Rogue opened up her eyes. The green in them had faded into a grayish tint of the former vibrancy of the color. Her body was melted against the sheets of the bed she lay upon and she was refusing to acknowledge her being anywhere but a fortress, an escape. She knew she was back at the manor. She knew she was back where she could be probed by Jean. She knew she was back where she would be overly protected by Logan. And what of Scott?
She wanted to see him the least.
She would be able to stand the reprimands of the professor and Logan, the cruel and mocking eyes and snide comments of Jean Grey, but of Scott she could stand nothing of his disappointment or shock of her dastardly actions.
She would only die if she saw the look on his face. The terror and sorrow. He meant too much.
Her mind wracked with the thoughts of her previous expedition.
Rogue walked into the bar with her jacket hood covering her face in shadow and her gloved hands pocketed. Outside the sky was pitch black and the wind blew mercilessly against the walls of the shack like building. Inside it was fairly cleaned out aside from one or two men at the bar and a group of boys at the pool table.
She stepped up to the empty corner of the bar counter and pushed herself onto a stool. "Water please." She called out to the bartend.
Pulling her hands out of her pockets she pushed back the hood from around her face. Looking around the room she felt as if she had been there before. Been sitting in that same stool moments before. She had problems with déjà vu, and familiar with being familiar with unfamiliar things, she brushed it off as such.
Leaning forward she examined the place and came to see no bartend there at the post he was supposed to be at.
There was a clatter as the triangle of balls on the pool table was broken by the tallest one over there. He shook his hair back out of his face and Rogue almost felt like he looked familiar but couldn't be for sure. Her stomach turned and she felt as if she were going to be sick.
Leaving from her place she made her way into the bathroom and locked the door behind her. Turning the light switch up the light flickered above her head, hanging from a single cord.
The sink was black around the drain and memories of the porcelain whiteness beneath shone through in spots and lines of scratches. Her reflection in the mirror was marred by cracks and some sort of mold looking growth. Finding herself more disgusted by the shape of the bathroom than the awkward feeling she was given by the aura of the room outside, she unlocked the door and flicked off the light, walking back to her spot at the bar.
There was now someone else sitting there.
((AN: This is where it gets made up… apologize again I do for any inaccuracies))
Blonde curls lay flat against a black leather jacket as a woman sat beside Rogue at the bar. Drinking down a beer- from where she got this as the bartend was still missing Rogue knew not- and looking quite the part of some sort of biker chick.
Her facial features were hardened by something Rogue could not define in a sentence but they seemed as if they were at one point soft and feminine.
Rogue sat there for a moment, taking in the grand and majestic air of this woman before finding a glance in her direction from that same person a warning to mind her own business. Dropping her gaze to her hands she rubbed her fingertips across the tip of the seam of her jacket.
Moments passed before the woman stood and made her way to the bathroom. Rogue, watching out of the corner of her eye until the door closed was waiting to see how adventurous the woman was if she truly needed to use the bathroom.
Seconds later the door opened- this time not for an exit.
Rogue's eyebrows creased together in confusion, her body lighting up with a nervous sense of foreboding as the tallest boy from the pool game followed the woman into the room. It didn't take long for her suspicious to be confirmed when banging and thudding resonated from the room before the wall blasted into the place where Rogue now sat in.
Dust flew about and clouded what all vision Rogue could find of the scene. All she could decipher were two forms, one seemingly in the air and the other on the ground engaging in some sort of supernatural battle.
A blue hand grasped the same blonde locks of which Rogue had previously shown admiration and threw the woman down and as seconds fleeted by Mystique was now before Rogue.
Gasping, standing from the stool and knocking it over as she did so, she exclaimed the woman's name in surprise and terror. Previous encounters with the woman had been less than cordial or mutual and this was no less.
The woman of the golden hair stood and set her hard eyes on Rogue. "You know her?" She called out, voice rich and strong over the rubble of destruction she had caused in the fight.
Rogue, nodding then shrugging yelled back, "Ah'm not on her side though!"
Before she had any time to react her shirt was grasped and she was lifted off the ground to somewhere strange- the air.
---
Rogue felt a touchdown and soon she was looking into the eyes of the woman who had grabbed her up from her place. "How do you know Mystique?"
Rogue, thrown off and feeling quite belittled in front of this great force, shivered slightly before stuttering out her answer. "Ah-Ah'm with… with Professor X. A-An' she an' Magneto… they…" She didn't feel the need to continue, nor did she have the courage to do so-voice stolen from her.
The woman nodded. Her eyes widened and Rogue turned around to see what it was she was looking up at but everything went dark once more.
---
Rogue was shaken from whatever it was had put her out of her consciousness to find herself watching the woman in front of her take her last breath, eyes bloodshot and skin pale. Rogue, screaming but somewhere hidden deep within her body, could not stop what she was doing.
Her slender pale fingers, free from the restraints of her gloves were wrapped around this woman's neck and before Rogue could even think to pull back the woman's life glittered in her eyes for a split second before fading and extinguishing completely like the last burning ember from a fire.
Rogue stayed there, hands grasped around the woman's neck until she felt a tug on her neck and her hands released, the woman falling to the white flakes of snow blanketing the ground.
Rogue's chest rose and fell violently as she looked on. She couldn't remember why she had started doing that, or why she had no recollection of moments past, but she had just murdered somebody.
"Well done. Your mission is complete, then." And with that Mystique's voice disappeared into the wind behind the confused girl.
Running into the warehouse, lost and brain throbbing with a new sort of pain she blacked out.
Rogue shook in fear of herself. How could she have done something like that? Rolling over in the bed so she could not see if someone walked into the room she pulled the blanket up over her head. She couldn't let anyone touch her. She would hurt them so much.
She felt so terrible.
Well you should feel terrible you bitch.
The voice that spoke made Rogue sit straight up throwing the covers from her face. That voice was not her own.
It's me, 'the woman'. You murdered me.
Rogue's eyes opened wide and she clutched at her temples, clawing away with her dull fingernails. "Stop… Ah… Stop it… Ah didn't mean it… Ah…"
Shut up, you saw everything that happened. You stole my life! YOU STOLE MY LIFE YOU BITCH!
Rogue flew from the bed to the floor, tears streaming down her cheeks in rivers. Knees pressed down on the hard floor, her eyes closed tight, she grasped her head with her hands. "GET OUT OF MAH HEAD!"
YOU KILLED ME! I'LL NEVER LET YOU FORGET!
"No… Ah…" Between sobs Rogue attempted to make some sense of what she had done but there couldn't be a cure for this.
She knew now what had happened.
She had not only absorbed this woman's powers. She had absorbed her.
Stop calling me 'woman' , my name is Carol Danvers, bitch.
((Alright so how's that one eh?)