room. One of the walls was completely opened, as if there should have been bars there. But when Kitty passed through the opening into the hallway, nothing happened.

Lockheed flew to the end of the hallway and called back positive. It was clear. Kitty ran up to him and into the next hall. It was leading towards an open area, and from there she could hear definite sounds. Computer sounds. Walking sounds. Important area sounds. She smiled.

“Bingo,” she whispered, and she made her way forward as silently as she could, which in her case was pretty damn silent.

When she reached the edge of the ‘brigde’, as Kitty supposed it had to be, she carefully looked over and saw the Skrull at work, swearing in his tongue and angrily punching in buttons. She took another step forward.

Alarms rang. The Skrull turned around, a new weapon in hand, and fired at her. Kitty knew phasing wouldn’t work, so she jumped onto the bridge and crouched as the blast went over her head, hitting the wall behind her. The Skrull snarled and fired again, at the same hitting some controls with his other hand. Kitty felt the ship shake under her. They were taking off, she realized with some panic. There were many things this Shadowcat could do. Breathe in space was not one of them. Kitty had to stop him before they got too high. She walked toward the Skrull who, panicked, fired at her again. This time the blast passed harmlessly to her right, and Lockheed interfered.

He screeched loudly and rushed the alien, trying to once more take his weapon from him. But the Skrull was ready. Locked leapt back just as the Skrull reached him and fired at the small dragon. Lockheed managed to rise as far as he could in this enclosed space, and the energy from the weapon passed below him.

The small dragon had given Kitty the time she needed to stop the ship’s ascension. She phased and walked straight through various consoles, taking them out one by one as she dashed across the brigde. Short circuits began to travel from console to console, grabbing the Skrull’s attention. He shouted out in his tongue and whirled around, trying to hit some keys to stop the spread of the damage. Kitty didn’t give him the time to do much. She phased through the console he was at and slammed her fist into his jaw. He reeled backwards from the hit and she unphased and kicked him hard in the gut. He went down on his knees, and Shadowcat followed through with a round-house to the alien’s head. He went down.

“Okay, Lockheed, let’s get…”

There was a noise.

The ship exploded.

Rachel stared at the sky, tears flowing down her face. She couldn’t have seen what she’d just seen, could she? That was a freaking alien spaceship!! This only happened on those mystery programs, or to the Fantastic Four! Not a few streets away from her school… from the shop! And what if Kitty was in there?

“KITTY!!” she called out again.

She risked walking inside the demolished building in front of her. The roof had caved in once the ship had burst so violently out of it. Now all that remained standing were the four walls, and even they didn’t look too good. She’d seen Kitty walk in here… maybe she was trapped under the debris somewhere. Some choice. Blown up in an alien ship or crushed under a roof.

“Kitty, answer me please!!” she whispered frantically as she made her way through the wreckage. “We’ve just started working on our connection! Don’t die now!”

Rachel lifted some planks and the pieces that she could move physically, but it didn’t amount to much.

“Please, Kitty!” Rachel repeated, this time a bit louder. “Don’t be dead!”

“Don’t be dead!”

Kitty’s eyes snapped open. A sudden disorientation hit her and panic seized her heart. She was staring down at the ground below. Only it wasn’t rapidly approaching her. It wasn’t moving. She was suspended in mid-air. Around her Lockheed screeched, trying to wake her up. But she knew it wasn’t him who had woken her up. The voice had been in her mind. Lockheed actually passed through her, and she realized she was phased. What could she do? Unphasing meant certain death. A fall from this high would kill her.

She tried flapping her arms around to maneuver in the sky, like Lockheed would, but she felt pretty foolish, and nothing happened. She had no substance, so couldn’t make the air around her move. She had no choice. Kitty concentrated and unphased. Immediately, gravity returned its hold on her, and she fell. The young woman closed her eyes and let a strange calmness wash over her. She could hear Logan’s voice in her mind, telling her to find her inner peace, to find balance between the thinking and the primal parts of herself…

And she felt herself phasing again, passing through the Earth itself and into the sewers beneath the city. She barely heard Lockheed screech above her, and she got solid again, falling with a loud splash in the dirty water. Immediately she had to stop her reflex to gag. The smell was horrible. She crawled her way out of the garbage and made a fast run through the sewers, finally finding a ladder leading up. She climbed up, but as she did so a strange wave of nostalgia washed over her.

The Morlocks had lived in this dump all their lives, before finally being wiped out… she had befriended a few of them. Kitty shook her head and chased the thoughts away, before finally climbing the last few steps out to freedom and fresh air. She came out in an alley, away from traffic, for which she was really thankful. Lockheed came flying down to meet her, and she smiled as his face contorted to a grimace when he smelled her.

“Hey, you try landing in sewers once in a while, okay?”

The dragon landed a small distance away and stared at her as she tried to put her hair into something that made sense. After a few minutes she gave up and continued on her way to Sam’s place. Hopefully she’d catch up with Rachel there, explain everything, then take a nice, long shower. Maybe after THAT Kitty could start thinking about how to approach Rachel’s ‘problem’ with some tact.

Jonathan Niles stared at the blank computer screen before him. Ever since he’d been sent home this morning by Sam, that’s all he’d done. He just didn’t know what to do. His mind was completely shut off. Sam had been clear about one thing: he wasn’t allowed to get back to work for two days. He was to ‘go out’ and have some ‘fun’. Didn’t the man understand anything about him? Computers were his fun! Going out was going surfing on the web. Nothing else really mattered to him. But even as he thought this he knew this was a lie.

“I hate my life,” he finally said, getting up from his seat in front of the computer and heading to his bed.

He let himself fall into it, and stared at the ceiling. There was something he cared about… something he could never even hope to reach for. He’d seen this morning how the two already seemed to be getting along. Michael and Kitty… what the hell was he supposed to do? Him with his skinny body and no life…

“I hate Michael too!” he told the ceiling, which had no answer to give him.

He turned on his side and gazed at his TV. How much more pathetic could he get? He sounded like some bad TV drama teen about to kill himself. Still, the words had rung true to him.

“So what can you do about it?” he told himself now.

He could always do everything in his power to make Ramsey’s life miserable. That wouldn’t do anything to make Kitty like him more though…

“Why couldn’t she just STAY gone!” he shouted.

No answers came.

“KITTY!” Melissa called out as she ran inside the apartment and slammed the door behind her. “You here?”

The apartment was dark and silent, so she guessed not. She turned on a few lights and sat down in the kitchen. She was pretty hungry. Should she wait for Kitty or should she just go ahead?

“It’s not like she ever tells me when she’s coming in…”

Melissa got up again and opened Kitty’s door. No lights were on, and Kitty wasn’t there. There were no purple alien dragons either. Which was some relief. The last thing she wanted was to spend some time alone with that thing, friend of Kitty’s or not. Fire-breathing creatures were not welcomed in small Manhattan apartments as far as she was concerned. Too bad Kitty wasn’t here, though. She really wanted to tell her about the Unity meeting.

It felt very positive to Melissa, and she was pretty sure many good things would come out of that meeting. She really wanted Kitty to come, but if it couldn’t be done, she’d be on her own. Not that Melissa really minded… less girls meant less competition. She thought of the guy she’d met when she’d spotted the flyer, and smiled. It would be a night to remember.

Janine Samson sat patiently in the diner, her plate empty before her. Janine was a meticulous woman, good at her job and with enough will to shatter most men. She was tall, pretty, with a big mass of red hair which flowed behind her in a ponytail. She wore small glasses at the moment, but usually she took them off or wore contacts. The newspaper beside her was open to the announcements page, and, having just read through the whole thing, she was quickly getting annoyed with her late partner. If there was one thing Janine hated, it was lateness.

Finally a man walked into the small diner, and she watched him carefully. In this business, it was a good thing to know who you were working with. She wasn’t even sure it was him, but he matched the profile she’d been given. Janine watched as the man ordered a small chicken soup, and as he walked over to her she knew immediately she had nothing to fear from him. The man was a grunt, nothing more. A hired thug. The people currently hiring her were grossly underestimating her if they dared put him and her together. He sat down before her.

“Hi, come here often?” he asked.

“When I’m asked,” she replied, the answer she was told to give.

The man smiled and nodded, then took a sip of his soup. She watched him in silence, waiting for him to speak.

“I’m glad we finally get to meet, Purity. Your advice so far has greatly advanced our cause,” he said at last.

She shrugged, then pointed at an ad in the paper.

“Is this your idea? Your bait?” Janine asked.

True American nodded.

“It’s pretty obvious, if you ask me, but then again, you didn’t,” she said.

The man known as True American shrugged in turn, then again grabbed another spoonful of soup. Janine had hated the man with a fiery passion even before she’d just met him. He was obviously low class, not on her level, and if Sigma was serious in hiring her talents she would have to show them she was above such cretins.

“Who are you expecting will show?” she asked.

She knew this was all about the failed attack on a club a few weeks ago. Someone had stopped the Sigma agent that had been sent there. Probably a superhero, if you listened to the eyewitnesses, a new figure, since no one could identify the girl who had done this. True American smiled at this.

“We’re betting she will. We posted this in schools and everything. I’m telling you, this girl will show up, and then we’ll have our way with her. Besides, if it’s all true, she might be a mutant,” he said, and at this he looked at her sharply.

So Sigma knew about her intense hatred of mutants. She let the comment roll off her and tried to keep a straight face, but something tightened in her stomach. The thought of killing another mutant thrilled her. The more she killed, the more vengeance she was taking. And the closer she got to her true target.

“We will see each other tomorrow night at the approved time, then,” she said, getting up.

True American seemed a bit shocked at her sudden departure, but then he thought better than to argue. He nodded, shook hands with her and returned to his soup.

The woman known as Purity walked out of the diner and headed for home. There she would prepare. Tomorrow she would kill again.

Michael Ramsey groaned.

“What do you mean she’s not there AGAIN? Isn’t that girl ever home? What is she doing out all night?”

Melissa seemed to hesitate on the other line, and then fed him some lousy line about not being the girl’s mother. He chit-chatted with her some more then finally hung up.

“Am I ever going to get lucky?” he asked the heavens, which were silent in their answers.

Michael just knew Kitty liked him. It seemed apparent every time they looked at each other. But why wasn’t she calling him? What was she out doing every evening anyway? She almost never seemed to be around whenever he finally had the nerve to call her. And now he was acting like some teenage boy… he’d thought he was over that phase. He opened a small desk and checked his schedule. He worked tomorrow. He’d see Kitty there, and Niles would be nowhere near them for two days. No distractions. Melissa would be too busy working the counter… maybe he could make some kind of a move tomorrow?

“If she shows up, that is…” he said.

He smiled and headed out of his room. Tomorrow. That sounded good to him.

Kitty walked the streets at a quick pace. Her head was starting to hurt, and she felt pretty beat. She’d check up on Rachel, wait around for Sam, and then head home. A good long bath seemed heavily required. She hoped Melissa wouldn’t mind the lousy friend she would be for a few hours.

Lockheed was flying somewhere above her, remaining in the dark so he wouldn’t be seen. He’d probably head home anyway. He had no business at Sam’s. Kitty finally reached the place and quickly went up the few steps leading to the front door. She knocked and waited. Rachel had said she would come straight home. Hopefully that’s what she’d done.

No one answered the door, though, and she was getting worried. She tried to look around for Lockheed, to see if he could help in spotting her, but the small purple dragon was nowhere to be seen. She sighed and looked at the door again. She hated doing this, but it had to be done. Kitty phased and walked through the door, and then briskly made her way to where she knew Rachel’s room was. She knocked on the door and waited. Again no one answered.

Frowning, she phased again and looked inside. There Rachel was, on a ball on the bed, obviously crying. Kitty’s heart broke in that instant, knowing all the pain and worry the girl had to be going through. Kitty supposed being a telepath could only be harder than it had been for her when she’d discovered she was a mutant. Having all those alien thoughts in your head and not knowing why had to be nerve-wracking.

She pulled her head out of the doorway, unphased, and knocked gently again, calling out the young girl’s name. She heard sounds on the other side of the door this time, and Kitty hoped she didn’t smell TOO much like garbage. The young girl’s door opened.

“Oh my God, Kitty, where were you?!” she called out, and she hugged Kitty tightly.

Kitty hugged her back, thankful, because she was certain it was Rachel’s voice in her head that had woken her up before.

“I’m fine, Rache, no problem! I got back just fine…” she said soothingly as the girl sobbed miserably in Kitty’s arms.

She hoped that things could only get better for Rachel, but knew it was probably going to get harder.

Sam Young stepped out of the car and hurried up the stairs. The meeting had lasted much longer than he’d thought, and he hoped Kitty and Rachel wouldn’t be too angry with him. The last thing he needed was an angry daughter and an angry employee. Especially in Kitty’s case. Sam knew the girl was destined for great things, and the last thing he wanted was for her to be mad at him.

He opened the door and walked in. Kitty and Rachel were sitting the living room, watching TV. Kitty had taken a shower and was wearing some of his wife’s old clothes which he’d given to Rachel, and he smiled at the sight. They fit her well. Rachel was doing Kitty’s hair, and she smiled at him when he walked in. Sam smiled in return. He didn’t know what link there was between Rachel and Kitty yet, but the minute he had seen her walk in the shop, he knew this girl would greatly help his lonely daughter. So far so good…

True American, or Paul Gainey, as he was regularly known, got up from his table, paid the waitress and left. On his table, an open journal showed an ad for a meeting… Unity… the perfect bait for his hunt…

NEXT ISSUE: The big night! Action, swordfights and romance! Be there!