will1@earthling.net Wave Arc: Catfishing by Phil Hartman DISCLAIMER: Most are Marvel's. Some are mine. No money is being made off of this. Etc. NOTE: Alternate timeline ... -------------------------------------------------------- 9/19/2003: Xavier Institute for Paragenetic Studies, Salem Center, Westchester County, N.Y.: 11:00 hrs EDT: -------------------------------------------------------- The group hugs and the laughter - and a few of the tears - are over. It's just me, in a spare bedroom, reflecting on the expanse of years between where I was and where I am. My pet dragon Lockheed's curled up on the desk - standardized dorm room furniture, since there's a new class of New Mutants here, and isn't THAT a reminder that I've grown up ? - while my suitcase is tossed under the bed and my clothes in various areas of the closet. Background: Katherine Pryde, 29, Jewish ex-suburban-Chicagoite, mutant phaser, possibly enhanced intellect, ninja/computer goddess, and for the past five years, on a sabattical among the x-factor-less masses. Yikes. That last part sounded so ... elitist. Did I channel my teenage self for a second or what ? I was a snot, sometimes, back then. Back when the world was a lot safer. The "mutant phaser" thing was what started me down this road. After a run-in with the Hellfire Club's White Queen in 1988, I joined the X-Men, and embarked on a four-year tour of the big show behind the curtain of everyday life. I fought alien bugs, helped save the world a few times, found (and lost) love, and eventually almost died. If it hadn't been for my teammates - and the world's youngest psychotherapist, and still my friend, Frank Richards - I would've gone out a window in Latveria and discorporated. That was the big turning point, back in 1992. I literally got myself together, helped my friend Kurt Wagner recover from his injuries ... ... and watched the X-Men apparently die in a battle in Dallas, saving the world. It's funny, how being 18 and suddenly orphaned can just tear the hell out of you. The sad thing is, my biological parents were still alive, but I really couldn't talk to them. I dealt with it - a lot of crying with Lockheed, and Kurt and his girlfriend, Amanda Sefton. Eventually we formed the core of the first European mutant hero team, Excalibur. I made new friends, started going to college, and helped save the world a few more times. Then, in 1994, the X-Men returned, and I got the hell torn out of me AGAIN - how dare they play with us like that, I raged. I wanted answers. I got contrition, and over a tear-stained lunch in London's East End, Ororo Munroe and I made up. By then, though, I'd started to get support from another source. Pete Wisdom was ... everything Piotr Rasputin hadn't been. Loud, brash, beer-swilling, arrogant, and apparently my solution. That was 1994. 1998 tore the hell out of me again. Is it easy, to watch someone you love really, truly die ? I mean, not from something comprehensible, like an illness or a traffic accident, but just because of hatred and bigotry ? It was Black Air; Pete had been working on some kind of black op for the British government when his ex-employers decided they didn't like his independence. The bubbly, hopeful, dreaming "Kitty" everyone had become accustomed to - the computer genius who could save the world and reboot a fried greenscreen at the same time - died with Pete. The funeral was in London. Most of the attendees were Pete's "Bond buddies," as he called them. Of course, Excalibur were there, as were a lot of the X-Men. I was touched, really. But I couldn't go back. Not to Excalibur, or the X-Men, or anyone whose team name included the letter X. The price had been too high, this time. So, I traipsed back to Deerfield, seeking comfort in the arms of parents who I barely knew anymore. Dad was wonderful - accepting, understanding. He made every effort to try and wrap his head around the weirdness that my life had become. As for Mom ... Theresa Pryde lives for her circle of Gold Coast power-friends. When I finally told her I was a mutant, it wasn't pretty. Even though 1998 was the year of the Paragenetic Equal Rights Act's signing, and being a mutant was no longer a genetic faux pas, Mom was still ashamed. She actually asked me if there was some way I could "stop being a mutant." Sure, Mother. I enjoy the thought of risking the unravelling of my genetic code just so you can pretend to be normal. I tore into her verbally, then just got vicious when she tried to give me grief for standing up to her. I haven't spoken to her in five years. Ororo Munroe is a hell of a sight better than Theresa Pryde when the chips are down. At least Ororo can admit her mistakes, and try to change. After the fallout from the Great Mother Disowning settled, I hit the University of Chicago. Things started to work out, but even though I didn't have to hide my mutancy, I still didn't advertise it. College campuses aren't nearly as insulated as certain snooty politicos like to think. Old-fashioned bigotry can flourish just as well in "liberal bastions" as anywhere else. The PERA was accepted by some, but there was an undercurrent of paranoia beneath the nice signs and the slogans. Humanity is afraid. They're afraid that the PERA is the first step towards mutant dominion of the country - not through old-fashioned supervillainous conquest, but "subtly," "sneakily." You'd think there are mutants hiding in every bush, waiting to leap out with focus groups and lobbyists. (That's Washington, people, not the Windy City.) I stood up for mutantkind, even if I didn't have the guts to phase through something and show the Purity losers just exactly what they were dealing with. It got ugly sometimes, but after Purity were finally ID'd as the jerks who messed with that particle accelerator, things got pretty evened out pretty quickly. Being a physics undergrad by day and a bartender by night was pretty cool, too. The Bells of Hell was a great place to get a feel for everyday life again, and Dylan Maguire taught me how to listen. The first two years were almost too good. Then, 2000 came along, and the mutant hit the fan, so to speak. You have to understand, Chicagoans love underdogs So when a group of six relatively unknown mutant hero wanna-bes approached City Hall to ask if they could serve as "municipal defenders," the public ate it up. I almost fell over when I saw Mimic on WGN seriously talking about leading the "Exiles" to protect Chi-town. Think about it. Here you had six - to be nice about it - second-string mutants, led by a power replicator of all people, defending Chicago. If there was ever an X-person version of the minor leagues, this was it (X-Force doesn't count; they took out Genosha' fascist dictatorship, not minor-league by any measure). But you know something ? Cal's leadership, Blink's exuberance, TJ's attitude, T-Bird's rock-solid dependability, Mariko's "edginess," and Morph's wackiness caught on in my hometown. Chicago had its own superheroes, who quickly became the Midwest's heroes. (DON'T ask about the Great Lakes Avengers. Trust me. It's not worth it.) Of course, there was the inevitable "Oh, wow, Kitty, it's YOU !" run-in. It's all well and good when you're e-mailing the old crowd, keeping in touch with your friends, and they're half a continent away (I wasn't about to abandon Rachel, and I couldn't shut out the others). I hadn't told many people where I'd settled, and certainly not the Exiles. But when you've created a "normal" life for yourself, and the whole X-person persona has been gathering dust, it's a little hard to explain to your human friends just how you're on a first-name basis with Chicago's hometown superheroes. I confessed all to Dylan, who was understandably pissed at first. But he was really understanding - he was amused after a few hours at all of the "weird coincidences" he could explain now - and we moved on. As for the Exiles' "recruitment drive" - well, I wasn't ready yet to deal with the superhero biz. That took another three years. Some of the other X-Men asked me, when I walked in the front door this morning, what motivated me to come "home" again. Obviously, there wasn't an epiphany. I didn't just wake up yesterday and decide that "Gosh, I've been normal for too long, it's time to go back to the X-Men." Part of it was, trite as it sounds, the healing process. I needed to bury Pete emotionally, and Chicago seemed like a good place to do that. Listening to "ordinary" people, people like Pete, helped me to face my loss, and to get on with the everyday things. I'll never completely let go of him, but I've never completely let go of Piotr, either. The difference between Pete and Piotr is that Piotr left because he had a responsibility to someone who needed him more than me. He's done a great job with Peter Jr. Piotr grieved the end of our relationship just as much as I did. He had to face the consequences of what happened between him and Nereel. That, I could grow to understand and forgive. Pete's death destroyed my old self, forever. How does a person "understand" the slaughter of the person closest to them, for no other reason that a bunch of shady characters hated the victim ? The other reason why I stayed away from Salem Center for so long is because I needed to connect with my adult self. Let's be honest - this mansion is a great place for mutant teens who need structure and support to deal with their powers. But I wasn't the gawky, frightened-yet-daring kid who walked into Emma Frost's warehouse all those years ago, anymore. When Pete died, there wasn't any way that the Professor or Ororo or the others could help me put myself back together. They wanted to minister to Kitty, and she was gone. The person who emerged from Pete Wisdom's annihilation is Kate Pryde. I'm a little wiser, a little more cynical, but not as sad. And as Kate Pryde arrived, she missed her family badly. Lockheed was there for me all the time, and if I really needed an emergency shoulder, Dylan, Mariko or TJ were just a phone call away. But there were things during the past five years that I wish I'd shared with Ororo or Logan or Jean. So, three weeks ago, I gave Dylan my two weeks notice, wrapped up the bills, sold what I couldn't put in a suitcase, and decided to shock the X-folk once again. The Professor and I decided that the New Mutants could use a physical science teacher, and I can help take the load of phys ed classes off of Hank and Logan. Besides, Illyana's got her powers now, and she'll need help with her past. The Soulsword is in Amanda's vault on Muir Island, so maybe it won't be an issue. At least not for a long time. Illyana deserves her innocence this time around. Trust me, most of us don't get second chances at it. -------------------------------------------------------- finis ... --------------------------------------------------------