Kitty and Pete | Yorkland: Last Day
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ax_mainPete and Kitty race to save Yana and Pyro from the hangman's noose, but everything seems to get in the way.
"Bloody firebug of a thief," Pete grumbled to himself as he strode across the square. Cully'd been right; it was the same guy they'd run into a while back. Shouldn't make a difference, really - from what he'd heard, there wasn't any doubt the kid had gotten his ass caught trying to break into the wrong house, and a stint in the cage wouldn't hurt him any - but he'd also heard that the now beardless guard was out for blood and the judge was in a piss poor mood. Not a good combination, and one that could result in the guy taking a step off the block and going for a swing.
He wasn't okay with that, and the only sure way to prevent it was to break the kid out.
He'd originally swung by the cage figuring on tossing some hot knives at the problem and letting the firebug take it from there, but once he'd seen the shackles they'd locked on his wrists he'd known that wasn't an option. Which was why he was heading for the most likely place to run into a acquaintance of his, one who, if nothing else, had a Guild in common with the pyromaniac thief.
'Course, he wasn't exactly her favorite person? But hopefully she'd overlook that in a good cause. He wasn't exactly a pro with the lock picks, but so far as he knew? The lock had never been made that Kitty Pryde couldn't get past.
She wasn't a slouch when it came to knowing what there was to know around town, either, which was why she was already sitting on the front steps of the rundown theatre, listening to a ruddy-faced child explain what had happened in the marketplace. Kitty wasn't much bigger than the girl at her feet - slight and slim, and barely into womanhood, but there was always a look in her eye that told you she was thinking. She was always thinking. Even as she turned a dagger between her fingers, her eyes had that far off look...so much so, that she didn't even notice Pete until he was almost upon them.
Then she was on her feet in a flash, with a "Oh, no. No."
"What kind of greeting is that, Pryde?" Pete smirked. "People are gonna think you don't like me or something."
"I have more important things to worry about right now than whatever trouble you've gotten yourself into, Pete Wisdom," Kitty informed him, crossing her arms over her chest. "Forget it. There are a thousand other people in this city that can help you."
"And here I am, asking you instead of any of them. Feel special?" Pete pulled his pipe out of his pocket, expertly filled it with tobacco, and lit it with one of his hot knives. He took a puff, exhaled it slowly, and shrugged. "The thief who does the fires got himself caught. He's in a cage in the market. I need someone who's good with locks, and let's face it, you're the best."
Tense shoulders loosened a little, and Kitty's indignation shifted toward concern. She glanced at the younger girl who'd been speaking to her earlier and nodded, watching her skitter away before looking back at Pete. "I heard. He calls himself Pyro. More than that, another one of ours tried to free him and got thrown in with him. But why do you care?"
"Because word has it the judge is in a pissy mood and looking for someone to take it out on. Which isn't right." He took another puff off his pipe and shrugged. "If he was going to get his ass thrown in jail, I wouldn't give a damn. But from the sounds of it? He's more likely to swing."
She cursed softly beneath her breath and stared down at the cobblestones between them, trying to think. "So you want me to bail him out."
"Well, he's your mate, right? Figured you might want a hand in it." Pete shrugged. "If you don't, I'll try someone else. But you're the best I know."
"Trust me in that I want a hand in it," Kitty told him, her features setting seriously. "I care about them. Not particularly Pyro, but more the girl who tumbled into this mess with him. See, locks are one thing - getting someone free of the cages in the square is something wholly different."
"Figured you might be able to do your trick with that," Pete admitted. "'Specially if I do some kind of distraction to get everyone looking elsewhere?" After all, he wasn't looking to get her locked up instead of the firebug and his girlfriend, or whoever the other thief was. "I hadn't heard they'd caught two of them. How'd that happen?"
"I'm not sure, but I have a suspicion," she sighed, looking down the street in the direction of the square. Hopping down off of the steps, she started down the road. "The square's halfway across town. We'd best be on our way. Fortunately, I doubt the judge will see them before morn."
"Last I heard, he was planning on fitting it in today," Pete said. He strode after her, taking advantage of his greater height to catch up. "The whole things stinks of 'more going on than you can see on the surface'," he acknowledge. "'Can't put the pieces together and have them add up into anything that makes sense."
Kitty glanced over at him and snorted softly. "Please put that pipe away. You look ridiculous. As for the situation...I'd suggest we see the Oracle, but there's hardly time. The best we can do is try and thwart the authorities, then sweep up after."
"Not a whole lot to sweep up," Pete disputed. He took another puff from his pipe, just on principle, before emptying it onto the road and slipping it into his belt pouch. "We get them out and away and let the guards take the heat for losing them. Couldn't happen to nicer blokes."
She looked at him curiously at that statement. "You have a problem with the city guards?"
"Some of 'em," he admitted. "There are some who're just normal people, doing their jobs and grumbling about them over their pints at the pub. And then there are the ones who are in it so they can be assholes to people who can't do shite about it. Your friend got his ass caught by some of those, from what I've heard. Can't say I'll feel bad about them getting the heat for having prisoners slip through their fingers. Why? I would've figured someone in your line of work wouldn't be on the best terms with 'em, herself."
"I'm not," Kitty hummed agreement. "Even the nice ones don't go out of their way to see the corruption in this city. I just figured you worked alongside them, doing your...whatever it is you do at the Take."
Pete snorted. "Not so as you'd notice. You don't see the guards risking themselves to take out monsters. They leave that to the idiots who do it on commission."
"And which idiots would those be?" Kitty smirked at him.
"I could give you a list, but Tessa'd ride my ass for giving out info like that for free," Pete quipped back. "B'sides, we're on a mission here. No time for - oh bollocks, you see smoke over there?" He pointed towards the right, where black smoke was rising over the rootops, apparently without the aid of a chimney.
Kitty glanced over, then frowned deeply. "That's coming from the orphanage."
"Bugger," Pete muttered under his breath. "Right then. Slight detour?"
With a slight nod, Kitty headed toward a nearby alleyway. "Follow me. It will be quicker."
"Just remember I don't walk through walls?" Pete requested as he followed along behind her.
-----
Twenty minutes later, Kitty led Pete by the lapel of his jacket through a smoldering wall and out the other side, a young girl huddled terrified against her side. They were all coughing, including the small bundles in Pete's arms, but that was the last of the children saved, even as the entire building went up in flames.
Not the kind of smoke he wanted in his lungs, thank you very much. Pete handed the infants to grateful staff members and turned back to Kitty, wiping sooty hands off on his once black pants. "Right then. That's done. Ready to head out?" Hopefully they still had time to rescue a couple of less innocent victims from near certain death.
Kitty coughed once more into her sleeve, then nodded, following him down the alleyway. "That was... you were really good back there."
"You weren't so bad, yourself," Pete countered, his voice hoarse. "Ever get tired of B&E, you could get yourself a regular gig as a hero."
Looking around, she led him down the street toward the nearest well, drawing up some water to at least clear their throats before they continued on. "A hero? Is that your usual title?"
Pete snorted. "Not bloody likely. I just have a knack for being where shite's happening." He dug in his belt pouch, pulled out a collapsible leather cup, and handed it to her.
Taking it, she took a long drink of water, then leaned heavily on the well. "I can see that. You seem to attract trouble."
"'Least it's a talent that keeps life interesting?" Pete offered.
"Is that why you do it?" Kitty asked, finishing up the water and offering the cup back to him.
"Is that why I do what?" Pete took the cup back, dunked it in her bucket, and took a long drink from it, himself.
"I don't know. Slaying and taking? Do you do it to keep life interesting, or to be a hero?" she asked, watching him quietly.
Pete shrugged. "It's a paycheck. 'Sides, sometimes the job needs doing. Might as well be me doing it, right?"
Kitty just frowned at him. She had no idea what to make of him. Usually, she thought that Pete Wisdom was just a jerk trying to make himself look good, but everything she'd seen so far that evening had told her a totally different story.
"Wot? A man's gotta eat, doesn't he?" Pete pocketed the cup and straightened up. "S'pose we should go hunt down your mates."
"Right," she sighed, side-eying him for a moment more before leading the way down the street.
Pete followed along. "So, what about you? Why are you doing what you're doing? With your guts, you could be working for the Take yourself."
"Slaying dragons?" Kitty arched a brow at him. "I'm much better on the streets. Running information, breaking into the best places. That's what my skills are good at. Besides, if more people started to notice what I do, I'd be the one swinging from the noose and not Pyro."
"We'll get him out of there," Pete assured her, increasing his pace a bit. "And aren't you more likely to swing if you get caught breaking in?" Not that he thought that likely. Pryde was too smart to get herself caught.
"Slaying monsters is a lot more high-profile than a few break-ins. Some of the people in this town actually know your name," she pointed out. "In my line of work, it's better to not be known at all. You're one of the lucky few who actually knows my identity."
"Feeling really privileged now," Pete snarked, though in a way, he actually meant it.
She snorted softly at him. "Don't let it go to your head."
Pete snorted back. "With you around to puncture any ego I managed to build up? Not hardly."
"Now you're making me feel guilty. Maybe I should build it back up for you sometime," she murmured.
"Oh yeah? How would you go about that?" Pete asked, eyebrows raising as he smirked at her.
Kitty smirked back at him, then disappeared through a wall, banking over into the next street. She expected he'd follow eventually, but for the moment, she needed the space to ask herself what she was doing. Was she flirting with Pete Wisdom? No. No, that wasn't happening. But then again, why not?
-----
Why not, indeed? It didn't take long for Pete to catch up with her; far longer, though, to get to the courtyard where the thieves were being had. It seemed as if anything that could impede their progress, did - an overturned cart, a stampeding wyvern - Pete wouldn't have been surprised if they'd been held up by a little old woman with a cat in a tree. And when they finally did get there...
"Bugger," he muttered under his breath at the sight of the fire-wielding thief hanging from the gallows like some kind of demented fruit. Too late. All of that, and they were too fucking late.
For that one, at least. At the side of the square, the subject of no one's interest whatsoever, a young blonde girl sat on the floor of a hanging cage, her eyes locked on the grizzly sight.
"By the light," Kitty breathed out, all of the blood flooding from her face. She froze where she was, unable to tear her gaze away from the sight of Pyro swinging from the gallows. Some part of her was screaming - another nauseated. She couldn't believe that they hadn't made it in time. How had this happened? Why? He'd just been a petty pickpocket...
"Pretty sure the light had nothing to do with this," Pete replied quietly, resting one hand on her back in silent support. He fought down his own urge to take out those responsible (strong, in this case, because there had to be some kind of private vindetta involved) and tried to focus his attention in on their mission. "Shouldn't be too hard to get the girl out, if you can get her to move," he said in an undertone pitched so it wouldn't go further than her ears. "The body'd be a lot tougher. But if you want it, we'll do it."
The touch on her back was warm and comforting, and so foreign that it shocked her out of her stupor. Warm and comforting weren't things she ever felt in her line of work, or for that matter, her life. She turned toward Wisdom, her damp eyes narrowing at him in suspicion. "Why are you doing this? Why would you risk your life for a dead boy?"
"He's your mate, isn't he?" he said defensively, throwing up his hands as if to ward off her attack. "Or your friend's, at least." He jerked his chin towards the girl in the cage. "You don't want the body, that's fine by me. Thought you might, is all."
An answer that didn't answer her question at all. Classic Wisdom, and she hated that it made her heart beat even faster in her chest, either out of anger or...something else. Turning toward the square, she reached up and wiped at her eyes. "I can get Yana out, but I don't know how we can free Pyro."
"Getting him down's easy," Pete pointed out, producing a flame from one finger as inconspicuously as possible. "Getting hold of him after's a bit rougher, but I can figure something."
"If you can get hold of him, I can phase us into the tunnels beneath the city," she told him resolutely.
Pete eyed the gallows critically, took a breath, and nodded. "Right then. Get your friend out of here first, just in case things don't go to plan, yeah? Might want to pull me through from below if you can manage that, though. It'd be a lot easier than getting the body through all the gawkers."
Kitty nodded. "I'll get her free, then come for you. Maybe you should... cover your face, so no one recognizes you?"
Pete snorted. "Really not all that memorable. Don't worry about me, Pryde, just do your thing."
"Fine," she answered sharply, and turned on her heel to head toward Yana's cage. Maybe she wouldn't worry about him after all. Why should she?
Scowling, Pete made his way into the crowd, keeping an eye on her progress while getting into a good position to take out the rope.
"Yana," Kitty whispered as she got close to the cages, looking up at her friend and biting down her reaction at the look on the girl's face. Gods, she looked heartbroken. "Yana, you need to snap out of it."
Illyana blinked, then looked down at Kitty, her eyes haunted. "Oh. Hey. You shouldn't be here."
"Yeah, you shouldn't either," Kitty answered, then before anyone could tell her to stop or step back, she leapt into the air, phasing through the cage and catching hold of the other thief, then phasing them both back down, through the ground, merging with street, and dirt, and cobbles until they finally landed in a heap in a dark space far below.
"Oww," Illyana complained distractedly as she untangled herself from Kitty. That done, she sat down on the floor and peered over at the other girl. "You should've just left me there."
"Not while I'm still breathing." Then Kitty pushed up and took a deep breath. She wouldn't leave Pete up there, no matter what she thought of him. But the very moment that she started to phase, pushing off of the ground to retrieve him, everything went black.
"Bloody firebug of a thief," Pete grumbled to himself as he strode across the square. Cully'd been right; it was the same guy they'd run into a while back. Shouldn't make a difference, really - from what he'd heard, there wasn't any doubt the kid had gotten his ass caught trying to break into the wrong house, and a stint in the cage wouldn't hurt him any - but he'd also heard that the now beardless guard was out for blood and the judge was in a piss poor mood. Not a good combination, and one that could result in the guy taking a step off the block and going for a swing.
He wasn't okay with that, and the only sure way to prevent it was to break the kid out.
He'd originally swung by the cage figuring on tossing some hot knives at the problem and letting the firebug take it from there, but once he'd seen the shackles they'd locked on his wrists he'd known that wasn't an option. Which was why he was heading for the most likely place to run into a acquaintance of his, one who, if nothing else, had a Guild in common with the pyromaniac thief.
'Course, he wasn't exactly her favorite person? But hopefully she'd overlook that in a good cause. He wasn't exactly a pro with the lock picks, but so far as he knew? The lock had never been made that Kitty Pryde couldn't get past.
She wasn't a slouch when it came to knowing what there was to know around town, either, which was why she was already sitting on the front steps of the rundown theatre, listening to a ruddy-faced child explain what had happened in the marketplace. Kitty wasn't much bigger than the girl at her feet - slight and slim, and barely into womanhood, but there was always a look in her eye that told you she was thinking. She was always thinking. Even as she turned a dagger between her fingers, her eyes had that far off look...so much so, that she didn't even notice Pete until he was almost upon them.
Then she was on her feet in a flash, with a "Oh, no. No."
"What kind of greeting is that, Pryde?" Pete smirked. "People are gonna think you don't like me or something."
"I have more important things to worry about right now than whatever trouble you've gotten yourself into, Pete Wisdom," Kitty informed him, crossing her arms over her chest. "Forget it. There are a thousand other people in this city that can help you."
"And here I am, asking you instead of any of them. Feel special?" Pete pulled his pipe out of his pocket, expertly filled it with tobacco, and lit it with one of his hot knives. He took a puff, exhaled it slowly, and shrugged. "The thief who does the fires got himself caught. He's in a cage in the market. I need someone who's good with locks, and let's face it, you're the best."
Tense shoulders loosened a little, and Kitty's indignation shifted toward concern. She glanced at the younger girl who'd been speaking to her earlier and nodded, watching her skitter away before looking back at Pete. "I heard. He calls himself Pyro. More than that, another one of ours tried to free him and got thrown in with him. But why do you care?"
"Because word has it the judge is in a pissy mood and looking for someone to take it out on. Which isn't right." He took another puff off his pipe and shrugged. "If he was going to get his ass thrown in jail, I wouldn't give a damn. But from the sounds of it? He's more likely to swing."
She cursed softly beneath her breath and stared down at the cobblestones between them, trying to think. "So you want me to bail him out."
"Well, he's your mate, right? Figured you might want a hand in it." Pete shrugged. "If you don't, I'll try someone else. But you're the best I know."
"Trust me in that I want a hand in it," Kitty told him, her features setting seriously. "I care about them. Not particularly Pyro, but more the girl who tumbled into this mess with him. See, locks are one thing - getting someone free of the cages in the square is something wholly different."
"Figured you might be able to do your trick with that," Pete admitted. "'Specially if I do some kind of distraction to get everyone looking elsewhere?" After all, he wasn't looking to get her locked up instead of the firebug and his girlfriend, or whoever the other thief was. "I hadn't heard they'd caught two of them. How'd that happen?"
"I'm not sure, but I have a suspicion," she sighed, looking down the street in the direction of the square. Hopping down off of the steps, she started down the road. "The square's halfway across town. We'd best be on our way. Fortunately, I doubt the judge will see them before morn."
"Last I heard, he was planning on fitting it in today," Pete said. He strode after her, taking advantage of his greater height to catch up. "The whole things stinks of 'more going on than you can see on the surface'," he acknowledge. "'Can't put the pieces together and have them add up into anything that makes sense."
Kitty glanced over at him and snorted softly. "Please put that pipe away. You look ridiculous. As for the situation...I'd suggest we see the Oracle, but there's hardly time. The best we can do is try and thwart the authorities, then sweep up after."
"Not a whole lot to sweep up," Pete disputed. He took another puff from his pipe, just on principle, before emptying it onto the road and slipping it into his belt pouch. "We get them out and away and let the guards take the heat for losing them. Couldn't happen to nicer blokes."
She looked at him curiously at that statement. "You have a problem with the city guards?"
"Some of 'em," he admitted. "There are some who're just normal people, doing their jobs and grumbling about them over their pints at the pub. And then there are the ones who are in it so they can be assholes to people who can't do shite about it. Your friend got his ass caught by some of those, from what I've heard. Can't say I'll feel bad about them getting the heat for having prisoners slip through their fingers. Why? I would've figured someone in your line of work wouldn't be on the best terms with 'em, herself."
"I'm not," Kitty hummed agreement. "Even the nice ones don't go out of their way to see the corruption in this city. I just figured you worked alongside them, doing your...whatever it is you do at the Take."
Pete snorted. "Not so as you'd notice. You don't see the guards risking themselves to take out monsters. They leave that to the idiots who do it on commission."
"And which idiots would those be?" Kitty smirked at him.
"I could give you a list, but Tessa'd ride my ass for giving out info like that for free," Pete quipped back. "B'sides, we're on a mission here. No time for - oh bollocks, you see smoke over there?" He pointed towards the right, where black smoke was rising over the rootops, apparently without the aid of a chimney.
Kitty glanced over, then frowned deeply. "That's coming from the orphanage."
"Bugger," Pete muttered under his breath. "Right then. Slight detour?"
With a slight nod, Kitty headed toward a nearby alleyway. "Follow me. It will be quicker."
"Just remember I don't walk through walls?" Pete requested as he followed along behind her.
Twenty minutes later, Kitty led Pete by the lapel of his jacket through a smoldering wall and out the other side, a young girl huddled terrified against her side. They were all coughing, including the small bundles in Pete's arms, but that was the last of the children saved, even as the entire building went up in flames.
Not the kind of smoke he wanted in his lungs, thank you very much. Pete handed the infants to grateful staff members and turned back to Kitty, wiping sooty hands off on his once black pants. "Right then. That's done. Ready to head out?" Hopefully they still had time to rescue a couple of less innocent victims from near certain death.
Kitty coughed once more into her sleeve, then nodded, following him down the alleyway. "That was... you were really good back there."
"You weren't so bad, yourself," Pete countered, his voice hoarse. "Ever get tired of B&E, you could get yourself a regular gig as a hero."
Looking around, she led him down the street toward the nearest well, drawing up some water to at least clear their throats before they continued on. "A hero? Is that your usual title?"
Pete snorted. "Not bloody likely. I just have a knack for being where shite's happening." He dug in his belt pouch, pulled out a collapsible leather cup, and handed it to her.
Taking it, she took a long drink of water, then leaned heavily on the well. "I can see that. You seem to attract trouble."
"'Least it's a talent that keeps life interesting?" Pete offered.
"Is that why you do it?" Kitty asked, finishing up the water and offering the cup back to him.
"Is that why I do what?" Pete took the cup back, dunked it in her bucket, and took a long drink from it, himself.
"I don't know. Slaying and taking? Do you do it to keep life interesting, or to be a hero?" she asked, watching him quietly.
Pete shrugged. "It's a paycheck. 'Sides, sometimes the job needs doing. Might as well be me doing it, right?"
Kitty just frowned at him. She had no idea what to make of him. Usually, she thought that Pete Wisdom was just a jerk trying to make himself look good, but everything she'd seen so far that evening had told her a totally different story.
"Wot? A man's gotta eat, doesn't he?" Pete pocketed the cup and straightened up. "S'pose we should go hunt down your mates."
"Right," she sighed, side-eying him for a moment more before leading the way down the street.
Pete followed along. "So, what about you? Why are you doing what you're doing? With your guts, you could be working for the Take yourself."
"Slaying dragons?" Kitty arched a brow at him. "I'm much better on the streets. Running information, breaking into the best places. That's what my skills are good at. Besides, if more people started to notice what I do, I'd be the one swinging from the noose and not Pyro."
"We'll get him out of there," Pete assured her, increasing his pace a bit. "And aren't you more likely to swing if you get caught breaking in?" Not that he thought that likely. Pryde was too smart to get herself caught.
"Slaying monsters is a lot more high-profile than a few break-ins. Some of the people in this town actually know your name," she pointed out. "In my line of work, it's better to not be known at all. You're one of the lucky few who actually knows my identity."
"Feeling really privileged now," Pete snarked, though in a way, he actually meant it.
She snorted softly at him. "Don't let it go to your head."
Pete snorted back. "With you around to puncture any ego I managed to build up? Not hardly."
"Now you're making me feel guilty. Maybe I should build it back up for you sometime," she murmured.
"Oh yeah? How would you go about that?" Pete asked, eyebrows raising as he smirked at her.
Kitty smirked back at him, then disappeared through a wall, banking over into the next street. She expected he'd follow eventually, but for the moment, she needed the space to ask herself what she was doing. Was she flirting with Pete Wisdom? No. No, that wasn't happening. But then again, why not?
Why not, indeed? It didn't take long for Pete to catch up with her; far longer, though, to get to the courtyard where the thieves were being had. It seemed as if anything that could impede their progress, did - an overturned cart, a stampeding wyvern - Pete wouldn't have been surprised if they'd been held up by a little old woman with a cat in a tree. And when they finally did get there...
"Bugger," he muttered under his breath at the sight of the fire-wielding thief hanging from the gallows like some kind of demented fruit. Too late. All of that, and they were too fucking late.
For that one, at least. At the side of the square, the subject of no one's interest whatsoever, a young blonde girl sat on the floor of a hanging cage, her eyes locked on the grizzly sight.
"By the light," Kitty breathed out, all of the blood flooding from her face. She froze where she was, unable to tear her gaze away from the sight of Pyro swinging from the gallows. Some part of her was screaming - another nauseated. She couldn't believe that they hadn't made it in time. How had this happened? Why? He'd just been a petty pickpocket...
"Pretty sure the light had nothing to do with this," Pete replied quietly, resting one hand on her back in silent support. He fought down his own urge to take out those responsible (strong, in this case, because there had to be some kind of private vindetta involved) and tried to focus his attention in on their mission. "Shouldn't be too hard to get the girl out, if you can get her to move," he said in an undertone pitched so it wouldn't go further than her ears. "The body'd be a lot tougher. But if you want it, we'll do it."
The touch on her back was warm and comforting, and so foreign that it shocked her out of her stupor. Warm and comforting weren't things she ever felt in her line of work, or for that matter, her life. She turned toward Wisdom, her damp eyes narrowing at him in suspicion. "Why are you doing this? Why would you risk your life for a dead boy?"
"He's your mate, isn't he?" he said defensively, throwing up his hands as if to ward off her attack. "Or your friend's, at least." He jerked his chin towards the girl in the cage. "You don't want the body, that's fine by me. Thought you might, is all."
An answer that didn't answer her question at all. Classic Wisdom, and she hated that it made her heart beat even faster in her chest, either out of anger or...something else. Turning toward the square, she reached up and wiped at her eyes. "I can get Yana out, but I don't know how we can free Pyro."
"Getting him down's easy," Pete pointed out, producing a flame from one finger as inconspicuously as possible. "Getting hold of him after's a bit rougher, but I can figure something."
"If you can get hold of him, I can phase us into the tunnels beneath the city," she told him resolutely.
Pete eyed the gallows critically, took a breath, and nodded. "Right then. Get your friend out of here first, just in case things don't go to plan, yeah? Might want to pull me through from below if you can manage that, though. It'd be a lot easier than getting the body through all the gawkers."
Kitty nodded. "I'll get her free, then come for you. Maybe you should... cover your face, so no one recognizes you?"
Pete snorted. "Really not all that memorable. Don't worry about me, Pryde, just do your thing."
"Fine," she answered sharply, and turned on her heel to head toward Yana's cage. Maybe she wouldn't worry about him after all. Why should she?
Scowling, Pete made his way into the crowd, keeping an eye on her progress while getting into a good position to take out the rope.
"Yana," Kitty whispered as she got close to the cages, looking up at her friend and biting down her reaction at the look on the girl's face. Gods, she looked heartbroken. "Yana, you need to snap out of it."
Illyana blinked, then looked down at Kitty, her eyes haunted. "Oh. Hey. You shouldn't be here."
"Yeah, you shouldn't either," Kitty answered, then before anyone could tell her to stop or step back, she leapt into the air, phasing through the cage and catching hold of the other thief, then phasing them both back down, through the ground, merging with street, and dirt, and cobbles until they finally landed in a heap in a dark space far below.
"Oww," Illyana complained distractedly as she untangled herself from Kitty. That done, she sat down on the floor and peered over at the other girl. "You should've just left me there."
"Not while I'm still breathing." Then Kitty pushed up and took a deep breath. She wouldn't leave Pete up there, no matter what she thought of him. But the very moment that she started to phase, pushing off of the ground to retrieve him, everything went black.
