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[prydeful]

[OOM: A...not that long time ago, relatively speaking, in a boarding school near Westchester, NY...]

So, see, here's the thing: when you travel via a trip to a demonic hell dimension, fondly known as Limbo, you sooometimes have a little bit of problems with things like "time" and "space" when you exit said demonic hell dimension. (There may be non-demonic ones. After you see enough, you learn to not count anything out.)

Even if one is travelling with one's best friend, who happens to be the current Sorceress Supreme and ruler of said hell dimension.

Possibly especially when you're both 14.

"--Excuse me, Miss, 'I let my critters do the dishes for me, even if they set the table with everything covered in pentagrams'? You do not get to tell me that I don't have a sense of style," Kitty Pryde says haughtily, and then blinks once.

And twice.

"...Dammit, Yana! You don't get to drive any more, either, and you can explain to Stevie why we're God knows where instead of ballet practice. ...And to Xavier."

Despite that, the girl is looking about with true curiosity in between glaring at her blonde companion.

...Admittedly, most of the attention is on curiosity, if not that much surprise. You share a house with a woman who throws lightning bolts when pissed and a guy with claws in his hands, you learn to roll with the punches.

Comments

[sorceressupreme]

"This isn't Limbo."

Or her fault. Somehow.

Illyana was glaring about as well as she was being given, except for that not-so-much-just-an-inkling feeling that her powers constantly liked to not work in the way she thought they should or would.

[prydeful]

"No, really? Cause I thought you'd just gone through and redecorated."

Kitty's eyebrow goes up as she takes in the room, and the bar. Notably the bar.

"Possibly on Logan's advice."

[sorceressupreme]

Illyana stuck her tongue out, before turning back to looking at the place with a frown. "You should love it then."

It wasn't demonic. At least not the same way Limbo was. It didn't make her feel calm and centered the way the hellish realm did.

"Whatever it is."

Beat.

"It doesn't matter."

A stepping disc appeared, flash bright and wide around them. The girls vanished only to reappear a second later, with Illyana scowling even more now.

[prydeful]

"I have better taste than Logan," she mumbles.

SO TRUE.

...They are still in a bar.

The bar, in fact, not a different bar, which at least would mean they had gone somewhere.

Nope. Not so much. See that look Kitty's giving Illyana? It says, "We have no gone anywhere, oh roomie of mine, and I am being Silent on that topic just for the moment as I think of all the things I will say to you."

"Illyana," in a calm voice, is apparently the first of them.

"Why are we still here?"

[sorceressupreme]

Her hands settled on her hips, fingertips twitching at the hem of her clothing.

"We should to be-"

Blink. They vanished and appeared in the same place again.

"-in Limbo now. Maybe-" she muttered. Then the disc appeared again, and they shifted places. They were suddenly over by the long wooden bar.

At least her powers weren't entirely wonky.

She had managed to just cross the room when she wanted.

[prydeful]

"Illyana Nikolievna Rasputina, will you stop showing the entire room that you're not just a normal ballet student?!" she proceeds to shriek in Russian, while mentally swearing in many, many different languages.

Some of them not native to Earth.

"Oh my God, your brother will kill me if we end up being chased by mutant haters. This will not help with the fact that he's terrified to kiss me with Wolverine in the room, and next time there's a chance he'll just glare at me because I brought his little sister home with mutant-haters on her heels, and I can only focus on so much with him at once!"

Stupid Piotr. Stupid "noble" nature. Stupid foster-father with claws. Stupid 14.

Stupid bar.

Breathe, Kitty. Breathe. She listens to her inner voice, which sounds something like Storm's, and does just that for a minute.

And re-evaluates what she just said.

"...TMI?"

[sorceressupreme]

She's stuck.

Stuck, Kitty. Stuck, in a place she can't move from. Stuck, in a place she can't use a stepping disc to get out of. Even Limbo did not do that to her after she'd figured out her ability.

Stuck.

Really stuck.

And right now she is contemplating destroying that chair two feet from them. In the necessity to figure out what else does and doesn't work and--


Illyana blinked. Her eyebrows raised and pinched in the center. It takes effort not to scream back, because that wasn't even important.

(And it was annoying.

And maybe it smarts a little. In some hidden place.)

[prydeful]

"...Ah," says Kitty, who is Illyana's best friend for a reason. Well, many. Some of them related to protection and guilt issues, since Kitty was the one who let Illyana's hand drop, but that's one of the many, many things we don't talk about here in the Family of X.

Instead she idly realizes that she really rather wants to punch her own hand through the wall, and not in the phasing sort of way, but that's the little voice in the back of her head that she is very good at not listening to and mostly joking about. Because it's not a good thing to want, and certainly not something she'd ever actually do.

Right. Now is the time for Best Friend Powers to Activate.




"...We could try phasing," she murmurs, still in Russian and impressed by the fact that most people aren't, actually, looking surprised by either the shrieking or the teleporting.

...Impressed, yes, also worried.

[sorceressupreme]

"Okay." Illyana nodded, reaching out and linked her arm with Kitty's.

Probably only finally beginning to see the sense in the fact she shouldn't have teleported around the place so frantically.

This doesn't stop her wanting to spell the chair into a million pieces.

[stilljustandrew]

There's a guy watching them surreptitiously from the bar.

The look on his face is a lot like the one in the icon, at least to begin with.

[prydeful]

And she would have.

Except she is a student of Wolverine, who at this point in her training has taught her 1) how to break someone's nose with the palm of her hand, 2) how to be sneaky, if not yet ninja-sneaking, and 3) how to be aware when someone's watching her.

The whole "lots of people try to kill her regularly" thing helps with that too.

So when she notices that the one guy has glanced at them repeatedly, she smiles as cheerfully as she can, pinches Yana's arm and mutters out of the cornero f her mouth, "Demon sorceress mode off, teen girl mode on," and tugs her friend's elbow as she walks towards him.

"Hi!" ...Wolverine's always threatening at this point. It doesn't require as much conversation as Kitty is starting to realize she'll need.

"Um. We're a little lost." Bright smile. "Do you think you could help us?"

[stilljustandrew]

He's almost sure he recognizes them. Almost sure.

"Hi," he says cheerfully. "No problem, people are always a bit --" Andrew wobbles his hand side to side, indicating confusion -- "when they first show up here. Um, this is your first time here?"

[sorceressupreme]

The pinch gets a furtive look, along with the words. Thanks, Katya. Cause she does so much better with trying to pretend she's just a fourteen years old girl.

Stupid, stupid, stupid bar that has her stuck.

(The thought does cross her mind that she should be grateful that Kitty is here with her. Except the last time she was stuck somewhere with a version of Kitty.....)

Illyana answers the question with the obvious question.

"Where is here?"

[prydeful]

(Some thoughts do not need to be indulged. Ever. Even in therapy. Even in really good therapy.)

"And," she says politely, with a slight sideways glare at Yana, "who're you, please?"

See, Snowflake? Please! Thank you! Wonderful words!

...It is possibly good that Kitty is not a telepath. In many, many senses.

[stilljustandrew]

"I'm Andrew," he says. "Wells. And this --" a sweeping gesture taking in the entire room -- "is Milliways, the bar at the end of the multiverse. Can I ask your names?"

[sorceressupreme]

Asking for normal was mean enough. Wanting polite, is just cruel. Illyana resisted the urge to roll her eyes and the one to step on Kitty's foot.

"Illyana. And this-" there's a sharp look toward her, "-is Kitty." Those were said quick in one string, before her eyes narrowed. "What's a multiverse?"

See. She could play nice.

And dumb. For Kitty.

[prydeful]

Kitty's just resigning herself to the fact that she needs to remember Andrew's name, in case Illyana loses her temper and turns him into something Other. Even if she can't convince her friend to change him back, she can leave a note that way.

...Now she's wondering what to put in a note like that. Hello! My name is Andrew! I was once human, before a blonde on a power trip decided to make me her new pet rock. Please leave me in the sun and feed me what seems sensible!

...Illyana had better not turn him into a rock, that's all.

"And do you know a Dr. Richards or McCoy?" she asks, hopefully.

...What? He used "multiverse" in an introduction. Odds are good, in Kitty's mind, he knows one of the two.

[badinlatin]

The voices don't register with Mal; they're young and feminine, and far too lighthearted to be from the young females that Mal actually associates with.

Eventually, though, he looks up, and recognizes one of them.

He'll stop staring.

Eventually.

"Kitty?"

[prydeful]

It is, possibly, a good thing that Illyana has switched to stalking around the bar--surveying a battlefield, Kitty knows in her heart of hearts, and pretends that her eyes aren't tracking the room to notice things like exits and conveniently placed...she doesn't know, lamps, to hit someone with.

Because Illyana's a bit more on edge at the moment than Kitty is, and so she just stares in confusion at the man, trying to figure out if she's seen him anywhere before.

Maybe he's another Summers? He kinda looks...well, okay, it's hard to know what Scott looks like given the constant-red-glasses, but he has dark hair.

You should probably actually say something, Pryde, she reminds herself, and does the best thing she can think of.

Smiles and attempts to look as innocent and harmless as possible.

(She's much, much better at this than she will be later.)

"Um. Hi. Do I know you?" Oh yeah. You're a genius and a heroine. The eloquence proves it.

[badinlatin]

She's so young.

The thirty-six year old, and boy does the number ever rankle in his head when he thinks it, stands from his chair to cross the distance between himself and the -- thirteen? fourteen year old?

"No," Mal tries to sound apologetic while still failing to keep a smile from his face. "You don't know me. My name's Mal Reynolds."

Start with the easy parts: "Have you ever been here before?"

[prydeful]

...It says something, Kitty suddenly realizes, that this isn't the first time she's been in a situation like this.

On the bright side, it helps her control the instinctive need to yell for Yana, phase them both through the floor, and run like hell.

"Um. No? I mean, I don't think so. The school's pretty big, but I think I'd notice if we had a bar in the basement, and Logan would complain less about having to go into Harry's if we had one, and so I guess what I should ask is if I don't know you then how you know me?" she finishes her ramble, not at all wishing for the up-teenth time that evolution had given her an actually useful mutation.

Telepath, suggests her mind, helpfully, and she shoves that thought even further down and firmly goes over her mental barriers, making sure every one is in place.

[badinlatin]

Ah, dilemma.

Mal's learned his lesson before, about telling people about future events. He hasn't spoken to Crowley in the bar for some time; Raguel is a similar situation.

"We have mutual acquaintances," Mal shrugs, as if that were the only answer to the question she'd posed. "You want anything to eat? You look thin as a rail."

As always.

[prydeful]

"Which acquaintances?"

And then she makes a face.

"I am not that thin," she mutters, in a manner that implies she has heard this from someone (probably parental) more than once before and has, more than once before, responded with the same argument. "You try having a--a fast," fast, dummy, not mutant, "metabolism and being active and see if you're so heavy."

Still.

She's waiting to hear who he might know, and she's not drinking a thing before that, but she eyes him for a moment before asking, "Do they have milkshakes?"

Buy the girl a milkshake and you have a friend for life.

Besides. If he poisons her, Yana can have the pet rock she's now longing for and teach him to do tricks until Kitty convinces her to turn the nice rock back into a human or Piotr finds out. Hopefully the former.

[badinlatin]

"They do indeed have milkshakes."

Because it's a better topic of conversations than 'Which acquaintances?', Mal leads the way over to the bar, asking for a root beer float before turning to the teenage girl.

"Just ask the bar. Simple as anythin'."

And here's hoping she doesn't notice any tab Kate may have left on the tally board above their heads.

[prydeful]

Someday, maybe, but not today.

"...Oh, like the Shi'ar ship," she says after a moment's consideration, her face clearing a bit from the frown it had acquired as she studied the bar.

And noticed the lack of an answer.

The smart thing, she is very sure, would be to thank him, walk across the room, grab Yana, and say, "Bye-bye!"

Except one fact is true at all times, space, and names, when it comes to Katherine Pryde: she may be a genius, but she's awfully inclined towards doing the thing that isn't the smart one.

"Chocolate, please," Kitty says to the bar, and smiles when she reaches for it. "Thank you."

Doesn't mean she's going to do more than make it appear to sip it--well, if it smells okay, maybe sip it a little.

But for the moment, she'll stick with holding it. It is a good thing to hold. All...cold, and natural-looking. Yes.

"So you're not new here, then, Mr. Reynolds?" she asks, still going with polite as can be. (Somewhere and when, when Kate Pryde gets certain memories back, this interaction will be one that will make her facepalm all over again at the lunacy her life seems determined to be.)

"What do you do?" There. Pretend it's one of Dad's business partners, or someone the Professor is meeting with and she's just accompanying one of them. Except with them not being here.

(When she regains several memories, among this one, Kate Pryde will also hope, desperately, that she's learned to ramble less, at least in her own mind, than she did as a teen.)