Paradigm Shift

PARADIGM SHIFT CHAPTER THIRTY NINE (NC-17)

Disclaimers Apply



A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies and BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, soooooooooo many thanks to you and loads of short kilts to the menagerie. InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink are lovely and sparkly for archiving!!! ProPhile is still a nice smutbunny and above average at that… ;) Readers/Reviewers: I know it’s slow going but I adore you people for sticking with me while updates are sporadic. Xxooxxoo Those are from the ducks. The Killer Kitties ™ and their new Kitten ™ just hiss and spit at everyone. Don’t take it personal. 







“Is that…?”

“Sure looks like it…and look who’s with him…” Logan was gone before Storm could slow him down, plunging into the darkness surrounding the rubble of what was once Forge’s old lab, now reduced to it’s basic components thanks to Jubilee. Below the ground, the portal waited and had apparently spewed forth some new denizens for the evening. Logan was close to them, so close that if they had looked up from their odd struggle, they would have seen him closing in. Instead, they grappled, rolling across the thickly leaved ground and spiting invectives in a plethora of languages. What drew Logan up short, however, and made Storm snort in surprise before she regained her composure, was that one of the combatants was naked as the day he was born and the other appeared to be fearless of that fact, not pulling any punches. “Whoa…”

Remy’s head snapped back at the sound of Logan’s voice, narrowly avoiding one of Magneto’s better punches. “You gonna help me, homme, or jus’ admire de merchandise?” He struck hard then, making Magneto gasp and slacken his grip.

“Looks like you got it under control,” Logan drawled, mildly amused but overall quite irritated at the turn of events, stepped back ae fie fighting duo rolled so that Magneto was atop Remy. With a sudden grab, Logan pulled the older man off and threw him, the resounding thud when he hit the hard ground some feet away oddly satisfying. “Storm, get him outta here before…” She was already moving, dragging Magneto to his feet and taking to the air in near silence. “Now,” Logan said, warily, “why the Hell are you naked?”

“Long story, homme…” He stood somewhat shakily and popped several joints at once, wincing as usteusted debris from her person. “Mind not starin’?”

“Weird place for a tattoo,” was Logan’s only comment as Storm touched down beside them. “Where’d you stow him?”

“Somewhere safe,” she said shortly. “Where are Kitty and Jubilee?”

Remy sighed jaggedly and related the events of the previous two hours to his companions. “I don’ even tink Magneto knew dat it were still set to come back here,” he finished somewhat roughly.

Storm looked sympathetic but her next words weterntern. “Remy, you and Logan are both going back in there. Now. We don’t have much time…the Professor can hold off authauthorities for only so long.”

The two men nodded and Logan had a strong feeling that he knew where Storm had stowed Magneto. “Come on, Gumbo. And for the love of God, tell me you left your pants on the other side and they aren’t missing somewhere in between…”



Kurt looked around quickly, ducking back behind a file cabinet where Kitty wadingding. “No one. Where did the Maker say he was meeting us again?”

“Third office on the left…”

“Our left or his left?” Kurt asked, sighing at Kitty’s exasperated look. “Worth a shot…”

“Okay, I’m going to go check the other rooms. Stay here—I lost you once and I don’t want to have to look for you again!”

Kurt opened his mouth to protest but Kitty was already on her feet, phasing through the cabinet and then the wall separating the offices. He sank to his heels and sighed, idly twisting his tail between his fingers in a futile effort to distract himself from worry until Kitty came ghosting back into the small office several minutes later. “Any sign?”

“Not of him, no, but I heard some people moving around in one of the other hallways leading off of this one…” She was slightly out of breath and a little wide-eyed as she huddled next to him, clutching his arm in nervousness. “It sounded like a lot of people and I don’t know if they’re for us or against us…”

Kurt patted her hand distractedly and wrapped his tail around her waist to hold her closer. “We are better off assuming that we are on our own until we get to Remy and the portal. Where is it from here?”

Kitty bit her lower lip and groaned under her breath. “Damn it…I always forget things when I’m nervous…”

“Katzchen!”

“Shhh! Give me a second!”

“One floor down, second hall to the right once you get off the elevator. Can’t miss it…room’s marked ‘Janitorial Supplies’, but no janitor’s closet would have that many locks and security measures on” <”

“Stop doing that!” Kitty cried at the Maker’s sudden and silent entrance.

Kurt nodded furiously. “I’m too young for a heart att”
“Habit,” the older man shrugged. “You two were talkin’ so much you wouldn’t have heard a stampede of horses through here anyway.” He shrugged again and rose to his feet from his position sitting on the lone desk in the room. “We’d best be quick…this place is buzzing like a beehive with folks snooping around.”

Kitty struggled to her feet, untangling herself from Kurt’s tail and asked with a tinge of worry in her voice, “Can you tell how many there were? I heard some and it sounded like a lot!”

“No idea…more than one but less than a hundred,” the older man said laconically. Kurt frowned as they crept out of the room behind him, silent as the dead, into the darkened hallway. “What are we going to do now?”

“Go home,” Kitty said firmly. “Get Remy and go home.” She glanced at the Maker for confirmation and when he nodded faintly, more intent on getting down the hallway unnoticed than Kitty and Kurt’s discourse, she offered what she hoped was an encouraging smile to Kurt and took his hand more firmly in hers.

“Kitty!” he said, inhaling sharply, becoming nearly immobin thn the middle of the hallway.

Both Kitty and the Maker stopped. “Kurt,” the large man said impatiently, “we can’t afford to dick around…”

“Kitty!” Kurt said again, this time pointing urgently. His exclamation was followed by a muffled squeak and the sound of someone tripping and falling in the dark.

“What is it?” his girlfriend asked, suddenly worried and scared at once.

Even the Maker had become warier than before as Kurt said thinly, “Whre tre the chances of something catastrophic happening if you meet yourself in this worlbr /br />
Kitty moaned softly. “No idea….but any chance is too big…”

“Um…the other way! Now! Go!” Kurt shoved her so quickly she did not have time to phase but rather stumbled backwards several paces before smacking into the wall. “Run, Kitty,” he hissed urgently.

The Maker caught on before Kitty did. While she sputtered indignantly, he peered through the darkness in the direction Kurt was heading towards. He saw the faint outline of a girl, remarkably like the onrrenrrently beside him, in the dim glow of the sodium light, and beside her another male, someone larger than Kurt and standing almost protectively before the girl. “Kitty, go…I don’t know if any damage has already been done but get out of here now!”

“Where do I go?” she asked, already backing away, looking near terrified. “I don’t know my way around here!”

“Go until you can’t go any farther down this hallway,” he said, recalling the layout of the building as pokepoke, urging her onward with a subtle wave of his hand that she could not see. “Turn right and go to the second set of stairs…they’re marked emergency only but the alarm doesn’t work…go all the way down until the stairs run out. On the other side of the door at the foot of the stairs is the lab…it’s the old back entrance, used to keep it secret from the other projects around this place…Go!” Kitty nodded once, then turned her back to him and ran. He could hear Kurt trying to hold off the other two and said, just loud enough to be heard, “It’s okay.”

“Was that her?” the other girl asked in a disturbingly similar voice to the one who just left. “Why did she run off?”

“Kitty, please!” Kurt pleaded, looking askance at Evan. “Can’t you get her out of here?”

“No…Jubilee got picked up by…um, well, Jubilee.me wme weird blue chick was with her and we’re not leaving until we get her out of here! Jubilee…not the blue chick…”

“Gah!” Kurt grabbed double fistfuls of his hair and threw his head back in frustration. “Jubilee is here, too!”

“And they met,” the Maker said softly, peering down at Evan and Kitty. “Did the world end?”

“Not this one,” Kurt said darkly. “Not yet…”

Evan uttered a noise that may have been disbelief or derision, but the Maker said impatiently, “All the more reason to hurry!”

“Mystique has Jubilee,” Kurt said plaintively, but sighed heavily when he encountered blank looks. “Potentially very bad,” he said shortly. “We can’t let her stay here!”

The Maker shook his head. “Is she from your world? Yes? Then there is only one way back…” He jerked his head at Evan and Kitty and added, “They will have to come with us but they can’t come into the portal room. This Mystique woman will have to come there eventually, if she is from your world…”

“How do you know she isn’t from here?” Evan asked, sounding slightly annoyed, as if he had far better things to be doing with his evening.

“I don’t,” Kurt admitted, “but I think she is…no one else would want Jubilee…” He set to pacing, glancing worriedly up and down the hall as he did so. “You saw two Jubilees?” he suddenly demanded of Kitty. She nodded frantically. “Then it has to be her, the one from my world…”

The Maker nodded again. “Let’s go then…Kitty…the other one…should be there already.” Kurt had deep misgivings about this, but had no choice but to follow the group onward.



Kitty gasped in shock when she phased into the lab and saw the scene of destruction, the open plastic container, the smashed equipment that remained after Remy’s initial struggle with Magneto. “Hello?” she called tentatively. “Remy? Jubes?” A little more shakily, she said, “Mystique?” Kitty edged a few more s ins into the room and looked around for signs of life. “Anyone?” Slowly, she crossed to the open container that had previously held her friend and felt her gorge start to rise at the smell and sight of the drying vomit on the bottom of the box. “Ugh…” A soft, barely audible rustling noise made her whirl to face the wall behind her, her mouth covered suddenly by a large, heavy hand. She lashed out instinctively, phasing from her supposed assailant’s grasp and kicking him twice, once in the ribs and once on the chin. She cried out at the pain that shot through her foot and ankle on impact both times, collapsing back onto the floor as she registered who it was that had grabbed her. “Logan!”

“Nice form, Half Pint, but never kick a man with a metal skeleton.” He held out his hand to help her up and she glowered briefly. “I don’t think you broke anything…”

“Try being on this end of it,” she snapped, rising stiffly with his help. “I’m here.”

“You hit your head or something?”

“No,” she said quickly, “I am here and I am here…the other me!”

“Shit,” he said succinctly, running a hand through his already disheveled hair. “More problems.”

“What do you mean?” Kitty winced as she put weight on her ankle, feeling the bruise already forming there.

“Remy and Magneto popped up on the other side,” he said on a harsh sigh, Kitty’s murmur of relief almost lost beneath his words, “but Jubilee is still with Mystique somewhere…hopefully still here.”

“Where is Remy now?” she asked, clutching at Logan’s arms. “Is he okay?”

“He found his pants and went out of here to look for her…I was right behind him when you phased in…you must’ve just missed each other.”

“Must have…now what?” she asked miserably. “Kurt and the Maker had to stop me from meeting me and I don’t know when they’re going to get here…”

“Come with me,” he said decisively. “You’re not staying here alone.”

Kitty nodded and surprised Logan by slipping her arm around his as if afraid he would disappear if she let go. “Find his pants?” she asked a moment later.

“Don’t make me relive the memory…”