Rogue could feel the inklings of something happening. It began as a soft tingle, then progressed to static-like shocks. Remy leaned forward abruptly and let out a guttural moan, something that triggered in Rogue's mind an impression of something almost sexual. She sucked in a quick breath, not so much feeling the usual pull of her powers on another mutant, rather a sensation of being caught in a current with power flowing both in and out of her at an ever increasing rate. She attempted to pull herself away, but was trapped in the flow as if electrified. Her hand stuck on his chest, over his heart, her other hand, still cradling his right. She felt Remy attempt to jerk away as well, but was unable to break their contact. Then, along with the surge of energy, she started hearing a stream of random thoughts, a trickle that soon became a torrent.
Remy's left hand, the undamaged one, moved to the inhibitor field at his chest. He clawed at it, attempting to turn it back on. He was fumbling, attempting to first manually cause it to click back into place. Then he blindly began pressing the touchscreen. He'd managed to touch the Set key. From where Rogue's fingers touched his chest, she was able to reach with her thumb and turn the device on. The restraint activated and tightened and Remy once more collapsed, falling from the cot and onto the floor. Rogue suddenly found herself free, but at the same time, now in partial ownership of Remy's powers. She struggled to breathe, she was panting anyway, but it was reflexive. It seemed like she no longer needed oxygen. Her body was glowing bright white, slightly pink at the edges. Remy's thoughts urged her to flee, predicting dire consequences of scorched wreckage and corpses. She stumbled to the door, but was thrown back with a sharp zap. She tumbled backwards, and a burst of explosive kinetic energy leapt from her chest, crashing against the wall before her. The transparent barrier prevented her from leaving now that she had adopted Remy's power signature.
Rogue flew at the wall, smashed it with a fist. The wall exploded outward into the hall. Rogue tumbled through the hole she'd made, falling to her hands and knees in the wreckage. Power was pouring from her mouth, her eyes, her nose, looking like so much golden molten rock. Her extremities seemed to be melding into the surroundings, fingers melting into the floor even as she watched, like superhot glass. She struggled to hold herself together.
Get out get out get out, Remy's thoughts urged. Get out or you'll kill them all.
Rogue staggered to the end of the hall, launched herself upwards, leaving the ground with a force that buckled the steel plates beneath her. She crashed up through the basement level, then ground floor, then first, then second, smashing through the roof and up into the sky. She could hear residual explosions behind her as she arced into the mid-afternoon sky. She soared towards the lake, finding that her rate of acceleration was only making things worse, leaving a comet's trail of herself in the sky. Now power was flowing from every pore of her body. She forced herself to stop, and it seemed as if the force of her abrupt halt came back to punch her in the chest. There was a loud clap, and a blinding burst of illumination. A halo of bright white light exploded from her core. As it passed through the air, it left destruction in its wake. Rogue was falling from the sky. She hit the surface of the lake face-down as if hitting concrete, and there was another explosion that sent the lake water rushing several feet over it's banks. Then Rogue found she was sinking.
Underwater, her hearing was muffled, she could only hear the hiss of bubbles as the water boiled where it touched her skin. Water invaded her mouth, nose and throat. Stunned, she slowly sank into the lake. Her vision was clouded by the turbulent water. She opened her mouth and a bubble of sound escaped to float upward.
Pull yourself together! Remy's thoughts shouted at her. Who are you? Say your name! Say it!
She wasn't entirely sure what her name was. I'm... I'm Carol. I'm Logan. I'm Ororo. I'm Remy. I'm Rogue. I'm...Anna?
Something clicked in her mind and her thoughts began to coalesce. She kicked feebly. Something bumped into her, floating up from the depths of the lake. Rogue kicked towards the surface. Another something bumped her, then another. She was drawing herself forward now with her arms, kicking strong with her legs. Rogue surfaced with a gasp, her hair plastered to her skull. All around her things were bobbing to the surface of the lake. She could feel them butting up against her. She saw now that the strange objects were fish. Dead fish, rising to the lake's surface, mostly in pieces. Rogue gagged, choked up lakewater, then started paddling towards the lake edge, swimming through the carnage. Her knees hit the rocky lake bottom first, then she crawled from the water to lay face-down on the grass near the bank.
She made a shuddering sound of horror and she sat up, trying to remove the feeling of fish guts from her skin and hair. She realized she was naked.
Nude, Remy insisted.
"Rogue!" someone shouted.
She looked up, then up again, to see Storm flying towards her. She was wearing a purple camisole and pajama bottoms, her hair wrapped in a silk handkerchief. Rogue wondered if she'd accidentally blown through Storm's loft. Rogue wondered too if she might have hurt anyone in her escape. She put her hands over her eyes. Wolverine was suddenly there too, having crested a small hill to slide down the embankment to where Rogue crouched, her arms wrapped around herself to cover her nakedness.
"No, stay away!" she said, fearful they might come in contact with her.
Wolverine came to a sudden halt. He pulled off his checkered shirt, tossed it to her. Storm was by her side.
"Allow me to help," she said.
"N-no, 'Ro," Rogue said. "Don't, ya can't touch me!"
"I will only hold the shirt open for you," Storm said in her calm voice. "So you may slide your arms into the sleeves. Here, here it is. Just turn. I promise I will not make contact."
Rogue obeyed, shaking. Others were arriving now. She hurriedly clenched Logan's shirt closed. Her top was covered, but most of her lower body was exposed. She tried to tug the shirttail over her bottom. When she looked up again at the crest of the small incline, it was to see Magneto. He was flanked by several other students gifted with the ability of flight. Rogue put her hands over her face again, humiliated.
"It is all right," Ororo told her reassuringly. "Can you stand?"
"Maybe all right for you, you're practically a nudist," Rogue moaned.
Ororo laughed softly. "There is nothing to be ashamed of, dear one." To the gathering crowd she commanded: "All of you, please return to the school."
"Ororo…" Logan began.
"Please, Logan, can you urge the others to give Rogue some space."
He nodded, and strode back up the hill. "Okay, show's over," he said. The New Mutants reluctantly departed as Logan shepherded them away.
"What has happened?" Magneto demanded, striding forward despite Ororo's request. "Rogue, what have you done?"
"Rogue is safe," Ororo told him, although that didn't answer any of his questions. "She is unharmed, thank the Goddess. She needs a moment to herself, I believe. To collect her thoughts."
Rogue felt overwhelming gratitude for this gracious, kindhearted woman. Tears leaked from her eyes. Shakily, she climbed to her feet. "Ah know why Remy's here," she told them. "He needs our help. He can't...he can't control it. His powers." Rogue looked across the steaming lake, the dead fish and animals, scorched earth, the husks of burned trees now stripped of their colorful foliage.
A vision of a little blond boy wearing a red scarf appeared in her mind. The Little Prince walked on a tiny desolate planet in the vast emptiness of space, sad and alone save for a single selfish rose. The little boy went from one small volcano to the next, cleaning them, picking weeds, searching for a way to fly to the next planet. Though it seemed each world he visited, with its selfish inhabitants, was just as disappointing as the last.
"We have to help him," Rogue said. "It's that or we die. We'll all die."
Next time: Paging Doctor Kitty... Doctor Kitty to Cell 5.