Chapter Five

Rogue left the gym with blood covering all all of her t-shirt, bruises and a little bit of Mystique in her head. They had stopped then when Rogue had accedently touched Mystique. Rogue had stopped fighting and started apologing. Mystique had repayed her by grabbing her gloved hand and slamming her into the mat.

"Don't ever apologie for using your powers and don't ever hezitate. Always go in for the kill."

Then it had ended. Mystique was having to show Rogue to the hospital, but all Rogue did was insist that she just simply have a shower instead, so Mystique dropped her off at the showers. Rogue entered the female showers and stripped of her clothes, glad for the empty shower room. She hung them over the sink before stepping into the burning hot water and locking the door behind her. Rogue relaxed in the hot water. It felt so good as it made it's way down her body and cleansed her wounds. Blood changed the water red. As much as Rogue hated it, she bared the pain of rubbing her nose and face to get all the blood off. Then, after her face was clean Rogue rubbed the bar of sopa into the cuts, scars and bruises all over her body gently. Rogue hissed more at touching her skin than she had wait touching her bloody nose. The reason it hurt so much was because her skin had only just started healing from having it ripped and taken from her body. It took her half an hour just to clean all of her body. She moved onto her hair.

XXXXX

Magneto opened the door when he felt Mystique approach his room.

"I must ask how did she convince you to teach her?" He asked, getting straight to the point.

"She asked." Mystique replied as she stepped into his room.

Magneto turned away from looking out the window to face Mystique.

"And you would usually reject. You forget I know you too well Mystique and that I know you would never take someone on unless you saw their worth, otherwise you would have passed her on to someone else."

Mystique shrugged her shoulders and came to sit down on one of his metal chairs. "I guess you could say she got to me."

Magneto came to sit in front of Mystique. "Do you see what I see now?"

Mystique nodded her head. "Yes... I see a lot of myself in her when I was that age. When I was growing up. Like I didn't know who I was, she's got so many minds in her head that it confuses her and she doesn't know who she is. Like me she hides because she's afraid of her own skin. Afraid of what it can do. Both our mutants are in our skin. I can change my shape and she can kill someone by touch. What I don't understand about her though is why I see a lot of you in her Erik." Mystique looked to Magneto as she said this. He was unmoved. "You've noticed it too, haven't you."

"Yes, I'm afraid I have." His eyes glassed over and he seemed to fade into deep thought. "I noticed it the moment I saw her holding the gun that she wasn't the same girl."

"Your soft on her. Is it because you symptomize with her?" Magneto was silent, but Mystique knew he'd heard her. Grimacing, Mystique decided to redirect her question as she wasn't going to get anywhere with him this way. "What was she like?"

Magneto came back to reality and looked at Mystique. There was another person who had met her and forgotten about her. It irritated him for some reason. "She was a quiet scared little girl who'd run away from the home she had been rejected from. All she was doing while she was running was trying to survive. From what I saw the girl had no reason to live."

"And then Charles found her." Mystique said, trying to piece together the story.

"Not quite. Rogue found the Wolverine and made an alliance. I believe it was the first other mutant she had meet in her life and she found some kind of purpose within him. A new reason for living as she knew then she wasn't the only one. So she hid in the back of his truck and was determained to stay with him, even when he found her and left her at the edge of the road. Sabretooth saw it in her eyes and described it as an upset puppy longing for it's owner to come back, but what I think he saw really was a determind girl wanting to stay with the only other person she knew she could relate to."

"Sabretooth?" Mystique said. Magneto understood his question. Why was Sabretooth there?

"Sabretooth was doing a mission I had sent him on. It was to retrieve the girl. But he failed. The X-Men, Storm and Cyclopse showed up before he could take her. It had been Wolverine that Charles had been monitoring. Rogue was just an added bonus to them. They enrolled her within the school and did what they do with any mutant. Made them live in a false hope. A dream which can never happen and will never happen. A belief that human's and mutant's can get on peacefully just as they do in the school, excluding their differences. Charles is a fool fooling the children. Once they step out of that school they will know the true meaning of the world and understand that the world hates us because we are different."

Mystique already knew the reason why they were fighting. I didn't have to be repeated to her. She was already converting others to join the Brotherhood when she was in her tweenties she knew it that well. "What happened to her there?" Mystique asked.

"We happened my dear. We happened. Don't you remember when we created a machine that was to change humans into mutants." Mystique shuck her head, no. Magneto frowned. "We built a machine, but it needed a controller. Someone who could activate it. That person would lose their life, but it was one sacrifice that would have done us good. Rogue was going to be that sacrifice."

"Why? Why her?" Mystique asked, not quiet understanding.

"Because she could absorb my powers and use them to control the machine."

Mystique's face fell. "You could have controlled the machine." He nodded. "Why didn't you."

"Because I would be needed to lead the new generation into existing. I was more valueble to lose. The girl didn't even have a reason for being alive and she knew it. She knew she had no purpose on this earth, so I gave her purpose."

"You used her."

"Yes, I did."

Mystique nodded her head in acceptance, but had come to sit at the edge of the seat. "And what about now? Does she have purpose now?"

Magneto was still. He sat back in the chair, hands together while he pondered, not looking any different from when he first sat down. "Honestly, I do not know. She may have shot the president, but we have no idea what her motive was. You know your mission now."

Mystique nodded, stood up and left.

XXXXX

Rogue stepped out of the shower, glad that there were no other mutant females there. She remembered she didn't have any other clothes except the bloody ones on the side. Rogue hurried out and quickly pulled them on. Rogue was startled and jumped as the door to the woman's showers opened. Rogue had only just pulled the t-shirt down over her deeply scared stomach when Mystique entered.

"Here." She said as she looked Rogue up and down. "They're clean clothes. Change out of those bloody ones." Rogue took the clothes, then swiftly moved back into the shower. She hung the clothes over the door as she quickly stripped out of the bloody ones and into the clean ones.

When she stepped back out Mystique said, "Follow me."

Rogue did as she was told and followed Mystique to a big metal hall where there were lines of metal tables and chairs filled up with different mutants. "When was the last time you ate?" Mystique asked Rogue.

Rogue looked at Mystique who was glaring back at her (she always seemed to b glaring). Rogue couldn't meet her gaze as she told her. "A while."

"How long?"

Rogue shuck her head. "I've lost count of the days."

Mystique nodded and lead Rogue to the self service buffie where she could pick out her own food. Rogue went for a normal size amount of food. Mystique huffed in annoyance and added extra potato's and meat to her plate. Rogue kept her head down, feeling nervious about taking so much. But when Mystique pointed out to a very large oversized blob with a moutian of food in front of him, Rogue didn't feel so sat together at a square table, saying nothing and began eating. Rogue felt eyes on her and peeked over to see Pyro was watching her.

"Ignore him." Rogue looked back to Mystique. She ate her food casually, with her head held high. "You're sticking out like a sore thumb. If you want to get along here straighten your back and lift up your chin." And when Mystique's harsh yellow eyes meet hers, Rogue knew that was an order, not a requested. She did as she was told. "Better. Ignore Pyro. He likes to wind people up."

"I know." Said Rogue glumly. Mystique looked back up and watched Rogue. Rogue looked down to her plate with sad eyes, but kept her back straight and chin up like Mystique had told her. Good, Mystique thought, at least she's learnt one thing.

"Were you two close?" Rogue looked up to Mystique, then looked at Pyro. He was still watching her.

"No." Rogue looked back to Mystique. "We were friends, but that was about it. He was best friends with my ex-boy friend before I left though, so we did used to hang around each other. He liked to show off a lot back then and wind people up. Sometimes it was funny, others it wasn't."

"Who was your boy friend?" Mystique asked.

Rogue guessed that Mystique was only after information about the X-Men (why she was interested in Rogue's personal life was a mystery to Rogue), but, in a way, it was nice having someone genually interested about her and her past. So she didn't avoid her questions because she wanted to talk (even if it hurt). "Bobby Drake. Iceman."

"Iceman? Really." Mystique said, her face crunching up.

Rogue attempted to hide a smiled at Mystique's odd face expressions, liking this side of Mystique that seemed normal."Yep. Bobby. He was kind and sweet and the perfect blue eyed American boy. At least I thought he was." And this was where the pain began again for Rogue and the smile faded. "Bobby was one of the X-Men to threaten me when I kept popping up. When I ignored their threats and they started to attack me, he got physical and froze my arms and legs to the wall. What he did, how he trapped me, almost cost me my life that day. I hate him. I get that he doesn't remember and didn't know what he was doing, but I still hate him. If I really was a stranger and he'd had done that then I would have broken up with him then and there. Bobby turned into a bit more of a jerk when I left. I think it was due to Pyro's influence. He must remember getting up to mischief with him, but not dating me."

"Hmmm, I can believe that." Mystique looked at Pyro too. Pyro saw Mystique looking at him, then looked away. Mystique looked at Rogue. This was interesting information to know about her team members and enemies. Rogue was looking at Pyro too. A look of deep hurt and sadness in her eyes. "They ganged up on you." Rogue nodded her head. Mystique felt that Rogue needed to know the truth. "Do you know why Pyro's here?"

"'Cause he believes in what your boasting?"

"Yes and other reasons. Professor Xavier brought in a new girl, Kitty Pyrde also known as Shadowcat. She changed Iceman back into a good boy and there was agro between the three; Pyro, Iceman and Pryde. When Iceman chose Shadowcat over him, Pyro was finally pushed to his limit having felt betrayed by Iceman for the last time and left to forfill what he believes is his purpose. He agrees with what we stand for. Do you?"

Rogue couldn't help feeling bad for Pyro, but that last question changed her attitude. She looked at Mystique who was watching her intensely. She had asked this question once before. It was an important question that Rogue knew if she gave wrong reasoning, she'd be out on her arss or worse. Rogue looked back to her meal and stabbed a potato. "You really want to know what I think?"

"Yes." Said Mystique.

"I think that I did the wrong thing killing the president." Mystique wasn't happy about this reply. Rogue could see her angered face from the corner of her eye. "I think what I did. What the Brotherhood did was a mistake. Y'all went public about it and admitted to killing the president. That won't get people to like us or think to accept us more, it's just gonna stir up trouble more. I think, if y'all hadn't interfered and just let me kill him then it would have been a quiet assassination where no one would know if it was by a mutant or a human so no hate should, logically, be directed at either one. Just at the incident in general. If I would have been able to kill him in silence and got away without anyone knowing what I did, America wouldn't be as bad for mutants. We would't have to deal with the mutant registration law or mutants being rounded up off the streets and put in prison, because no one would think mutants are a threat."

Mystique was a little confused by this intake. She watched as Rogue's eyes turned a murderous red. The same eyes she had when she had killed the president. But Mystique could only guess that.

"You sound like an X-Men, almost." Said Mystique. "Mutants are dangerous and a threat and the world needs to know w won't be abused in silence. If we stay silent, no one would rebel and nothing would get done to help mutants. If people didn't know the president wasn't killed by mutants, then how would they know that he was the one whom was abusing us?"

"And you think people are gonna see it that way? That they're gonna understand your message? How the hell are they suppose to understand mutants are being beaten and tortured when all thy know is that these strange mutants just upped and killed the president without any reason and that if they could do that for no reason, what else would they do?"

Mystique was quiet, seemingly taking in Rogue's points. "You believe our tactics were wrong, but you still think the president should have died?" Rogue nodded her head at Mystique's question. "Does that make you one of us?"

Rogue looked up to Mystique with serious firest eyes. "There are somethings you do which I do agree with, but some ways in which you go around it that I don't. I'm not sure if I can class myself with you or against you. But know this, I won't stand in your way if you decide to go along with another stupid plan to try and prove a point. What you'll do is bring all that argo back on you and other mutants. Just as long as it doesn't effect me too drasticlly, I'm not arsed what you do."

There were looks exchanged which told both that there was a mutual understand of the other and a quiet alliance. After placing her fork down, Mystique rose and walked away from the Rogue.