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The Shadow And The Kat	By : KMac Category: X-men Comics > AU - Alternate Universe Views: 7260 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men comics, or any of the characters from it. I make no money from from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Kitty - The Hounding

Deerfield High was such a drag. Kitty Pryde had felt important in Junior High. A teacher favorite, she’d been on the student council, and easily had the highest G.P.A in her year group. Now she was just a freshman, and the smallest, youngest kid in many of her classes. She’d taken High School credits last year, and she’d been able to skip some required first year curricula of the Chicago school system.
She was a nobody again. Worse, she’d been labeled ‘the uppity frosh’ for daring to intrude in classes she didn’t belong in. Some of the kids she used to feel distantly superior to obviously relished the sight of her being put in her place. Kitty had to admit, she’d been pretty rotten to some of them, and she was beginning to understand how they felt.
Her cocoa colored hair fell over her eyes as she walked down the hallway. She had so not counted on being set back to the bottom of the totem pole at the new school. Sometimes smart people just missed the obvious stuff… Ouch. She rebounded off the lockers next to her, dark brown eyes looking up at the smirking sophomore who’d ‘accidentally’ slammed into her.
“Watch where you’re going, brains,” he snarled, and she didn’t bother to argue. Rubbing her shoulder, she merely nodded, and headed for her class.
Class was halfway over when an odd set of tones went off through the intercom system. Was that some kind of drill? The teacher stopped mid-sentence. “Alright class, put your books and bags in your locker and report for the assembly. For you freshmen, don’t try to leave the school grounds, because they’ll have today’s attendance reports.
“Who will?” Kitty whispered to her neighbor as they got up from their desks.
“Shield,” Jenny answered.
From the time kids entered the school system, they were tested at least once a year. In middle school, it was once a semester. ‘Twice the needles, twice the fun’, the saying went among the kids. From ten years of age on, reference photographs; front, back and profile accompanied the blood tests.
Kitty heard that in High School it came quarterly. They were randomly scheduled, and no excuse was accepted. Students who were absent were tracked down at their homes or other locations. Anyone who came up missing was assumed to be a fugitive from Shield. Every district had an incident or two of that kind a year, and the staff drilled the students with the unpleasant results.
She could see the black trailers parked next to the Gym. The kids filed into the big building and sat on the bleachers. The principal said something about civic pride and duty and introduced the Captain in charge of the testing.
“These are your formative years. High School testing is, by necessity, the most important and the most intrusive you will ever undergo. As many of you already know, your baseline photographs will be taken of you in your underclothes. We will be calling names in alphabetical order, this time. Raise your hands if you need to use the restrooms and you will be escorted to and from the facilities. Remain orderly, and we’ll be done as quickly as possible. That is all.”
In my underwear? Oh God. Kitty buried her face in her hands. How could they?
“…and Pryde, Katherine. Your section is next. Assemble in a line at the side door.” Kitty only half heard her name, but Jenny poked her and hissed, “It’s your turn.”
She gulped and went with the others of her group. At the exit they were separated into two groups; boys and girls, and sent out three at a time to the trailers. Her sub-group was second. She paused in the entry room of the trailer. It was about a quarter of the total of the trailer’s length, and featured a couple of benches and some shelves and hooks for belongings. Also present was an machine gun armed Shield agent.
“Strip to your skivvies, girls.” He leered as he said it, and then tapped on the wall of the nearest compartment. “Come on Jerry, you got more porn to shoot.” He looked back at the girls, smiling cruelly at the well-built blonde trembling next to Kitty. “You don’t think we use those pics just for the records, do ya?”
‘Jerry’ came out of his room with an expensive looking camera. The smell of chemicals drifted out after him and Kitty realized it must be a dark room. He set the camera up on the tripod mounted to the floor, and motioned for the blonde to come forward. He looked and sounded bored. “Stand at the end of the hall. Put your feet in the yellow marks. When I tell you, turn and stand in the red footprints, then turn again on my say, and stand in the green marks. Got it?”
He didn’t wait for an answer, just bent down to focus the camera. The blonde girl, Kitty didn’t know her name, scurried down to the marks. She stood in place, and jumped to obey when he snapped orders. “Red,” and a little later, “green.” He leaned up and pointed to the compartment door nearest her. “Go in that room.” Turning to the front he said, “Next.”
The guard motioned at Kitty, and she walked stiffly down to the marks. She put her feet in the yellow outlines, and saw printing on the floor just beyond them. ‘Stand straight & keep your hands at your sides.’ She slowly uncurled her arms from around her slight chest and force herself to face the camera. Click. “Red,” he grunted. Kitty turned to face the right as the marks showed. She was sure he’d taken more than one picture of the blonde girl in each position. Click. “Green.” She turned her back to the camera, and heard him take the final photograph.
"Middle room,” he said. “Next.”
Kitty stepped into the compartment as the last girl took her place at the camera marks. The tiny room contained a table for the testing machine and two chairs. One chair held a Shield agent, and he gestured with his head for her to take the other. He studied the folder in front of him as she sat. “Jew, huh?” he said with a slight sneer. “Too bad. You’re kinda cute.”
With that he launched into a prepared battery of questions. Did she get headaches? How bad? How often?   Any bloody noses? Ever had altered vision, hearing, or other senses? Any more unusual perceptions? Kitty answered him with a low voice, wishing she could just fall through the wall.
Her answers must have been acceptable, because he turned the folder to her. “Review your answers and initial here, and remember this is a legal document.” She initialed where he indicated. He took a small flashlight and looked closely at her eyes, and into her ears. With a tongue depressor he looked down her throat. He then asked her to stand, and patted her down brusquely.
“Place your hand on the plate,” he said, and pulled a strap in place across the back of her hand. “There’s going to be a sting.” He pressed a button and the needle stabbed into her palm. She bit back a whimper, as she felt blood drip into the machine. A light came on and he freed her hand, giving her a cotton wad. He pushed a pamphlet at her. “Read this while we let old Vlad here study your fluids.” She read the information about how it was her duty as a citizen to report anyone she knew with mutant powers, including herself.
Minutes passed. The wall behind her shook slightly, rhythmically. The agent looked up at her, and grinned. “Is she pretty?” he asked. She nodded. He made a face, checking on the machine. “Lucky bastard,” he muttered. Kitty turned crimson when she realized what he was implying. At least he wasn’t leering at her… A knock on the door sometime later roused a sigh from her tester. “Go get dressed, okay? Sometimes Vlad takes longer than others.” She escaped into the hall, and went to her clothes.
The blonde was crying silently as she and the other girl finished dressing. Kitty put on her shirt and socks under the bored gaze of the riffle carrying guard. The man with the gun called down the hall, “They clear to go?”
“Not yet,” said her tester, leaning out of his cubby. “I’m still waiting on the blood work.”
Kitty picked up her school skirt when a strange staggered buzzing noise came past him. Bz-buzzz, bz-buzzz, bz-buzzz. “Holy...!” shouted her tester. “Positive!”
Before Kitty quite realized what he meant, the guard leveled his gun at her, and was snarling at her to freeze. The other girls cringed away from the weapon… and the floor was moving up her body and past her head.
She stopped falling with a groan, crouching under the trailer, holding her throbbing head. She heard the door above her slam open, and an alarm blared loudly in the same staggered pattern as before. A man’s voice shouted hoarsely, “Escape Event!”
The guard ducked to look under the trailer, gun ready. She dropped the skirt she held and ran blindly, away from them, and off the school grounds. Nothing impeded her flight, she just ran straight through any solid obstacle.
Blocks away, she panted in the shadow of a building. She was half naked and she thought she’d die of embarrassment if anyone saw her like this. A lady just didn’t show off her legs… except she wasn’t a lady, was she? She was a mutant, who could walk through things. What did she think she was doing?   She should have surrendered there in the trailer, and now she was in big trouble. The gun had scared her so much… but what could she do about it now?
Dad. He always knew what to do. She found her bearings, and started sneaking back to her neighborhood. A white blouse and nearly-as-white bare legs were going to make it hard for her to hide very well, though. Her sleepy suburb of Chicago was thankfully quiet during school hours. Keeping to alleys and shadowy areas, she found a place where she could see her house. Shield was already there, and her heart thumped painfully.
Her mother was kneeling in the yard under guard. Her hands were laced on top of her head, and she was crying. On the hood of one of the vehicles were the articles Kitty had left behind, her shoes, the skirt, and her school bag. Another Shield car drove up, and her father joined her mom as hostage on the lawn. Kitty phased through the concealing fence and slowly walked to the sidewalk of her house with her hands up. She approached her fate, trembling at all the hostile eyes on her. In front of her parents, she stopped, staring at the ground.
“Well, Kikes, looks like your mutie daughter has some sort of family loyalty left. How sweet.” He threw a large ring on the ground near her. “Put that around your neck, and click it closed,” he ordered, “unless you want to watch us shoot them.
She picked up the ring with a shaking hand. It was a metal loop with electronics attached. She put it on, and sealed the catch. A feeling of sickness rolled over her instantly, and she swayed where she stood. Strong hands grabbed her from behind before she could fall. With a flash of fear, she tried to phase out of the painful grip. Her belly heaved in complaint, and she stayed solid.
The officer looked down at her parents. “So, your story is you didn’t see any signs of her becoming a mutant?”
"None,” her father said, “Just as we told you.”
“Fine, you can get up. You’ll undergo more interrogation later until we’re certain of that. Now say bye-bye to the mutie.”
Her parents rose and looked at her, helplessness and fear on their faces. “Shalom, Katherine,” Dad said.   “God be with you.” Mom nodded, still crying.
The officer looked disgusted. “Fucking Jews. Get her in the car.”
...Hazy snapshots of memories were all that she could later recall of that night, and much of the next day. She was processed at the Chicago Shield offices. They clipped her brown wavy locks short, and deloused her. Kitty spent a restless night in a holding cell, unable to eat or sleep.
The next day they gave her a gray jumpsuit to put on over her undergarments. She was driven back to Deerfield High, where she was paraded in front of the student body. She stood slumped in handcuffs, inhibitor collar visible on her neck. She’d seen a glimpse of herself in a window, and barely knew the face she’d seen. The Captain was telling the kids that it could be them, if they weren’t vigilant. She lifted her eyes and looked at the kids who just yesterday were her peers. Hateful looks and pleased expressions at her downfall marked most of them. Some just looked away from her, like Jenny.
After that she was driven to the airport, where they boarded a Shield transport. She dozed in her seat until someone nudged her roughly. “Take a look, kid. Your new home is just ahead.”
It was the Heli-carrier, a marvel of engineering. Fully as large as its oceanic counterparts, it cruised the country a thousand feet above the ground. Great maneuvering props turned idly from the passing winds. She wondered how it hovered in the air like that. It certainly wasn’t by the prominent propellers that edged the upper deck. As soon as their plane landed, she was hustled below.
In a shabby but clean room an odious man covered with tattoos gave her a mocking grin. He readied his needles and began to work on her. The tattoo hurt, and he wouldn’t stop, and it covered her whole face. He turned her to face a mirror when he’d finished. Her face looked like raw hamburger, all bloody welts, swollen flesh, and black ink deeply introduced. She couldn’t even tell what she was supposed to look like.
He must have seen it in her expression, because he chuckled. “Over there, sweets,” he said. A hand-sketched face bearing a starburst design was pinned to the wall. “Yer a Hound, now.” The tattoo was bandaged, and she was taken to a surgical room. Her clothing was taken from her, and her arms, legs, and chest were strapped down to the table. Someone put a n anesthesia mask over her face. The room swam around her, and she slept.
She awoke in a hospital ward, and her stomach hurt. There were two distinct incisions on her belly, and she could trace the stitches through the thin shift she wore. She’d been fixed. The time she spent in recovery was sort of like the time she’d had her appendix removed, except the staff never smiled, and never took no for an answer.
She still hurt when she was release to the dorms, but not as much. After she was settled, a guard escorted to a large room. Two agents awaited her, a man and a woman. “Hound, we are your trainers,” said the man. “Now that you are healed, your life is our hands. You will do as we say, or you will be punished.   You will develop your strength and abilities under our direction in an attempt to make your pathetic life useful to Shield. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir” Kitty whispered. She never saw the ringing slap that burned across her face.
“When you are addressed you will answer clearly. Do you understand that?”
“Y-y-yes, sir,” she said firmly. She winced, hoping he wouldn’t strike her for the stutter.
“Better. Now, you were given your first conditioning session while you were under for your surgery. Let’s see how much you remember of it.” He nodded to his partner, and the familiar strains of the Shield march began playing in the room.
Kitty blinked, and straightened up. She felt she should stand at attention for the song, like she would for the national anthem. A whispering voice in head spoke to her. This is the music of those who saved you from death. Show respect and you will live.
“Good reaction,” he smiled briefly. It was the first approving expression directed her way since the day she’d been discovered. “Now let’s see if you remember your oath.” He suddenly snapped a question at her. “Who do you belong to?”
The mind whisper supplied the answer. “I… I belong to Shield.”
“What do they own of yours?”
Again the words came from depths unknown. “They own… my breath.”
He scowled and she flinched. “That’s ‘my very breath’,” he corrected. “Say it again.”
“They own my very breath,” she managed to say.
“How is it that you will live, mutant?”
“I live at their whim. I…” her voice trailed off, unsure.
“And how is it that you will die?”
“I… die… at their whim.” This was barely said above a whisper.
“Now say them together, and louder,” he ordered.
“I live at their whim, I die at their whim.” The truth of the words was like a chill in her heart.
"How will you serve, in order to extend your miserable existence?”
“I will serve in whatever I am commanded.” She was glad she’d gotten all that out without another prompt from him. And all the while, the music played in the background.
“Now you will practice that some more… but you’re doing it all wrong!” The last words were said in a furious shout. Kitty cringed away and whimpered. He moved closer to her, eyes dangerous and his voice intense and low. “When you hear the music of Shield, or see the banner of the great organization that saw fit to spare your worthless mutant life, you should be on your knees!”
Hurriedly she knelt on the cold metal floor. The woman turned the record over and a clear voiceover could be heard over the music. He loomed over her, eyes still angry. “Now, you will recite along with the record until I give you permission to stop.”
Kitty nodded quickly, and spoke along with the voice. “…I live at their whim, I die at their whim. I will serve in whatever I am commanded. I belong to Shield. They own my very breath…”
* * *
Sparks leaped and popped from the campfire. The boy’s chestnut hair fell in disordered locks over his shadowed eyes. Jimaine studied his firm profile, so like his father’s. He looked up at the sky, and she resisted the urge to join his mournful upward stare. He turned his face to her, and the fire caught his eyes, like chips of emerald set ablaze.
“Do you think he’s alive, mother?” Jimmy said.
That was the easy question. “Yes. If they intended to kill him, they would have done it at the circus. As long as he does what they want, he’ll live.”
“Do you think he’s alright?” His voice was husky, and moisture wavered, pooling under his eyes.
She sighed. “I don’t know, son, but it’s a sure thing that they are not being gentle with him.”
The threatening tears trailed down his cheek, forgotten. His eyes turned as cold as the northern seas, even in the firelight. She shuddered at the grim set of his mouth. He was so like her lover, the way he’d been when he left her to fight for his kind, and Kurt’s.
So very like him.

[A/N:] So I lost the art I did last time, but I have a Deviant art account now that I'm putting illustrations for this story in. I'm not really good enough to do them myself, but I'm using the newest version of Heromachine, 3 alpha to make them. I'll be releasing them, as the story comes to them. For now there's only Kurt and Kitty as Hounds. < http://nightmarewriter.deviantart.com/ >
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The Shadow And The Kat