"Storm accompany Iceman, Spyke, and Cannonball down to the lower area of the base, find his lab and destroy whatever Essex is currently working on." The white haired African nodded and motioned for the younger X-Men to follow her as they disappeared down the corridor.
"Magneto, can you sense anything that is cause for concern?" Professor X asked asked quietly. Magneto's fingers coiled as light blue sparks erupted from them. His eyes narrowed.
"Apocalypse's armor is made of a very distinct and rare metal, I could feel it a mile away. He's modified it to fit Rogue." His eyes closed as he concentrated harder. "Charles...
He started. "Yes, I can feel iron, artificial iron. The type found in bio-molecular fluid."
Xavier's eyes narrowed as he sighed angrily. "I'm sorry, but what is bio-molecular fluid?" Jean asked innocently. Magneto's teeth were clenched. "Bio-molecular fluid is often used for extreme surgeries such as the ones Wolverine and his kindred spirit X-23 went through."
"Professor I thought you said Essex was a geneticist, not a surgeon." Jean's confused voice didn't save her from the amount of anger lingering in the room.
"It also serves as an artificial womb for clones. Do also you need me to explain what a clone is Ms. Grey? A cheap monstrosity made because the original was unsatisfactory. An exact duplicate of whoever or whatever the original being is or was."
Magneto was hissing angrily. "Yes, and the bio-fluid is most likely being used as the latter of the two reasons someone would use bio-fluid." Professor Xavier agreed.
"Magneto how close are the clones?"
"Being housed thirty yards away from us...Rogue is in the room as well."
Professor Xavier nodded thoughtfully. "I see. Shadowcat phase Scott into the room on my mark, and at the same time Magneto will bring the walls down around us. Jean, are you linked with the portable cerebro?"
"I am Professor."
"Good, X-Men prepare yourself...Magneto now!"
"Surprise Herr Essex! The X- Men have arrived!" Kurt announced as he pounced on top of the man covered in black with a sparkling diamond in the middle of his forehead. "Give me back my schister!" He yelled as teleported Sinister to the top of the high ceiling.
Metal bars wrapped around Sinister before he fell to his death. "We shall deal with ze likes of you scum after we rescue Rogue." He added before he joined Magneto and Wolverine on the ground.
"Where's Rogue?" Wolverine asked. As the others glanced around the room.
It was an empty lab. "I thought you said there were clones in here?" Wolverine growled as he sniffed the air. "They've moved below us, most likely to intercept the other X-Men that are currently hacking into Sinister's files and destroying his work."
"That's wonderful bub, now I'm gonna ask you again, where is Rogue?"
Ten yards away Scott and Kitty formed a human barrier around Jean and Professor X. "I can sense his presence, Rogue's spirit is fading, Apocalypse now has full control of her body. He's close X-Men."
"Closer than you think." A telepathic voice whispered across the room, projecting to everyone. "Oooh, that sends shivers down my spine." Shadowcat commented the other mutants glanced around the room. "Stop playing childish games Apocalypse! Show yourself!" Magneto yelled.
"As you wish." A dark figure phased out of the ceiling floorboards and menacingly floated above the X-Men.
What Magneto said was true Apocalypse had modified his armor to fit Rogue. He changed his normal gray simple armor and added a gold coating. He'd molded it to be an Egyptian style tube top across Rogue's chest, barely covering her modesty. He'd also taken Egyptian loin cloth and blended it with gold underwear the loin cloth came short at her knees. The pure gold plating was a beautiful contrast with her pale skin.
Rogue's eyes still glowed white with red rim, the only change was that now her entire body was radiating with blue magnetic energy.
"Oh, man get ready for the fight of our lives." Shadowcat whispered to Scott as Rogue smiled menacingly.
"What do we have Auntie O?" Spyke asked as Iceman touched a few buttons on a large container that contained murky blue water. "Robert don't touch anything!" Storm chastised as she continued to type. turning to her nephew she sighed frustrated. "I'm not sure Evan, I'm just downloading as much as I can before we destroy this awful place."
"You know it's really not so bad once you get used to the weird equipment." Iceman said as he admired needles containing all sorts of different liquids. "Hey Evan you think he was making zombies down here?" Iceman asked. "Seems like the sorta thing a mad doctor would do right?" He quickly lost amusement with the needles and went back to the container with the murky water.
Iceman took a quick glance at Storm before he tapped on the glass. "You know dude it doesn't take a genius mad doctor to create zombies Bobby." Spyke pointed out. "Any ammeter can do it all you'd need to do is cross the AIDS virus with human rabies and presto!"
"Can human's get rabies?" Iceman asked as he hit a green button on the container. "I'll bet big bad Mr. Sinister could find a way to make humans act like wild animals with foam at the mouth." Spyke said as he shrugged.
"You know if there ever was a Zombie Apocalypse you'd be the dude that I tripped so I could get away." Spyke said honestly. "Evan!" Storm chastised. "What an awful thing to say." She commented.
Iceman turned away from the controls and leaned against the container. "Aww, man that's cold, even colder than my body temperature."
Unknown to Iceman he was actually leaning against the controls and had accidentally activated a button, which started beeping loudly.
Storm tuned away from the computer. "Oh no. Iceman I told you not to touch anything!" She shouted as she turned back to the computer and started typing frantically. "I'm almost finished with the information! It will be up to the two of you to fend off whatever comes our way."
"Nice Drake, you probably just announced to all of Essex's crazy experiment's we are down here stealing his shit!" Evan shouted angrily. "It wasn't me!" Iceman protested. Unfortunately for them they had no time to argue as the glass container broke, spilling blue murky water all over the lab.
"I just had this suit dry cleaned!" Iceman yelled angrily as he stood up and shook himself off. "Oh, who knows what's in that stuff!" He commented as he continued to squirm. "Dude, your suit is the last of our problems." Spyke said as he pointed to a deformed sea creature that seemed to have long, tan human legs. "Whoa, cool it's a creature from the island of Dr. Moroe!"
(Astral Plane of Rogue's Mind...Somewhere...Sometime)
"Professor it's so crowded." Jean spoke softly. "Unbelievable...Rogue still contains a psyche of everyone she touched during the Apocalypse Rising incident. And I used to think my type of crazy was bad."
"Indeed Jean. It is a never ending maze, build up of other mazes, and it's very disorganized, which isn't going to help us at all." Professor Xavier agreed.
"Do we even know where we are?" She asked. "Professor this could possibly take weeks just to go through all of this, let alone organize it so we could find Apocalypse."
"No Jean, it WOULD take weeks to go through all of this. We haven't the time. Concentrate on scanning with me so we can find Apocalypse."
"Professor I don't think we need to scan anything." Jean pointed to a merge of pure energy erupting from the top of their heads. "There." Xavier pointed. "There is where he is."
Professor Xavier stood out of his wheel chair and wielded a telepathic soul sword. Jean copied his choice of weapon.
"Attack him!" Xavier shouted. The two telepaths charges at the energy with all their might. Jean was forcefully thrown backwards before she even reached the beacon of energy. Professor Xavier lasted a while longer, though not by much.
"Professor I don't understand you are the most powerful telepath on the planet, why can't you stop him?" Jean whispered as tears formed around her eyes. "I-I-" Professor Xavier stuttered.
"Yes of course!" He said suddenly. "Jean we need to re-think our strategy. Apocalypse isn't a natural telepath, so he must be getting fire-power like this from somewhere...some other source. This isn't his domain, there is no possible way he could be doing this himself."
"Wait, that's it professor, this isn't his domain..that means he doesn't have the advantage. And if this is not our domain we don't have the advantage either. But, the answer is staring us right in the face, we need to find Rouge!"
Professor Xavier nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, of course. But where to start?" He asked as he once again turned to the maze. "It's not just memories in there Jean, thoughts, feelings, emotions, fears. Everything about people she's touched is in there. That means there are literally millions if not billions of places Rogue could be hiding."
"You think she's hiding?" Jean asked.
"After an attack like that it must have left her traumatized. She would be forced to retreat into an area where she felt safe, where she could heal properly."
"I don't know anything about Rogue Professor, she never shared her favorite color let alone her deepest emotions of what she was afraid of and where she felt safe." Jean signed as she rubbed her temples together.
Professor Xavier thought deeply for several minutes. "I've rarely been inside Rogue's mind, her absorptions and memory gathering make it almost impossible, but when I have I discovered Rogue had a great amount of integrity. She never purposely went through anyone else's memories. When she did involuntarily re-live an experience, it was the majority of the time never a pleasant one."
"Figures with that girls luck." Jean commented. "But what your saying is that she's most likely in one of her own memories."
"Yes."
"Okay then, lets rule out possibilities, Rogue has-and pardon my language professor-but she has been in hell since her mutantation emerged. So we know it's probably not going to be within the past three to four years."
The Professor signed regretfully. "She has." He quickly turned his thoughts back to the task at hand and away from his most wayward student's misery. "Perhaps in her younger years when she was a child?" He asked.
"Seems like a good place to start." Jean nodded. "Now all we have to do is find her memories."
"Wow that's cool, say little and ugly can you do anything special?"
"Bobby, man get away from that thing!"
"Aw common, Evan what's this little piece of dog crap's not gonna do- AHHHH!"
"Holy-"
"Evan KILL IT! KILL IT! IT'S EATING MY LEG!"
Spyke shot spikes at the creature over and over. "It's got tough skin man."
"KILL IT!" Bobby howled in pain. Evan lifted up his foot to reveal several little spikes and brought it down hard on the creature that had attached itself to Bobby's leg. It twitched a few times but it's grip relaxed and supposedly died.
By this time Storm had finished her download and had shot lightning blots at the entire system, effectively putting it six feet under to party with the mutant creature that tried to eat Iceman.
"I'm calling Beast, the two of you get to the Blackbird and set up a communique with him and get the first aid kit. I had better assist our friends with Apocalypse."
"We're gonna miss out on the biggest battle of the century?" Iceman asked disbelieving. "Auntie O that's not fair!" Evan joined in.
"Enough the both of you!" Storm ended the arguing. "Iceman is injured and needs to be treated watch him Evan." Storm ordered as she made her way above. The boys sorrowfully started limping back to the Blackbird.
"You just had to mess with the buttons and just had to pet the failed experiment didn't you?" Spyke asked.
(Astral Plane of Rogue's Mind...Rogue's Memories...Her Ninth Birthday)
"We're not having much success." Xavier informed Jean as they watch a small girl blow out candles. "You know she was kind of cute when she was younger." Jean grinned.
"But your right, we're not having much luck." She agreed. "Wait a moment." Xavier put his hands to his temples. "Jean perhaps try upstairs in Rogue's room."
Jean hesitantly pushed the door open to reveal a typical child's bedroom, if it wasn't for the white striped goth curled up in the middle of the floor on the purple carpet. "Rogue!" Jean rushed over and hesitantly put a hand on her shoulder.
Rogue's head snapped up. "Your-your here." Rogue whispered, then she saw Xavier. "Professor." She whispered. "I'm so sorry." Rogue whispered. Professor Xavier sat down across from Rogue and Jean.
"Rogue if anyone should be sorry it was me. Even after all my years of training students I still let my arrogance get the best of me. I'm not perfect, contrary to the believe of many of the students. You were right when you compared me to Magneto, we share many qualities. And though I try my hardest I don't always succeed at ignoring my arrogance when it comes to powerful young mutants, and now is the time to accept my failure."
"Boy did you screw up with me." Rogue said with a smile. "Yes, Rogue, and I swear to you it's not a mistake I'm going to make twice."
"We need your help Rogue." Jean started. "Have you healed enough from your experiences?" Xavier asked.
Rogue nodded. "Yes, and I think I know ho wot stop him." She smiled. "My mind, my game."
"The fragments and memories of people are floating around here right?" Rogue asked. Jean nodded. "They look useless and annoying, but that's where the power actually is. If I can convince the psyches to help me-all of them- we stand a chance at taking Apocalypse down."
"I'm confused you can talk to the psyches?" Jean asked. "Yeah, and I know exactly what to say to get them to help us." Rogue grinned as they made their way towards the other memories.
"Look yall, bottom line if we don't stop Apocalypse he's going to kill your counterparts, the ones that don't live in my head." Rogue spoke to the others.
"They don't look like they wanna help." Jean said.
"I don't normally threaten his type of thing, but if there's a chance that I live and and that you live, I promise you I will unzip my mouth about all of yo dirty little secrets. Yall hear me?" Rogue asked.
"We're resorting to blackmail?" Jean asked angrily. "Jean dealing with psyches is like dealing with children, and since I have nothing to bribe them with all we have are threats." Rogue said reasonably. "I don't like it either, but we don't have a choice when the whole planet is at stake."
The psyches one by one, and grumbling, agreed to help. Slowly but surly Rogue gained power when they stopped fighting her.
It was almost like absorbing someone. Feeling the rush of their powers flowing through her like different forms of energy. All binding together, working together, being able to feel everything. "Feels good." Rogue whispered. "Like I'm myself again."
"Time to kick this son of a bitch out of my mind." She hissed.
Soon only blinding white light was all that could be seen in Rogue's mind and in the real world.
Silence echoed the room as Rogue dropped limp to the ground. Professor Xavier came out of his mental state with a gasp, and Jean collapsed in Scott's arms. The various X-Men took stock of their damages. Several bruises, cuts, and lots of blood. But no deaths, and one broken leg. Sinister was long gone, slunk back into the shadows where he belonged, and so the dream of stopping Mr. Sinister would have to wait another day.
Magneto was the first to move and pick Rogue up off the ground.
"Is it finished, Charles?" He asked as he cradled Rogue. "Yes, the fragment of Apocalypse is gone, the battle is over."
A relived sigh was let go from every member of the X-Men. "Let's go home." Shadowcat moaned. "And take a long vacation." She added.
Later on in the Blackbird Xavier looked over at Rogue's unconscious form and nodded thoughtfully to himself. "We are going to need a holiday, and to begin the training of my most wayward and powerful student."
Took me a couple of hours, but here you go. Hope you enjoyed!
Preview: The X-Men return to Alkali Lake for some relaxation and Rogue starts her training in an abandoned Weapon X facility! And drum role please, some long awaited Rogue and Magneto romance! Also Rogue comes to terms with her darker side and confronts her darker desire.
RR Time!:
1983Sarah: Thanks for reviewing!
tx peppa: your right Rogue should be omega, I hope they evolve Rogue's powers in the Days of Future Past movie. Thanks for reviewing!
Angelpaint007: We will see the affects of darker Rogue soon and some romance...finally! Thank you for reviewing!
ReginaSyltherin: Thanks for your great input, always helps! Thanks for reviewing!
Marigab: Glad someone else is reading Uncanny Avengers! Hope Mangeto shows up sometime and Rogue and Wanda finally have their chance to arrest him. Thanks for reviewing!
darksaber92: Thanks for your review!
M.L: Glad you like the idea of Magneto and Rogue! Thanks for reviewing!
whylime: Hope you enjoyed this chapter and thanks for reviewing!
Midnight Lost: Thanks for reviewing!