The Soul Feels What the Mind Can't Understand

A/N: Thanks for all of the reviews. I got Lola (my laptop) back today. We've been apart for four weeks now- so in celebration of her return, here is chapter 4. Enjoy!

CHAPTER 4

Her new powers were intriguing to Magneto, but potentially harmful to him as well. Her deadly skin can still temporarily absorb powers from mutants and suck the life force out both humans and mutants alike. But now, her skin was much thicker. She was nearly invulnerable because of it, and she now has incredible super-strength and the ability to fly. Magneto wanted her as his own, if she were to join the Brotherhood, the two of them could lead the Brotherhood in wiping the humans off the face of the earth. Then, they could live in a mutant dominated world. Magneto could rule that world with her by his side. She was simply perfect to him. There was only one problem in his master plan.

The X-Men.

She was one of them, one of those do-gooder mutants. Despite all of her poor experiences with the corrupted human race, she still cared for all humanity and was willing to protect them. Her affiliation with the X-Men has harnessed all of the good in her to be directed to a common cause; that cause being to protect the innocent, whether the innocent involved humans or mutants.

This affiliation has gained her new friends that would interfere with any tricks that Magneto may have in bringing, or rather forcing her to the dark side. Those friends being the always father-like figure Charles Xavier, the two lovebirds Dr. Jean Grey and Scott Summers, the weather goddess Ororo Munroe, the iceboy Bobby Drake, and even the giant, fuzzy smurf Hank McCoy.

But those friends don't even compare to Rogue's best friend.

The Wolverine.

If anyone or anything would try to harm poor little Rogue, you bet that the Wolverine will come out of Logan and it will rip apart and destroy everything in order to ensure her safety. Logan and Rogue had a history, a long one full of friendship. They were so alike without realizing it. They trusted each other from the start, but couldn't understand why. They let each other in their hearts without a second thought. They were best friends in every entity of the meaning. She was his best friend, and you NEVER take or harm anything that belongs to Logan because then the claws come out with the Wolverine following behind. When the Wolverine was mad, he was pissed.

So to get Rogue on his side, Magneto thought through many different courses of action. He considered reasoning with her, explaining how his plan was for the greater good, how humans cannot be trusted, but that she could trust him. That plan was quickly discarded on a count of he did kill her before, so she would probably never trust him. But what truly angered her about the Liberty Island 'situation' was how she was pulled back from the brink of death. The process nearly killed her beloved Wolverine. No, Rogue would never trust Magneto after the damage he caused.

Magneto sorted through the many ways to get to Rogue, to make her understand. Due to her plentiful physical capabilities, he knew it was it extremely unlikely to get Rogue to do anything against her will. And then he finally formulated a plan.

To understand how he can get her to align with him, he must first understand her.

He must learn her likes, her dislikes, her hidden desires, her world views, her deepest emotions, and her entire outlook on life.

Sure, Magneto has a few telepaths working for him in the Brotherhood, but they weren't coming up with anything exciting. He had his telepaths sent out on a mission to get close to Rogue and look into the depths of her mind. They studied on the surface of her mind, and looked deep into the pits of her subconscious. Every finding was carefully recorded for Magneto to study himself.

So now Magneto sits at the desk in his covert locale for the Brotherhood in a previously-abandoned building studying all of the findings that his telepaths collected a few nights ago.

He threw the files down onto the desk in frustration, "This is worthless, nothing sticks out specifically that I hadn't already known." He growled through clenched teeth.

Mystique slipped into the room unnoticed, and startled him as she spoke. "Now, now we can't have you losing your temper." She reprimanded Magneto as if he was a child doing wrong.

Magneto bitterly replied, "Everything here we already know. She loves her boyfriend the Ice Cube, she is in pain for not being able to touch anyone, she has a special bond with Claw Boy, she loves Charles like a father, she had a tragic childhood with parents that did not understand her, Ororo has been a helpful mentor for the X-Men, and she is not too fond of Jean—which I find quite entertaining by the way. But this is all useless. Anyone who has ever met Rogue is aware of this. There must be some sort of weakness in her psyche that we can use against her." Magneto sighed and rubbed his temples. He has been through all of this information for at least twelve hours straight searching for a weak link inside of Rogue's mind that is not so common for a teenage girl mutant.

Mystique noted his out-of-character desperation and decided to drop the sarcastic remarks (just for a little while), and she began to pick up some of the files to help him out.

After about twenty minutes of the two silently researching together, Mystique noticed something unusual and broke the silence in the room with hope evident in her voice. "Wait… What is this?" Mystique points to a note at the end of one of the telepath's observations. She reads the note aloud when Magneto does not react to her find. "One of the telepaths wrote 'target is hiding deep emotions from her mind. Possible emotions are radiating a deep sadness in the depths of her subconscious.' What is that supposed to mean? It's not very elaborate." Mystique peered over the paper in her hand to see Magneto in her view; she looked at him expectantly, waiting on the answer.

Magneto quickly obliged under her scrutiny, "That was a note written from my strongest telepath Alex. Alex explained that one to me, she herself found the discovery to be quite intriguing. She claims there was a large portion of Rogue's subconscious that could not be read, but that portion radiated some sort of strong sadness and depression, possibly a result of heartbreak."

"Why couldn't one of the most powerful mind readers tell what that part of Rogue's subconscious was thinking?" Mystique was in awe by the incompetence of her fellow Brotherhood mutant.

"Alex could not read it because Rogue could not read it." Magneto answered as if it was the simplest thing to understand.

On the other hand, Mystique was not easily convinced. "What do you mean Rogue couldn't read it? It was in her head, it was what Rogue was thinking. And why the hell am I the only one baffled by this situation?" The more Magneto talked, the more confused Mystique was. And the more confused Mystique got, the more frustrated she became.

"Alex said it is extremely rare, but it has been known to happen. It was in fact the first mind Alex read that was complex enough to do so. It's as if Rogue is constantly going through something so dreadful that she manipulates her mind to not think about it, but there are still traces of the pain left in her mind. There's just no way for the telepaths to track what the root of her pain is." Magneto appeared discouraged yet again.

"Don't you think that this could be just what we're looking for? Clearly she has more of a complexity to her mind than any of us could have imagined. If we can discover where Rogue gets this constant stream of pain, we can truly understands who she is, which would make us know her better than she knows herself because her mind neglects to look into this pain she feels. Even better if we were to stop the pain, then she may listen to your reasoning of why she must join the Brotherhood." Mystique was so full of determination that Magneto felt sad to disappoint her.

"Alex and I both agreed that the pain is probably of her constantly reliving the pain of her separation from her parents, or something to that nature. We cannot truly be sure of what the cause is and we will never know because the pain is untraceable to my mind readers. Whatever sadness Rogue is always feeling will probably always be trapped deep inside of her soul for no one to see." Magneto let out a defeated sigh and leaned back in his chair with his hands resting behind his head.

Something about Magneto's last statement struck a familiar chord with Mystique. With her elbow leaning on the desk, she rested her chin in her hand thinking long and hard about what was just said. "Her soul…her soul! That's it! We need to stop looking in her mind for the root of Rogue's misery, but instead look into her soul." Mystique was so excited with her newfound epiphany that she hadn't noticed that the revelation was lost on Magneto completely.

"What on earth are you going on about? The soul knows no different from the mind. Her soul consists of her inner feelings, which can be found in her subconscious. And you can't actually look into someone's soul." Magneto stunned by the stupidity of it all.

Mystique, however, saw things much differently. "The soul and the mind are two entirely different entities. This unread portion of Rogue's subconscious may originate in her soul, but because Rogue uses all of her strength to never think about this pain, by the time the emotions reach her mind, all that is left are small traces of sadness and heartache. The only place Rogue reads these strong emotions is in her soul, which means that Rogue's soul is the only possible place we could reach into and discover the truth from."

"Be that as it may, we still need a way to look into Rogue's soul, and I'm pretty sure that my telepaths won't do."

"That's your problem, boss. You keep thinking about mind readers when you should really be thinking about a soul reader." Mystique smirked at her newly formed plan.

"I hate to burst your bubble, Mystique dear, but I've never heard of a soul reader." Magneto frowned at his friend.

"Well, that would be because there is only one that exists, and she is very private. I happen to be one of the few that are even aware of her existence."

"And you've never mentioned anything concerning this magical soul reader of yours before because…?" Magneto's agitation seeped through each syllable he breathed.

Mystique, of course, remained unfazed by his obvious frustration. "Now, you see, we've never truly needed her until now. I should warn you that it will take a lot to convince her to do this. She will want something big in return. You will have to be willing to give anything."

Magneto understood how mutant favors went and just nodded in response. "Now that we have a plan to work off of, I will need you to contact this friend immediately."

Mystique picked up the phone from his office desk, and dialed. After talking and bargaining with the woman on the other line for some ten minutes, Mystique turned to Magneto and stated, "She won't go for anything less than ten million."

Magneto quickly replied. "Done."

Magneto smiled at Mystique. Everything was falling into place perfectly. The next step was to open Pandora's box.

Nothing bad could possibly come from that…right?

End of CHAPTER 4

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