Merging
"No!" The confused cry was no louder than a whisper, but it upset both of the women who had raised the rebellious girl in front of them. "Ah don' care if mah momma was a freakin' Sasquatch, Ah ain't goin' anywhere with this lady Ah hardly know, much less to New freakin' York! Momma Adler, what the hell are you thinkin'?"
"Rogue," the blind woman said warningly, "She is your mother, you are a mutant, and you can't just stay here. Not after what happened to Cody."
"She's right," said Mystique, frowning. Her blue forehead shone with a thin layer of sweat. The two of them had just revealed the shapeshifter's natural form to Rogue, barely a day after her mutation had surfaced. "We need to leave, and I have a place in Bayville, New York. I didn't want to force you, but you really have no choice here."
"Ah…" Rogue didn't really have anything left to say. "Ah can't. This's all movin' too fast. Ah need some time, Ah need t' sort all this mess out."
"Rogue, I-" Mystique started, but Rogue was already running out the door. Mystique started after her, both trying to calm and catch the girl. Unfortunately for her, Rogue knew the woods like the back of her hands, and her hometown was little more than houses, a gas station, a restaurant, and trees. She was gone before Mystique knew which direction to go.
In her hiding place, a clearing near a brook, Rogue finally stopped running. Her body was already quaking with repressed sobs, which gave way to all-out crying as she collapsed to her knees.
Somehow, having two mothers wasn't unusual at all to Rogue. She had grown up with a Momma Irene and a Momma Raven; that was just the way things were. She was even tolerant of mutants, a great fortune to her when she found out she was one.
But of all the powers, poisonous skin had to be the absolute worst. She couldn't even wear a bathing suit anymore because it left so much of her bare, and she loved to swim.
And her Momma Raven was a shapeshifter. The woman she'd known for years, who'd taught her to ride a bike and an A.T.V. and drive a boat and a truck and a car and a motorcycle, who'd been there when she'd caught her first fish and shot her first buck, had outright lied to her her whole life.
Slowly she began to calm down. Raven had only done what she'd thought was best. She'd found Rogue a safe place, gotten her an entire wardrobe of clothes that left not an inch of skin bare, and otherwise taken care of her. She was her mother, and Rogue was being stupid.
Even as she contemplated staying where she was until her mother found her, Rogue was picking herself up off the ground and brushing off her pants. She wiped her eyes and started back to her house, feeling unnaturally relieved and relaxed.
A sudden noise behind her caught Rogue's attention. She turned only her head, and only halfway. There was a hint of motion, and stillness fell over the woods again. Rogue shrugged and took a few more steps. A slight noise from behind her, and she turned around with a kick. The other girl jumped over her leg, and Rogue froze.
It was her! She had attacked herself? How?
No sooner did those thoughts flit through her head than Rogue dismissed them. "Ya're a shapeshifter, raht?"
The other girl laughed. "Quick thinker. Wrong."
"Then wha-" Rogue was pinned to a tree. The other girl laughed as Rogue struggled.
"What do I look like?" the girl asked. It was Rogue's voice, laden with Rogue's sarcasm, coming out of a girl who looked awful close to her. "I'm you. From a couple of alternate worlds, of course."
"Whaddaya mean a couple?" asked Rogue, startled. The other just laughed. Rogue was aware of how close the other was when an idea struck.
Ducking under her arm, Rogue escaped the other's clutches for merely a moment. It was all she needed. The other girl, the other Rogue, turned quickly, only to feel Rogue's hand over her mouth.
Something felt wrong, beyond wrong. Rogue tried to pull back her hand, but it had melted into the other girl's face like putty, and was sucking the other girl into Rogue's body. Both of them thrashed a bit, which actually sped up their merging.
After a few minutes, one body fell to the ground, clad in the original Rogue's clothing. She was unconscious, as though in a coma… Like Cody.
-
Slowly Rogue opened her eyes. Her surroundings were strange, full of other Rogues that wandered about aimlessly. Sensing something, they turned and attacked the nearest version of themselves that they could find.
One of them approached her, but Rogue just touched her with a bare hand, absorbing her personality with a single whim.
This one was helpless, as far as Rogue could ascertain. Her eyes were muddy hazel, and her hair was dull. She wasn't athletic, and had first met other mutants while traveling through Canada. Logan, her friend and father figure, had gone on to join the X-Men, whom Raven opposed. That Rogue had joined them happily.
Curious, Rogue moved on to another variation. This Rogue had joined Magneto, Raven's boss, who had formed that dimension's version of the X-Men. She had married him. Anna Marie Darkholme-Lensherr. They'd had a kid, and she didn't know if he was a mutant or not. She never would.
Rogue took many others into herself, adding personalities to her own like facets to a gem. Several Rogues were no more than children, and one was sixty-something. Her power kept her young, though. Finally, there were two left.
These last two seemed to be locked in an unending battle, oblivious to her presence. In response, Rogue ripped off both gloves and grabbed both of them, one in each hand, around the neck.
These two were polar opposites.
In one hand was a mutant policewoman, trying to stop the continued absorption of alternate Rogues. She had traveled with an officer named Bishop to a new world, using a device a technopath named Forge made. She had been absorbed by another Rogue, who had started the chain.
The other Rogue was the terrorist. She had seen a police officer who looked like her, and reached out to stop her from arresting the terrorist's cohorts. Her attempt had backfired, and the two of them had ended up stuck in the same body. Frustration and fury lead her to drain others, to make others join her.
The Rogue that had absorbed everyone else, the only remaining Rogue, she, was the end result.
A strangled cry burst from her throat as she was forced back into consciousness. Her body was still rearranging itself and all her features, and it hurt.
A slight noise in the bushes was her only warning as Mystique ran into the clearing. Helpless, Rogue just lay where she was, watching her mother carefully.
Suspicious, Raven pinned her down. Her raspy voice, thick with fear, demanded, "What did you do with my daughter?"
Struck by how familiar that question was, Rogue only answered, "What, don't recognize me?"
Slowly Mystique backed off, and Rogue sat up, already forming her explanation.
Like it or not, one thing was certain; she was going to New York, with or without Mystique.
