Prologue
For the tenth time since the music started she wondered what the fuck she was doing there. Then Emma's words rang loud and clear in her mind. I welcomed you, I fed you, gave you a warm bed. I could send you back to the world as the penniless runaway that you are... But where would you go? Who would you turn to?
And she was right. She was a runaway. She had no memories whatsoever of her life before her powers manifested, or more like she guessed it was the event that triggered the loss of memories. She had woken up in a low-class motel, with nothing but the clothes on her back, cash, a driving license stating she was Anna Marie D'Acanto and motorcycle keys. She was barely sixteen. She freaked out when she started to hear a foreign voice inside her mind. The lone voice, at that point, told her she was a mutant and had absorbed him. He showed her the scene from his perspective. He also apologized for taking her away. As he told her, they had lived in a small community in Mississippi and people didn't like mutants. She was grateful, she guessed. Neither knew why her memories were erased while his were intact. She had dreams, sometimes, dreams of a little girl called sometimes Anna, sometimes Marie. Which was the real her, she didn't know. Cody, that was the boy's name, confessed he had always had a crush on her. His psyche was sucked in when they kissed. Somehow, skin on skin contact triggered a reaction from her.
She found out how true that was the next evening, when she ate at a dinner somewhere on her way North. Two bullies tried to force their presence on her. It lasted until one of them grabbed forcefully her bare arm and dropped unconscious on the ground. His mate looked at her with fear. The waitress came over with alarm, asking what she had done to the guy. "Ah know the pressure points to neutralize an opponent, it's all," she tried to say flippantly. None were buying her act so she dropped a bill on the table and exited.
Lying down on her motel bed that night, she heard the second voice that joined Cody's. Next morning, she stopped at a mall and purchased gloves, long-sleeved blouses and enough make-up to cover up her face. This way, no one could touch her bare skin anymore. According to Cody, she always had a tendency to choose dark colors and heavy make-up, and if the black remnants of nail polish were any indication, he was right.
That day, she also used a public phone to call Cody's parents. She had introduced herself as a schoolmate worried about him. His parents told her he was in a coma, and that the doctors were optimistic about his chances to recover eventually. The brain had no damage. She sighed in relief.
Two years later, she was eighteen and a dancer in Emma Frost's club. She was still untouchable. All dancers were mutants like her. Some had visible mutations, like Marrow, some not, like herself. She had countless psyches trapped within her mind. She had created a palace for them. A manor, a fortress where they stayed. Each had a room. That way, they left her alone most of the time. She could hear their whispers but if she focused on what happened outside her mind-scape, she drowned them out.
Emma also told her that she had a natural shield against telepathy. As her ability was akin to telepathy of contact, she had control over outside influences.
Now Emma wanted her to dance. Again. She slipped into her Rogue persona. A luscious smile on her lips, she grabbed the pole and spun around it. She loved the Burlesque art. The clothes, the make-up, the seduction. As long as it stayed a game she could handle it. Customers nicknamed her the Untouchable. She would always be covered in sheer, see-through material when she mingled with them. But on stage... On stage she was free to show skin, she could enjoy the air on her corset-clad body. At the Hellfire, she was the finest dancer. Thriving for herself, fighting for survival had sculpted her body. She was shapely, her movements sharp and precise. Graceful as a cat, she oozed sensuality.
The song came to an end. Even though she had been distracted by her thoughts, she had accomplished her routine flawlessly. She felt a fearless hand graze her calf as she turned to walk away. She stiffened, waiting for the absorption. When nothing happened, she looked down at the person who recklessly grabbed her, against the Club's policy. Her emerald eyes plunged into red-on-black orbs that glowed. She could see them even with the stage lights blinding her.
She felt like the devil had finally caught up with her and was claiming the souls she stole along with hers. For a second that lasted an eternity, Anna, no, Rogue lost herself to the stranger's touch.
Emma's shrieking voice snapped her out of the daze she was caught in. She snatched her leg from the Devil's hand and hurried away. Hidden behind the heavy curtains, she looked at the scene unveiling in the main room. Emma was talking with the Devil. How appropriate, she thought, that the Devil pays the Hellfire Club a visit. The exchange between the White Queen and the Devil lasted a while. To Anna's surprise, Emma threw her a look and nodded to whatever the strange man told her.
The man went back to his table and Emma went backstage. Anna's friend Marrow was dancing her routine already. Anna headed towards the changing room. She dropped on the chair facing her mirror. She tried to analyze the situation. She didn't absorb the man - or was he something else? - and she couldn't figure out how that could be. She was the Untouchable Rogue. No customer dared to touch her. They knew she could access their darkest secrets, their deepest thoughts, their most shameful desires with a touch. Barriers against telepaths didn't work against her. Who would dare to touch her?
There had been cases, men enthralled by her who recklessly touched her nonetheless. None walked away unaffected. She had to master her control yet. How could he?
Her train of thoughts was interrupted by Emma. "I have no idea what happened up there, Emma," she started.
"It's okay, dear. He is a mutant. One of the side effects of his mutation is a kinetic shield surrounding his body. It shields him from me as well as you. The anomaly doesn't come from you." Emma said as she queenly sat beside Anna. "He requests your presence," she added with a shark-like smile.
Anna shivered, thinking about the Devil... The mutant that awaited her. "Emma," she squeaked weakly. Emma did not like weaklings.
"You will go and have a nice conversation with this Gambit person. I will not hear otherwise."
Anna muttered an approval. Emma was harsh, but she looked after them. None of the girl were forced to do anything they weren't ready to do. She expected them to work and earn their money though. Dancing was only a side of the coin. The other side was entertaining the gentlemen, sometimes pose as waitresses if the staff was low on employees. Nothing too hard and definitely nothing that involves disrobing more.
She tied the belt of her vintage dress as tightly as she could. She checked her makeup and hair, smiled at her reflexion and exited. As a sixteen years old runaway, she had been awkward and outward Gothic, with no sense of measure or proportion. Two years later, she had mastered the Burlesque art of covering up without hiding herself. Entice and seduce instead of repulse and turn off.
She didn't know how she felt about meeting someone - a man! - immune to her powers. She needed to be in control of the situation. Seduce him before he could seduce her. Maybe she would even get from him what she had never gotten from anyone. Intimacy. Touch. Her shiver of much anticipated delight turned into a shiver of fright when she remembered those enthralling eyes that seemed to see her very naked soul.
She braced herself for what was to come and, with a sway in her hips and a luscious smile on her lips, made her way toward the Gambit.
AN: I decided to add the AN in the end, so you could enjoy this prologue without my unstoppable chatter. The idea came to me while watching Burlesque. I'm not a big Cher or Christina Aguilera fan, but I do love the Burlesque art. Check out Dita Von Teese for starters. For the Wolverine And The X-Men lovers, this is set after the explosion that destroyed the Institute and before Wolverine formed a new team of X-Men. It's slightly AU as you will see in future chapters.
I will be posting three stories I've been working on since last September. One is Reaper, the one you're reading. One is Family, set in movie-verse right after X-Men First Class and the last is Rogue's Baby, set in X-Men: Evolution.
Happy readings, my dears. I hope to hear your thoughts on it. I would say that I will update first the one that gets most attention, but that would be lying. I'll update the ones I have chapters completed for. I will also try to stick to a strict schedule of updating each every weekend. I also have to update Xperimenting Xmas but I have a hard time deciding if the chapter I wrote is good enough. Saying goodbye to that version of Rogue once more is more difficult than I thought.