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The warm September sun peeks through the curtains in Trish Walker's spare room, causing a faint glow to emanate around the comfortable room. Kitty stirs in the large bed, twisting underneath the covers as she begins to wake up. She mumbles something indiscernible as she opens a single eye and then another. The headache that looms behind her eyes is of a variety she's never felt before, causing her to press a hand tightly against her forehead.
In a near panic, she pushes herself up to a sit, only to go wide-eyed a moment later. "…. Hello…" she mutters as that disconnected feeling is traded with the course of adrenaline through her veins.
*
Perched in a crouch on the foot of the bed, wearing dark combat gear and heavy boots, is a girl. Probably. They've never met formally. Her arms rest on her thighs in the crouch, hands between her knees like some kind of very, very strange gargoyle. Who knows how long she's been sitting there silently watching Kitty sleep. Creepy much? Oh yeah.
Laura tilts her head to one side when Kitty reacts, and says hello. There's a drawn out silence. And then… "Where are the girls."
*
Kitty's eyes widen as she watches Laura carefully — mostly because the other girl was literally watching her sleep. Her head cants to the side and she squints at Laura trying to determine if this is really happening or if she's still asleep. She crosses her arms over her chest as she stares at the girl in the corner, giving her better access to pinch herself.
"Girls?" she asks evenly as her jaw tightens further. "What are you doing here?" And where on earth is here? She really doesn't remember what happened yesterday.
*
Laura frowns thinly, though her face is otherwise as lacking of emotion as ever. One of those questions is pertinent, the other self-evident. Neither is very productive. "I am looking for them. There are three. Blonde. You were present. I gave the metal man a choice. A mistake."
*
Kitty rubs her eyes hard, still not entirely convinced this isn't still a dream. "The metal man," she returns evenly, "saved your friends." Her tone is even, but warm enough, almost hopeful. "They're safe. Honestly. Probably for the first time in — " Kitty shrugs her shoulders, unsure how long the girls have been in the possession of the people they work for. " — a long time. I know you don't believe me, but they're not hurt. They're taken care of. Watched over."
Her jaw shifts and her fingers lace together on the bed in front of her. "You don't like it there, do you? The things they do to people — the things they make you do — it's not fair. You're resourceful." Pause. "I can tell." Weirdly, Kitty braces herself to go flying across the room, even with Laura at a (relatively) safe distance. She's not entirely sure why.
*
Laura leans almost imperceptibly forward. It's impressive how menacing the slight shift of her body is. "They are NOT safe," she says firmly. "Not unhurt. They are seperated. Unwhole. Improperly functioning. You do not understand but understanding is irrelevant. They must be returned." There is a pause, as he tilts her head the other way, as if sizing Kitty up, notating details, evaluating. The other stuff? Yeah, it's like she didn't even hear it.
*
"Nnnnoooo…" Kitty sends back slowly. She tightens her jaw. "Defective," she whispers. Her eyes widen. "It was them!! They were the ones!" the revelation is enough to have her leaping out of the bed, raking her hands through her very curly, nearly matted hair. "Those bastards," she mutters.
*
SNKT. Between the word "defective" and leaping out of bed, Kitty manages to make Laura tense. She doesn't actually move to speak of, but the claws of her right hand come out and slightly up, and her coiled-spring demeanor tightens a few more notches while X-23 watches Kitty intensely, as if trying to decide if the other girl is an actual threat, or just behaving erratically. At least she doesn't seem interested in interrogating Kitty further, for now. Small comfort when one is suddenly in a room with a vicious animal trying to figure out if it's cornered or not.
*
The sound is enough to put Kitty on edge and she flickers with intangibility immediately after the noise echoes through the room. Her own body tenses and she inhales a slow deep breath before holding out her hands in front of her. She isn't trying to hurt Laura. "They told me I was defective. The professor got them out of my head and I still hear it." Her eyes turn upwards, "It rolls over my thoughts again and again, telling me I'm defective. I'm not whole. I'm incomplete. Because I won't yield to their programming."
She takes a single slow step towards Laura, but doesn't move any further. "The blondes with your people — I can help them. Help me find them and unite them with their sisters. Please."
*
Laura needs a few moments after Kitty moves before X-23 decides there isn't a threat and the claws retract slowly, the skin healing over the exit wounds. "This is a different being-whole," she explains cryptically when Kitty relates her experiences. She considers the suggestion for several long moments before coming up with a solution. "We will ask XIV-2 and XIV-3. If they do not agree with you, you will tell us where 1, 4, and 5 are, and I will retrieve them." Decision made, she unfolds from her crouch, stepping off the foot of the bed and towards the window she entered from.
*
"Wait — " Kitty lifts a hand. "You're going to ask them?" her head cants to the side and she emits a long soft breath. "Wait. We're going to ask them?" Kitty's eyes widen considerably. With a long pensive sigh, she shakes her head and takes a single step towards the window. "Like, you expect me to go with you?!" Her eyebrows knit together sharply. "Like… now…?" She looks over her shoulder towards the door, not quite sure where she is at this moment and where they'll be going.
*
Laura answers a quiet, unemotional "Yes." to each stage of Kitty's questions, as if they were actually meant to be answered. She lifts the window open. "If I possessed the capability to walk through walls," she notes, "I would not be so concerned at the prospect of a simple infiltration." Weapons don't waste time, Katherine. Decision made, time to act. That's just the way it is.
*
"I really need to — " she points towards the phone on the night stand. "Or…" she looks towards a pad of paper, but how would her friends ever get the note? "Fine," Kitty rolls her eyes exasperatedly. Once an X-Man, always an X-Man. She reaches into the pocket of Jean's dress and extracts an elastic which is promptly used to band her hair into a ponytail. "But you need to call me CLIII. Or 153. Either one." Her eyebrows lift expectantly and she tugs on the bottom of her dress before stepping over to the wall. There's a pause and her eyebrows draw together as her hand reaches through the wall, "Wait. What floor are we on?" She squints.
*
The other girl rotates, sits on the window sill. "I know who you are, Subject-One-Five-Three," X-23 notes in response to the information. She does not answer the question of how high they are, because she has already leant back to let herself fall out of the window. The fact she is not concerned about how much of a drop there is probably isn't actually reassuring. In the slightest.
*
Kitty unceremoniously rolls her eyes and fights the ever growing headache thanks to her drinks at the bar. Kitty Pryde can't hold her liquor. She shakes her head and opts to follow out the window rather than just walk through the door; less prone to have to deal with injury later — or collapsing through the pavement when not expected.
*
Laura turns out to be perched just a few feet down the outer wall, with two hand-claws and a toe-claw buried in the wall, and a free hand to catch Kitty if she goes and falls past. Or, you know, to offer if she doesn't. Sure, this is a totally normal thing to do when you wake up in a bed you don't remember climbing into in god-knows where. Down the rabbit hole, Alice.
*
Climbing down the sill does see Kitty's foot catching along the wall, and she does indeed lose her footing to the brick facade. It's fortunate that the white rabbit (black rabbit?) is there to catch her. "It'd be good to know where we're going in the event we get separated — " because that's likely to happen with Kitty being pushed into following Laura's lead.
*
Laura disengages her toeclaw and the pair start sliding down the wall. Quickly, but moderated by the remaining pair of claws. "The Armory. I do not know the name of the place above the ground. It is where XIV was seperated." She digs the toeclaw in again to slow them at the bottom, coming to a stop just shy of Kitty's feet touching pavement.
*
"Coney Island?" Kitty's eyebrows turn higher on her forehead. She nods lightly and shrugs a single shoulder. "Well it's nice to know we weren't entirely off base." The words are punctuated by a lopsided smirk that Laura won't appreciate. "Alright. So we will go back to… the Armoury." She frowns after she feels the words on her lips. "That's an awful name." She hugs herself. "Truly awful. We're more than weapons," she notes. "The lot of us. Me. You. The blondes," that she refuses to call XIV. "We're people." Her lips purse. "Of course, you know that. You're here to reunite the sisters."
*
Indeed, the girl isn't big on appreciating much of anything. Nor walking particularly casually. She shrugs a shoulder. "Weapons belong in an Armory," she notes absently, but the words lack their usual undertone. Her gaze slides towards Kitty. "Perhaps," she allows. "But we are not you. It is… different." Not precisely a disagreement.
*
"Different how?" Kitty asks as she falls into step with the very androgynous looking X-23. "You're still not just a weapon," she asserts again. "You're a person. You have things you want. And maybe you're not always aware of them, but I'm sure they're there. Haven't you… " she stares into the horizon trying to remember whatever she can about the facility, "not listened to an order exactly. Or purposely towed the line with what someone said they wanted rather than what you knew they actually wanted?"
*
Laura takes the first question first, eyes going back forward. "You were remade. Katherine, then One-fifty-three. As with David, as with X-1. We were not remade. We have always been as we are. It is different for us."
The latter inquiry draws her gaze sideways again. "Recently," Laura allows. "It is disconcerting but I elect not to report it. I am not certain why XIV has not. But their separation has made them erratic, and they require my assistance to correct themselves. Control does not see the problem for what it is. It is unnecessarily reckless." A pause. "As is his obsession with obsolete, damaged, unusable units. Unacceptable defectives should be removed, not chased after."
*
ROLL: Kitty +rolls 1d2 for a result of: 2
*
There's a nod that follows Laura's observation. "Riiiight." And then Kitty remembers what Moira had said. "They engineered you," she murmurs quietly, slowly putting together the pieces of what has happened with this Weapon X project. "They had you pegged as a weapon from the start. Both you and the blondes." Because Kitty will not call them XIV. Not now anyways. Later? Perhaps.
"Who is Control?" she asks blankly. "And what is he obsessed with?" Her nose wrinkles irritably and she shakes her head. "Working on people like… me?" Her eyes narrow at the mention of David, "David. David is still there?" Her lips purse. "1-5-3 never took," she murmurs. "She was in my mind, but… my friend cleared it. He cleaned up each of their programmed responses." Except the penchant for feeling defective.
*
Laura doesn't comment on the engineering, because it's… somewhat outside her knowledge and interest. And Kitty understands the salient points she was trying to convey. The rest… "I do not have the answer to that question. He is Control. He is overly concerned with X-1. I do not know why. It is not productive." A glance over. If she's surprised Kitty knows Maverick, it doesn't show. "David is." Her lip curls slightly in what seems like it could be a hint of amusment. "He is likely somewhat discomfortable, at the moment."
*
Kitty's expression deadens at the mention of David. "So — " she starts, "we're heading to a facility where David is being held — " pause " — where people are being held." Her eyes narrow and her paces hurry to keep up to Laura. "So… what's the plan here? We just ask the blondes," who she refuses to call XIV, "what they want?" She squints. "And what about you? What do they call you?"
*
As before, Laura replies to each individual sub-question with a simple "Yes." When Kitty asks about her, she does that thing where she slowly blinks and shifts her eyes towards Kitty. "I am designated X-23."
*
Kitty hrms quietly. "X-23 it is." There's a pause. "Do you have… another name you go by?" There's a pause and she suggests, "Well, you obviously already know my name. But no one calls me 1-5-3 or Katherine. Unless they're my teacher or parent.You are neither. So you can call me Kitty. Like the cat." She shoots the other girl a side-smile. "And you know, if the blondes come, if you wanted to, you could leave the armory too." She shrugs. "If you wanted to." Her eyes remain on the ground in front of her.
*
Laura seems to be getting the hang of Kitty's speech patterns, since this time she waits for Kitty to finish talking before she says anything. Or possibly, given the lengthy silence afterward, she is simply thinking. Or done being chatty.
Turns out it's 'thinking'. "I will leave when the opportune time arrives," she says quietly. "Perhaps that will be tonight. Perhaps not." It's the first time she's verbally admitted she's already made the decision, and plans, to leave. But you wouldn't know it from how unemotional the statement is.
There is another pause, before her eyes go back forward. It's almost a long enough poause to give up on when she adds, "One of the scientists called me Laura." Once, in fact. "She is no longer with the Program."
*
Kitty's eyebrows draw together. "I'm sorry about your friend," she reaches out to squeeze Laura's shoulder — but thinks better of it and draws her hand back to her side. "Laura, it is. It's pretty, and," she tilts her head assessing Laura silently, "I think it suits you. Better than X-23. You're not just a number."
"Even if…" she frowns lightly. Her tongue rolls over her lips. "What makes you want to leave now? It sounds like it's inevitable."
*
Laura's forehead creases. It is possible she has never really thought to ask this question before now. "Something… has changed," she says haltingly, as she tries to figure it out. "I was… shot. Something has Broken. But I do not require nor wish it corrected." Something is VERY broken.
*
There's a long pause and Kitty nods. "Good. Those bastards have been using you to hurt people. It's not your fault, but the fact that you don't want to go back to that…" her lips purse. "Is good. "
Thoughtfully, she clasps her hands behind her back. "Well, if you don't leave tonight, and you want help getting out — I know people who can help." Pause. "Who will want to help."
Later at Coney Island
While the entranceway through the ferris wheel's maintenance room provides an easy entrance into the facility, the door is, rather surprisingly locked. Kitty turns her head to Laura, "Laura…" she swallows hard. "What causes the door to be locked?"
*
X-23 frowns thinly at the question, hands balling into fists.
SNKT.