Author's Note: Stormy as promised ginchy! Everyone loves Stormy! :D Rogue's mind is a wonderful playground, it was a blast to write that last chapter, but as you all guessed, whatever is in John's mind can't be good. :( Thanks for reading, ya'll awesome!
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Mind of a Rogue
Charles watched as the world literally melted around him to be replaced with a large warehouse. His body moved off to the left, following two others, and this disorientated him as he wasn't expecting it. He attempted to look around but failed to control any of his actions.
This was because he was experiencing Saint-John's memory through the fire mutant's own eyes.
In the center of the warehouse several people stood around a man tied up, his hands bound in strange metal gauntlets behind the chair he sat in. It was Alex, looking very young despite being beaten. This was maybe a decade ago?
His assumptions on the time frame were confirmed when he got a good look at the others. Raven and Erik in particular. She was still using her younger blonde form while Erik's hair hadn't gone completely gray yet. Emma Frost was there too, looking half-dressed and as bored as ever. Azazel stood near Havok, guarding him likely, and there were a few others but as Saint-John didn't look their way Charles couldn't be sure.
"There, Saint-John," Erik pointed to a table off to the side where an older computer sat, though it was probably high-tech for the time this took place. On the other side of the table, a teenage girl was sitting with her feet propped up, reading a book with a Walkman blaring in her ears.
Saint-John sat down in front of the computer and started to fiddle with a few cables, connecting a box to the PCU, and doing other things with the system Charles didn't really understand. His fingers working on their own, the young man's eyes kept flitting over to the beautiful girl, a white stripe down her hair now noticeable at this angle. A teenage boy with a mane already as silver as gossamer, must been a young Pietro Maximoff, sat down next to Rogue.
"Hey," Pietro was about as smooth and awkward as a fifteen year old is apt to be, "I'm Pietro."
At first she didn't react at all, then she shook her head and pulled the headphones down around her neck, some band screaming out their lyrics before she clicked a button to turn it off. "Sorry, what ya saying?"
"Name's Pietro," he seemed to have worked up a little more confidence. "I'm a speed mutant, I can just about break the sound barrier, working on it."
"Cool," she said somewhere between 'that's neat' and 'not-impressed'.
"Saint-John," he leaned forward to hold out his hand, "what's your name sheila?"
Rogue stared down at his bare fingers for a second then closed her book, Charles catching the title Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes, obviously a suggestion from Erik. She plopped her feet down and reached over her gloved hand to shake, "Name's Rogue."
"Rogue?" Pietro frowned.
"Yep, just Rogue," she leaned back in her chair.
There was a slightly awkward pause and Saint-John said, "I can control fire, make it do whatever I want."
Pietro laughed, "Regular arsonist he is."
"No, not arsonist," Saint-John corrected empathically, "artist."
"Sure," Pietro held out the vowel and Rogue giggled a little. "So, Rogue, what can you do?"
"What can I do?" she smirked, chuckling like one would at an inside joke, "Better question is, what can't I do?"
"Rogue," Raven's voice called over, "we're ready for you."
"Well," she put the book down and pulled the headphones completely off, "I'm on."
Saint-John swiveled in his seat and watched as she walked over to the main group gathered around Havok.
"Alex here has vital information regarding the whereabouts of Hank McCoy's new research facility," Raven spoke to the girl as if she was asking her to go down to the store to fetch a carton of milk, "I need you to find out the location and the pass codes to the security system."
"Okay," Rogue replied just as casually, slipping the gloves from her fingers. "Yah said he has an energy blast, focused in tha hands?"
"Yes," Raven turned a bit softer, kinder, "and remember, the power is yours to use, the emotion is not, don't let it get in the way."
"Right," she took a deep breath and turned towards Havok who was looking defiant, blood dripping from his lip, left eye puffed up and bruised.
"Good luck, little girl, even Frosty here couldn't get it out of me," there was a laugh in the man's voice, "the Professor made sure of it."
"Yes," Emma said drolly, "Charles did place a fairly impressive block in your mind. I commend his workmanship."
"That's all well and good, but you see, Alex," Raven's tone turned cold, "Charles blocked that information from telepathic scans, and if my daughter was a telepath, that would mean something."
Rogue touched the side of Alex's face and the faint traces of her mutation drawing his life force out of his body danced across his features as he passed out. Charles could feel Saint-John's shock and fear at not understanding what was happening. He just shook that hand!
Only seconds later, the young woman stood up straight and her voice a little odd, not speaking exactly in her southern lit anymore. "Hanover Square, Syracuse, State Tower Building, Twentieth floor, oh god, Scott, Scott, where are you, Scott, pass code to security system, Alpha, Echo, 7, 7, Romeo, 4, Lima, 3, 9."
With a gasp, Rogue grabbed her head as if shaking off an ice cream headache. After a moment she lifted her left hand beside her and watched as the swirling red and yellow energy gathered around it. Grinning, she shot her hand out and the blast skirted by Azazel to hit an old barrel squarely center, knocking it against the wall and ripping it open.
"Cool," the word was tingling with excitement as she brought her hand back in, gathering more energy before then drawing it away, completely in control. She glanced over her shoulder directly at Saint-John, "Hey Pyro," then at Pietro, "QuickSilver, wanna have some fun?"
Saint-John looked at his friend and mouthed the word "Pyro" while the speed mutant did the same with "QuickSilver", both of them instantly loving the new code names. They stood but then paused, Pietro looking to the adults in the room, specifically Erik.
The magnetic mutant stifled a grin, then sighed, gesturing that it was okay, "Try not to draw any attention to us, and… Pyro, bring up the location and security details first."
"Seeya out there," Pietro winked as if he had won the prize and zipped off, of course this was before either boy knew the true nature of her mutation.
The newly christened Pyro began to tap feverishly away, locating the facility behind a dummy corporation and finding their security system on the grid. This went on a few minutes and he was so intent on getting done as quickly as possible he heard the conversation going on behind him but didn't actually hear it.
"Like Mother, Like Daughter," Emma Frost laughed, well, as close to one as she was capable of.
"The girl was a handful when I found her," Raven shrugged off the comparison, "I don't think that will change any time soon."
"I remember when Alex couldn't control his own powers that well," Erik mused, "yet she had no such troubles from the moment she absorbed them. That's rather remarkable."
"Charles said it himself," it made Xavier's heart heavy hearing Raven speak of him with both respect and ignominy, "our mutations are part of us. Our fears and our serenity, affect them. When my Rogue absorbs powers she doesn't have to take the baggage that goes with them. What emotions might filter in she can distance herself from to focus solely on the ability itself. It becomes nothing more than a tool to her, not a part of her. It's her own mutation she can't as easily distance herself from."
"Still having difficulty with the length of time she can hold the power for?" Erik asked.
"That, among other things," Raven sighed. "She can't seem to get over the boy she absorbed. I know if she holds on long enough the powers she gains would become permanent but she won't do it again."
"She knows it would mean a blending of her psyche with the victim's," Emma pointed out clinically.
"Exactly, and forcing her to do it will simply reinforce her apprehension and make the powers unstable," Raven was just as detached in speaking about her daughter. "It's going to be a slow process, but if I can get her over this irrational fear then just think what she could do, all the mutants she could absorb?"
"She'd become the ultimate mutant," Erik answered thoughtfully, "the ultimate weapon."
"I just need to find the right trigger or motivation—" she replied, being cut off as Pyro jumped up.
"All done!" he exclaimed to the adults who gave him bemused looks before he headed out to join the others.
"Don't yah think I didn't know this already," Rogue's voice growled as the image started to fade away. "That they wanted ta use me, everyone always does."
"There is more to it than that," Carol scolded.
The world melted again and this time was replaced with a long hallway. Pyro walked casually, flipping a Zippo lighter open and closed in his hand, checking out the names on the doors. Many of them had military titles and Charles wondered if they were on a base, but it wasn't until he saw an evacuation plan next to a fire extinguisher that he understood.
Sure, he couldn't make out anything written on it seeing as Pyro wasn't focusing on it, but there was no mistaking that symbol: The Pentagon.
How did Pyro get inside the Pentagon?
Checking the palm of his hand there was a number written in black ink, 312. Stopping at the correctly numbered door, Charles got a look at Pyro's reflection in the glass and he had to be around eighteen or nineteen, looking a little out of place wearing a business suit.
Fiddling with the handle it wasn't locked so he stepped inside the office. A man, in his fifties with a receding hairline and broad shoulders, was sitting behind the desk scowling at a computer. "Good, you're here."
"No, can't be…" Rogue whispered.
"Yeah," Pyro said cautiously, "and I have no idea why. Magneto told me the man in room 312 would explain."
"Simple," the older gentleman stood and moved away from the computer, "I need you to crack this computer, I want Colonel Loft's passwords and access to all these databases," he gestured to a piece of paper laying on the desk as he passed.
"Easy enough," he shrugged, sitting down in the vacated seat, pulling some flash drives out of his breast pocket as he rebooted the system to get into the DOS menu.
As he waited, the young man looked around and noticed the pictures hanging on the wall. Many of them were the same, the older gentleman standing with someone of importance such as Colin Powell. In one he was even being given a commendation by the President along with four other men. But if the pictures in the office were of the man standing across the desk from him…
"Why am I breaking into your computer for you?" Pyro didn't do subtle.
"Because it's not my computer," Loft answered back. "It's Colonel Loft's."
Pyro pointed at the photos on the wall, "Then who are you?"
The man sighed, his body morphing as blue scales flipped and turned to reveal the distinctive form of the mutant shape shifter, Raven Darkhölme. "Little slow on the uptake today, Saint-John."
"When did she… I don't remember this mission…"
"Mystique," the man's jaw visibly dropped, "we thought you were dead."
"I would have been if that upstart Danvers had any say in it," she scowled, pacing a little, "She ruined a perfectly good cover identity, not to mention the whole operation. Now I have to start all over again. Hence, Colonel Loft."
"What…"
Pyro paused, mentally at least, his fingers tapping away at the keyboard, "Have you talked to Rogue?"
"I've been far too busy to deal with her right now," she waved him off.
"You need to, she's really upset," he informed Raven, his words low and fearful, "been literally on the war path, trying to find out who the flying woman was."
This caused the shape shifter to stop in her pacing, cocking her head towards him, "Has she now. Is she using her powers?"
"More than I've ever seen her," Pyro admitted, slipping a flash drive into a port. "She's scaring Pietro and me, we've never seen her this bad."
Raven was rubbing her chin while tapping one blue finger against her lips, "No, no this is good. Finally she'll see the worth in using her powers to their fullest."
"But—"
"But nothing. You listen to me, Saint-John, and listen well," the domineering woman planted both hands on the desk, "you are going to keep your mouth shut. Only a handful of people know I'm still alive and I want it kept that way. Understand."
It wasn't a question, it was a command, and when Raven demanded something be done, Pyro knew it was in his best interest not to argue. "Ah, okay, sure Mystique, whatever you say."
"Good," she smiled dangerously, "and don't worry about Rogue, she's a big girl now, she can take care of herself. If not, she'll soon learn how."
"No… no… no…" the words came out in a disembodied whimper.
"That's not the end of it, Rogue."
Charles found himself staring down at a cell phone, dialing the number listed as Colonel Loft. Placing it to his ear, he looked up to see a small hallway, three doors, two being bathrooms and the other an employee's only. From the clinking sounds behind him, Pyro was in some kind of restaurant.
"Colonel Loft," a deep male voice came over the line.
"Hey, it's Pyro," he cleared his throat as he glanced over his shoulder. Charles' suspicions were confirmed, the place a coffee house. "I've met up with Rogue."
"And?" a female voice asked.
"The absorption is permanent," he sounded pained and strained, "she's retained the flight, strength, and invulnerability. It's been over two weeks."
"I knew it," Raven on the other hand was downright jovial. "Did Danver's psyche merge successfully?"
"I guess," he shrugged, checking over his shoulder again, "she said something about her not screaming anymore. I really think you should talk to her."
"No," she stated clearly, "she needs to work through this on her own, to understand just how strong she can become and me coddling her will do her no good."
"She's really upset," Pyro argued, slipping his Zippo from his pocket, flipping it open and closed to calm his nerves.
"Then be the supportive friend that you are, Pyro," the words were somewhere between another command and sarcasm. "Tell her it will be okay, point out how amazing it must be to fly and be invulnerable."
There was a pause, and although he couldn't see it, he knew Pyro was frowning and conflicted. On one hand, Rogue was his friend, on the other, he was deathly afraid of Mystique.
"Alright," he sighed, still fidgeting with his lighter, "I'll do that."
"Now don't sound so put out, Pyro," she patronized him, "this will be good for her. She needs to grow up, accept what she is what and she can do."
"I guess you're right," he replied meekly.
"Of course I'm right," Raven brushed his obvious worries aside, "I'm her mother and I know what's best."
Pyro snapped the lid of the Zippo closed and clenched his fist around it, "I've been gone too long, gotta go."
"Remember, Saint-John," her words were cold, "she is never to find out."
"I remember," he mumbled as he hit the end call button.
Taking a second to compose himself, Pyro turned away from the bathrooms and walked across the café towards the booths in the back. Sitting in a far corner was Rogue, slowly bending a butter knife in her hand as if it was made out of putty…
Once again the scene melted away and Charles found himself in the entry hall of the house. Rogue was pulling her hands from the Shade's face as Carol looked on sadly. The young woman had just learned a horrible truth about the woman she called her mother, the betrayal she was feeling could be tasted in the air.
"Rogue?" he said as the woman stumbled back, her body starting to heave as she clutched her stomach. As he came around he saw her face was pained and breathing labored as if she was dry puking, her entire form racked in anguish.
"I'm so sorry," Carol said softly, reaching forward gently, "but you had to know."
Every inch of Rogue's body trembled, her jaw now clenched as her pale form reddened in anger.
A piercing scream struck against Xavier's mind and all he saw was white.
…
"Dat looks familiar," Gambit said as he looked up at the storm cloud forming inside the medical room.
"Yes," Storm said thoughtfully, lifting one hand to settle the air. It was years ago Rogue managed to get the drop on Storm in Baghdad to absorb her, but her psyche was obviously still very active in there.
Alarms rang out and Rogue's body began to convulse. Storm and Gambit both rushed to her side, the kinetic mutant grabbing the woman's arms and holding her down so she wouldn't fly off the bed. Rogue's super strength made it difficult for the thief but he held fast.
"What's happening?" Storm shouted before her friend had a chance to.
"Major spike in her brain activity, she's experiencing excessive neural oscillation," Hank was shifting through a cabinet that was set against the far wall. "She's having a seizure."
"We can see dat, Doc," Gambit shouted.
The Beast came up beside them with a syringe in his hand, "Hold her steady."
"Trying here!"
Storm moved to help when it felt like all the air in the room imploded, drawing around the thrashing woman. Milliseconds later a telekinetic push knocked against the Weather Witch, sending her to the floor alongside McCoy. Even Gambit, as nimble as he was, was not immune and she could see him sprawled out on the other side of the bed. The room had gone dark, the emergency lights kicking on, medical equipment scattered across the floor.
"What was that?" she asked as she got her feet under her, noting that Rogue had stopped moving but was thankfully still breathing. "Some kind of telekinetic, electromagnetic, pulse?"
"Seems that way," Hank was back at his now dead computers. "I'll have backup power resorted momentarily."
"Electromagnetic and telekinetic…" Gambit was now standing next to the woman, staring down at her with interest. "What mutant did she gain dat from?"
"All of them," the Professor said wearily as he pulled his chair away from the bed. "That was a burst of pure energy, triggered by Rogue's grief and anger."
"Is she okay?" the thief asked quickly.
"Physically and mentally she's fine, but emotionally…" Xavier took a long breath, "she's been given a lot to think about, a terrible shock and betrayal, it's upset her greatly. With the way her mind is structured, the nature of her mutation, I'm afraid she won't be able to wake up until she finds some level of calm. Otherwise the psyches could run rampant."
Gambit frowned, staring down at the woman as if he knew something they didn't and it wasn't exactly good news.
"How long will she be out?" Storm eventually asked into the silence.
"I do not know," the Professor responded sadly, "it's up to her. It could be hours, weeks, maybe even years…"