"Well, good luck with that," said Franny before she left the dining hall. To say she wasn't worried about the one that called herself "Kitty" would have been a stretch. The sight of that mop phased unnaturally through Elliot's arms was more than enough to give her pause. A pause is all she would get though. To Franny she was nothing but a small animal trying to make herself look more threatening than she actually was. Not unlike the obnoxious hissing feline she named herself after.
"I'm going to give you," Kitty looked at the alarm clock next to her bed, "One minute, to tell me who you are and what you're doing in here." Hugging Kitty's ceiling in complete darkness, Franny thought herself nearly invisible. The clock face changed. "Every damn year," Kitty looked through a notebook on her bedside table, "Applesauce." Once she uttered the words the room began to lock itself down. Once she was sure the room had completely sealed itself off she turned on the lights.
"How?" asked Franny.
"You, smell, terrible." While Franny sniffed herself Kitty jumped up and phased her hands and feet into the ceiling.
"Well, shit," said Franny, unable to move.
"What are you doing in our room?"
"Our?" Kitty pointed to the other bed covered in pillows.
"Katherine," crackled the hidden speaker.
"I'm fine, Anna's fine too. A student snuck into our room. I'll take care of it." said Kitty.
"Do you still need the panic room up?"
"Yeah leave it up for another hour. I got some mentoring to do."
"Understood."
"Now, what to do with you?" Kitty said looking back up at Franny.
"Where is it?" said Franny.
"Where's what?"
"That thing you took from my body."
"You mean that gross bug leg that was lodged in your side?"
"Yes."
"I don't know anything about it."
"So it's going to be like that."
"Yeah, it is."
"You're hiding something."
"Obviously."
"Why?"
"Cause you're here to learn and gross bug legs is noise you don't need."
"I don't need to die either, but that's already happened hasn't it!" Kitty was taken back.
"Who told you that?"
"Even if I knew why would I tell you?"
"Did he have pink hair?"
"Like I said, I don't know. He said he'd erase himself from my memory after we were done."
"If it's who I think it is I wouldn't trust him. He's kind of a total asshole."
"You're an asshole!" Franny yelled.
"If you think I'm an asshole you would have hated Karma. She'd possess anybody that even slightly raised their voice to her."
"Yes that's very different than what's going on right now."
"Oh it is. It got so bad she had to switch with me."
"Your identity is utterly and completely wrapped up in your gimmick. So much so that without it you're nothing and because of that you feel the need to flex on everything and everyone." Kitty's face turned red. Flustered by the very notion she couldn't decide on which word to land on.
"Okay," Kitty said calmly.
"Okay what?" asked Franny. Kitty yanked on her lure light releasing her from the ceiling. "Hey! I don't care who you are, you don't get to touch that! Wait, what are you doing?" Rolling up her pajama sleeve Kitty plunged her arm down into the mountain of pillows on Anna's bed. She convulsed, but only for a moment while black veins traveled up her arm.
"There," she said, pulling her arm out, "No more gimmicks." Franny looked her over, she was sweating profusely. She gently threw a notepad. It hit Kitty on the shoulder.
"You're baiting me."
"No, go on. I know you want to."
"I don't think they'd look kindly upon me maiming a staff member."
"I'll make an exception."
"That's all good right now, but what about when the walls open up?"
"Hey Tessa."
"Approved," crackled the speaker.
"There, see, no consequences." Franny looked at her trying to gauge how serious she was about this little stunt. She didn't believe for a minute that Kitty had crippled herself as much as she was trying to let on, but still. Franny got close enough to run her claws across Kitty's neck. Just hard enough to draw blood.
"Where is it?" asked Franny. As the words left her mouth Kitty twisted Franny's arm behind her and pressed her against the wall.
"I am part of the X-Men! I was a member of Excalibur! I was a member of S.H.I.E.L.D! I was trained by Wolverine! I am more than qualified to deal with any of you with or without my gifts!" Franny flipped her dangly lure light over her head in front of Kitty's face. The appendage flashed a brief but intense light blinding her. The assault on her eyes was enough to let Franny slip out of the hold and into aggressive posture.
They laid into each other for what must have felt like forever, but in reality was more like fifteen minutes. Franny's experience fighting for survival in the unforgiving sewers of New York made her quite smart about where and when to stick her claws, but Kitty had fought far worse with far less. Only when her own lure light was wrapped around her throat and no air was getting to her lungs did Franny finally stop fighting. Kitty released her right before she passed out.
"So what did we learn?" asked Kitty.
"It's not in here," Franny coughed while untangling her appendage.
"What's not in here?"
"Whatever you pulled out of me isn't in this room." Kitty looked around. All of the furniture had been either clawed open or broken altogether in the fight. Even Anna's side of the room hadn't been spared.
"Fuck"
"You could have just told me where it was."
"No not that." Kitty dug through what was left of Anna's pillow fort. She was gone. "She must have phased through in her sleep."
"She can phase too?"
"No, Anna can use other mutant's gifts. It's a long story that we don't have time to get into. Tessa, open the doors please."
"Well good luck with that."
"Oh no, you're coming with me," Kitty said, putting in an earpiece.
"Okay, why?"
"It's not like a need a reason, but this is all your fault."
"No it isn't and you can't just conscript students randomly."
"As long as it's for safety purposes I can. It's in our bylaws."
"Who's in danger here?"
"Everybody, just come on," she said, grabbing Franny by her forehead light. Kitty pulled a resistant Franny out into the hall and down the stairs until they reached the room right underneath them. The door was already open and the lights were off.
"Stick your head in there and give me a situation report." Franny glared at her.
"You only brought me a flashlight didn't you?"
"That and I'm, like, about to collapse at any moment."
"I am not going in there unless you tell me what Anna's deal is first."
"If you touch her she takes all of your shit and it feels like death."
"Define shit."
"Natural abilities and memories."
"So if I touched her she'd turn blue and grow fingernail claws?"
"If she touched you long enough yes."
"Like forever?"
"No."
"Interesting." Franny turned her head light and looked into the room.
"There's two people in the room. Anna is still asleep and hanging from the ceiling while Yare is stone right now."
"Yare?"
"She's a Morlock. Something shoots out of her skin at night that hardens into a protective shell. Shouldn't you know this?"
"I don't have my list with me." They walked into the room. Anna was gently swinging by one foot still partially phased into the structure.
"How is she still asleep?"
"Heavy sleep aids."
"Because of all the mutants that sneak into your room?"
"Because not all of the memories go away."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"So how do we get her down?"
"Spread a blanket and some pillows on the ground. I'll phase her out of the ceiling and we'll wrap her up. Then we'll call John so he can carry her back up stairs."
"First, who's John?" asked Franny as they prepared.
"He's like me for the men's dorm. He should still be up."
"Second, what's to stop her from phasing through the blanket?"
"Nothing really, but it shouldn't happen again tonight."
"Why shouldn't it happen again?"
"Personal experience."
"Third," Franny said before shoving Kitty's face into a patch of Anna's exposed skin, "Don't ever grab my headlight ever again." Kitty collapsed to the ground unconscious. Franny fished her earpiece out and put it in.
"Tessa is it?" Franny asked.
"Please, call me Sage," said the earpiece.
"Okay, is that supposed to mean anything to me?"
"It should."
"Well it doesn't. So where is it?"
"The sample Kitty so kindly removed from you is in the lab, down here, with me."
"I'd guess it be too much to ask for you to give it back?"
"On the contrary, I'll have it ready for you when you arrive."
"No, I think you're going to bring it to me."
"Oh? Now why would I do that?"
"Because I'll kill Kitty and Anna if you don't."
"Poor Elixir, he's always so busy around this time of year."
"Fine where are you?"
"Just follow the lights." The floor outside the room illuminated with directional lights leading towards the main building. She begrudgingly followed them throughout the mansion, passing some lady with skin issues, down an elevator, and into a dull chrome meeting room. At the head of the table was a woman with short black hair wearing a black uniform and sunglasses. In front of her sat a small box on the table.
"Hello Franny, would you care for a sit?"
"I'll stand."
"As you wish. However, I assure you there are no hidden restraints in these chairs. Nor any comically villainous pit falls, lasers-grids, or swarms of carnivorous robots awaiting in the walls."
"Could have fooled me by the metal walls that come down every once in a while."
"An expensive, but necessary precaution. Student safety is our top priority here. Whether it be from external, or internal threats."
"Is that it on the table?"
"Yes."
"Slide it to me." Sage slid the box across the table towards her.
"What did you do to it?"
"Nothing." Franny opened the box. She had never actually seen it outside her body before.
"How do I know this is real?"
"The fact is, Franny, there is no way for you to tell and there is no way for me to show. Even if we displayed the trace amounts of your own DNA on that thing's carapace you'd believe we put it there to deceive you."
"You people went into my head and fed me lies. I have every right to question everything. There's a chance I'm not even really here talking to you."
"There-"
"There was no power outage was there? You needed to keep everyone dumb and deaf. And when I escaped I saw something I wasn't supposed to. So you killed me, but you knew my disappearance would raise questions. You had to change the narrative."
"There was a perimeter breach. We kept the panic rooms up for the safety of the student body. Actions were taken that caused power interruptions. And when you broke out the intruder found you before we could. Professor Xavier simply didn't want you to be burdened with the knowledge of what death felt like. So, against his own ethics and moral compass he implanted memories that implied otherwise. Just so you'd not have to suffer more than you already have."
"That's the best you can come up with? I know I put you on the spot but, come on."
"Perhaps you need a reminder." Franny's arm fell apart before her into nice little chunks on the floor. She didn't feel anything, but the grotesque display paralyzed her. Before she could even face the door she fell over. Her legs were crushed and ripped apart like hamburger meat. Every second that passed another piece of her fell off in a grizzly fashion until she was hardly more than picked carcass. Then, all at once, she was whole again. Gasping for breath.
"He did his best to paint over the scars, but there are some things the body doesn't forget," said Sage. Franny slowly picked herself off the ground without a word. "A bit of sage advice," she said chuckling to herself, "This is a school. Learn to learn." Franny nodded. "Is there anything else I can do for you Franny?" She shook her head. "Well then, report to Kathrine in the morning for your course corrective instructions. In the future if you have any similar concerns please consider making an appointment with me instead of assaulting our staff.
With the sample in hand Franny walked back to the dorm without argument. It was a more surreal experience than usual for her. She was now a jigsaw puzzle with an awareness of how every piece fit together. Every step carried with it the feeling that an imaginary seam was going to break.
She was instantly noticed when she entered the room. The room she was reassigned to already had three other occupants settling down for the night and they were not yet acquainted with her or her natural aroma. "Hey, can we help you?" asked the girl with antlers sitting cross-legged on a bed.
"Dude, I don't want to be mean, but you're burning my eyes right now with that smell," said the blue haired girl standing in the middle of the room with sleek metal gauntlets.
"Where do I sleep?" asked Franny seeing that the other bed was occupied by another girl. She had long blond hair with a horizontal black stripe right above the shoulders and smiled with great interest at the situation unfolding.
"Not in here." Franny pushed past her, grabbed a blanket, and crawled underneath the bed. The blue haired girl adjusted a dial on her gauntlet emitting a low hum. She only touched the metal bed frame for a second but it was enough to make the entire bed jump with surprised shriek. Franny crawled back out from under the bed. "Do not do that again," said Fanny standing back up.
"That was a low setting. If you don't leave I'm going to turn this bad boy up." Franny swiftly swung her arm above her head. The claws were out and tiny lines of red were forming on the blue haired girl's face.
"Really not in the mood for this." The blue haired girl turned the dial up creating a louder hum. Franny popped the rest of her claws and sized up which vein to sever. The silent smiling girl hopped up off the bed. Great orbs of fire flared above her hands with an intensity only matched by her own. It caught the other two off guard so much that they forgot each other and only knew of the flickering flames before them.
The fire alarm sounded. Water spewed from the ceiling as the sprinkler systems answered the call. The girl with the blue hair turned down the dial. "Hold on," said the elemental girl. She raised her arms into the air forcing all the water in the room towards the ceiling. Even as more water filled the room it was now only filled from the ceiling down. "There," she said as flames manifested above her hands once again.
"You triggered the fire you dumb bitch! We have to leave the building now," said the blue haired girl.
"Right…that's a thing here." said the elemental.
"Franny," said the earpiece still in Franny's ear. She turned around while the others were talking.
"It wasn't me."
"I'm sadly aware of the situation."
"Can you turn the fire alarm off?"
"No, and to complicate the matter further the local fire department has been dispatched to our location."
"So?"
"This has the potential to be a volatile situation."
"Well, once again, good luck with that."
"Grab something to write with and write on. When everybody evacuates to the designated meeting area get everybody's names and feed them back to me."
"No,"
"Oh?"
"I don't, I feel."
"Vulnerable?"
"Comparable."
"I understand, the burden of taking names is a heavy one. It was wrong of me to ask. Please return the earpiece to its original owner. I'm sure she'll manage despite the circumstances."
"Isn't there anybody else that can do this?"
"Many of the staff and faculty are out on deployment, the ones that are here are preparing for the worst."
"Fine, but for the record I think you're freaking out over nothing."
"Noted, since you will be operating on behalf of Xavier's school for gifted youngsters I need to give you an official designation to use on this channel."
"Sure."
"I will refer to you as Glow-stick moving forward."
"No you won't. That's a stupid name."
"Your complaint is noted, good luck Glow-stick." Franny groaned while turning around to address her roommates. Only the girl with the antlers was left in the room. The others had already left.
"I guess we should go too."
"I'm not going outside," said the antlered girl.
"You have to. This is apparently a volatile situation."
"If I go outside they'll find me."
"Who?"
"The animals."
"I think you're safe from a couple of squirrels and the odd deer."
"And birds."
"Okay, birds too I guess."
"And fish."
"You're right, there's a lot of different fauna in the woods."
"And frogs." Franny cut her cheek. "Ow."
"I have zero patience for this crap. Go outside."
The orientation had covered this. In the event of a fire follow the lights to the basketball court behind the mansion. There they would confirm everybody was safe and wait out the event in whatever direction it took. Franny found it to be one of the more interesting parts of the long dry presentation. The Morlocks had nothing like this in their society and before she was only able to observe, from the outside, how the surface dealt with such an ordeal. Which is why she was so mad to find that not as many of her peers here listened to it. Knowing she'd probably be told to go back for them she used her own special brand of negative reinforcement to herd the straying crowd to where they needed to go.
"Everybody shut the fuck up and listen!" Franny yelled from atop a basketball goal, "I don't care that you're cold! I don't care that you're tired! I don't care if you're some antler girl named Lin that various animals keep trying to drag into the woods. It's the sketchiest shit I've ever seen. I'm not sure what's up with that but the fire seems to be helping. Good job Crystal."
"You're welcome!" said the elemental.
"So we're going to do this again! When I point to you, tell me your name, and then move to the other side of the court. You'd think this would be simple stuff, but here we are three tries in with three different lists of names! I think some of you are just making up names at this point. So we're going to do this one last time and whatever name you give me is who you're going to be from now on! If I learn that you go under another name then one you gave me after today and shatter my fragile little world I will consume you to protect my sanity!" With her motivational words still ringing in their tired ears they went through one more headcount.
"Sage did you get all that!?" asked Franny.
"You're missing four people."
"Give me names!"
"Elizabeth Danvers, Paige Guthrie, Kenna Knox, and Layla Miller."
"Does anybody know where Elizabeth Danvers, Paige Guthrie, Kenna Knox, or Layla Miller is!?" Franny yelled to the crowd.
"Um, I know where Kenna and Elizabeth is, sort of," said Ellie meekly. Franny jumped down to her.
"Where!?" she asked, grabbing her shoulders.
"They're in Elliot's room!"
"Did you get that Sage?"
"I'm not seeing them there," said Sage.
"Are you sure!?" Franny asked Ellie.
"Yes! I sent them there!" said Ellie.
"What!?"
"I'm a portal!"
"What?"
"Why do I keep telling people that!?"
"Where's Elliot's room!?"
"I don't know! Please don't use me!"
"Ugh! Everybody stay here for a hot minute! Crystal if they move light them on fire." Franny backed up and pulled up her shirt. With a low grunt great shimmering dragonfly like wings sprouted from her back. They flapped with greater and greater intensity until she flew into the night with all the grace and majesty of a fuming firefly. The crowd looked back towards the elemental who simply stood there with fireball in hand.
Franny knocked on the window. She had been crawling around the outside of the men's dorms confidently shining her light into every room with little regard as to who saw her until she spotted Elliot cleaning debris off the floor. He was not pleased to see her either.
"Open the window," said Franny. Elliot shook his head. Franny pressed her claws into the glass. "Open the window, now."
"What do you even want!?"
"Where are they?"
"Who!?"
"The mouthy girl and some other girl."
"John took Elizabeth to the airport! I don't know where Kenna is!"
"Explain."
"John thought Elizabeth was Chu Chu's brother that snuck into see him so he drove him back to the airport! Kenna just kind of disappeared."
"Explain better."
"She was pulled into a fake wall and when the wall was opened up she was gone!"
"Gone?"
"Gone!"
"In the wall."
"Yes!"
"Kitty."
"Kitty?"
"Kitty!" yelled Franny spiraling back into the air.
Kitty was not passed out on the floor where she left her. Neither was Anna still hanging from the ceiling from her leg. The alarm was off and an eerie silence replaced what had been a vocal building. Even her breath seemed too loud for the occasion.
"Sage?" asked Franny.
"Glow-stick," said Sage.
"Where's Kitty?"
"I lost track of her after she disappeared into the structure."
"Yay."
"I fear she may not have a full understanding of the situation."
"I think she's using Kenna as bait, although I don't see her anywhere."
"Unlikely, Shadow-cat has never been observed using people, let alone students, as bait."
"Who?"
"Shadow-cat."
"Wait, 'Kitty' isn't her operational designation?"
"No?" Franny burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. "This is neither the time nor the place."
"I just assumed after you gave me 'Glow-stick' that she was given 'Kitty' and it just stuck somehow. But here I am, twitching in fear, afraid that someone who calls herself 'Kitty' is going to get me." said Franny wiping a tear from her eye.
Kitty wrapped her fingers around Franny's ankle.