Here we go – and yes Remy will be making an appearance shortly!
To Doesn't Matter: thanks for the language help, I corrected it. I should've known better – I don't really trust the French translations, thanks to the fact I know French reasonably well. And unbreakable was a last minute add-in, glad you liked it.
Thanks to all my reviewers, especially ShadowFax999 who actually quoted Spiderman to me! LOL!
The Blue Adventurer (aw, thanks!), Abeytu, ChamberlinofMusic, Seren McGowan, onyxred, Wiccamage (sorry!), Valnar, CaraM (I agree!), xOrhidejax, aiRo25writes, allyg1990 (totally agree!), ishandahalf, TheLetter5, Chica De Los Ojos Café (yup, yup, yup), drumgirl1923, Sassyx22x, ShioriMillie, Gohanzgirl, and martshi3 (yay! So many reviews!).
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E-merging madness
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The human body was originally designed to only hold one mind, one set of memories, one unconscious, one person – one personality. To be 'double-minded' means to be in inner conflict and turmoil, unable to be unified inside and a painful place. Even schizophrenics, with their christened mental illness, are only aware of one psyche at a time.
Rogue had no such luxury. Every time she absorbed, it didn't feel like taking someone in - but being invaded from the inside out – she became that person. That was why it was so hard to resist, why her own name became a mantra.
She'd grown casual about it, dismissive outwardly, but she hated the process. The confusion over who she was, what was her, where she ended and the others began – and the shades weren't compact bundles with labels and faces, oh no, but loose miasma of thoughts, feelings, memories, impressions – wisps that snaked in and out of her perceptions.
What was madness but inner chaos?
They were always present, always asserting themselves, more or less subtly. Those that had realized, that knew they were only psyches were more settled, but they were possessive of her body, her life. After all, they no longer had one. And despite the mantra, they weren't real, they actually remained outside – she'd been them, felt their pain, their despair at being trapped, locked away…
Carol had no intention of going so easily. This was her in total fullness – and her body – and she'd never let go of anything easily in her life.
But then again, neither had Rogue.
o
Essex eyed the out-of-control brunette, who had retaken flight into the air. Her shuddering form collided with one of the main support beams, sending shudders through the floor, and enraged, the girl ripped it from its moorings and tossed it up, through the roof, letting sunlight stream into the room and causing her hair to shimmer red and gold.
Perhaps it hadn't been such a bright idea to break the wall between them.
He could easily 'hear' the maelstrom of her mind, she was sending out enough psychic shockwaves to easily damage a less powerful psychic, and he had no intention of wading through it. Perhaps if she'd been sedated…but given the column she'd just catapulted into space, she most likely had Danvers' invincibility as well.
He began to inch out of the room. He hated to leave behind all this equipment – the last place the X-Men destroyed had been a mere playpen compared to this lab – but he was having trouble locating Scrambler with all of this psychic static and taking her down without him would be troublesome.
Moving was a mistake.
Rogue's head twisted around, her features distorted as her eyes swirled color-wise.
"You." Sinister. Essex! Siniestro! The man who smiles as I suffer…
The echoes came from other minds, jarringly and Essex tightened his fists.
"You're dead," she-it said coolly in polyphony. Wrenching out another support beam with the ease of picking up a toothpick, she ignored the ominous cracking of the roof and turned toward him.
His hands began to glow.
Troublesome indeed.
o
The Great Plains of the American Midwest always reminded Storm dimly of her homeland, the vast savannahs edged by mountains poking into the sky. Here, in this wide plain with nary a town to mar the rolling grasses, she could glimpse the solitude of her youth.
But this, as her home, was tainted by a malevolent presence.
X-23 was the first to spot it, carving it out of the grass. A dug-out concealed under one of the rolling hills. Storm started landing procedures, but no one returned to their seats but Magma.
They clambered out of the jet, coming to a stop at the foot of the exit plank. There they had to stop because they had no game plan. No blueprints, no knowledge of what awaited them – Storm felt the absence of Jean and Wolverine like missing limbs. They needed at least another mobile psychic; she'd have to talk to Xavier about that-
Without warning, the ground pitched in front of them and a beam somersaulted into the air, sending sod flying. Magma automatically ducked, but the rest remained standing, Iceman giving her a pat on the shoulder as she scrambled back up with a flush.
"Looks like someone started the party early," he said instead.
The smell of brimstone, all too familiar, teased Storm's nose. Storm had made it a habit of re-directing wind her way when arriving on a mission, thanks in no small part to Wolverine. She looked up and saw Nightcrawler perched on the tip of the Blackbird, dark against the beginning of twilight, surveying the dugout building below them.
"Nightcrawler, get down here at once!"
Head snapping up, he obeyed, but the surly set of his lips told Storm there would be no apology. Ignoring Avalanche's muttered 'figures', she crossed her arms over her chest.
"Nightcrawler you're-"
He didn't wait for her to finish. "You need all ze help you can get." Storm grit her teeth. This was why she hated leading. She knew what she should do, but he was practically the only member of the top team left. The rest were in that bunker, having God knew what done to them, and she was going into a situation she had no data on. She did need him.
He would need someone to cover him though. Her first choice was Wolverine, but barring him, that did leave – she scanned the small group unsuccessfully. Magma was biting her lip, while Iceman had echoed her crossed arms position. Avalanche was rolling his eyes as well as Boom-Boom if she wasn't mistaken, while Colossus looked on sympathetically.
"Where's 23?" She'd disliked the girl's codename and considering who she was about to face, she couldn't stomach putting the X (experiment), in front of it.
Boom-Boom looked at her with the look patented by teenagers and flipped her hair. "Bet she's half-way to Wolverine already."
Avalanche belatedly looked around, then hunched a little forward. "What is she anyway? His daughter?"
There was a moment of silence before Boom-Boom snickered wildly. Iceman cleared his throat, "Storm, you want to answer that?"
She resisted the urge to rub her temples. "Later. Alright, we stick together – no one goes out on their own, is that understood?" Avalanche and Nightcrawler didn't nod, but both dropped their eyes when she let her eyes film over a little. The effect was gratifying.
The ground rumbled ominously. Iceman glared at Avalanche, whose hands flew up. "Hey that wasn't me!"
They'd wasted too much time – Storm could pick out the ground crumbling where she could guess the bunker's roof was. "Let's go."
Iceman iced a path straight to the main entrance; stealth seemed pointless by now as they came closer and could hear the blaring shrill of alarms. Magma melted the doors and as Iceman cooled the remains, they made their way down the main hall, following the sounds of combat.
The next door fell victim to Colossus and then there was the battle in full glory. Storm gasped at the sight of Rogue in mid-air, hurling a console five times her size as if it was a beach ball at the shadowed figure Storm desperately hoped was Essex. Nightcrawler swore as the figure raised his hands, light spiraling from his hands to blow the console to pieces.
"Rogue?" he called before Storm could stop him. Rogue lost altitude, her arms weaving in the air as if pantomiming some obscure dance. She screamed, an inhuman, echoing sound.
Essex had the absurdity to almost look relieved at the interruption. "So the whole troop appears."
Rogue's spiral abruptly stopped and she shot to the ground in a perfect crouch, cracking the concrete fall to pieces.
"You're not going anywhere," she hissed. Storm swallowed, scanning the room for other X-Men. She saw none.
"Iceman, Boom-Boom, Avalanche," the three straightened at her quiet, intense direction, "you go find Cyclops, Shadowcat and Jean." That girl seriously needed a codename. "Colossus and Magma, occupy Essex," Magma gulped, but Colossus only nodded and she felt almost relieved, "–Nightcrawler, you're with me." He barely nodded, eyes locked on Rogue, who was once again levitating. "Move out."
o
Scott had no idea where they were going. All he knew was that Rogue had busted through their prison with strength and flight from someone else and hadn't even recognized them – only the fact that Kitty didn't have access to her mutation kept him from pursuing her. For Kitty's sake, he had to find an exit.
They looked around corners before turning, but they'd only seen one group of white-clad men, who'd looked more like running scared away from the alarms, rather than toward. Scott blearily wondered if Sinister had arranged for any guards in this hideaway.
It was only Kitty's urgent tug that stopped him from walking straight into the man who suddenly appeared in the doorway to their right. The three gaped at each other, the Asian-looking man paling even more beneath the stain of blood running down his forehead and hurriedly stepped back, punching a button by the door. It began to close.
Scott was going to let him go, but Kitty tugged on his arm again. "Scott, that's that Scramble guy!" His hand flew to his visor and the door's controls sparked.
Scrambler backed away, his forehead glistening with new sweat. "No wait! I can take you to your girlfriend," he blurted out.
Scott's insides twirled. "Girlfriend? Jean?" The man nodded vigorously, still backing up – Scott's arm swung out and hauled him up one-handed. "Show me." Swallowing, he slowed his nodding and turned around, making his way past the steel examining table – Scott repressed a shudder at the thought Sinister wanted both him and Jean carved up on one.
As Scrambler stopped at another door, Scott pressed against his back. "Try anything and you fry." He didn't notice Kitty shoot him a disbelieving look.
The man took forever to get the door open and Scott counted every second in his head.
It was meaningless as soon as the door slid out of the way.
"Jean."
Few people realized that he could only see the world in shades of red. The professor and Jean had helped him with his clothes for years – and he'd come to associate the fine distinctions of red with reliable accuracy to actual colors. He didn't need to for Jean's hair, something he'd always secretly loved.
There was also one shade he didn't need to, though this he'd always hated. The crimson black stain of blood.
Jean's blood tainted the fluid she was submerged in, face down.
He had no memory of how he got to her side, only deliberately pacing his breathing, forcing himself to remain calm. He'd prepared for emergencies, but God… "Shadowcat, help me stabilize her!" Kitty rushed to his side, helping him carefully turn her over without moving her neck. He felt for her pulse, but the ricochet of his own was all he could hear. He tilted her head up; she wasn't breathing.
"Scott?" Kitty sounded on the edge of tears, but he wouldn't look at her.
He brushed her hair out of her face, clearing as much of the slime off her. He took a deep breath and covered her mouth, pinching her nose as he breathed for her. Her chest moved, but only from his help. He placed his right carefully between her breasts, intertwining his left hand, and then pumping up, down, up, down. He kept count in his head, everything disappearing but the movement of his hands, the breaths into her, the seconds he listened for her to begin to do so on her own.
"Jean, you can't leave me," he whispered into her neck, feeling his eyesight blur. He returned to the breathing for her.
Finally, finally, her body surged up against him, her mouth boiling over with slime. He felt her return. He pressed her back down and she turned to her side, coughing the disgusting stuff out of her lungs. His head felt light, but he didn't give into the urge to hug her and never let go. He shot off her wrist and ankle restraints, then reached for the blood-soaked cloth of her shirt. He gently lifted it up, preparing himself for what he would find – but there was no wound. Nothing. He blinked and felt her flesh to be sure. It was smooth.
His head shot up and his eyes went to find Scrambler – perhaps the blood had been his?
Kitty noticed his gaze. "Sorry," she whispered, carefully holding Jean's hair out of her way, "couldn't stop him."
He nodded, too much relief in his system to be upset. The next moment Jean was in his arms and he let his head sink into her shoulder even as hers sunk into his.
She was alive.
He closed his eyes tightly, feeling his throat close into a knot. "Jean."
He cradled her for an eternity of nothing, when her head stiffened against his neck.
"Rogue!"
o
Nightcrawler swore under his breath in German his foster mother would've washed his mouth out for. He couldn't see how he'd helped at all. Every time he or Storm tried to calm Rogue down, reach her, heck even address her, she began those shrieks again, before launching into a cacophony of voices.
It was worst than last time. The fact she'd kept her own body somehow made it worst – there was no distraction of physical distortion to complete the image of her being lost in her own body, her own mind. But though her body was before them, her mind was a reeling mass of people, anger and fury and chaos. And this time there was no Professor X to come to the rescue.
It was only the regained sight of Sinister or the mere sound of his voice that would reunite the psyches in her head, sending her orchestrated fury against her declared enemy.
The others weren't faring much better. Nightcrawler swiveled his head around, keeping his footing on his precarious perch above the action.
Colossus couldn't get very close, not with Magma and Sinister swapping fire like some deranged dodge ball players, Rogue lobbing another chunk of building or equipment every once in a while. Even as he watched, he saw Colossus go down under a section of roof loosened by a miscalculated blast – Storm was trying to ground Rogue – and Magma suddenly let out a cry, her head whipping to the side. Sinister was attacking her mentally.
He cursed again and bamfed far closer.
Throwing the closest piece of debris he could find (there was plenty to choose from), he hurled it at Sinister only a few feet away. Direct hit – and the man turned toward him, eyes and diamond glowing bright red. "You know, zey say when you haf such red eyes, you should take somezing," it was the first thing he could think of and he prided himself on the fact it came out so witty.
Sinister wasn't amused. He stretched out a hand to where Nightcrawler's tail waved teasingly – Nightcrawler felt him slither against his mind – and he bamfed out again.
Slightly disoriented, he wasn't prepared for his former roost to be gone, flattened as so much in the room now – and he crash-landed, his leg protesting with fiery zeal. So much for getting out of the Infirmary anytime soon.
Blearily, he regained his feet, a shock of red catching his eye at the far side of the room. Jean. With considerable relief, he saw Jean, Scott, and Kitty with their searchers, who were surveying the intense devastation with shock.
"Rogue!" It was a chorus and there was no time, no way to warn them – Rogue pitched in the air, spiraling out of control, wailing in swirl of voices crying, shouting, swearing vengeance confusion, anger, loss – it was horrible to watch and Nightcrawler felt like he was going to be sick – she twirled once more and then arrowed at the incoming group, a flash of claws signaling another pairs arrival –
Jean lifted a hand – "Stop." Her hair fanned in psychic furor and Nightcrawler could've sworn – but that was crazy, flames? – and another inhuman cry filled the air.
Rogue went absolutely limp in midair, like a marionette cut of her strings and plummeted down. A stiff breeze cradled her, slowing her descent, before she landed securely in Wolverine's arms. He held her gingerly, strips of pale skin exposed to the world.
Jean swayed as well, Scott holding her upright.
Storm gave a sigh of relief, then blinked. "Wait, where did Sinister go?"
Nightcrawler's tail flicked. Wolverine nodded towards him. "Saw him touch the Elf, then disappear. Didn't see him come back."
Typically it was Iceman who said it.
"He sent him to Hell!"
o
The only sound in the Infirmary was the beeping of Rogue's monitor. Kitty sat next to her, pensively watching her face for a sign of awakening.
There was no one else in at the moment, Jean had gotten checked over and given a clean bill of health, despite her near-death experience. Her mutation also seemed completely restored – a fact Kitty was the tiniest bit jealous over, though if drowning was what it took to get it back, she'd be glad to take the all-natural route. Scott was unscathed, Wolverine had only given a grunt when asked if he was alright, and Kurt had been restricted to the Infirmary once again when Mr. McCoy had seen his leg. He'd just escaped to get them some food.
Kitty stared down at her friend's faux peaceful expression, unable to block out the images of Rogue in flight, screaming incomprehensibly. She cleared her throat and talked to fill the void.
"Remy still hasn't come up on Cerebro," she blurted out, hoping to let one worry swallow another. "Storm said there has to be something wrong - considering what happened last time you weren't in contact with each other - Remy should've had to discharge at least some of it by now. I wasn't supposed to know, but you know me, Miss Big Ears."
She let out a nervous giggle and wanted to slap herself. She hated being dismissed as a ditz. Her hand fisted as she felt the swell of emotion press against her throat. She wanted to reach out and lay a hand on Rogue, but she'd been specifically warned not to. Without her mutation, she'd be helpless if Rogue suddenly awoke and reacted violently.
"Rogue - you gotta wake up. Inside – there's too many psyches, the Prof can't find you unless you're conscious. You can fight your way back, I know you can Rogue," she tried to smile. "That's what you are a: fighter."
She wished Remy was there with a visceral ache that made her think she could feel the bare shade of what Rogue must've been feeling. She bit her lip.
She shouldn't tell Rogue, but if she wouldn't fight for herself, maybe she'd fight for him?
"I got in touch with Lapin. He thinks Belladonna's done something to Remy. There's something big coming up in New Orleans, he muttered something about a tribute or something and he's worried Bella's gonna drag Remy into it," she took a breath. Now it was up to Rogue. "You gotta snap out of this Rogue - no one will go on just a suspicion."
She heard a bamf and got up to greet Kurt and the tantalizing smell of food.
She never saw Rogue's eyes snap open.