Chapter Eighty-Seven:

It was like getting hit, dead center, by a freight-train.

And a freight-train traveling at three hundred miles per hour at that.

With her powers, it wasn't very often that Rogue got a reminder of just how strong molecules could be, but when the magnetically charged air was shoved together to form a rock-hard shield of energy that nearly knocked her off her feet, she felt more than a little humbled.

Not to mention more than a little ticked off.

"Ah, Rogue," Magneto said with a kind smile that was out of place given the circumstances. "I was hoping we might run into each other again. It's been far too long."

Halfheartedly glaring at the man who had, just moments before, used his powers to shove her away as she dragged him up into the clouds, Rogue sighed in exasperation. "It's nice t' see ya, too, Erik," she admitted, and it was. Whatever else he may have been, Erik Lensherr was a good man at heart, albeit misguided and more than a little jaded, and she felt a connection with him that she could only attribute to her imprinting powers.

Floating before her, dressed in his vibrant red and purple armor, his cape billowing out behind him, Magneto was undeniably a sight to behold, his presence one that demanded both respect and awe, but more than anything, Rogue felt disappointment.

She had, she realized, been expecting better from him.

Shortly before the Sentinel attack on the island had separated her and Remy from Evan, Hank, Fred and the Acolytes, Magneto had been preaching that his goals were the same as those of Charles Xavier, only with more proactive methods of achieving them.

And yet, here he was, attempting to steal dangerous weaponry from the French military.

That was definitely more than just being 'proactive'.

Suddenly, though, something else caught her attention, something in the words he'd spoken as a greeting. I was hoping we might run into each other again...

"Ya knew Ah was alive?" Rogue asked incredulously.

"Knew, no," Magneto chuckled, a not-so-unpleasant sound. "Suspected, of course. You underestimate my faith in you, my dear. If anyone could survive a Sentinel attack, it would be you."

Rogue pressed her lips together and folded her arms, slightly mollified by his answer.

"A few months ago, my sources revealed that the Juggernaut had gone on a rampage in downtown New Orleans, only to be subdued. And only a handful of weeks later, some of Trask's men were rendered unconscious, allowing their mutant target to escape. When they came to, one of them gave his superiors a vague description of their attacker as a woman with 'skunk hair'."

"Hey," Rogue cried indignantly. "That little creep's lucky Ah didn' break a few bones jus' fo' the heck o' it!"

"Indeed," Magneto agreed, the corners of his lips almost lifting into a smile. "Regardless, there aren't many mutants that I am aware of that fit that description. It only furthered my belief that you and young Gambit must have escaped the island, as well."

"How come ya didn' come try t' find us then?" Rogue inquired curiously.

"I wasn't aware that you wanted to be found," Magneto replied evenly, and she had to avert her eyes from his knowing gaze. It wasn't necessarily that she hadn't wanted to be found, it hurt to think about the years that had been stolen from her, all the grief she'd felt mourning people who weren't dead and the pain they'd endured thinking she had met that fate, as well, it was just that she had started a new life in New Orleans.

The night before her wedding to Remy, she'd been a brooding wreck, but Lucas had followed her out to the docks, and he'd given her some sage advice that had allowed her to finally let go of the past and move on with her life.

That had also been the day she traded in her codename for the name Mystique had given her on her birth certificate.

In some ways, Rogue really had died after Area 51, after the island, and Marie had taken her place.

Maybe she had been hesitant to want to give that up, but who could blame her? After the hard life she'd lived, she'd finally had everything she could ever want... a real home, a real family, a loving husband, the ability to touch, no one trying to kill her every time she turned around... for the first time in a long, long time, she'd been utterly and completely happy, even if she did still miss the X-men every day.

An' ya always did go fo' the jugular, didn' ya, sugah? she marveled, inwardly both angry and embarrassed that it had been so easy for Magneto to read her. After all, it wasn't like he'd absorbed her psyche the way she had his, that he was able to pick up on that only showed that the connection between them worked both ways,

Not quite sure how to respond to his uncomfortably perceptive observations, Rogue was grateful when he spoke again, unperturbed by her silence.

"You've had a good life in New Orleans, I presume?" Magneto questioned, with genuine warmth and curiosity.

"Yeah," Rogue responded. "It's been great."

"And how have you been adapting to your newfound parentage?"

"Ya know about Logan?"

"My dear, I know a great many things," Magneto chuckled, almost in a bittersweet manner. "You have my congratulations, by the way, on the upcoming addition to the family."

"How could ya possibly know 'bout that?" Rogue demanded incredulously. "What are ya spyin' on me now o' somethin', Erik? Ah only jus' found out a bit ago mahself."

"I have my ways," Magneto answered vaguely, waving a hand as if to dismiss her question.

Rogue opened her mouth to tell him that wasn't good enough, when an explosion from below caught her off-guard, echoing shrilly in her ear through the headset she was wearing.

Obviously someone had been about to send a message across.

Following the sounds of shouting below, she let her gaze sweep over the distant, tiny figures of her teammates, trying to identify which of them was in trouble. Thankfully, she wasn't the only one, and when she heard Scott asking for a status report from Wanda's group, it was Tessa who answered, confirming that the explosion had been caused by Alex's plasma blasts, but that all three of them were without serious injury.

Senyaka, however, she was afraid to report, might not remain unscathed much longer as he has just seriously pissed off the Scarlet Witch by nearly choking her to death with his energy whip.

Alarmed, Rogue looked back at Magneto, whose ice blue eyes were narrowed and harsh, having overheard that last part, and she made a mental note to tell Wanda at some point just how angry her father had been to hear that one of his Acolytes had attacked her in such a manner.

Not that it was bound to do much good, mind you, but having been in a similar position herself with Mystique, Rogue knew how much even the slightest hint that your parent loved you mattered. In the months after learning about her mother on the island, she had constantly gone over every moment she'd ever spent with the shapeshifter, desperately seeking something to tell her it hadn't all been about the Brotherhood.

Seeing the flicker of concern for his daughter's safety, Rogue latched onto it and surged forward, remembering suddenly that she hadn't tackled the man out of the air to exchange pleasantries with him, but to try and knock some sense into his thick skull.

"Erik, ya gotta stop this madness before somebody gets hurt," she implored. "What good is any o' this gonna do anybody anyway?"

"You, of all people, my dear," Magneto replied quietly, dangerous emotions just below the surface. "Know the evil that humans are capable of when at their worst."

Okay, point for the obsessed mutant terrorist...

"You suffered their torments and torture, the humiliation and degradation of experiments and enslavement, just as I once did," Magneto reminded her, his eyes glittering darkly, with something she couldn't really define and didn't really want to be able to. Just the fact that she understood where such ghosts came from was more than enough.

"Yeah," Rogue agreed, voice thick as memories of Area 51 danced around the edges of her thoughts. "Ah do know what humans are capable o' at their worst, Erik, but Ah also know what they're capable o' at their best. There's so much good t' be found in humanity, if ya jus' have the patience t' look fo' it."

His face was obscured by his helmet, but that was okay, she knew every line and curve of his features like the back of her hand, given the nature of her imprinting powers. He was an older, more distinguished version of Pietro, from the thin nose to the sharp chin, and he was far from unpleasant looking.

The exposure of his body to the Project Rebirth chamber a few years back had given him unnatural youth, but his eyes gave away his true age. They were the same brilliant blue that Pietro and Wanda had inherited, but his eyes were shadowed, haunted by his past and the things he'd seen and done.

They were the eyes of an old man, bitter and jaded.

"I was just a boy when I was taken to Auschwitz," Magneto said, his eyes glossy as if he had fallen away into the past, into a time and place that Rogue knew all too well, having been there in her nightmares, in his memories which she had absorbed. "I was too young then, to understand what lay ahead, I only knew I was being separated from my family, that those around me were wailing and shaking with terror... you cannot imagine the horrors they had in store for us."

His eyes became more focused, glancing in her direction.

"Or perhaps you can," he acknowledged softly, his eyes holding a glimmer of sad regret. "Memories often surface in dreams, no matter how we try to bury them."

Rogue swallowed hard, her mouth and throat suddenly dry and rough, but there were no words to be found.

"My entire village was executed," Magneto said, voice becoming cool and hard, like a steel blade. "I watched my family tortured to death, all because those who were different from us feared us. When I escaped, I swore that I would never allow such injustices to happen again."

"But don' ya see," Rogue whispered. "By sinkin' t' their level, yo' creatin' injustices o' yo' own, Erik. Ah'm sorry 'bout yo' family, 'bout yo' village an' everythin' that ya went through, but ya hafta let go o' the past. Ya hafta move on an' let go o' that hate, or it's gonna wind up destroyin' ya."

Magneto stared at her for a long moment, then wordlessly rolled up the sleeve of his uniform, revealing the tattooed number that was visible on the underside of his wrist. "We were numbers to them," he murmured, his age creeping into his voice, and her heart broke for him. "Just numbers." When he looked up again, his eyes were hardened. "How long until that is all we become? How long until we, too, are sentenced to extermination?"

"Not all humans are the enemy, Erik," Rogue insisted. "Not all of them want to see us locked up in concentration camps or dead. There are plenty of people who already realize that mutants aren't some kind o' threat, that we're jus' like them."

"We are not like them," Magneto said sharply. "We are homo superior, they are beneath us. And they will never allow us to share their world."

"Keep thinkin' that, sugah," Rogue snorted. "Me? Ah've been livin' in their world jus' fine fo' the past four years, an' in that time Ah've seen some o' the best humanity has t' offer. Ah've seen some o' the worst, too, in men like Trask an' Stryker, who let their fear turn in t' hate. But ya can' go judgin' the entire race on the actions o' a few, Erik, ya should know that by now."

"You are very young, Rogue," Magneto told her wearily. "And for all your wisdom and strength, you are still very naive when it comes to the evil that exists inside of men. Someday, you will understand better, and we will talk again."

He made to turn away from her, presumably to refocus his attention of his objective, recovering the missiles that would inevitably be used as leverage against human governments, weapons to hold the world hostage until it bowed to his demands.

"How many more people hafta abandon ya befo' ya see this isn't the way, Erik?" she called after him, but although he stiffened at her words, he didn't pay her any heed, and she began to follow, determined to prevent him from getting his hands on those weapons, no matter what. "Pietro's already turned his back on ya, Wanda's here fightin' t' oppose ya, an' Ah won' always be here t' try an' reason wit' ya... but Xavier will be. His X-men will always be there, ready to stop ya, ready to defeat ya... an' ya know Cyclops ain't gonna go easy on ya."

"I assure you, my dear," Magneto said over his shoulder, without so much as a falter in his movements across the sky, slowly descending towards the battle waging below. "I am more than prepared to deal with anything that young Cyclops has to throw in my direction."

Flying past him, Rogue came up in front of him, blocking his path even as she floated backwards, not yet wanting to use physical force to stop him, but ready to do so if he left her no other choice. "This isn't right, Erik," she pleaded with him. "There has t' be a better way. Ah know it, an' Ah hafta believe that deep down ya know it, too."

"And you think that Charles' way is this better way?" Magneto paused to ask, fixing her with a penetrating stare. "His goals and aspirations are noble, I will give you that, but his methods would have us on the execution block before he began to even consider an offensive approach."

"Ya don' know it's gonna come t' that," Rogue protested.

"Don't I?" Magneto asked coolly. "Do you mean to tell me that you never see it, Rogue? You never catch a glimpse of what is just around the corner and find yourself chilled with fear?"

Rogue's silence was as truthful as any answer could have been.

"There is a war comin'," Magneto retorted gruffly, moving past her. "And I intend to ensure that mutantkind is the victor."

"An' when's it gonna stop, Erik?" Rogue challenged desperately. "How many people hafta die? How many mutants have t' get caught up in the military retaliation? How many o' us hafta die fo' yo' war? When is it ever gonna be too high o' a price? When it's Xavier yo' buryin'? When it's me?"

There was a strange tingling in the back of her mind, but she ignored it, knowing she was on the verge of getting through to him, she could feel it in her bones.

"What 'bout Pietro an' Wanda, Erik?" she demanded. "Are ya willin' t' sacrifice yo' children t' the cause? Magda's children?"

That stopped Magneto dead in his tracks, and Rogue drew in a sharp breath, wondering if she had just gone too far by mentioning his dead wife's name. She hadn't been planning on saying anything about Magda, it had just spilled out, a sudden borrowed memory of the smiling, laughing woman who had brought the Maximoff twins into the world surfacing in her mind.

Whether or not Magneto had been angered by that slip, she never got to find out, because just then the tingle in the back of her mind turned into a blaze, and she threw herself aside just as something fast, sleek and metal shot past, the air rippling in its wake.

"Erik," she cried out a warning. "Look-"

With speed that she wouldn't have believed he possessed, had she not seen it with her own eyes, Magneto has spun around and extended a hand, stopping the missile just a foot away.

In the distance, the military fighter-jet was preparing to fire another one.

"Do you see now, child?" Magneto bellowed with bitter venom, and she winced, even though it was directed not at her, but at the pilot of the fighter. "This is what humanity has in store for us, destruction and death. If we do not fight them now, then they will wipe us from the face of the earth!"

And with that pronouncement, he gave a vicious wave of his hand, turning the missile back the way it had come.

To Rogue's horror, it had the fighter in its sights.

"Sapristi," she cursed, flinging herself into action as she tore across the sky.

Pushing her powers to the max, she drew on every last ounce of strength within her, racing against the clock to try and get there in time. The pilot had realized by now that his own weapon was now targeting him, but he had not room to try and maneuver out of its path and no time to even attempt an ejection with the missile barreling down upon him so fast.

Are ya crazy, girl, she told herself, gritting her teeth as she poured on a burst of speed that she didn't know she had left. Playin' chicken wit' a missile?

Remy would call it a kamikaze run, and she wasn't so sure that would be so far off.

After all, she had no idea whether or not her invulnerability could withstand an explosion like that, and she had more than just her own life to consider now. Once she wouldn't have hesitated so much as a fraction of a second, but now she had to, not for her own sake, but for that of the child just beginning to grow in her womb.

One look at the young pilot's frantic, terrified face through the glass of his cockpit, though, and she knew she didn't have a choice.

Mon Dieu, she thought with a grimace, putting herself between the fighter and the missile. This is gonna hurt.

The impact knocked the wind out of her, and she fell back, stars swimming before her eyes, the roar of an explosion ringing in her ears, and everything went black.

Translations:

Sapristi- damn
Mon Dieu- My God