"I ought to kick your brains out." snarled a soft, female voice.

Piotr Nikolevitch Rasputin, the former X-Man known as Colossus, looked up to see his former team-mate... and girl-friend... Kitty Pryde standing before his holding cell. He tried to stand, tried to talk, but his legs and lips just wouldn't do what they were told. Finally, he managed to grab the bars of his cell and drag himself to his feet.

His eyes met hers, ready to berate her for her slatternly behavior. How could she have another man? How could she?! He had come so far, so very far all for the purpose of seeing her. No matter what he had let Kurt believe, Katherine Pryde was his Katya and always would be!

Looking into her eyes was a mistake. Those expressive windows to her soul neither held her quiet humor nor lent that odd, disquieting sensation that she knew more about life than he ever could. The only things contained there were ice and cold fire. Rage barely held in check . The sharp words on Piotr's tongue all but choked him as they fled back into his throat.

"Katya?" he managed. "My Katya? Why... did you--"

"Wait just one minute!" Katherine, Shadowcat to the rest of the world and Kitty to her friends, felt her anger pounding through her and strode forward without thinking. Her mutant power of intangibility kicked in automatically. She passed through the bars of the cell and pointed a damning finger at the man who had hurt and rejected her more times than she cared to recall. "This is not a conversation happening here! And I am NOT 'your Katya' for God's sake!"

Piotr found himself retreating in the face of her anger. He could not change to steel now. He could not touch, nor hope to overpower her as long as she was phased. Without his invulnerability to hide behind, he felt the fear that had cut off his words spreading to the rest of his body. His legs wouldn't support him and he sat back onto his cot before they gave way.

"But-- but I care--"

Kitty wasn't in any mood to listen. All she could see was Pete Wisdom, the man she loved, broken and bloody on the ground of Muir Island, but still trying to force himself to move to protect her. If her anger had been able to take solid form, she would have bludgeoned Rasputin to death with it.

"You care?" she sneered, "RIGHT! If you cared, you'd never have left me for someone else. If you cared, you'd let me grow up and be myself. IF you cared, you'd NEVER have hurt someone..."

Shadowcat stopped herself and looked down at the man before her. His frightened blue eyes looked up at her. Frightened and empty. He knew she was angry and that was what he feared. But there was nothing beneath that. No appreciation for why she was angry enough to hurt him. No regret for the pain he had caused Pete. Nothing. Kitty pulled back in shock as full realization dawned. He could have killed Pete Wisdom, and there would have been that same blankness behind the young Russian's eyes.

"Oh, God." she whispered, hoping that the near horror in her voice wasn't showing. "Just look at you."

Kitty was at a crossroads. She could continue her tirade and reduce Rasputin to a quivering mass of terrified jelly. She knew she could. But what would that earn her? Momentary satisfaction, maybe. And a gutful of self-disgust and shame later. She could remember Logan's voice telling her that tearing down someone physically or mentally weaker than you didn't make you strong. It made you a coward and a bully. All the same, it took every ounce of will-power she possessed to do what she had to.

"I know you've been through a lot, Peter." she started, "We've had reports from Westchester... Kurt thinks it all got to be too much for you, you lost control." She reached forward and put her hands on either side of his temples, forcing him to look up at her. There was some kind of comprehension moving across his face, but Kitty wasn't sure of what. It made the soothing lie that she delivered next that much harder to say . "And I guess I can see that. I still can't believe what you did, but I can understand it."

Colossus allowed Kitty to position his face upwards, finally understanding. She hadn't been mad at him! She'd been worried. Kitty had most likely gone to another man only because she could not have him whenever she wished. And after that sickly Englishman had nearly crippled him, his Katya had been near hysterical and he'd foolishly mistaken it for anger. She did still love him!

"I know it's been rough, Peter, but you have got to come back to yourself. Get a grip, Okay?" Kitty didn't see the triumphant expression flooding across Peter's face. Her mind's eye was focused on Pete Wisdom's still, barely breathing form in Moira's MedLab while her heart was wrapped in the sense of betrayal she felt to Pete.

Peter managed to get his expression under control. It would not do to let her know that he still felt for her. Let her wait and wonder for a little bit as punishment for her unfaithfulness. Still, he had to know something... "This Peter Wisdom..."

'We even share the same name.' Peter thought smugly. 'I wonder if the silly girl has realized how much she missed me?'

"...an ex-spy Kurt said..." he continued. "Is he... good to you, Katya? "

"Yeah." Kitty said with a weak ghost of her usual smile and turned away .

"Just like you were," she didn't say. Just like you were. She did't say it and she never would for, looking back, she knew it wasn't true. She was never more than a passing fancy for Piotr and as soon as someone better came along, someone exotic and beautiful, she was no longer good enough. She hated herself for being weak enough to lie for Peter's sake and would have given anything to take those comforting lies back and give her former team-mate the full brunt of her anger. Tears of shame stung her eyes, but she didn't let the first one fall until she was certain that Rasputin wouldn't see it. Just like before, he didn't deserve her tears...

"OH, NO SHE DIDN'T!"

The cry of total disbelief howled out from three throats as they watched Kitty turn away. Rachel Summers, the oldest of the three wondered why she hadn't seen it coming. What was the use of traveling up and down the damned time-line and getting vomited up here if you didn't even get any useful information out of it?

Illyana Rasputin, or Magik, paced around the rim of the scrying pool the three were watching, swearing a blue streak. She was the undisputed lord and mistress of this Limbo. It wasn't the one she was used to, populated by demons and the like, but more like an elephant's graveyard/watering hole for comic-book characters. At the moment, she didn't care if it was a squatting ground for yuppies. She was too busy cursing every hair on her brother's head and every drop of blood being pumped by his heart.

"I," she snarled, "did not see that! I did not just see that sickening display of... of... DEMONS! I can't even find the word for it!"

"Try 'witlessness.'" suggested the blonde-haired Doug Ramesy automatically as he stared into the pool.

"That's not degrading enough!"

"Kitty was only trying to be kind." Rachel said softly, toying with the tight braid of flaming hair trailing down her neck.

"Kind, shmind! My brother's an asshole! I want to see Kitty's size sixteen's phased into his thick skull!" Illyana was somewhat out of sorts. Being raised by demons can do that to a person. So can seeing your brother turn into a... well, into an asshole as he tries to mash your best-friend's lover into paste.

"'Yana, chill!" Doug (AKA Cypher) interjected. "What's done is done. We don't have to like it, we just have to put up with it."

"Oh, DO we now?" Magik's grin was downright demonic. "Sally Forth!" she whooped, withdrawing her SoulSword from her stomach and pointing it towards the purple-pink sky of Comic Limbo. Too worked up to remember her teleporting powers, she bounded off to the claims office.

"Garfield!" Doug called after her. With a sigh, he scrambled to his feet and started after her.

"Calvin and Hobbes!" giggled Rachel, getting into the spirit of things. If Illyana got what she was planning done, there could be some fun in all of this. To save time, she activated the Phoenix force and carried both of her friends off to the office.

"Open up, you sorry sack of worm entrails!" Magik yelled, pounding on the door with the hilt of her sword. Behind her, Cypher and Phoenix took cover.

"GO AWAY!" came a frustrated snarl from the other side. "We're closed!"

"I SAID OPEN THIS DOOR!"

"Bite me!"

Illyana raised her sword above her head and brought it down on the office door, sending hinges and splinters flying.

"OH GALLLLAAAAAACTUUUUS! Olly-olly oxen free!"

From behind the skyscraper-high receptionist's desk, Galactus glowered at the slim, blonde teen. "Do you have an appointment?" he asked, the scowl stamped into his machine-like features becoming, if anything, deeper. Magik activated a teleport disk and appeared on the top of his desk. Her voice floated down to her friends below.

"Appointment?! You dare ask me for an appointment, slag?!" Illyana raised her sword again, this time aiming for Galactus' PC.

"NOOOOOOOOO! My spread-sheets!"

KEE-RASH! *Fizz-fizz!*

"Your head's next!"

Doug and Rachel watched from the door and avoided falling chunks of hard-drive.

"Think we should stop her?" Rachel asked, enjoying the sight of Galactus madly tearing around in the stacks of paper cluttering his desk , looking for the proper alt-reality clearance forms.

"Naw. Let her have her fun." Doug grinned. "Besides, Galactus lost my request for a decent resurrection last month."

"Consider yourself lucky. Mine got through."

"Huh?"

"Four words. Mother Askani: The Sequel."

Doug winced. "Oh, Ray, I'm sorry. Did you remember to request Davis?"

"My fatal error."

Illyana had managed to wrest an ink pen from Galactus and was busily filling out the forms he had handed her. She presented the sheets back to him with a flourish and walked out with his pen slung over her shoulder like a musket. "And give it wings." she ordered.

Alternately grumbling and whimpering over his computer (whom he had gone so far as to name Herald), Galactus fed the forms into a fax machine. A few minutes later, he handed her a permit the size of a bed- sheet.

"Now... get... out!" he thundered.

Whistling the theme from "Animaniacs", Illyana 'ported herself back to the nearest scrying pool, leaving Doug and Rachel to catch up in their own sweet time.

"Well?" asked Rachel as they settled around the bank of the pool.

"It'll work." 'Yana grinned. "With a little time distortion, a telepathic shove for our dear friend Kitty, and a quick trip back down the time-line and we're through. This oughta be fun!"

Illyana opened another portal, this time into the Limbo she knew and loathed. "Doug, Ray and I are going to do our part. Make sure you tape everything for us!"

"Got a recording bubble?" asked Doug, holding out his hand. Ray dropped an onyx sphere the size of a marble into his palm and disappeared through the portal.

As soon as they vanished, Doug dropped the little object into the mercuric waters of the pool and watched it sink out of sight. The scene replayed and Cypher crossed his fingers...

"You care?" Kitty sneered, "RIGHT! If you cared, you'd never have left me for someone else. If you cared, you'd let me grow up and be myself. IF you cared, you'd NEVER have hurt someone..."

"Now, Ray!" Illyana hissed, watching as the scene's key moment moved by . Rachel implanted a tiny suggestion in Kitty's head and the two of them quickly hopped back into Comic Limbo.

"...that I love!"

"No!" Colossus insisted. "Katya, you love me!"

"I loved you!" Kitty snapped. "But you never loved me. Not in any way that would have been good for me at least." There was a long tense silence.

"You are cold, Katya." Peter said at last. "You are like all American women: cold, selfish, and self-serving. I was a fool to give my heart to you."

"You never gave me anything that you didn't take back!" Kitty said, feeling oh so relieved. She'd seen Peter's defection to Avalon first hand... twice. She'd wanted to believe that there was some trace of the man that she'd known, admired... and yes, loved. But there wasn't. Or maybe there never had been and everything good that she'd seen in him had been through the eyes of a hopeless school-girl crush. "You took whatever love you had for me away and gave it to Zsaji... or whatever her name was. I never saw any of it again as far as our relationship went, even when I tried. The only time you gave me anything close to that was when you needed a crutch!"

"All that comes from you lips is 'I', Katya. Your only concern is for yourself. Am I not man enough for you anymore? What do you want from me? I have sacrificed everything in my life for Xavier's dream!"

"No." Kitty said, phasing her way out of his cell again, "You don't understand at all, do you? I don't want a god-damned thing from you. Not your words, not your art, and not your... love, if you call it that. I don't even want to look at you. I just want you to know, that if Pete dies, I will come down here and hurt you just as badly as you hurt him before we stopped you. And I will give you a fighting chance, which is more than you even thought of giving him."

Shadowcat turned away, feeling that angry rage inside of her drain away and a perfect calm come over her as she turned to walk back to the MedLab. She'd wasted enough time down here. Pete needed her far more than Colossus did.

Back in Comic Limbo, three friends sat at a pub called the Gilded Lady, sipping drinks and sharing a plate of potato skins, toasted cheese sticks, and buffalo wings.

"She should have phased his leg off and beaten him over the head with it." Magik growled, sipping her lemon/lime daiquiri.

"You're just in a bad mood because Kirby's making you replace Lackey's computer." grinned Rachel, biting into a cheese stick.

Cypher sipped cautiously at his shot glass of bourbon, trying to decide if he liked it or not. "Besides," he said, looking up at Magik, "Kitty's feeling better. Isn't that the important thing?"

"Yeah." Illyana sighed, signaling the waiter over to order another round. "I guess. But we need to do more. What's the root of all evil back in the working world?"

Not two hours later, editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics, Bob Harras, cowered behind his desk as an unseen force pounded on the other side of his door and demanded entrance...

The End (or is it? Hee-hee-hee)