Disclaimer: I do not own The X-Men or anything related to The X-Men.

Thanks for reading this chapter. I appreciate everyone taking time out of their busy lives to look at this story. It is weird to think that we are getting very close to the end of this particular X-Men story. I was not sure how this chapter would go, but we will see how it goes. I hope you enjoy the newest chapter:

As I flew towards the man who had single handedly developed the plan to destroy my world, I could feel my anger threaten to explode out of my body. He refused to move an inch. Our eyes remained locked in a power match until I was mere inches from his face. The moment I was close enough to pummel his face, he simply vanished from my sight.

The disappearance was less than clean. I could see the faintest fragments of his image in front of my eyes, like a picture under a flashing light bulb. Thankfully, his lack of a clean getaway left me a trail to follow. I shifted my course and went flying across the field once again.

Sunil chuckled and continued to fade in and out of sight as I tried in desperation to hit him. He almost looked disappointed as I continuously failed to attack him with anything but brute strength. By the time his anger had become clearly evident on his face, I was already beginning to feel the strain of our movements. My chest heaved uncontrollably and my reaction times began to diminish considerably. Sunil appeared in front of me briefly and, using my own tiredness against me, offered a hit that sent my body flying across the field.

"I can't believe you have absolutely no skill." He growled out the words as I picked myself up from the dusty floor. "What good are you if you can't offer a simple challenge? I have no use for a fight against a weakling."

I retook my fighting stance and ignored the throbbing pain racing throughout my body. What did he expect after everything we had been through? I had just fought off a group of guards and been emotionally drained. Was he really expecting someone on top of their game? I swallowed back the urge to vomit from the pain coursing through my frame and growled out a few choice words at Sunil.

"Amusing as you are Princess, I have no use for this fight. All you are good for is a new source of power."

Without another word, Sunil's right arm began to morph into a new shape. The whole action was a blur of motion and light. By the time the brightness had dimmed enough to view the appendage, I was greeted with an alarming sight. The fingers and curve of his normal arm were gone and a new jagged edge had taken their place. He flexed the knife arm a few times to test its mobility and offered me a sharp smile before charging forward.

I don't know how I dodged that first attack. The whoosh of air that flew past my body sent a shiver through my very core. Sunil gave me no rest from the attack and continued the onslaught along the wall. A few times the blade crossed the line between near miss and hit, but it only scraped my torn sweatshirt.

As I entered the corner, he pulled back and paused for only a second like a cat reveling in the joy of their frightened prey's last gasp of horror. My heart froze in my chest and I began to finally realize that this could be the real end. Stabbed through the chest by a bizarre arm knife in front of my friends and family.

Then Kitty screamed…

I closed my eyes and didn't open them until I realized there was no pain in my abdomen. For a moment, I thought that I must have died and gone to Heaven. I imagined how terrified Kitty must have been to see me stabbed right in front of her. How she and the others must be staring with unblinking eyes at my corpse. Until...

"Move, Rogue!"

I opened my eyes and found Sunil staring at me with the same look of frustration. He continued to stab at my stomach, yet I felt nothing. I glanced down at the knife, my mind was certain had already spilled my guts out on the arena floor, but found it was phasing right through me. Every move Sunil made to attack phased right through my body and felt no worse than a breeze blowing through my hair.

I spared a glance at my friend and saw Kitty was full of tears, but the smile on her face was unmistakable. In that moment, it started to click together in my head. Those personas were not my enemy. They were my connection. And it seemed that my connections didn't want to give into a jerk like Sunil.

"You want skill?" I grinned at Sunil and phased my body right through him. It was uncomfortable, but this new strength was filling my confidence too much to care about the awkward after chill. I glanced at Logan and felt, even more, warmth spread throughout my chest. Almost instantly my hands let loose their own set of claws.

"Impress me, jerk."

Sunil growled at the taunt and seemed less impressed with a real fight then he had once supposed he would be. He charged forward with his knife and swung it around like a champion fencer, I pulled my claws up immediately and blocked his swings. He put pressure on my claws and turned his other arm into a matching knife.

"Charge it up, Chere!" Remy's voice yelled out to me as Sunil and I once again clashed on the field.

I closed my eyes for only a moment to try and imagine Remy's powers in my mind. The claws jutting out from my hands slid back into my knuckles, leaving my hands free to grab hold of Sunil. As I opened my eyes once more, I braced myself for the sharpness and grabbed hold of his knives when he threw them at me again.

Sunil raised an eyebrow slightly and spared only a second long glance at the blood pouring down my hands. I furrowed my own brow, grabbed the knives as tight as possible, and forced waves of energy to charge through my body. His hands began to glow instantly and Sunil actually let out a sharp breath of pain.

He jerked his arms free from my hold and leaped backward across the field. By the time his feet had landed on the dusty ground, a large explosion filled the arena. A few of the X-men cheered and either of Remy or Logan let out a whistle of approval. I fanned the smoke from my face and tried to catch sight of Sunil.

It was hard to see his face, but I could easily make out his battered arms. The sight of his arms, missing from below the elbow, sent a wave of nausea through my stomach. He refused to react to the fact he was so mortally wounded, instead, he turned this face to look at me with pure disdain. Yellow eyes were all I could see through the remaining fog surrounding his face.

"This is over Sunil." I forced myself to take a step forward, "Give up now."

A laugh filtered through the field and grew in volume until it began to sound completely insane. He shook his head slowly and narrowed his eyes as if this was still some big game with no lasting consequences. His laughter began to die down only as he started to flex what was left of his arms. The man growled out in pain or anger, I couldn't tell which, then held his arms out to his sides. Within seconds, the missing pieces were replaced with fully functioning ones.

My mouth fell agape as I watched Sunil flex his new appendages and refocus his eyes on my face. How had I not realized that he was that powerful? How stupid could I be? Sunil had every ability my family had to offer coursing through his body. I had a few tricks and even made a few hits, but what good was that in the big picture? I was the reject Lenox heir who hadn't even figured out how to stop my skin from killing people! How could I destroy someone like Sunil?!

He flew up into the air and began to move his hands in quick jerky motions. Had I been less involved in my own internal drama, I would have realized sooner that his actions matched Jude's to a disconcertingly strong degree. Such a strong degree, in fact, that a large chunk of land flew up from the ground and sent me back a few feet.

I hit the wall and tried to brace myself for the fall back to the earth. In its place, a strong wind scooped my body up and sent it flying into the air. Sunil's hands continued to move in a circular motion that forced the wind to whip my body around without mercy. I closed my eyes as pieces of rock began to fly into the whirlwind and puncture my skin.

My fists covered my eyes from the debris and helped to hide the few tears that dared to escape my eyes. What was I supposed to do? Keep him busy until he threw out some giant explosion and killed me on the spot? I had been so busy trying to keep everyone safe that I had forgotten the simple fact that I couldn't do it. I could pull out a few powers, but I couldn't even beat a fake mimic.

Stop that right now!

The voice that shouted at me was one my extremely foggy brain couldn't recall having heard before. I tried to glance around the field but immediately regretted it as a piece of muck lodged in my eye. I closed them tightly and tried to focus on the sound of the mysterious voice instead of the new lighting strikes that landed near my body.

You can do this! Clear your mind and focus on each power you need!

It wasn't the worst idea a mysterious voice in my head had ever given me, and I knew deep down that I couldn't stay bundled up in the sky until he electrocuted me. I doubted the idea would work, but I forced my arms to fall to my side despite the storm threatening to swallow me whole. I blocked out the raging thunder and lighting and tried to clear my mind.

Hard as I tried, it was not possible to push out the various images floating throughout my brain. Every time I tried to imagine a blank space, Axel's grin when I offered him a secret French fry showed up. I could see Storm teaching me new flying techniques, Kurt forcing me to try his newest sandwich creation, and even Logan's rough smile when I sassed Remy.

Despite the voice's instructions, I began to focus on the faces of my friends and family. I couldn't clear my mind, but I could focus on them. I could focus on more than just their power. Each one was so much more than just a basic power source. They all had so much potential to change the world and make the two dimensions a better place.

That is it!

Sunil was wrong. The point of being a mimic wasn't to use people. They weren't just power sources for him to suck dry. The point of being a mimic was to work with the people in order to protect everyone. We weren't there to rule them; we were there to defend them. Just like I had vowed to defend the people I cared about when I entered the arena.

"Enough!" I growled out the words in a voice that sounded foreign on my tongue. "I am ending this now!"

The warmth that began to spread through my body was familiar and yet special. It still burned my feet and hands, but for the first time, I felt a sense of control along with an increase in power. With one arm gesture, I forced Sunil to fall from the sky and destroyed the sandstorm. Sunil stared at me like I had lost my mind, and maybe I had.

I felt the warmth spread through my face and could see that the loose white streaks of my hair had begun to emit their own glow. Even my eyes felt as if they were coated in a strange white sparkle. What may have looked like a disadvantage from the cheering section, actually offered me the best vision I could dream. Everything seemed to be in better focus and brighter than it ever had before. I could see the droplets of sweat sliding down Sunil's forehead with a simple squint of my eyes.

He was scared, and rightly so.

I landed with a thud on the ground and continued to stare him down. He slowly regained his footing and tried to pretend that I hadn't seen his face coated with terror only seconds before. He furrowed his brow and tried to intimidate me once again with a mutation. His body produced its own glow and pushed his frame to new heights and muscular levels.

"It isn't going to work, Sunil." The voice that escaped my throat began to remind me of the people in my life. It was as if we were all together and speaking as one person.

"I am impressed, Princess," His voice had deepened after the makeover. He took up his own fighting stance; despite the fact, our arena was already greatly reduced due to his massive size.

He charged me for what felt like the millionth time and continued the desperate attack even as I managed to dodge every attempted grab. My own hands began to glow as the claws popped back out. I flew around him in circles, keeping him in constant motion and unstable footing. The glowing claws sliced at his arms and legs like piranhas attacking easy prey. Each slice left its own explosion in its wake and sent Sunil stumbling this way and that.

Sunil growled in frustration and fell down to one knee after a serious cut to his ankle. I sucked the claws back in with more control than I had ever used before and zapped at his other ankle with a quick blast from my eyes. The other leg dropped and Sunil tried to grab at me in despair as I flew around his body.

Another zap from my eyes sent Sunil down to his hands and knees. He let out a growl that was far deeper and angrier than any sound I had heard him produce before. Within seconds the ground below his body began to shake violently. I spared a glance at the X-men and noticed that the ground in their bubble was shaking just as savagely.

Sunil threw his fists at the ground and let out an even louder roar before his body began to grow in size once again. I flew away from him as best I could despite the shrinking availability of field. Sunil ignored my movements and continued to scream as his body became engulfed in a shiny light similar to the one I believed was coating my own body.

Unlike my glow, his shifted into a strange gray color and seemed to move around his body sporadically. He turned his head upward and greeted me with a pair of solid yellow eye sockets. I had no idea which way he was actually looking, due to the lack of anything resembling an eyeball, and could barely stand to look directly at the eerie way his face had shifted. The roughly sharpened teeth had escaped his mouth and hung out lazily like a saber-toothed tiger. His nose had been lost somewhere in the transformation leaving only a space that gave him the appearance of a skull.

"You aren't the only one with power." He cackled out that same maniacal laugh and stood in front of me.

The ceiling couldn't have been more than five feet above his head. With his transformation completed, the ground settled back to its normal still state until he stepped forward. The shaking caused by his feet was strong enough to send me tumbling onto my butt. I tried to strike him with a blast from my eyes and a few lightning bolts, but Sunil merely swatted me into the force field like a bug.

He reached out and grabbed me with his bulky fist and squeezed me tighter than I could stand until a scream of pain exited my mouth. Sunil laughed once again and his face twisted into an even more macabre expression. I closed my own eyes and tried to think of some power that would fix this. There had to be something in my repertoire that would get Sunil to pop. But what?

You have all of us with you…

The voice reached my ears one more time and I opened my eyes to try and find the source one more time. The image that greeted me was enough to send my brain spinning. Below my spot in Sunil's hand was the one person that I had never expected to see; My father.

Focus your mind and use your power.

I couldn't see his mouth move, but I knew the words were coming from him. I shut my eyes tightly and gave in to my, possibly imaginary, father's commands. "Okay, dad."

"Dad?" Sunil's voice echoed all around me in a mocking tone as he began to shake his fist with a great deal of force. "You'll see him soon enough."

I ignored the snapping back and forth of my neck and kept my eyes closed. My dad's words continued to echo in my head, but they didn't clear up what I was supposed to do. My power. He wanted me to use my power, but what power was really mine besides absorption?

Sunil slammed my face into the ground and broke my concentration momentarily. He repeated the gesture multiple times and cackled with each imprint I made in the hard land. I could taste blood in my mouth and began to realize it was near impossible to see out of my left eye.

Use your power!

I heard my father's voice one more time and forced my eyes shut as the desperation started to sink in. I had nothing to give him besides my absorption ability. I had already tried using the powers together and I had tried to use them alone. Heck, I had even tried talking to Sunil!

My brow furrowed as a new anger entered my mind. I didn't know what I had in my body that would help, but I was done being Sunil's toy. I was done letting the bad guy destroy things I loved. There was no telling what my dad was asking me to do, but I was going to use every force in my body to make something happen.

The reaction was almost instant. The moment I let go of doubts and focused on my power, the glow became overwhelming. Sunil dropped me as if his hand had been suddenly lit on fire. The giant lug stumbled backward and held his hand against his chest like it had been gravely wounded.

I stood up on legs that felt stronger and more stable than they had in years. Along my arms and legs was a bold glow that seemed to flow like a strong flame around my entire body. The heat was more intense than I remembered, but it didn't hurt. For once, the heat felt as if it was increasing my strength to a level I had never imagined, instead of attacking my skin.

"This is it, Sunil." My voice had lost the multiple quality completely and finally sounded like myself again, "Your terror is over. The morphs are no longer yours."

A gentle hand touched my shoulder and pulled my attention away from Sunil's pain. I looked to my right and saw the smiling face of my father. He nodded his head to me as if offering silent congratulations. There was something in his eyes that made me honestly believe he was real. Maybe no one else could see him or hear his words of advice, but I believed that he was somehow here with me in this arena.

Sunil growled at me and pulled his non-injured hand away from his chest. He formed a fist and aimed it straight at me. The fist began to glow with a sinister gray light that appeared even more threatening than his normal gray shadow. In a deep voice, he called out a threat that I barely registered.

A new hand touched my other shoulder and forced me to look to the other side. Standing beside me was a face that I only vaguely recognized from my past as the Lenox heir before my father; my grandmother. The woman was brown-eyed and had a full head of reddish brown curls. She gave me the same nod of support and then turned to her side. Suddenly a group of people began to appear around us. They stretched out to the sides in two straight angles, leaving me in the front of our arrow.

The faces all held a somewhat familiar look, but I couldn't explain how I would have been able to recognize so many different people. Either way, their presence brought a new level of comfort to me and forced me to stare down Sunil.

I knew I could take him. I knew that I could end this all.

"Stand down now," I yelled out to him as my own warmth began to grow at an even higher rate. "Give up, Sunil."

"Die, Princess!" Sunil screamed with the last ounce of strength, before sending the darkness from his fist hurtling towards me.

My hands shout out instantly and I forced the warmth to flow out of my palms and fingertips. The glow was so bright that I had to squint in order to see where I was aiming. Sunil's blast continued to grow in strength as he tapped the last bit of power in his body. I closed my eyes and followed my dad's advice one more time; you can do this! Clear your mind and focus on each power you need!

The moment the force left my hands, the entire world disappeared from view. Suddenly all that I could see was the bright light that had become so familiar during my time in the Lenox dimension. The sounds of the battlefield faded away and I was suddenly left in complete silence.