X-Men: Black Fire

By Paradox

BOOK II

Several Hours Later

Prologue

Kitty watched the clouds sweep past the Blackbird’s canopy as the stealth plane streaked towards New York. She had tapped into the radio frequencies and had music playing softly in the background, her foot absently tapping in time to the beat. Normally, she might be singing along with the band that was playing, but her thoughts were otherwise occupied. More specifically, her thoughts were overwhelmed by memories and images of a certain young man who wielded red, crackling energies. The image of his steel gray  eyes looking into hers with an intensity that could only be described as love took her breath away for a moment.

Shaking her head, she swiveled her chair around so she was facing the communications equipment. Quickly adjusting several readings, she pushed a button, opening a communications channel. “X-Men, this is Shadowcat, anyone read me?”

The radio crackled to life. “This is Logan, Kitty, good to hear from you.”

Kitty smiled. “Good to hear you too Logan, how is everyone there?”

“Doin’ good,” came the reply, “We’ve all pretty much shaken the effects of Dracula’s mesmerizing.”

Kitty nodded, even though no one could see her, and breathed a sigh of relief. “Great, I should be back in a few hours and I’ll give you all a brief about what happened.”

“Sounds good,” Wolverine said, “We’ll see you then.” The com switched off.

Kitty sighed and leaned back in her chair, thinking about everything that had happened recently. Not more than three days ago, the infamous vampire, Count Dracula, had come to them requesting assistance in retrieving some property of his that had been stolen in Chicago. At first, Kitty had denied helping him, but he had used his vampire powers to force her into helping him under the threat that he would have her fellow X-Men kill each other if she didn’t.

Of course, she agreed to go with Dracula to Chicago and help him. Normally, the vampire lord could have forced her into doing anything he wanted, but she had some magical aid of her own. In specific, a mage by the name of Cole Raven had come to the X-Men several days earlier and asked to become part of them. He had only just begun training for the team when Dracula had shown up making demands. Fortunately, Cole had dealt with Dracula before and knew how to handle him, along with the fact a powerful vampire friend of his had shown up. After using the X-Men as leverage, Dracula convinced them to help him and the three had gone to Chicago and met up with the Prince of Vampires in Chicago, Priest. The vampire had agreed to help them out and assisted in finding the lost article of Dracula’s which turned out to be just a normal piece of jewelry. The trip had ended with Cole staying behind in Chicago to help Priest run the city, but he promised to try and visit her soon.

Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, Kitty steadied her nerves through a ninja calming technique. When she opened them, the large form of the X-Mansion loomed in front of her. Expertly manipulating the controls, Kitty guided the craft into a secret, underground hangar, and prepared to reenter the life of an X-Man.