Chapter Nineteen
Rogue turned her head as she slept. Slowly she was starting to wake up, but in the mist of reality and dream, Rogue began having a nightmare. It was a nightmare merged with her torture and experiments in Siniser's labs and Magneto's. And then it fuesed so it wasn't just in Sinister's lab, but it was also Wolverine being experimented on by Weapon X and Magneto in the camps and-
Rogue shot up gasping for breath as she pulled herself out of her nightmare. A hand clasped on her arm too soon and Rogue, still thinking of the worst, reacted, twisting the arm and making a dig in the side on the persons ribs. Wolverine went down to the floor moaning in pain.
"Rogue." Yelled another voice. Rogue looked up away from Logan from where she now stood and at the other X-Men who were now all on their feet and aware of the Rogue's attack.
Seeing them Rogue remembered their deal and released her grip on Logan. Logan coughed a bit, but stood up. Rogue didn't apologe and wasn't planning to. She thought she was going to see anger in Logan's eyes, but instead, she saw some form of amusement. "Glad your still able to defend yourself." Wolverine said.
"Well, these are dark times where to be unprepared is to die." Rogue then looked passed him and at the rest of the X-Men. From what she could tell, they were in some kind of underground metal base. Her eyes were drawn to Magneto who was awake and was the only one not to rise to his feet as Rogue attacked Logan. Now that she thought of him, the hide out became familiar. They were hiding in one of Magneto's hid outs.
"How long have we been here?" Rogue asked the X-Men.
"A few hours." Said Storm.
"How many hours?" Rogue inforced more strongy.
"About five." Jean added.
Rogue nodded her head at Jean, then looked to all of them. "We don't have a lot of time then."
"What do you mean?" Asked Wolverine.
"I mean that Sinister's looking for all of us, or more specifically me, meaning he'll use where we were last to search for us and his robots will find us. We're gonna have to keep moving-"
"Hold on! Who put you in charge?" Scott said, rather irritated.
Rogue glared at him. "I did since I know Sinister better than any of you and I know how he thinks."
"Why's he after you specifically?" Asked Storm.
"Because of my powers. If he gets a hold of me and manages to find a way to manipulate my power, he will use it to better his Sentinals. He'll most likely also find away to make it so the powers my mutantion absorbs last eternally. And when that happens there will be no chance for any mutant to escape. Think about it. He'd be able to give his Sentinals unlimitless powers and he already has a load of mutants locked up and waiting that he could use. All he needs is to catch me and break me."
"Wait, if it's that dangerous for you, then why did you risk getting caught for him?" Wolverine barked, pointing towards Magneto.
"Because most of the mutant camps are made of metal and he controls metal. We need him to get us into the mutant camps." Rogue said looking Magneto in the eye.
Magneto looked some what disapointed, yet sombre. He nodded his head in understanding at last knowing why Rogue had chosen to free him out of all mutants.
"So we're breaking mutants out of jail?" Asked Emma Frost.
"Hold on. We've not gone over what the best plan of action is. We've not decided the pros and cons of-" Cyclopse tried to take control.
"It's not that hard to figure out Cyclopse. One, already a load of mutants have been captured and are being experimented on where Sinister is trying to put their powers into his robots. If he sucessed then all mutants still free are just the walking dead."
"Wait, I thought you said he needed you for that?" Jean added.
"It'll make his life easier and it would speed thing up for him. I'm guessing though that if he was able to give a Sentinal a power it would only be one power, and not multiple. But if he can crack one mutant, other mutants won't be far behind them meaning slower Sentinals will be hard to take down. And from the looks of it y'all need to liven up your game if we're really gonna be working together. WHat happened out there was a disaster. Y'all need to practise taking these things down."
"And what about you? You did nothing except fall out the Jet." Scott yelled at Rogue.
"Ah was in no position to help, yet I still did. You on the other hand had the perfect oprotunity to take the remaining two down on ya own. So did y'all, Storm, Jean and Emma. Ya had a chance and ya below it."
"Oh and what about your beloved Magneto over there? Don't see you pointing the finger at him." Wolverine injected giving Magneto an evil glare.
"Enough all of you. What happened was nobodies fault. They took us by suprize. We was not ready." The Professor said. And Rogue laughed.
Everyone turned to look at her as she laughed a sour laugh. "Are you serious? Are you fucking serious?"
"Hey, no need to take that-" Wolverine tried saying.
"Rogue just shoved his hand off her shoulder and stepped forwards. "No! No, there is means to say it because somehow what I'm explaining and what's going out out there isn't getting in to your leaders thick skull. Y'all don't get it do yas? This ain't one of your little danger room sessions where if you make a mistake you can try again, or you can just turn it on and off whenever you feel like. No! THis, right here and now, is the beginning of a war."
"Rogue-" The Professor tried.
"No Professor!" Rogue barked down at him. "Do not say this is not a war! 'Cause if you do your only fooling yourself. There are mutants out there that are being rounded up, put into cages, tortured and murdered just because they're mutants. Just 'cause this guy Sinister is a mad scientist. This is fight or be killed Professor. This is not a case of just talking to people to get these things to stop 'cause, if you haven't noticed, Sinister ain't asked for permission and he hasn't asked for a long time. Sinister ain't gonna go easy on us just 'cause you say we ai't ready to fight. Sinister is a dirty player and an evil man and y'all better get used to it. This ain't no longer the civil world it was for mutants and humans. Now it's kill or be killed. Do y'all understand me?" Rogue looked around, addressing them all. Some seemed taken back by what she had said. Others were still and held there heads up. Rogue looked at them all until her eyes came back to Xavier who as looking at Rogue with some form of sorrow in his eye. "Do you?"
The Professor was quiet for a moment. Until he meet Rogue's eye and nodded. "This." Xaveir looked to Magneto, comfirming everything Rogue was saying about mutants being tortured and killed. His old friend looked every badly injured and he was. Magneto had a firest look in his eyes as he meet the Professors. "is war." He finished.
Rogue nodded her head knowing that now she had convinced the Professor, the others should follow. Rogue went back to explaining her plan." Knowing Sinister, I wouldn't put it past him to find a mutant with a similar mutantion to mine amoung the mutants he's collecting. For now though he only knows of one mutant that is powerful enough to have more than one power; me. But I'm not taking that chance of if he finds another. So, yes Cyclopse. Were gonna take out some of his camps first, free the mutants and make sure that he doesn't get chance to evolve his Sentinals into something worse. Then we'll go after the man himself. But considering that at the moment no one knows where he is, we'll focus on the stuff we do know and when this team gets bigger, we'll create a smaller group mainly of psychics to search for Sinister. Any one got a problem with that plan."
The X-Men all seemed to put down their heads in agreement to Rogue's plan. All except one. "Yeah, how we going to find these camps?" Cyclopses asked.
"I know where they all are. But what I don't know is which one's are in use and which one's aren't. So we're gonna have to toss a coin or something when we're deciding which camp we're targeting first, 'cause no doubt Sinster would have transformed empty camps into mutant death traps. Oh, another thing I don't know is where his new camps will be and I'm guessing where his new camps are will be where the more powerful mutants are. So we're gonna have to capture some of the head guards at the camps and I'm gonna have to absorb them to see if they know where any of the new camps are. I doubt they'll know though, but it's worth a shot."
Cyclopse nodded his head. Finally giving into Rogue's leadership. Rogue looked passed him towards Magneto who had his eyes shut firmly. He was in pain. "We're also gonna have to find somemore hiding places. Find a santuary for injured mutants until they're ready to fight back with us. Y'all are gonna have to figure that out yourselves. Reach out to any and all mutant connections you have and get in as many doctors and nurses as you can. Any humans that are willing to help mutants are welcome, just as long as we know we can trust them and they won't betray us. Well, what are y'all standing around, starin' at me for. Go do something useful. Go bring me back a map of America where I can draw the camps on or get a undetectable phone you can phone people on. Go on, we haven't got alot of time. Go."
And slowly all the X-Men turned around and started to leave the metal hide out. All except the Professor, Jean Grey and Emma Frost. Jean moved towards Magneto, checking up on his now bandaged wounds. Emma because she was doing her job and the Professor because he couldn't climb the stairs.
"Jean, I'll take care of him. You'll be less of a target on the surface. Y'all go on out and we'll stay here. Oh, and make sure the Jet doesn't have any trackers on it and that we can use it to get to different hide outs." Rogue said.
Jean looked to the Professor, who looked back to her. Jean used her powers to lift the Professor's chair and led him outside, followed by herself shortly after. Rogue looked to the remaining Emma who had a smirk on her face. She looked between the dazed Magneto and Rogue, smirked more, then left.
Rogue turned to face Magneto as she walked closer towards him. Magneto opened his eyes and looked up to Rogue. "Looks like you were right after all. There was a war coming."
Magneto closed his eyes with what seemed to be in blisted. Maybe because someone believed him or because he was finally proven right. "Just because you were right though doesn't make thing any better." Rogue said, turning as she was about to leave him behind in the room.
"I never said I wanted a war Rogue." Magneto called out.
Rogue stopped in her step and looked back at him. "But you did. Now get in that bed and rest." Rogue said, before turning and heading up to the top to get some air.
XXXXX
They were beside a beach and Rogue was stood under a tree looking out at the sea. Rogue was deep in thought about Sinister and thinking about what he might be planning. She was so deep in thought, she didn't here Magneto get close to her. Rogue spun around, grabbing his hand before he touched her shoulder. When she saw it was him though, she loosened her grip then finally dropped it.
"What do you want?"
Magneto looked solm as he looked into Rogue's eyes. In fact, he looked amazed and in awe at her. Rogue felt his gaze relaxing.
"I never thanked you for resueing me from that hell hole. Even if you did just resue me for my powers I am still gratefull for all you've risked."
Rogue nodded her head and looked back out to the gentle tides. It was a nice night. Secretly, Rogue was gleaming of warmth and happiness inside as she hardly did get thanked for anything she did now a days. After a moments passed and Rogue still sensed that Magneto was stood behind her (watching the waves too) Rogue said;'I probably woulda come for ya even if I didn't need your powers... You and the rest of the mutants in that base. I woulda tried to set y'all free if I could."
Magneto stared at the back of Rogue's head, struck by what she had said. He had thoughts in his head which he was sure couldn't be right, but it seemed unlikely all reasonable expliantions made sense.
Rogue's mood from feeling flushed and slightly giddy, turned to depression as she thought of that little girl whos cell she and Magneto had entered when trying to escape. "I woulda tried to save Carol. That little girl who's cell we hid in. She was the farmers daughter... I really wish I coulda done something more to help."
This time Magneto did step forwards and grasp her shoulder to turn her around to face him; taking both shoulders in a tight grasp as he looked down into Rogue's startled green orbs. They were now inchies apart, but Rogue didn't notice this as she looked up into Magneto's fearst eyes. "We will find her Rogue and we will free her and return her to her father. And we'll do it together Rogue. It is not just you who is in debt to this farmer, but me too. We'll free her. And we'll free all the mutants Sinister has under his grasp. We will defeat Sinister and we will take back what was our free and more. I promise you that Rogue. I promise that, until the last breath leaves my body and even then after that, I will keep fighting this war and I will still keep my promise."
Rogue searched his eyes and his persona in her head, but she found no indication to show that he was lieing. Rogue knew Magneto was declaring all of this and making himself a promise (not her) that he'd fight till the end. Still, the fact that he was promising this to her made her feel somewhat special. It warmed her again and soothed her so she was easy in his arms. Easy and relaxed against his chest. Easy and relaxed in her eyes and lips as their faces moved closer and closer together.
"Hey."
Both Magneto and Rogue moved away from each others faces to turn and see the Wolverine stood off in the distance watching them. Slowly they grew more and more apart.
"Shouldn't you two be underground?"
Magneto and Rogue looked to each other before they began heading towards the enterance of the hide out. As Rogue was passing Wolverine though, he grabbed at her arm and pulled her towards him. He was glaring at Magneto who had turned around, noticing Rogue wasn't following him. "Listen Kid, you can't trust that guy. He'll get in your head and twist it. Just stay away from him. He's trouble!'
Rogue looked between Wolverine, Magneto then back to Wolverine.
"I can take care of myself." Rogue snapped taking back her arm as she plowed past the Wolverine and Magneto back into the underground base.