Tortured dreams. A man with pale blue eyes, smiling at her. A gruff voice teaching her how to fight as something {snickt}ed. A blue elf, grinning as he teased her. A man, someone evil. Leaning over her as a needle entered her skin and wiped away all thoughts.

Kitty woke with a start, her dreams of a moment before forgotten despite the fact that they were what had woken her. She sat up in bed, the sheets falling around her waist. Swinging her legs over the side, she stood, cringing as the cold wooden floor touched her bare feet.

Shivering, her large T-shirt not offering much warmth, she ran quickly across the floor and hopped up onto the window seat. She tucked her legs underneath her body, trying to keep them warm while she pulled her tee over her knees.

She looked out the window into the dark night, trying to see anything but the never-ending trees. She didn't like them. They seemed too close after the open spaces of Muir. She leaned her forehead against the glass, ignoring the bite of chill. When was she in Muir? Where was it? She had a very clear picture of what it looked like, but had no idea as to how she knew.

Kitty sat up and looked at the door that adjoined her and David's room. She could ask. He always gave her answers.

She sighed and settled back against the wall. In the morning, maybe. It really didn't matter.

XXX

Kit-ty, Kit-ty, Kit-ty Lockheed chanted with the beating of his wings. She was close, he could sense it. Kit-ty, Kit-ty, Kit-ty. Just a little longer now. The only building for miles around was a big gray one about three miles ahead, and he knew she was there. He just knew it.

Kit-ty, Kit-ty, Kit-ty. His little muscles protested with every downbeat, and every upbeat too. But, since he was a superhero, he didn't let it get him down. And he didn't stop to rest, either.

Lockheed dropped his jaw, taking in great gulps of air and storing them in his stomach. Later it would be used to fuel the fire that burned in his jaw, but for now he needed it to keep his body weight light.

Belasco watched the thing from below, his eyes glowing with excitement. Only a few more strokes and it would be within reach, and then he would have all four of the Great Weapons. And once again, Hell would reign on Earth. He'd almost made it a few times--like the medieval ages. Ah, what a wonderful era. And the plague! What a stroke of genius that had bee--there. It was near.

Belasco raised his hands and prepared to fire.

Lockheed's keen eyes caught the small movement just in time, and he flew to one side to dodge. The blast went past him, almost singeing his wing. Adrenaline coursed through his body, and with the sense of a dragon he whirled to attack. Then he remembered that Kitty was inside the building, and he was only one and a half miles away. He turned again as another blast came at him, pounding his wings against his sides so hard his purple skin quickly turned blue. He bulleted toward the mansion, the small dragon no more then a dark blur in the sky. After him flew bolts of light and power, though the dragon was going far too fast for Belasco himself to follow. Lockheed dodged once, then twice, and raced around a satellite dish. The distance was non-existent between he and the house now, and he raced forward, eyes scanning for Kitty.

He saw her after only seconds, sitting by the window.

Kitty's eyes widened as she saw the purple beast zooming toward her, ready to run into the glass. A moment later it did, forcing the panes to crack and shatter under it's weight.

It flung itself into her arms, nuzzling her neck. As Kitty and the dragon tumbled to the ground, a last blast of light came through the window, sailed right over them, and shattered on the opposite wall.

Belasco watched with disgust as people swarmed around the house, barging into Kitty's room, keeping him from getting the dragon. Now was not the time. There were too many humans about. But later, when he again had a chance . . . Nothing would keep him from his Weapon.

XXX

"I miss Shadowcat," Kurt mumbled, trying to hack into the Black Air mainframe with a computer--normally Shadowcat’s job--while Pete watched over his shoulder, providing passwords where he could, but mostly hounding Nightcrawler. Excalibur and the three others had split into teams; Pete, Kurt, Rahne, Moira and Rick were looking for Kitty, while Amanda, Colossus, Meggan, Captain Britain, Frost and Season looked for Belasco and the Soulsword. They'd locked Margali in a cell below, her hands tied to keep her from casting spells, and a collar around her neck--just to be sure. Rick, since he'd been the one who'd been put through torment when she'd ripped on the field, had wanted to banish her to the nether realm--Kurt still wasn't sure where that was--but Season had stopped the boy.

"Any idea of where we should be looking?" Kurt asked, itching his skull.

Pete puffed on his cigarette, trying to keep his mind off what might be happening to Kitty. “Someplace off the beaten path,” he said slowly, his brow furrowed in concentration. “Someplace where no one would look . . .”

“We have three places like that,” Kurt said after a few seconds. “Care to choose one?”

Pete bent over the chair, eyeing the screen. “Not there, it’s a warehouse. Possibly there, but--there.” He tapped the screen with a finger, “That’s our best bet.”

Nightcrawler nodded quickly and stood up. “Then let’s get going.”

XXX

“I don’t know, David. He just flew in here all of a sudden and--”

David glared down at the Jewish girl who held the small purple dragon protectively against her chest. He took another step closer to get a better look at it, but the thing hissed and blew smoke at him, so he stepped back again. He’d heard that Shadowcat had a dragon, but had passed that off as myth. Everyone knew there was no such thing as dragons. Then again, he thought as he stared one in the face, maybe not.

“You can’t keep a--a--what is it?” he snapped, glaring. Couldn’t be a dragon. And mostly, it represented a threat.

“It’s a . . .” Kitty looked down at it, frowning. It looked back up at her, rubbing it’s head against her jaw. “Lockheed!” she laughed, pushing him away. “It’s a Lockheed.”

“You can’t keep a lockheed. You don’t even know what they eat.”

Kitty’s eyes started to fill with tears. “Is this how our marriage is going to be? Us fighting over everything? I don’t want to live like this!”

David shook his head in defeat, pinching the bridge of his nose. Such a headache. “All right, all right. You can keep the lockheed.”

“His name is Lockheed, that’s not what he is,” Kitty said, exasperated. David eyed her, then went back to his room. One more hour. That’s all they needed was one more hour for the brainwashing to take total effect. No one would be able to change it back then--not the world’s highest telepath, not some friends trying to help. Just one hour.

XXX

The Midnight Runner flew smoothly over the ocean, heading quickly and quietly toward their destination. Kurt supposed that if he wanted to hide something, Brazil would be a good place to do it. But it was still going to be hot and miserable with all this fur. He shook his head, bringing his thoughts back into order. They were going to get Kitty, and that was all that mattered.

“Th’ engines arenae happy about ye strainin’ ‘em like this,” Rahne said quietly, sitting in the co-pilots seat.

Kurt sighed and slowed down. He could feel the tension running high in the small jet, Pete hanging over his shoulder in order to watch how close they were to gaining Kitty, Rick sitting in back, still nursing his wounds, Rahne up front with her first crash course in flying the Midnight Runner, and Moira on the radio giving instructions as she found out more things about the base they were going to attack. One of the main problems was going to be finding a place to land. The current idea was to just hover in mid-air, but that would require someone staying behind to make sure the cloaking shields stayed up and they weren’t found--this base had heavy artillery and scanned the skies every thirty seconds for cloaked transports.

If Kurt left someone behind, then his “team” would be down to three people. On the other hand, there was no where to land.

“A’ll stay,” Rahne said quietly, as if reading his mind.

Kurt looked up. “Was? What do you mean you’ll stay?”

Rahne shot him an odd look. “Lady Moira. She’d been on th’ radio. We’ll need someone ta stay an’ watch o’er th’ ship, an’ Rick o’er ther doesnae ken how ta, an’ he has more raw power then I do anyway.”

Kurt smiled, ruffling her hair. “Ach, liebchen, he may have the power, but you have the skill, the training and the heart. Thank you.”

Rahne blushed and looked back down at her console.

XXX

Moira glanced around the corner, watching with great curiosity the three sorceresses--Frost, Season and Amanda--as they linked and used Meggan, Piotr and Brian’s strength to search for the Weapons. The circle of five was utterly silent, all eyes closed, while green power shot through and around, emanating from Season. As Moira watched the scene shifted, and she saw a place of great darkness. Then it switched suddenly, back to the room the people had been sitting in before. Only now they were all gone.

XXX

Kurt smiled at Rahne, promising to bring back Kitty, then jumped out the door, teleporting to the ground in a series of hops. Pete and Rick had gone before at Pete’s insistence, Rick’s power flying them both down into the trees below. In mid-port Kurt received a mental picture of what the jungle below looked like, and was able to teleport straight to where Pete and Rick stood, waiting. Rather impatiently in Wisdom’s case.

“Well, we’ve set off the first batch of alarms,” Pete grouched quietly.

“What are you talking about, herr Wisdom?” Kurt whispered, his dark fur almost blending with the shadows.

Pete cocked his head toward the underbrush where a man lay, unconscious. “He saw us coming in. Rick knocked him senseless, but we think he managed to get off a signal.”

Kurt frowned. “Well then,” he said after a moment, “we’d best be moving on.”

XXX

“Kitty!” David shouted, running into her room. “We have to go right now, we have intruders!” Only fifteen minutes. He only needed fifteen minutes more. He grabbed the young woman’s hand, hauling her out of bed and down the hall, dragging her along when she stumbled. It was probably nothing, he told himself. Probably just a guard who heard a funny noise. But he still wasn’t taking any chances. Fourteen minutes. Only fourteen more.

XXX

Amanda gasped, pulling air harshly through her lungs as the teleport ended, leaving them in a dark room with cold walls and a dangerous atmosphere.

“Everyone accounted for?” came the rich English accent of the sorceress, Season.

Everyone made agreeable noises, and Amanda created some light to see by. To her right stood Frost and Season, one in pale blue with white hair and soft, violet eyes, the other in scarlet red with hair and eyes as black as sin itself. In front of Amanda stood Brian, blinking quickly to clear his eyes of the spots he saw when she’d made light and he’d been watching that particular spot. To Amanda’s left stood Meggan and Piotr, Meggan hovering a few feet in the air--for a better look.

“Well,” Season said, looking around, “We’d best be moving. The Weapons won’t come to us.”

XXX

Kurt hung from the ceiling, watching as the big man with a gun stood just below him, not three feet from where Rick and Pete stood. In fact, Rick and Pete were in the man’s line of vision, but the sorcerer had done something to keep him from seeing them. Slowly the guard raised his radio, clicking it on. “Nothing here,” he snapped, “Moving on to secure the next spot.”

Rick and Pete moved aside to let the man pass, and Kurt leapt down. Silently the three moved down the hall, coming to a stop beside a closed door. Quickly Pete keyed in the override code, only to find that it had been changed. He swore creatively, trying another. He glared at the thing, wondering how many alarms he would set off if he just sent a thousand hot knives through it.

“Petey?” Rick hissed, leaning close, “Sometime this week?”

“Sod off, yer bleedin’ yank,” Pete snarled quietly, going back to work.

XXX

“I think there’s someone over there,” Kitty said, watching as the door flashed colors. She’d seen them do that before, when David forgot the password somewhere and kept trying different ones.

David’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, there is. Probably danger. Let’s go.” He pulled her along down the next three corridors, weaving his way through a labyrinth of mazes. Lockheed held on tightly to Kitty, his ears pricked to hear Cancer Man and Kurt as they tried to get through the door. If he could help, he would. But he needed to stay with Kitty, because otherwise they’d never find her. If only they’d get through the door . . . .

David turned and pulled the girl down another passage, his face grim. Ten more minutes and she was his.

XXX

Belasco watched the threesome make their way through the halls, carrying his last Weapon. With all of this confusion, now would be the perfect time to strike. He smiled and stepped slowly forward.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

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Rick, Frost and Season are copyright to Jenna B. McDonald

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