#ultimates kitty is the one who doesn't have any martial arts training

[djinmer4]

Little Red Riding Hood (Lovecraft!AU)

“I thought you said that Jimaine had come from Bavaria.  This is Baddem-Wormberg, I totally just mispronounced that, didn’t I?”  Kitty tugged the red hood over her head, then took it off again.  No, it wasn’t going to fit over the backpack, she needed to re-arrange this.

“Baden-Württemberg.  And you were born in Chicago and now live in New York.  People do move, after all.”  A black tentacle reached up and plucked two white apples off a tree.  One went into a shark-toothed maw, the other was held out to her.  Kitty looked it over, then assured it wasn’t going to turn into a maggot or otherwise harm her she accepted it and put it in her pocket.

“You’d better have been honest about the information we’re working off of this time.  Captain Britain’s not going to accept another screw-up on this case.”

“Bitte liebe, it’s not worth my time to lie you.”  Apple consumed, stem, core, seeds and all, the creature dived down to lie in her shadow.  Hopefully, the swaying leaves and brisk wind would disguise the inhuman, moving nature of her stalker’s presence.

Kitty put on the red cloak (brighter than the one she used as Shroud) then put the backpack on top of it.  Pulling up the hood, she activated the communicator.  “Angel, this is Shroud.  Can you see me?  Over.”

“Roger, Shroud.  Yes, I can see you.  As long as you stick to the path I won’t lose sight.  Warn us if you need to go off the path, otherwise, I’ll set off the alarms for Cyclops to bring the search teams in.  Over.

”Roger that, Angel.  Synchronizing watches in three . . . two . . . one.  Mission begin.  Over.”  She clicked the dongle of her watch, then headed into the Black Forest.

Over the past few months, the new Captain Britain had worked through his backlog until Excalibur was almost on schedule again.  Now one of the few open cases he had left were the murders in the Schwartzwald, the same mission that the X-Men had met Nightcrawler.  Most of the other perpetrators had been apprehended but there was still one child killer at large.

Cyclops hadn’t wanted to go back, but they still owed Jamie Braddock a favor.  In addition, Nightcrawler had informed them that the case was related to Jimaine Szardos, the sorceress who had recently attacked the X-Men.  In the interest of cleaning up any loose ends, Cyclops had agreed to fly the team back to Germany.

Kitty really didn’t relish playing bait for a child-killer, but there weren’t many options.  None of the other X-Men could pass for being below twenty, and Cyclops wasn’t going to send an actual child to play bait.  With some judicious hair styling (Kitty hated pigtails) and careful fashion choices, Kitty could pass for fourteen, which was the very edge of the killer’s target range.  And she could be trusted to defend herself.  So Kitty-catnip it was.

She wandered around, occasionally taking pictures and samples of flora as part of her cover.  She saw a number of people on the paths, and a few even stopped to watch her, but the only ones who accosted her were a pair of lost American tourists.  She didn’t even have to break out the German Jean had planted in her head.

“School project?”  Kitty looked up.  A young man, deeply tanned and dressed like a stereotypical Gypsy (white shirt, tight pants, vest, and red bandanna) was leaning against a tree at a fork in the trail.

“Ja, for biology.  We’re supposed to make an album of pressed plants for the final.”

He gestured to the path on his left.  “Try over there, to the south.  There’s a meadow with some early fall flowers still blooming there.”

“Danke.”  She hesitated though.  

“Go ahead,” hissed Angel into her ear.  “He fits the profile, and I want to see if he follows you.”  Kitty showed no sign, but nodded and smiled at the man (he couldn’t possibly be Roma in that outfit) and walked to the meadow.

“He’s watching you.” Her closer shadow said.  “But not following.”

She ended up spending two hours collecting samples. (Maybe she really would make a pressed album.  She certainly had enough plants to do so.)  The fake-Roma went down the left-hand path after half an hour, but she stayed to see if he (or perhaps someone acting on his orders) showed up.

“We’ve wasted enough time on this gambit,” she said, standing up and brushing grass off her knees.  “I’m going down the other path to see where it leads.”

“That’s got a lot more treetop cover.”  Angel worried.  “I won’t be able to follow you from the air.  Check in every fifteen minutes.”

“Acknowledged.”  Kitty went back to the fork and looked at the sign.  “So the meadow is Weg der Stifte-”

“Path of Pins.”

“-and the left-hand path is Weg der Nadeln.”

“The Path of Needles.”

“Does that mean anything?”  She got one confused noise from Angel and lots of giggles from Nightcrawler.  Going along she noticed that the overbrush indeed got thicker until it was as dark as the valley she had met the monster in.  “I should take out a light,” she muttered to herself.

“Oh, but when you stand in the light, you can’t see the monsters but we can see you.”  Nightcrawler breathed in her ear.  She shuddered but continued. 

After about half an hour she spotted a small cabin alongside the path.  “Ah, that is what you’re looking for.  Jimaine’s workshop.”

She put her hand on the doorknob.  “It’s locked.”  One deep breath and she phased in.  Turning on the light, she heard the hum of a portable generator starting up.  “Okay, my first thought is that there are way too many books for me to carry away on my own.  Angel, go tell Cyclops that I’ve found the secondary objective, but I’ll need some help.  Tell him to take the trail past the Mummelsee then at the fork go left to the Weg der Nadeln.”

“What about the primary objective?”

“It’s only the first day.  We can try again tomorrow, or Meggan can take over as the bait after that.”

“If I go guide Scott, I won’t be able to come to monitor you.”

“I’m not going anywhere, the door is locked and there’s no place for someone to hide here.  I’ll be fine.”

“Alright then.  Stay safe.  Over and out.”  The crackle of static replaced Angel’s voice until she turned the communicator off.  Kitty went over to examine all the totems and other artifacts on the wall, being careful not to touch them.  When she reached a basket of black eggs, she stopped.  “What creature lays black eggs?  Are these even real?”  She leaned over, but carefully kept her hands behind her back.

“These eggs were laid by a human.”

“What?”  Kitty’s musings were interrupted.  A crash came from the locked door.  Whirling around she saw a second blow put an ax through, though the hole was still too small for anyone to come through.

As she watched, the red bandanned man from before stuck his head through the hole and looked at her.  “Grüße, eindringling.”  More blows before the door gave way.  Kitty frantically looked around for something to defend herself with but there was nothing that looked safe.  Then she froze once the man came through, staring at the ax.  Maybe someone less informed could have mistaken those stains for rust, but Kitty had seen too many scenes of massacre and death to mistake those brown patches for anything other than blood.

“-bodies found hacked to pieces, probably by an ax or other-”

“How nice,” Nightcrawler giggled.  “Looks like you found your primary objective too.”

Kitty backed herself up against the wall and tried to decide which would be a better idea.  Running away and potentially getting lost in the woods or trying to time her dodges and phasing and staying in the cabin.

Then she was pulled into that dark plain again.  “If I can’t defend myself, I’m going to die right now.”

“Why don’t you just kill him?  Phase through his body, rip out some organs on the way through.  Watch him falter and die for his crimes.”

“I won’t kill.  I won’t.  I won’t.”  Something squirming, round and furry wound it’s way around her limbs.  If she didn’t know better, she would have called it a hug.

“Ah, that’s right.  You said you wouldn’t kill for me.  Never mind liebling, I’ll handle this for you.”  Then she was back in that cabin in the rooms.  The man raised the ax above his head but paused before he could bring it down.  Instead, a black tendril slipped around his throat and pulled.  With barely a cry, the head of her attacker twisted around 360 degrees before being pulled clean off his shoulders.  Kitty cried out as the skull hit the ground and blood pumped from the collapsing body.  She scrambled up onto one of the tables and closed her eyes and covered her ears.

She didn’t know how long she stayed in that fetal crouch.  When she was finally brave enough to look up again, she saw the creature poking at the still body.  “Not hungry?”

Oh, what an inane thing to say in this situation!

“Hmm, I’ve got a better use for the blood than to feed my own desires.  Pass me the basket of eggs beside you.”  Kitty looked around and saw that in her mad scramble to get away she had knocked everything off the table except the basket of black eggs.  “Why?”

“Well, they're about to hatch.  Unless you want to feed them from your own blood . . .”  Indeed, when she looked down, there were cracks forming on the tops and a weird peeping noise.  She all but threw the basket at the creature.  IT’s tail caught the wicker easily, and IT carefully lifted each egg and placed it somewhere on the corpse.

“What are they?” she mumbled as the first few animals, dark and slimy like annular worms broke free.

“They’re a type of familiar.  They need to be fed on blood, a lot of blood.  Fortunately, we have this dead body right here.  Very convenient.”  Some of the creatures were licking the floor, others burrowed into flesh.  Kitty turned away and ignored the scene.  All she had to do was wait for the other X-Men to show up.  Then she could go home and have a nice screaming fit with only her usual shadow as witness.

Nightcrawler dropped one of the familiars down her shirt.  “AAAUUUGGGHHH!!!”

“Now, now, don’t be like that.  This one’s fed enough on the body.  It just needs a little more blood to bond with you and then it will curl up and go to sleep.”

“What if I don’t want to bond with it?”  The creature slipped below her clothes and she frantically tried to get it out.

“Meine liebe this is just the first of your gifts as herald.  Once you’ve bonded, you will be able to see through their eyes and use their dimensional travel capabilities.  All it needs is just a little of your blood.”  The familiar stopped at her waist and she felt sharp teeth dig in.  While she was distracted, Nightcrawler placed another on her thigh.  It bit through the denim, then bit her too.

She tried to scream but found her vocal cords paralyzed.  The Crawling Chaos picked her up then arranged her gently on the bed of the cabin.  Once she was as comfortable as could be expected, he started adding more familiars.

Kitty felt the first one withdraw.  Nightcrawler picked it up.  Instead of a toothy, slimy worm, it looked almost cute.  Round, like a baby animal and furry all over.  But then it yawned and its teeth were as sharp as they had felt.  The creature carefully tucked it into her bosom, where it slept peacefully.

She had no idea how long it took for them to feed.  Once all the familiars had fed, Nightcrawler carefully arranged them over her body, almost like a set of living stuffed animals.  “The others are coming.  The paralysis should have worn off by then.”  Then he dove back into her shadow.

Beast was the first to find her.  “Shroud?  Are you there?  This is the only cabin along the path but-”  He stopped once he entered through the broken door.  Yellow eyes took in the decapitated body on the floor, her shredded clothes and the bite marks all over her skin, and finally, the furry blue pile that kept her warm and prevented her from slipping into shock.  “Oh, Kitty.”  A rare moment of empathy among the X-Men.

“Hank, I want to go home so bad.”

“I know, Kitty.  I know.”