Paradigm Shift

PARADIGM SHIFT CHAPTER FORTY (NC-17)

Disclaimers Apply





A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies and BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, check the Nutella. I think your werewolf has been pawing. InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink are sparklebunnies for archiving. ProPhile gets big heap gold star for his smutbunniness. Readers/Reviewers: Okay, homestretch. And FYI—I have to access the internet from school for the next month so I won’t be as quick as usual responding to emails (grrr) and probably won’t be online on weekends, so no updates on weekends for a bit. Sucks, don’t it? I think the armadillos and the Killer Kitties, inc. went in together to hatch that bit-o-evil…







It ended much as it had began—unexpectedly, chaotically, and violently. Kitty found herself being shoved roughly back through the door of the portal room by Logan, alerted by some noise beyond her hearing. She barely had time to stagger to her feet when Mystique burst into the room, carrying a struggling Jubilee over one shoulder and being followed by another, one that Kitty recognized more easily due to the spiky, pink-tipped hair. Logan barely had time to growl out an expletive when Kurt threw open the door, his back to the room, pushing someone away and nearly begging, “Please don’t!”

“Move, Elf,” Logan said shortly, reaching for him only to draw up short. “Forge?”

“Again with the Forge…I’m called The Maker, thank you very much!” He shoved past Kurt and whoever he was halfheartedly struggling with to tower over Logan. “You’re in my lab.”

“Your ex-lab, bub,” Logan said, letting him go past but pushing Kitty back again as she surged forward. “Hey, Blue…”

“What?” Mystique and Kurt snapped as one. It seemed as if neither had noticed the other’s pnce nce until that moment and it madem bem both gape. “What are you doing here?” Mystique said sharply, dropping the girl over her shoulder.

“Hey! I bruise easy!” the Jubilee with spiky hair said, reaching to help herself up.

“No!” Kitty shrieked, throwing herself between the two of them. “No!”

“What’s with her?” Evan asked, muscling past Kurt. “Dude…Doublemint Twins everywhere…”

“This so isn’t happening,” Kitty moaned, sinking to the floor between the two Jubilees. “This is so bad…”

The Maker cocked his head to one side, never once looking up from the damaged equipment in front of him. “The world didn’t end did it?”

“Not yet,” Kitty said darkly.

“Move!” a female voice demanded and Kurt sighed, stepping aside glumly with an expression on his face that bespoke much self-derision. Another Kitty stepped into the room, disheveled and in her nightwear, her eyes wide and nearly frightened as she took in the scene. “You…” she said, stopping in her tracks to stare at the Kitty on the floor, who whimpered and hid her face.

Jubilee straightened her jacket and looked down at her other self on the floor, still unconscious, “It was probably her fault,” she sighed. “Sounds like something I’d do.”

“It was Kitty’s idea,” Evan said helpfully, staring at Logan as one would examine a new car, circling him and peering closely until the man growled and made him jump.

Mystique, sounding quite on the verge of causing grievous bodily harm, snapped, “Who cares who’s idea it was? We have a royal fuck up here and it needs to be sorted out. Magneto…”

“What about him?” Logan said dangerously, advancon hon her as a panther does prey.

Kurt sidled close to his Kitty and helped her to her feet, murmuring, “Are we this bad?”

“WorsJubiJubilee put in helpfully, poking the other Jubilee with the toe of her boot. “I am so not a fainter.”

The other Kitty crept carefully forward and asked softly, “Are we really the same person?”

“Well, yes and no,” the other one said, clutching Kurt’s hand tightly. “In one sense, we are but…”

“Can we get a move on here?” the Maker snapped, sounding suddenly agitated. “The damage done to the machine’s made it unstable. I don’t know how long I can hold the portal open.”

“Remy!” Jubilee cried, abandoning her prodding of her doppelganger. “I’m not leaving without Remy.”

“You won’t have to wait for him long,” the Maker said, sighing. “He won’t be able to go very far. Someone tripped the alarms and all the hallways are slamming shut.”

“Slamming shut?” Jubilee asked with a quaver in her voice. She sat up and pushed her bangs out of her eyes, looking up at her punkish other. “He’s going to be trapped?”

“Not Remy,” the other Asian girl said, nodding fervently, though Kurt could tell she was not so sure herself. “Not him…”

Mystique snarled, “Could we just get a move on?”

Kurt swallowed hard and looked at Kitty directly. “We need to…”

“Remy,” Jubilee said, trailing off in a whimper. She twisted her short hair around her fingers in a desperate gesture and looked askance at Logan.

“Go. I’ll wait for Remy.” He pushed Kurt towards the Maker. “You started all this…you go first!”

Kurt seized Kitty’s hand and she squeaked in surprise. “Come on…”

The other Kitty, the one who would stay behind, looked grief-stricken for a moment before she said shakily, “Good bye, Kurt…”

He averted his eyes quickly, feeling a small measure of shame at causing the look on her face, at least in part. “Just…don’t go back to Lance, okay?”

There was a small start from the Kitty holding his hand and she said urgently, “Just give Kurt a chance, okay? Don’t, like, freak out or anything…”

Kurt felt very odd at being talked about this way, even if the him they were discussing was not quite the same person. “It’ll be okay,” he said softly, not sure if he was talking to Jubilee or Kitty, and if so which one.

“Come on!” the Maker said loudly and Kurt felt himself pulled backwards, Kitty clinging desperately to his hand. The rush of silence was deafening, the portal barely registering on his consciousness as he seemed to fall backwards, Kitty with him. It was so dark and almost painful that he tried to cry out but the sound was sucked from him before it could emerge. Kitty let go of his hand and he felt rather than heard her panic, then came a crash of sound and he knew no more.



“What’s wrong?” Rogue yawned, stretching on the sofa. Todd was crouched in the chair nearest the window, peering into the darkness. He had been doing the same thing for hours, she realized, seeing the time. “Is someone out there?”

“Nah,” he said, tearing his gaze away from the night and turning to face her as she struggled to sit up and fell back against the arm of the sofa in resignation. “No one…”

“Lance and Amara still at it upstairs?”

“They broke up again…” Todd sat on the cushion recently vacated by Rogue’s feet and leaned back as slid lid her blanket-covered legs back across his lap again. “I think she means it this time.”

“Is it the Tabby thing still?” Rogue sighed. “This is so fuckingpid…pid…”

“Yeah.” Todd idly stroked her leg and said, sounding bored, “I give it two weeks. They’ll go nuts without each other.”

“I give it a month…bet you a movie and five new comic books that, a month from today, they’re making those weird noises in her room again.”

“What do you get if you win?” Todd asked, grinning in the dark as his fingers wandered higher across the rather thin blanket. “Death metal CD?”

“Hmm…” she said, smiling in return. “How about I leave my reward to be named later?” she said, leaning forward invitingly. She closed her eyes as she felt his hand against the back of her head, pulling her closer, and did not even notice as he spread goo across her lips to prevent her draining him. She did notice, however, when the overhead light clicked on and Todd sat back quickly, eyes straight ahead and fixed on the opposite wall as his arousal pressed against her calf. “Beast,” she drawled.

“Go to bed,” he said kindly but sternly. “You can continue this some other time…”

“What is it?” she asked, not quite willing to move yet as Todd was still prone to public embarrassment, though not nearly as badly as before.

“There is no point in lying to you at this point,” the blue mutant sighed. “Kurt and Kitty have had an accident and are unconscious. It is not apparently serious but it is urgent that we get them to the lab. I want you upstairs and out of the way immediately and stay there until morning. Understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Todd said, working his way out from under Rogue’s legs. He could see Logan carrying Kitty in his arms like a child, preceding an influx of seemingly everybody who lived at the institute.

Beast nodded thanks. “Logan,” he said, whirling and striding away from the two gape-mouthed teenagers. “Get her to the lab…”

Rogue motioned for Todd to wait and as soon as the entourage had passed, they crept to the basement lab after them.





A/N One more substance chapter, then SMUT!!!! Then a new story with…you guessed it…SMUT!!!