Subject: [OTL]: The Chosen Ones [6/10]
Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1999 13:20:22 -0700 (PDT)
From: D Benway <d_benway@yahoo.com>

The Chosen Ones, Part 6 of 12
The Homecoming
Benway did this.

*******************************************************************

This story is not intended for children of any age. It contains
descriptions of human behaviour which many might find distressing.
You have been warned.

The characters belong to Marvel. The story is my own, and copyright
to me. Many thanks for the editorial assistance of Luba K and
Tina S. This and other stories are archived at the website of Luba.

********************************************************************

She made her way carefully through the sewer conduit. She had
entered into the main outfall a quarter hour before, and it had
taken her another quarter of an hour to find her way into this
tributary drain. It was unusually warm, and smelled rather
pleasantly of decay. From what she recalled of their science, rot
alone could not have produced this amount of heat. There were pipes
running along the ceiling, wrapped in silver foil. Steam. Running to
the underworld beneath the school perhaps? Kitty might want to know.

It had taken her many hours to find this place. She had stolen a
very detailed topographic map from the school library that depicted
Lawrence in all of its detail. She had made a grid on it in black
ink, then randomly looked at squares of it in her scrying pool,
seeking a figure in an old green army jacket. She had searched every
house, factory, hospital, school, everything that might have hidden
her prey. It had taken her days. She had found nothing, save 125
sexual acts (64 consensual, 12 incestuous, 34 homosexual, 8
bestial), four burglaries, a mugging, six wife beatings, and a small
animal set on fire by a child. It was so much fun that she had
almost forgotten who she was looking for. On the evening of the
third day, she saw a figure climbing into a manhole in a park. Two
hours later, she found the prey in its nest sleeping. After that, it
was only a matter of making some minor preparations in Limbo. The
prey didn't stand a chance.

She approached the side tunnel where the prey had made its nest. She
was careful to take steps that could be heard. She had shield spells
at the ready, but she was almost certain that the prey wasn't armed.

"Stop."

She stopped, frozen, unable to speak. For a moment, she almost lost
control. The power that she felt from the alcove made Belasco look
like a tiny candle next to the light of the sun. The power in that
alcove _was_ the light of the sun. If her mental shields did not
hold-

"God save you, Katherine," she whispered.

The girl in the army jacket stepped out of the alcove. She looked
like someone who would have been ignored in the street, save for the
scintillating golden wings that hovered in the darkness behind her.
Those had not appeared in the pool.

"Who are you?" barked the girl, not quite disguising a quavering
note in her voice.

"It is I, Illyana Rasputin."

"I can't sense you."

The prey frowned and the wings flared brightly, illuminating the
dank chamber to the level of daylight.

"No one can," she managed. "The professor could not sense me."

She almost lost control of her bowels. That had never happened, not
since Belasco. The light from the wings went out. She could see
nothing.

"I didn't mean to scare, to, to, is it really you?"

"I am Illyana Rasputin, as I said." She managed a small smile, half
artifice, half terror. "I do not know you."

"Rachel."

Light flared from the walls. TK-luminescence. The expression on the
face of the prey was pathetic. Awe, and barely suppressed tears.

"It _is_ you. You shouldn't be so old now."

"No. I should not be so old. Please let me free."

The grip did not release its hold. She could not manage a gesture,
and she dared not risk the guttural tones of a spell. She sent for a
disc, but none appeared. Even so, the prey appeared not to know what
she was thinking, since she was still breathing.

"What happened to you?" it asked. "How were you so changed?"

"A wizard took me away."

"A wizard."

The prey had little girl eyes now. They looked ridiculous on it.

"You were as old as this when I was small," it said. "You read to
me. You read me a story about a lion and a witch. Some kids went
into the back of a closet, they came out in a wonderful place and
had adventures."

"I do not know this story."

"It kept me going, after they broke me and I wanted to die. I always
knew there would be another world that was better than mine. One
with lion-kings."

"And witches?"

"Yeah. Was it fun?"

"Fun?"

"Being with the wizard. Was it like in the stories?"

She was possessed, briefly, by the urge to tell the prey just what
it had been like. Had the grip not held her, she would have.

"Just like the stories. The Brothers Grimm."

"I don't remember those. I'm sorry."

The prey was weeping openly now. This was irritating, but she could
feel the odds shifting in her favour. She tried summoning a circle
again. Nothing happened. The prey seemed on the edge of collapse.

"What happened to me, in your world?" she asked.

The look of horror was priceless. She held her face in a rigid mask
of concern.

"You died."

Twist the knife.

"How?"

The prey couldn't respond. Its mouth worked and it made inarticulate
noises. It took all of her will and all of her rage not to burst out
laughing.

"They fired a shell into the house. We were running, you were
holding my hand, then I was dragging, it cut, it cut, oh Yanna, it
cut you in half. They told me you were dead. They didn't have to."

"But I am whole here."

"Yes."

The prey broke down entirely. She still could not move. She hoped
that it would not approach. She did not want to feel its touch.

"You knew Kitty in the future," she said.

"I did. She saved me. I was closer to her than anyone."

"How close?"

"As close as two people can get."

"Lovers."

The prey froze. Something must have slipped out. Faces were so
easily capable of such little treasons.

"My Katya is not like that," she said, barely keeping her temper.

"Everyone is like that," it said.

"Emma Frost says this."

"That's Emma."

"She taught you."

"I knew from experience."

She knew, also, but it did not seem a good place to mention this.

"You were not like that," it said.

"Like what?"

"Hostile. You and Danielle were together-"

"I do _not_ want to hear this," she said. "That was another Illyana
Rasputin. Not I."

"Do you hate me, for-"

"I have never met you before this moment. I do not know what to make
of you. None of us do."

She burned. The grip was unrelenting. She summoned as hard as she
could. No discs.

"I'm your friend," it said. "Please believe me, I'm your friend.
Doug told me about your plans to turn Emma. She's your friend too.
Even if she doesn't know it yet."

"How do you know that our Frost is not different from your Frost, as
I am different from your Illyana?"

"I scanned her. I scanned all of you. She sensed me, and put up
stronger barriers, but I recognized her mind and her soul. She could
help you, against Shaw. He is the true enemy."

"This I believe."

"Let me help you."

"Katya wants your help. She sent me to get you."

"Where is she?"

"In my special place."

If the prey scanned for Katya-

"Your special place?"

"I have a place where I can go, away from all this, where the wizard
lived. She cannot meet you at the school. It was her choice. We will
go there."

The hold relaxed. The prey was weeping. It was hers. She summoned a
circle, and held it in the ground between them.

"She'll be there?"

"Of course."

"I can't believe I'll be able to see her again. To hold her-"

"She is not your Katya either."

A guarded look flitted across the prey's face, then it laughed,
still weeping. Messy.

"I'm just so fucking stupid. I'm talking such shit. Of course she's
not the same, I know that. Just hoping, you know, thinking out loud?
I don't know what I'll do when I meet her."

"You know our Katya. Whatever you do, if your heart is true, she'll
forgive you."

"How do I get there?"

"Step into the circle," she said, smiling.

The prey did as she asked and vanished. She mumbled a phrase in a
language not meant for human for tongues, and all signs of its
presence was consumed by crackling blue Hellfire. She smiled in the
darkness. A rat gazed upon her face and collapsed, dead on the spot.

*****************************************************************

He sat working at his terminal. He half expected to hear from Kitty.
but she had been annoyingly unavailable since that night. No fucking
wonder, though, the way he had behaved. If he could apologize again,
then what? She might want to do it again, and he certainly wasn't
ready for that. Rachel was in every face he saw in the school. Her
eyes in the token African-American senior, her hair on that druggie
from Jefferson House, her body in the senior who slept with the
football team, but there was none of her in Kitty. This frightened
him.

The phone rang. He started. Kitty? Ray?

"Douglas. Come to my study at once."

Frost didn't wait for his reply. He didn't notice that he had frozen
on the spot until the receiver began blaring an angry tone at him.
He dropped it on the floor and staggered out the door.

The distance between his room and Frost's house vanished, as if by
magic. One moment he was in his room, the next on her doorstep. His
mouth was dry, but no other part of him was. The door opened before
he could ring the bell.

He walked across the vast Victorian entry hall. The only light came
from a room off to the side, her study. There was a strange scent in
the air, part floral perfume, part animal musk. He knew from the
schematics that it was sprayed into the air regularly from a network
of hidden atomizing nozzles. He forced himself into her presence,
step by step.

The room was lit by a single candle that burned brightly. She was
slumped in a chair, in one of her outfits. White leather, loose
lacing, undone all the way. Her head was unsteady. It took her a
moment to focus on him. She moved and the leather came away,
revealing.

"What the fuck are you waiting for? Get in here."

"No."

Not the right thing to say. Frost's face darkened.

"I'm every little boy's wet dream. Am I not more beautiful than your
little stick friend? Part of you thinks so."

He was excited, or at least a part of him was. A hand fell on his
shoulder. Frost smiled. He almost fainted.

"Go," said Kitty.

"No."

"It's me you want, isn't it?"

Frost's smile was one of pure animal hunger.

"No, I-"

He turned and ran, out the door, through the hall, over the porch
down the steps, down the hill, across the meadow into the stream,
the cold, cold stream. It struck him in the chest, so hard it
smashed the wind from him. He wasn't a strong swimmer, but he knew
that if the water took him, he wouldn't be the only one lost. He
made for the shore, thinking with every stroke of the ten faces
whose lives depended on his. He collapsed at the side of the stream,
and looked back at Frost's house. The door was closed, the porch
light off. She was there, alone with Frost. He had left her alone
with Frost. He lay on the gravel for some time, until it occurred to
him that death by exposure might have the same consequences as death
by drowning. Shivering so hard that he could barely stand, he walked
back to the House across the quads. He picked up some eye tracks
from the Normals, but they knew he lived in Henry House, and he knew
that they had come to expect such things.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

She lay on satin sheets, sweating. Her companion was still sleeping,
breathing softly beside her. It had been a remarkable night. The
girl had been fearful at first, but had hidden it well. She had
taken instruction at first without passion, but then a fire had been
kindled, somewhere deep inside. Towards the end, the girl had been
radiating pleasure, even though she had hidden it just as well. She
had wanted to initiate a feedback cycle, but that would have given
the game away, and she was not certain that she could break down the
girl's barriers enough to take control of her conscious mind.

She rolled over, looking at the fine features partly hidden by thick
brown hair. She was sure that she could reach into the girl's mind
and shut down her breathing centres, so that she would die quietly
in her sleep. For a moment, the temptation was overwhelming. Serve
the girl to Shaw as the sacrifice, pretend that things were as they
were before. Be safe. But no. That wasn't what Shaw would want. He
would still want to see blood, because that was what Selene would
want. When she had Shaw back, she would make sure that he would
approve of the new arrangement, an agreement that it was now time to
negotiate.

"Katherine."

Her face did not show the surprise she felt as she sensed the girl's
nervous system lighting up in a flash, instantly prepared for an
attack. This girl was lethal, a potential killer.

"Emma," said Kitty softly, purring.

"We have to talk," she said. "The Compact is void."

"I know it. And now you're going to kill me?"

The girl slid the sheet slowly down, and stretched her lithe,
muscular body like a cat.

"Perhaps," she said. "What can you offer me, so that I might not?"

"What do you need?"

"Selene has Shaw. She's pushing him too far. We have to stop her."

"You have the Hellions."

"They are as good as dead in combat with Selene. As you would be. Or
me. Or all but one of you."

"Illyana."

"Yes."

"Illyana could take her."

"She frightens me."

She hadn't meant to say that.

"She scares a lot of people," said Kitty. "What do you think she
would do to you and the Hellions if you hurt me?"

Her mouth went dry.

"I know where Sefton keeps your dragon. I could destroy both of
them."

"Could you?"

The girl had an advantage and knew it.

"What would your friends do if I told them why the dragon is not a
hostage?"

Kitty's face betrayed nothing. Neither did her own, as she sensed
the storm of shame and fear under the calm surface.

"They know all the parts of the Compact."

Lying.

"We need a new Compact," she said.

"Not like the other one. The others go free."

"And why should I give them up? What do I get in return?"

"Me."

Kitty's voice was so husky, so damned sexy. Such a contrast with
Anne-Marie, who had just curled up in the corner of the bed
afterwards, whimpering.

"But I already have you," she said.

"As a prisoner, not as a willing ally."

"And what do I get, that I can't get from you now?"

"My body, and my mind."

"I appear to already have your body. As long as you want your
parents to live, I am assuming that I will have your mind."

Kitty flashed her a roguish smile. Inside, she could feel the girl's
mind racing too fast to follow. It scared her.

"How much of what you steal do you really understand?" said Kitty.

"Understand?"

"The ideas you steal."

"And what makes you think I'm stealing ideas? I have one of the best
R&D operations in the country. Forbes said so."

"One, you let me see those highly praised operations. It's pure
development. None of your scientists have had an original idea in
years. Two, I know how you think."

"Even so, if I was stealing ideas, what makes you think I'd need
your help with it?"

"You got scooped by IBM on that new chip technology last month. I
saw it coming. I could have told you where to look."

She could read the bluff in Kitty's mind.

"I have people who tell me where to look."

"They're a bunch of frat boys made good from business school, who
just repeat what your R&D morons tell them."

Kitty wasn't bluffing about that. If Kitty was as smart as the tests
indicated, there might be something to what she was saying. She
couldn't suppress a smile.

"Why would you want to do this?"

"Because we'll be putting the gains to good use."

"Which is?"

"This place, as a haven for mutants. Just like the Prof wanted."

"What?"

She went cold. Kitty smiled again, innocently.

"You keep to the terms of the old Compact, we die. Maybe Shaw will
kill me. Butcher me like the firework girl. Then Illyana will come
after you."

Kitty was running a hand up the side of her body, and must have felt
the shudder.

"I know that you didn't want to do it," the girl said, lying. She
wanted to get away from Kitty, but found that she couldn't move. If
she'd had this courage in Silver Hill-

"You don't want to hurt us," said Kitty. "You train us to live, to
fight, to win, just like the Prof did. You only do the dangerous
shit when Shaw's around. With him out of the picture, you could keep
us all safe."

"Safe," she said, numbly. "But I'd have only you."

"Yes. Only me like this. None of the others. Ever."

The disgust behind the girl's quiet eyes smouldered and burned. It
reminded her of another smouldering fire that burned to no effect
as the voices screamed in her head and the heavy bodies pressed her
into the filthy hospital linoleum.

"I- I-"

Her mouth went dry. The burning rage, was pushing her out, replacing
the blocks.

"I'm selfish," whispered Kitty. "I want you all to myself."

"I only wanted to help you survive," she whispered. "To show you the
way of the world."

"You enjoyed it."

The menace in Kitty's voice was barely hidden. She felt herself
flushing. Her mind was blank. She could feel the contempt like the
burning rays of the sun.

"So did you," she managed, her mouth dry.

"Yeah."

Kitty did the stretch again. She couldn't read the girl at all. She
lay, almost paralyzed. She found the strength to raise her arm and
stroke the girl's face with a shaking hand.

"I love them," she said. "I love you all. I don't want to hurt you."

"There's no such thing as love. Only sex."

Her own words. The truth that she had learned, climbing from the
street to the sky. Not a truth at all, just another lie in a world
of lies.

"No. Just-."

There was a feeling in the back of her throat, a tightening. It was
something she hadn't felt in a long time. It wasn't until her vision
blurred that she realized that she was about to cry.

Kitty leaned over and kissed her, first on her lips, then on her
jaw, with little nips of perfect little teeth.

"Kiss the tears away," Kitty whispered softly, transferring
attention to her damp cheeks.

"I have a daughter," she blurted. "She's younger than you."

Kitty started. Genuine surprise.

"I keep her away from me, in a convent in Switzerland. It's a
beautiful place. Far away from here. They'd use her against me. They
don't know. I've never seen her, not in years. The nuns send me
pictures. I go to a church in Boston to see them, then I burn them."

"How old-"

"Ten. She hates me. She thinks I abandoned her. I did. She's already
my sister as well as my daughter. I didn't want her to be, to be-"

"Then leave her be."

Kitty stroked her face gently. It was partly a calculated gesture,
but partly natural. The storm of the girl's rage had dissipated, and
she could feel a deep sympathy shining through.

"I've never told anyone about her," she said in a tiny, frightened
voice.

"What's her name?" asked Kitty softly.

"Cordelia. The nuns named her that."

There wasn't much of Cordelia in Kitty's face. Not very much. Not
true. There was. Same hair. Same lips. She had seen it all along.
They might have been sisters. She lost control again.

"It's our secret," said Kitty, drawing her into a tight embrace.
"I won't let the others know."

She lay, helpless, in strong arms that had seen no more than 15
winters. At some point, there were no more tears, only moans that
the girl stroked away with a gentle hand across her forehead.

"Thank you," she whispered when she found her voice.

"Do you accept the new Compact?" asked Kitty in a soft voice.

"I do."

It slipped out. She meant it. She was more frightened than she had
been at any time since the asylum, before she had learned how to
make the voices in her head go away.

"Then what will you do about Shaw?"

"I can bring him around to our way of thinking. He wouldn't trust
anyone but me to fit him out with blocks against telepathy. I did it
like you would, like a programmer. I left myself a back passage to
get in, just in case."

A small smirk crossed Kitty's lips.

"I think it's usually called a back door. Hackers don't usually have
your tastes."

"Yes. Well, if I have him, I have Leland. Leland has no spine at
all. He's Shaw's creature."

"Tessa? Pierce?"

"Tessa is as much a slave as Leland. Pierce is another matter."

"What would we have to do to get Pierce?"

"Get rid of him."

"No. No killing. Couldn't we frame him or something?"

"Kitty, we don't want anyone going through his files or ours. We
have many friends in Washington, but also many enemies."

"Can you neutralize him, without killing him?"

"Possibly. You have a problem on your own side."

"Roberto."

"He's been to the mansion with his father. They have both taken
extensively of the club's pleasures."

"You've seen him?"

"I was with him."

"Shit." The girl drew away from her. None of the compassion
remained, only revulsion that the girl was no longer taking the
trouble to completely hide.

"And then there is Selene," she said.

"Yes," said Kitty.

"I know no limits to her power."

"No."

"There may be no alternative to killing her."

"Illyana killing her," said Kitty, grimly.

"She would be powerful enough?"

"Yeah."

"Would she kill Selene?"

"Only if she had to."

Another lie. Kitty wasn't sure what Illyana would do at all, or of
what she might have done already. She could sense the suspicion
eating away at what had been an absolute trust in the girl's mind.

"And then?"

"We run the club as it always has run, but we just keep the kids and
the school out of it. Use the club to keep influencing politics
while we keep the kids safe."

"I would have expected you to turn us all over to the FBI."

"The government builds Sentinels. The Congress would sell us all out
to hold onto power. We can't trust them. Being with the Prof taught
me that."

"Agreed. What you propose would involve few changes. It will be more
difficult to win over certain powerful figures without being able to
use-"

"You still have me."

"No. You're too inexperienced-"

"Liar."

It was not a lie. There were many worse than her, whose appetites if
not satisfied might have consumed the world.

"You're trembling," said Kitty.

She could only nod in response.

"We can talk more of this later. We have four days before Shaw and
the rest show up. We need a way of getting them apart and taking
them down."

"Later. I want to show you something."

She extended a shaking hand, as if to caress but in the hope of
escape into unreason.

"I thought we'd tried everything earlier," said Kitty.

"I've got eighteen years on you."

She rolled closer, embracing the girl whose parents had been
strangers to each other at the time of her own initiation into the
mysteries of power.

"Kitty."

"What?"

"You know there's no going back on this. You'll never be free, if
you choose this path."

"Yeah, but the others go free. There are worse forms of slavery."

"Mmm. But I can show you that this is one of the best ones."

"Show me."

A little, nervous smile from the girl, but a real one. Mostly real.
Real enough.

********************************************************************

He was reading Shakespeare again, trying to finish Hamlet. He still
hadn't told Frost about the meeting with Wilson, but she hadn't
approached him about it either. It had seemed so much like
seduction, but what had been the intent? The lecture that morning
had been worse than the others. Not only had Wilson been drunk, but
the man had looked at almost no others during the entire time.
Making all those points about how destructive a quest for justice
could be, speculating pointlessly on how Denmark might have been
better off if Hamlet had returned to college and let the ship of
state sail on. The metaphor made him think of the book that Wilson
had given him, which lay where he had left it upon the desk. He put
the school copy of the play away and picked up his bible. It would
certainly provide him with the guidance that he sought. It was the
word of God, after all.

Twenty minutes later, his palms were sweating but nothing had
presented itself as a solution. He put the book aside, and went to
Doug's door again. The footsteps had dried since the night before,
but the mud was still there. He knocked. There was no response. He
knocked again. Something moved inside, but Doug didn't have anything
to say. He heard footsteps on the stairs, and moved away from the
door. Just as if he were returning from the bathroom. Which was
stupid, since the cameras had no doubt recorded what he had done.

Kitty appeared at the top of the stairs. She was dressed in the
clothes that she wore yesterday, and looked tired. Her face lit up
when she saw him. She threw herself at him and caught him in a firm
embrace. She released him, and he was frightened by what he saw in
her face.

"We did it," she said "We're going to be OK."

"What? How?"

He was becoming excited. He pushed her away. She flushed slightly.

"Tonight at Latin tutorial. Amara won't be there, will she?"

"No. She won't be."

"Doug in?"

"Doesn't answer. Rahne asked me to look in on him, see if he caught
a cold. He went swimming."

"Swimming?"

He made a slight gesture that the camera wouldn't catch, pointing at
the mud on the floor. Fear filled her eyes for a moment.

"I'll check in on him," she whispered.

She gave him a small smile, then phased through the door. He
returned to his room, picked up the black book, and wondered what
Wilson wanted him to do.

[Next: Matters Come To A Head]

=====