Chapter Eighteen

Remy was silent for several long minutes, sorting out what he knew and what he needed to tell her. Eventually, he did begin to speak, knowing that the danger to his wellbeing increased with each word.

"About a week before you left the X-Men, Professor Xavier had a visit from a young geneticist he knew. They talked for hours about the war and the man responsible for it, Lt. Colonel Henry Mitchell. Through Xavier's powers, they knew about his hatred for mutants, and his determination to kill us all. They knew that even if we won the war, he wouldn't stop. They knew that eventually, someone would have to kill him and all his associates. They talked about each of the X-Men, Acolytes and Brotherhood members, even the Morlocks, and finally selected the person they would rest all their hopes on, someone who they would gradually turn into a cold-blooded killer. Neither of them were happy with the decision, but they realised that they had to do it.

"So a week later, you were sent away from everyone you knew and loved to begin your training. Cathryn contacted a couple of people she knew to set up regular attacks on you, to help you home your skills. She arranged for you to have lessons in various forms of fighting and weaponry. And eventually, you had become the person you had to be. She made certain that you saw Scott's televised execution, knowing that it would push you over the edge, and then she made sure that you met Ivy, the one Dark Rose she picked out herself.

"On the same night that you left, so did I. You were given the task of destroying the Agency, I was given the task of finding them. I went back home, to France, and made contact with various people there. It took a while, the Agency is very good at covering their tracks, but eventually I found a solid lead and followed it here. For the sake of my mission, I wasn't told where you would be, so that when I followed a lead and found you, I'd know it was real.

"I arrived in town about three weeks ago, and the first thing I did was go to the club to talk to Cathryn. She told me that you were indeed here and fighting mutants, and I left once again to make contact with more people. Yesterday, I found out the location of the Agency. Or at least, one building. There is a sort of headquarters somewhere on the planet, but I haven't been able to find out where. Their main building, though, is right here in town. I scouted it for the entire day yesterday, and today I came and found you."

Rogue's eyes were violent stormclouds of rage, but the rest of her face was a blank mask, her body language relaxed but alert. She was silent for a long time, thinking about everything she had just heard, and only one clear thought remained in her head when she was done: she had been betrayed.

She had been betrayed in the worst way by the man who was the closest thing to a father she had. He had willingly sacrificed her soul and her sanity for the cause, and hadn't even consulted her about it. He was solely responsible for the lonely emptiness inside her. It was all his fault. Wait, no, it wasn't. It was her fault too. She had helped in the betrayal, and had continued betraying her every day since then. The training, the attacks, the mind-numbing nothingness, it had all been carefully planned.

A distant part of her mind finally recognised the guilty look she had seen in Cathryn's eyes when Selene and Alistor had been attacked at the club, and that she might actually feel guilty about the decision, but the rest of her mind was so consumed with rage that she ignored the voice.

A soft sigh from the doorway made her whip around and reach for her gun. She froze when she saw Cathryn standing there, looking at her sadly. For a second, Rogue couldn't think. She looked into the beautiful face of her friend and saw the ugly face of a betrayer.

She wasn't quite show when she moved, or why Chalice never dodged; she seemed to lose a couple of seconds, because the next thing she knew, she was standing in front of Chalice, her knuckles stinging like fire, and Cathryn's head had twisted to the side, her hair hiding her face.

Rogue blinked and took a step back, then another, until she was standing by the window. She wanted to hurt Cathryn, she wanted to make her suffer, but some part of her mind told her that it wouldn't be a good idea, so she reluctantly got control of herself. She opened her mouth to ask why, but what came out was, "You bitch."

Chalice sighed again and rubbed her cheek, looking at Remy who just shrugged. "I know what I did was horrible," she said quietly, looking at her shoes. "And there's not a day goes by that I don't wish we'd found another way, but the truth is we did what we had to. Mitchell and his crew have to be stopped and the only way to do that is to kill them. Charles and I talked all through the night about who to choose, and we eventually decided that you were… perfect. You'd already killed once, long before the others, when you shoved Mystique off the cliff, and though you showed remorse, you didn't show regret. It was that incident that ultimately made us choose you. The others… they weren't strong enough, ruthless enough, to be…."

"A sociopath?"

Cathryn grimaced and nodded. "I'm not trying to make excuses about what I did, it was unforgivable, but-"

Rogue's fraying control snapped. "Damn right it was unforgivable! You used me, Cathryn! You made me into a little fucking puppet, just like Mystique did to me and Sebastian did to you! You of all people should know just how much betrayal hurts! I thought I could trust you, dammit, and I did! I thought you understood me, but all you did was use me!"

Cathryn flinched, but didn't try to speak again. Rogue glared at her, wrestling with the urge to hit her again, and gradually gathered the tattered shreds of her control. She took a deep breath and pushed her hair out of her eyes, realising that her left hand was still bare. The last thing she wanted to do was accidentally touch one of them, so she walked over to the dresser and pulled on her glove.

Rogue leaned against the dresser with her back to Remy and Chalice, and stared at her reflection. A deep pain was etched into her once dead eyes, and she knew that no matter what she did or how old she got, she would never forget this day, when her entire world crashed down around her. Everything she had believed, everything she had known, it had all been a lie. She'd dared to trust Chalice, dared to like her as a friend, and all it had brought her was pain.

The cold emptiness was now laced with pain, the white place in her head now stained with violent slashes of black and red. Her heart ached violently, her entire body tingling with the aftershocks of the revelation. She could never forgive Xavier and Cathryn for what they had done, and because of that, she had tarnished the memory of the Professor, and lost one of her closest friends forever.

But the fact remained that she still had a job to do. She was closer than ever to accomplishing her task. She knew where at least part of the Agency was, and once inside it shouldn't be too hard to find the Headquarters. Then all she had to do was destroy both buildings and any others that existed, and slaughter everyone involved, starting with Mitchell.

Chalice and Xavier had moulded and shaped her to be a deadly weapon, a being with no morals and no conscience. Time for them to see just how well they had succeeded.