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Seether
Chapter Sixteen -- Independence
By Randirogue
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Blackout.
"Don't be afraid, Rogue," Emma's ghost said.
She was behind her, it sounded, but when Rogue spun to find her all she saw was blackness. Her mindscape was cold and empty. Space, but without the stars and planets and suns.
"Aw, screw it," Emma's ghost continued. "Be scared all you want. Not like it matters either way. You either do it or you get swallowed up. Fear won't make a difference."
"Do what?" Rogue asked. Did Ah ask that? Ah didn't hear it.
"Shut up and listen. If you let yourself get caught up in all that, he'll have all the control."
"Sinister?"
Emma's ghost rolled her eyes, then realized Rogue couldn't see it, so she said, "Yes."
"But Ah want control."
"Duh! And you'll have it, eventually... I think. But first, much as I hate it, you're going to have to give in first. For a bit."
"Give in?"
"To Her."
"Ah don't trust her. Ah don't even trust ya."
Emma's ghost shrugged. Rogue had a point. But, so did she.
"Then why'd you let me in, before, with Jean?"
"Ah was pretty desperate at the time. All in all, Ah didn't have much choice in it."
"Well, look around, Rogue. It doesn't get much more desperate than this. You have a choice though."
"What choice?"
"Fight it, like you are, being stubborn and locking yourself up tight in there, or... You can open up, follow Impostor Eleven's lead."
"But she's with Sinister, Emma."
"She's with herself, Rogue. She'd rather use you than him. She needs you. She is trapped inside you. She can't control you by herself. Not enough of her out, if you hadn't noticed. That's why she doesn't have a form, just a voice and some sparkly smoke. But she knows the most about all this. She's the only one with any real control in here." Emma's ghost's voice was tapering off, losing volume, gaining distance. "Take too long to decide and you'll lose the choice, Rogue."
"Wait! How do Ah do it? Ah don't know where she is? And why can't ya do it? You're reaching me now."
"IT."
"Don't go, Emma. Don't leave me alone in here!"
She just placed a companion's hand into Rogue's hand.
Magneto screamed. His voice was growing hoarse. Adrenaline was ripping through the drugs Sinister had given him and he was feeling the pain. A tug at his chest, pulling him inside out, and Rogue could feel all of it. She was inside him. She was causing it. Sinister had set it in motion, but it was her that was doing it. She knew that then. She wasn't even touching him, but she was doing it. It seemed so obvious to her right then she didn't know how she overlooked it before.
Wait—inside him? How can Ah be inside him? My powers don't work that way. Ah'm not a telepath. Ah've absorbed some though. Maybe that's what it is.
The web strands stretched, yawning through her, through him, coiling tighter, slicing, searing like acid burning, burning, burning. She was dying cause he was dying. But it didn't work that way. Or did it? She didn't know. She didn't trust. She didn't understand.
Stop fighting it. Stop questioning it. Stop denying it. Let it happen. Let it happen. Let it happen.
She squeezed his hand.
Ah won't let ya die, Erik. Not 'til I get a piece of your hide first.
And so, she chose.
~~~~~~~~~~~
"...And now I speak to you. Are you in there? You have her face and her eyes but you are not her. And we go at each other like blank ettes who can't find their thread and their bare..." (Bells For Her –by Tori Amos)
Lily didn't bother closing her eyes. What was the point? She saw it whether her eyes were open or not and what she saw was starting to become routine.
She saw not his pleasure twisted face beading sweat above her. She saw not the smooth and tanned flesh carved over toned and slightly bulging muscles in his shoulders and arms, the cords of those muscles flexing and relaxing with every light press of his bent elbows. She saw not the clench of stomach, back, thighs, and other things as he rose and fell in quick thrusts like the bars connecting the wheels on the train that went chug, chug, chug by her house and her father's church. She'd spent long summer days watching those bars on those wheels. It wasn't the spinning of the wheels that always caught her attention. It was the bars linking them that captured her sight. She saw them thrust forward, crank up and around and down, just to thrust forward again. It was choppy and smooth all at once. It was wrong and right. It was propelling and dragging, and she was propelled and dragged by them whenever she saw them. She was compelled to follow them. She ran along side the tracks, running through the field, and running from her house to her father's church. But she could never run further. She never saw further. The train crossed the Mississippi River there and her view of the train's cranking wheel bars was blocked by the curve of the tracks, the trees on the other side, and Lily's father's hitching breath in her ear. Lily didn't try to see further. She just accepted that what was, was. So, in that moment, under the weight of the forward thrust, crank up and around and down and forward thrust again, Lily didn't see what was above her, what was holding her down and keeping her obedient.
Instead, Lily saw through her father's eyes. She saw herself removed.
Lily was fourteen. She was in her childhood bedroom in a grand colonial style house on the banks of the Mississippi River. She was surrounded by darkness caged within four walls papered in lavender with ivory trumpet lilies. She was lying on a down comforter and down pillows. Porcelain dolls watched her from their out-of-reach places on the shelves wrapping all four walls. They were as detached as she was, detached and unresponsive, just watching, watching, down at her.
She saw through her daddy's eyes.
Her daddy's sweat dripped from his brow to hers. It rolled over her eyebrow, down her eyelid, and into her eyes. She blinked, collecting the drop betwixt her eyelashes, and when her eyes opened she saw the same as she saw while her eyes were closed. She saw her daddy's sweat roll down her own cheek.
She saw herself removed.
"...Hey would you say, whatever, we're blanket friends. Can't stop what's coming. Can't stop what is on its way..." (Bells For Her –by Tori Amos)
~~~~~~~~~~~
"...And through the walls they made their mud pies. I've got your mind, I said, she said, I've got your voice, I said, you don't need my voice girl you have your own, but you never thought it was enough of... So, they went years and years like sisters, blanket girls, always there through that and this. There's nothing we cannot ever fix, I said..." (Bells For Her –by Tori Amos)
Irene had visions and Rogue touched Irene and Rogue now has visions and Rogue now has Irene's memories and Rogue even has memories of Irene's visions. Rogue's mind is a metropolis all of its own, though. It's densely populated and she avoids it as she avoids her powers that created the population's possibility. Sometimes she craves the touch, craves the thievery, and craves the vampiric rush of memories of intimacies she could never have without the thievery and the vampiric rush itself. She craved what she couldn't have and she hated it and avoided it and thus the population in her mind was as neglected as the use of those powers that created the population. Her neglect was evident in the vast and complicated weavings of webs all throughout her mindscape and beyond. She could reach further than she knew, but she never dared tread. It was temptation, and temptation must be overcome. She'd heard that somewhere before. But, like Irene's visions and Irene's memories and Rogue's visions and Rogue's collection of Irene's memories of Irene's visions, Rogue was confused as to who the thoughts originated from.
Were they mine? Were they Irene's? Were they Lily's? Were they Corrin's? Were they Mystique's? Were they Gambit's? Were they... oh what was his name again?
Rogue didn't know those answers. She was used to it, even if she didn't like it, even if she was determined to sort it out... even if she avoided ever actually doing it. Who had time to clean the attic when there were diaries to find? When Magneto was in Sinister's bonds? When she was in Sinister's bonds? When she had to finish watching this vision of the future or the past? Or was it a memory of one of Irene's past visions? Rogue didn't know, but she watched it play out all the same. Eyes open or closed she saw it all the same.
In the vision, Rogue watched from the stairs. She was peaking between the spokes of the banister, from about half way up the stairs. It was right where the wall ended, so she had to crane her neck to get a glimpse of Irene's back as she sipped tea and the flicker of Mystique's shadow as she paced in front of Irene.
There was something familiar about the vision. It was close to a true memory of Rogue's. Only, this wasn't how she remembered the conversation went.
"Usually the nearer the occurrence, the more accurate the vision, Raven," Irene said in between sips. "Usually."
Mystique's shadow flickered again as she turned and paced back the other way. Rogue pulled back, rolling her head around to stretch her neck. In doing so, she caught a glimmer of a reflection in the foyer mirror. The reflection was almost a perfect framing for seeing Mystique and Irene as they conversed. Rogue changed her position, getting more comfortable on the stairs as she opted to watch them in the reflection instead of craning her neck around the corner to see into the drawing room.
"What is so different about this one, Irene?" Mystique said, accusing. "Can you at least tell me that much?"
Irene set down her tea on the lace coverlet on the table beside her. The movement was delicate. Irene was a precognitive mutant. Irene was blind. Irene was a terrorist. Yet, she was always graceful and delicate. Not much of her demeanor had rubbed off onto Rogue.
"All of the visions suggested the outcome we had favored up until this morning," Irene said, explaining carefully. "Now, they all show up murky. Rogue will be the victor, I know that much. That part hasn't changed, but now I can't see the final moments at all--"
"Taking out Carol is all that matters, Irene," Mystique said, cutting Irene off. "What happens afterward is not important. We will deal with later when later comes. Besides, isn't that what your books are for? Aren't they what all of this is for?"
"Is it, Raven? Is it really the books that we are working for? Or is it about our charg—"
"Fine." Mystique stopped pacing. She crossed her arms over her chest in defiance and pointedly met Irene's gaze. "Then tell me what you think we should do."
"It doesn't work that way, and you know it." Irene was becoming exasperated now. "I see several lines in the future. I do not know which will occur if I cannot determine the pivotal moment for them. That moment is the murky part of the mission. My only advice is to not attempt this mission."
"Fine, we'll postpone it. We'll come back after we retrieve Fred and St. John from the federal prison." Mystique was pacing again, but she stopped short. "No, wait. We can't do it then. We have to go to Washington for the Valerie Cooper thing afterwards." The pacing began again. "But after that we're clear for over a month. I wanted to use that time to track down the plans for that project Forge is working on—"
"The negation weapon, yes, I remember."
"Right, that. But, our intel says that we can wait a little longer on that, so, you will check the possible outcomes of the Danvers mission after we infiltrate Cooper."
Irene was quiet for a while. Five minutes maybe. Mystique watched her, growing impatient with her silence, but knowing that Irene was searching the future lines for the possible outcomes of skipping the Carol mission and continuing with all the others. When Mystique's patience was wearing out, Irene finally raised her head up to look at Mystique. Rogue still couldn't see Irene's face from her location. The reflection showed Irene's back and Mystique's front. But, Mystique's expression in reaction to the look on Irene's face was enough. Shock and denial.
"No!" Mystique yelled.
"I tried my best, Raven... there's just no way of keeping her. She's not yours. She's not meant to be yours... ours."
Crash!
Rogue flinched. Even though she watched Mystique pick up the lamp and throw it, Rogue still flinched when it crashed into the wall, shattering into a hundred pieces. Mystique was definitely the bigger influence on Rogue's own behavioral patterns.
"I won't accept this!" Mystique roared. "You said this would work. You said it would work!"
Irene stood and tugged Mystique into the comfort of her arms. "I'm sorry, Raven. I'm sorry," Irene murmured to her, stroking her back tenderly. "It no longer matters what we do, she will leave us."
"Mein geschtutzt..." Mystique whispered longingly to Irene.
"Yes, your protégé... our protégé. But she is not our daughter. And we cannot make her so... no matter how much we wish it."
Mystique pulled out of Irene's hold, but held onto Irene's hands. The hardened woman found balance in the more delicate woman.
"It wasn't supposed to be this way, Irene. When we set out to do this, to use the books to make..." She trailed off, her eyes revealing her visit to the memory of the moment she spoke of.
"I know," Irene said, bringing Mystique back to the present.
"We were just supposed to train her and prepare her and make sure that it turned out as we wanted. We weren't supposed to..." She trailed off again. This time it wasn't memory that swallowed her words. This time it was her own stubborn refusal to accept what she deemed a weakness.
"We weren't supposed to love her as our own," Irene supplied for Mystique, who didn't acknowledge agreement in her hardness. But she also made no attempt to refute it. Irene, knowing that was as much of an admittance as she would get from Mystique, continued, "We were fools, Raven. We were fools. We looked only at what she would become when we started this. Despite our efforts otherwise, the child wormed her way into our hearts. And now we must lose her. If we want to accomplish this, we have to let her go. It is the only way."
Rogue couldn't see either very well now since they were so close. Irene was blocking Mystique's reflection and the lamp Mystique had broken had been the primary light source. But there was a slight shift of their persons that alerted Rogue to a change in Mystique. Rogue had been trained well to read such things in a person, even if from a distance, seen in low light and in a reflection.
Irene was hesitant when she questioned Mystique. "You still want to do this, right? Or... or have you changed your mind?" A long pause. There was no physical movement, but Rogue sensed the trepidation on Irene even before she heard the evidence of it in Irene's following words. "Raven, we cannot be selfish now. There is more at stake than just her or us."
"The world will not end if we do not follow through with this." Mystique spat the words. Mystique's tone assaulted Rogue with the flavor of chewed aspirin in her mouth. "Mutant kind will not be destroyed because of it." Mystique yanked away from Irene's hands. She was showing her independence, her spine of steel, and in the process, revealing her tender insides.
"You're right, Raven. The world will not end because of her. Not one person is that important. Neither of us are, and she is not as well." Irene rested a hand on Mystique's shoulder. It still amazed Rogue how Irene knew exactly where to reach. "But, it will be bad. It will be very bad for a lot of people." Mystique, independent, defiant, and denying, shrugged off Irene's hand. "We will end up in camps. The brotherhood will mostly die, and those that do not will become hounds. Rogue will become the queen hou—"
"Could!" Mystique snapped as she spun on Irene. "Could, Irene, not will. The hounds COULD be created. The camps COULD become a reality. Could, Irene, not will. At least this way, we know we will have some semblance of a life before that COULD happen."
"Is that what you really want? Do you just want to give all of this up and play house?" Mystique didn't answer. That was too close to outright admitting that she was not solely a hardened terrorist... too close to admitting that she loved Irene and that she loved Rogue. Irene didn't expect Mystique to answer so she just continued. "Right here, in our grasp, is the chance to stop that from happening. Will you trade all of that suffering for your petty whims?"
"Petty?!"
"Fine... not petty. But it is selfish. And don't deny that. Because it will be your selfishness that keeps her from—"
"From Xavier. That's all it will do. Will his guidance honestly be the determining factor to what she becomes? How can one man be that important? If we're not important enough, if she's not that important enough to save the world, how can his sole influence be important enough to stop Gyrich and his machine and those damned hounds?"
"It's not just him, Raven, and you know it. It's all of them. It's Eric. It's the scoundrel. It's Kurt. It's Piotr. It's the time traveler. It's the computer woman. It's so much more."
"It's all so aleatory, Irene, wild and untamed. Even if we cancel her attack on Carol, even if we let her go to Xavier, even if all of those people interact with her, how can we make sure that it goes just the right way? There are just so many gambles, so many chance moments we have to trust will occur while she's gone from us. Why can't she complete her training with us? What's really to stop us from making sure she's ready instead of depending on all of them to play their appropriate roles?"
"My visions say so."
A vicious gleam lights Mystique's yellow, cat like eyes. "And that's the twist, isn't it, Irene? On one hand you say that your visions aren't perfectly accurate. You say that there are many possibilities and you pinpoint the one that stands as the most likely based on all other visions between now and then. Yet, you insist that our failure resides in keeping Xavier from having my daughter—"
"Your protégé, Raven, not your daughter." Mystique couldn't have looked more shocked if Irene had slapped her. "And I'm not saying that we have to let him have her," Irene continued. She sat down, weariness settling into her being. "I'm saying quite the opposite, actually." That part was a whisper. Mystique knelt down before her so she could hear her. "I'm saying that we can't let Rogue attack Carol tonight because she will win, but something will go wrong, and because of that Rogue will leave us. Less than a year, Raven. That's all we have left if she does this."
"I refuse to accept this, Irene. I will not give up on this so easily."
"It doesn't matter, Raven. Everything unravels if she does this. It will be that much harder for all of us."
"But what if I go with her, what if—" Mystique just stopped talking. Rogue didn't know why. She figured it was because of Irene's expression, but she can't see Irene's expression. Rogue peaked around the corner, craning her head like she had before she discovered the reflection of them in the foyer mirror. Looking she saw that the scene had changed. It was the same night, but not the same moment. Now, it was a little while later. It was now the scene that she remembered inciting her at the merciless age of sixteen.
Strangely, Mystique and Irene had switched positions. Mystique was now in the chair and Irene was standing before her. Cold prickled through her as a ghostly sixteen-year-old Rogue came down the stairs and sat right where the vision-Rogue sat. The sensation reminded Rogue of Kitty phasing and sharing the same seat while remaining phased.
"I hate Carol!" Mystique said, calling the attention of both Rogues. Rogue shifted herself, turned her head side to side, sensing the ghostly echo of the sixteen-year-old Rogue's movements through her. "She is always getting in my way," Mystique continued, "I should've killed her years ago. Then we wouldn't be in this predicament now!"
"It does us no good to think in terms of the past, Raven. We cannot change that. But the future is still ours to live. You cannot let your hatred control your choices. You must look at the bigger picture. Rogue's attempt on Carol will end in disaster. That much I am certain of."
The sixteen-year-old Rogue got up and stormed up to her room in anger. Rogue didn't need to follow her to know what happened next. Rogue had lived that moment. Rogue, as much as she didn't want to—as much as she would have liked to have locked the following moment inside the Core along with all the others that had been swallowed up there—remembered her rebellious act of going out after Carol on her own. She remembered attacking Carol on that bridge in San Francisco. She remembered the strange prolonging of skin to skin contact. She remembered Carol's body growing limp as though dead, and not just unconscious. She remembered letting Carol fall into the water below as Rogue was assaulted by the inclusion of Carol's mind in a manner that Rogue would only experience again with Z'Cann... and even that wasn't the same. That wasn't as bad. Still, in the vision, Rogue watched it all speed by, watched herself go through all of those things again as though she were watching through someone else's eyes.
Unlike Lily, Rogue could not detach herself from what she saw. She watched her sixteen-year-old self try to remove herself, try to swallow another chunk into her Core, but this time it didn't work. This time the Core rebelled.
The vision transported her inside her own sixteen-year-old self's mind. It was under assault. Sparks of activity, like lightning snapped here and there, sometimes only small like static, other times violent and crisp, stretching gnarled, sharp whips of energy for as far as her eyes could see. She was pulled through this storm and when one of the lightning strikes struck through her, it caught her and carried her along its path. She saw muscles transform, adding strains, thin, elastic and different from her normal muscles. She saw Carol's inhuman strength become hers. She saw how her muscles gained that strength without gaining the bulk of someone like Collossus or Hulk. She saw herself mutate.
The bolt carried her further, deeper, letting her see all of her adaptability taking on the permanence of Carol's attributes. She was drawn in to see herself on a cellular level and then on a genetic level. She saw a single glowing gene in every strand of DNA. She saw her X-Factor. She watched waves ripple from that glowing gene, changing specified genes in its path. She watched the change duplicate in every DNA strand. She watched the cells change. She watched her muscles change, her skin grow more sinewy and more durable, she watched an airy crystalline freeze wash through her and she somehow knew that's what gave her the ability to resist gravity and fly under her own command. She saw the truth of her own original mutation. It wasn't as simple as Xavier, Hank, Mystique, and she first thought. Her mutation was the epitome of mutation. Her mutation was to be able to mutate in an instant. She was living evolution.
The bolt ended, and quick as it struck and propelled and dragged her, it snapped her back into her mind to see the changes there. A fog filled the mindscape. Bolts were still striking in the mass of mist, but they were shrinking, dimming, and growing weaker with every strike. She heard a sound of twisting vines, like the sound of an old rope bridge swinging in the wind. The noise whispered beside her—left, right, low left, high right, above, below, and through her. She scrambled back to hug herself back against a meaty wall of her mindscape and strained her eyes to watch the activity that caused the twisting vine noise.
She didn't have to strain long. A suction sound, like a vacuum without the motor, like a fine tuned tornado proceeded the swirling mist that fought being sucked away. The mist seemed to shimmer in its struggles, the bolts breaking apart into billions and billions of particles as the mist was swirling back. The mist took on more mass, forming tendrils and wisps that reached out in desperate slaps. Rogue chased these tendrils, followed them to the source of the suction, and came to the Core. It was the same place that she, Jean, and Emma had found only days before. Only, this was a young Core, only eight years young. This was the Core, solid and stable, being torn asunder, damaged irreparably from the touch of Carol's skin to Rogue's skin.
The Core was a sphere of sticky twine. It was a spider web purse containing a swarm of rainbow clouds. It was her locked away memories, just as her mother had described to her when—well, she didn't know when she told it to her since she never knew her mother—but she remembered the words being whispered through her being, "Memories are clouds gathered in a spider web purse."
There was a gash in the Core. Strains of the sticky twine whipped from the edges of the gash like wet hair in a hurricane. The suction sound came from that gash. Some of them reached further and further, growing, changing, latching onto the meaty walls of the mist, now more of a swirling, shimmering cloud, which had tangible mass, was being pulled back inside the Core. In its desperation to remain loose from the Core—or perhaps from the changes that were occurring all throughout Rogue because of the absorption of Carol—the mist split in two and each part enveloped one of two feminine beings near the Core. Rogue recognized them immediately. One was a blonde woman in a blue uniform like a high-cut one-piece bathing suit. A yellow lightning bolt streaked down the front of it. A sash was tied around her waist in the same shade of yellow as the lightning bolt. She wore thigh high boots and a Zorro-like mask over her eyes. That being was obviously Carol. The other being was Rogue at sixteen. She had two white shocks sprouting just above her temples to stripe through her dark red-brown hair. She wore a uniform of green pants and green hooded jacket belted at the waist. Green boots donned her slender legs and green gloves protected everyone from her hands. Unlike the Carol being, this Rogue being wasn't fighting to stay out of the Core. This sixteen-year-old Rogue being was trying to climb inside the Core.
A shudder ran through the sticky twine of the Core. The strains themselves were changing, evolving, adapting to the added genetic information that was added with Carol's absorption. The twine itself was gaining a sort of sentience. The part of the shimmering cloud that held Rogue's sixteen-year-old being somehow picked up on the changes in the Core's shielding layers of twine and suddenly dropped the Rogue being. It swirled madly, the action somehow pulling almost all of the shimmering particles out of the other part of the cloud and into itself. It then dove into the twine itself, imbuing itself into the twine, and the twine glowed and shimmered in turn. Those loose, whipping strands that frayed from the gash in the Core glowed and shimmered and took on purposeful movement. They wormed themselves around Carol's limbs and Carol's struggles to keep from being sucked into the Core were now doubled with the help of the cloud-imbued strands. Carol moved further and further away. She made slow progress against the sucking maelstrom.
The sticky twine of the sphere shuddered again as the twine doubled in thickness, fighting off the part of the shimmering cloud that had imbued into part of it. It shuddered once more and some of the frayed strands coiled to stitch and mend the gash. The effect resembled Logan's skin healing itself of a long and deep slice. Then the cloud that enveloped Carol thinned. As the gash sealed over, the last of the cloud, even that part which had imbued itself into the twine, was sucked away entirely. Rogue could've sworn she saw the shape of a vaguely familiar face in the cloud as the last of it disappeared inside the Core.
Rogue wanted to further inspect what had now become of the Core, but the vision fizzled and swam into something else. Though, on her way out, Rogue did see that strands still attached to Carol, and those strands were glowing just the tiniest bit.
~~~~~~~~~~~
"Can't stop what's coming can't stop what is on its way. Bells and footfalls and soldiers and dolls, brothers and lovers, she and I were. Now she seems to be sand under his shoes. There's nothing I can do. Can't stop what's coming can't stop what is on its way..." (Bells For Her –by Tori Amos)
The vision deposited Rogue in another memory of hers. This one belonged to Nineteen, and Nineteen hadn't told the story straight when she shared this memory. As much as Rogue knew it was sadistic, she couldn't help watching her nineteen-year old self being touched and fondled and jeered at by a group of male and female Genoshan magistrates. She was again sucked into the mindscape of that Rogue to see Rogue voluntarily hand over control to Carol. The grin that decision spread across Carol's face was menacing and vengeful and grateful. She had found a sort of freedom. In fact, until that moment, Rogue hadn't realized just how much freedom she had gained. As Rogue watched in the vision, she saw that there were indeed two strands attached to Carol as Carol swam to the forefront and gained control of Rogue's body. Detached from Carol, though, were two other strands, lying and writhing like lizard's tails on the bottom surface of the mindscape. Those strands leaked the most minimal amount of shimmering cloud from their glowing tips. They were also crawling their way towards the webbed shielding of Rogue's power basis, the Closet.
~~~~~~~~~~~
"...And now I speak to you. Are you in there? You have her face and her eyes but you are not her. And we go at each other like blank ettes who can't find their thread and their bare." (Bells For Her –by Tori Amos)
The vision swam and shifted again. Now there was the Goblin Queen and Magik and X-Factor and Sinister. Rogue, desperate for an edge against their foe, did the thing she had avoided since she joined up with the X-Men: she made flesh to flesh contact with Sinister.
Something went wrong... again. But, it was different than it was with Carol. This time Sinister was the flux, not the permanent mingling of Carol's enhanced DNA blended with Kree DNA. This time, Sinister was the dominant psyche and that dominance threw Rogue's mind and body and powers into chaos.
Again Rogue watched the rampage travel of her own mind. Webs were woven, stretched and reaching. Mists lit up by bolts.
A sweep of Sinister's hand incited the vacuum to pull the mists back into the Core through the breach. Again, the bolts broke into billions and billions of shimmers, and again the mist split, forming two separate tangible masses of shimmering clouds in their desperate struggle for freedom from the Core. And, again, the clouds envelope two beings—this time Sinister and a nearly twenty-year-old Rogue—anchoring to them in order to keep from being pulled back into the Core. But this time there is no evolution and merging of genetic information as there was with the absorption of Carol because Sinister's psyche is dominant over Rogue's mind and body and powers. And because of that, there wasn't any newly strengthening twines of the Core's shielding sphere, so this time the willing Rogue being of nearly twenty years of age went willingly into the Core, taking that part of the bisected cloud with it. Sinister was being pulled into the Core along with the remaining shimmering cloud by the very vacuum his dominance had created. The cloud, in its furious race to escape the Core, remembered the last time with Carol. It remembered making use of the frayed coils. It remembered that part of itself was still imbued in the strands that were attached to Carol and those two strands that had been severed from Carol when Carol took control. It remembered pulling the shimmering energy particles from its other half and the control it had learned when it had imbued itself into the strands. It dared its chances once more.
The sticky twine shuddered.
The cloud tugged harder, forcibly drawing the shimmers into its half against the current of the maelstrom and against the current of its own nature.
The sticky twine shuddered again.
Sinister watched in horror. His dominance was diminishing in comparison to the multiplying shimmers in the cloud that enveloped him.
The sticky twine convulsed, became a constant spasm.
The cloud imbued its overcharged self into the whole of the webbed shielding. The convulsions became as steady vibration. The patterns in the webbing coiled and grew and stretched under the cloud's control and not Sinister's dominance. The same familiar face as before, though this time with a triumphant smile, could be faintly detected in the pattern of the webbing. Rogue, watching the vision, caught it for an instant, but lost it the moment that the cloud imbued frayed strands from the gash in the Core's shielding reached out and wormed around Sinister's limbs.
Sinister cried out. He felt the power of the shimmers course through him when the strands touched him. It seemed everything about Rogue was grounded in touch.
Sinister grinned.
He turned a curious glance into the Core itself. He tapped that power flowing from the strands, used it to regain his dominance as he peered through the breach and spotted IT, still undeveloped, still dormant, but already filled with a naive strength greater than any he had ever known.
Sinister reached inside and touched IT.
The vision pulled Rogue out of her mindscape to witness the battle. She watched her body stand, stretch and grin with curiosity. It was Sinister's smile. And Sinister's voice, escaping Rogue's lips and tongue, followed it.
"Such power!" Sinister beamed. "Such an enormous strength in this powerful body." The grin widened, ideas running rampant to form plans for later and to gain triumph for the moment. "But you were a fool to think you could contain me, Rogue. And now, I have this power in my control [1]."
The vision didn't let her watch what she knew from memory. It didn't let her watch Sinister, in her own body, defeating several members of the X-Men and X-Factor. The vision brought her back inside her mindscape.
Sinister, inside the mindscape, was as busy as he was in use of Rogue's body to battle her teammates. He was reaching inside the Core, kneading the infantile, undeveloped IT with his surgeon's hands. From that contact he learned everything that the Core knew. He learned what IT was. He learned of the expectations of Union in the possible future. He learned who each of the persona's were that had been trapped inside the Core and why they were trapped there... even the identity of the shimmering cloud. But, most significantly, he learned all of Rogue's first eight years leading up to the very moment that the Core was created. The Core knew all of it and by touching it, he learned it all.
"You are not ready, yet," Sinister said with a sad sigh as removed his hands from the gash in the shielding and then wiped away the shimmering-cloud-imbued strands that had attempted to hold him as though they were nothing more than... well, stray spider webs.
He stepped back, postulating a plan.
"I will wait, I think, for you to mature," He said, thinking aloud. He hadn't considered that the Core would remember his spoken words. He may have been a maniacal genius, but even Sinister made mistakes. "I will be patient for this Union... but until then..."
A furrowed brow of concentration and a dramatic wave of his hand and the solid obsidian walls of the mindscape separated and elongated to form obsidian spires. The spires reached forever up and spanned the entire border of the mindscape at regular intervals. Then webbing stretched from the Core to the obsidian outer shields, giving the shielding the elastic and pliable reinforcement of the Core's powers itself, even those of the shimmering cloud. He built up the shields that Rogue's mind had started forming at the tender age of eight.
"I must protect my investment," he whispered.
The curious and triumphant smile again tugged his lips up into his cheeks. He reached out and touched the imbued webbed shielding of the Core. He took a moment, closing his eyes, to savor the rich potential that existed there. Opening his eyes, his plans took shape in the pattern of the webbing itself. The strands formed the masculine features of a specific face that Rogue, having the vision, recognized immediately. The face was Gambit's. The image continued to form to show Gambit in a containment cylinder watching Sinister ponder a menagerie of X-Men figurines, Rogue's included.
"My projects." Sinister said before he turned his attention to the gash in the web shielding. He ran his hand over top of the gash, from top to bottom, and the gash knitted itself together. He took one long look at the mindscape, content with his handiwork as he felt Rogue's powers wearing themselves out, as he felt himself leaving Rogue's mind and body.
"You are now Sinister's bond."
Then he was gone, his dominance taking all of him out of Rogue. There was no ghostly remnant like with everyone else Rogue ever absorbed. There were no remaining memories or powers. There was nothing left of Sinister inside of Rogue at all.
The web shielding, stronger than it had ever been before, shuddered. A slight sheen shimmered just under its surface.
Sinister was gone, but the Core remembered him. The shimmering cloud remembered him.
~~~~~~~~~~~
"And through the life force and there goes her friend on her Nishiki. It's out of time and through the portal they can make amends..." (Bells For Her –by Tori Amos)
The vision dragged Rogue to another time and place. This time she saw a maelstrom outside the mindscape. She saw herself being pulled inside the Siege Perilous along with Mastermold and Nimrod. Then Shwoom! The vision pulled her in as well, but where she landed was not where she landed when, in the past, she had gone through the portal. This time, she was again inside her mindscape to find, yet again, another, even more fiercer maelstrom raging inside. This time, the Core was stripped open, gaping for the powers-that-be to decide Rogue's ultimate fate. With what they find there, they will choose to either correct something broken in her and set her loose in the world for a second chance—or they could keep her trapped in the Siege Perilous forever more.
Strange glowing spheres that stretched and wove like liquid in a zero gravity atmosphere moved in and around the contents of the Core. There were hundreds of them... thousands, even. Then they multiplied, moving like hyper-active bees, working faster and faster, excited and distraught by what they find. They studied Nineteen and her pets and tossed her to the side. Thirteen was next, then fifteen, then Eleven, the real Eleven. While the others were discarded, Eleven was carefully set down some distance from the storm surrounding the Core. All was quiet where the spheres set her. They swarmed around her, transforming the quiet in their wake. A great gnarled tree sprouted up and twisted out, reaching over a replica of the Mississippi River sidled by a muddy and grassy bank. Golden rays burst through the breaks of the branches and leaves of the great tree. Finally, a handed snaked playfully around the edge of the tree trunk, then a foot, then a happy face full of as much sunshine as the rays that filled this southern oasis with life. Seeing each other, Eleven and Cody, gave quick nods of appreciation to the spheres, then ran off to play. The spheres paused, pleased with their work before returning to the remaining shadows of the Core.
There were empty places, seven or eight of them, that the spheres buzzed around then tossed to the side. Then they settled on a fiery spire engulfing a lone child-figure that lie atop its kindling. The spheres tried to study, to swarm, to alter, but the fire roared larger the closer they came. Growing impatient, the spheres gathered and attacked all at once only to be surprised by two halves of the shimmering cloud enveloping the fiery spire and the child-figure on it.
All at once, the spheres stopped. They reared back, a marching band seen from miles away to gather into eight rings, each encircling an opposite direction from the one above and below it. Counter-clockwise and clockwise, they teamed up and stalked in a rhythm off from the one above and below.
Pause.
"We must fix, but you stop us."
The rings shrank, inching closer. The two halves of the shimmering cloud swirled and flared like the fire of the spire. The spheres reared back, maintaining their rings.
"You attack us?!" The again spun opposite each other, but this time it was contemplative, not stalking.
Pause.
"No, not attack. You protect." They rush in, the rings shrinking, and though the clouds swirl and flare, the spheres hold their closeness. "We will fix. You will protect."
The spheres attack. The cloud had not a chance. They buzz and swarm, multiplying and multiplying so that all that was seen was a giant writhing spherical mass, several times the size of the original Core, with the glowing spheres spinning, swimming, leaping, fixing. It swelled larger and larger, encompassing all of the mindscape while managing to avoid Eleven's oasis. They remove and stitch, repair and replace. They grab hold of Carol, buzzing around her, upset and frantic. They lift her, sever the strands of the webbing from her, and pass her through one of the shadows. Not just any shadow, but the largest, mass of inky void there.
Then they fled, taking the freed Carol with them.
When the last of them had gone, the mindscape looked much as it had before they had entered. The Core was again a sphere of tacky twine, by web strands. All the shadows and clouds and persona figures, except for Eleven, who remained in her oasis with Cody, were held inside the Core, while all the absorbed ghosts were left outside. Several strands of the Core's webbing stretched and connected other parts of the mindscape to the Core. Rogue's absorption power was sectioned off against a far corner and held in check, though not controlled, by an intricate webbing of its own that stemmed from the Core as well.
There were only three real differences that Rogue could see in the vision. The first was Eleven's oasis. The second was the removal of Carol. The third was the way the webbing seemed alive all on its own. It also had a slight sheen to it that shimmered. One half of the shimmering cloud was now merged with protective webbing. Like the spheres had said, the shimmering cloud was now the protector itself... at least half of it was.
But still, the vision had not revealed the identity of the shimmering cloud.
~~~~~~~~~~~
"...Can't stop loving. Can't stop what is on its way. And I see it coming and it's on its way." (Bells For Her –by Tori Amos)
The vision swam again. Outside the mindscape once more, Rogue emerged from the Siege Perilous. She was remade. She was fixed... ready for a future purpose. Rogue watched in fast motion as it all unfolded again like she remembered. She discovered that she lost Carol's powers. She fought Carol's dying essence, then fled to the Savage Land by way of stealing Gateway's powers. Rogue was happy in the Savage Land, finding a semblance of freedom from fear of her powers and thus a life of her own. Carol's essence found her and Rogue chose to give in to her, to make right a wrong that had happened so long ago. Rogue chose to give Carol her life back. But, no, it wasn't to be. Magneto stepped in and made a choice of his own. He chose to save Rogue, to fix her as he saw fit.
Inside the mindscape again, one more maelstrom occurred from Magneto's re-integrating Carol's essence into Rogue. It was a small storm, nothing like those when she'd absorbed Carol originally, or when Sinister took over and nowhere close to the one that occurred with the Siege Perilous. At the end of this tiny storm, a few small gaps were stretched in the tiring webbed shielding. A tendril of shimmering cloud peaked out, pressing against the edges of the gaps, making them bigger. Slowly, but surely, the gaps got bigger. The process took more than a year, and the vision didn't show Rogue the end product. It didn't need to. Rogue saw it when she visited the Core with Jean and Emma. The shimmering cloud had been freed.
~~~~~~~~~~~
"And through the life force and there goes her friend on her Nishiki. It's out of time and through the portal they can make amends..." (Bells For Her –by Tori Amos)
The hall was quiet as a midnight silence. It was quiet as the Mississippi frozen in time to mourn for the murder of a mother it was falsely accused of, a murder the mother's daughter—Lily—knew of before anyone was told. It was as quiet as Lily had been the whole three years since she felt her mother's death.
The turn and click of Lily's closing door choked the silence, making Mr. Beauregard nervously check both ways down the hall. It was as dark as it had been quiet, so he couldn't see anyone even if they were there... and they were there... and they wanted to be known.
A purposefully heard step snapped Mr. Beauregard's attention to find Corrin's figure in the dark, rounding the corner, coming at him with accusations in her eyes that he knew would stream from her mouth a moment later.
Corrin halted her advance on him. She clutched her quilt tighter around her, having felt a chill from his icy glare. It stilled her voice for a pause, but she wouldn't be stilled any more.
"Ah heard ya gave good council ta Annie 'bout her boyfriend gettin' pushy with her."
Corrin stepped closer.
"Annie an' her mama an' her papa went on an' on 'bout how ya saw Joey foh the snake that he was."
Corrin stepped closer.
"Annie done told him off and broke it off with him next time he tried to get too friendly with his hands."
Corrin neared the door, only a few feet from Mr. Beauregard and Lily's closed bedroom door. Still, Corrin stepped forward. Mr. Beauregard stepped back. Lily's door became a border between them.
"What ah'm wondrin' 'bout now, sir, is why ya didn't give Lily the same advice—"Corrin met Mr. Beauregard's eyes—"'bout you."
Corrin didn't move, but Mr. Beauregard took another step back.
"Mrs. Beauregard knew, didn't she?"
Another step back and Mr. Beauregard's eyes swept to Lily's door. There was something about it...
"She knew all yoh titles. Preacher, husband, daddy... molester. An' soon enough, convict."
"You called the police?" Another step back, there was something about Lily's door.
"Had ta see foh mahself first, sir. But Imma 'bout ta—"
Lily's door opened. "Stop."
Mr. Beauregard leapt at Lily.
"Stop!" She didn't have the persuasive voice her daddy had.
Corrin leapt to protect her.
"Stop!"
And they did. But, it was too late.
Lily was a mutant. She just didn't know she was one. She didn't know something that mostly seemed so normal as finishing a person's thoughts was really a power of her own. She didn't know she was a low-level telepath. She was so weak of power that she couldn't make people do or think what she wanted. She could just feel them... well, those she was really close to. And in moments of extreme stress, she felt more. She felt her mother's death. Well, she felt her mother disappear. It wasn't a traumatic suffering of Lily literally experiencing her mother dying. Rather, like a phone line being cut, the awareness of her mother was just severed. It wasn't painful for Lily in the least. It was just unsettling.
Lily was a weak telepath, but it was enough.
Lily watched her father's launch on her be interrupted by Corrin attempt to protect her. Lily watched her father's younger, stronger mass slam into Corrin and knock her to the ground. Lily heard the crunch of elderly bones as her father's younger, stronger mass crash on top of Corrin. Lily felt the familiar unsettling emptiness when Corrin died.
She only fell. He only landed on her. People don't die from falls. They don't die from that. They don--
And that's when it struck her. Lily, tears streaming down her eyes, looked to her father as he frantically searched for a pulse on Corrin and she knew. The reason she saw her father's sweat roll down her own cheek was because of her own ability. It wasn't just her imagination. It wasn't just her father's persuasive murmurs convincing her that—AND THAT!!! She realized that was his ability. He was like her. She had gotten it from him. She was like him. And, both of them weren't like others.
The word mutant wouldn't be learned until later.
"She's dead, Papa."
"Shush, Lily," he stammered frantically as he started to give Corrin CPR. He didn't mean to kill her. He hadn't meant to kill Lily's mother. It was an accident. It was an accident. It was an accident. It was an—"Ya don't know anything 'bout anything." His accent was showing in his urgency.
Lily watched him and heard him and felt him. She felt the prickle of the connection, now that she was consciously aware of it. She also felt his voice. She touched his shoulder and he flinched. She waited for him to stop his futile efforts to save Corrin, then said, "Ah know she's dead, Papa. Ah felt her go... like ah felt Mama..."
All the while Lily spoke, Mr. Beauregard got up and paced, trying to formulate a cover story. "Okay, we gotta... okay... um... Ah know. Ya had a nightmare and Corrin heard ya and she---" He stopped and looked to Lily. She was blank and staring, not really paying attention like usual. She had to pay attention. Their stories had to match. This wouldn't be as easy to explain as his wife had been.
But she was staring at him and she looked so condescending, so understanding, so in tune with...
He froze. "Like ya felt yer Mama?" He asked tentatively, fearfully, his accent drawing out like the memories of his youth.
Sweaty days on the banks of the Mississippi flooded him. He would foot it to the main road of his shantytown and watch the fancy cars being driven past, quick as lightning. The folks inside, wealthy folks of class and snobbery, who feared they'd catch the disease of poverty if they drove through too slowly. He dared the other boys to run out in front of one of those fancy cars and make them stop. Then he could show them that being poor wasn't a plague. Over and over, day after day, month after month, he dared them. At first, the other boys told him he was nuts. Then they laughed with him, but still called him nuts. Then they laughed and jeered and made up all sorts of stories of what they would do to frighten the rich people from that one section Caldecott with that snooty name of Luciole Animée [Firefly Lively]. And then, one day, they all did it. They all did it. They ran right in front of the car, all six of them. Even when one died and two had broken bones when the car swerved instead of just stopping, he couldn't believe they'd actually done it. That was the moment he really caught on to his abilities of suggestion. He'd had small hints of it before, but it'd taken a long time because it wasn't strong, it took lots and lots repetition for the suggestion to sink in, but that was the defining moment.
And now, right then and there, was the defining moment that he learned his daughter's realization.
"Like ya felt yer Mama?" He repeated as he grabbed Lily's shoulders and shook her. "Explain. What do ya feel?" His mind raced. He'd passed his ability on to his daughter. He'd always feared and hoped for that. But, he couldn't feel people. He had to watch and wait for the physical evidence of his suggestions. He couldn't feel them being persuaded. Perhaps Lily's ability was stronger than his was. Or maybe, it was a little different. Whatever it was, he had to figure it out. He had to make her realize that she had to hide it. If his congregation found out what he could do... how he got them to put a little bit more money into the donation plate... If the politicians found out how he convinced them to give the land grants and building grants and project grants... "Tell me!"
Lily felt him trying his voice on her. In feeling it, she could feel how to ignore it. She could ignore it because of her own weak abilities.
"It doesn't work anymore, Papa," she told him. "Your voice doesn't work anymore. I can feel that too now."
He flinched back from her. "My voice?" He pulled back, stepping away from her. He was almost offended, and he was most definitely defensive. His pride took away the drawl, gave him back his need for control. "It's not just my voice."
"Yeah, it is just yer voice."
"What about you? You feel things? That's not your voice. How could you feel things?" He was becoming indignant now.
She tapped her head. "Ah feel it here." She looked to Corrin. "And now, ah don't feel her at all. Ah didn't know ah even felt her till she was gone. Then... then... a wet, sort of snap, and there was nothing of her anymore."
Her father took another step back from her. "So, it's more like psychic stuff... ESP... I think that's what they call it. Is that what it is? Can you hear people's thoughts?"
Lily was pensive a moment. "Ah don't think so." Then she rubbed her arms, as though if chilled, as though goose pimples would show on her skin if her nightgown hadn't covered her arms. "Ah feel it everywhere sometimes. It's like a tingle. Like I'm not in mah own skin." She hugged herself tight. "But sometimes ah can tell what yer gonna say befoh ya say it."
"How much do you know, Lily?" He rushed up on her. "How long has this been happening?" He reached, violently for her arm, but remembering how she said she could feel things, he didn't grab her. He just left his hand hovering there, mere inches from her. "Who else have you done this—"she was staring at his hand that wouldn't touch her—"Stop that and look at me."
She did. The tight smile that was steadily creeping up her cheeks gave him chills.
"What?" he snapped.
"Ya won't touch meh." The moment she said it, she regretted it. Saying it gave him another piece of her.
"Forget about that, now, Lily, answer my damn questions!"
She was shocked. She was careful not to let him see it though. Did he not pick up on what she just told him because he was too self-important or did she do that, did she make him not notice her slip up? Whatever it was, she wouldn't press it right then. She wouldn't give herself away completely. "It was the same with Mama and with Corrin. Just the people I'm the closest ta, ya know." Actually, maybe she could embellish, make him really afraid to ever touch her again. Her smile broadened. "With ya'll ah could do more. Ah first felt it when ya killed Mama."
He reeled back like she'd slapped him. "Y-y-you knew."
She had suspicions, but she didn't really know until right then... but what he didn't know... "Ah knew," she said. Her voice was steel, strong as the steel they made in the shantytown a few miles down river. "Of course ah knew. That was the first time ah happened ta—" Lily wanted to put more fear in him. She was tempted to step up on him, make him back away like she knew Corrin had been doing with him, but she really didn't want to get that close to him if she could avoid it. "Ah felt Mama die and ah felt ya kill her."
He stumbled back, and was somehow surprised to find there was a wall there. "What else do ya know?"
"Lots more, Papa, lots more. Like ah know ya won't eveh touch meh again."
It took him a moment to get it. He looked at his hands. He looked past her, into her room, to see her bed, to see the sheets scattered on the floor. Apparently, she'd thrown them there as soon as he'd left the room. Finally, he looked at her.
"Don't give me that look, Papa." He was appalled at her gall, at her attempt to blackmail him. She enjoyed the power she had over him now. "After all, ah learned it from ya." She closed her door and left him there alone with Corrin, dead on the floor.
He looked at Corrin, suddenly remembering her and remembering his dilemma. He wondered if Lily had remembered Corrin. He didn't think Lily could be that cold to Corrin. Lily had known and loved Corrin for her entire life. How could Lily just leave her there on the floor like that? Lily hadn't even shed one tear over Corrin.
As if on cue, or as if Lily had read his thoughts, she opened her door and said, "Ya won't evah see me cry again, Papa. Not ever." She looked down at Corrin then, her face softening into a gentle, yet sad smile.
"But, the police, we'll have to tell—"
"Ah was asleep the whole time, Papa." Her voice was solid and stern. "All she did was fall. Ah didn't hear a thing." She started to close the door, then paused, meeting his eyes once more and said, with finality, "Just so we got our stories straight."
She closed the door and cried for the loss of Corrin. Her father never heard nor saw her tears again, not even at Corrin's funeral.
"...And through the walls they made their mud pies. I've got your mind, I said, she said, I've got your voice, I said, you don't need my voice girl you have your own, but you never thought it was enough of... So, they went years and years like sisters, blanket girls, always there through that and this. There's nothing we cannot ever fix, I said..." (Bells For Her –by Tori Amos)
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To be continued in Chapter 17 – Firefly Lively
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] This is loosely quoted (paraphrased from memory actually) from an issue of X-Factor way back during the whole Goblin Queen and Sinister's introduction story lines.
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I need to know what mysteries you want explained further, what questions you need answered, and reassurances that all my tricky little manipulations are working. Reviews are a great way to let me know, so don't forget to review.
"It's that li'l GO button on the bottom… go ahead, push it… ya know ya want ta… its begging ya… push the button... PUSH IT!" Giggle.
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