Paradigm Shift

PARADIGM SHIFT CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT (NC-17)

Disclaimers Apply



A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies and BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, Joaquin is hiding in my carry-on. Something about chocolate werewolves… Go figure. InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink get muse kibble galore for archiving.  And ProPhile is still a lovely above-average smutbunny. Readers/Reviewers: Mille, mille grazie for reading and reviewing and reading and making me all sparkled. The ducks are organizing a barn dance in your honor. ;p











“What’s going on?” Jean asked quietly so only Scott could hear. “Beast just took off out of here like a bat out of Hell and he wouldn’t leave us all unsupervised unless it was an emergency…”

“You make us sound like an unruly kindergarten class,” Scott sighed. Seeing his significant other’s look of annoyance, he coued,ued, “I don’t know what’s happening…I was downstairs getting a pop when all the lines started ringing and Beast grabbed one of them. He said okay a few times and then tore outta here. Figured it had something to do with Tabby, the baby and all that you know…” He shrugged offhandedly. “I wasn’t too worried.”

“Just because you don’t like Tabby,” she started heatedly, but was halted by Scott’s hand over her mouth. “Mmph!”

“I wasn’t worried because Wanda called just after Beast left to say that she was stopping by to pick up Kitty… Tabby wants to see her.”

Jean rolled her eyes and said, as soon as her mouth was freed, “Still, all the lines going off at once is not a good thing. And Kitty isn’t here. I was just at her door and there isn’t a soul in her room.”

“Maybe she went for a walk or to the Danger Room or something…” Scott frowned. “Is it some Jewish holiday?”

“Not unless they’ve declared Thursdays to be holy for some reason…” Jean’s frown deepened to surpass Scott’s own expression of worry. “Kurt…”

“Is in his room,” he stated firmly. “I know that for a fact.”

“And how are you so sure? Even if he isn’t from our dimension, he’s still a little escape artist if given half the chance. At least, isn’t that what Banshee said earlier?”

“You way way too much trust eopleople sometimes, Scott,” she said over her shoulder, already heading towards Kurt’s room at a fast clip.



Kurt blinked groggily, his poor sleep broken by a steady pounding on his door. “Was?” he said thickly, sitting up in the dark and letting his eyes focus. “Who is it?”

“Is Kitty in there with you?” Jean’s voice filtered through the thick door.

“No…should she be?” He could hear Scott mutter something that sounded like ‘told you so’ and then Jean sig lou loudly. “What’s going on?”

“We can’t find Kitty.” Jean sounded more annoyed than worried.

Kurt fell back against his pilloith ith a dull thump. He knew she had left already and Remy with her. He had been having nightmares, flitting images of Kitty torn to pieces in some accident with Forge’s device, Kitty and Remy trapped forever out of place and he, too, as a result. His worst so far that night involved Kitty, dead and cold at his feet, her ewidewide and accusing. He realized belatedly that Jean was talking to him and apparently asking a question of some importance. “Um…could you repeat that?”

“Maybe she went for a walk or something.”

Scott piped up, “That’s what I thought, too.”

Jean made a silencing noise on the other side of the door and Kurt felt very strange all of a sudden, as if someone were pushing at his mind, trying to sift through thoughts and memories but he would not let them. The more firmly he entrenched his mental walls, the more insistent the probing became. Finally, he said loudly, “Play nice Jean.”

Scott’s admonishing voice was clear through the door. “Jean, were you probing him?”

“I don’t probe and tell,” she snapped. “Kurt, you know something, don’t you?”

Hghedghed and untangled himself from the sheets, walking towards the door with the air of someone facing certain doom. Scott and Jean faced him, looking for all the world like disapproving parents, scowls firmly set and arms crossedJa, Ja, I know all sorts of things. Butty wty will be fine. Leave me alone and let me sleep…if I am still allowed to do that without a bodyguard?” he asked pointedly, arching his brows at Scott.

“Of course you are,” Jean said firmly. “But something weis gis going on and Kitty is the only one missing. We want to know what’s up.”

“No, she isn’t. Remy is gone too.” Kurt sighed resignedly. “Tell you what… you sneak me out of here, help me leave, and I’ll tell you all about where Kitty is and what she’s doing.”

“Whoa…what?” Scott looked hard at Kurt as if daring him ie. ie.

“Nein…first you get me out past Banshee and Warren and then we talk.”



Jean went first. She stood in the doorway to the study where Banshee sat, flipping idly through back issues of National Geographic. She knew that he had noticed her presence but he still kept thumbing through the magazines, humming under his breath something that sounded suspiciously like the theme to Underdog. “You know, Logan cut all the topless photos out of there when Storm caught Jamie ogling one of her former tribesmen.”

Banshee looked up at her slowly, his face bare of expression. “Am I safe in assuming that Kurt has spilled the beans on Kitty’s whereabouts then?”

Jean said smoothly, “Of course he has. I just wanted confirmation that he wasn’t loosing his mind. He said something about the river…”

Banshee laughed out loud at that. “Nice try, Jean. You have a while to go before you become good at espionage, though. No way am I telling you anything about what Kitty is doing or why.”

Jean shrugged. She had just received Scott’s confirmation that he and Kurt were outside the gates, waiting for her to hurry out there. “Whatever. Good night.”

Banshee smiled a little more broadly at her then. “If you say so…”

Jean dashed to the gates like the hounds of Hell were at her heels, dodging the security system at every turn. True to his word, Scott had the car running and waiting for her just out the the property. “Let’s go,” she said breathlessly, only to have her words ebb into a scream that joined Scott and Kurt’s shouts of surprise when something very large landed on the hood of the car. “What is it?” she cried.

Warren’s amused face appeared as he bent double to peer into the windshield. “You kids aren’t as sneaky as you’d like to think, you know…”

“Warren!” Scott breathed a sigh of relief at the familiar face before them as Kurt wilted in the passenger seat. “Move, man…we’ve gotta get somewhere…”

The car bounced as Warren hopped off the hood and opened the rear passenger side door. He slid in next to Jean, muttering about the lack of wing space in station wagons before addressing them all again. “I know where you’re going and that you’re getting yourselves into a Hell of a lot of trouble going there, too. For some reason, though, the Professor trusts me with you people and I figure that if I tag along, he can’t get too pissed. Supervision and all…”

Kurt shifted in his seat to fix the winged man with a tful ful look. “I tried to get out myself. I didn’t want anyone else in trouble because of me…”

Warren rolled his eyes. “Dude, just let ‘em drive you. They’re almost as hardheaded as you are…”

“Am not!” Scott protested hotly as he pulled away from the gates, speeding down the dark lane towards the main road of Bayville.

“Just shut up and drive,” Jean sighed, plucking a stray feather from her hair.

Grinning, Warren took the feather from her and said to Scott, “Turn left…you’re making me molt.”



“Damn it,” Kitty breathed, glancing for the tenth tim as as many minutes at the rearview mirror.

“Still there?” Kurt asked, craning his neck to see behind them. “Damn it.”

“Hold still so they don’t see you…” She slowed down slightly to see if that would affect the car behind them, hoping to make them pass her as she dropped to a near crawl.

“How many times do I need to remind you? Nightcrawler…can’t see me at night…hello?”

“Well, disembodied yellow eyes are bound to attract matteattention than anything.”

“Good point.” Kurt turned back to face the front and slid down a bit further in his seat. “How much further do you think?”

“About five minutes at this rate…” She glanced behind them one more time and found their pursuers still behind them, just far enough back that she could not make out any identifying details about thr orr or the driver. “Hold on.” Kitty sent up a silent prayer to whoever was listening and pressed down hard oe ace accelerator.

“Katzchen,” Kurt said a tad shakily as she took a corner without slowing down, “are you sure you passed your driver’s exam?”

“Not in this state I haven’t. For Illinois I’m good, though…” She yelped as she took another corner and narrowly missed several trash cans set out for the next morning’s collection.

“If we get stopped…”

“I know, I know…Mutant I.D. cards and all that. Hold on again,” she said, sounding more nervous than Kurt had ever heard her. She slammed on the brakes and slid through a wire-laced metal gate before it had even opened all the way before them. Their followers seemed to have disappeared for the time being as Kitty shut the car off and let her forehead rest against the steering wheel.

“From here on out, I’m driving, Liebes…” Kurt said as he brushed a handful of blue fur the the seat next to him.

“From here on out, we’re not going to be screwing with interdimensional travel,” she said a bit breathlessly. “Let’s get out of here…the building is just over that rise. It’s hard to see because it’s kind of low to the ground. Everything seems to be underground and all that’s up top is some sort obbyobby thing.” She phased out of the car without a second thought and glanced behind them again as if expecting the car that had been following them to appear out of nowhere. “I left Remy waiting…Kurt, Magneto is in there, too. So are Jubilee and Mystique.” She quickly related the details of her arrival as they picked their way ss ass a pockmarked gravel drive towards the grassy rise.

“This just keeps getting better and better ,” Kurt sighed as they topped the rise. The building was dark before them and there were no signs of life to be seen. “Now what?”

“Now we get in there and go back through to ource ace and then get the other you back without causing some weird rift in the space time continuum.”

“No pressure,” Kurt muttered, following her across the dark lawn.



“Did they see us?” Jubilee hissed.

Evan snorted. “If they saw us, would we still be skulking after them?”

“Maybe it’s some sort of a trap or something,” Kitty said, narrowing her eyes as she peered at the other her critically through the darkness. “Does my hair always look like th

“Kitty!” Jubilee growled, thumping her on the forehead. “Attention, girlie! How do we get in?”

“Same way we got through the fence,” Evan said, nudging Kitty’s side. “Phase.”

“I am so going to pass out from all this,” she groused but did not offer any other protest as they trotted almost silently after the shadowy pair now slipping through an unassuming metal door set into sideside of the building. In a few moments, they were in the same place and Kitty took hold of Evan and Jubilee’s wrists. “Just take a deep breath and walk when I do. I am not going to drag you this time, Evan!”

“Sorry…I panicked.”

“I noticed.” Kitty glared briefly at him and then stepped through the door and into the dark lobby.

Jubilee pulled herself free from Kitty’s grasp and there was a flare of glowing yellow light that emanated from a ball of plasma in the Asian girl’s hand. “Well. This is certainly very Eastern Bloc,” she muttered. The lobby was entirely gray, down to the pencils on the reception desk. “Very Sylvia Plath of them, decorating in Depression Modern.”

“Shhh!” Evan and Kitty hissed as one. “They’ll hear us!” Kitty whispered.

“Fuck. Someone’s coming…” Evan pulled Kitty behind a large gray block that could have served as modern art or a very sad plant stand, but Jubilee eluded his grasp. “Down!” he said softly but firmly.

She turned towards him but all she managed to say was something that sounded like “eep” before she slid to her knees and fell face first on the floor. Evan and Kitty whipped around to face what had made Jubilee faint and saw…“D
“Dude…I so never do that…” Jubilee blinked down at herself and ran a hand through spiky, pink-tipped hair. “Whoa…Kitty? Evan? How did…ooooooh….”

Mystique loomed out of the darkness and growled. “Charles must start putting bells on the lot of you.”