Years since Rogue's powers returned: 28-29

Chapter 36: What Part of Unbreakable Skin Don't You Understand?

Gambit was a little surprised to find messages on his phone when he returned to Earth. The people most likely to contact him were his family, and they never attempted to call him when he was on the moon. The messages that were waiting for him were from Vanessa. Initially he was irritated about there being multiple messages, but after reading them he realised it wasn't a case of her pestering him to get back to her; each one was about a different matter.

He checked the time and then rang her phone.

"Hello, Remy?" Vanessa said upon answering.

"Hi Nessie," Gambit replied cheerfully while making himself at home on the bed in his hotel room. "Just got your messages. Sorry I didn't respond sooner, I'm afraid I've been incommunicado for the past month."

"Ah, I wondered about that," she replied. "But then, it wouldn't be the first time you've ignored me."

"I'm busy working on holidays," Gambit said blithely, as most of the messages he'd ignored were holiday greetings. "So, you've in New York now?"

"Yeah I'll probably be here for a couple of years at this point," Vanessa told him.

"Alright then. I frequent New York a lot more than I do Ukraine, so it'll be a lot easier for me to drop by without attracting unwanted attention," Gambit said. "Just no shopping lists this time."

"Heh, no problem. Speaking of shopping lists..."

"Right. The Russia thing."

"Can you help? I just remembered you spoke the language, so when I found out what happened..." Vanessa trailed off.

"Heh, yeah, Russia should be doable, but it will take some time to organise. If you could send me some contact details?"

A few weeks later, Gambit was in Russia, enjoying a meal with Vanessa's friend, Carmel. He listened patiently while Carmel retold the story he'd gotten from Vanessa, although with more detail, about a market being run by slave labour.

"They're all safe now, but unless we get their passports back..." Carmel sighed. She didn't need to tell him that the police were useless. Gambit already realised that they were probably on the side of the market owners and if any of the former slaves went to them for help they'd either be handed back or deported.

"Any idea where they might be?"

"This is the market," Carmel replied, pulling out a map to show him. "That's our only guess."

Gambit nodded slowly.

"Alright," he said. "I'll check it out, but I can't promise anything. If they're being kept elsewhere, or worse, been destroyed in the wake of the rescue..."

"We've considered both those possibilities," Carmel replied, cleared her throat, and said: "The others are trying to find legal ways of helping them."

Gambit cracked a wry smile and tapped his finger on the location of the market on the map. "These guys stole their lives, chère. That's the real crime."

Carmel smiled back. "Agreed."

After doing some preliminary casing—a fairly easy thing to do, given that it was a market—Gambit set about breaking in. It irked him greatly that the owners had managed to replace the rescued slaves, but the good news was that he had no trouble finding their passports and other ID papers in the office safe. Unfortunately, the ones for the freed slaves weren't there.

Gambit stole the identification and took it upon himself to free the new slaves. Most of them had been trafficked from Ukraine and he was pleased to find that he had picked up just enough Ukrainian from Vanessa to explain he was rescuing them. Having their passports helped. He also took the time to get into their computer and locate their financial information.

Carmel was just as disgusted and relieved about the newly freed slaves as Gambit was.

"At least we can help them," she said and sighed. "Thanks for looking anyway. I'm sure we'll figure out a way to help the others eventually."

"It's not over yet," Gambit said. "I have a contact who may be able to help you. I'll contact you again soon."

Although it had been sometime since he'd last spoken to her, Gambit was pleased to find that his contact information for Svetlana was still valid.

"Are you still in the business of making fake IDs?" he inquired of her in Russian.

Svetlana sniffed at him. "Of course I am. And your accent needs work."

"My bad."

Svetlana ultimately agreed to make up the fake identification for the former slaves. While she spent some time getting photos and other vital information from them, Carmel approached Gambit.

"Some of my friends are a little concerned about this," she said.

"That doesn't surprise me," Gambit replied. "You said they wanted to do this legally."

"Well, they don't want any of them to get caught with a fake ID," Carmel said apologetically.

"She's the best in the business," Gambit assured her.

"And I imagine she's also expensive too," Carmel said. "We can only afford so much—"

"Fear not, ma chère," Gambit replied. "Their former owners are footing the bill."

"They are?"

Gambit grinned cheekily at her. "I thought that Vanessa told you I was a thief..."

Carmel laughed. "I'm sure I'm enjoying this way more than I should."

Gambit had been a little apprehensive that, in the wake of his crime spree in Ukraine, Henri might query why Gambit went to Russia knowing the trouble it had both as a source and destination country for human trafficking. He was relieved to find that no such query came, but made sure that if anyone did decide to check up on him, that they'd find that he stole quite a lot.

He got a message from Vanessa shortly thereafter thanking him for his help. That was a message he didn't respond to, but he couldn't entirely ignore it. The whole arrangement with Vanessa was making him feel rather mixed up. He liked working with her to steal from people who made their money through human trafficking and slave labour. For that matter, it wasn't all that different to how he already picked some of his targets. At the same time he still felt like he was being used and manipulated. His family had been telling him for years that his soft side would get the better of him one day and it felt like that day had come now that Vanessa had found his compassion. He really didn't know if he should keep things up or cut ties.

Time passed and Gambit amused himself with his usual steals, gambling, and meeting new and interesting women. He didn't hear much from Vanessa initially and he assumed she was rebuilding networks and preferred to work with police first rather than call him in where possible.

His next trip to New York was to visit Storm. She and Logan had moved into a small house of their own on the Xavier Estate, near the gardens and away from the bulk of the residences. There was a room set aside for Kendall when she visited between semesters of college. As it happened, Gambit arrived shortly after Logan and Kendall returned from a father/daughter trip in the mountains.

"So," Gambit said at the lake over a couple of beers with Logan, "dare I ask how things are going with Stormy?"

Part of him hated coming here now, hated seeing her. It felt like every time he saw Storm something else had changed about her. To look at she appeared to be a full-figured woman, but when he attempted to hug her it was like she wasn't even there. There was a strange, ethereal mist about her, and even now as she danced naked above the surface of the lake she seemed like something out of a dream or a fantasy realm.

Logan opened up a can of beer, drained it dry, and crushed it within his hand. Gambit took his silence as meaning that things were not well, they were getting worse, and there wasn't a thing he could do about it.

"Thinking of moving," Logan said after a time. "That was part of the reason why Kendall and I went on our trip; wanted to check out if the cabin was suitable, and the land. As long as 'Ro's outside and in nature she seems to be happy. And well, this is a school. As much as the gardens here love her attention..."

"The nudity thing isn't appropriate?" Gambit suggested.

"Yeah."

"Hmm," Gambit considered and lifted his beer to his lips. "When did that start?"

"About six months ago," Logan answered, his sorrowful eyes never leaving his wife.

Gambit drank and then shrugged. He'd seen Storm naked plenty of times. "Well, she never did like clothes."

Logan snorted. "That might have something to do with it. She can't even seem to wear the things anymore."

"Que?"

"They just fall through her like she's not even there."

"Well, at least you don't need to worry about her running up the credit card with clothes," Gambit said, attempting to lighten the mood.

"I'd rather that than this," Logan replied grimly.

Gambit was silent for a moment.

"Yeah," he said finally. "I can see why."

More silence followed. Logan clearly wanted to spend some time with his wife even if the only interaction he had was her was watching her now. Gambit felt just a little uncomfortable about being included and if he didn't know Storm as well as he did, he might have left out of respect for her privacy. Since he did know her, he knew she really wouldn't care if he saw her naked. It wasn't like he was masturbating at the sight of her or anything.

"How is Kendall these days anyway?" Gambit asked. He hadn't seen her much.

"She's good. Worried about her mother, like we all are," Logan replied and went on with a voice of someone who was in danger of breaking: "Worried she's going to end up the same way."

"Because she inherited Stormy's weather control, hein?" Gambit said. "Her weather control and your feral instincts, right?"

"And healing factor," Logan said, reaching for another beer.

"Well, perhaps those feral instincts will be enough to keep her grounded and not turn her into some sort of," Gambit gestured to Storm uncertainly with his can of beer, "elemental being."

"Maybe," and Gambit knew from the tone of Logan's voice that he didn't want to discuss it any further.

They sat in silence for quite some time before it was momentarily broken by the sound of Gambit getting a text message. It was Vanessa wanting to meet up next time he was in New York. As much as Gambit enjoyed Logan's company, he was relieved for the excuse to get away from watching his naked wife.

"Have a call to make," he said as he stood.

Logan merely grunted in reply and Gambit found a place downwind to make his call.

"As it happens," Gambit said after Vanessa got over her shock at getting such a prompt response, "I'm in New York right now. Where'd you want to meet?"

"Sorry I'm late," Gambit said as he sat down at Vanessa's table in the cafe, many hours later. "I got caught in traffic."

"That's fine, I was a little late myself," Vanessa replied.

After ordering and receiving their drinks and getting through the small talk, Vanessa got to the matter at hand.

"See the spa across the street?" Vanessa said.

"Yeah?"

"Brothel," Vanessa said gravely. "Mutant fetish brothel, to be specific."

Gambit raised his eyebrows. "I see."

"The problem is that the police don't have enough evidence to authorise a raid," Vanessa went on irritably with a glare at her coffee. "We all know what's going on, we just can't prove it."

"And you were hoping I could help," Gambit stated.

"Yeah. I realise it's..." Vanessa cleared her throat and lowered her voice. "I know I said I'd be happy for you to rob these places but umm, well, this time..."

"You don't want them to know that someone's been looking around, hein?" Gambit finished for her with an amused smile.

Vanessa nodded. "Pretty much. I'd hate for them to have advance warning."

Gambit drank some of his coffee with a thoughtful expression on his face and an eye towards the spa.

"Mutants, hmm," he considered. "Place is probably riddled with forcefields."

"They're probably regulation in cities these days," Vanessa replied agreeably.

Gambit waved a hand. "They're common enough, but installation is expensive. No one is going to purchase more than they have to. Flip side of that is they're also useful for security reasons."

"Oh yeah?" Vanessa inquired with a faint smirk.

"Yeah, so sometimes you find them in the middle of hallways instead of protecting walls," Gambit replied, smirking back at her. "And sometimes they get used to create false walls."

"Oh really?" Vanessa asked, sitting up straight with wide eyes. "How do they do that?"

"It's pathetically easy. You can go the simple, low-tech route of setting up a screen that matches the surrounding walls and put that behind the forcefield—just have to make sure it's sturdy enough that it's not going to randomly fall down or sway any time someone walks pass, since forcefields aren't airtight and can't stop breezes," Gambit explained with a shrug. "Or you can go the expensive, high tech route and supplement the forcefield with a holographic projection.'

"Huh. I would have thought that forcefields were airtight," Vanessa replied with a thoughtful frown.

"Nope. I have that on good authority," Gambit said slyly, his thoughts on Rogue and her attempt to build a forcefield based hazmat suit. "Anyway, point is if they're smart—and we're assuming from the fact that they haven't been sprung yet that they are—they've probably got a lot of forcefields in there. They'd probably be very useful for not only security but also for imprisoning their workers, not to mention general protection, since I assume that a mutant fetish brothel means that there's reasonably heavy power use."

"Well, there wouldn't be that much that would warrant forcefields, surely," said Vanessa. "Okay, yes, we're talking about a situation where there's a lot of rape and general physical abuse going on, but they wouldn't actually want their johns to get hurt. Well, unless the john was into that sort of thing, I suppose."

Gambit grinned mischievously at her. "Oh, I can think of a few reasons why."

"Dare I ask?"

"Well, I do blow things up..." Gambit replied wickedly.

"You know something, I've changed my mind," Vanessa said. "I don't really need to know."

"No? You don't want a blow by blow of my numerous adventures with my former lovers in the bedroom?" Gambit asked.

"No, I really don't."

Gambit chuckled. He picked up his coffee with one hand and fished out his phone with the other. While he drank, he did a little electronic recon on the spa. Vanessa, not realising that this was what he was doing, was about to comment on his rude behaviour when he spoke:

"Looks like they've been in operation for six years," he said. "The spa itself has been in operation longer than that, but they had a change of ownership and restructuring done six years ago. Still offer a lot of the same packages and a few new ones with very suggestive names have been added to the list. Hmm, the raunchy ones are all marked limited availability. Probably how they get away with denying them to people they think are out to spy on them."

He drank more coffee while he considered further.

"So what do you think?" asked Vanessa.

Gambit placed his empty coffee cup on the table.

"I think there's no time like the present," he said as he stood.

Vanessa blinked. "What? Now?"

"Sure. Give me an hour. If I'm not back by then, I'll call you."

Vanessa watched in surprise as Gambit casually sauntered over to the spa doors. She finished off her own coffee, and ordered another so she wasn't just sitting there. Forty-seven minutes later—not that she was watching the clock or anything—Vanessa received a message from Gambit asking her to meet him at the back door.

Relieved at being able to do something, Vanessa finished off her coffee quickly, paid for everything, and dashed off to find the back door. She was pleased to find that the way was clear and shortly she was through the door where Gambit was waiting. He gestured for her to be quiet and then led the way through the back rooms to an office. He shut the door silently behind her.

"Alright," he said softly. "I'm not now, nor ever have been, nor ever will be a cop. So what do we need to make a warrant possible?"

Vanessa grinned at his admission. "I thought career criminals knew the law better than most people."

Since Gambit couldn't exactly tell her that laws and regulations changed over time and it was a pain in the butt to try and keep up without giving away the fact that he was much older then he appeared, he replied with: "I'm too busy covering up evidence so that cops can't get any in the first place. I can get a copy of what's on the computer, beyond that, I'm not sure what we're looking for."

"Okay, I'll look around," Vanessa replied with a chuckle. "Uh, I don't suppose you have any extra gloves?"

Gambit grinned and tossed her his spare pair.

"Thanks," she said, catching them and putting them on.

They were partway through their work when they heard the voice of a woman shouting abuse at someone. Vanessa looked towards the door with an expression on her face that told Gambit she wanted to intervene. Gambit caught her eyes and shook his head. There were times to step in and this wasn't one of them.

Vanessa seemed to realise that and after a moment she returned to her search, taking pictures of anything she believed would be useful as she went. It wasn't easy as the woman continued to hurl abuse at her charge. It was driving her crazy having to restrain from intervening. No one deserved to be called such things.

Then they heard the whirr of a machine that froze both of them.

"Is that...a chainsaw?" Vanessa asked in horror.

A scream answered in Gambit's place. In the blink of an eye he was out of his chair, with extended staff in hand. He stepped into the hallway and into the open doorway of the chainsaw room. A tall woman with long black hair, dressed in leather and wielding said chainsaw was standing over a teenage girl, also with long black hair, and missing an arm.

Gambit didn't think. He couldn't. He raced inside and took to the woman with his staff. Normally he preferred not to fight women, but he knew when to make exceptions.

"Who the hell are you?" the woman demanded over the screech of her chainsaw.

She didn't even bother to wait for a response, only to attack him with the chainsaw. Gambit dodged with lightning speed and grabbed her wrist. She tried to twist her hand to redirect the chainsaw to his head, but he charged up the body of it, just enough to take out the works. The charge exploded and the band went flying and lodged itself in the ceiling. Shrapnel went flying everywhere. Gambit knew he'd been nicked but doubted that any injuries sustained were serious. Regardless, it was the woman's completely lack of injury by shrapnel that surprised him, especially when he could see holes in her clothes where she'd been hit.

The fight continued, the woman proving to be rather vicious if not very skilled. Vanessa watched from the doorway with a gun she'd found from her search in the office. As soon as the woman's back was to her, Vanessa lifted the gun and shot her in the back, towards the left. The impact pushed her into Gambit (who was more to her right), and in turn Gambit hit the wall behind him. The woman slammed her fist into Gambit's face and turned her head to glare at Vanessa.

"Bitch!" she yelled. "Who the fuck are you and what the hell are you even doing here?"

"I shot you point blank," Vanessa said with a frown, staring at the bullet-sized hole in the back of the woman's clothing. "What kind of mutant are you?"

The woman smirked. "The kind with unbreakable skin."

"Interesting," Vanessa said, and proceeded to shoot her again and again until the gun she held ran out of bullets.

Each bullet slammed hard into her, the noise echoing around the room, and her body shuddering in response to each impact. Gambit was a little nervous about Vanessa shooting so close to his position since in his experience people were rarely anywhere near as accurate as he was. Still, he was able to set his feelings aside long enough to make his next move.

"What part of 'unbreakable skin' don't you understand?" the woman snarled at Vanessa.

"The part where that makes you immune to internal bleeding," Vanessa snapped back.

With a growl, the woman started to push herself off Gambit, twisting her body around as she did so to face Vanessa. That was about as far as she got. So caught up in adrenaline and anger, the woman didn't even notice Gambit wrap duct tape around her wrist, and when she got up, Gambit grabbed her other wrist.

"Oh, you're not going anywhere," Gambit said, taping her wrists together around her back.

"What the..." she swore and cursed and struggled to get out. Gambit merely broke the tape with a light charge and taped her mouth shut.

"Bitch," Vanessa growled at the woman, gave her a hard kick in the stomach—an action which took Gambit completely by surprise—and then turned her attention to the teenage girl in the corner. "It's okay now, sweetie. We're not going to hurt you."

The girl, holding her bleeding shoulder, looked apprehensively up at Vanessa. Vanessa slowly knelt down and picked up her dismembered arm.

"We'll get you to a hospital. They should be able to reattach it for you," Vanessa said and then blinked at the sight of the arm. There were two metal claws sticking out of the back of the hand. "What in the world was she doing to you?"

Gambit looked up from taping the woman into submission and his eyes widened at the sight of the claws. Without a thought for the woman, he scampered over and took the arm from Vanessa.

"Adamantium," he breathed.

"What?" Vanessa asked, then shook her head. "Nevermind. We need something we can use for bandages and we need ice—"

"Do you know if this is adamantium?" Gambit asked the girl urgently, ignoring Vanessa. "You have a healing factor, right?"

Was it his imagination, or did she look like Logan?

"Yes it is," she replied. "And yes I do."

Gambit nodded and held her arm up to the shoulder where it had been severed. In moments it had healed back in place. Vanessa caught her breath.

"Well that's something you don't see everyday," Vanessa said.

"Speak for yourself," Gambit replied languidly, his eyes on the girl who looked apprehensively back at him. "What's your name, petite?"

"X-23," she replied.

"Really?" Vanessa asked, sounding disturbed. "An initial and a number? What about the name you were born with?"

Sorrowfully, Vanessa realised she wouldn't be surprised if her birth name had been beaten out of her and replaced. Or worse, she was the daughter of a prostitute and had never been given a real name in the first place, instead being sold into a paedophile ring by her mother's owners or some other equally foul history.

"X-23 is my birth name." the girl replied. "But my mother called me Laura."

"May I call you Laura?" Vanessa asked, feeling relieved.

"Yes."

"Thank you."

"Laura," Gambit cut in then. "The woman over here, if they thought you ran away, would she be the one to come after you?"

Laura looked over at Kimura with real fear in her eyes. For as long as she'd know her, Kimura had always beaten her and mutilated her body.

"Yes," Laura said quietly.

"Good, that makes that easy," Gambit said and turned to Vanessa. "We need to get our things from the office and then we need to go. Do you have a car?"

"I do."

"Good. I'll have to come back for my bike. We're taking them both with us, and we're not going to the police," Gambit said firmly as he stood.

"We're not?" Vanessa asked dubiously.

"What? You want to explain that we broke in?" Gambit asked blandly. "Besides, we can't hand Laura over to the police. She's an ex-military experiment, probably being used as a weapon—"

"How can you possibly know that?" Vanessa asked.

"You'll find out soon enough. Come on, we have to get going before someone realises we're here. It might already be too late."

Some time later Gambit stopped at the gate of Xavier's and leaned out to plug in the security code. Laura and Vanessa were in the back seat. Vanessa had made a few attempts to engage Laura in conversation but it seemed she wasn't the talkative type. Kimura was trussed up in the boot.

"Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, huh?" Vanessa said as the gates opened and they drove inside. "May I ask why we're dropping in at a high school?"

"Because it's also the home of the X-Men," Gambit replied. "And you're going to forget that after we leave."

"Uh huh."

Gambit was a little anxious about revealing more about himself to Vanessa, but he didn't have any good reason to ditch her. In any case, between the fact that she knew he was a mutant and friends with Tony Stark, he didn't think that finding out he was also friends with a couple of X-Men would come as too much of a surprise to her.

He took the drive around the back where Logan, whom Gambit had called on the way, was waiting for him.

"What's this all about?" Logan demanded as Gambit got out of the car.

"I have someone you need to meet," Gambit replied, and he opened up Laura's door.

Laura and Vanessa got out of the car. Logan and Laura met eyes.

"Weapon X," Laura hissed.

A pair of claws came out of each hand, and an additional claw out of each foot. She lunged at Logan.

"It's your fault!" she screamed as she stabbed him. "Your fault!"

Vanessa raised her eyebrows as a vicious fight broke out between Laura and Logan. Logan stuck to the defensive, trying to get a grip on the girl who smelt a lot like himself.

"Uh," Vanessa said awkwardly. She had not expected such brutality out of Laura, she who had just been brutalised herself earlier.

"Not the reaction I was expecting," Gambit said thoughtfully.

"Shouldn't we do something?" Vanessa asked.

"I'm not getting in the middle of a fight with two admanatium-clawed killing machines with healing factors," Gambit said.

"She's not a killing machine," Vanessa said firmly, despite the vicious battle going on before her eyes. "And what the hell is adamantium?"

"Rare, indestructible metal. Cuts through anything except vibranium, which is what Captain America's shield is made of," Gambit explained. "You usually only ever see either of those metals in military use."

"Which is how you knew she was an ex-military experiment," Vanessa realised as Logan finally got the upper hand over Laura.

"Oui. Laura looks so much like Logan, between that and the healing factor she was either an experiment based on him, or his illegitimate daughter," Gambit said wryly. "Adamanitum told me which."

He didn't add that he would be pissed if he found out that Logan cheated on Storm. He didn't think that cheating was Logan's style though and even if something had happened, Gambit figured it would be more likely to have happened in the last five years or so since Storm started changing. Laura was quite clearly a lot older than five years old.

"Alright," Logan said, pinning Laura in place. "You mind telling me what the hell is going on?"

Gambit gave a brief explanation of their investigation of the mutant brothel and once Laura calmed down, she explained about Weapon X. Vanessa was horrified to learn that the young woman before her really had been bred and trained to be a living weapon. Laura had escaped only to end up in the brothel. Kimura, who had worked for Weapon X, tracked her down and ended up continuing her work as Laura's handler.

"This is disgusting," Vanessa fumed, pacing back and forth in her furious energy. "If it's not bad enough that people are stolen, coerced, sold, and otherwise manipulated into slavery, now we've got government organisations creating designer baby slaves as well!"

"Now we've got?" Logan said blandly. "I'd say that kind of thing started long before 'now'."

"That's no excuse! If anything it just makes it worse!" Vanessa snapped. "I'm so sick and tired of hearing these stories. How can anyone go around treating other people like they're less than dirt and still call themselves human? And for the government, any government, to condone this behaviour? No wonder we have such a hard time trying to end human trafficking! They're doing nothing but paying lip service and then practicing it in the background! Hypocritical sons of bitches! Oooh, if I ever get my hands on the arseholes responsible I'll—"

"I can see why you're dating her," Logan said to Gambit.

"We're not dating, we're just working together," Gambit replied while Vanessa threw Logan a startled look. "Kinda like me and Stormy back in the day."

"I stand corrected," Logan said, although the look on his face said that he wasn't entirely convinced, probably because Storm had been a child during her 'Robin Hood' days with Gambit, and Vanessa clearly was not. "Alright, Laura, we'll find you a room and I guess we should figure out what we're doing with Kimura."

"We're handing her in," Vanessa said firmly. "That creature in the trunk is only good for one thing, and that's making an example of her when she's brought to justice. And I had better not hear about any corrupt political shenanigans—"

"Oh don't you worry, Vanessa," Logan said. "The only 'corrupt political shenanigans' going on are going to be the ones that make sure she's brought to justice. You said she was a mutant, right?"

Gambit grinned, knowing that Logan was thinking of Rogue's prison. "All I ask is that we have a telepath wipe her memories of myself and Nessie. Or at least make it so that she can no longer identify us. I don't want to bring any more attention to us than we already have."

The data and photos that Gambit and Vanessa collected were "anonymous donated" and Logan got the ball rolling in taking care of Laura and Kimura. The subsequent police raid on the brothel didn't come quite as soon as Gambit and Vanessa would have liked, but all the remaining slaves, female and male, were rescued.

Much to his surprise, Gambit found that he was feeling calmer around Vanessa now. When he had a moment to think about it, he concluded that seeing Vanessa lose her temper and lash out at Kimura must have done it. He never would have picked Vanessa to be the type to kick someone when they were down, and yet she did, literally. He knew she couldn't be full of goodwill all the time.

Gambit began looking forward to her text messages and chatting to her over the phone. It was still all business but it was a lot more pleasant now that he no longer felt like she was just using him. Now all he had to worry about was that his family might find out he was not only continuing to fight human trafficking in his own way, but doing so actively with an ex-cop.

Upon the conclusion of her trial, Kimura was transported to the moon. Although she was angry and frustrated about being convicted and sentenced, she was just a little bit excited about going into space. Like the normal people who went to the moon, she was required to do a survival course, which was apparently something not all the prisoners went through, depending on how much an escape risk they were deemed. Kimura wasn't considered to be that much trouble so she did the course during her incarceration and was allowed to board conscious and not sedated. She didn't know whether to be pleased or insulted.

The trip to the moon was rather tedious after all the preparation for it, but it was all forgotten when she stepped onto the surface of the moon for the first time. She looked towards the Earth and never felt so small or insignificant in her life.

The S.H.I.E.L.D. officers who were escorting her wasted no time in loading her into the moon buggy and driving to the prison. Upon their arrival, they took Kimura inside and shut her in the security processing room.

"Please remove your pressure suit," a male voice said to Kimura as soon as the doors sealed shut behind her.

"What?" Kimura said looking around the empty room and seeing no sign of any other people or even a two-way mirror. "Who said that?"

"Please remove your pressure suit," James said again.

Kimura pressed her lips tightly together but complied. There really wasn't any reason not to, and every reason why she should: sooner or later the air would run out. She removed the suit as she was previously instructed and left it on the floor for lack of a place to put it. To her further irritation, James proceeded initiate a full identity scan.

"Oh come on," Kimura objected when they got to the voice part. "I've already been through this a million times. How many more times do I have to go through this crap?"

"This is the final identity check until the end of your sentence, pending misbehaviour and security breaches," James replied, and went on with the exam.

When the exam finally reached its conclusion, James advised her to sit on the floor.

"You are hereby being informed that the warden, Rogue, has multiple mutant abilities at her disposal including the ability to put you into a coma," James said. "Rogue is obligated to do this once the security check is complete—"

"What?" Kimura exclaimed.

"Further comas can be avoided as long as you remain on good behaviour. Please sit down to avoid injury when the door opens in ten seconds."

"This is crap!" Kimura shouted, not caring in the slightest about any potential injuries and more angry than anything else about being knocked out. Who knew what this Rogue person might do with her unconscious body?

Her tirade went on for ten seconds and then the door opened just enough to break the seal. Kimura hit the floor.

Kimura woke a couple of hours later in the nicest prison cell she'd ever seen. The bed was actually comfortable and there was an attached, cramped bathroom. Kimura was outright shocked at the idea of having her own shower. There were three doors. Two of them were on opposite ends of the cell and were basically normal airlock doors. The third was a set of double doors which, when they slid open, looked to Kimura like they would open up another section of the cell.

The door to her left opened and a woman in a green and white hazmat suit entered.

"Good, you're awake," Rogue said, and placed a capsule on the bed tray beside Kimura. "This is for the headache you have at the moment, take it or endure, it's up to you. Your daily allotment of drinking water can be accessed there."

Kimura glanced over at the water dispenser.

"Meals will be served here." Rogue gestured to what looked like a cupboard in the wall. "Please don't try to use the dumbwaiter to escape. Yes someone has tried it before, no it didn't end well. When the rec room is available that door will open."

Kimura looked at the other door across the room.

"I know why you're here and if I catch you bullying the other inmates I will kick your ass. Just because you won't see me, doesn't mean I'm not watching," Rogue said firmly, and gestured to the double doors. "The workshop doors are always open except during lights out. There's a computer available for all your correspondence, studies, and work. In addition to your sentence-related calls, you are also entitled to personal phone calls to anyone on Earth or Asteroid M, as long as you can pay for them."

Nick Fury never did like the fact that Rogue had made a deal with Magneto to allow the inmates to communicate with people on Asteroid M. He'd argued with her about it, but Rogue happily threw back at him that her relationship with Magneto only bought a discussion, not immunity. If Magneto had any reason to believe that the inmates were being mistreated, he would not hesitate to intervene, regardless of who was operating the prison.

"All calls will be monitored. Any questions?"

"You're Rogue?" Kimura asked.

"That's right."

"Huh. I thought you'd be a man."

"It's funny how often I hear that," Rogue replied blandly. "The rec room doors will open shortly. Good day."

And before Kimura could blink, Rogue had teleported out.