A BIG NIGHT

By Yannick Lamarre

Silence surrounded Kitty as she stood on a barren, crimson landscape. There was nothing around her for miles. She had no idea where she’d come from, or where she was going. There was only emptiness. She tried to speak, but no words came out of her mouth. She trued to scream, and still nothing happened. Panic was starting to overwhelm her, and she ran. And ran. She ran for so long her two legs felt like slabs of steel, but still she pressed on, until she fell, exhausted, in front of a large citadel. It loomed over her, dark and overwhelming in the crimson red of the sky.

Kitty stood painfully and took a few steps back. The large wooden doors of the fortress flew open, and hordes of demons flew out of them, heading straight for her. She tried to phase but couldn’t, and they slammed into her, sending her to her knees. Kitty tried to roll out of the way, but claws ripped at her, shredding her skin and drawing blood. She screamed, but again no sounds came out. She fell flat on her stomach as a foot of some kind pushed into her back, and her vision started to black out.

Kitty tried concentrating again, trying and phase, and this time it worked, and she fell through the ground, down a dark pitfall leading seemingly to the center of the Earth. She was in freefall once more, the sensation weird to her, the feeling familiar… and then something shiny grabbed her attention on one of the pit’s walls. Shadowcat reached out for it, and a hand grabbed her and pulled her up. She didn’t have time to see who it was, though, because as soon as she looked up she saw the shining light of a blade heading straight for her heart. And then darkness…

Kitty screamed and sat up in her bed. She was sweating profusely, and shaking slightly. She took a deep breath and looked around her. It was her room. Her normal, run of the mill, not in the middle of Limbo, room. For she knew where that dream had taken place. It’s a place Kitty had hoped never to her of again. Limbo. The demon dimension. Kitty shuddered and looked at her alarm clock. It was 4 a.m. She still had a good two hours left of sleep. If she could find it again. Lockheed was out flying somewhere. He’d started doing that a lot recently, ever since, in fact, she’d been kidnapped by Apocalypse. Spending some time on his own. It didn’t really worry her that much, but she wished he’d been here now.

“KITTY? Are you all right?” came Melissa’s panicked voice from the other side of her closed door.

Kitty was startled and jumped out of bed, her immediate reaction to put up a defensive stance. Good old Wolvie training. She forced herself to relax, took a deep breath, then walked to the door and opened it. Melissa, hair undone, yellow nightdress on and her eyes half opened stared at her blankly.

“No aliens?” she asked, deadpan serious.

Kitty suppressed the desire to laugh out loud and shook her head.

“No aliens,” Kitty replied, and Melissa trodded off back to her room.

Kitty watched her go, then went into the kitchen and grabbed a small glass of her water, which she gulped down in one swoop.

“No aliens…” she whispered. “But one hell of a bad dream…”

When the alarm clock rang loudly through the apartment the next morning, Kitty moaned and slammed her hand into it, shutting it down. She groaned and got up, her eyes stinging badly from the sunlight shining in from the window. She was pleased to see Lockheed was back at the foot of her bed, slowly stirring awake as well. Her head hurt, she still felt tired, and had a whole day of work to go through, before having to go to that meeting that Melissa had mentioned last night.

The Unity meeting. Sounded like a nice thing, and she wondered how they felt about mutants. She walked out of her room and sat down in a chair at the table, staring blankly at the wall for a few minutes. Melissa walked out of her room, a bright smile on her face. She winced slightly when she jumped over a small box full of old newspapers they kept around for some reason, and Kitty figured Melissa’s bullet wounds maybe still hurt.

“How’s it going there today?” Melissa asked, preparing herself a small bowl of Captain Crunches.

Kitty tried her best to make a smile, but the muscles were too tired. She had been banged pretty bad by the explosion of that Skrull ship last night, and most of her body still hurt. She had been desiring that full night of sleep so bad. Still, she wondered if the airborne explosion had been mentioned anywhere in the news. If Rachel had seen it, then maybe others had too.

“It’s going pretty bad… I need the sleep…” she finally managed to answer, and Melissa shrugged.

“Screaming your lungs out at four in the morning won’t help, trust me!” the cheery girl said, and Kitty looked away.

The dream. She’d almost not thought about it for a whole five minutes.

“Was it pretty bad?” Melissa asked between spoonfuls of cereal.

“What?” Kitty asked, snapping out of her thoughts.

“Your dream…” Melissa explained.

Kitty hesitated, not sure if she should mention anything about demon dimensions and Soul Swords. They were both pretty far-fectched concepts for Kitty herself to grasp to begin with.

“It wasn’t anything important…” she finally said.

She saw the flash of disapointment in Melissa’s eyes for a moment, but it couldn’t be helped. Melissa had just learned about her X-Men past. She didn’t need to know the weirder aspects of it just yet.

“So…” Melissa began, unsure of where to go with this conversation.

“We still on for tonight?” Kitty supplied, smiling slightly. “The Unity meeting?

“Oh yeah! There’s no way I’d miss that! Got my positive vibes going, this is all good!” Melissa said, her good humor returning. “A good cause and a nice guy! How could I go wrong with that?”

Kitty smiled, a wave of nostalgia washing over her. A good cause and a nice guy… how could that go wrong indeed?

Michael Ramsey twisted his hands together nervously, unable to look up from them. Kitty was coming down soon, and he had to be sure this was done right. It wasn’t the first time he asked a girl out, but it was the first time the girl was one he thought he could really make it stick with. Did she even have some kind of clue that he liked her? Had he given her any clues? Now that he thought about it, he really wasn’t sure.

Michael blinked and tried to focus on his work once more, kneeling before an opened computer. He had a few extra hard disks to put in there before the hour was up. The front door opened, and Michael looked up hopefully. A customer walked in, and he looked away disappointed, again. He almost wished Jonathan would be here so he could pass it on him.

“How’s it going there, Mikey?” he heard a voice behind him.

He gasped in surprise, took a step back, messed his foot up in a stool and fell hard to the ground, sending the computer down with him. Michael looked up, slightly confused, and saw both Melissa and Kitty laughing slightly, just as Kitty reached down to help him. He groaned and accepted the help.

“Way to go, Ramsey…” he mumbled.

“You girls had better not have killed him! I’ve got computers lined up for a week wanting in that workshop!” Sam said, joining them as Michael put the computer back up.

Rachel kept an eye on the customers while Melissa got herself ready for work, putting her lunch in the small fridge and grabbing a quick glass of water. Sam smiled at them both.

“Don’t act like a doofus, Ramsey, it’s not good for you!”

The man walked out, leaving both him and Kitty alone. This seemed like a good a time as any.

“So, um… hi!” Michael said, and he knew right there how much of an idiot he was being.

Kitty smiled a knowing smile, and it sent a shiver through his spine. “Hi. Sorry for the fall,” she said.

“Oh, that’s okay, I’m used to falling,” he said. “I fall all the time.”

Kitty smiled again, then put her own lunch in the small fridge. She started to head out for her computer. He extended his hand to stop her, but Melissa suddenly walked in the back, and he immediately pulled his hand back. Kitty walked out, but Melissa kept staring at Michael, and the boy knew he was toasted. She’d seen him reach out for Kitty, and he looked away, solidifying his guilt. She kept staring at him, and he slowly faced her stare. She was smiling brightly.

“So?”

A thousand lies ran through Michael’s head, but he decided against using them. Melissa could be an ally. He sighed, and just told her.

“I’m thinking of asking Kitty out tonight…” he said softly.

Melissa frowned, a sign that things were not going too smoothly.

“It can’t be tonight,” she stated. “We were going to this meeting…”

Michael looked up at her pleadingly.

“No! It has to be tonight! I got those Savage Garden tickets and everything!”

Melissa’s eyebrows shot up. “Savage Garden?”

“That’s not good?”

“I guess it’s fine…” Melissa finally gave in. “Go and ask her, I’ll cover you.”

“Thank you!” Michael said in joy, and he hugged her fiercely, before taking a deep breath and heading out to the front of the store.

Melissa shook her head and smiled, walking out after him. Michael walked up to Kitty as she was returning to her seat after getting herself a small cup of coffee.

“So, Kitty, are you doing something tonight?” he just blurted out.

Might as well get it out there, he figured. Now the ball was out of his hands.

“Well, Meli and I kinda had…” Kitty began, but Melissa cut in.

“No, we had nothing planned, Kitty, just go ahead and have your fun,” she said, walking past them to the front counter, where a customer was waiting to pay for her stuff.

Kitty looked at her go, then shrugged and looked back at Michael. He was smiling nervously, and she could guess this was all a big deal to him. Kitty really didn’t know if she was ready for any kind of relationship right now. Pete Wisdom really didn’t feel so far away from her yet.

And yet, Michael was a normal guy, perfect for the normal life she claimed she wanted to live. Except, that is, for his amazing ressemblance to Doug. All of this passed in a flash through her eyes, but Michael could see the doubt in there, and he steeled himself for a negative response.

“I’m not doing anything tonight after all, apparently. You got something planned?” she asked him innocently.

This actually felt good. A relationship not built among lazer fights to be broken up by alien girls, and no secret service agent man with a bad rep waiting to break her heart. Michael’s eyes grew large, and he smiled.

“Sure! I got these great tickets to see this show tonight!”

Dinner and a show. Kitty smiled. Innocence is bliss.

The sword flew through the air, sliced through three sandbags and implanted itself firmly in the bullseye of a target on the wall in the next room. Satisfied, Janine Samson removed her blindfold and retrieved her sword. Servants came after her to clean up the mess left by her regular training session. She walked into her room and changed into a t-shirt and jeans, then walked into a giant library. One of the walls was a giant window into the outside world, and she stood in front of it, gazing at the slowly setting sun.

Night was coming, and with it the promise of the kill. She had trained extensively since receiving confirmation of her assignment from Sigma, and her entire being felt ready. She was primed for action, and doubted anything could stop her this night. Maybe one of those superheroes will show up, she thought with glee. Killing one of those was a certain road to glory.

“Mistress, the phone for you,” one of her servants said, handing her a small cell phone on a platter.

She picked it up and the servant back away.

“Yes?”

The voice on the other side immediately grated on her nerves. She couldn’t stand the man, and was glad her business with him would be concluded tonight.

“I know. Yes. I’m ready. I know. Goodbye.”

She hung up and resisted the temptation to throw the phone through the window. The man was treating her like an upstart. True American. Who did he think she was? She was doing this back when he didn’t even know what the difference between black and white was.

“Relax,” she told herself.

Janine took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Tonight…

Kitty thought she looked rather dazzling. She looked at herself in the mirror, and couldn’t help but smile. She was dressed in a black tank top, with a short black skirt. The girl had put on some light make-up, not too much, and had tied up her hair in an intricate bun at the back of her head. Melissa had helped a lot with that.

“You look great,” Melissa said, smiling. “Michael’s jaw will hit the floor.”

“Maybe it’s too much,” Kitty worried, frowning now.

The last thing she wanted was to scare the poor guy away. Lockheed growled negatively in answer. Melissa looked at him warily and took a step back. She still wasn’t used to the dragon being around yet, and so Lockheed had done his best to accomodate her and stay away from the house whenever Melissa was around. It was rare that the two of them were in the same room. Kitty appreciated the extra effort from both of them.

“Are you sure you’re okay on your own?” Kitty asked Melissa, who nodded.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. There’s a guy over there I’m planning to attach myself to anyway…” the girl explained, and Kitty nodded. “Which reminds me, I’d better get ready too.”

She walked out of the room, and Lockheed stepped closer to Kitty.

“Now, watch her for me, okay? This Unity thing is all fair and good, but with Sigma active around here who knows…” Kitty warned, memories of the attack on the dance club all too fresh in her mind.

Lockheed seemed hesitant to leave Kitty alone with Michael, but finally agreed to look after Melissa. Kitty patted him gently on the head, and he purred in pleasure.

“What would I do without you?”

There was knock on the front door, and Kitty walked out of her room. She checked her hair one last time and opened the door. Michael was standing there, smiling. It took him a few seconds to snap out of his daze, though.

“Gooood evening,” he finally said.

He was dressed with nice white jeans and a red polo. He’d gotten his hair cut, too.

“You look good,” Kitty commented him, and he nodded in thanks.

“You look exceptional,” he said in turn, and Kitty also nodded.

Lockheed eyed the boy carefully from Kitty’s room. He seemed a nice enough guy, but he’d keep an eye on him too. Just in case.

Jonathan Niles stood in the alley of the supermarket, and didn’t quite know what to get himself. He was hungry, his fridge was empty and now there he was, trying to find himself something to eat. He wasn’t sleeping very well these days, and this time off with himself probably wasn’t giving him the results Sam had been expecting when he’d ‘strongly suggested’ it.

Jonathan walked into the next aisle, randomly picking up a box of cereals. So far he had a box of Sugar Crisps, a few cans of soup, bread and some frozen dinner. The perfect bachelor meal.

“Excuse me, sir?” came a voice behind him.

Immediately he knew it was weird. The voice was raspy, like the man speaking had no breath left to speak with. He turned around. The man speaking was tall, standing behind him dressed in a black overcoat. He had an old fashioned hat on, the same color as his coat, and a flock of white hair hid his eyes.

“Yeah?” he asked.

“You look like the kind of fella who could use a friend,” the raspy man said, and Jonathan took a step back.

He knew enough about science fiction to know not to talk to guys dressed like that.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Jonathan said, and he walked away fast down the aisle.

He turned around at the end of it, half-expecting the man to be gone, but he was still waiting between the two rows of cleaning products, eyeing him carefully. A shiver ran down Jonathan’s back.

“Weirdo,” he told himself, and he walked away.

The man stood unmoving in the aisle for a few moments.

“Not yet, then…” he finally said.

The next instant, he was gone.

Melissa walked into the well decorated room, a spring to her step and a smile to her lips. The night was alive around her with people chatting and moving around, like her, looking at the others who had managed to come to this meeting. A meeting of different cultures in unity and acceptance. She was really buying into it, she realized, and filed it in under valid career choices, should the option she was currently studying in vanish.

Melissa went as far as starting up a conversation with complete strangers. She was really looking forward to meeting the organizers behind all of this. A few minutes later she finally spotted the guy she’d met yesterday, and she made her way to him. She stopped mid-way though when she saw another girl hanging at his arm. Her heart sank a little. So much for that…

Then a light shone on a stage as the rest of the room darkened, and a man walked on. The stage was beautiful, with flags from all around the world hanging from poles high above, and a giant globe rotating in its center. The word ‘Unity’ was hanging around the globe. The man walked to the microphone and prepared to speak.

Lockheed gazed at the room below from the skylight up above. He was small and dark-tinted, so he could easy hide in the lengthening shadows. So far, nothing seemed abnormal, and the alien dragon had half a mind to seek out Kitty, or maybe see if there wasn’t anything else he could do around here.

It wasn’t like he wasn’t getting used to being on his own these days. It was happening a lot more often than before. He kept himself busy, staying out of sight, helping people out when he could, otherwise just flying freely around the New York skyline, frightening the local birds. It was fun in its own way.

He was just about to fly off when a shadow fell on him, and he craned his head to look behind him. A tall woman, dressed in a white costume with no eyes and no distinctive marks of any kind, looked down at him. In her hands she had a long sword with a detailed pommel. Another one just like it was sheathed on her back.

“What have we here?” she said, her voice muffled by the mask.

Lockheed slowly backed away, already knowing he wouldn’t be fast enough. Maybe his flame could startle her. He took a deep breath. The woman advanced forward and raised her sword, obviously to skewer him through.

“Vermin!”

The dinner had been nice, at a good, not too cheap but not too pricey restaurant, and the conversation had been good. She’d learned all kinds of things about the Ramseys she hadn’t learned from Doug, and it was a side of Michael she was happy to discover. He and his cousin had been close when they’d been young, but after he went to study at Xavier’s he’d lost touch with him.

Kitty and Michael had reminisced about Doug a little, but then moved on to talk about their own respective pasts, Kitty’s in Chicago and Michael’s right here in New York. Then they left for the Savage Garden show, which so far was pretty good, considering. It wasn’t really the greatest place to talk, but they could enjoy each other’s company, along with the company of thousands of others.

The show was almost over when Kitty noticed how late it was. It seemed weird to her that Lockheed hadn’t shown up to tell her everything was going fine with Melissa. She couldn’t really speak to Michael over the noise, but she mimed to him that she was leaving for the bathroom, and Kitty left his side in hurry. If she was fast enough, she could be there and back before Michael learned what was wrong…

No sweat. She ran through the crowd, and decided to maybe phone in before getting too panicked. Lockheed was reliable, but not without his flaws. Maybe he’d simply been delayed somewhere on his way here. Kitty found a pay phone, put in the required change and buttoned in her phone number. She waited as the dial rang. And rang. And rang…

She looked at her watch. It was past 10 p.m. The meeting was at 7 p.m. No way such a thing would last three hours, but Melissa had mentioned something about meeting a guy there. And for sure that would take longer. Indecision gnawed at her. Investigate and leave Michael here on his own, risking his anger and insuring his disapointment, or staying and trusting everything else was all right… Kitty sighed. With her kind of life, nothing ever went right.

Lockheed let out his flame breath and flapped his wings. The fire was precariously hot for any human being, and its intensity gave pause to even Purity. Lockheed propelled himself into the air using his hind legs and rose higher using his wings. He had to find Kitty. The presence of this person here was not a good sign of what would go on tonight.

He had almost cleared the rooftop when a small metal object hit him in the chest and a strong jolt of lightning surged through him. He lost his balance and fell to the ground, slamming into the roof with an impact which caused the people below to look up. In the gloom of the arriving night, it wasn’t possible for any of them to see anything else but their reflections. Purity grabbed the alien by the feet and hung it upside down before her.

“What the hell are you?” she asked, and Lockheed responded in kind, sending a small burst of flame into her face.

She screamed and let him go, part of her mask now singed by Lockheed’s fire breath. She screamed in rage and reached for the second blade on her back. Lockheed tried to fly away again, but his body felt weak from the electrical jolt, and he didn’t think he’d be able to fly very far anyway.

“DAMN YOU!” the woman said, unsheathing her second sword and slashing it very near his previous position. Lockheed tried to breathe fire again, but his lungs were becoming uncooperative.

The swordswoman’s arms slammed into him and sent him into a wall, and again the white-clad warrior stood before him. She brought a sword up and aimed for his right wing. He closed his eyes in anticipation of the pain. Just as the blade was coming down, a throwing stick flew through the air and hit Purity’s hand, making her lose her grip on her sword. It clattered on the rooftop and slid down to land in the newcomer’s hands. The cold assassin turned around to face her new opponent.

“Leave him alone.” Kitty warned, Purity’s own sword in hand.

The two women faced each other while below the Unity meeting was proceeding as planned, and unknowningly to all but two, armed agents slowly swarmed the place’s corridors, ready to kill any who escaped from within the halls of the meeting place. This was proving to be a wonderfully well-developed plan.

“Stop me,” Purity dared, taking out a trigger to a bomb from behind her back.

She pushed the largest button, and somewhere nearby the Savage Garden show exploded. Kitty screamed. Purity struck.

NEXT ISSUE: The big fight between Purity and Shadowcat explodes! What is the fate of Michael, caught in the explosion? What of Lockheed, wounded during his fight with Purity? And below, an unsuspecting Melissa is about to get a glimpse of Kitty’s world. Be there!