News of the transgenics flew through the halls of Xavier's faster then just about the juiciest rumor had ever circulated through the school. Partially because this news was actually REAL!! The government had created mutant like individuals, or at least a secret covert branch of the government had.
"I wonder how old those children could be!" Jubilee said excitedly to the other teenage mutants as they waited for class to start. Seated around her in Storms greenhouse classrooms at long tables sat Kitty, Bobby, Peter, and John. Behind them and not actively involved in the conversation sat Rogue. She had not rejoined the others the night before and they had yet have a chance to ask why she had disappeared.
"Why don't ya'll just focus on the real world, I seriously doubt that Manticore deserves this type of attention. Where was the Hippocratic oath? Splicing human DNA with that of various animals is hardly what I'd call ethical," Rogue muttered angrily just loud enough for the others to hear her.
She might have muttered that statement, but it didn't stop everyone in the classroom from hearing every word and stopping what they were doing to see how the resident conspiracy theorists would react to the statement. "Ethical?!?! The Hippocratic oath?!?!?" Bobby squeaked out, it was almost like he couldn't get enough breath to bellow his exclamations. "It's the United States Government! What makes you think they follow any of those things?"
"Like you said, it's the United States government." Rogue said calmly looking up from her book that she appeared to have been reading during the entire conversation. In the month since she had been in the Institute no student had yet to see Rogue actually have a prolonged conversation with anyone but Wolverine (Logan). "I also happen to know more about this than you think."
"Just what…." Peter started to say quietly as Storm entered the room.
"Good morning students." Storm said walking over to her desk in the front of the room. "I hear that some of you are still thinking about that cable hack last night. I think it would be a good conversation for today. I feel that each one of you will have an interesting take on this controversy."
"Ms. Munroe," Kitty said lifting her arm in the air, "Do you think that anyone is capable of creating these mutants?"
"I certainly do. If nature can create us, than man can copy it." Storm stated.
"I think you have that wrong. Considering that nature most likely had nothing to do with creating transgenics." Rogue stated crossly, still reading her book, not even looking up to look at anyone in the room.
"And why is that Rogue?" Storm questioned.
"What would you say if I told you that I was cooked in a lab, and that I am not even fully, genetically human?" Rogue answered finally looking up at Storm with fire burning behind her eyes. None of the residents know anything about Rogue or her past, this was the time anyone had seen any real emotion coming form her. "That I am an abomination created because some scientist got bored, or the military just wanted a better disposable soldier? You'd most likely want nothing to do with anyone who was cooked up in a lab. How do you expect that your arguments that mutants deserve to be considered humans can ever be considered, when the government can just as easily replace you with something better, a weapon, one that they can control fully?"
"Do you think that the government would take that stand against mutants?" Kitty asked quietly before Storm could answer. Looking between the two women.
"I know that to be true." Rogue muttered turning back to her books. After that statement Rogue refused to be involved in the conversation during the rest of the class period.
The rest of the day was spent for Rogue steadfastly refusing to talk to anyone else about the topic, while the rest of the mansions population could not find anything else to talk about. At four that afternoon Rogue was walking into the Danger Room for her first training session. The Junior X-Men were excited to see what powers and abilities that Rogue actually had, because even though the girl had been at the mansion for a month, no one even knew what her powers really were.
Standing off to the side of the Danger Room were the Junior X-Men in their black leather X-suits, talking quietly just a little apart from the Junior X-Men were the Senior team that consisted of Logan (also known as Wolverine), Ororo Munroe (Also known as Storm), Scott Summers (Also known as Cyclops), Jean Grey, and Hank McCoy (Also known as Beast).
Rogue didn't have an X-suit yet so when she walked in she was wearing a pair of low-riding forest green sweatpants and a yellow wife beater with long leather gloves that covered the majority of her exposed arms, with the middle two fingers and the thumb cut off so her fingers where exposed. Her unique hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail that her curls were already escaping from.
"Alright, Rogue. The computer needs to record your stats. We are going to start today with you by yourself. The program will continue until you fail." Scott Summers said to the newer mutant.
As the rest of the mutants left the main room to head to the control room Rogue took up a relaxed pose standing in the middle of the room. Once the door closed, the room changed. Where before it was a room with metal walls and ceiling, there was now an urban street.
Rogue tilted her head to the left like she was listening for something. Suddenly she was in motion, climbing up the wall. As soon as she pulled herself over the edge two men appeared in the alleyway that she had been standing in not moments before.
The simulation continued for 45minutes before Rogue went on the offensive. For 45 minutes the X-Men noticed that she heard things before they appeared and was able to move faster than the fastest mutant. Before the watching mutants were able to notice it Rogue was moving on the offensive, it took her 5 minutes to take out every one of the enemies. After the last one dropped the simulation ended.
"Simulation complete, new record- 50 minutes completion." The computer stated calmly as Rogue entered the control room.
"I've never seen anyone move like that!" Jubilee said excitedly looking around at the other mutants in the room. Logan had held the previous record for that simulation and his time was one hour and twenty minutes.
"And I never once had to use my mutation," Rogue stated calmly.
"What do you mean?" Cyclops asked the southern girl. "IF you never used your mutation, how were you able to do what you did?"
"Training." Rogue answered evasively.
As the X-men left the lower levels to return to the school, a younger man stood in the front foray. The younger X-Men stood watching the man as the senior team went to ask what he was doing there.
"What can we do for you, young man?" Beast asked the boy civilly
"I'm looking for my chere." He answered with a voice that could get women to do anything. His thick Cajun accent highlighted his slightly gravelly tone and his sporadic use French, his exotic-ness was just expounded. You wouldn't find anyone like him in the North.
"Roguey!!! I found you!" He exclaimed as Rogue walked into the foray. "Did you see Maxie's message yesterday?"
"Yeah Remy, I saw it." Rogue said sedately. The two must have forgotten about the other mutants in the room as they continued to converse. "And just how did you find me?"
"Alec knew that the two of us had more innate talent than the others if you know what I mean." Remy responded, "So when Alec and Logan came to find us to help save Max, Logan ran a search on his mega computer to find any place that could take care of those special like us."
"Um… like what are you talking about?" Kitty asked interrupting the two southerners. As the two looked around they noticed that everyone was still watching them with rapt interest, maybe because this was the most information that they had gotten in a month about the southern female.
"They don't know?" Remy asked expectantly looking at Rogue. "Their giving you harbor and don't know what kind of danger just by standing here we are putting them in?"
As Remy rounded on the shorter girl his face held a mask of anger that most would never want directed at them.
"They didn't need to know when I got here. I'm free, and I want to stay free." Rogue hissed.
"What does he believe that we need to know?" Logan growled at the younger girl. He'd befriended her in the last month and felt like the two were more alike than any one else in the mansion.
"That the two of us were among the ten children to escape from Manicore ten years ago." Rogue responded through clenched teeth.
AN~ I know it's be forever since I've written for any of my stories, but I have been super busy with school. Then after school was finally over I had to complete my archaeology fieldwork report. And then I turned 21, so it's been crazy lately. But hopefully I do better during the summer. I own nothing!!!
