Disclaimer: I Do Not Own The X-Men Or Anything Related To The X-Men. I Do Not Own The Chapter Title Song 'The Break' From The Musical 'Next To Normal' Either.

The chapter title song is 'The Break' from the musical 'Next To Normal'. That show has some pretty interesting music and will probably show up in other chapters of this story.

Thanks for reading the past chapter everyone! I appreciate you guys and gals taking time out of your busy lives to look at and read this new chapter. Thanks to Jehilew, Wee Auntie, and tx peppa for their nice reviews. And here is the new chapter:

The air in the conference room was thick enough to cut with a knife. Outside of the hospital, a large mass of reporters and photographers were trying to gain any bit of information they could about what had happened to their princess. Little did they know, that far above their heads a group of concerned mutants was trying hard to figure out the very same problem.

Lydia had been able to avoid making any public statements and sent only a written notice to the press and a separate, more personal, one to the families of the people who had been injured in the attack. It had taken her a few minutes to try and think past anything but the pain and heartache of watching her child suffer, but after a few deep breaths, she had somehow pulled her tears back and sat quietly at the head of the table. The normal sunniness in her clear blue eyes had been replaced by a dim shadow that was too uncomfortable for most of the X-men to stare at.

To Lydia's side sat Jude and Victoria, who had heard of the attacks while having her chest bandaged in the hospital to help steady her broken ribs. She hadn't expected to be called into the room after hearing most of the story through Axel and Eleanor, but she had been extremely willing to help in any way she could. Despite their rocky relationship, she didn't want her cousin to crumble under the control of some strange force. And she was definitely worried what would happen to her aunt if things turned out badly. Lydia had always been dear to her heart when Victoria was a child, and now that she had returned to the throne the women had been able to strike up their friendship once again.

It was the professor who dared to speak first, "I know that we are all deeply upset by what has happened to Alex," He reminded himself to use her birth name to try and show respect to her mother, "I have been trying to reach her mind, but so far I cannot find any sign that she is able to understand me or even realize I am there."

"But she is in there," Kitty spoke up from her spot between Kurt and Logan, "I mean, you know that our Rogue is still in there?"

"I couldn't get a read on her in the field." Jean added before the man could compose an answer, "It was as if something had covered any trace of her."

The professor took the question and new information slowly. He didn't want to jump to any conclusions or make any rash statements when the room was already so tense. A quick look around the table assured him that the only option he had was to try to dissect the problem and search for any possible signs of good news. There was always a bright side if one looked hard enough.

"I think it would be best if we try to figure out what led up to Alex's incident."

"Well, it seems that she has been behind all of the weird attacks on the games." Scott tried to bring order to his mind and the situation by following the professor's idea to look at the basic chain of events, "But if she did all of those things, why was she so sure that Victoria was the real attacker? She really didn't seem to know what was going on."

"She did disappear around the times the attacks occurred. I mean she was already awake at the house, and she vanished right after the flight contest. But what was she doing before this attack? The last time I saw her…" As Kitty's voice dropped back into silence, the room shifted uncomfortably to look at Remy.

They all knew it was his power Rogue had been using to create her rampage, but no one had yet been bold enough to ask him how she had gotten so much of his power. All their observations had told them, was Rogue had skipped lunch and walked away with Remy behind her.

For his part, Remy remained silent and kept his eyes trained on the cards shuffling between his hands. He could feel their stares and had no desire to address the questions they wanted to ask but seemed fearful to. It was hard enough to handle his own racing emotions about Rogue and their moment together, that he was not in any hurry to share the information with other people. The only thing he could comprehend at the moment was how much time he was wasting in this room when Rogue could be waking up at any second.

"What happened?"

Remy looked up as someone finally asked him the question that he had been expecting and dreading. Jude's eyes were firm and seemed to be holding a greater amount of anger than Remy thought was possible. No matter what he asked, the Cajun was not going to give him the complete story. Instead, Remy shrugged his shoulders coolly causing the blonde to fume.

"Can't you understand how important this is? You were the last person to see her before she attacked the games." Jude stood from his chair and glared at Remy, "Can't you just push your damn pride away and think of someone besides yourself?"

Remy was up and out of his chair before anyone could make a move. He held a card out towards Jude's neck and felt the warmth flood through his senses. The other man refused to move an inch as he stared at Remy's eyes, seeming to ignore the weapon thrust at him. Neither was going to give in and look weak in front of the other, but Lydia put a stop to the madness with one quick measure.

"Stop this." She demanded in a stronger voice than anyone in the room expected and waited for both boys to sit back down, "What happened does not matter. Alex absorbed Remy's powers without his consent due to some mysterious force controlling her actions," She looked to Remy, who gave her the tiniest nod of agreement, "and attacked the arena. The only thing that matters now is figuring out how to clear this force from her mind."

"Is it possible, that," Jude's voice broke the silence that had followed Lydia's statement, "the personality using Alex is," He spared a glance at Lydia before choosing to use the name of someone none of them wanted to think about, "Sunil?"

A new level of stress fell over the group as they mulled Jude's idea and tried to think of any way to argue against it. They had all seen Sunil attack and almost kill their friend before she let out a giant power burst to defeat him. Though none of them had really sat Rogue down and questioned her outright about what had happened to Sunil during her blast, it had certainly been thought about. It was hard, if not impossible, to ignore the idea that she seemed to have been standing by herself when the dust settled.

"She once told me," Jude added, "There was a woman on Earth she had absorbed so… deeply, that she passed away. What happened to her body?"

The professor sat back in his chair and took a slow breath as he tried to decide how much he should tell the group. The story of Rogue and Carol Danvers had been kept in strict confidence between the adults in the mansion and Rogue, as best they could. Few, if any of the mutants in the room, knew about what had happened between the two women. Most of the known information about the incident had been discussed between Rogue and the professor during their long talks. As he looked around the table and noticed the expressions on his X-men's faces, he realized that he may have to share more than the small bits of information they had received when Rogue suddenly acquired the ability to fly and use super strength.

"Mrs. Danvers is alive in Alex's mind, but her body is forever trapped in a comatose state." He explained in the only way he could think of that would try to respect both women, "The doctors have kept her alive through various machines, but her psyche is completely trapped in Alex's mind."

"Could she actually absorb Sunil's body?" Kurt suddenly asked in a small voice, as his stance on Sunil's disappearance began to shift from escape to possible absorption.

"I don't know." Professor Xavier admitted to his student, "I am not aware of the extent of her mimic powers."

"As far as I know, there has never been a situation like this in our family history." Lydia, the only real source of knowledge on the mimic's abilities, spoke up slowly, "I have never known of a mimic who absorbed someone completely before Alex told me about her incident with Mrs. Danvers. But if she somehow managed to completely absorb Sunil, she could be in greater danger than any of us could understand-"

"Your highness," The doctor opened the door to the room and addressed her alone, "your daughter just woke up."

It was hospital policy to keep patients with illnesses as mysterious as Rogue's in a wheelchair during transport. Had she felt up to her normal stubborn self, the woman would have argued against the idea until she was blue in the face. Instead, the emotionally and physically drained woman quietly settled for being wheeled to the conference room. Her brain felt funny as if she knew time had passed her by, but she had no idea where she had been or what had been going on. All she knew was the doctors were willing to let her see the people she was concerned about; despite the nervous way they looked at her.

The entire room remained silent as she entered with the nurse, and kept its unnerving silence as the nurse positioned her at one end of the table then left the room. The gauze covering the stinging wound on her forehead seemed to be the only thing any of the Lenoxians or X-men could let themselves stare at. She knew it was strange to see her with a wound, due to her thick skin, but it was creepy to be watched like that. It wasn't like her friends and family were the only ones staring at her like she was a sideshow, though. Every pair of eyes, doctor or patient, she had passed in the halls, had given her the same stare of uncertainty.

"Anyone want to say… anything?" She asked in a quiet voice.

"Alex, my dear, how are you feeling?" Lydia walked to her daughter and embraced her in a soft hug, unsure if the girl was sore from her earlier actions.

"Okay…" Rogue answered reluctantly.

She didn't feel okay in any real sense of the word. Her head hurt, her memories were blurry, and the memories she could understand were not exactly images she was proud of. In fact, she was having trouble looking towards Remy at all. But what else could she say when faced with Lydia's tear filled eyes?

"I am glad to see that you are feeling better." Professor Xavier spoke up next and reached out to gently touch her covered wrist. "Do you remember anything, Alex?"

"I have a few flashes of hitting Victori-" The young woman paused, and braved one quick look at her cousin sitting a few seats away, before changing her subject, "Then I was with... Remy and everything went black."

The Cajun watched the girl with a mix of worry and relief on his features. He couldn't deny that he was thankful to see those bright green eyes staring at him once more, but it didn't take away from the fear that any minute her gaze would change into something different. She had been so upset when she knocked on his door, that he had already begun to add emotional distress to the list of possible causes for the psyche taking her mind. But she had changed right next to him when he had tried to comfort her, so maybe this went further than just being pushed to her emotional limits? The moment he had mentioned charging the cards to attack whoever had made her angry, she had switched into someone he didn't know.

"What," Rogue looked around at the faces either staring at her with nervous eyes or avoiding her gaze, "happened? I know something must have forced this."

No one jumped on the question as the woman pointed to the wound on her forehead. The way they bit their lips, cleared throats, or continued to stare at anything but her face annoyed her. Whatever had occurred during her blackout had been big. It had been big enough to leave her with a wound and a very scared looking group of doctors. She needed an explanation, whether they were going to give her one or not.

Wordlessly, Rogue gripped the wheels of her chair and pushed herself over to the window. She peeked through the blinds and first noticed the light amount of smoke drifting from the distance. When she couldn't get a good view of the source of the smoke, she shifted her gaze down to the large crowd outside of the hospital's front entrance. One of the people in the crowd spotted the movement of the window blinds and flew up, in hopes of catching sight of the princess.

"Alexandria, come away from the windows." Lydia suddenly demanded as Logan got up from his chair if they needed to pull her away.

"I just want to see what happened over there." She ignored the request and pulled the blinds up a foot.

The instant flash blinded her and sent the girl into a defensive pose. The reporter outside immediately let out a loud shout to the girl through the glass, "Princess, why did you attack the games? Have you spoken to the families of the people you injured? Do you really believe that the Lenoxians and Morphs should go to war?"

"Get lost or lose a hand!" Logan growled protectively and flexed his claws at the man, who obediently floated back down to the others.

Logan spared only a quick glance at the crowd; he knew other flying reporters would be at their window in no time. He shut the blinds and made sure they were as closed as possible, before turning his attention back to Rogue. She was still trying to grasp the multiple questions thrown at her and seemed to be having trouble understanding what in the world was going on.

"Tell me," She demanded in as firm a voice as she could muster, "Logan, you have to tell me what happened! Please, I have to know what…I did…"

The man took a deep breath and forced himself to look into Rogue's hurt eyes. She knew that he wasn't going to ignore her plea for information, nor was he going to tell her anything but the truth. Unlike the other people in the room, who would try to sugar coat the information, he was determined to let her know everything that had happened. The other way might have been easier, but he felt the girl before him deserved the right way no matter how painful it was to all of them.

When the whole story of Rogue's attack on the game had been completed, the girl had yet to say a word. She hadn't interrupted Logan's story once, nor expressed any emotion besides an eerie calmness that disturbed some of the others. Had they been able to see inside of Rogue's mind, they would have known that the genuinely eerie thing about the whole situation was her complete lack of memories. She didn't know when she had lost control of her mind or how it was possible that someone had taken her body for a test drive and left her with no memories, but she couldn't ignore the things Logan told her.

Thankfully, the others had been willing to slowly fill in the rest of the details after Logan broke the hardest news. They had taken random turns mentioning the fact she was most likely the person behind the attacks, that her eyes had turned a solid yellow, and that she had spent a good amount of her afternoon shouting out maniacal statements about Morphs overthrowing the Lenox. The one thing they didn't have to add to the story was the person they feared had been behind her sudden destructive behavior.

"You think it's Sunil, don't you?" When no one answered her statement, she added, "You think Sunil is taking control of my mind."

"It is a strong possibility," Professor Xavier was the first to admit the fear that had been floating around the room before Rogue woken up. "But we are all here to try and stop him from gaining any more control of your mind."

"We'll stop him from ever using you again, Chere." Remy spoke up after remaining silent through most of the conversations, "I promise you we will stop him."

Rogue bit her lip and tried to stop imagining herself flying around and attacking the people she cared about. Deep down, she had always been afraid of the idea that Sunil was not really gone. His psyche was still inside her, and even she knew that he wasn't the type to take being stuck in the head of a random Lenox girl without a fight. Up until now, though, she had tried to tell herself that if she ever felt his presence, she would do anything to stop him. But she had missed all of the signs of danger.

Really, she had not only missed the signs, but she still didn't completely understand what the signs were. Were the random headaches a sign? Could she have missed a big change in the feeling of fire spreading through her? Last time, she had felt that fire was when she had attacked Sunil. She never thought that the feeling surging through her as she argued with Victoria could have been because of Sunil and not her own powers.

People had already been hurt by her failure to keep her mind in check. She could have easily critically wounded, or even killed, one of her friends or a bystander without blinking an eye. If she couldn't understand her own triggers and was unable to stop the attacks once Sunil took control of her mind, she was nothing more than a hazard to everyone around her. All of the people she had tried so hard to protect were now in danger once again because of her. She couldn't let anyone else suffer because of her. No, she wasn't going to let that happen, no matter what it took.

"If we can't stop him," She took on such a grave tone that the entire room appeared to hold their breath for a moment. Each person around the table seemed to sense exactly where she was heading, "Then I am going to finish this, once and for all. "