'Dreams aren't like the Astral Plane,' Charles thought, as he struggled for a brief moment to orient himself.
Well, perhaps that wasn't correct. They were; it was just seen through a Möbius tube made of mirrors. This wasn't the typical thoughts he had of an endless ocean where all sentience exists. This was more an enclosed space; but limitless in its own perception of its size, making the interior - the person, the dreamer - larger than it could conceivably be. And still, at the very edges; the tell-tale fuzzing that allowed the dreamer their access to the collective unconscious. The rules were inflexibly looped to allow for all and nothing to be permitted. It was dizzying.
A vast ever changing enclosed sea, with outlets like capillaries in lungs. Xavier found himself wanting to let himself reflexively dissipate and return to what he knew, the Astral Plane as it was normally, the realm he knew best. He steeled himself to the task at hand and forced himself to accommodate to a new normal.
"-and then it slips away, you see, right, Professor?" Marcus was saying/dreaming/thinking to him. Xavier forced himself to focus on the other person. He caught up to the conversation, and managed to understand. There was a difficulty in accessing Rogue's dreams, or psyche. Despite not understanding this realm instinctively like so much of the Astral Plane was; Xavier was able to see why both he and Rem-Ram were unsuccessful independently contacting her. She seemed to be trapped somewhere between both planes, and unable to cycle from one to the next. Whatever their adversary had done was keeping her unable to be found, and therefore, contacted.
Until now. The two mutants worked in tandem; it wasn't the easiest of alliances. The young man rightfully still held trepidation towards the elder, but their partnership held, and that was enough to keep their connection stable. Now they needed to extend it, find a way to enter the trapped mindscape.
It took multiple tries; coordination was initially clumsy, ill-approached. Eventually, however, they managed to infiltrate through the strange pulsing cycle. Rogue's dreams were knotted, too pulled inward, and Xavier wasn't certain if it was a part of her powers or an aspect of -
Focus. Xavier pulled himself from contemplating the strange reality, and instead followed Marcus as he guided them further through and within Rogue's sleeping, strangely fractured psyche. Melting through a wall like his student Katherine Pryde could, they appeared in what seemed to be a lower level hallway in the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning. Charles wasn't certain which of them had created the dreamscape, but it was familiar, and familiar was helpful in this strange domain. All of this was so exciting and new, Xavier couldn't help but tuck every new piece of information in the back of his mind. He may be able to consider that in the future as they continued to look for something real that could help them contact -
'Rogue!' Professor Xavier reached out; reached towards what he assumed was the center of a dreamer, based on how Rem-Ram guided him. The hallway shifted, much like the nature of dreams, to a street alley in New York. That one in turn shimmered unsteadily, before melting into a somehow narrower, garbage strewn one in Tokyo. But the world twitched and changed, like finding a frequency on a radio, and then they found themselves in one that somehow felt like it was in San Francisco, and a warm easiness to that sunlight. But in a heartbeat, the world contracted and darkened into Genosha…into a prison hallway.
Instead of the place shifting again, it remained solid here, and seemingly was where they needed to go. There were moans and whispers, intermittent shrieks, and someone pleading in a broken voice somewhere far off. A door opened and closed with an erratic, hair-raising squeal. The rhythm wasn't to any form of beat or pattern, and it only served to heighten the fear that permeated the dreamscape.
Xavier didn't want to be here, he knew this place from the very few times Rogue would allow herself to talk about this. It had been a long time since she mentioned her first experience in Genosha, and Charles had foolishly assumed she had learned to live in a new normal, but that was not the case. He looked at their surroundings with a profound sense of failure. He had never done enough for Rogue.
Unknowing of all this, Rem-Ram started to walk towards a jail cell door, but Xavier laid a hand on his arm, halting his progress.
'Value her privacy, my young friend,' Xavier cautioned, before expanding his thoughts, exuding a comforting presence; the one he always used when performing mental therapy with Rogue. It always helped in those tense moments when she was pulled into a traumatic memory of her own, or of any number of the psyches she had absorbed in her young life.
A thought came to him as he did, sparking a memory. Weeks ago, when their home was under mental and physical assault by the Acolytes, he had sent a similar activation word into Rogue's dreaming thoughts. There were various triggers they had all put into the unconscious minds to help them break free of mental states.
For Rogue, like many, one of the words that could snap her from these moments was the word "Family". He used it weeks before, in defense of her against this young man. He uses it here again. He knew that a soft touch here was the best way, the strongest way to catch and hold her attention, especially when Rogue was in a more vulnerable state like she was assuredly now. She needed his hand, someone who knew her. Someone who cared, and she could trust.
He prepared the mental pulse, taking care to craft it gently. As he did, he reflected on how long it had truly been since he had offe-
'But how else will we get to her, Professor? You said we needed to find her and she's right here! Why stop now?' Marcus asked, as he eyed the shimmering light gathering before them. He took an uneasy step back, but the naked hunger to learn was nearly as bright as the mental energy Charles drew to himself.
'Because my young friend, there is an easy way and then there is the right way to achieve one's goals. Watch,' he said before he released a mental pulse towards the jail cell. It sank into the door, soaked into the walls, and radiated outward, like a stone tossed into a tranquil lake. The hallway lights began to flicker, and the entire base began to rumble.
Marcus cried out as Xavier rode with the jostling ground, and Rem-Ram quickly caught on, managing to right himself. Just as he mastered his composure, the tremors ceased. And then, within the span of a few heartbeats, the cell door opened and Rogue's consciousness materialized into the hall, in front of them both.
The door swung shut and Rogue gave a surprised, but warm smile to them both. 'Howdy. Thanks for comin' all this way; prolly wasn't easy.' There was an ease that Marcus seemed surprised by. The oppressive fear of the hallway only just cleared, and she was calm again? Respect radiated from him; it was evident by every action the young man took.
'Rogue, I'm glad we were able to reach you. I feared the worst, as the nation fell to chaos. Are you alright? Will you tell my young friend Rem-RamMarcusRem-Ram and me what has happened?'
Introductions, and explanations happened swiftly, instinctually, much as fast as dreams and thought exchanges can occur. Before more than a few heartbeats passed, the trio was caught up, appraised. He and Rem-Ram were made aware of Pietro's dilemma, while she was told of the length and extent of the coup, as well as her own situation. Xavier resolved to search for those answers next, but for now they needed to figure out what to do regarding Rogue's predicament.
Now that Rogue was out of her cycling dreaming/nightmare state - and she never wanted to experience that again - she was able to get caught up on what happened while she was out like a snuffed candle.
Rogue gathered her lifetime of experience, and her confidence. She could do this. 'So the way Ah see it,' she summed up as the pair completed their explanations. 'The Zealot's gonna make Magneto come here, like yer sayin'. That means he's ain't expecting resistance.'' Rogue crossed her arms and grinned at the pair.
'How little does he know of us X-Men,' Professor Xavier agreed and smiled back at her. Marcus gave the two an astonished look. 'There is always overconfidence. And we fare so very well when our opponents make that costly mistake of underestimating us,' he finished.
"Ah think Ah can find a way to take the threat from the Zealot, but I need a lil'help. Mind givin' me a hand at wakin' up, you two?" she asked and barely a moment later, she felt herself beginning to depart this place. She quickly gave thanks to both of them with a cheerful smile while waving as her form began to shimmer. The dreamscape faded and she swiftly rose through the levels of waking. She wasn't perfectly refreshed, but she was feeling more than eager to take on the Zealot, and any of his flunkies. She was ready, and focused for this.
She just had to open her eyes in the waking world, and in a moment she would do so.
They'd never see what was coming.
'I don't understand.' Marcus protested as the dreamscape drifted away like grains of sand in an afterwind. 'She showed us she was still collared, and she's in the middle of a fort with nothing! All we did was wake her up. How can she be so calm?'
Professor Charles Xavier had perfected this knowing, peaceful smile long ago; it rose to his lips naturally.
'My students aren't defined solely by the strength of their powers, but also the strength of their hearts and minds. Rogue is more than any collar could ever hope to try and contain. She will be fine, my young friend. All she needed was assistance in her waking and now that we have played our part, the rest is in her capable hands.'
Rogue woke with no headache, no pain, but her wrists wrapped in a locked zip-tie behind her back, and that collar around her neck. As she sat up and assessed her situation with a fast, discerning eye, she didn't feel any fear for her predicament. There was noise in the base, somewhere far off from her closed door. She could hear something outside; something that sounded like trouble. Rogue grinned with a grim sort of satisfaction. In this instance, right now, she liked trouble. It sounded like it was for others.
Perhaps the people they captured in the base were fighting back? Cortez and the Zealot hired Fenris International - and while it was an organization, Rogue knew from the backchannels and conversations that heroes had through their various grapevines, it's one of the least effective, ill-trained, worst organizations one could hire.
Now upright, she carefully flexed and warmed her muscles up after lying on the floor for who knows how long.
'Thoughtful of 'em. Didn't even warrant a pillow,' she grumped as her body felt ready to do what Kurt taught her. All of his time in the circus left him limber, and long ago, before the Morlock Massacre, her brother taught her a few tricks he had learned through the years. One of those included how to rotate limbs without causing too much pain or overexertion. It took even less time than her isotonic muscle warm-up activities, especially since time was limited.
Once she got her body feeling a bit less stiff, she set about to her next task. Now seated again, Rogue worked herself into bringing her arms to the front of her body so she could handle the next problem. Zip-ties, while tough, weren't impossible to escape from. All the X-Men were taught how to escape various methods of containment, and fortunately, these makeshift cuffing devices were among the easiest.
A squeal of the ridged plastic later, Rogue's hands were free. Rubbing at the chafed skin on her wrists; no gloves, but at least she had shoes, Rogue went and tested the doorknob. It opened to the hallway, and Rogue tried to cover her shock. It wasn't even locked. Rogue wanted to feel insulted by this, but managed to keep her incredulity and rueful humor in the moment. This whole operation was overconfident, or unaware of who they dealt with, and the Zealot had another thing coming for his hubris.
Rogue kept the jumbled voices in her mind at the back, trying to ignore all the helpful advice mixed in with the typical rabble. She was good at doing this, she spent more of her life managing this than not, and it was old hat for her to discern which noises were real, and which were imaginary. It was a good thing there were many specters of heroes as well as villains in her mind. It was forever a battle in there.
It was a battle out here too. After realizing her captors had been slain at her doorway, she continued forward, weaponless, but no longer at an impossible disadvantage. In a few turns of hallways - Rogue wasn't certain where she was going and took it upon herself to begin exploring - she began to hear and see signs of life. Well, signs of fighting anyway. There were gouges where bullets slammed into walls, and tears of other nature as well, as if someone bestial fought here. Rogue was without weaponry at the moment, and the lack of it made her feel too vulnerable. She had to find a way to help Magneto, to help Genosha, and keep this coup from succeeding.
What she, the Professor, and Marcus planned was simple: She needed to find the base's control room and turn off the force field. The former ruling party of Genosha feared mutants so much that many of their forts doubled as protective areas. The force fields they generated could withstand a great deal of assault, allowing the flatscan Genoshans time to regroup if their mutate population got out of control.
That was likely how the Zealot planned to trap Magnus in an impossible situation. Both the Professor and Rem-Ram; and he seemed like a sweet kid who was easy to mislead, reported the challenge the Zealot had declared, balancing Rogue's life against civilians. It made Rogue madder than the snake that married the garden hose. She wasn't some pawn for the Zealot to dangle, and she certainly wasn't a damsel in distress. Rogue didn't sit around and wait for others to come and get her, that had never been her role in life.
But now she was thrust into this position, and finding it an ill fit, she resolved to do something about it. Padding carefully around the hallways, she first found nothing except a map that thankfully labeled portions of the base. Certainly, it didn't have a big arrow pointing to "Important Control Room Here", but with it, she was able to use the skills that Logan had drilled into every X-Man regarding standard base set up.
She made her way, utilizing all the skills her mother Raven, her mentors and teammates Logan and Ororo, and even Remy's tricks he taught her through the years. In so many ways, Rogue was an intellectual sponge. Her powers took other people's abilities and memories, making them hers, and so too did her active attention. Through the years she was trained so thoroughly, lived others lives vicariously through her head. Not all of her fugue states were under duress as a phantom voice tried to rise up and take her attention for their own, sometimes she was reminiscing, reviewing, preparing. Most folks, save her closest friends, knew the difference between her moments of inward reflection. Then again, it wasn't like most asked, after all.
That preparation, training, and lectures played out very fortunately for her now. Rogue stole through the base, avoiding fights with more than three enemies, but never not holding back if it came to it. Over time, she managed to secure herself a (nearly empty) gun, and more helpfully a knife. She left the gun for only the most extreme needs, and fortunately, its greatest needs were to blow the lock out the few doors that were barred to her.
Magneto was, unsurprisingly, grim-faced as he flew towards the fortress that the Zealot had declared as his own. He wanted to say that his face hid a fury that his nascent rule was already threatened, but it was a lie. He would not bend a knee to such a falsehood. He was angry, yes, but truly it was at the lives that hung in the balance from this fanatical despot. Innocent people, who had only just begun to trust in the rule of law, in the idea of peace through brotherhood - through true equality - had been so deeply scarred by this selfish ideologue.
However, it wasn't just the innocent he worried about, though he did list his son and Rogue amongst those who did not deserve pain and violence. Especially since this was visited upon them by their association with him. He heard what Cortez had said while he tried to sap Magneto's strength, and very nearly succeeded. Despite Cortez's best efforts, he could not contain the entirety of Magneto's life-force. Magneto didn't want to dwell on his own mortality, but it was better than contemplating his own son's.
However, that was part of why he was flying now towards this usurped fortress. While Amelia Voght and the mutates worked to preserve his son's life, Magneto found himself being forced to listen to a page who barged past Scanner, while she tried to hold them back. But they were insistent, and after turning on the nearest television, Magneto saw why.
The Zealot sat at the center of a long horseshoe table, stating some long, drawn out speech that had been clearly planned by him. Even though it rambled on about causality, the blood soaked land choosing its ruler and its sins, one thing was clear. "Come; declare for whom you stand for. This country, or your own selfish needs! I await you, false king. Come and meet the mechanism that spells your doom!"
The message was on a constant repeat, across the country. The challenge was made. Magneto had to face this man, had to snuff out the last of this rebellion, and he would have to choose his heart or this nation. It was almost laughable; did the Zealot not know anything about Magneto?
Despite his anger, his thoughts begin to drift as he is nearly at the base; he can tell where it is in the distance, just on the edge of the horizon. But yes, his mind wanders; can he truly blame himself while she is there? Guilt, a small thing, but with sharp teeth gnaws at him as his mind continues to cast back into memory. It begins with her as a very young woman dancing with him, and then the next was when he saw her as a woman walking to her death, the joy he felt at her alive, the fear seeing her being beaten nearly to death in the Savage Land, the relief at the rescue and rejuvenation. A hero she was, twice over and then again. She could survive this, he had every confidence in her.
The Zealot sent his brethren out to fight the rabble that had come, the riotous prisoners he had procured so carefully, and the cowardly Fenris International. Could anything else go wrong?! He pulled back as a group of ragged people, some mutant, some mutate - the tattooed foreheads and ragged skinsuits told their tale - but mostly human, were making their way through the halls. He wanted to stop them, but the mutants and mutates were astonishingly, impossibly protecting the humans. How, why could they possibly side with their oppressors?! It was lost upon the Zealot as the group trod down towards what they seemingly thought was their salvation.
He had sent the last of his troops out to secure the fiercely contested base. Which meant that when the radios announced that the X-Man Rogue was loose amongst the base, he was furious, but had no one to tell it to. Could no one in this miserable fort manage to do a single thing right?! So now, alone, he was searching through the compound, following the trail of bodies Rogue had left in her wake. She had been ruthless, using concussive take-down methods where possible, and only lethal force at the last moment. Was she making her way to the command room? How could she possibly know that? But then again, how was she awake? Dwam had assured him that those who fell to his gaze were asleep for a full day, and it hadn't even been half that yet. And yet here she was; awake, alert, and on the move.
She was more than the Zealot expected.
He nearly allowed himself to reflect on that sentiment. He didn't want to admit aloud, but in the privacy of his mind, he could consider what a waste of a fine mutant she was. It was nearly a shame to kill her, but someone that destructive couldn't be allowed to live. For the good of Genosha, of course.
The radio crackled as he brought it to life. He sent out the terse command to his brethren, "she must die."
Finally, after a few tense moments that included a few timely gunshots, Rogue found her way into the connecting hallway for the Central Command room. She found a pair of Fenris International guards picking over the corpse of one of the faithful soldiers of Genosha who had been shot - presumably by those two operatives. They were looking for his keys, apparently to get into the nearby Central Control.
Rogue used the last two shots on the first of the Fenris International stooges, catching him once in the vest, the second in the neck. He fell to the ground. Swinging the pistol back, she whipped it across the second man's face, before using her other hand to punch him in the throat. She wasn't pulling her punches, and while she had taken a couple of lumps here and there; and someone had grazed her right arm with something, leaving a long gash along her upper arm.
It's a good thing no one was tracking her, because she barely bothered to do much beyond grabbing a discarded cloth - looked to be a small child's jacket - and swiftly fashioned a makeshift bandage with it. The clean jacket swiftly began soaking up her blood, but it kept it from dripping on the floor any further. Satisfied, and hoping the owner of the jacket was safe and out of the building, she continued.
Unlocking the door with those same keys, Rogue stepped into the room, checking the controls out. Genosha was a former totalitarian apartheid state; that meant they spent a great deal of their money in controlling their citizenry. The technology here was high level, and sophisticated.
High level and sophisticated if you weren't an X-Man with decades of experience in your mind. Rogue couldn't use perfect recall - Hank was the genius, not her - but she knew enough from all the lives she absorbed to make her way through the system. Thankfully, she managed to start typing furious commands into the machine that were reacted to almost immediately. Thank goodness for state paranoia; the defense mechanisms were always swift.
She was nearly through all the commands; power shutdown was imminent.
Magneto was nearly at the base and had decided on his course of action long ago. He would prepare a localized electromagnetic pulse; one just strong enough to affect the local area. The base would be useless after, completely inoperable, but it would be a small price to pay to defang the Zealot of his ability to hold his people hostage.
That had been the plan, until Magneto came closer. He saw that even though the forcefield was erected, there was visible signs of battle all around the perimeter of the base. The people of Genosha were fighting back, and it was rather clear they were winning.
Emboldened, Magneto prepared the pulse, on the edge of releasing it when suddenly, the entire half-dome winked out of existence. Cheers were almost heard, an increase of high wind susurrus. Magneto moved forward, no longer needing to render all the equipment down there unviable. But where was the Zealot?
With the forcefield down, humans, mutants, and mutates fought with renewed vigor with ready escape at their back. They were fiercer now, knowing freedom even closer, and against their oppressors, their fighting took on a new edge, seeing their efforts supported. They fought for Magneto, they fought for Genosha. They fought for their countrymen, mutant or flatscan. All the prisoners were united together as they battled against the invaders, and the invaders buckled.
As Rogue let out a sigh of relief, her task complete, so relieved, so enamored with her handwork, she almost didn't hear the door behind her opening.
"I was warned an X-Man was formidable, and I didn't respect that advice."
As the Zealot entered the room, she turned, both panting in exertion. Though he had only just now caught up to her, he was too late to stop her handiwork. The force field was down. Everything was down in the building now, save the emergency lights. Those that could were fighting, and the handful of swiftly trained fighters the Zealot had managed to recruit were not the most adept at fighting mutants and regular folk desperate for freedom. She spun around to meet the co-creator of all this madness.
"Allow me to rectify that; and heed it now," he said, before Rogue grunted as she felt a wave of seismic energy slam into her, knocking her back against the console. She was determined to live, but she also felt satisfied she had defanged the Zealot's attack. If her life ended here, she-
Rogue gripped a nearby item, the first thing she could find - a microphone on a stand - and yanked it from the console. She flung it at the Zealot and threw herself to one side; the Zealot's blast of seismic activity made her dodge less of a leap and more of a trip, but she was out of the way as the microphone was repelled and flung back.
The whole base rattled suddenly, and Rogue stumbled awkwardly, even more so than when she was just thrown off balance. He staggered, while she tumbled to the floor. As she looked up, a swiftly recovered Zealot still stood in the doorway and raised one hand.
"It's almost a pity," he murmured as he stepped forward. "Almost," he hissed with venom in his voice. "Farewell X-Man; you were far more trouble than you were worth."
The tips of spears made of stone and earth came within a breath of touching her; until the truth of the reason the base rocked so wildly became apparent. Magneto had arrived.
Magneto, supported by his countryman, tore through the base, and aside from marking their positions in his mind as an afterthought he paid them no further mind. He found Rogue, was focused on her unerringly as he ripped the floors and ceilings apart. The Master of Magnetism was a short-handed appellation. He was the Master of Electromagnetism, and that was a vastly wider scale and scope than most humans could see and sense. He knew Rogue, he had memorized her own personal bioelectric, biomagnetic, and other signatures that most other organisms on this planet would memorize a phone number. He found her without needing to see. He knew.
It was the same as with his eyes he beheld the scene before him. He saw her lying on the ground a moment before the Zealot's attack could touch her and acted swiftly. It was child's play to send three and a half floors of debris to smash the Zealot's efforts to dust, grind it into oblivion while sparing her.
A perfect cylindrical column of metal cold welded together in an instant protected her from any of the potential rock, debris, or uncontrollable objects as he destroyed the spikes. He wanted to take the moment to check on her, but there was too much still at hand to focus on.
The Zealot's hand reared back, a look of fanatical devotion as the earth around him formed to his will. That was the Zealot's problem, and Magneto reflected on that sentiment as he continued his action, with a snarl on his own face. For Magneto, it was simplicity itself to let the parts of the building he had held back before streak towards the Zealot. Much of it still contained the rubble it had been pulled from. In fact, the majority of the debris he chose to hold back for this moment, this assault on the Zealot.
Against gravity, concrete, steel, more thick metal girders, reinforcements, and bolts; the Zealot stood no chance. There was a brief shriek, lost in the rain of detritus. Magneto did not hear the man's last sound as he died, but he saw it. He felt it. That was something few save those who knew his mind had ever understood. A Master of Magnetism meant he saw, felt in ways others never did. He felt that death, just as he felt the others who had died by his hand through the years. Rarely had one felt this satisfying.
He should not have felt pleased with this many deaths on this day. But he did, and he wouldn't deny himself, lie to himself. He wouldn't allow himself such weak luxuries. He was not responsible for their deaths, their choices had led them down this path. He would take no ownership of their poor decision making.
Especially, particularly, as Pietro, oh Pietro, his son. Quicksilver, a hero for longer than most heroes had careers, had imperiled himself to save the day, to snatch victory from the hands of defeat. Magneto's heart trip-hammered as he thought of the massive injuries Pietro sustained on his behalf. On Genosha's behalf.
He wanted to kill the Zealot and Cortez all over again.
"Are you alright, Rogue?" Magneto asked to force himself back to the here and now. He was grateful that his eyes were hidden by the helm and the gloom; it was already night apparently, he hadn't noticed the setting sun in his trials of the day. He almost didn't want to hear her response. He wanted to go to her, move forward, but something - perhaps the dreaded certainty that this was the end of their relationship - held him back. His throat was dry.
The rest of the fort's remains were shoved back as he used that same thick cylinder of metal now to fan out, and allow her passage. Even in this darkness Magnus knew where she was, and he didn't need the light of that accursed thing at her throat to know where she stood. The collar around her neck made a popping noise before snapping off. It was whisked away and crumpled into a tight, inert ball. It fell heavily to the ground, forgotten.
"Yes," she replied, almost completely swallowed by the darkness of the room. Her voice sounded small, reserved. Breathless, but not hurt. Perhaps just shock at the slapdash, last second rescue then. He couldn't find it in himself to blame her; it had been a near run thing.
She would leave him now, he knew it. Who would blame him for thinking that? Especially based on their past, he could only assume the worst. "I am glad," he said, his heart somehow still beating while torn in two.
Rogue was safely encircled within a spherical cylinder of solid metal. Nothing was going to reach her, and with one somewhat shaky hand -
'Ah'm not dead…' the thought played repeatedly as that trembling hand touched the cylinder around her. She heard something loud, a shriek. Rogue got to her feet, intuiting what that cacophony of sounds were. There were many; bangs, clangs, and something wet and meatlike sounded before the cylinder around her peeled away like petals of a flower, fanning out around to shove the debris away, and provide an easy exit for her to use.
The collar was deactivated and pulled from her neck easily. Just as easily was it forced into oblivion as Magneto wadded it up and tossed it aside without seemingly another thought.
"Are you alright, Rogue?" His voice sounded so calm.
"Yes," she replied in a voice that was slightly unsteady. It had been a near run thing; his arrival. If he had been even a few breaths late, she would not have survived. Instead, there was a pile of rubble with a small trickle of blood oozing out to one side of the room; where she remembered that the Zealot had stood. Now, all that was left was…the remains.
"I am glad." Why was he so formal, so stiff with her? "I will anticipate your departure-"
"My what?" she echoed blankly as she automatically activated her flight and levitated off the ground. How good was it to take to the air again!
"I will assume you are leavi-" his statement broke off as she flew to him, swiftly embracing him and kissing him with every ounce of her focus. She wanted to will her powers back, trying for the umpteenth time to slow the transfer of memories, abilities, and life force.
But she felt his strength enter her, and he had so much. It almost paled in comparison to what she felt in how he regarded her. Erik's thoughts flashed through her, a small range of memories, seemingly often at the fore of his mind. The first thing she saw was the fear for Pietro, and that Magnus felt a great debt was owed to the young, swift hero.
But in the next second she was thrust into a new memory. It was from his perspective of course; it was when he held her in his arms as a young woman dancing with him, her face relaxing from wary perfection to enthusiastic joy. The next memory was so shortly after and the cold fear that gripped his heart and spine when he saw her as a woman grown, flowering at the peak of health, so proudly walking to her death in Dallas to right a wrong years in the making. She recalled the joy he felt at next unexpectedly seeing her alive in the Savage Land. That went hand in hand with the grip of fear in his throat at seeing her being beaten nearly to death. And of course, his relief at the rescue and rejuvenation.
Memories flew, faster and faster. She saw how the coup fared; how quickly it rose - ugh, Cortez. What a terrible decision to include the Fenris Twins, of all people them? Really?! - and how swiftly they fell. Not just fell, died. She felt Magnus' satisfaction at quelling the head of the uprisers, and seeing their deaths, she had to admit there was a similar grim finality within her to knowing the three earned and received their reward for all their efforts.
'An' Vanisher will need to be found,' she thought to herself grimly, as she pulled back from the kiss. She said as much aloud, and Magneto nodded in grim agreement.
"Is Pietro alright, sugah?" she asked, her voice full of worry as she kept close to Magneto who rose into the air. She lifted herself along with him, but when he gathered her into his arms, she let him. It made it easier to talk as they returned to Hammer Bay. As much as Magneto wanted to stay, she saw in his mind that he knew he needed to return to the capital, not wait here at this one fort. He had more than this area to keep an eye on.
"He was stable when I left the city," Magneto said steadily, but Rogue knew him. She had seen him in adverse situations. From the Mutant Massacre to the Savage Land, to the wreck of the Leningrad. She knew his facial expressions, from the grand to the small, from a myriad of situations and times. She could clearly see here that he was worried. She pressed a hand to the side of his face in commiseration as he took them back to the capital. His hands tightened on her, and his head leaned against her hand.
"I ain't goin' anywhere," she reiterated, feeling the need to restate it again. "Let's go see what's what," she said. His head tilted down, and she pulled her head up to him, meeting his lips in an anticipatory kiss. Her powers flared, she tried to pull back as she always did, and as for him, he would not deny her a thing.
Perhaps that's why she was able to absorb him without his loss of control, or sense of self? Power aside - and power he had plenty - she thought this might be a factor regarding her abilities. After all, way back when in Japan, she and Logan -
She snapped herself back to the present. She didn't have time for idle musing right now. The day was far from over as there was still work to be done. Most importantly, God willing, there was a loved one to be reunited with.
