Chapter 1 - Intro/Kitty's Dream [part 1]

You have opened my fanfic and are reading it. Good for you. I'm very proud of you, you know. It's people like you who make this all worthwhile. Now, I must warn you all, though, that it's a bit slow in the very beginning, but it will pick up.

Also, I might point out that all main characters will be included in this story. That is, the X-Men (Jean, Scott, Kurt, Kitty, Rogue, Evan) And also the brotherhood will get in on the action (Lance, Pietro, Todd, Fred, Wanda).

DISCLAIMER: I don't own these characters and blah, blah, blah.

-Hizzy

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Professor Xavier's institution was a very interesting place, as any of its residents would note. The professor found that late night was always the most interesting for himself. He often had trouble sleeping at night so on those nights he secretly entered the minds of those who slept and watched their dreams. It would do them no harm, he knew, as they were sleeping and would never know of his late-night snooping. Besides, he was an old man and that's what old men do. They pry.

On a late Tuesday night, he once again found himself without sleep and wondering what everyone else would dream about that night. His students showed particularly interesting dreams that always proved quite entertaining.

He decided to start with Kitty. Her past few dreams had been a bit dull, so the professor figured she was due for a good one. He concentrated hard and finally found the girl's mind. At first there was nothing but a bit of brain static, but after just a moment, a dream began to form. Slowly, the darkness became brighter until Xavier could see the dream perfectly. And here is what he saw:

Kitty was running down a dirt road with a fearful expression on her face and in her arms she held a fuzzy white dog. She kept running, and running, and then she stopped and bought an expresso at the road-side Starbucks, and then she was running some more. Finally, she got to a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. She threw the dog down and ran over to her mother.

"Mom! That creepy woman is, like, at it again!" Kitty yelled angrily. The mother knew exactly what Kitty was talking about. It happened a lot. Kitty's dog would run off, relieve itself in their neighbor's yard, causing the neighbor to become very angry and dispose of it. Of course, this would always make Kitty angry so she always bought a new dog and trained it to do the same exact thing. This time, however, her mother was surprised to see the dog still alive.

"She didn't kill the dog this time?" her mother asked as she examined the dog, which indeed was not dead. In fact, it was so alive that it was relieving itself on her leg. Mrs. Pryde kicked the dog away in disgust.

Kitty beamed, "Nope! I saved little Popo this time. That stupid Wanda will never kill my dog again!" When the name of the neighbor was spoken, a bolt of lightening crashed through the sky, the cows mooed in terror, and a man died somewhere in Algeria.

It was at that particularly convenient moment that the creepy music began to play, signaling that Wanda was near. Kitty had a panicked look on her face, and she grabbed her dog and phased through the barn wall, just before Wanda entered the property.

Mrs. Pryde greeted her politely onto the far. Kitty's mother did not dislike her the way Kitty did. In fact, she wanted to kill the dog, too, but that would only result in a much worse situation.

"Hello, Mrs. Pryde. I've come to kill your dog," said Wanda evenly.

"I don't know what you're talking about," the mother said loudly so Kitty could hear. At the same time she pointed towards the barn and then proceeded to prepare for the dog's funeral.

At that time, Kitty was huddled in the barn with Popo. She was sitting next to a cow and giggling. "She'll never find us in here," Kitty said to the dog, "Unless mom tells her we're in here like she probably will. You know how mom can never keep a secret." Just as she said this, the barn door was flung open and Wanda's theme music played. Outside, lightening crashed across the sky, cows mooed, and a man in Algeria, who had miraculously recovered from death, died.

"Give me the dog," Wanda said in Kitty's direction.

Kitty stared at her blankly, "Like, what dog?"

Wanda narrowed her eyes at Kitty, growing increasingly agitated. She pointed at Popo, "That one."

"Oh! You mean the one next to me?" Kitty asked and looked at the dog, then looked back at Wanda, "That's not a dog. It's a cow."

Wanda was flustered for a moment, then glared at the other girl, "No it isn't!"

"Is too!" Kitty shot back. She liked to think of herself as an expert debater.

Wanda sighed impatiently, "All right, have it your way. Give me the cow."

Kitty struggled to think of something to say or do to get herself out of this mess. Usually she only got slightly annoyed when Wanda kept killing her dog, but Popo was different than the others. The first dog she'd had, Bobo, was a very ugly dog, so nobody cared at the loss of that dog. The second dog, Koko, wasn't actually a dog. It was a bunny. Then the few after it, Wowo, Fofo, Lolo, Momo, Dodo, and Zozo, were all very stupid and they all smelled funny. Popo, on the other hand, was good natured, intelligent, huggable, and it always got rid of any Jehovah's witnesses that showed up on the farm. Kitty knew that she had to protect Popo, even if that meant doing something about it. Finally, she came up with a fool-proof solution to the whole mess. It would definitely work, with only a 75% chance of failing. Kitty jumped up, ready to set the plan into motion, when she realized that during the time she had been reminiscing about the dogs and creating the plan, Wanda had already taken the dog and left.

"Like, crap!" Kitty shouted and ran outside. If it wasn't too late, she would come up with a new plan and get the dog back. She ran into the house to inform her mother that she might be late for dinner. Suddenly, a tornado picked up her house and carried it away.

Kitty was still looking for her mother, when she realized that something was terribly wrong. She looked out the window and saw things flying around outside. First, she saw Fred and Todd in a rowboat. Then she saw Logan on his motorcycle. After that she saw Wanda. Kitty gasped and was about to demand her dog back, when, right in front of her eyes, Wanda became a witch. More so, that is. Before anything else could be done, her house plummeted down and down and down, and just when Kitty thought it couldn't go down any more, she realized that it could. A few hours later, it finally hit the ground.

Disoriented, Kitty wobbled around for a while, until she accidentally phased through a wall and fell into a big heap on the ground. She pulled herself up and rubbed her head, grumbling under her breath. This was a bad day, she thought, and that night it would earn a full page entry in her diary. Finally, she became aware of her surroundings. It was very bright and colorful all around. Kitty tried to shield her eyes against it. She knew places like this caused people to get Technicolor Poisoning.

She was still adjusting to the colorful scenery when a large black bubble began to make it's way towards her. Kitty stared in amazement as it grew bigger. Her impulses got the best of her, and Kitty reached out and popped the bubble. To Kitty's surprise, a girl fell out of it. The girl was wearing a weird black dress and a crown. Also, the girl did not look pleased with Kitty.

"Um... sorry," Kitty managed as she watched the girl pick herself off the ground and adjust her dress and pick her wand of the ground.

The girl sighed, "That's okay. You'd be surprised at how many times that happens."

"Really? How many times has it happened?" Kitty asked.

"You were the first," the girl said flatly and brushed some brightly colored dirt off her arm.

"Who are you, anyway? Are you, like, some kind of cosplayer, or something?" Kitty had part of the dress in her hand to examine it.

The girl pulled the dress back and sighed, trying not to be annoyed, however, that was becoming increasingly difficult, "I'm Rogue, the good witch of the North."

Kitty's eyes widened, "Witch!? Aren't witches, like, evil?"

Rogue rolled her eyes, "Not all of us. And I'M not the one who crushed somebody with my house." Kitty stared at her blankly for a moment, not quite registering what the good witch had just said to her. "Look," Rogue pointed to under the house, where a pair of feet were sticking out from underneath it.

"Ew!" Kitty gasped as she moved away from the house.

"Ew is right!" Rogue exclaimed, "That's Mystique, the wicked witch of the east! But don't worry, we all wanted to kill her, anyway."

"Because she's evil?"

Rogue thought for a moment, "Well, that and she kept letting her car alarm go off at night and was keeping everyone awake."

Kitty glared at Mystique's feet, "She was REALLY evil, than, wasn't she? Are you sure she's dead." They two girls looked under the house and got nauseated looks across their faces. "She couldn't possibly be any deader," Rogue stated and they moved away from the body

"Um, I need to ask you a favor..." Kitty started.

Rogue stopped her, "I'm way ahead of you. You want to go home, don't you? I actually don't know how to get you home, but if you go talk to The Professor, he'll figure out how to get you there. Take Mystique's shoes and wear them for protection. All you have to do to find The Professor is follow that road there and it will take you to Diamond City, where he lives. Good luck!" With that, the black bubble appeared around Rogue and she floated away.

Kitty groaned. She was actually going to ask if there was a bathroom she could use. She really had to go and she didn't want to go in her house because Mystique might be haunting it. She sighed and looked at the road Rogue had mentioned. 'Maybe this Professor guy has a bathroom I can use...' With that, she set off on journey. One to find a bathroom, and if she had time, she'd find her way home.

Not long after she had started off along the road, she saw that the road split in two different directions.

"Which way am I supposed to go?" she asked herself aloud. She looked down at the map she had bought but all that was on it was a dotted line and an X. She regretted having spent $10 on it.

To her surprise, a voice answered back in a German accent, "Maybe you should go left."

Kitty blinked a couple times and looked around. She didn't see anybody. The only things in the area were the cornfield, a fence, and a talking scarecrow. Kitty scratched her head and shrugged. She started walking to the left, but was interrupted as the voice spoke again.

"No wait! To the right!"

Kitty was confused but turned did as it said, however the voice only told her to go left, then right, then left, then straight, then up, then backwards, and then around in circles. By that time, Kitty had gotten very dizzy.

Kitty stopped and turned in the direction of the voice, "Make up your mind!"

The scarecrow looked surprised and offended, "Well, it's not like YOU know which way to go!"

Kitty stared at him, realizing finally that the scarecrow had been the voice, "You can talk!"

"I can do more than talk," said the scarecrow, suggestively.

"Like what?"

"Uh..." he thought for a moment, then sighed, "Okay, I can't do anything else. Happy?"

"You can talk but you can't do anything else? Like, what kind of scarecrow ARE you?" Kitty looked at him suspiciously.

"Well, I could do more, but I'm stuck up here," he told her, motioning to the pole he was attached to, "If you help me get down from here, I'll help you find The Professor."

Kitty thought about it, "I guess that would be..." she stopped and narrowed her eyes at him, "Wait, how'd you know I was going to see The Professor?"

"I just figured that's where you were going because you're holding a sign that says, 'PROFESSOR OR BUST,'" he said and pointed to her sign. She looked at it in surprise and remembered making it fifteen minutes ago when she was trying to hitchhike.

She shrugged and yanked him off the pole, "So you know which way to go?"

"Not really, but I want to see him, too," he said and noticed her curious expression and explained, "I'm going to ask him to fix this whole, being a scarecrow thing."

Kitty raised an eyebrow, "You don't want to be a scarecrow?"

"Nah, I want to be a professional wrestler," the scarecrow admitted. Kitty nodded in agreement. Not a person back home didn't want to become a professional wrestler.

"I'll be fun having a traveling partner," Kitty said to him. Her other traveling partner, Crazy George, had stayed behind back at the gas station.

"I'm Kurt," the scarecrow said and extended a hand to shake hers.

"I'm Kitty," she took the offered hand, "You're funny looking."

Kurt glared at her and pulled his hand back, "Well, my mother says I'm a very handsome scarecrow!"

"You're mother?" Kitty asked curiously. She didn't think scarecrows had parents.

"Yeah," he said, "The woman who sewed me together. Her name was Mystique."

Kitty coughed and turned the other way, nervously. She really wanted to change the subject but she only knew of one way to do that. Break into song.

And so they did. Both began skipping and dancing along and sang words, and occasionally trailing off and mumbling where they didn't know the words to the song. They went on like that for hours until they reached a forest. It was completed and utterly deserted. Except for the animals, munchkins, talking trees, several witches, and a strange tin statue of a man. But aside from that them there was nobody.

"Look, Kitty!" Kurt said and pointed to the tin man, "A robot!" He walked over to it and observed it closely. Just as he was noticing its strange tin sunglasses, the tin man made a noise.

Kitty peered at the tin man questioningly, "I think he's trying to talk!"

"Robots don't talk," Kurt told her.

Just then, Piotr walked by. He was in a hurry because he was late for a metal-person assembly. He nodded in Kurt and Kitty's direction and said very quickly, "Hey, how's it going."

Kitty looked back at Kurt smugly. He pouted for a moment, but the tin man brought them back on the subject they had been originally discussing: the tin man.

"What's he saying?" Kitty wondered aloud. They both listened for a moment. The tin man was saying one word over and over again but it was very muffled and he wasn't moving at all.

"It sounds like..." Kurt started and paused a moment to listen again, "Oil..."

Kitty nodded, "It does... Something that rhymes with 'oil' than. But what?"

"Boil?" Kurt suggested.

Kitty thought for a moment, "Coil?"

"Foil?" They continued naming off all the things that rhymed with oil, all the while making the tin man angrier and angrier. Eventually he gave up trying to say the word and just listened to the two in annoyance.

Kitty sat down on a tree stump to prepare herself for some heavy duty thinking. As she took her seat, something fell off the stump and on to the ground. She picked it up and examined it.

"Hey, Kurt," she held it up, "I found this can of oil sitting here... Do you think this is what he was talking about?" As she said this the tin man started making more noise.

"I get it!" Kurt said, "He wants us to oil him! That does make more sense than soil... although..." Kurt looked down at the soil on the ground suspiciously.

Kitty took the oil can over to the tin man and first oiled the hinges of his mouth. As soon as she had done so, his mouth began to move and soon he was able to talk.

"Thank you!" he said, ignoring the previous confusion, "I haven't been able to talk for so long!"

"How long have you been like that?" Kitty asked as she continued to oil the rest of the tin man.

He thought for a moment, "It must have been 500 years."

"Really!" Kurt asked in astonishment, "That long!?"

"Well," the tin man reconsidered, "It was more like five hours."

"Oh..." Kurt said in disappointment. He watched as Kitty finished oiling the final hinge and the tin man was able to move freely around.

"So, what brings you to this part of the woods?" asked the tin man.

"We're on our way to see The Professor," Kitty told him.

"The Professor," the tin man echoed and he thought deeply about that, and then said, "Would you mind if I came along? I want to see him, too." And so he introduced himself. His name was Scott and he was a tin man. He went on to explain how he has no heart, being a tin man and all, and how all the others told him that with heart he just wasn't any fun and it made him too uptight and all that other stuff.

Kurt and Kitty agreed to let Scott join them, especially after he convinced them that his rational thinking would be the only way they could make it to The Professor. And they both agreed that having a responsible person in the group would be a good thing. Especially since that meant that they didn't have to be responsible.

And so, the threesome continued on their way to see The Professor. Unaware of the danger that awaited them, and of the plot twists that would be thrown into the mix to boost ratings. Also, unaware that a chapter was just about to end...

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