Erik walked through the black void, searching. Standing in the distance was a seemingly young girl with long, black hair. He ran towards her yelling her name: "Shard!"

She turned around and saw her long-time friend. "Magnus!" she yelled and ran towards her. Erik grabbed her as she threw herself into his arms. After a long, tight embrace, Shard spoke to him.

"You still have yet to find me," she said, "remember, you promised."

"But I have… you're right here, with me… we're together again…" he pleaded. He looked into her dark brown eyes. They were so real; no dream could replicate this. He had found her, hadn't he?

An evil laughter echoed through the blackness. He turned around and tried to find the source. Shard pulled him back to her.

"We don't have a lot of time," she said, hurriedly. "I'm trapped Magnus; I can't get out. He has me; I can't escape."

"What? Who?" Erik questioned. "Who could trap you?" The laugh was getting louder and closer.

"He's coming for me, Magnus. You have to find me; I can't survive much longer." A shadow reached out and grabbed her; pulling her away. Erik held onto her hands and tried to keep her from being torn away. "Where are you?" he yelled.

Shard was fighting the blackness that had gripped her. "You can't take me back there!" she screamed. "Not there! Not again!" Her hand was pulled from Erik's and the shadow was dragging her away.

"Where are you!" he screamed. "Where are you!"

"The only place that I vowed to never return to..."

The shadow that held her took form. It was a black monster with menacing eyes and rows razor sharp teeth. It formed a cage around Shard with its clawed hands and opened its hideous mouth to laugh. Shard faded from sight as the face grew bigger and bigger, and it continued its sinister laugh. It reached his building sized hand forward toward Erik-

Erik woke from the dream; his sheets were soaking in cold sweat. Standing in his room was Xavier and some of his students. They demanded to know where Rogue was. He told them all he knew and they left apologetically. Around his room were random metal objects stuck in the wall and strewn across the floor. What a nightmare, he thought, staring at the ceiling and pondering his dream.

Throwing his sheet off, he got out of bed and opened a bedroom window. The cool night breeze flowed over him and filled the bedroom. Erik looked out to the stars and full moon.

"Where are you?" he asked the night.

"Rise and shine, cherie!"

"Wha?" Rogue got up from her bed of fruit crates and flour sacks. Gambit stood over her, holding out an apple. It had been a few days of sea voyage in the hold of a cargo ship.

"Come on chere, as dey say, an apple a day keep da-"

She interrupted him with a moan. This trip was making her profoundly sick of the fruit. Reluctantly, she took the disgusted fruit from his and slowly began consuming it.

"Dat's my girl. Good morning." Gambit looked at the youth, who obviously was in no mood to be woken up.

Was it morning? It was hard to tell. The hold of the ship was always dark. She looked out one of those nifty circle windows to see a bright, clear sky. She groaned again, set the apple down and tried to get back to sleep.

"No, no, chere, I gotta show ya somethin'" Gambit took a large wad of cash from a pocket in his trenchcoat. Rogue's eyes widened and she sat up, fully awake.

"Where the heck did ya get that?" she exclaimed. She looked at him and then the money and him again. She narrowed her eyes. Gambit read her mind.

"Don' worry chere, I no steal it. Dere was a poker game goin' on in da mess an' I decided t'join. Dat a crime?"

She looked at him, half-relieved, and yawned. They could use the cash. Where ever they were going…

"So…" she started, putting at finger in through her hair. "You still haven't answered my question. What will we be doing up in France?"

Gambit looked down. Sometimes he wished he could forget some things. A lot of times he wished he could forget some things. He sighed.

"My father managed t'get himself in trouble in Paris wit' another guild; trying t'steal somethin' of theirs, no doubt."

Rogue looked down. Not this again, she sighed. Another ordeal with Jean-Luc. Great. Maybe coming was a bad idea… She was not the one that wanted to get into the mess of Gambit and his past.

Gambit saw that Rogue was not that pleased with their mission. He placed his gloved finger under her chin and lifted her face up. "Now, now chere, listen t'me. We go in an' out, free da bum and spend the rest of da time –until your friends find us that is- roaming around in Paris Gambit pronounces it "Parie". Jus' you and me."

Rogue lightened up. The trip wasn't all about Jean-Luc. That was good. She reached for the apple she had placed on the floor and continued eating it. Maybe this trip was turning out okay.

"Rogue hasn't been a school for two days now!" Kitty exclaimed to Xavier, "She's not at here, not at any friends house, the Brotherhood has is clueless as always, I just can't figure out where she went!" Everyone in the Xavier mansion was getting edgy with Rogue's disappearance.

"Cerebro can't detect her until she uses her powers," Xavier sighed. "It seems that we have to wait until Logan comes home." It was a Wednesday afternoon at the Xavier Institute; everyone was sitting down in the living room (Xavier had called a meeting). (Most of the New Mutants were back as well as Scott and Jean, since they were having trouble finding a college that would let them in.)

"We can't wait until Mr. Logan gets home, Prof!" Kurt was the one yelling this time. "That won't be until three days from now. She could be halfway across the world by then!" Things were not looking good for them.

"Umm…" A girl raised her hand shyly.

"Yes, Rahne?"

"I might be able to track her," she suggested. "My tracking skills aren't as good as Wolverine's but-"

"It'll do have to do Rahne, let's go." The large group of mutants wandered to Rogue's room and watched as Rahne morphed into her wolf form. She began to sniff the ground around Rogue's backpack and walked out of the room, sniffing the ground as she went her way.

They made their way to the kitchen, Wolfsbane in the lead. She trotted to the refrigerator and back into the hallway.

"Just as Erik said," Xavier commented, "she was in the kitchen when he ran into her."

Rahne sped up her tracking and led them out the door. Her confidence was building as she raced through the yard, stopping to sniff the area every so often. The X-Men ran to keep up. Xavier tried his best to wheel over the terrain, but once they reached the rocky shore, he stopped and watched his students from a distance. There are certain places that a wheelchair cannot go.

The wolf stopped at a point along the beach and morphed back to her human form. "There's another scent here," she said, panting, "I smelled it once before –in Rogue's room. The two seemed to have headed off in that direction." She pointed to the woods that started further away. Rahne resumed her wolf form once more and sped off into the woods, the X-Men in close tow.

At the same time, Erik, who was absent from the meeting, was in his room, packing. In a small bag he packed a few necessities along with is Magneto costume. It was basically his Evolution costume, but with no helmet and a black cape vs. his old purple one.

For one of the first times in his life, he was keeping an extremely low profile. Which meant that he would be flying in a plane compared to his old metal-sphere system. Time was of the essence, but it would be worse if he attracted too much attention, he reasoned.

After throwing on a trench coat they seem to be in season this time of year over his plain clothes, he was ready to go. He had already communicated to Xavier that he had business to attend to and that he would be gone for an uncertain amount of time.

Erik picked up his plane ticket off the dresser and looked at the destination. It had not taken long to figure out where his friend was. He had hoped to never return to the place himself. But here he was, with a plane ticket to Poland in his hand. The sad man sighed, left his room and shut the door behind him. He walked through the unusually quiet mansion and out the door where a taxi was waiting for him. Erik climbed into the cab and it drove off.

Gambit held out the Queen of Hearts. "Is dis your card?" he asked. Rogue shook her head.

"No it ain't," she replied. "I chose the Queen of Spades."

"Oh, but you be wrong. Dis is your card." He set it aside then picked the card from the top of the deck and handed it to her. "Dis is the one you pick."

She looked at it. The Queen of Spades. Gambit was entertaining her with an endless well of card tricks. It got quite boring to sit in the cargo hold of a ship with nothing to do. They had started to play various card games, but after the first hour, Rogue quickly found out that it was pointless to play against Gambit. The only time he would lose was when he chose to lose. Not much of a game.

Gambit took his card back and began to shuffle the deck. They were running out of ways to kill time. Rogue decided to ask a question that had been bugging her for the past few days.

"How many decks do you have in that coat of yours?" she asked. Gambit smiled.

"Ya know what, chere? I don' even know myself." He took reached into his coat and started to pull out decks of cards from assorted pockets. He watched Rogue as she stared at the huge pile of cards that was still accumulating.

"Okay, forget that I asked." It was getting dark (if it wasn't dark enough in the hold already) and Rogue was getting tired. Remy's piercing red eyes glowed through the darkness. He was very much like her, an outcast, and they had very similar pasts. It was a pity he refused to join her at the institute. "A place like dat wouldn't accept people like me," he had told her, "not wit' my past sins..." She had argued that it was a place of new beginnings, but he rebuked her; said that some things can never be forgiven.

He began the long process of putting the cards back into his pockets. On this trip Rogue had remained mostly to herself, a loner. Not like he was any different. Two loners, together; and of course, they barely manage to talk to each other, he sighed. This was one of the rare times he had a chance to start a conversation. You have to start somewhere…

"So, um, how's life at da institute?" he asked.

She looked up. "It's okay, I guess. Xavier's not that bad."

"Any friends?"

"Well, yes and no," she sighed. Gambit raised an eyebrow, inquiring her to go on.

"I thought I had a good friend, Risty, but she turned out to be Mystique, who was just using me to get into the institute. What is it about me that makes people think they can use me?"

He got up and moved to where Rogue was sitting against a crate and put and arm around her. "I don' know, chere. Been down dat path too. Maybe it jus' how us loners are. Easily manipulated. Or maybe it why we loners. 'Cause we don' trust nobody."

"Mmmhmmm…" Rogue replied softly. It wasn't even five seconds later until she was asleep. Gambit picked her up gently and rested her on a bed of flour sacks. He took off his trench coat and laid it over her.

"'Nite, cherie." He climbed to the top of a few hard crates and lay down. As soon as he closed his eyes, dreams filled his mind; and they were not the pleasant sort. Which is what happens when you have a dark past such as his; your nights are filled with nightmares.

After a while of trekking through the woods, Rahne stopped along a dirt path. The road had a singe set of deep tire marks, obviously from a motorcycle. She morphed back to her normal self.

"This is where I lose the scent," she said sadly. The group of kids looked at the ground in dismay.

"It appears that a motorcycle was the vehicle of transport," Beast analyzed. "And whoever kidnapped our friend left in a hurry."

"Great," Scott scowled, "how are we gonna find her now?"

"Are you sure you can't track them, Rahne?" Jean asked.

"I can try," she replied with little enthusiasm. She took her wolf form and began to sniff the ground. Okay, focus Rahne, focus. She slowly started down the path and gradually sped up. Then scent was very weak, at it became harder and harder to distinguish it. It was when they reached a highway that she stood up, human again.

"I lost them," she said in defeat. They all stared at the empty highway. There was no way to tell where Rogue was taken. All of their heads snapped as a yellow taxi drove by.

"Hey, isn't that Mr. Lehnsherr?" Bobby asked.

"Yeah," Scott answered, narrowing his eyes, "and I have a feeling that he has something to do with this."

Screams. Gambit turned his head to each side, trying to find an exit What have I done? he thought Every tunnel he took, he saw more and more lifeless mutant bodies. This is what happens when you make a deal with the devil, Remy. This is what you've caused. Was it worth the money? he mentally beat himself up.

He had to find a way out, a way out of this, this nightmare. He ran though the maze of sewers, stepping over the dead carnage. One of the bodies cried out. It was a young girl with bones protruding from skin all over her body. He picked her up. At least he could rescue one soul from this disaster he had caused...

The wall behind him exploded. They were coming! Had to run. Had to get away…

On top of a pile of crates, Gambit was tossing and turning in his sleep. His constant moans had woken Rogue up. She walked over to the place were he rested and placed her hand on his shoulder.

"Hey man," she shook him, "wake up." Gambit thrashed more and more, pushing her away. "Come on," she pleaded, "snap out of it!" It was then that she noticed that the crate under her sleeping friend was glowing. He had unintentionally charged it in his sleep.

"OH CRUD!" she yelled as she grabbed him and dragged him off the crate. She threw him to the ground as the crate exploded, sending fruit mush everywhere.

"Huh?" Gambit's eyes snapped open. He surveyed the damage. "What happened?"

"You just almost killed us both, in you sleep," she scowled. "I outta-"

"Hold it, chere!" He put a finger over her lip. "Someone coming." They watched as a black shape carried a flashlight down a fight of stairs.

"This is not good," Rogue whispered.