Fine print: Lady Sad Eyes (Madison Avery), Asheley and David Alexander belong to me.
Only the story is mine.
Lady Sally and her house belong to Spider Robinson.
Don't sue me.
Kitty, the X-men and their allies/villains, and Pete Wisdom belong to Marvel entertainment. Don't sue me.
This is purely for entertainment. No $ is made here.
Special thanks to the women who inspired Asheley's Story. Asheley is inspired by an amalgam of people I actually know. All of them know about this piece. It's truer then it should be. If it seems like a particular person's story -- it isn't meant to be.
If you E-mail me please use the heading "Nine".

"I thought I was smart, but I soon found
I didn't know what life was all about
then I learned, I must confess
life is like a game of chess
It ain't what you do it's the way that you do it
It ain't what you do it's the time that you do it
It ain't what you do it's the place that you do it
and that's what gets results"
---It ain't' what you do, Fun Boy Three with Bananarama

(Part nine of in the presence of a lady)
by kaz
*****
"I don't fucking believe it!"
Remy glanced over as Madison poured the coffee. "Where de problem chere?"
Madison gave him a glare of pure malicious intent. "I am supposed to stay here with this ... this Pete--"
"I resemble that remark." Pete's words were glacial.
"-- while you three and a former Majestrix, who wants to take over this earth, play Stratego with the tower!"
"Madison, it is logical." Kitty cooed. "The three of us are most suited to burglary. Remy and David both are master thieves, and I've... dabbled myself. We aren't going to give you over to Merlyn gift wrapped. Pete should be more then ample protection while we are out." Kitty looked over as Madison lit a Fantasia. "Besides, you and Pete just don't have the lungs for it."
"I'll show you lungs, Pryde. I'll have you--"
"Oh really! It's breaking and entering and battery with the intent to do bodily harm and damage to property. You are not there to take anything that isn't rightfully... Besides, what happens when the two of us get hit with the majority of Merlyn's forces. What about the civilians who live in this building?"
"Madi, half the building is military." David stated.
"Like that bleedin' means--" Pete started.
"Not for this."
"Kitty dere has a point. Short strategic hit. We grab Roma and the femme ends this. Easy in and easy out. Den de problem is nowhere, comprendez-vous?"
"Its the 'tu' form when we are in the trenches."
"For you, you toe--"
"Come on Madison, we'll be in and out in five minutes tops!"
"Will everyone stop interrupting me!" Wisdom screamed.
Madison glared at the Englishman. "Well, it's a good thing it's still early. You would have just woken up the neighbors."
The Englishman glared back at her. Pete was about to make a comment as to her parentage but he noticed that she was holding her hand outstretched upward as if to flick something away from her. He absently wondered how she knew the Black Air hand sign for 'hold off'.
"Anyway," Katherine Pryde said as a white doorway-shaped object appeared in the middle of the room. "The point is moot. She's here."
A blonder than blonde haired Sat-yr 9 appeared in the light. "Why, Katherine, it is so good to hear from you! After all this time, I was surprised that you remembered the number to Frazer's Bank."
"Like I could forget!"
'''''
Pete started in on her the moment everyone else was gone. "What in the hell--"
"Do you want to go after them and keep them from getting their asses swept across the floor or not?"
"When you put it that way... what do we do?"
Madison picked up the phone and dialed. "We make a call." She absently twirled a lock of her hair until the other side picked up. "Mary? Good. We need to see her ladyship. Something has--"

"--happened"
Pete wasn't sure how the magic trick was accomplished. One minute he was in Madison's apartment. The next second, he was in a white room staring at a grand mahogany desk. He didn't know where he was. But he was sure that he was about to meet the magician behind the curtain.
A redheaded, obviously tired woman in the prime of her life looked up. A pair of opera glasses were perched on the end of her nose. "Madison, darling! And this rapscallion must be Pete!" She held out her hand across the desk. "The pleasure is mine, dear heart."
Pete stared at her hand. He was obviously dazed from the transport.
"Sally, I fear the others have been foolish enough to go off half-cocked. Not that you would know anything about that."
Pete raised an eyebrow.
Sally waved at the wall behind her. Paneling vanished into mist. Her Ladyship stood up and began to head toward the mist. "Please follow me."
A set of hot knives formed at Pete's fingertips. "I ain't going anywhere with either of you birds!"
With a wave of Sally's hand, the hot flares disappeared. "Once we enter the mists, all time here will stop. Now are you going or will Madison and I have to drag you?"
Pete stood his ground only to be surprised at how easy it was for the two women to drag him into the unknown.


Several minutes later (relative time)
Pete awoke to find a pair of hazel eyes offering a cup of coffee.
He was trying to remember how he had passed out... oh yeah.
After being dragged into the mists, a redheaded female in a doctor's coat and white shorts began to approach them. As she approached, Pete could tell that the shorts were really skimpy. She was also carrying folded clothes, two hyperdermic needles and an oversized roll of antiperspirant.
At this point Sally ordered Pete and Madison to strip to receive their shots and 'coating'. Pete then went off on a diatribe about how he wasn't going to strip for some madam. All the while noticing how Madison had stripped and received her shot. He would have to ask his companion later why her skin looked like it was pieced together like some patchwork quilt.
Sally had listened patiently till Pete stopped to catch his breath. "Mr. Wisdom, this is not some sort of interview because, frankly, you are not up to my standards or the standards of my house. Now shush!"
Sally took the antiperspirant from the nurse and painted a large streak down Madi's front. The stuff came out purple! It also spread about three inches from either side of where it was originally placed.
"This is body armor. The color lasts about ten minutes and then disappears into the skin." Sally painted a big V down Madison's legs, then a line across the brunette's torso. "It isn't fool proof. A slow knife would get through it and it won't stop the concussion from a hit, but a bullet will bounce off you, only sending you a few feet back." She began the process again on Madison's backside. "It will last until I take it off. However, it will start to itch a bit after three days. Oh, and the hyperdermic will clear out your lungs, so to speak."
After examining Madison and touching up a few spots of naked flesh-colored skin, Sally turned to look Pete in the eye. "Now, soldier, there is a terrible menace facing all of reality. I will not ask for your complete loyalty, I doubt you will give that to anyone. But if I am to give you the tools to go save Katherine and her crew, I must have you promise that you will never give away the secrets of my house. And you will have to follow my instructions on this mission. Believe me when I tell you that I have some experience in this matter. We save the world on a daily basis here. You should also know that if you become a threat to those who work here -- or to the existence of my house -- I will have to kill you."
Pete blinked. What the hell was this woman offering him? And when did she stop sounding like him and start sounding more like Moira?
"Your choice, Mr. Wisdom? Otherwise I will have to send my team off on their own."
Pete couldn't imagine how Sally's crew would be more experienced then he was at anything. His ego was also a bit bruised from not being up to Sally's standards. "Since you put it that way--" How often had he said that today? Pete began to disrobe, only to have the nurse plug him with the hyperdermic as soon as his pants were off. At that point he realized she was a natural redhead. The view would have been excellent but he could only think of Kitty.
It was only when the three woman began to giggle that he realized that he had voiced these thought aloud. Pete then fell to the floor in giggles himself while Madison voiced a "Been there, done that. Heck I even wrote the book."
He had never been aroused by such laughter before.
His last memory was of Sally looking down on him, with a smile on her face. She was wielding the antiperspirant roll. It tickled. Pete's faced had blushed crimson, along with other parts of his anatomy.
"Now Mr. Wisdom, that isn't necessary. But it will help to make sure you are completely covered." Sally cracked at her unintended pun.


The hazel eyes were insistent. Especially when attached to a model's olive face. "Drink up. You'll need it."
"Who the flaming hell are you?"
The eyes sighed. "I am Asheley. If we don't hurry we will miss the briefing. Just take your coffee and let's jam."


The briefing was shorter then Pete would have thought.
And it was still way too long for his taste.
A couple, who had apparently been in Otherworld for a few days, explained how they had conned their way into Otherworld by announcing they were from an earth the Majestry had thought extinct. They had then set up a series of hearings, parties and conferences on the matter. (Pete vaguely noted that the guy looked like a picture he had seen of an infamous dead con man known as The Professor. Pete even joked that if they pulled this one off he would like to see the guy set up a con on a bald man of Pete's acquaintance up in Westchester County -- a bald man called The Professor. The other man just smiled and adjusted his clothing.)
[ Author's note: thanks for the idea Luba :) ]
The couple, plus this Asheley, would go back to Otherworld and cause a bit of a ruckus. Pete and Madison would accompany them as part of the couple's entourage but would leave to find Merlyn.
While going over various schematics and plans, Pete cornered Asheley.
"As I was askin' earlier like, who the hell are you?"
Hazel eyes twinkled. "If you were asking Madison she would reply 'an ex-group home kid with a law degree and a serious attitude problem' or that you have 'just messed with the wrong Polish-Cossack-Mongolian bitch."
"I ain't asking her."
"I am just an ex-New York city street kid who used to live in the sewers until I took up Sally's offer to fish me out. I would have left anyway, when the city started to install cameras in the sewer system. Emancipated myself from there."
"Morlock?"
"No way in friggin' hell! They only care about 'their' own! Whenever a three year old or younger was left in Times Square, us kids would set up a relay to get 'em to us before the pimps got him or her. We banded together in the sewers as a source of protection. Do you know how much an hour with a three year old goes for these days?! The morlocks would never bother with anyone 'til a mutation appeared! Usually a visible one... By then it could be too late to save... Callisto's hound wasn't that good. We kept away from the morlocks as much as possible. Otherwise they would want blood. Too bad it was always theirs that got spilt."
"Isn't her Ladyship a pimp?" Pete didn't want to think about what Asheley had purposefully not said.
"Nope. Her Ladyship only takes on people who want to work for her. Puts them on wages without making them take a john they don't want. Oops, a client the artist doesn't want to perform for. And the artists are treated like any other employee. Only better. She runs the only house I would ever work in."
"But you don't?"
"Nope. I am the Assistant District Attorney for a major metropolitan city."
"Eh..." Pete searched for words. "How are you going to help in the distraction?"
"I am a high level telepath... Have been since I was thirteen, right before I got dropped off in Times Square. Helped with the relays. I'll be broadcasting songs in as many wavelengths as possible trying to block communication. Apparently telepathy is a normal thing there."
"What songs?"
"Oh, I don't know the bands or the titles, but one song goes 'walking through Madison I swear I never had a gun/ ain't nobody shot no one' and yada yada yada."
Pete began to concentrate on the meeting. Otherwise, he would have been forced to rethink a great many things.

Before leaving, Pete caught up with Madison. Both were clothed in long grey tunics and greyer cargo pants. Grey combat boots completed the outfit. An onyx earcuff hung on each of their left ears. (A communication system relaying thoughts to Sally and the rest of the group. To be used in dire emergency only. Made Pete wonder what Sally considered an emergency...)
"Other than the jolly hand toys Sally gave us, how we going to take down Merlyn?"
Madison was pocketing objects from what she had previously been wearing. "I bought us some help from the other side." She shoved one such object into his hand.
"IS THIS WHAT I THINK IT IS?" Pete absently recognized the object as something Romany had once longingly described. He had been sure it was some figment of his sister's overeducated imagination.
Madison pulled her hair into a pony tail with an elaborate clip. "It is. Figure you can use it?"
Pete palmed the three-inch-long sheathed dagger. He bounced it back and forth between his hands, testing its weight. An ornate system of symbols covered the thing. The ebony coloring of the metal as well as its unusual handle gave the thing away. In truth the handle looked like the back of some clip earing her Ladyship might wear.
"Will you have the wisdom to use it, either on myself or Merlyn, as it appears necessary?" Madison's brown eyes were going green.
Pete arched an eyebrow. "Oh sure. Give the bitter English sod -- who hates the damn country -- one of the 'daggers of America's wisdom'. Got anything anymore ironic?"
"That you use it only by my permission. I am its usual owner. Besides, it refers to two continents and not a specific country."
"What else do you have? The flamin' key to hell?"
Madison search her former outfit. "Almost forgot them. A set of keys really." Madison looked at Pete's dumbfounded expression as she clipped a key chain to one of her belt loops. "Get over it already! I used to practice some of the more esoteric religions."
"You ain't what you seem."
"And neither are you, you sod. Now let's get back to the others. Time may be standing still... however, I don't know about you, but I will never be any more prepared for this."
*****

"They are all probably dead by now." Pete whispered as Madison and himself separated from the rest of the entourage.
"Only five minutes have gone by since we left my apartment, in 'real time.' But yeah, the meeting seemed to go on forever. It was just short of an hour, relative time. And you were out for another fifteen minutes." Her tone was similar in its quietness.
"You know this Asheley person?" Pete offered his hand.
Madison shrugged. "She dated a friend of mine when I was an undergraduate."
Pete offered his hand again. When Madison backed a few feet away, he found himself shocked. "I ain't gonna hurt you. We gotta keep together, if we lose each other..."

In the background they could both hear Asheley's telepathic voice.
"Independence Day, as sung by Martina McBride. I think." Madison said.
"What are you? A walking reference book?" Pete winced as he paid closer attention to the lyrics. "The 'Independence Day' reference will surely tell 'em something is up."
"Not this time. In the world we came from England was a colony of the Americas. Still painted ourselves blue to go into battle when the Majestry lost track of us."
[Author's note. Reference to Josef Conrad's book Heart of Darkness.]
Pete growled. He really didn't like Americans.
He grabbed Madison's hand and proceeded to drag her through the streets of Otherworld.
Madison tried her best not to snap at the unasked-for contact.
The streets became more and more crowded as the two got closer to the main citadel. Madison had to admit Pete was right about needing to keep contact. She could have easily wandered away from him or visa-versa. Especially when a beautiful blonde elf in a letterman's jacket, complete with the name Samuel embroidered on it, accidentally brushed her. And smiled like all heaven. She tried to swallow the calm that seemed to start at the base of her throat at another unasked-for physical touch. "Tally ho!"