Chapter Twenty

Rogue ducked down low, twisting around gracefully, and rammed her elbow into the base of the man's spine, making him cry out in pain and fall over. She savoured the mild victory for a split second before jumping backwards, the knife whistling through the air and slashing through her shirt but not touching her skin. The blonde growled and stumbled forward, drink and rage making him clumsy and easily overpowered. It was a simple matter to disarm him and knock him out.

Tossing the knife away, Rogue lunged at the brunette, punching his jaw and kicking his stomach, before chopping at his neck and watching as he crumbled to the ground. There were just two more to go, the cowardly ones who had hung back while she fought their friends. She picked out the small, weedy one and delivered a sharp roundhouse kick to his jaw, following it up with an uppercut, before elbowing him in the throat. He gasped and choked, unable to breath, and joined the others in the land of unconsciousness.

She hadn't planned on the last guy being armed, but he held the gun in a shaking hand, alcohol making his aim wonky, and she looked at him with contempt. She hated this kind of man, all muscle and no brain, thinking he was all big and bad because he beat up a couple of guys smaller than him and because he carried a big gun. He was dressed in the typical outfit of leather and denim, complete with a barbed wire tattoo around his upper arm, and various small scars on his skin, mostly cigarette burns.

Rogue briefly thought about showing him her much more impressive scars, but discarded the idea as idiotic and pointless. Instead, she leapt to the side, kicked the gun out of his hand, and knocked him on his back. She knelt over him on one knee, her own gun suddenly in her hands and pressed firmly against his throat.

If there was one thing Rogue hated, it was weak men pretending to be big, so it was with great disgust that she watched as he began to plead for the pathetic existence he called a life.

She wanted to kill him. She wanted to pull the trigger and put a bullet in his throat and watch the blood well up. She wanted to show Cathryn just what she had turned her into.

After a moment, she slowly removed the muzzle of the gun from the man's throat and stood up, letting out a breath. Despite everything, she still didn't kill without a good cause, and a bad mood wasn't a good cause.

She turned around and started to walk away, holstering her gun. She got three steps before her senses screamed at her and she dived to the side, a bolt of white-blue lightning streaming past her and crashing into a bin. She whirled around, gun in hand.

"You thought you could just beat me up and leave, bitch?" the man said between heavy breaths, struggling to his feet. "I'm a fucking mutant, I ain't no pushover."

"You don't want to do this," Rogue said quietly, gun trained on the spot between his eyebrows.

"Oh, I really do. Maybe if you make it worth my time, I won't kill you."

The offer was crude and predictable, and Rogue didn't even blink as she squeezed the trigger, the shout echoing in the dark alley. A surprised expression plastered on his face, the man slowly went to his knees, falling face down in the dirt.

Rogue looked at the body for a moment, and then walked away, pulling her long coat tight around her body to protect her from the bitter cold wind.

She walked aimlessly, watching her feet as they hit the pavement and not really noticing where she was going. She ended up at the beach, for some unknown reason, and she sat heavily on the sand near the water's edge, staring at the dark waves of the ocean.

The X-Men had had a beach party once, complete with roaring bonfire, loud music, and beer. Professor Xavier hadn't approved of the beer, but after some persuavive arguments from Jean and Scott, had allowed all students over sixteen to get as drunk as they wanted. That decision hadn't proved to be entirely wise, as Bobby decided to try and freeze the entire ocean after his eleventh beer.

But it had been fun nonetheless. Jubilee had provided some fireworks, when Bobby was sober he'd created some very nice ice sculptures, and Tabitha had somehow managed to start a very whacked-out conga line. They'd also played truth or dare, and Rogue had learned a surprising amount of things about her family. She'd had no idea that Jubilee was scared of spiders, or that Sam used to have a pet snake. She also found out that watching Scott sing 'I'm a little tea pot', complete with all the moves, was cause for hilarity.

She hadn't done anything really extreme, unlike Jean who tried to do a striptease after her seventh beer, but she had had fun. She'd participated in the game of volleyball, raced Kitty and Roberto, and even joined in the singing a couple of times. Mostly, she'd just sat by the fire and watched her family let loose.

She missed them. They were weird and had their disagreements, but when push came to shove, they were a solid unit, a family in the truest sense of the word. And they had welcomed her into their world. They hadn't used her or manipulated her, never lied to her or tricked her. They hadn't rejected her for being a freak, for being different. In fact, that was what they valued most about her. They had loved that she wasn't afraid to be herself, that she could look into the eyes of anyone and say, I am me and I'm happy with that.

And now that wasn't true. Now she wasn't happy with herself. Well, not entirely at least. She had accepted who she was, emptiness and all, but there was still that voice in her head, the one that had been there for as long as she could remember, whispering to her about a better life, a life without any powers, a life without any emptiness. Only she knew that the voice lied, that there was no better life for her. She was who she was and nothing could change that.

Her mission was nearing its end. She was so close now to achieving her goal, to destroying the Agency once and for all. After that, she could finally rest. The world wouldn't need her any more, the mutants would be safe and protected with people like Chalice to watch over them, and they wouldn't need a cold-blooded killer.

Rogue looked up at the twinkling stars and let a smile grace her lips.