Chapter Fifteen

It was dark, a soft, velvet sheet of black that wrapped itself around her body and chilled her soul. She was alone in the dark, she knew it. She could walk for miles and not find anyone. She'd never find anyone. She was alone. Always alone. No one to help her. No one to save her.

Voices in the dark. Can't escape them, can't run from them. They chase her, always catching her, accusing and hurting. Sharp words cutting her skin, blood flowing, wet crimson against silken black. So much blood, dripping away, sliding against her skin, trails of red. Her life was dripping away, bleeding away, she couldn't stop it. She was going to die. All alone.

"Beg me, freak!"

No, don't want to beg, won't beg, go away. Have to beg, have to plead, he's stronger, faster, better. He's killing her, oh so slowly, killing her heart, killing her soul. Does he know what he's doing? Does he know he's making her his enemy? Does he know he's making her his murderer? She'll kill him, she'll cut him and watch his life bleed away. No one hurts her and lives. No one.

"Call me master!"

He's not her master. She has no master. No one controls her. She's free, trapped within the strict confines of her tortured mind, she is free. Trapped in a cage, can't get out, people chasing her, demanding revenge, she wants revenge, too. Always avenging wrongs, always fighting for the weak, always killing herself. Why will no one save her?

Rogue gasped and woke up, staring at the ceiling with wide, scared eyes. Her heart was thudding in her chest, painfully loud in the still silence of night. Her skin was covered in sweat, and she had to glance at her bare arms to see that it wasn't the thick redness of blood. Her breath burned in her lungs, a sharp biting pain that reminded her that she was indeed still breathing. She wasn't sure if she was relieved or sad about that.

Then she wondered at just what point she had turned passively suicidal. Then again, isn't that what she always did? Throw herself at danger and not care about if she lived through it? Just what did she have to live for anyway? Pain, blood, death, loneliness. Yeah, that was a terrific life.

Rogue sighed and sat up, pushing the thin covers off her legs. She wouldn't sleep again, she knew it, so she pushed her dishevelled hair out of her eyes and walked silently downstairs, alert to the slightest noise that would indicate either someone else awake or an intruder.

There was actually coffee in the pot, stone cold of course, so she poured herself a cup and sipped it, sitting down at the kitchen table. It wasn't often that she had nightmares, having trained her mind as well as her body, but when she did they were never pleasant. She hated having nightmares, not just because they were creepy and scary and often revealed things about her subconscious that she didn't want to know, but because they were a weakness, a chink in her armour, a failure to train her mind completely. She'd spent hours in meditation and doing focusing exercises, she'd done everything possible to train her mind, but it hadn't been enough. It was never enough.

God, she'd tried so hard to be the best, to be perfect, she'd forced herself to learn the most complex forms of martial arts and street fighting techniques, she had a black belt in Judo, Kendo and Aikido, she could put herself into deep meditation at the drop of a hat, and it wasn't enough. She'd learnt how to use various handguns, rifles, shotguns, machine guns, knives, swords, quarterstaffs and even tonfas and it wasn't enough. She was still weak.

Everyone thought she was so strong, so brave and courageous and talented and skilled. They looked at her and saw a fighter, a warrior. But when she looked in the mirror, all she saw was a weak little girl who had let some stupid man control her.

And he was still controlling her, wasn't he? He was still the reason she fought so hard, the reason she risked so much, the reason she was who she was. Sure, there were some perks to being her, she had a nice body and had a few meagre skills with weapons and fighting, but in the end, it didn't matter. She was still a monster.

Back before the Mutant Wars, Professor Xavier had always told them 'the wrong thing done for the right reason is still the wrong thing'. It had been what kept them from doing things harsh and illegal, it had kept them good guys. But he'd stopped saying that when Bezerker had been killed. It had been two weeks into the first, shorter and less bloody, war, and Ray had been shot in the head by an anonymous soldier. As he looked at the body, Xavier had finally admitted that they were fighting a war, and wars weren't nice. He'd given the X-Men and other fighting mutants permission to do whatever necessary, and they had begun to fight in earnest.

Rogue wondered if he had done the right thing in making that decision. It had saved their lives, sure, had ensured a somewhat tentative protection for mutants everywhere, but he had killed something inside of them, had broken their minds, damned their souls. What made them any different from the humans attacking them? They killed for what they believed was right, to protect those they loved and those that were innocent. But so did the humans. Who decided what was right and wrong?

Rogue sighed and sipped her coffee, trying in vain to rid her mind of such depressing thoughts. Then again, if she was depressed, she wasn't empty was she? But she hated being depressed, it usually led to being drunk, which usually led to being vulnerable, useless, and with a killer headache.

The first war had only lasted two months of semi-constant fighting. The causalities had been mostly humans, who were too surprised at the fact that the mutants were actually killing them to defend themselves properly. They realised they weren't strong enough and retreated, giving the mutants time to regroup. The X-Men had been busy during that reprieve, checking all the separate battle sites in various countries, making lists of what people needed and how desperately they wanted it, reassuring people that they were doing the right thing and that they would win.

Then the fighting had started up again after three weeks, the humans back stronger and better than before. Unlike baseline humans, very few mutants were arrogant about their skills and abilities. Months of torment and abuse had shown them that they weren't gods or superheroes, they were just people with special abilities. So when the humans started killing them again, started shooting and tossing bombs, they were prepared.

It wasn't pretty, people were splattered with blood at the end of each battle, but they always won, always forced the baseline humans back. Eventually, they got the message, they began to understand that mutants weren't weak, that they weren't going to go away, and that they were damned impressive when backed into a corner. So the mutants won. Battered and scarred, they won their shaky status of free.

But now it was all going wrong again, now that bloody message had been forgotten, and there were no mutant armies to redeliver it. The Alliance was dead, mutants had drifted apart and forgotten their solidarity, they had even started to forget that they had a right to live.

And it was up to Rogue to ensure that everyone remembered everything the brutal wars had wrought. It was a huge responsibility, and she wondered if she could handle it. She wondered if she would survive it.

"You're giving me nightmares," Michelle mumbled as she shuffled into the room. Rogue firmly squashed her instinctive reaction to draw a weapon she wasn't wearing. Michelle flopped into the chair opposite her and blinked blearily.

"Wanna talk?" she asked, her words slurred with sleep.

"You're half asleep, Michelle, go back to bed."

"Can't, you keep waking me up."

"Sorry, I'll try to be quieter." Rogue sipped her cold coffee and looked away from Michelle's caring grey eyes, hoping the girl would go away. She couldn't handle social interaction right now, not even with her friend. She needed to be alone.

Michelle frowned, lowering her defences and focusing on Rogue's emotions. Only there were no emotions in Rogue. She felt into the other mutant's heart and found a great emptiness, a large expanse of white nothingness. She looked around the kitchen, seeing through Rogue's eyes, and saw that it was a dull, grey place that held no interest and no meaning. Nothing had any meaning.

"There's a reason you're not supposed to read me," Rogue said coldly, and Michelle quickly raised her shields, gathering them around her like a blanket. The emptiness faded, leaving her shaking and weak.

"Rogue…"

"Go to bed, Michelle."

Michelle stood up and left without saying a word, her steps faltering occasionally.

Rogue sighed and stared into the dark depths of her coffee. She sat there for a long time, thinking and trying not to, and eventually she came to a single conclusion: if all she had to live for was destroying the Agency and killing Mitchell, she wouldn't live once those tasks had been accomplished.