Two Years Later
Kitty and Bobby walked down the side-walk of some podunk town in Oklahoma in their street clothes. The whole reason they were in this silly little town that didn't even have a traffic light was because somewhere here there was supposed to be the headquarters for the FoH.
Kitty glanced across the street at Scott who was interrogating an elderly couple in front of an antique shop. The couple kept shaking their heads and the woman had backed up to stand partially behind her husband.
"Does Scott really think he's being discreet?" Kitty asked, wrinkling her nose.
Bobby glanced over to their esteemed team leader who had started chasing the couple down the side-walk and out of sight. "Well, at least he's trying, right?"
They chuckled together and continued down the street. They walked for another twenty minutes before a woman pushed through the two of them, knocking both of them to the ground.
"Hey, watch where your going!" She shouted to the woman.
The woman turned around with a glare and it was then that Kitty saw her face. The white bangs and chestnut hair couldn't belong to anyone but Rogue. If her hair wasn't proof enough she sneered at the two and iced the sidewalk around them. Kitty shrieked at her before she ran off.
"Mutie!" Three men who had been across the street raced after Rogue as she turned a corner.
Kitty glared after her and looked over to Bobby who was laying on the ground with his eyes open, looking dazed. She crawled over to her friend, trying not to slip on the sheet of ice. "Bobby? Are you okay? Can you get up?"
He nodded and pushed himself into a sitting position as a crowd formed around them muttering about muties and how they should all be locked away.
"Yeah, I'm fine?" He said and stood up easily on the ice.
Kitty stood up with him and slipped before regaining her balance. "Come on, let's get back to the others." She said, carefully traipsing off the ice.
XxX
Rogue stopped running when she came to dead ended alleyway. Turning around to face her pursuers she sent them a dirty glare. She knew who they were, members of the Friends of Humanity. She also knew what they did to mutants which was the only reason why she was letting them capture her instead of flying away.
Hopefully Shadowcat and Iceman would randevu with the rest of the X-Men in town and get Wolverine to track her scent back to their headquarters. Then the X-Men could do what they do best and put a stop to their activities and during the chaos she could slip away and out of town.
"There you are you filthy mutie." One of them spat.
Another one of them picked up a pipe and lunged for her, swinging the pipe back and bringing it down on her back. She took a dive and pretended to lay crumpled on the dirty ground. With Ms. Marvel's powers, the blow didn't hurt, nor did it hurt when one of them kicked her in the side for good measure. Though her power's still came and went at odd times, she had a fairly good handle on the strength and invulnerability, the flying part was still an issue though.
"Get the collar on it would you Dave."
She had heard rumors of these collars but she hadn't known they were true until the cold metal was snapped around her neck. Every inch of skin tingled for a moment before it stopped and they lifted her limp form up.
"Open the trunk up Phil!" One of them called out to someone at the other end of the ally.
A minute later she was stuffed into a dark trunk. She prayed that the X-Men would track her to their base. Rogue knew the second they put the collar on her neck that she was in over her head.
XxX
Gambit grit his teeth together and looked away as Kitty and Bobby recounted their story of their run in with Rogue. No one had seen or heard from her in two years and then she just shows up out of the blue in some random town in Oklahoma. What was she doing here in the first place?
"She is back with Brothherhood of Mutants?" Piotr asked, glancing out of the side of his eye at Kurt who was glowering at his feet in the cockpit.
"I don't think so." Jean said, frowning at Bobby who had opened his mouth. "If she had, we would have seen her before now."
It was then that Logan walked back up the ramp to the jet. "Tracked her to a row of old warehouses just south of town." He said. "The place smells like death and she ain't the only one there."
Remy had searched the globe over for Rogue if only to keep an eye on her. But neither his connections in the Thieves Guild or the Assassins Guild had been able to find her. He feared that maybe she had finally done it and ended her life. Then Kitty and Bobby had started shouting in their communicator about Rogue and he had been flooded with relief that she was alive.
He hadn't cared that she attacked them because they were fine and that meant she was alive. He had been on board the jet with Nightcrawler at the time who had dropped to the ground praying in German and thanking God for his sister's health.
"You don't think the FoH got a hold of her?" Ororo asked and she too glanced at Kurt.
Kitty spoke up this time. "Well, after she asked the sidewalk and ran away, these three big guys ran after."
Jean and Scott shared a look. "Nightcrawler, you and Storm stay here and get the blackbird ready to pick us up. The rest of us will go to the warehouse and check it out." Scott said.
XxX
As it turned out the warehouse wasn't the headquarters for the FoH, but it was one of the many places across the country where they kept mutants and beat them for sport. With every dead or half alive mutant they came across Remy's stomach would drop further and further.
The Friends had abandoned the complex as soon as the X-Men had stormed in so there wasn't much fighting involved. In fact the only fighting there was when one big son of a bitch charged Piotr who knocked him through a wall and out f commission.
Remy raced along the halls looking for the sad girl with the white streaks in her dark hair. Something about her called to him whether it was her pretty face or his need to rescue a damsel in distress he didn't know. What he did know was that he had to get to her soon.
"Rogue!" He called out when he came across another group of cells.
Some of the mutants stirred, most didn't. He by passed them looking for her distinctive two toned hair. It wasn't until he reached the end of the row of cells that he saw her, her hair spilled around her like a halo.
He blew the lock off the door and rushed in, falling to his knees by her side. He lifted her head into his lap and carefully brushed a few blood spattered strands of white hair away from her pale face. It had only been a few hours since Kitty and Bobby had seen her and already she was in such a state.
The other mutants looked like they had been there for months and some were better off then her. What had happened.
"Rogue?" He called out to her gently.
She was so pale and the trail of dry blood on her chin was making him sick.
"Rogue?" He called louder this time.
A glint of light off the metal collar around her neck caught his eye. It was an inhibitor collar that they had found on other mutants the FoH had got their hands on. If it was on that meant her powers were off.
He used his middle and index finger to check her pulse and closed his eyes. There was no pulse, Rogue was dead. "Desole Cherie." He whispered and tried to push back the wrenching feeling in his chest.
"Is she dead?" A voice so quiet he almost hadn't heard spoke up from the cell next to hers.
He looked over to see a scrawny teenaged boy caked in dried blood and dirt watching him.
"Oui." Was all he could manage.
"It's 'cause that one guard kept tryin' to touch her." The boy said before coughing. "She broke his arm and then the other's started beatin' her."
He looked back down to her and held her just a little bit closer. What paths had led her to this? Was there anything that could have been done to save her from all this pain?
He pulled out a lock pick from his sleeve and had the collar off in no time. He couldn't let Kurt see her with it on like a dog. He reached for his communicator. "Ah found Rogue." He spoke. "There are a couple of mutants still alive down here on the east side o' the buildin'." He said.
"Gambit!" Nightcrawler shouted into his own communicator. "How is she? Is she okay?"
He couldn't bear to tell him over the radio. "Ah'm bringin' her back now."
He hated that it gave him false hope but there was no other way. He scooped her light form intio his arms and carried her out of the cell and down the hall. He rounded a corner and came face to face with Jean. She took one look at Rogue and her eye filled up with tears. He knew she had done a telepathic scan and found no form of life.
"There are others." He said and jerked his head to the hallway he had just exited. She brushed the tears away before they could fall and nodded. Leaving Gambit alone with her body again, though he could still feel the over whelming hurt rolling off her in waves.
The blackbird had already landed several yards away by the time he made it outside. Kurt was anxiously waiting on board. Every step he took filled him with a heavy dread.
"Rogue!" Kurt called and teleported to him. He hovered around her trying to take her in all at once.
"Je suis tellement désolé." He told him. "We didn' make it in time."
Kurt looked up to him with those big yellow eyes not understanding.
"She," He had never had to deliver such devastating news before. "Didn' make it, homme."
Understanding dawned in his eyes and he touched his bare hand to her cheek. Nothing happened. Remy moved forward to the jet and boarded with Kurt firmly holding Rogue's hand. Once on, he had passed her body off to Kurt who was muttering in German between tears.
Neither sibling deserved for things to turn out like this. It was made that much worse that their older brother was the leader of the FoH.
Several hours later they had boarded all the surviving mutants, seven total, and were on their way back to Westchester.
Kurt was still huddled in the back of the plane clinging to his sister and sobbing. It was heart wrenching to hear the normally happy jokester in such anguish. Even Logan and Emma couldn't muster up anything to say about Rogue. Probably because they would have been thrown from the plane if they had.
In the seat across the isle from him Kitty was in tears. She turned to him with and wiped the wetness from her cheeks. "She had to have known they were with the FoH, why did she attack us like that?"
Logan grunted from the seat in front of her. "Think about it. If they had taken you and Iceman it would have been hours to notice you went missing. Then I would have had to find your trail which would have taken a couple more hours. Those three who got her were probably following you and she turned their attention from you two to her."
"But why would she do that?" Kitty questioned and her voice watery.
"If y'all ran back ta us sayin' Rogue had attacked y'all an' seen where she ran off too. Then it would be easier fo' Wolverine ta track her." Remy said. "She saved yo' life, petite."
Kitty sniffled and burst into a fresh wave of tears.
"We'll hold a proper funeral for her when we get back." Scott announced from the cockpit.
It wouldn't make up for all the hardship she had been through but it was the only thing they could do.
"Why did they kill her though?" Bobby whispered so Kurt wouldn't hear them. "All the others had been there for months, she was only there for a couple of hours."
Remy glanced to Kurt who was still clinging tight to Rogue's body. "One o' the other prisoners said a guard tried ta mess wi' her." He raised his eyebrows meaningfully. "She broke his arm an' the other's beat her ta death."
Bobby turned a sickly green collar and sat back in his seat. A head of him he could see both Ororo and Jean shaking with tears as well.
It was such an awful end to her short, troubled life. She didn't deserve it, no matter how much she thought she did.
A/N
Its like I have no self control. Only one more chapter after this guys.
