A few minutes later, Kitty had resumed her stroll down the alley. The tracker indicated that Peter had moved, but not so far that she needed to change course. It was still worthwhile to stay in the alley for several blocks, until the tracker indicated that she was even with his position and needed to cut over.
She reported in, but Scott answered this time instead of Mr. Logan. She gave him the information about the fleabag hotel.
“Good work, Kitty,” Scott said. “We have him under surveillance right now, but knowing his permanent location will be a big help if he gives us the slip. We should be able to pick him up again.”
“You know where he is?” Kitty asked. “Should I like follow the tracker? Does it have his current location?”
“It does now. The location was off a little because he moved after the last time he used his powers. But we updated it manually when we found him. He’s in a titty bar called the Candy Store. Jean and Logan are already inside, but I was waiting for you. It’s hard to communicate from the inside because of the noise level.”
“A titty bar? What the hell kind of Magneto business would be going on in a place like that?”
“If we knew, we wouldn’t be following him. He appears to be watching the show, even tipping the dancers. We assume he’s waiting to meet someone and is putting on a show, acting like a typical drunken pussy hound. Logan is at a table on the other side of the place. Jean is pretending to be a waitress or something.”
“What do I do? Nobody’s gonna let me in a place like that, not at my age.”
“Not if you go in through a door. Jean says that the women’s dressing room is in the northeast corner of the building. Just go through the wall and see if you can find a waitress uniform your size. With the crummy lighting in places like that, you should be able to get away with it. But keep your distance from Rasputin, though. He knows you.” He gave her the street address. “I’m going inside now. Are you set?”
“Got it. See you inside.”
A short time later Kitty was standing in front of the Candy Store. It didn’t look quite as dumpy as she expected. After getting her bearings, she found the designated corner. She took a quick look around, then closed her eyes, whipped off her sunglasses, and stuck her head through the wall. There were a couple of women in the dressing room, but they weren’t looking her way. She noted the elevation of the floor and quickly phased the rest of the way into the room…
Kitty started into the bathroom to figure out what to do next, but as she did the two women finished what they were doing and left the room. So Kitty immediately started rummaging though the lockers. Some were unlocked, some she had to phase into. Unfortunately, the few waitress uniforms she found were nowhere near her size. Now what?
Kitty hurriedly moved away from the lockers when she heard footsteps at the door. She pretended to be checking her makeup. A couple of women entered, a waitress and a dancer. Kitty did a double take. The waitress was close to her size! If her shift was over, Kitty had a uniform.
Unfortunately, the waitress merely went into the bathroom. She appeared a few minutes later and went directly toward the door, preparing to return to the floor. Kitty decided to act. She followed the young woman and snuck up behind her. Then all in one motion, she phased the woman’s uniform off and dropped through the floor. Kitty travelled underneath the floor, still in a phased state. She had developed a pretty good sense of spatial orientation, a necessity for someone with her power, so she knew exactly where the bathroom was. When she reached it, she came up out of the floor, dephased, and dived into a stall.
As Kitty had expected, there was quite a commotion in the dressing room. The woman wasn’t quite hysterical, but she was close to it. She was trying to explain to someone how her clothes had simply disappeared in an instant. Oh, calm down, honey, Kitty thought with amusement. I left you the underwear.
Kitty dressed as fast as possible. There was no reason to immediately associate what happened with someone in the bathroom, at the opposite end of the dressing room, but her victim might insist on a search. On the other hand, it sounded like she was having a hard time getting people to believe her. Judging by the comments Kitty overheard, the waitress had a history of drug use and bizarre behavior. So they apparently thought she had hallucinated the whole thing and had misplaced the uniform herself.
Kitty finished dressing, went to the wall opposite the door, stashed her own clothes inside it, and continued on through. When her eyes adjusted, she found herself out in the main room. Apparently she had just walked through a table up against the wall, but the guys sitting there were too drunk to notice. She started moving around the tables, not having a clue what she was supposed to do. She had never been in a place like this before.
She watched the other waitresses and mimicked their movements. They all had trays, so she quickly hunted one down. She started picking up empty bottles from tables, which was a waitress function she had observed that was far simpler than bringing out drinks, especially since she had no idea how the payment system worked.
After a few minutes, she realized that there were no set tables for the waitresses. All of them roamed the entire place, competing for the business. That made it easier for her, because she could stay in motion and not really do anything. For protective coloration, she started asking guys what they would like to have, with no intention of actually getting it. With all the waitresses cruising around, they probably wouldn’t remember which one she was, and complaints wouldn’t get her fired from a job she didn’t have in the first place.
Kitty saw Scott at a table and went over to him. “What would you like to drink, honey?” she asked loudly.
Scott grinned. “What have you got?”
“Beats the shit out of me.”
“Have a seat, Kitty.”
“Won’t I, like, get yelled at if I do that?”
“Not if I buy you drinks. It’s mostly dancers sitting with the customers, but I’ve seen a couple of waitresses get invited to do it too. I imagine they’ll let the bouncer sit with me if I keep buying drinks.”
Kitty sat down at Scott’s table, giggling. “Are you, like, going to do that? I think he’s so your type. So where is everybody? I’m been working so hard at trying to disappear that I forgot to look for Peter.”
“He’s over there,” Scott said, pointing with his hand flat on the table. “And there’s Logan.”
“So where’s Jean? You said she was a waitress too, but I haven’t seen her.”
“Actually, I said she was a waitress or something. You aren’t looking in the right place. She’s on stage.”
Kitty was stunned. “Huh? She’s pretending to be a dancer?” Sure enough, there Jean was, topless and shaking the goodies. “Well, she sure has the body for it.”
“It’s a great cover. Rasputin would never dream of being spied on by a topless dancer. He even gave her a tip. If he asks for a lap dance, you can’t get closer surveillance than that.”
“I’m glad Peter’s having a good time,” Kitty said, “but has anyone tried to contact him yet?”
“No one’s come near him, other than waitresses and dancers. Jean’s been screening them mentally, so we don’t think there are any mutants pretending to work here. Well, besides us. We can’t figure out what he’s doing here, other than just boozing and looking at titties.”
Almost as if Colossus could hear him, the big guy suddenly stood up and left his table. Four pairs of eyes watched him cross the room.
“He could be going to the bathroom,” Kitty said.
Colossus made his way through the tables and out the front door. “Not unless it’s an outhouse. Kitty, go after him. Phase out the side of the building so that he won’t see you come out the door after him.”
“I have to change.”
“No time. Get a line on him and we can take over. Then you can come back for your clothes later. Jean has to change. She can’t go outside like that.”
Kitty hurried across the bar, made her way to the right wall, and charged through it. Right into Peter.
In fact, she not only ran into Peter, but through him. Whenever phasing though a wall, she always held the phase until she knew what was on the other side. In this case, Peter was the unexpected object, and by the time she realized he was there, she was already on the other side of him, having passed directly through his body. She whirled, to find him looking at her in astonishment. He turned back to the wall, verifying the absence of a door. Then he looked at her again. “Kitty?”
Kitty was overcome with panic. “No, no! My name is, uh, Jennifer!”
He blinked. “Another girl who looks like Kitty and also walks through walls? Is amazing coincidence.”
Kitty wasn’t very good at improvisation, but she tried. “Okay, yeah, I’m Kitty. I’m just trying to, y’know, keep a low profile after I ran away from the Institute and went out on my own.”
“Thought you were happy there.” He noticed her waitress uniform. “Why are you working in place of titties? They allow someone your age do this?”
“I had to work somewhere. I lied about my age. And I like looking at titties too.” God, Kitty thought, could this get any more lame? She tried to get the subject off her. “Why are you here? I didn’t think Magneto allowed his guys any R and R.”
His jaw set. “Am no longer caring what Magneto is wanting.”
Kitty was startled by that admission. “Really? Can you afford to defy him with your family still in danger?”
A look of infinite pain appeared on his face. “Family is dead.”
Now it was Kitty’s turn to be shocked. “What?” She placed a hand on his arm. “Oh, Peter, I am so sorry. I knew Magneto was threatening them, but I never thought he would really go through with it.”
“Was not Magneto. Automobile accident.”
“Oh. Damn, I can’t imagine what that feels like. How are you holding up?”
“Not well. Much vodka. Many visits to titty places.”
“Well, whatever it takes to get your mind off it, I guess.” Something else occurred to her. “Wait a minute. Bad as this is, it means Magneto no longer has a hold on you.”
“This is true. No longer doing his dirty work. Would pay him back for slavery, but metal man cannot go up against master of magnets. Cannot get through remaining bodyguards to use fists of flesh. Should have finished him off in pyramid when I had chance, but needed him in fight with Apocalypse.”
“I know how you can get back at him,” Kitty said suddenly. “Tell us everything you know about him.”
“Us?” Rasputin echoed. “Who is ‘us’? You are no longer X-Man.”
“Forget about what I said before. It was all bullshit. I am here with some of the others and we have been tracking you to get information on Magneto. Since you are not under his control any more, and don’t like him anyway, why not tell us everything you know?”
He thought about it. “All right. Information is stale, though. Has been two months since death of family and leaving of Magneto.”
“Well, stale is better than none. We’ll take what we can get.” She paused for a second, remembering something else. “If you were just hanging out in bars, why were you using your powers? That’s how we were able to track you, using Cerebro.”
“Some men in bar wish to fight instead of looking at titties. Metal jaw discourages this.”
Kitty suddenly heard Jean’s angry voice in her head. “Kitty, what in the bubonic HELL do you think you are you doing? You’re supposed to be following him, not having a reunion. What kind of surveillance is this?” Kitty looked around, but didn’t see Jean. She was probably just around the corner.
“It’s okay, Jean,” she responded mentally. “True, I accidentally fucked up the mission, but it was fucked up anyway. We were just wasting our time following him around.” She quickly explained the situation, holding up a finger so Peter wouldn’t wonder why she was suddenly ignoring him. “Why don’t you come over here and join us? Not the guys, though. Especially not Wolverine, after the fights he has had with Peter. We need to talk without testosterone, like, clouding the issue.”
Jean came around the corner and joined the two mutants. “Hello, Peter,” she said. “Is it true? You are no longer with Magneto and will tell us what you can about him?”
“Da. Yes. Will tell what I know.”
“Fan-fucking-tastic. Well, let’s not do it here on the sidewalk.”
“We go to my room. Is dungheap, but private.”
“For even more privacy, you could come with us to the X-Jet. Better yet, come back to New England with us and let the Professor talk to you. We can do a really in-depth debriefing, a couple of days worth. Any info you have is valuable.”
“Is fine to visit Mansion, as long as vodka places can be found in vicinity.”
Kitty spoke up. “You really don’t need stuff like that if you have friends to help you through your suffering.”
Rasputin looked at her sadly. “Don’t have friends.”
“Sure you do, big guy. I’m your friend. After the debriefing is over, why don’t you stay on at the Mansion? Become an X-Man? Despite working for Magneto, you really are a good guy and, like, nobody can deny your power. You’d be a hell of an addition to the team.”
“This is allowed? After the many times I fight X-Men?”
“That decision would be up to the Professor,” Jean said, “but he almost never turns mutants away. And it’s not as if you were fighting us because you wanted to. He would probably need to probe your mind, though, to make sure this isn’t some sort of Magneto trick.”
“Understand. Do not fear the probing. My words are truth.”
“Speaking of that, I really ought to do a preliminary probe now, before we take you back on the Blackbird. Just to be safe. The Professor can do one in depth at the Mansion. Do you mind?”
He hesitated slightly, then said, “Is fine.”
Jean touched her palm on the big man’s temple and concentrated. After a few minutes, she reported, “as far as I can tell, he is being honest with us. Let’s get the others and take our new team member home.”
to be continued…
Author is Jackrabbit
Why not let us know what you think by adding your own comment! Your opinion is as valid as anyone elses, so come on... let us know what you think.
M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
« Aug | Oct » | |||||
1 | 2 | |||||
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 |
17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 |
24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
resouces stuff:
Resources…
resources…
posted on March 30th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Anna:
hmm, im surprised, no sex act? and ew! what a whore jean grey is.
posted on June 22nd, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Andrew:
Hey Anna a cover is a cover just cause she was shaking her tit’s doesn’t mean she’s a whore if you had to do the same thing if you were a undercover cop would you like being called a whore by some random stranger? Also great story I’m looking forward to more.
posted on February 4th, 2014 at 8:39 pm