1. A Little Backstory

_**Truly Rogue**_

_An alternate universe fiction by fudje based on _X-Men: Evolution_. If Mystique taught Rogue about mutants and her own powers from the very start, and treated her a little more as a child and not purely a power source, what would that have meant for the young southerner?_

Disclaimer: '_X-Men_,' the '_X-Men: Evolution_' storyline, and all related characters are property of Marvel Comics. I don't own a thing, only my warped perversion of the story, and they have the right to take even that away. Story is not party to the traditional good vs. bad sides. Represents the views of the X-Men as often naïve and sometimes stupid. Contains sexual references that are not advisable to be realised in the real world. Not recommended for mass consumption whilst on low-intellect diets. Produced in a plant owned by a nut.

* * *

_A Little Backstory_

Mystique smiled as she hung up the phone. So, it would be soon? Good thing she'd bought an expensive present for her next visit to her little girl, then. Picking up a little velvet box from her dressing table, the blue mutant opened it and surveyed the necklace inside. On a black leather thong was a brass pendant of Celtic design. Inside a simple knot engraved on the pendant was the Ogham rune _Ruis_, the Elder, embossed with silver. Both fitting and ironic, she thought.

"Avalanche!" she called, snapping the box closed again.

The orphan ran hastily to her room, but chose wisely to stop at the door. "What is it, Mystique?" he asked.

"I want you and Toad to stay away from Xavier's kids for the next few days," the shapeshifter replied in a commanding tone. "They shall soon be departing for Mississippi to recruit a new mutant and I do **not** want them distracted. Understand?"

Lance frowned and proceeded to ask a question that would have been suicidal had Mystique not been in such a good mood. "There's already four of them, and they have that Wolverine guy. Shouldn't we be recruiting, too?"

Instead of yelling at, pounding, or otherwise being mad at him, Mystique smirked. "Don't you worry about that, young Avalanche. They will not be successful."

Something clicked in the boy's head. "Should we–"

"Your presence will not be required. I only have to sow a little doubt in the girl's mind on the intentions of the X-Men, and she will come to us."

"I-if you s-say so, Mystique," Lance stuttered. It really did creep him when she spoke with so much confidence about the future. "I mean, y-you're the boss." He didn't need to wait to know he was dismissed.

Mystique smiled wider as the boy disappeared. '_She's already mine, anyway,_' she thought as she slipped a ribbon around the box. '_My little Rogue. I still remember when we adopted her…._'

* * *

Irene looked at the bundle in her friend's hands. She may have been blind, but that didn't prevent her from seeing. "You are planning to look after her well, aren't you?" she asked. "You know how your son, Graydon, feels about you."

"He's more Victor's son than mine," cursed Mystique. "And it's not my fault that overgrown ball of fur wouldn't look after him."

"It was you who deposited him in that boarding school," chided Destiny. "And you other son? The blue one?"

"Kurt?" A moment of sadness washed over the shapeshifter – all that Irene needed to be sure, but brief nonetheless. "He's in the best care he could be, now. Gypsy folk, and a circus too. With how he is, it's the best place for him until he's old enough to look after himself, and he certainly doesn't need to be attached to _my_ affairs. He's fragile, you know?"

Destiny smiled. Then she frowned slightly. "She's about to wake up, Raven."

Mystique morphed into the form of a tall and strict woman hardly a second before the child she was holding woke up. The four year old blinked a few times as her new mother set her down on the ground, and refused to step far away from her.

"It's okay, dear," Raven said, "this woman is a friend."

Irene reached a hand out towards the girl. "My name's Irene. What's yours?" she asked.

The girl stepped backwards away from the seer, but Mystique pushed her forward. "Don't know," she said.

This puzzled Destiny, but she smiled anyway. "Well, we're going to have to find out, aren't we? What's a name you like?"

"Do I _have_ to have a name?" complained the girl.

"It does help you get along in life," explained Raven. "So people know who you are."

"I don't care," exclaimed the four year old. "I don't need a name, 'cause I can be anyone!"

This took Irene and Raven by surprise. It was almost as if she somehow knew…. Finally, Raven broke the silence. "Well, you _are_ quite the little rogue, aren't you?"  
Little did she know that this branding would stick.

The child smiled mischievously. "I had a friend called Anna once," she offered. "If I need something to go by, I suppose that would do." She then glared at Raven. "Do that thing – be funny coloured again!"

Raven was again startled, but quickly smiled at the girl. She morphed back into her true self. "Well, well. You're quite the attentive one, too. Anna it is then?"

The girl shrugged. "If I have to. How do you do that?" she asked curiously.

Mystique appeared to be making a hard decision for a moment, and then relaxed and sat down on a couch. She patted her knee, and much to the surprise of both adults, 'Anna' immediately rushed over and sat on it, reading her new mother's face attentively.

"Well, let me tell you a story. There are a few people in this world who are special. Gifted. I am one, Irene is one, and one day you too shall be one. A very special one indeed…."

Irene was amazed by the amount of trust that this girl put in Mystique, but decided it was for the best. The child did, after all, seem otherwise to be extraordinarily intelligent.

* * *

Thus is was that Anna, who soon acquired the nickname 'Rogue,' around both the house and when she started school, began a new life with the mutants Mystique and Destiny. Learning all about her kind and what she would become, helping to unravel Irene's prophecies and learning the techniques of living that Raven employed. She was eager to reach her full potential, and learned fast. Rogue had become an agile and athletic fighter and a knowledgeable student of many arts by the time she was thirteen, a fateful age when she would spend the last of her time under the direct care of her adoptive mother, and meet for the first time a boy nearing manhood who would teach her even more about the arts of deception, espionage, and secrecy.

* * *

Jean-Luc surveyed the crowd on the streets of New Orleans, his hand on his surrogate son's shoulder. He was looking for two things, one specific, the other less so. A contact and a target. He spied a wealthily dressed man in the crowd and tapped on his son's shoulder. When there was no response, he looked down at him, and then followed his gaze. Standing not far away from the girl that he was staring at was the very person the thief was looking for, though Jean-Luc felt sure his son didn't even know of this secondary mission.

"Remy, stop staring at les filles," he vituperated.

The boy looked up at Jean-Luc, although his sunglasses denied his face true expression. «Mais papa, elle est si _tres_ belle….»

The master thief glared at his son. "Dis is your last test, mon fils. Don't fail us." Then he looked up to see where the target he'd found was. Seeing the man standing at a shop window, he didn't point, but just asked Remy, «Tu le vois?»

Remy nodded, and didn't wait for instruction before he was off. He'd blended into the crowd within seconds.

Jean-Luc looked back towards the woman and child. "Henri?" he suggested.

Another boy, a little older than Remy, appeared from out of the darkness «Oui, papa?»

"De Lady Mystique, Henri. Elle est ici."

"You found her already?"

"Thank ton frère's wanderin' eyes."

Henri shook his head. "Remy, Remy, Remy. 'E is one pour les filles, isn't he?"

…

"Not that Ah'm complainin', by why are we in New Orleans, mom?" A teenaged girl with pied hair, dressed in black leather leggings, a navy blue sleeveless button top, and combat boots was walking with another woman, her mother, who had long black hair and wore a very _specifically_ casual blouse with jeans and walking boots. "You said you'd tell me when we got here."

Raven smiled. "Of course, dear. The time has come for me to go up north, as you know, and there is someone I'd like you to meet before we part. His profession encourages skills that will be of great use to you, and he has need to leave home for a while before he marries. As such, I have arranged for a mutual–"

"You're not expecting me to, you know, … with him?" Rogue asked, shocked.

Her mother smirked. "No, nothing like that. He is already betrothed. Besides, I gather from your colleagues at school that you get around to quite bit of 'you know, …' yourself."

The girl looked away and at the ground. "I don't know what you're talking about," she started to explain.

Raver laughed. "Now I _know_ that you don't care that I know about your exploits; I taught you to lie better than that."

Rogue looked up, smiling. "I figure you have to get what you can, when you can," she said. There wasn't so much as a trace of red on her cheeks.

"You'll still get yours after you've begun to be, dear. Just there won't be too many people who'll be able to get any from you."

Rogue suddenly pulled Raven to the ground, just _before_ an arrow bounced off the pavement near them. While the arrow was not expected, the premature reaction was. Just from the amount of control that Mystique had already taught her adopted daughter, even the part of her power that was present even when non-manifest had become usable. It was probably the very same thing that meant she didn't have a blood mother. The amount of time that Rogue spend with Irene and herself, with frequent physical contact, had meant that Rogue had started to absorb if not their memories, then a little of their power. Even without concentrating, the girl already had the kind of psychic awareness that only second sight could bring, and her appearance, whilst not as flexible as that of a true shapeshifter, was malleable to the subtle hints of difference that meant, among other things, that she could change herself to appear more attractive to any male target.

Now was not the time for that, however. "Th' Assassins are _already_ after y'?!" A Cajun man asked, pulling Raven to her feet, and a boy offered his hand to Rogue. She blinked and took it, sensing that her mother was relaxed, and the two were whisked into a dark alley and from there another, and then down a manhole into a tunnel. They then were led through a few more, before finally coming to a well lit tunnel-alley, that was for some reason or other furnished with tables, lounges, desks, and a pool table. There was a bar on one wall, and there was another boy there, somewhere between the age of the first and Rogue herself, leaning against the bar, sorting some monetary notes with his gloved hands.

Without looking up, he said «Deux mille, trois cent et quarante-sept, Jean-Luc»

"Dat all?" asked the man.

The boy started rubbing his thumb against his fingers on his free hand. It was clearly a nervous reaction, as his breathing started to become erratic, and as though it were somehow possible, his head sunk lower than it already was. "I c'n go back out dere, get mo'" he started.

"Merde, Remy, when _I_ did m' solo finale, I managed a total of eighty five dollars," said the boy who had helped Rogue. "Admit'dly, it were wor't more."

Remy straightened up and grinned, his chest proudly inflated. "Yeah, Henri, a whole ten cents mo'." Then he noticed the two women for the first time. He quickly hid his eyes and grabbed at a pair of sunglasses nearby on the bar. Fumbling with them, he cried out before tossing them away with a flick of his wrist. Just as they bounced off the floor, they exploded violently. "Aw, crap," he muttered under his breath.

"It's okay," said Mystique, "You can let us see them."

Remy lowered his hand (that was still holding the money), to see that the dark-haired lady was now red haired, and had blue skin. His strange burning red eyes seemed to pale in comparison. He also noted that the girl was the same one he'd been watching in the arcade earlier.

"Is that the guy?" Rogue asked.

Jean-Luc smirked at this. "Non, petite, not Remy." He walked over to the boy and embraced him in one arm, patting him on the back. "Well done Remy. Now don' spend it all at once."

«Que?» As far as the young thief was aware, that money was now the property of the Guild, and spending it would be stealing from them. Sure, he'd stolen from them before, but he hadn't even heard of them then, and now he was a member. As of just now, a _full_ member.

Henri laughed. "On y' final test, you get to keep your winnings. Et toi, mon frère, you hit de jackpot, y' lucky rat."

"Even if it's wort' mo' than de Masters norm'ly get each in a single run, it's tr'dition," continued Jean-Luc. "Can't fight tradition."

"Now go buy y'self a belle femme for de night or sum'tin," Henri finished.

Rogue watched the boy leave. "Well, dayamn," she said. "If only."

Henri laughed. "All de filles say dat at first. But Remy, he's just a charmer. He's even got dat nightshade belle hankerin' after 'im." He shuddered. "Poor guy."

"Is she ugaly or something?" asked Rogue

"Far from't. But she's an evil wench if e'er there were one." Henri then picked up on the gratuitous syllable. "Y' want me t' teach a river rat?" he asked his father.

"You always said y' fav'rd a challenge," Jean-Luc stated simply, folding his arms.

"But a river rat? Dey're so slow…."

"Ah'll make ya eat those words," Rogue retorted.

"Oh? So lessee what y' got…." Henri pulled a metal rod from his boot, and then twisted on it a little. It extended to the full six foot quarter-staff, and he grinned.

His smirk was short lived however, as Rogue was already airborne. Henri hardly had time to deflect her right foot before she already hit him with her left, and soon the girl was standing behind him, restraining his arms with his own staff. Trying to use this to his advantage, he started to flip her over his back, but just after he'd commit to the move, she let go of his arms so that instead he lost his balance and fell over forwards. He rolled up quickly enough, but the fight continued much the same, every time he attacked her she'd somehow end up restraining him with the staff, and he was unable to properly counter her attacks. Finally she ducked under a swing and somehow came up between him and his staff, twisted it out of his grip and then wrapped around him so that now she was behind him again, and was holding the staff close up against his neck.

"Y're as bad as Remy," Henri gasped. "Y'lways seem to know wha'm gunna do!"

"Nah, y'all are just slow," Rogue teased before twisting around Henri again and tripping him to the floor, flinging herself down so that they were in a very compromising position, but Henri more so as the staff was now crushing his neck against the floor. Releasing the pressure on it, Rogue leaned in and kissed him, forcing her tongue into his mouth.

When she finally let up, Henri said, "I take dat back. Y' worse than Remy."

Rogue smiled. "So, that's what someone eatin' their words sounds lahke." Her thigh was pressed into his groin, and she could most definitely feel it made him uncomfortable. She pushed down harder, lowering herself so that they were closer together in that region. Henri became exponentially more uncomfortable.

"'d say so," interjected Jean-Luc. "Ain't it lucky that ain't what he's s'posed t' be teachin' you 'bout?"

"Quite," said Mystique. "Now stop molesting the lad before he explodes, Anna. Unlike the boys you spend your time with back home, he's probably actually old enough to do so."

Ignoring the use of her 'real' name, Rogue grinned and opted to slide her hand up Henri's leg towards the fly of his trousers instead. Henri's eyes grew wide as she did this, and he managed to pull enough self control together to flip Rogue off of him, get up, and run away at high speed. The Mississippi gal waited until her own laughing had subsided before pushing herself up off the floor.

"Rogue," Mystique chided, barely holding in a grin of her own, "that wasn't nice."

Jean-Luc was much less reserved with his smirk. "So, th' boy has t' go an' change 'is pants." He shrugged.

Rogue, still smiling, shook her head. "So what _is_ he supposed to be teachin' me?"

Mystique inhaled deeply and sighed. "In a nutshell," she said, "subtlety."

_To be continued…._

* * *

So, there you are. First chapter of my procastrinatory diversion from writers' tectonic chasm (I missed swapping plates before the earthquake happened). You may find that I will be intertwining writing this and Mystical Children, even when I'm not suffering from review-induced derailment as I am now. There are reasons for this, a primary one being that my imagination is, essentially, sick, and I need to syphon off the sickness so that it doesn't invade my other writing so much.  
You read right, It's not Remy teaching her about the Way of the Thief, it's his foster brother. I have deliberately made him much younger than he actually is. Don't worry, they're not being paired. I don't really write like that anyway, and it's not in the nature of this fic.  
If you're good and review quick, you get to help decide on the contents of chapter two. Shall it be a montage of Henri teaching Rogue how to be silent and deadly (with the occasional insertion of Remy for the sake of posterity and the god of Setup), or do I dive straight in to retelling '_Rogue Recruit_'? Note that the former option will force me to ramp the rating of the fic prematurely for reasons that should be fairly obvious (you've probably noticed by now Rogue's modified personality), which I'd rather not do because I get the distinct impression that people don't check the R fics much unless they're tracking them, and I want to attract an actual readership before I do that. That said, I'll do it if more than half of the potential people who might give a damn ask for it.  
That said, please tell me if you've already done something along these lines so I can take preventative measures against repetition and apparent plagiarism.  
Again, please now set your revumeter to maximum :·D  
Before you ask, yes, I've been in the thesaurus. 'Vituperate' is a real verb (so is 'defenestrate,' but I ain't thrown anyt'in out any windows).

If you want to know why Ruis is both fitting and ironic for Rogue, it is because the Elder tree is traditionally a dream-stealer _and_ employed as a medicinal herb.

Long phrases of French you may not understand: (I feel most should be obvious, but hey. I don't normally do this anyway).  
«Deux mille, trois cent et quarante-sept» – 2 347  
«Mais papa, elle est si tres belle.» – "But papa, she is so very beautiful."  
«Tu le vois?» – "You see him?"  
«Elle est ici.» – "She is here."


	2. Rogue Recruit

Okay, Out of ten reviews (first nine within 24 hours – a record for my writing, both in speed of growth and reviews per chapter), a total of two people offered an opinion on continuing the backstory. Both suggested that the story of Rogue growing up had to be told, however the anonymous WickedWitch suggested another thing – to tell it in flashbacks. I believe this can work for Rogue, and will be following this excellent suggestion. Sorry if you wanted a chapter or two dedicated to Rogue's growing up – you should have said so.  
FYI, the last chapter was all 'flashback' apart from the first section. One person at least was confused, so I assume more were.  
On with the story.

* * *

_Rogue Recruit_

An uninformed, if skilled, observer watching the pair waltzing through the shadows might have guessed that the teenaged girl was involved in a _questionable_ relationship with the young man. While they would have been correct, the reason was not what they may assume – despite the way the girl acted around him, there were no real sexual aspects to this, simply a thief teaching his student. There wasn't much left to teach – to the _un_skilled observer, the two were invisible. And after only a little less than 4 years of training. Jean-Luc would be impressed by his son. Henri already was impressed by his pupil.

"Y' know, petite, maybe y' should jus' skip dis 'ole an' join de Thieves in N'Awlins? Y're good enough, an'm sure dat Remy woul' approve."

Rogue smiled playfully. "Ah would say Ah'll t'ink about't, but ah don't have taime."

"Whaddya mean, p'tite?" the Cajun asked, confused.

"Ma mère is here," explained Rogue, gesturing towards the house that they were now casually walking down the driveway of "an' Ah don't t'ink Ah'll be stayin' in de south fo' much longer."

Henri raised an eyebrow as they stopped at the door. "Really?" he asked. "Will anyone be able t' understand y' up north? Y' accent's a little weird."

"They most certainly will, m'dear," replied the girl in a stiff accent.

Henri laughed. "I always knew de Cajun 'fluence was fake."

Now it was Rogue's turn to laugh. "Nah, Ah jus' been spendin' too much taime around y'all." She eviscerated a set of keys from about her person. "Come on in," she said, opening the door, "Y' maght wanna say hi to Mystique before we all leave."

"If it's all th' same t' you, petite–"

"Oh, but I insist," said the same voice that Henri had been hoping to avoid. "We can't leave loose ends on our business."

To Henri, that sounded suspiciously like something one of the Rippers would say. He tensed.

"S'okay," Rogue assured, noticing this, "we just want t' finalise yoah payment, an' give some parting gifts."

Henri gave in, and followed the girl inside, closing the door behind him.

"A glass of wine, Mr. LeBeau?" Mystique asked as they entered the lounge, gesturing towards a liquor cabinet.

Henri was about to politely refuse, but caught Rogue making gestures with her eyes at him. "Merci, madam, but jus' a small one. Moi has a long trip home ahead of him, an' I need to survive beyond seein' Mercy"

Mystique smiled. "Have a seat, Henri." She gestured to a couch on the opposite side of a coffee table to one Destiny was sitting on, and sat herself next to the precognant.

As Rogue poured four glasses of wine, the thief took the seat indicated. He checked it for traps before he sat down, more out of habit than paranoia. There was a little paranoia in there though. Rogue set the glasses for Mystique and Destiny down on the table in front of them, and hand Henri his as she sat down, getting comfortable right next to him. She was worse than Remy for that, too, the Cajun thought. Maybe that's why the two fit together so well?

Now Mystique set a cloth bag on the table and opened it. First she took out two pouches. Setting one down on the table, she said "The rest of your payment, in gems as agreed." Now she set the second one down. "A token of appreciation to your father. Give him our regards." The metamorph then removed a velvet box. "A gift for your fiancée." She opened the box, inside was a silver necklace, adorned with a brooch inset with a single sapphire. "And lastly for you, Mr. LeBeau." From the bag she removed what looked like a half of a pen with one side missing. "Rogue said you would prefer a practical gift." Mystique fit the thing over the end of her right middle finger, and drew a circle in a sheet of metal that was on the table with it, her thumb resting against the edge of the device. As she did this, it left a short glow where it touched the metal. She picket up the sheet; The circle stayed behind on the table. After placing the metal back down, she removed the device from her finger and handed it to Henri.

"That'll help me t' keep up wit' Remy," the Cajun joked as he accepted it. "I'm sorry, m' dames, but I wasn't expectin' dis so soon. I have not'in for you."

Mystique smiled. "But you have already given us so much. Now, a toast. To partnerships, past and future."

The four raised their glasses and sipped their wine. Henri continued with "To th' finest dames I 'ave had the pleasure 'f workin' wit'."

A third toast was proposed by Rogue. "To Henri and Mercy. A happy marriage to ya's, sugah."

With that over, Mystique spoke again. "Although it pains me to do this to a guest, Mr. LeBeau, I'm going to have to ask you to leave now. We have some… private planning to do."

Henri held up his hand. "Non, non, madam. I am happy t' go now. I'm sure y' have a lot t' do, too." Mystique gathered the gifts back into the bag and handed it to him as he stood up. Rogue walked him to the door.

"So, dis is it," said Henri when they were outside, and hugged Rogue. "Prob'ly the last time I see m' star pupil."

The girl smiled, despite the unheard of tears brimming in her eyes. "Ah'm y'r only pupil, silly." Then she leaned up and pecked him on the cheek, something in itself uncharacteristic for her. "Don't be a stranger, ya hear?"

"I'll try not t' be," replied Henri, kissing her on the forehead. "But it may be a little hard trackin' y' down."

Rogue laughed lightly, but didn't say anything. The next few moments were slightly uncomfortable, as neither knew what to say next nor wanted to let the other go. Finally, Henri broke the embrace.

"I best b' going, p'tite," he said, beginning to back away.

"Yeah," replied Rogue. "Punch yoah little brother for m', would ya, and tell him he still owes me a 'romantic candlelight dinner.'"

"I will," Henri laughed, turning away and walking down the path. He stopped at the end. "Farewell, river rat."

Rogue didn't reply. She, the girl who had once, when she was only eight years old, plunged a dagger into her own arm without even wincing a little, couldn't muster enough self control now to open her mouth without crying. Instead, she waved, hoping he would see.

When she walked back inside, the tears were flowing anyway. Mystique considered scolding her for not keeping control of herself, but then realised just how much like her the girl had become. One wrong move and she might go out on her own. What this would mean for the rest of the World was not something that Mystique wanted to consider, even if she held no love for most of it herself. So instead, she offered her a velvet jewelry box wrapped in a green ribbon.

Rogue slid the ribbon off and opened the box. "It's beautiful," she said, and smiled. It was a little forced, but the feeling behind it was genuine if layered.

Mystique removed the necklace from the box, and fixed the clasp behind her daughter's neck. As she did so, Rogue slipped one arm behind her back and another over her shoulder, pulling her foster mother into a tight hug. For her part, Mystique allowed to girl to cry into her shoulder. The emotion was probably going to have to come out eventually.

When Rogue pulled away, Mystique asked, "Will you be okay?"

"Maybe we should wait until morning," supplied Irene.

Rogue shook her head. "No, Ah'll be faine," she said, wiping her eyes.

"Very well," said Mystique, and led them into the study. There she set a folder down on the desk, and circled around to the other side of it. Leaning on the desk, she looked up at Rogue, but didn't say a word.

"So, it's soon then?" asked the girl.

Destiny nodded. "Tomorrow, dear child. Probably at the dance."

Rogue snorted. "That'd be raight. Maximum damage potential."

"These things often are that way," said Mystique sadly, and opened the folder. She spread the files contained in it out on the desk. There were seven bundles, each starting with a portrait photograph of someone. Two men, a woman, two girls, and two boys. One of the boys had a second photograph of someone that looked like an oversized blue demon plush toy.

"Who are these people?" asked Rogue.

"Remember we talked about a group called the 'X-Men?'" replied Mystique, and then pointed to the picture of the bald one. "This is Professor Charles Xavier, who serves as their guide and master. He is a powerful telepath, and while he won't provide any trouble physically, as he is wheelchair-bound, you will need _all_ of your self-control to keep him from knowing who you truly are."

Now she indicated the photo of a short and gruff man, who among other things badly needed to learn how to shave properly. "This one is Logan, codename Wolverine. Both of those names are aliases, however, and we do not know his real name. He is probably the most dangerous of all of them in combat, however he is rather lacking in wit. He heals at an accelerated rate, and from each hand he can extend three claws. His entire skeleton is laced with an almost indestructible metal called 'Adamantium.' I am sure with your extraordinary ability to sense your surroundings, you would be able to take him out in a fight, however doing so would most likely reveal things about yourself that are best kept from him. Avoid confronting him unless you absolutely must."

The older woman with dark skin and white hair. "Ororo Monroe, codename Storm. She is, though I hate to say it, one of the more intelligent ones, and has modest physical discipline. She has control over the atmospheric elements, which makes her powerful, however she is of course no match for you. Feel free to absorb her as soon as you can – her powers could be quite useful to you."

Now she indicated the younger ones. "This is the team as Xavier would officially have you believe." She pointed to the boy wearing sunglasses. "Scott Summers, codename Cyclops. He has some fighting skills, though they are no match for your own ability. He has trained himself to act in a military manner, which makes his actions very predictable. He emits blasts of energy from his eyes, which he is unable to control due to an injury sustained when he was young. It came from an air crash that orphaned him, and as a result of which he has become remarkably independent, although he treats Xavier as though he were his father."

A slim girl with green eyes and red hair. "Jean Grey, who as far as we are aware doesn't use a codename. She has the power of telekinesis, but is unwilling to use it as an offensive weapon. She is also a mild telepath in a way that allows her to be a little more aware of her surroundings. She is physically disciplined, however does not use this well in close combat."

Now a brunette who looked like your stereotypical pop culture oriented girl. "Katherine 'Kitty' Pryde, codename Shadowcat. She is the newest member of the team, and comes from a traditionalist family. As such, all her significant physical training has been with the X-Men. She has been with them only three days, too. Obviously, this girl is hardly likely to be a threat to you. She is capable of moving through most solid matter by a process that involves realigning the electron bonds of her component atoms so that they are in a complimentary phase with those of the material she is moving through. This process disrupts electrical systems."

Last up was the demon-boy. "Finally, Kurt Wagner–"

"Mah brother?" asked Rogue.

"Yes," Mystique confirmed. "Codename Nightcrawler, and you already know almost as much about him as I do. I'd appreciate it if you avoided hurting him. He doesn't know of you or that I'm his mother, so it may be necessary to knock him out of any fight early on to avoid a situation where he may be hurt."

"So why are ya tellin' me this now?"

"When your powers manifest, they will come to try and recruit you," said Destiny.

"As part of our plan you will be joining them, but not yet. It is important that it appears that I am tricking you into joining the group I am in charge of, 'The Brotherhood of Mutants.'"

"Magneto's baby team?"

Mystique nodded. "This is, of course, purely an illusion. Just as it will be a trick that you join the X-Men, you will not exactly be a member of the Brotherhood, either."

"Yeah, Ah got it. Master plan, raight?"

The shapeshifter smiled, and then nodded towards the papers on her desk again. "You'd do well to read these."

"Sure," said Rogue, "in the morning maybe. Raight now Ah need sleep."

* * *

"Body snatching! That's the only explanation, man." The two boys stopped on to the deck of the boathouse, watching the infamous Rogue ('Queen of Hearts', they called her) standing alone, watching the water. That she wasn't inside dancing and plotting to break some poor kid who didn't know better was amazing. "My good buddy Cody is now a pod person," continued his friend. "Gone in an evening from bad to sad; Flame to lame. Nurse, he's coded! Personality paddle, stat!" He tapped Cody on the chest.

"Oh, Come on. Ah'm just, you know, pickin' my moment. Takin' it slow." Cody was probably the only boy in their year who had his eye on Rogue and thought it could be more than just a passing fling.

"Cody, I've seen glaciers most faster," exclaimed the other. "There she is, our very own Queen of Hearts. The girl you've been staring at for who knows _how_ long, and boasted you'd tame. Don't tell me you're gonna back down now."

Cody shrugged. "Maybe another time–"

"You lame-o! This ends now, c'mon!" He dragged Cody over to where Rogue was standing.

The girl turned around suddenly. "Can Ah help you?" she asked accusingly.

Cody and friend took a step back. This amount of venom was not normal to a potential date. "Uh, dance? Uh, Ah mean, wouldya lahke to? With me, that is, Together, lahke."

Rogue sighed. A football player. That was almost cliché. "Ah'm really jus' hangin' out here–"

Cody's friend scoffed. "Actually, I thought that was pretty tightly bound for you. I mean, heck, normally ya'd be half way to showin' em off ta ever'one by now!"

"Shut up, Ty!" yelled Cody as Rogue shot the dark-haired teenager a glare that spelled death. Ty ran for it.

Cody looked back towards Rogue, almost pouting. "Aw hell, why not?" the girl said. If she was going to knock someone out cold for a week, it might as well be an arsehole jock she had no respect for. "Where's the harm in one dance?" She grabbed the boy's arm and dragged him into the building.

As they were dancing, a little further apart than most even though Rogue tried to close the gap, Ty showed up again behind Cody. "So, do somethin'," he said. "Make your move!" He pushed Cody towards Rogue.

The boy stumbled and fell onto her, burying his face in her breasts, though she remained standing. As he picked himself up, he was blushing profusely. "Ah- Ah'm sorry," he stuttered.

Rogue pulled him in again so that her mouth was right next to his ear. "Don't be," she whispered, and Cody's eyes went wide. Here it came, the 'kiss of death" that the girl was famed for using to dump people, normally after a short time. But only a few minutes? Ty shook his head, smirking.

Rogue brushed her lips down Cody's cheek, and planted them on his own. That's when it happened. A burning pain started in the back of Rogue's head, accompanied by a tingling feeling that started at her lips and spread through the rest of her body. Everyone had stopped dancing, and the girl soon discovered why. Cody was convulsing. Then, he went limp. Startled, Rogue let go of him, and he dropped to the ground.

Thirteen years being trained by Mystique and teaching herself to be in control, with also the help of Henri, could not prepare her for feeling someone else's memories. Climbing a tree she'd never seen as a kid, walking down to the jocks table that she always avoided with a tray holding food she never ate. Running down a field playing a game she hated, enjoying herself immensely. Being someone else. She didn't move, but blinked a few times.

"What'd you _do_ ta him?!" asked a distraught Ty from the floor next to Cody, who was most definitely knocked out. Rogue realised that people were standing in a ring around the three. Her heart rate, already escalated, just about tripled.

'_So, this is panic._' Rogue turned and ran, pushing through the crowd.

Ty got up and ran past her, blocking her exit through the door. She pushed him out of the way as though she were shrugging off a tackle. No, as though _Cody_ was. She ran around the building and down the street.

* * *

At the Xavier institute, in the control box for the training area known as the 'Danger Room,' things were a little awkward. Kitty, most definitely new to all this, had just been 'seriously freaked' by the kind of things that the room did, and more by Wolverine's security demo. Which had concluded in him dicing up the room that the entire U.S. military probably could deal with without a nuke handy. Kurt had unintentionally made matters worse by trying to comfort the girl, porting around her. It probably didn't help Kitty that the fuzzy blue demon was also hitting on her a little.

"She's totally not into ze fuzzy dude," sighed Kurt, hanging his head. "Not that I really blame her."

"Aw, she just needs time, Kurt," said Jean comfortingly. "She'll come around."

"X-Men." The Professor wheeled into the room. "We have an emergency. Scott, get the Blackbird prepped for launch, and since it's a weekend, assemble the full team."

It might have been his mind playing tricks on him, but Logan could have sworn he saw Scott rip off a salute. "Yes, Sir," the teenager said. "What's the mission?"

"Cerebro has detected a new mutant in Caldecott County, Mississippi," replied Charles.

_Rogue ran down the street, knocking people flying as she went. Amazingly, she managed not to touch anyone's skin…._

"My mental impressions do seem to indicate a highly disturbed individual. Our mutant is a danger to herself…"

_…Rogue ran out into the middle of the street in front of a car, which veered off to the side of the road and hit a lamp post…._

"…And possibly others as well."

_…The driver of the car got out, and yelled at Rogue, shaking his fist. "Hey, w-what're you nuts?! Crazy kid!"_

Xavier turned towards his assembled team before the X-Jet. "X-Men, we have a rogue."

* * *

Rogue walked up to the front door of Cody's house. Trying the door handle, she found it locked. Retrieving a device from the back of her boot that looked essentially like a tension spring on a metal rod, she inserted it into the keyhole and twisted it back and forth a few times. She opened the door and walked in, up to Cody's room.

Sitting on the bed, she pulled out a photo album from under it. Football plays, receiving trophies, and girls that thought they were pretty. Yep, a top-class jerk. She put the album away unceremoniously, and walked up to his dresser. "Glad Ah'm not actually him," she said, before sweeping all his trophies and medals off it. "Pathetic moron." Then she looked towards the door, just before Mystique, in the form of Wolverine, crashed though it. "Hi, mom."

Mystique cleared her throat and glared at Rogue.

The teenager smirked. "Oh yeah. Who- who are you and wha'dyou want?!" she asked, trying to remember how the panic felt. Underneath, the part of Cody in her didn't need to try.

"You, girly. I want _you_!" 'Wolverine' jumped at Rogue with a flying kick, which the teenager dodged, causing Cody's wardrobe to be destroyed instead. "Stand still and make it quick. You're dealing with the X-Men now, and you ain't got a chance."

Rogue picked up a splinter of wood from the floor. Some people in her position, with her attitude, might have laughed at the pure stupidity of the non-existent situation. Instead, pretending it was real she cried nervously, "X-Men? Ah don't understand! Ah just want you to leave me alone!" She whacked the shapeshifter with the wood and ran from the room.

As Mystique followed her out onto the landing, she morphed from Wolverine to her true form. "One more turn of the screw," she said, in case anyone might happen to be listening as she morphed into the image of Storm, "and you'll come running into my arms."

Not far away, Logan, Kurt, and Kitty were analysing an alley for any trace of the rogue mutant.

"So does this like, bite, or what?" asked Kitty as Logan tried to catch a scent from a dumpster.

"The Prof. says the girl's mind is confused, and difficult to pinpoint," replied Logan, before opening the bin up and looking inside. "On top of that, she seems to be shielding it somehow. So keep lookin'." Suddenly he looked up, sniffing the air.

"Vas?" asked Kurt. "Got a scent?"

"Yeah. I smell fear."

Meanwhile, Rogue was trying her best at believing everything her mother threw at her. She ran through the Robbins's back yard, and climbed the fence.

Behind her, 'Storm' removed a pyrotechnic device from her belt. "One well placed lightning bolt," she said, throwing it as the teenager jumped off the fence, "One ex-mutant."

Rogue rolled on the ground as the device exploded, stopping right in front of Irene in the alley.

"Rogue! It's me, Irene. Can you remember?"

"Yes, but, it's so strange. These thoughts in mah head…."

"Remember," said Irene, holding out her hand to pull Rogue up, "We have to confuse the X-Men."

Both of them turned to where Logan's team entered the alley just before they did so. "It's him!" exclaimed Rogue, falling into role, "The one who attacked me! Run, Irene, run!" With that, the teenager took off in the opposite direction to that which the X-Men were coming in, leaving her glove in Irene's hand.

"That's gotta be her," growled Wolverine as they ran past the seer.

Ahead of them, Rogue climbed up onto a fence. "Please, leave me be!" she cried, jumping over it.

Logan started to follow the girl over the fence, but Nightcrawler teleported ahead and stopped him. "Wolverine, wait!" he exclaimed. "She seems to be _terrified_ by you. Let me try."

The Canadian growled, contemplating this. "Okay, kid," he said, "just don't mess up, capiçe?"

"Yes, sir," replied Kurt, saluting lazily and then running after Rogue.

"I'll go find the Prof," conceded Logan. "And squirt?" – Nightcrawler turned back – "Put on your best face. No sense freakin' the poor kid out more than she already is."

Kurt gave him a double thumbs-up before activating his image inducer.

"And keep an eye on the half-pint here," Logan added as Kitty ran past him.

"Hey!" exclaimed the girl, turning around.

On the other side of the fence, Rogue continued to run, as Kurt teleported onto a swing behind him.

"Guten Tag, Fräulein," he said, causing Rogue to stop and turn. "Please, don't be frightened." He teleported to the bird-bath behind her, perching on its edge.

"Wha'dyou want?" asked Rogue, turning to face him.

Kurt jumped from his perch. "To help you," he explained. "We are the good guys. Especially me." He pointed a thumb towards his chest.

'_Great,_' thought Rogue as she folded her arms. '_My little brother is hitting on me. That's just plain wrong._'

Behind her, Kitty phased through the fence. "Half-pint?" she muttered. "I'll show him."

"I was like you once," continued the German. "Alone. Unsure of what I was. Afraid to show my face. Hmm, can you believe it?"

"She doesn't look so tough to me," Shadowcat said, sizing up Rogue.

"Kitty, no!" exclaimed Nightcrawler as the girl tried to tackle Rogue. She was rather surprised when the southerner just sidestepped her without looking and she got Kurt instead. Or rather, phased through him, short circuiting his image inducer on the way though.

'_They're making this too easy,_' thought Rogue as Nightcrawler's true blue appearance showed itself, presenting an opportunity to move things along. Out loud, she exclaimed "What are you?!" before pushing Kurt's face away with her bare hand. Predictably enough, the boy fell to the ground immediately. Now the southerner felt just a little disoriented — absorbing another mutant had an even weirder effect on her mind than a normal human, apparently. She stepped backwards as she felt the power course through her body, and then _bamf_, she was gone in a cloud of sulphurous smoke.

"Nightcrawler?" asked Kitty, crawling towards him. "Nightcrawler? Kurt?! Kurt! Oh no, this is my fault…."

* * *

Rogue landed in the middle of a cemetery. "Whoa," she said to herself, "what a rush. How did Ah?" She teleported to on top of a nearby mausoleum. "Ah see." The southerner smiled. "Now if I just concentrate…." She teleported to the ground almost exactly where she aimed. Applying the sense of control she'd learned, she continued to experiment until in her excitement she missed landing on top of a bench and instead her feet planted into it. Surprisingly enough, the bench felt it more than her, and collapsed.

"So, the scene is set." Mystique walked up behind Rogue and hugged her briefly. "How do you feel?"

"A li'l confused," replied her daughter, "an' Ah don't think they're gonna give up yet, either."

"No, probably not," confirmed Mystique. "We're probably going to have to do some real damage to them before they let you alone. Can you hold on a little longer."

Rogue nodded. "Go," she said. "One of them's coming." Mystique did as instructed, hiding behind a tombstone. Until Logan or Charles himself showed up, it wouldn't be hard to keep tabs on what was going on.

Meanwhile, Kitty had managed to relay that Rogue had absorbed Kurt to the Professor, and Xavier had in turn sent Jean, Scott, and Storm ahead to the cemetery where he had found the boy's distinct brainwave patterns. They'd decided it was probably best to send in Jean, their unofficial P.R. poster child, first.

"Hi," said the telepath, holding out her hand.

Rogue squinted at her. "Jean Grey, raight?" she asked standing up and backing slowly away. "All these memories are so confusing…."

"Yeah, I know. I can relate to what you're going through."

"No!" shouted the southerner. "No, you're laike th' others!" She continued to back away.

"Relax," cried Jean, slightly confused. "Look, if you know who I am, then you know I won't hurt you. Look, it's tough to go it solo. Hey, zero pressure but if you want to talk more," – she held up a slim device that looked like the twisted love-child of a microphone and hand grenade – "you can reach me any time with this communicator." She floated it across to the southerner, who took it from the air.

'_Finally. Is she going now?_' Rogue looked up at the redhead. "Latest fashion accessory, huh?"

"We all have one." Rogue looked up to see Storm walking up behind Jean with Cyclops.

'_Nope, they're still trying, damn it._' Rogue put on her best 'terrified rabbit' impression. "Y-you," she stuttered. "No! You won't take me!" She turned and fled.

"No! Wait!" yelled Scott, chasing after her. He tried to tackle her but missed, landing face first in some mud. Mystique snickered, watching this, before she followed after Rogue.

She found the girl sitting in a mausoleum, apparently waiting. "Are you sure you're alright, Rogue?" the shapeshifter asked, approaching her.

"Ah'm faine, mom," the teenager replied. "Ah just… Ah need some help movin' this along."

Mystique nodded. "It is taking its time, isn't it?"

Just then, Rogue perked up. "Cyclops outside," she hissed, and then started sobbing.

Mystique morphed into his shape, and tried to think of something to say that suited the boy. "Thought you could escape us, did you?!" she accused, smashing over some urns as Rogue smiled briefly. "The X-Men don't leave loose ends!"

Rogue ran from the building, right in to Scott, who was looking a little confused. She grunted and pushed him over, causing his visor to malfunction, and he blasted a nearby power pole. As the sparks flew, she ran back into the mausoleum where Mystique was waiting for her in the form of Jean Grey.

"I tried, I really did. But some people just _won't_ be helped!"

Rogue smirked before she teleported away to near where the real Jean was searching for her. A little way up in the air, so that she hit the ground harder than was comfortable — anything to look a little helpless.

"Are you hurt?" the telepath asked hurriedly, running up to her. "Lie still, don't try to move."

Instead, Rogue sat up, her face a mask of horror, and backed away from her, crawling.

Now Storm walked up behind the southerner, and crouched down to pick her up. "Child, what is it?" she asked. "We are your friends."

'_Yeah, right._' Rogue, feigning both anger and fear, reached for the bare patch of skin on Ororo's arm with her ungloved hand. This time, the effect was even more disturbing, as where they touched electricity crackled until finally it exploded in a ball of light that sent the weather witch flying. Immediately lightning crackled around them.

"Hey, what's with the effects?" asked Scott as he ran up to where they were. "Is– Oh no…. No!"

The sight that had caused the boy's outburst was fairly impressive. Rogue rose up into the air on her self-generated whirlwind, while lightning struck the ground around her. Jean created a psycho-kinetic forcefield around herself and Scott in an effort to protect themselves.

"I can hold it off a little," she said, gasping under the strain.

"Give it up," Scott replied. "She's got Storm's powers but not her control…."

'_Not her control? I'll show you control…._' thought Rogue, hearing this. She struck the main support of a mausoleum with lightning, causing it to collapse into the next one over, and then the nearby power lines as it began to rain heavily. Soon Ororo was lying in a deep puddle, directly in the path of the falling lines.

"The power lines!" yelled Cyclops, noticing this. "If they hit that puddle, Storm'll be fried!" He pointed to where Ororo was lying unconscious. Jean let her forcefield go, and they ran towards the weather witch, only to be tossed aside when Rogue struck the ground in front of them with lightning.

"Holy shit, she's going to kill us!" yelled Jean in an uncharacteristic spurt of colourful language, before she had the foresight to lift Ororo out of the water with her telekinesis. As it was, the process was rather unceremonious, as she could only just toss her out with little grace before the electrified cables hit the puddle.

Watching from above, Rogue decided that this was probably enough. '_Well, time for the drama queen thing._' She closed her eyes. "Too much pow'r!" the southerner yelled, opening them again and adding some more lightning for effect. "Ah can't control it! Ah have to–" She shrieked before teleporting away to where her mother was sheltering, which had the double effect of cutting her dramatic weather short.

"Impressive," said Mystique, watching Scott get up and limp over to Ororo. "That should keep them down for–"

"Xavier's here!" hissed Rogue, grabbing her mother from behind and teleporting them away.

The teenager landed them precisely in front of an armchair in Irene's house, which she promptly collapsed in. "Ah hope that's all," she mumbled as Mystique stalked dizzily away. She'd never been subject to one of her son's teleportations before, and Rogue had just performed one that pushed the limits of what _he_ was prepared to do with no passengers, carrying Mystique with her.

Destiny put the packing box she was carrying down and nodded. "They won't be coming back for you today," she said. "But they _can_ track that device…."

Rogue looked down at the communicator in her hand. "Good," she said in unison with her mother, before tossing it into the garbage.

"I'm afraid we have to leave for Bayville immediately," announced Mystique. "Will you be alright, Destiny?"

The seer nodded, and picked up her cane from its resting place. "I'm sure the local community will have no trouble helping an old blind lady to sell her house for a fine price," she replied, "and then I shall go back to the wandering that follows my duty."

Rogue laughed briefly, and then frowned. She stood up and hugged the woman, and began to cry into her shoulder. "Ah'll miss you, Irene," she mumbled.

"I'll miss you too, Rogue," replied Destiny, holding her charge tight.

* * *

"Welcome to Bayville High." Raven Darkholme was a contrast to the 'casual' woman that had left her daughter to train as a thief in New Orleans four years ago. She now was dressed in a specifically professional women's suit, playing principal at the local high school. "I'm sure you'll be very happy here. Happy, and safe."

Rogue smirked. "Sure. Whatever." She stood up, and made her way to the door….

_…"I'll b' right back," said Henri, walking to the door. To Rogue, he appeared to walk out through and close it, but a minute later he stepped out of the shadows behind her, and tickled the bare skin on her midriff. "Now you try, petite."  
Rogue had it by only the fourth try…._

On the desk next to where Raven was sitting, the paperclips started to dance. '_I really must buy some non-magnetic clips,_' the woman cursed.

"The girl has great power," boomed Magneto behind her. "She is a fine addition to our side."

Raven twitched, morphing into her true form to cover it. The man was very annoying. "Yes. We were lucky to get to her first," she lied.

"Indeed. You are certain any residual memories of the true X-Men have faded?"

"Positive."

After Erik had gone, Rogue stepped out of the shadows. "So, that was the great Magneto? Kinda' thick, isn't he?"

Mystique smiled. "Not everyone has quite your power of perception, dear."

"But still…." Rogue walked to the door again, this time intending to leave by it. She stopped just short of the door, and turned.

Mystique opened a drawer in her desk and removed a folder as her daughter walked back towards her. "Your first target, dear," she said, placing it on the desk. "Boston. The Brotherhood are _not_ to know."

Rogue smiled mischievously as she took the file. "Ah should get settled in to school and everythin' first," she said.

"Indeed. But you should do this soon, as it will help you greatly."

Rogue nodded and left the room. As she walked through the principal's waiting room, certain as only she could be that no-one was watching, she leafed through the folder, and found a picture. '_A leggy blonde,_' she thought, remembering one Belladonna Boudreaux. '_Excellent. She'll just have to wait though._' The southerner grinned evilly….

* * *

Et, voilà! After a relatively long period of waiting (Hey, these are long to write!), the retelling of _Rogue Recruit_ where Rogue is in on the secret, and the X-Men have no chance. I hope you enjoyed it.  
Next chapter: _Mutant Crush_. How will Rogue's concrete allegiance with her mother affect how she deals with Jean Grey's situation? I _don't_ reveal who the quoted leggy blonde is (despite the fact that many of you probably already think you know, but you'll just have to wait until the all-original chapter four).  
It'll be about another week, 'cause I'm goin' down to the coast and won't be near my computer in that time. Sorry, but that's just the way it is. Tell you what, I'll write it in my spare time when I can't sleep while I'm down there, and then digitise and upload it as soon as I get home, 'k? 


	3. Mutant Crush

Well, I'm back from my anti-holiday (In explanation, I took this semester off Uni and so have spent most of my time doing one of walking, random coding, stripping the ads out of digitally recorded TV programmes, doing graphics work in blender and not finishing it, or writing fan fiction. I went to my grandfather's for a week to do some work, ie. something someone else wanted me to do), I have fresh coffee, and I now I'm writing this again. And then you're gonna read it. Sucks to be you :·P (Nah, just kidding). But, honestly, this one doesn't change that much. Mostly it's the extra bits….

* * *

_Mutant Crush_

An air of boredom dominated the Brotherhood of Bayville Boarding House. Mystique had been very specific in her decree to leave the X-Men alone, and for a renegade mutant living in Bayville, there wasn't much to do.

"What are we playin' this dumb game fo' anyway, yo?" Todd Tolanski was not particularly skilled at the game of chequers. He was about to lose the fifteenth consecutive game.

"Listen Toad, if you can think of anything better to do, and that does _not_ include searching for rare and 'delicious' bugs by the bay, we'll do that," replied Lance. "Otherwise, this is about all we can do until Mystique–"

With a resounding slam, the front door was swung open violently into the wall.

"…does that."

"So, what have you slobs been doing to further the mutant cause while I've been gone?" the metamorph demanded, stalking into the atrium with Rogue in tow. "Wait, I know. Nothing!"

"Well, what were we supposed to be doing?" Todd asked, looking completely gormless as the two entered the lounge. "You just said we couldn't bother the X-Men, and left it at that. We're completely bored, yo."

Mystique growled while Rogue glared critically at the boy who looked to her like a wart with warts. There were a pair of eyes in there _somewhere_, and she shuddered to think what the green thing hanging out of what was presumably his mouth was. She was sure it had just lapped up a fly, or was about to or something. Probably both.

"The new recruit's a girl?" asked Lance sheepishly. His mouth had dropped open when he caught sight of her, and was resisting all attempts to shut.

"No, she's quite obviously a Liquorice Allsort!" snapped Mystique. "Is there a problem?!" She glared at the boy in a way which made him change his expression to somehow look even more stupid, which Rogue wouldn't have thought possible.

The southerner leaned over slightly so that she could whisper in her mother's ear. "This is the team?" she asked disbelievingly. Mystique just nodded.

"Yeah, there's a problem, yo." Todd, who was somehow proving to Rogue to be the stupid of the two boys, launched himself across the room so that he was perched on the back of the chair that was directly in front of the southerner. "She's a girl."

Mystique smiled at him like a cat smiles at its prey. "That's probably too close, Toad."

"Why?"

Instead of using her powers like Mystique expected her too, Rogue kicked the chair out from under the boy and continued around, switching legs in mid-air so that she swatted him across the room with a back-kick from her left. "Because Ah find it objectionable," she said.

"Neat," said Lance, who had started to walk towards them, but was now wisely keeping his distance. "That's your power?"

"Nope," replied Rogue, and she took the two steps to close the distance between them. She looked him in the eye. "This is."

It was only a brief kiss, and there was no feeling behind it, but Lance Alvers would still remember it for quite some time. After all, not everyone's kiss will knock you out.

"Y'know, there's a term for people like you." Rogue said as the world faded around him. "'Stunned Mullet.'" She let go of his chin, letting him fall to the ground.

"I take that back," Todd said nervously as he stood up, his eyes wide. "So you got deadly lips, that's cool yo." He backed all the way into the nearest corner

Rogue laughed. "Everah inch of skin on mah body, actually. And don't you forget, if Ah hold on for long enough, Ah can drain _all_ the life force outta ya. That's not the best bit, either…."

"What, killing someone with a touch ain't enough?"

The southerner grinned as she shook several heavy pieces of furniture across the floor, trapping Tolanski where he was with the coffee table. "Should it be?"

"Hey, that's not fair!" squeaked the amphibious mutant. "Don't trap the Toad, lemme out!"

"Whaddya think, Mystique? Let 'im out or not?" Rogue looked at her mother questioningly, a wicked smile on her face.

"I don't think so," replied the metamorph. "Just be sure to get rid of his body before he starts to smell even worse than he already does."

"No nononono!" pleaded Todd, "I'll do whatever y'say, jus' lemme out! C'mon, please! I wanna live, yo!"

"_Whatever_ I say?" asked Rogue, sneering.

Todd's eyes widened more and he cringed, but nodded anyway.

"Bah." Rogue removed a short knife from a band on the inside of her coat, and threw it at Toad so that the hilt smacked him between the eyes, knocking him unconscious. Then she walked over and dragged the table out of the way, picking up and replacing the knife. "Idiot."

From where Lance was now coming to, it was all too easy to see this and come to the wrong conclusion "You killed him?"

"Yeah, right," replied the southerner, "and have Mystique get angry at meh? Y'all maight have fewer brain cells than ya need ta rub 'em togethah, but Ah'm smarter than that."

"Why didn't you use your power on him, though?" Mystique asked.

Rogue looked at her mother with her eyebrows raised. "His thoughts in mah head? Not unless ah have to!"

"I can understand that," agreed Lance, standing up. "Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot here. I'm Lance, or Avalanche." He held out his right hand to shake. When Rogue merely glanced at it and then glared at him, he scratched the back of his head with it, instead.

"Rogue. That's all you need to know."

"Uh, okay then." Lance shrugged in an attempt to be casual, and at that point the doorbell rang. "Um, we rang for pizza tonight – is that alright?"

"Whatever," Rogue replied, rolling her eyes as Lance turned to get the door, and Mystique morphed into a form more acceptable to be seen by mundane humans.

The pizza guy was wearing a t-shirt promoting a Texas State Fair. "Fred 'The Blob' Dukes," read Lance, "strongest teenager in the world. Yeah, right."

"They say he can hold back a monster truck with each hand," replied the delivery boy. "That'll be ten bucks."

"That's not possible," stated Lance, handing over a 10 dollar bill.

"Well, I've been saving up to go check it out myself," the pizza guy said as he gave Lance the pizzas. "What, no tip?" he exclaimed, causing Lance to shut the door in his face. "Well screw you too!"

"Not _humanly_ possible," corrected Mystique, morphing back into her true form. "I suspect it may be worth our while going to 'check it out' ourselves."

* * *

Rogue sighed. Why had she taken Drama again? That's right, because Mystique wanted her to be in at least one class with Scott Summers. Mystique, who was breaking promises more and more often now – instead of staying for the weekend to help her daughter get comfortable with Bayville, she'd disappeared off to fetch that Dukes guy from Texas. Well, the shapeshifter was under a lot of stress to keep an illusion up _and_ run a team she didn't want to. '_I guess it was me told her to go and get him otherwise the X-Men would, too,_' thought the southerner.

Fortunately, it was nearing the end of the lesson, and the teacher was pretty much as bored as the rest of the room by now. "Alright, for this drama exercise, you'll each be doing a scene with a partner," he said, handing out script books. "Since a few of you haven't _chosen_ partners, I'll be paring you up myself. Taryn, you and Paul are going to do Laura and Jim from 'The Glass Menagerie.'" He gave them the appropriate books, and continued to where Rogue was sitting behind Scott. "That leaves you, and you." A script for Henry V was handed grudgingly to each mutant.

"Oh, great," muttered Scott sarcastically, a sentiment he shared with his new drama partner.

"You two will be doing Shakespeare's 'Henry the Fifth.' I've marked it Henry and Katharine, daughter of the French king."

"Lots of luck, Scott," said Paul, leaning over to him. "Jean's gonna have your hide."

"What exactly are you implying?" hissed Scott

"You know how that girl is around all the guys. And, man, you need to open your eyes about Jean. Might help if you take those glasses off once in a while."

"I thought you understood about the glasses. 'Eye condition' ring a bell?"

Behind him, Rogue laughed. "Yeah, like if I said I had a 'skin condition,'" she said to herself. Scott turned and glared at her. "What? No-one's going to listen to anything _I_ say. I'm the crazy flirtatious and violent bitch, remember?"

"Are we all finished chattering, yet?" the teacher asked angrily. "Now I want you all to get together with your scene partners and rehearse. You perform on Tuesday."

Then came the moment of jubilation for everyone in the room, including the teacher, when the lunch bell rang. Well, except Rogue, who'd known the exact time it was going to go for a few seconds already….

She ended up sitting with Lance and Todd, mostly because they tended to be so simple that what they were going to do next was predictable enough not to give the southerner a headache, a luxury added to by the fact that having been boarding with them for a week already she pretty much knew the boys' habits inside out, or at least those that mattered in public. It didn't help much today, though, as it was one of those days when she was getting impressions of the state of _everything_ around her, even those things she couldn't see.

Fred Dukes was hard not to notice when he entered the cafeteria for the first time. Rogue watched with a mild interest as the giant boy ordered his tray to be filled with food, not caring for a plate. Then there was a sudden look of alarm on her face, and she was already getting out of her chair when Fred was halfway to his, and almost at the exit by the time he sat down — at the expense of a chair, his lunch, and Duncan Matthews, Bayville High's official jerk.

"Bad move, blob boy," sneered the footballer.

'_Not as bad as the move you're about to make._' Rogue was already out the door before Blob had slipped in his attempt to get up off the floor, causing everyone in the cafeteria who wasn't already laughing to start. Leaning against, and hiding behind, the lockers next to the cafeteria entrance, she started counting. "Six, five, four, three, two, one, –"

The doors were burst open by a tide of fleeing students. Rogue waited for the mob to pass, and then turned back to the glass doors to survey the damage. Dukes and two X-Men remained — the southerner identified them as Scott Summers and Jean Grey. Rogue smirked when she realised that the telekinetic had managed to smear chocolate sauce up her legs and posterior, and was about to be incapacitated by a heavy table. Maybe the day could be saved after all?

There was a moment of confusion as Summers hit a decision that could result in distinct futures, to shoot the table which would allow Fred time to calm down, or to blast Dukes himself, an action that would bring the wrath of the Blob on both himself and Jean Grey. Rogue cursed under her breath as Scott chose the former. Still, she could chuckle at the sight that her minor quota of Destiny's power brought her, of an enraged Fred Dukes throwing the pair into a wall so hard to leave a dent in it and a guilty feeling in Summers at being responsible for the death of the love of his life.

There was a brief exchange between Scott and Jean, the result of which was the boy with ruby quartz glasses walking away slowly, dissent clear on his person. Rogue backed out of the way as he walked, buttocks first, through the doors, clearly unaware of anything else around him.

"Y'all really look out f'reach other, huh?" she asked suddenly, startling the boy.

"Yeah," replied Scott, calming slightly when he saw that he wasn't about to be attacked by the southerner. "Yeah, we do that."

"What's going on here?!" Raven Darkholme appeared behind Rogue, glowering at the two teens. The southerner scoffed, and almost started giggling, but managed to turn it into a choking fit.

"We were just talking, principal Darkholme," explained Scott.

"Then you had best stop talking and get to class," the angry teacher retorted. "And you, miss Adler, are to come to my office, right now!"

"Yes, ma'am," replied Rogue, laughing silently as she clicked her heels together. Scott wasn't quite sure if it was her accent or what, but he had to think about it for it not to sound like 'Mom.'

"Don't forget, in the park after school," Scott reminded as the two walked away, "and bring your play book with you!"

In the principal's office, Raven slammed the door hard behind her, but relaxed immediately, becoming her native shade of blue in the process. "Okay, dear, what's going on?" she asked.

"Oh, Ah din't pick a partner fo' Drama anneither did Mr. Pole-Up-Arse, so the teacher put us together."

Mystique smiled slightly at the nickname Rogue had applied to Scott, but held her forehead, her thumb pressed against her temple. "I know that's how you learned to speak, dear, and people are supposed to _know_ you're definitely from the south of this pathetic country, but could you please drop the accent when it's just you and me? Also, you know that's not what I'm asking about."

The southerner smirked. "You should take an aspirin, Mom," she said in a clear voice. "Blob's causing trouble already. Why do you have him _in_ school anyway?"

"Officially he's here on a wrestling scholarship, you know that," Mystique said, annoyed. Apparently it had become a trait in her daughter over the last four years to rub everyone up the wrong way. Although she still had a tendency to rub boys up the right way and then dump them in the trash — literally in at least one case. She certainly had the gifts of manipulation that the metamorph had worked so hard to achieve in her.

Rogue wasn't going to stop annoying her mother until she got what she wanted, though. "Despite the fact that this school doesn't have an affiliation with anywhere that has a wrestling team. Hmm…."

"Alright, you can have it!" Mystique finally conceded, almost shouting. "People are going to ask questions, though."

"I'll just say my 'mother' sent it up to me from Mississippi or something," Rogue said, shrugging. "I mean, now that she's going to be moving around, she can't just drag it around with her, can she?"

Now it was the metamorph's turn. "You never had one of your own in Mississippi," she said, smirking. "You learned in New Orleans with that devil boy's, remember?"

"Maybe, but who's gonna know _that_?" asked Rogue, staring at the ceiling. "Oh, I get the impression that Fred's going to do something to marvel girl Jean, by the way."

Mystique sighed. "I trust you're going to stop him, dear," she said, removing a cheque book from a drawer.

"Don't know what he's gonna do, or when, yet," replied the southerner. 'I'd suggest if you don't want stupid in red asking you about mysterious and unrequested large purchases, you should use your own bank account." Only then did she look down, watching bemusedly as her mother searched frantically through that same drawer. "It's at home."

"I trust you can wait until tomorrow, then?" Mystique asked.

"Hey, I've got to go practice for Drama today anyway, mom." Rogue hugged the shapeshifter from behind before leaving for her next class.

* * *

All things considered, the rehearsal was going pretty well. Neither Scott nor Rogue had killed, maimed, set fire to, or harmed the other significantly, and Boy Scout had even managed to loosen up enough to not look like he was expecting the southerner to do so.

"'O fair Katharine, if you will love me soundly with your French heart, I will be glad to hear you confess it brokenly with your English tongue. Do you like me, Kate?'" It might have been better if his acting was a little less plastic, though.

"'Pardonez moi? I cannot tell, vhat is "like me?"'" Rogue leered at Scott, causing him to become uncomfortable again.

"'An angel is like you, Kate, and you are like an angel'" Scott had started reading into his book again.

Rogue considered jumping him there, as he'd stopped paying attention, but then thought better of it. «Que dit vous? Que je suis semblable a les anges? Ah! Mon frère diable!» Rogue glared at an apparent nothing sitting on the table.

"What?" asked Scott, confused. "That's not in the script…. What does it mean, anyway?"

Suddenly, there was a puff of sulphurous smoke, and Kurt landed exactly where the southerner was glaring. «Salut, diable!» she greeted.

"Vas did you say?!" asked Kurt, mildly creeped that Rogue was glaring straight at him before he'd even got his bearings fully.

"Ah said 'Hi,' silly," replied his sister. The teleporter stuck his tongue out at her, before turning to Scott.

"What's the problem?" the X-Man asked.

"Jean's been nabbed," replied Kurt.

"Dukes," Rogue cursed under her breath, sitting back and looking at the ground.

Not hearing her, Scott yelled "What?!" and grabbed Nightcrawler's shirt.

"Whoa, easy on the exquisite costume, mein Freund," replied Kurt. "Volverine is on ze scent, and I'm supposed to collect you."

"Blob." Scott sighed, anger boiling. "If he's hurt her, I'll–" He glared at Rogue. "You know anything about this?"

«Moi?» came the reply. «Non. Pourquoi est-ce que je devrais avoir une idée sur les activités de votre putain?»

Scott's eye widened and he raised his eyebrow in a complete lack of comprehension. "What?"

"No, Ah don't know anything. And even if I did, why would ah tell you?"

"Perhaps because it's the right thing to do?"

The southerner only grunted in reply.

Scott put a hand on Kurt's shoulder. "Teleporter to maximum, Mr. Wagner."

"Aye, aye, captain," the elf replied. He just ignored Rogue exaggeratedly mouthing exactly that at the same time as he said it, throwing her head from side to side.

"Engage," instructed Scott, and they were off in a _bamf_.

"Ugh. Could they _get_ any nerdier?" Rogue commented to no-one. Then she blinked once or twice. "Ah can't believe Ah'm going to go and save those jerks," she muttered. "The things Ah do for family…."

* * *

Rogue walked up to the abandoned lot just in time to see – Wolverine – thrown through the door of the building into Cyclops. She would have been there earlier, but much to her dismay she found that she couldn't teleport at will any more. When she tried to call on Kurt's power, his psyche tried to take over — and made doing anything useful pretty much impossible. She hoped she could overcome that before taking out that girl, what was her name? One of those names that belonged to perky people, like Carol, or Emma, or something….

Back to the present. Rogue looked down at where Cyclops's visor had landed near her foot. "Oooh, look at me, I'm the team leader and I need to wear glasses made of ruby quartz because I have brain damage and can't control my power. Ugh." She walked over to where the two unconscious mutants were, and looked in the door. Jean had just hit Fred in the face with a filing cabinet. "Bon Dieu," groaned the southerner, "Now Ah have to do something rash t' get his attention." She watched on as Dukes ripped a heavy-looking metal contraption from the ground, and carried it towards the room he was holding Jean in. Looking down at Scott, she touched his face, wincing slightly at the memory of a jumping from a burning aeroplane, leaving his parents behind. She stalked into the building, and fired a blast at the back of Blob's neck, causing him to drop the thing on himself.

"What exactly d'you thaink yer doin', ya yahoo?!" she yelled as he pushed the heavy piece of junk out of the way — directly towards Rogue, in fact, but she dodged it easily. "Leave her alone!"

"Whatcha gonna do?" taunted Fred. "Make me wear bad makeup?"

Rogue laughed, despite the unwarranted insult. It wasn't like she was made up like a goth or anything…. "Ah'm sure Mystique told y'what mah pow'r is. Were ya payin' attention?" she asked, walking towards him. "Laike Ah have to ask…."

"No, 'cause I don't care!"

Rogue shook her head. "Stupid, that's what y'are. Mah pow'r is yoah power, and Ah can take mor'n one!" She leapt over the top of Dukes, and grabbed under his chin, holding on until he fell unconscious.

Jean gasped as he fell on top of the Mississippi gal, but Rogue soon hurled him off of herself, hard enough in fact to go through the roof of the building. An optic blast ensured that the Blob was thrown far, far away.

"Stupid chauvinistic Texan," she muttered, getting up and walking over to Jean. "Oooh, everythangs bigger in Texas! Yeah, Ah'll say, what is he, eight hundred pounds? Smelly, too."

"Uh, thank you," said Jean Grey as Rogue cut through her metal bonds with some precision optic blasts. "But, why did you do it?"

Rogue rolled her eyes and helped Jean stand up, before shrugging. "Ah didn't do it for you," she replied in an annoyed tone, and handed Scott's visor over to Jean. "Your friend's gonna need this when he wakes up, Ah think." And then she just walked away, out of the door and disappearing into the shadows of the factory like a thief.

'_Well, that's one thing off my todo list_,' thought Rogue as she walked out of the lot. '_I can put a line through "Teach that fat, lazy, stupid Texan a lesson."_' Tomorrow, she'd get her ride and hit Boston.

* * *

Well, there we go, after way too long, chapter three. I told y'all it was going to be a while, but I wasn't expecting it to take nearly three weeks, especially for such a cheesy chapter where, essentially, nothing happens except for hamming up _Henry V_. Oh, and Rogue referring to Jean as a whore ;-) (It's in the French, mes amis). On return from my grandpère's, I got hayfever. Add to that that it's spring over here and therefore uncomfortably warm and humid, and the result is that I couldn't concentrate. Sorry.  
Anyone notice the secret bonus codename? Here's a hint: It's used as a two word adjective.

Next chapter: All original, not based around an episode! That's a promise :·P Rogue hits Boston.

Translations:  
«Que dit vous? Que je suis semblable a les anges? Ah! Mon frère diable!» — "What did you say? That I am alike to the angels? Ah! My brother devil!" (Interestingly enough, in the actual script it says «Que dit il?» – "What did he say?" as there are in fact three people required to do that scene from Henry V — Henry, Katharine, and Alice).   
«Non. Pourquoi est-ce que je devrais avoir une idée sur les activités de votre putain?» — "No. Why should I have an idea on the activities of your whore?" Oooh, ain't it great that Rogue speaks French? 

If thou carest, I would have thee review, for I know not what thy opinion is of this unless ye do so. Then I can respond to thy review, should I deem it interesting enough. Please :·D


	4. A Touch of Frost

**WARNING**: This chapter contains femslash. I've tried to do it tastefully for the most part, but you have been warned.

Congratulations to aidens (anonymous reviewer), for spotting 'Marvel Girl,' Jean's original code name. Cookie for you.

I may not have said this yet, but '_This is thoughts_,' and "_This is telepathy._" Not the discreet use of single and double quotes.

Thankyou ishandahalf, aidens, for reviewing the last chapter, and everyone who's reviewed before that I forgot to thank, including Yukata Mizu Yosei, scarlet stripes, WickedWitch, crazywolfgrrl, Arin Ross, Rogue14, ThoseRainyDays, Eileen Blazer, ThessalyD, Avalon, and RikaTabithaStarr.  
A special thanks to sable-fahndu for being so generally awesome and pointing her readers here. Go read her story, "Of Fearful Dark and Blackened Hearts" (no. 2140391). It's well written, and promises to be ailed by terminal awesomeness! That and the author has the right kind of insanity ;-)

* * *

_A Touch of Frost_

"You can't have him, 'cause he's mine!" Belladonna danced around Remy, occasionally pecking him on the cheek, all the time watching her rival of the white striped hair with amused scorn.

Rogue glared at the Assassin, figuring out in her head some method of extremely painful torture for her, and also cursing the fact that she also spoke both languages that the girl from Mississippi knew how to insult her in. Then she thought of a different weapon, a different tact. She stepped forward and caught the blonde girl as she danced past, then pushed her against a wall, holding her there, their eyes level.

Feigning a pout, Rogue looked with an enchanting seduction into Belle's eyes. "Dat's a shame, chérie," she said throatily, and now pushed her body against the girl's, "'cause Ah was hopin' maybe we could–" Now she brushed her lips against Belle's. "…Have something here." Holding the Assassin's chin in her hand, she ignored the squeak from Remy behind her, and now massaged her groin on Belle's own, breathing heavily and with her eyes raised in faked ecstasy.

Belladonna's eye were wide, and it took her a little while to react. When she finally did, she pushed Rogue to the ground and screamed "Get away from me you freak!" before running off, presumably to papa Marius or Julien. Rogue just burst out in laughter on the ground. Maybe they'd up the price on her head again, although if they did, it would just be to make a point – No-one would go near the girl known to all as The Rogue anymore, whatever they were paid. Even assassins valued their own lives…. And to think it had only taken her a year of intermittent visits to New Orleans to achieve this reputation.

"M'thinks y' enjoyed y'self, chere," Remy asserted, offering the girl a hand. Rogue took it, allowing him to pull her up so their eyes were level and take her other hand.

"Yoah just dreamin', Swamp Rat," she replied. She was still laughing inside, though.

"Non, chere, I c'n tell dese t'ings." The Cajun pointed to his head. "F'r longer than 've been blowin' stuff up, too."

"That reminds meh." Rogue pulled Remy's gloves from his hands, and tossed them in the street. About half a second later they exploded. "Ya need to keep concentratin' on that still, Sugah."

"Changin' the subject, chere? So, does dat mean y' admittin' to enjoyin' y'self wid Belle?"

"If Ah did, it's _only_ 'cause it made 'er squirm. Me an' Belle gettin' togethah is just one of yoah dirty li'l fantasies, LeBeau." Rogue then grabbed hold of Remy's collar and pushed him against the wall in the same way she had his betrothed. "Whaih would Ah want _that_, when Ah can have this?" She leaned in to kiss him.

"Chere, don'," whimpered the Cajun, turning his head away. "Remy don' wan't hurt y'…."

"Ya won't," Rogue whispered, pulling Remy back, and kissed him.

"See?" Rogue asked when they finally parted.

"Good morning, Bayville," replied Remy in an uncharacteristically _professional_ voice, "It's a sunny one today, at a comfortable seventy five–"

"Bayville? Seventy five? What are you talking about?" asked Rogue, raising her eyebrows.

"Traffic into New York City is relatively clear so far," continued Remy, "But we can expect–" His red eyes morphed into the digits on Rogue's clock radio. It was earlier in the day than it had been, but also three and a half years later, and she was in her bed at the boarding house in Bayville.

"Just when it was getting up to the good bit…." sighed the southerner, glaring at the clock. It wouldn't actually go off for another three minutes, but by now Rogue was used to waking up in anticipation of her alarm. That was how it had actually been for the last year or so, and while Irene had told the southerner that she'd get used to it, she never directly said it would get better. Which tended to mean with Destiny that either she didn't know, or it would get worse – and in this matter she would definitely know. On the plus side, it meant Rogue had stopped sending her alarm clocks to their explosive doom on the other side of the room – she couldn't blame them for what they hadn't done yet. Instead, she reached across and pushed the 'radio alarm' button into the off position.

She peeled her sheets back, and shivered slightly as she sat up on the edge of her bed; She was used to sleeping naked, but the mornings were a lot cooler in Bayville than they had been back home. That was something she'd have to forget about now — for the rest of her life, home would be where she made it. She looked thoughtfully at the one thing she'd bothered to focus on this morning – her clock. "Then again, it _was_ my fav'rite dream." She picked it up and threw it at the wall between her room and Lance's, causing the clock to smash loudly and the wall to dent, thanks to the fact that Blob's power was lingering about as much as his brain did on an algebra problem. Well, if she couldn't sleep in with her dreams, then at least no-one else would either. She looked at the door, and reached under her bed.

The door was slammed open by Lance, who was too shocked by the sight of Rogue sitting there looking vicious, naked with a set of throwing knives in each hand, that he barely noticed the first knife sail past an inch from his head, and as such he didn't have the sense to get out of the way of the second one until it had pinned him to the wall by his jacket. In a sudden stroke of perception, he realised that the third knife would have as its destination a body part of Rogue's chosing, and he turned his head, closing his eyes tight.

"A-Are you okay?" he stuttered. "I heard a bang…."

"Ah'm faine," replied the southerner. "Ah just didn't want t' get up today." She shut the door.

Five minutes later, when Rogue emerged fully dressed, Lance was still in the same position. The southerner removed her knives from the wall, and rested the blade of one of them against his neck. "If Ah hear any rumors," she warned.

"You won't," choked Lance.

Rogue removed the knife. "Good boy." She patted him on the head.

On the kitchen table, Rogue found an envelope addressed to her — In the same hand that she recognised as that which Mystique used when writing to Destiny anonymously; It was much different from the handwriting Principal Darkholme used. Easily satisfied that no-one was watching – she was perpetually aware of her surroundings, after all – she opened it and looked inside.

_Dear Anna,_ she read, _'The Crimson Idiot' required my attendance early this morning. Don't overspend, will you?  
Mater Corvus._

Rogue smiled. A note at breakfast from her adoptive mother wasn't something she'd had for a long time, much less one insulting the woman's 'superior.' She looked in the envelope again, expecting a small gift in there as Mystique had always left in Mississippi, and was pleased to be rewarded with the find of a signed cheque that was otherwise blank — Raven was certainly living on the edge doing that, but at least it showed she still trusted her daughter. She quickly filled out the details, grabbed some cereal at high speed, and was walking out the door, whistling happily, just as the three boys she was boarding with were groggily walking down the stairs.

"Where're you goin' already, yo?" asked Todd.

Rogue paused. "Just to collect something of mine that Mom sent me from back home," she replied. Always sticking to the same lie was one of the better, if less moral, philosophies Mystique had taught her.

Half an hour later, she was the proud owner of a motorcycle. 'Mother Raven' _had_ promised, after all. She'd wait until after school to get her target in Boston, though.

* * *

The school day had gone by with relative ease. Rogue managed to avoid being sent to the principal's office by her teachers for the whole day, and had only had to dodge people asking questions about her bike until she pointed out that Triumph was a British badge. She hadn't had any tests, and no-one noticed when she fell asleep in Math class.

And now she was casing a 30th story penthouse apartment from a café across the street. Mystique hadn't bothered to tell her that she'd need an electronic pass to get into the building. In fact, from the way there were security guards posted all over the place, Rogue wouldn't have been surprised to find that she needed the pass, a retinal scan, three DNA samples, and a voice-print. At least the guards didn't appear to be patrolling _inside_ the apartments, although with the penthouse she couldn't be sure.

Still, it wasn't going to be that hard for a New Orleans Thief, was it? This was just the first time she'd be testing those skills in the field….

The southerner finished her coffee, folded up the newspaper she was 'reading', and placed it on the table with a modest tip as she picked up her helmet and crossed the street. Wishing she had Remy's talent for breaking through glass silently, she climbed up onto the balcony of a first floor lease, that was for the moment unoccupied, and drew a circle in the glass with a heat pen like the one her mother had given Henri. This one had a few other functions though, like the ability to transfer a 40 000 volt static charge via its nozzle, which was useful for a number of things – Mystique's favourite being the effect it had on the human heart and nervous system; Always one of the skulls on her belt would be this tool, just in case anyone was in need of death by cardiac arrest, due to neuro-electric shock of the induced variety.

Right now, however, all Rogue needed it for was to stick the section of glass she'd just cut out to her glove. When she was inside, she smacked the other side of the glass with her other hand, and slid the first one around so they were both on the same side. Placing the glass back in the hole she'd cut, an equalising charge to her gloves allowed her to remove her hands, and all she had to do then was tap the aluminium frame, and not only was she static free, but the glass cut-out would stick in place until someone kicked it or something. Now that she was inside the building, it was all too easy to get to the penthouse, provided she didn't mind doing a little bit of elevator-cable shimmying.

* * *

Emma Frost knew there was something wrong as soon as the lift reached the penthouse floor. There was someone in there, and only she had control over the access. Fair enough, people were trying to break in there all the time, often with ill will towards her, but what was truly disconcerting here was that they weren't projecting even the odd stray thought. She was about to have to deal with someone who knew about telepaths. She removed a handgun from her bag, leaning against the 'hold doors' button until the silencer was in place and her mental shield was up.

Suffice to say she was rather surprised by the fact that her intruder was a tomboyish seventeen year old girl, dressed in leather biking pants and a sleeveless shirt, casually reclining on the couch facing _away_ from the entrance to the lounge. Odd thing was, she had taken her boots, jacket, and helmet off, and left them in their requisite places in the entrance hall as though she were a guest. Emma lifted the gun and aimed it at her head.

"Hiya, Sugah," the girl said without moving. "You don't wanna do that, it'll leave a hole in yoah suede."

Emma tensed, and strengthened her shield, now actually sending a positive suggestion into the southerner's head that she wasn't there. She started to creep around the outside of the room. The southerner turned to watch her. It was disconcerting at the least that she wasn't quite looking at Emma, but where she was about to be – her eyes were actually leading the woman around towards the couch on the other side of her coffee table.

"Wouldya stop that, sugah?" she asked as Emma sat down, her knees apart so that she could rest her elbows on them to steady the gun. "It's givin' me a headache knowin' where yoah goin' t'be, but not where ya are."

That meant that the mental shield was disorienting the girl if it wasn't actually hiding Emma from her. Problem was, she wasn't projecting every conscious thought like your stock standard vagabond off the street; No, Emma would have to actually probe her mind to get definite answers. Unfortunately, that would mean letting her shield down, and that could mean death at the hands of this intruder. Seeing as she knew Emma was there anyway, the telepath figured she may as well use that _other_ method of communication, then.

The telepath didn't get a chance to voice her questions, however. "Ah am the Rogue," the southerner said, apparently anticipating the first. Truth be told, though, 'Rogue' was uncertain as to whether the question had been asked yet. "Why Ah'm here is a li'l complicated; Ah'm supposed t'be stealin' somethin' from ya, but it doesn' work quait laike it's supposed to, at least not yet, an' Ah can only borrow it fo' a short while. 'Cept it's not clear wi' you."

Emma tried to get her head around this; She wasn't even sure what questions the girl was answering by now, and the accent with extreme prejudice didn't help. On top of that, what she was saying didn't make sense; If she was stealing something, and could get into the apartment, why didn't she just take it and get out again? Why stick around to tell her? Sorting it out more slowly than she was used to, Emma formulated her next question, and even got as far as opening her mouth.

"Someone Ah doubt yoave heard of. A sorta' social engineer in favah of mutants. Ah'm not one o' X-avier's kids, but it's a good guess. Ah'm not allowed t' yell ya exactly, though Ah doubt that's gonna matter."

Unable to take any more, the telepath fired her gun. This meant several things; First, Rogue had launched herself into the air in the time it took between Emma bracing for aim and pulling the trigger, meaning all that the shot achieved was a hole in one suede couch and gunpowder all over the other. Second, Emma let her mental shield down in reflex from the gun's recoil. Third, the barrel heated up, causing Frost to instinctively loosen her grip on the gun. Rogue had control of the weapon in less than a second, and it was on the floor in an adjacent partition of the apartment soon after.

Now with one knee planted next to each of Emma's hips, Rogue sat back on her ankles. If she wanted to be utterly ruthless, she could take off her gloves, and absorb Emma right then and there. Problem was, she'd have to go all the way – the point was to get her powers, and Rogue was aware that if she didn't take all the woman's life force, it would only be a short while before trying to use her power resulted in her Frost psyche trying to take over her mind – and for this telepath, others' minds were a plaything. Rogue now considered that the situation was really somewhat of a Catch-22. Chances were if she _did_ drain the woman, she'd lose control of her mind anyway, too.

"Do you normally kill people by suffocating them in your boobs?"

Rogue blinked. The first thing that had come out of Emma's mouth was sarcasm, something that improved the southerner's opinion of her a degree. Also if Rogue was any judge of the meaning behind the way someone spoke, Miss Frost wasn't entirely nonplussed by the slightly compromising position she'd been landed in, either. That was something Rogue could work on. "Ah'm not here to take yoah laife, Sugah," she replied, "or yoah'd be dead already."

Emma scoffed. "So, what _are_ you here for?"

"You're the telepath; You tell me." Rogue grinned — the same strange grin than Remy used when he was trying to get into a girl's pants.

To say that Emma at this point decided to get the answers directly from Rogue's mind would be misleading. She didn't trust the southerner any more than she trusted anyone else to tell her the truth, and had intended before asking the question to read her mind. Quite possibly, this was a mistake. Telepathy can work both ways, and Rogue was waiting for her; From the point she entered Rogue's mind, Emma Frost was snared.

Rogue could see what was going to happen; Up until this point she hadn't been sure, and she still didn't know how her adversary would react, but by now going back wasn't a favourable option. In fact, now, it was downright difficult — a little manipulation of Emma's own mind before she realised what was happening meant that the woman was herself moving in on Rogue. She wasn't about to back down, either. The small trace of logical thought that told the southerner that she was going about this the wrong way was now completely useless, and their lips met.

The few times that Rogue had been involved in sexual contact with another woman before she had been either playing for something, or trying to get rid of them; Probably both. It was more of the same now, but this was the first time anyone had played back, and the southerner was almost surprised to find that Emma was the one to start groping. It concerned Rogue because she'd learned that fingertips – hers or her victim's, although the southerner's were worse – were the point on the body where the current of life force was second strongest (her lips being the strongest but also most controllable), unless the contact was tip to tip — and Rogue didn't need a potentially stronger psyche flowing into her head at Warp-factor nine. Aware that taking the victim's mind off the skin contact would weaken the effect, Rogue held back her power as much she could, and holding the back of Emma's head in her still gloved hand, forced her tongue between their lips.

By now Emma could feel the energies being sucked out of her. Slightly masochistic in nature, however, she found the feeling exhilarating, and it made her push harder. She played with Rogue's tongue in her mouth, and started to move her hands up the inside of Rogue's shirt, navigating around the curves of her back, feeling the energy flow out through them. Soon, she started to feel drowsy, but it was about this time that Rogue began to push harder. Her head already in a spin, Emma felt a sudden sharp pain and tensed…. Before rolling off an unconscious body, onto the floor.

She could have sworn that Rogue had been on top, as well. Her head was still spinning, so maybe they'd both rolled off? But the southerner wasn't on the floor. Using the coffee table to steady herself, Emma slowly stood up, her eyes closed. When she opened them again, she saw something that looked like her own body lying on the couch, but glistening slightly. It was cold to touch, and hard, too. Feeling light-headed and rather silly, Emma obeyed the nagging thought in the back of her mind to check for a heart beat; There was none. Very carefully, she lifted the right hand, and checked for a pulse, nearly dropping it when the fingers twitched. But there was nothing there either.

Feeling a headache make its arrival, Emma closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, and only then noticed that she was wearing leather gloves. She looked up at her reflection in the window, and squeaked. She had to be seeing things; To check for sure, she ran into her dressing room and looked in the mirror. Now she shrieked at what she saw — there, staring back at her with her own electric blue eyes, was the Rogue.

The last thing she saw before passing out was those eyes turn to a bright jade.

* * *

Three hours later, Emma woke in her bed. Relieved to find herself in her own body, her first reaction was that she'd had a strange dream, but that assumption was cast aside when she pushed open her bedroom door to find Rogue sitting at her kitchen bench, idly playing with a knife.

"Sleep well?" the southerner asked.

"Hardly." Emma glared at the back of her head. "You came to steal my powers, didn't you?"

"Didn't exactly work out like that, though, did it?" was the reply. Only now did the telepath notice that the southern accent was gone.

"What on earth are you talking about, child?" Frost spat the last word like it was the worst insult on Earth.

"What have I been doing for the last two and half hours?"

Emma blinked a couple of times. "You were bored, so you did my paperwork for the day. An odd choice of activities, I'll admit, but what does this have to do with anything?"

"Between that and seeing how I look in your lingerie?" Rogue raised an eyebrow before continuing her inquisition. "So, how do you know that?".

"Obviously you're projecting your–"

"_No, _now_ I'm projecting my thoughts. I don't do it unless I _want_ someone like you to hear me. It's just one of those thing Momma ingrained in me since I was five._" The telepathic stream hit Emma hard and painfully.

"Oh shit," the telepath cursed as realisation dawned. "We're… _connected_, aren't we?"

En lieu of answering this, Rogue slammed the knife's blade into her own arm, causing Emma to scream.

"You're a psychopath!" she yelled, cradling her own arm as though it actually had a knife wound in it.

Rogue smiled as the gash on her own arm closed over. "I guess it's true then — like mother, like daughter." In her hand, the knife morphed into a skull-shaped buckle, and she attached it to her belt.

"Maybe explains a little about why you used my own power to seduce me. Actually, why _did_ you do that?"

Rogue sighed. "I was _hoping_ to be able to convince you that you actually liked me for the time I was touching you, so that the part of you I absorbed did; I didn't actually mean for it to go that far. Obviously that's not particularly useful to either of us now, though."

"Obviously." Emma narrowed her eyes. "Give me one good reason I shouldn't kill you now."

Rogue laughed. "Let's see…. Firstly, Pietro Maximoff is maybe the only person on the planet fast enough to even get close to me, and even then only maybe, and secondly, if you did somehow manage to pull it off, I'd be sitting in the back of your head for the rest of your life tormenting you."

Emma shot her a death glare, and then concentrated on creating a psionic pain in Rogue's head. This only served to make her own head hurt. "What the hell?!"

"First rule of the Rogue," explained the southerner, chuckling, "I'm better at using your power than you. When I can actually get control of it."

"Are you trying to tell me that I can't win?"

"Actually, this _can_ work for both of us." Rogue grinned and licked her teeth. "You have an _interest_ in Xavier's school, no?"

Looking mischievously at Rogue, Emma sat on to stool next to her and crossed her legs. "Do tell?" she asked, smiling.

"Fairly soon, I'll be boarding there. You see what I see, hear what I hear, and know what I know. In exchange, you let me channel your powers to stay hidden from Xavier and Jean Grey."

Emma nodded. "Interesting plan. Devious; Cunning. We both benefit, and Charles Xavier gets the short end of the stick…." She chuckled.

"Do we have a deal?" Rogue held out her hand to shake.

Emma gripped it firmly. "Indeed."

Rogue stood up and put on her jacket. She had put her boots back on some time since Emma had passed out, and retrieved her jacket and helmet from the hall. The southerner pulled on her gloves and helmet as she walked to the glass door that opened out onto Emma's balcony. "I have to go now," she said, stepping out into the night.

"Aren't you going to go out through the lobby?" asked Emma, walking out behind her.

Rogue shook her head, and smiled at the telepath. "One thing I learned from my mentor in the Thieves' Guild: If you enter as a thief, you leave as a thief." She removed two skull-clips from the inside of her jacket. One morphed into a crossbow like device, and the other into a thin rope with a pair of metallic threads and a mechanical crimping bolt on one end. "_That_ I 'inherited' from Momma." She clipped the rope's bolt into the bow, and stepped up onto the railing, facing Emma, before flipping the helmet's visor down. Even through it, it was clear that her eyes were now glowing green. "See y'all around," she said, before back-flipping off the 30th story balcony.

Emma watched Rogue disappear into the darkness below. No-one else noticed the thief gliding through the sky with a cat-like grace. The click of the bow as Rogue fired the repelling rope off, passing the twelfth floor, went unheeded. No eyes saw the crimping bolt catch on a tenth floor balustrade, and the only witness to the southerner landing on the grass as the elastic tension of the rope hit its peak was a black alley cat. The resounding thwap through the neighbourhood as the bolt released its grip could have been anything from a ruler being struck against a desk in an opportune position to a small bolt of thunder.

"That was quite possibly the weirdest sex I've ever had," the young White Queen of the Hellfire Club said to the air.

* * *

Bwahaha! I bet you thought a leggy blonde in Boston was going to be Carol, didn't you? But no, it wasn't! I probably couldn't write a fight scene between Rogue and Ms. Marvel without pissing myself laughing, anyway. Sorry this took so long to update again, but I had to go through it a few times to stop it from sounding completely stupid. Also there was that stuff with the site's upgrades that prevented me from uploading, perhaps fotunately.  
If anyone's wondering about the skulls, I read somewhere that comic book Mystique's original costume (almost the same one as her first one in Evolution) included a belt of skull shaped clips that were actually tools (read: weapons) that she could morph into their true form to use. I presume there were some extreme limitations to this, but I thought it was cool, anyway.  
At some point in time I really must write the rest of chapter 11 of my other fic and upload it…. 10 is really a bitch of a cliffhanger to leave people on.

Next chapter: Pietro turns up and receives several boots to the bum from les femmes Darkholmes shortly before Kurt gets himself and Rogue trapped in a pocket dimension known as (duh, duh, duuuuum) _Middleverse_, where they find the mutant shaman Forge.

Review me! Review review review! Keep the reviews to chapters ratio up so that it's beating my Kim Possible one-shot again! Make a funny comment I can reply to! Say something you want to happen in the story (You may just find it worms its way in there)! Flame me for almost gratuitous, poorly justified femslash! Anything! Please, review! Oh, but if anyone REVIEWS ME IN ALL CAPS, I'll find out where you live and beat you with a 6½ foot hardwood staff. Just a warning. Oh, I promise to remember to thank you if you review, too, even flamers :·)


	5. El Speedo no Comprende

_Pre-AN_ :: I got one review for the last chapter. Only one. And it was anonymous. So, **A great big giant thankyou to catti, whoever you are.**

Same punctuation rules apply as before. Additionally layered quotation inside a section of speech that contains predominantly italic text denotes telepathy also. "For an example, '_this is telepathy,_' while this isn't." Rogue's psyches and 'Telepathic' communication between Rogue and Emma Frost will be denoted by italics contained by single European (arrow) quotes outside of any other quotation block ‹_like so,_› and will be treated as separate speakers (ie. They get their own paragraph) — note that this is in contrast to foreign languages being spoken but written in English as per comics, which I have never done. Were I do that that, however, I would probably use the time-honoured tradition of the single arrow quotes, but without italics. Rogue will have conscious thought like everyone else, though – and presume that Emma and her psyches can hear her whenever she does. It is possible that at some point, Emma Frost will use Rogue as a sort of telepathic conduit, but it's unlikely thus far and as such I'll tell you what that looks like if and when it happens. While I'm clearing these things up, «C'est Français, d'ailleurs, ou une autre langue Européenne. Okay?» That should have been obvious….

* * *

_El Speedo no Comprende_

"And where exactly have you been?" Mystique asked angrily as Rogue shut the door behind her.

"I would say keep your shirt on," replied the southerner, "but I think the most you're ever worn was a towel. I was in Boston, of course. '_Anyway, you haven't given me curfew since I was eight_.'"

Mystique blinked. "Is it entirely safe to say something like that?"

"Say something like what?" asked Rogue. "_I absorbed a telepath, ergo I have telepathy. Incidentally there's also this cool thing where I can turn my body to diamond that she didn't even know about. And everyone else is asleep already, anyway._"

"Excellent," replied the shapeshifter, "but how do I use it to talk to you?"

"It's fairly simple, really," replied Rogue, "Most people actually think so loudly that I have to filter it out. You might have to actually _project_ your thoughts somehow, though."

"_You mean like what I taught you about keeping your thoughts to yourself,_" the shapeshifter surmised, "_but in reverse?_"

Rogue smiled. "_Precisely._"

Returning the smile, Mystique chuckled darkly. "Then I guess we are set to go," she said.

Whilst heading up to her room, Rogue vaguely wondered if she'd be ever be able to have sex again without absorbing her partner.

‹_Are you sure you want to_?› asked Emma. ‹_I got the impression from your memories that the absorption added quite a thrill._›

'_Seems wrong to go hurting people just because I want to make out, though,_' replied Rogue. '_A bit like having a voice in your head that belongs to someone living over a hundred miles away suddenly interrupt your train of thought to comment on it._'

Emma blew a mental raspberry at her. ‹_You absorbed my life force and in the process of doing so initiated a sort of permanent mind-link with me. Now you have to live with the consequences._›

'_Don't make me make you regret it._'

‹_Don't make me make you tell 'Momma' that you can't hold on to powers permanently and that's why you're sharing bodies with the telepath she sent you to absorb and kill._›

Rogue saw her eyes turn to blue in her dressing mirror and back again as Emma forced the southerner's hands onto her hips. '_That trick's gonna work both ways, Frosty,_' she warned.

‹_Strike one,_› replied the telepath.

'_Just shut up and go to bed already._'

Rogue forced herself awake once during the night, but decided that the images Emma was inserting into her mind of Belladonna making love with Remy were easier to cope with than what Toad was dreaming about – suffice to say it involved the southerner herself, and wasn't something that was ever going to happen no matter how much Tolanski wanted it to. At least with Remy and Belle, she had a _hot_ naked body to look at.

* * *

The brotherhood waited, bored, outside principal Darkholme's office. Nothing much was happening in large quantities, and the steady _pock_ of the ping-pong ball against the paddle it was tied to was making Blob one very unpopular person. At least with Alvers and Rogue — Todd was too busy staring at the southerner to notice. They didn't know what was going on in there that was delaying their weekly meeting, or at least most of them didn't, and that was irritating them too.

"Will you stop that already?" Lance asked angrily.

Dukes shrugged. "Make me," he replied.

"Okay." Alvers narrowed his eyes and the room began to shake.

"Hey, don't do that," Rogue said angrily, "You'll get us grounded. Do ya want t' spend the next week cooped up in the boardin' house?"

"You got a better idea?" asked Avalanche.

The southerner's eyes shifted to Toad and back. "Yeah," she replied, before grabbing Tolanski and throwing him at Blob's head.

"Hey!" yelled Fred as he lost concentration on the ping-pong ball and it whipped him in the eye.

"That wasn't nice, yo!" Todd added from his position of mangledness on the floor.

"You had it coming," replied Lance, laughing.

"Both of ya," Rogue agreed.

"_What_ was that?" Principal Darkholme had slammed her door open, and was now glaring at the four students.

"Blob and Toad were bein' dicks," Rogue replied simply.

Raven growled in the back of her throat. "In the future, try to reprimand them without breaking anything that isn't theirs. You may come in now."

"So, what's up?" asked Rogue as Mystique morphed into her true form, the door closed. "_A basketball game?_" she added mentally.

"It would seem that we're about to receive a new team member," Mystique informed them, "and he's not taking a position below captain."

"What, first you shaft me, now Rogue?" asked Lance. "What the hell is your deal?"

"You will accept whatever decisions I make and you will like them," snarled Mystique, "but as it stands this one is not mine. The founder of our organisation feels it necessary that his son lead the team, whether we like it or not."

"Yeah, well, we'll see," the rock-tumbler growled.

"Ah appreciate the sentiment, sugah," said Rogue, "but if goin' against Magnetah's decisions was something ya just did, Mystique would've done it bah now."

"So, what's this freak's name?" Toad asked, picking wax out of his ear.

"Pietro Maximoff. He calls himself 'Quicksilver.'"

Blob laughed. "What a stupid name!"

"No more stupid than 'Blob,'" retorted Rogue, who had picked up the short file from Darkholme's desk. "Jeez, he don't want us ta know much about 'im, does he? Says here he can run faster than a hundred fifteh miles per hour, and thinks several times faster than evereh'one else ta compensate. ‹_Guess I'll have to test that one,_›" she added to Mystique.

"Pietro thinks he doesn't need anyone, because his powers allow him to do get away with anything he does," the metamorph supplied. She smiled. "The boy is in serious need of being put in his place. Magneto didn't leave specific instructions for us not to do so.

"Apparently we don't need to do anything to recruit him, as Magneto is handling it himself. He _is_ expecting us to give Pietro a warm welcome however."

"Sounds to me like that's not your plan," Lance observed.

* * *

His father's hand resting on his shoulder, Pietro surveyed his troops. "I gotta-lead this bunch-of-slobs?" he asked. "And isn't there-one-missing?"

"Mystique, where is Rogue?" Magneto demanded.

"I'm sure she's around… somewhere" the shapeshifter supplied. This was the first time the Brotherhood had seen Magneto and Mystique in the same place, well Magneto at all, and they were rather surprised to see that she appeared to be … _scared_ of him.

"She's probably still out getting Quicksilver a gift," supplied Lance. "She's taking this pretty well, considering."

"Hey, I didn't get a gift when I joined," complained Dukes.

Avalanche glared at him. "Shut up, Blob"

"You'd probably've-eaten-it-anyway," accused Pietro, now standing in front of the massive Texan. "I-mean, you're-shaped-like-your-codename." He ducked out of the way of the punch Blob threw at him. "Ha! Missed me!"

"Frederick!" warned Mystique. He hung his head.

"I-guess-you-must-be-the-toad," Quicksilver almost yelled into Todd's ear. "I'm not taking-you-out in public until-you've-showered, y'hear?"

"Hey, why are you being so nasty, yo?" the targeted mutant asked.

'I'm-not-nasty-your-smell-is-nasty!" Pietro then moved on to Lance. "I-guess-that-leaves-the-rock-tumbler." He held out his hand to shake.

"Avalanche," said Lance sternly, and moved to take the hand.

Pietro, predictably, pulled it away at the last moment "Too-slow!" he exclaimed. "So, where's-this-Rogue-girl?"

"I said, she's probably still getting a gift for you," replied Lance.

"She'll be here soon enough," Mystique said.

"That's a shame," replied Magneto, "I had hoped to meet her face-to-face. Maybe another time, I have things to take care of." He turned and floated out the door.

"What's so special about Rogue that he wants to meet _her_ so much?" sneered Lance.

"I don't know, but Magneto has been watching Rogue for some years now," replied Mystique. "He seems to believe that she'll be willing to be some kind of limitless powerhouse for him by choice."

"Ha!" exclaimed Pietro. "I-can-beat-her-any-day!"

"And ya haven't even met me yet," a shadow said, before the southerner herself stepped out of it. "Simply amazin'."

What Pietro saw walking towards him was, apparently, worth salivating over. Rogue was dressed in a purple knee-length loose knit skirt that her dark underwear showed through, and a deep red sleeveless crossover top that presented pretty much all her cleavage. The outfit was complemented with a sash-like belt that held several 'decorative' skulls in the same style as those attached to Mystique's dress. "So," the boy said, trying to sound suggestive, "what's this 'gift?'"

Rogue was again disgusted by the on-comings, despite having set them up herself. That was almost becoming a hobby. Sure, her ex-officio boyfriend was just as full of himself, but he always knew what to say. Pietro was just a self-important shithead. "Patience," she replied, drawing a finger up the underside of his chin. He didn't even notice that his wallet was now missing.

"I-I can do that," the speed demon stuttered.

Rogue took several steps backwards, and waved the wallet in the air above her head. "Get it back, an' win the prahze," she taunted.

Greedy for the 'prize,’ whatever he thought it might be, annoyed that his wallet had been stolen, and frustrated that the southerner hadn't just immediately given in to his advances, Pietro ran to take a grab at his cash.

It's hard to be too fast for someone who knows exactly what you're going to do before you know yourself. Rogue's bare arm made contact with the back of Pietro's neck, and he went down, apparently quicker even than most people. '_Must have something to do with his hyperactive metabolism,_' thought Rogue. Out loud, she declared, "Ya failed _that_ test — too slow."

‹_Too slow?!_› screeched Emma ‹_You just made me damn nearly propel myself into a wall that_ had _been twenty yards away!_›

Rogue smirked. '_Shoulda' been looking where you were going, sugar…._'

‹_I was. El speedo over there just so happened to make me go about ten times faster than I'm used to._›

‹_Hey!_› the imprint of Pietro protested, ‹_I'm not-the-one-who-absorbed me! Hey, there's a furry-blue-plush-toy sitting in the corner!_›

‹_What did you just call my son?!_›

‹_I refuse to believe you are meine Mutter!_›

'_Believe it, Kurt. I've seen her memories. Oh, and y'all can shut up, too._'

‹_I'll say,_› agreed Emma, ‹_Are they always this annoying?! I'm going to go insane just trying to not listen to the noise on the inside of your head!_›

'_Tell me about it. Eventually I'll be able to shut them off…. Hopefully soon, before there's too many of them._'

‹_I guess at least we'll have the resources to break out of the looney bin. Should I refer to you in the singular or plural, by the way?_›

'_Tell you what, Emma, you can shut up too._' This was avenged by the now all too familiar telepathic raspberry. '_Real mature, Grace, real mature._'

‹_A long as it pisses you off. Anyway, I'm not allowed to be a kid outside my head…._›

'_Most people who have imaginary friends create them, y'know, they don't just get the nearest person that it takes zero effort to communicate with telepathically and try to make them it._'

‹_Reminding you at this point that it wasn't my idea to be co-habiting brain space with the psychopathic daughter of a terrorist._›

"Huh?" Rogue focused on the world outside her head just in time to dodge a bucket of water. "Speedy's got th' imprinted psychehs excahted again," she explained, catching on that she'd just been staring into space for the last minute. "Y'all have no idea what it's like havin' a teen-aged boy in ya head doin' the psychic equivalent of rocking back 'n forth in fetal position chantin' 'Ah wanna go home' over an' over."

"If you say so," replied Lance, "But how did the bucket end up on by head?"

The southerner shrugged. "Reflex. Next time, throw the water on Maximoff."

"What the hell?" The aforementioned speed demon was just coming around. Lance had, at this point, made no attempt to remove the bucket from his head.

"Up and coming fashion," replied Avalanche.

"It's what's hot in Europe raight now," confirmed Rogue.

"Riiight," Pietro replied before limping off towards the kitchen, from whence could be smellèd the aroma of cooling pizza.

"Ten bucks says he's wearing a bucket on his head consistently by the end of the week," Lance whispered.

Rogue thought about this for a short while. "Raise it ta twenty and yo'ah on," she replied.

‹_You're cheating,_› complained Emma. ‹_Anyone who knew about your contact with Destiny would never enter a bet against you!_›

'_And your point is?_'

‹_He would have still gone for the bait if you said thirty. You could have convinced him he wanted fifty – With a little bit of help._›

'_I'm not in it for the money. I just wanna see him continue to try and convince girly-boy to wear a bucket on his head._'

‹_Are you sure he won't do it? I'm pretty sure that's what his father was wearing._›

'_Nah, wouldn't go with his manicure._'

* * *

Yeah, yeah, I know, this is waaay shorter than the others. It had been going to be longer, but then I realised there was a point that really was a chapter break about halfway through what I'd written, which was about a third of the way into the total length of the chapter, and as it didn't fit where it was put, it went better in a separate chapter.  
Ergo, The Middleverse events come in chapter 6 instead. I apologise for this chapter being so lame, but you've gotta admit, the episode that it roughly correlates to was pretty lame, too.  
So, um, review if you want :·D [Yeah, right] 


	6. Fuzzball Trapping

_Pre-AN_ :: Like I said last chapter, weird break. Hence the lead-in sentence.  
I wasn't going to acknowledge reviews for chapter 5 until chapter 7, as I was not expecting any reviews worth serious consideration in this time, but there has been one review covering the last two chapters that demands attention. Thankyou **UncannyAsianGirl** for reviewing. Review responses are at the bottom of the page like old times.

* * *

_Fuzzball Trapping_

One week and zero bucket-bearing heads later, Rogue was sitting under a tree by herself, reading. Having determined that pretty much the entire population of Bayville High were morons, that was more or less all she did these days. This one was some trashy Gothic romance by St. John Allerdyce – a young Australian whose writing had become popular recently. The southerner had bought this one with the money she'd gained from Lance because at the moment she didn't have anything better to do with it. Rogue found herself drawn to his books not because it was in any way good writing, but they for some reason gave the impression that the characters were real people, and after going through them a couple of times, she realised that Allerdyce was writing about mutants in love. What she couldn't work out yet was why they all gave the impression that the main character was about to set fire to something – something that he hadn't done in any of this series so far, but always seemed to be on the verge of doing. '_Must be an Australian thing. Damned Pyros._' They were having an effect on her too; Her outwards attitude was growing more depressed, and she even found herself beginning to dress like a goth.

The southerner looked up and sniffed the air before realising that the scent she was trying to decipher wasn't around yet. Thinking a little ahead as always, she packed up her stuff and walked down to where a hatchway led to a room that could only be described as abandoned, or possibly ex-janitorial. This was definitely the smell's origin, and it reeked. She held her nose, and then stepped lightly away from a stack of boxes, which promptly collapsed with a _bamf_.

She looked down at the furry blue demon-like mutant that had appeared there. "You have _got_ to work on yoah re-entries," she said.

Kurt looked up at her, and nearly screamed. "Vhat are _you_ doing here?" he asked in an accusatory tone.

"Look who's talkin'. Ah mean, you've probably got a ban on usin' yoah powers an' everything."

"Ja, and I just broke my watch, too. I can't go out like this!"

"Ya can teleport from tree ta tree like a monkeh, Ah'll bet."

This comment was cause for Kurt to glare at her. "Sometimes I swear you act just like you vere my older sister."

The southerner laughed at this. "Personally, Ah don't see mahself playin' nice wit' the goody-goodies," she replied, flicking at her fingernails.

Kurt furrowed his brow as though suddenly realising something. "Why are you talking to me? If I vas any other one of the X-Men, you'd have tried to kill me by now!"

Rogue raised an eyebrow. "Tried, sugah? You say it like Ah'm some kind of half-baked wannabe killah. Anyway, ya ain't given me a reason to."

"You know vhat I mean," replied the furry mutant, "you being hostile to us and everything."

Rogue smirked. "Ah have mah reasons, Mickey; For' one, yo'ah not quaht like them others. Ya're a bit of a trouble-maker, no? Like mahself. Ah gotta respect that, at least."

"Katzchen is a trouble-maker too," Kurt supplied.

"Yeah, well, there's trouble, and theah's _trouble_, if ya catch mah meanin'."

"I think I see what you mean by that. You mean, going out and finding it, as opposed to sitting around planning it and then pulling off a minor prank, ja?"

Rogue nodded. "Ah bet you can think of somethin' to do that Kitty wouldn't right of the top of yoah 'ead."

Kurt looked up, and saw the sign hung over the double doors at one end of the room that said in large bold lettering '**STAY OUT**.' "I think I can do that…."

"Kurt, wait–!"

It was too late; The teleporter had teleported. Rogue stepped back a few feet and started counting down from ten. "Are you okay?" she asked when the dust had cleared. "Ah mean, that was one heck of an explosion for one li'l room."

"Couldn't you have varned me about zat?" Kurt asked angrily as she helped him up.

Rogue put on her best shocked face (which had to be pretty good when you consider who taught it to her), and held her hand over her breast. "Me? How was _Ah_ supposed to know it would explode?" She looked back to the entrance of the lab. "C'mon, let's check out what's left."

Kurt pondered why he'd been invited to come with her for a moment before following Rogue into the lab. "So, vhat are the other reasons?"

"You'll find out soon enough, sugah," his sister replied, looking around . "Well, whatever this place _was_, it's trashed now…."

"Except _that_!" Kurt exclaimed, indicating a retro-futuristic looking device sitting on top of an ex-filing cabinet. He teleported over to it.

"Don't touch it!" Rogue cried, but again she was too late. Kurt backed away towards her as the device started to vibrate. The southerner placed her hands on her hips and glared at him. "Now you've done it."

"Done what?" Kurt asked nervously. He was answered immediately when they were engulfed in a weird pink beam that stopped short of the wall.

A second later, they were standing in the main hall of the school. Except they weren't – everything looked somehow unreal, as though it would dissolve if you tried to touch it. "Where are we?" Kurt asked. "_The Twilight Zone_?"

An image appeared, of people milling around in the hall, most of them laughing as though it were some kind of insane-happy-giggling convention, only to disappear again within a moment. "Doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo-doo" Rogue sang to the theme of 'The Twilight Zone.'

‹_Thankyou, Miss Darkholme,_› Emma sardoned. ‹_I'll have that stuck in my head for the rest of the day now._›

'_You're welcome,_' replied the southerner, projecting Frost's patented mental raspberry at the telepath.

‹_Fine, then, you'll just have to figure a way out of there yourself._›

* * *

Todd Tolanski was feeling oppressed. Oppressed, hungry, and down on his luck. Principal Darkholme had just run over his lunch, a very tasty species of beetle, and sent him packing. He wasn't allowed near the staff carpark, she'd told him, and if she found just _one_ piece of slime on her new car….

He'd made his way to the dumpster at the back of the school with the aim of consoling himself on the reliable buffet of garbage flies. Only today, it wasn't so reliable. Feeling even worse, he trudged on, and that's when he smelled the smell. Anyone else would have said it was awful, but the Toad thought bad smells were heaven, and knew that where you found the smell of something rotting, you found flies. He followed it down to a cellar-type room….

There were still no flies – it seemed that this smell was too bad even for them – but there was a buzzing noise coming from an adjoining room. Looking in, Tolanski saw trashed computing and scientific equipment, some crackling with electric arcs that made the buzzing noise. The smell of ozone was heavy in the air here, almost drowning out the awful smell from the other room.

"Whoa, what happened in here?" Todd asked the destruction, looking around. Something then caught his eye — on top of a filing cabinet was a strange looking device that was emitting a low thrumming noise. It was the only thing in the room that hadn't been damaged, it seemed. The insect eating boy hopped over and grabbed hold of it by the arms that stuck out the side. "What is _this_ thing?"

Unbeknownst to the young mutant, he had grazed the trigger on the device. Suddenly, the thrumming turned into a shrill whine as the device started to vibrate angrily. Leaping for cover, Toad dropped the device on the floor.

When the ensuing electric _zwap_ subsided back to the thrumming, Todd looked out from where he was hiding. The filing cabinet was was gone. "Cool…," he declared to the world in general.

In a pocket dimension not far away, Rogue grabbed her brother's wrist in a gloved hand and yanked him out of the way just before the filing cabinet came crashing down to earth just near where he'd been standing.

"Yikes!" exclaimed Kurt. "Somevun doesn't like me…. Thanks for zer rescue."

"Don't mention it, sugah," the southerner replied, smiling. "But while Ah'll admit that the idiot who's got that thing _doesn't_ like ya, Ah don't think he's smart enough ta actually be able to target you with it." She pointed to a green mark on the side of the cabinet.

On closer inspection, it turned out to Kurt to be a glob of acidic slime. "Toad," he hissed. "Great, how are ve going to get out of here now?"

Rogue, however, was concentrating on a shadow that was shifting away down one of the halls. "Maybe that guy can help?" she offered.

"What guy?" her brother, who hadn't seen him, asked.

"Never mind, just teleport us to the gym," the southerner replied, wrapping an arm around Kurt's neck. "That's where he's headed."

"Hey, since when did you—" Nightcrawler started.

"Falling desk! Gym! Now!" Rogue yelled.

Kurt looked up, and saw a small lab desk materialise. His power kicked in as a panic reaction, and he and his sister were transported to the last place that had gone through his mind — the school gym.

* * *

Scott Summers was not having a good day. First, everyone but Jean had stormed off because he didn't want them to go to Duncan Matthews party for various reasons relating to mutant powers. Now Kurt was outright missing, and he felt it was his fault. Apparently, so did Jean.

"So you think I should apologize to Kurt, huh?" he asked, walking down the hall with her.

"Well, what matters is what you think," the redhead replied, trying to be supportive but also point out that Scott was the one at fault here.

"You gotta admit, he jerks around way too much."

"So? Is that worth losing a friend over?"

Scott sighed. "We'd better find him before–" He grunted, and then clutching his head, fell to his knees.

"Scott? Are you okay?" Jean asked of the boy who was now collapsed on the floor. She offered him a hand.

"Yeah, I think so," he admitted. "That was sure weird…. Just like being absorbed by Rogue…." Taking Jean's hand, he pulled himself up to a standing position. "Hey, you don't think…?"

"Oh God, I hope not," replied Jean. "The power to do something like that, even in the hands of someone like Xavier… that would spell disaster."

"We'd better warn the others, just in case. Jean, can you–?"

"On it." Jean raised her hands to her head and began contacting the other students that resided at Xavier's mansion through telepathy. She tried to gather them together into one link so that she only had to say it once. Kitty, Evan…. "I can't pick up a trace of Kurt anywhere," she exclaimed. "It's like he doesn't exist!"

"Try again," said Scott. "He's gotta be _somewhere_."

Jean shook her head. "I am. I'm not getting anything. He's just completely gone."

Hearing the heavy thumps of Fred Dukes walking towards them, Scott came to a conclusion. "Or, somebody _did_ something to him," he accused, turning around. "Where's Kurt?" he demanded of the two Brotherhood boys approaching them.

Blob laughed. "Yeah, like we'd tell you?"

"Scott, no," warned Jean as the Alaskan snarled, glaring at them.

He charged Avalanche and slammed him into a locker. "I said, where is he?"

"Get off o' me!" Lance yelled.

"What, have you done, with Kurt?"

"Get lost, Slim." Fred picked Scott up by the collar of his shirt. By now, there was a crowd gathering.

"Put him down," demanded Jean, glaring at Fred.

"Back off, Red, or I'll rock you," Lance retorted, and shook the hall for effect.

Narrowing her eyes, Jean curled her hands into fists and her hair raised in indication that use of telekinesis was in effect, all the while the kids gathered around were chanting "fight, fight, fight," or something similar, over and over. Not one of them was paying enough attention to notice to lockers rattling, nor did they find it in any way strange that Jean's whole body was no longer held in place by gravity but her own force of will.

Then suddenly the chanting stopped. "_What_ is going on here?" demanded principal Darkholme, pushing some kids aside as she stalked through the throngs of students. Almost immediately, the crowd vanished.

"We weren't doin' nothin'," explained Fred rather stupidly.

"Yeah," confirmed Lance, "Summers here just went ballistic on us for no reason!"

"Oh, I have a reason," Scott sneered as Dukes let him down to the ground, and glared at Avalanche, ready to go at him again.

Jean, on the other hand, was a little more concerned about keeping the peace. "Scott–"

"Quiet," commanded the principal. "You two," – she indicated the X-Men present – "in my office, now."

Lance sneered and made the generally accepted sign for 'Loser,' forefinger and thumb in the shape of an L, at them as they followed Darkholme to her office. They ignored him.

Meanwhile, things in the pocket dimension were getting pretty hectic. For Kurt, anyway. "Wherever this is, I can't teleport out," he announced.

"Took ya long enough to work that out," replied Rogue from the bleachers, filing her nails. Shew blew the dust off them. "Couch."

Nightcrawler knew better than to argue. He teleported away just as a couch from principal Darkholme's office appeared, watching from his hiding position behind his southern companion as it crashed to the ground — which seemed strangely impervious to damage.

"Hey, don't you hide behind me, sugah," Rogue instructed. "Ah don't wanna get squished, and that thing seems to be trackin' ya."

"So, vhere's this phantom guy, then?" Kurt asked. "This is the gym, and I don't see anyone else around."

"Desk," his sister replied bluntly. When Kurt had teleported them to safety, she continued, "Principal Darkholme's gonna be pretty mad about that. Anyway, he'll be here, Ah've seen it, but this place is playin' hell on mah precognition. Chair."

This time, they just ducked out of the way. "A-ha! So you admit it, you _can_ see the future. Who did you steal _that_ from?"

"Actually, Irene gave it to me. She was mah guardian back in Mississippi," Rogue explained. "If she hadn't given it to me freely, I wouldn't be able to hold on to it as well as I do." She winced as she realised that she'd slipped out of the southern accent that masked the slight Austrian tinge to the way she spoke, something that was an effect of being trained to annunciate cleanly by the two women she'd grown up with — because she'd been speaking Mississippi drawl for two years before Mystique and Destiny had shown up, that was the only other way to speak that came naturally to her – even her French, which she'd spoken fluently since the age of six, was a little rougher for it. Fortunately, her German brother didn't notice the change in voice. "Anyway, Ah don't know exactly when things are gonna happen unless it's within the next few seconds here. Bookcase!"

"Toad is going to be in _so_ much trouble…," Kurt mused as he peered through the sulphurous smoke to where the book case had landed, just where he'd been a second ago.

"More than you imagine," replied Rogue, not far away from the now broken bookcase. Of course, knowing which way something was going to fall in advance helped you to know where to stand. She picked a few important volumes out of the shelves and dumped them in her bag, knowing that Mystique would miss them were they to stay there.

Back in what passed as the real world for those concerned, Raven Darkholme was clearly not pleased by the lack of furniture in her room. Todd had vacated it just as she was arriving, having heard her already angry speech through the door. "What happened here?!" she yelled. "Who took my furniture?!" She then turned and rushed from the room, presumably to follow this up with Facilities.

Jean and Scott continued walking into the room anyway, and wandered up to the window. Outside, Toad was laughing in the process of sending the Principal's car to another dimension.

"Bet I know what happened to Kurt," Scott assumed.

In the gym of the pocket dimension, Rogue transformed into a diamond-hard form in anticipation of her mother's new car landing on her. Failing to notice this, Kurt performed a double port and tackle, landing them again all the way across the hall.

"Ah guess that makes us even," said Rogue, quietly going back to a more relaxed density.

Kurt laughed. "But you haven't trapped us both in an alternate dimension yet," he complained.

The southerner smiled. Her brother's sense of humour did have a semblance to that belonging to her mother and self — one little string that added to those things that might mean an easy resolution to family business with him.

The implications of that teleportation in Raven's office were not entirely trivial. It seemed that instead of shifting at an undetectable speed through a home dimension, from the pocket dimension, Kurt's power was ghosting him and anything he transported somewhat more slowly through the last material dimension he'd been in – that meant the dimension belonging to his Earth, and by some strange connection he and Rogue were moved though their mother's office. This time it was Jean's turn to collapse.

"What is it?" asked Scott worriedly. "Was it Rogue?"

"Yeah," grunted Jean. "Kurt too. I got a brief mental reading from both of them at the same time — and trust me, getting one from Rogue is _not_ something you want to happen…. I think they're trapped somewhere, an alternate dimension or something."

Scott looked out the window again. "I think we'd better have a _talk_ with Toad."

* * *

Things had quietened down in the gym. Kurt had stopped madly trying to teleport back home, and Rogue continued to sit on the bleachers, filing her nails. '_God knows why_,' she thought, '_I mean, I could just shift them better. I wonder making them diamond permanently would work?_' By way of experimentation, she utilised Mystique's power to apply Emma's secondary mutation to just _a part_ of her body.

‹_Now, _that's_ impressive,_› Emma noted of the southern gal's shiny nails. ‹_Love to see any file try to take _them_ out!_›

Rogue scoffed. '_I could sharpen knives with these._'

"Gyah!" Apparently Kurt had missed the other boy entering the room. He'd teleported himself to to wall just above the door, where the sticky pads on the fingers and toes of his suit were now allowing him to stick.

"Whoa. Where'd you come from?" the boy asked, apparently of the sulphurous fumes.

He was called Forge, Rogue precalled¹, and his mutant power was technology; He could build, modify, and repair any system conceivable by the human mind instinctively. Apparently, he had modified one of his arms to morph into a kind of Swiss-army screwdriver, so Rogue mentally filed him in the class of 'Nut,' along with the likes of Charles Xavier and Magneto. And now, her little brother was freaking him out. Yeah, Kurt probably belonged to that class, too.

"What _are_ you, man?" Forge asked the demonic looking mutant.

"Don't let my looks fool you," replied Kurt, standing from where he'd leapt to the floor, "I'm a harmless blue fuzzball. Really! Hey, I know you." He began to walk towards the other mutant, pointing at him and frowning. "You're the one I saw on the computer screen. Just before it blew!"

"Huh, yeah!" exclaimed Forge. "The name's Forge. So you found my lab, huh?" Raising an eyebrow, he continued, "But what's with the Halloween get-up?"

"No, he really looks like that," interrupted an accented voice behind him.

Forge jumped and turned around to face the tight leather leggings, breast hugging tank top – and they _were_ breasts –

"Whatcha starin' at, mister?"

If you'd asked him, Forge would have told you that nonchalant venom in expression didn't exist, and probably would have laughed at you, but now he was facing it. It was the most unnerving and sobering thing he'd ever encountered. "Uh, w– what's your name?" he managed to stammer out, trying desperately to concentrate on her eyes. Problem was, he'd been warned about eyes like that. They were pallid, calm and calculating, and they glinted even where there was no light. Forge felt sure that eyes like hers would glow _black_ in the darkness, sucking everything they saw into total oblivion.

"Ah'm Rogue," she replied cheerfully, and her eyes suddenly became human again – though they were still cold. He almost expected her to continue, equally jovially, with something along the lines of "I've killed four people, and wrecked the lives of a dozen more."

The figures were about double that, in fact. But that wasn't something she was going to tell.

"We're mutants," said the demon-boy behind him. "It has its downsides, but, –" he teleported next to his sister "– there _are_ some fringe benefits."

"Trippy!" Forge interjected. "I thought I was the only one…." While he morphed his arm into a sort of super-powered drill with extra attachments, he got a better look at the pair in front of him. There was little physical resemblance, but just maybe…. "Hey, are you two brother and sister? I notice you've got kind of a protector thing going on there, Rogue…."

Indeed while Kurt had unconsciously backed away behind the southerner, she was just standing there, her arms folded into her riding jacket. A blue glow invaded the rims of her irises briefly. '_So, a shaman as well? How _interesting_…._"

In the moment it took for the collection of this information to take place, Nightcrawler had prepared his best horrified look. "What? Me and her? No way, man!"

Rogue just smirked inwardly.

* * *

Things were not going well for Todd Tolanski. About half an hour ago, Scott Summers had asked to talk about the machine he'd found. Todd had, quite predictably, and, he'd thought, justifiably, refused.

Now all the X-Men were chasing him. Scott fired an optic blast at him as he hopped along, and he only just dodged it in time. The rift it left in the ground indicated to Tolanski that if he hadn't, there would have been quite serious consequences. He turned around to fire the thing back.

"Shadowcat, down!" yelled Jean, and Kitty phased into the ground just in time for the beam to miss her and hit a drinking fountain instead.

Toad swore under his breath, and turned back around, whereupon he suddenly hit a wall. It looked remarkably like a tall blonde woman, dressed in… very little in very specific places. It was the kind of thing Rogue would wear when she was going out on one her of little missions assigned by Mystique, only in white, and with– a cape?

"Ugh, get it off me!" commanded the woman, at the same time picking up Toad and tossing him away. She reached down and picked up Forge's aportation device.

"Excuse me, but we need that, lady!" Scott exclaimed, coming to a stop and catching his breath.

"That's Miss Frost to you, insect," replied Emma snobbishly.

"Well I'm _sorry_," Scott growled. "We need that device, _Miss Frost_. We think it's done something to a friend of ours."

"People as rude as you have friends?" Emma asked, showing surprise.

"You're one to talk," scoffed Kitty.

"No-one likes people who answer back, miss Pryde," stated the telepath.

"Hey, how did you know my name?" the teen asked.

"Perhaps miss Grey would like to answer that question?" replied Emma. "She is trying _so_ very hard to read my mind."

"She's a telepath," Jean explained. "A mutant telepath."

'_Not exactly the right answer,_' thought Emma, '_but it suits better than the truth for now._'

‹_You better make sure it stays that way,_› warned Rogue.

Scott glared at the device in Emma's hands, and came to a decision. He fired a blast at it, almost full power.

Emma's reaction to this, working on direct instruction from Rogue, was to shift the thing into one hand, and hold the other out in front her, lax so that the arm was bent in such a way that when the beam hit the arm of her now diamond form, the internal reflection projected it down through her forearm and into her wrist where it refracted in such a way that a beam was shot from each of her fingertips – one hit each of the X-Men, and the fifth division, from her thumb, was directed at Toad.

"Tut, tut," Emma admonished, changing back into her flesh form, "You didn't even know what destroying this thing would do. I didn't come here all the way from Boston to have _my_ friend, who is also trapped by this device, stuck there forever in a pocket dimension that may well even collapse in on itself if the device was unable to sustain its parameters."

She lifted her head high and stalked towards the school through the dazed kids. That blast had been more powerful than Cyclops would ever direct at anyone, human or mutant, that he didn't know could stand it, let alone his teammates. Spike and Jean were knocked out, and Scott barely felt up to groaning. Only Kitty, who had a kind of natural resistance to such energy, was able to gather herself together in time to follow the woman.

* * *

Kurt cringed as a beam of red light blasted the drinking fountain that was about to land on him. He glared at Rogue from his position perched on the table that Forge was working on some new device on.

She shrugged. "Latent energy from when I absorbed Scott." It didn't fully explain it, but the fuzzball wasn't about to argue with her.

"Man. Someone is sure giving that gizmo of yours a workout," he said to Forge.

"That _gizmo_," replied Forge, "is a Trans-Dimensional Projector. My science fair project back in seventy eight. When I fired it up, it created this pocket dimension I call _Middleverse_. I got caught in the ray myself, and I've been here ever since."

"Seventy eight?" asked Kurt. "But you still look…"

"Like I did then? I know. I can't explain it. They shut down and locked my lab after the accident. Everyone was totally freaked when I disappeared."

"So there's no way back?" the German inferred.

"Not without help from the other side," explained Forge, "and–"

"And we have help from the other side," Rogue interrupted. "A… friend of mine that I can communicate with has made her way here from Boston. Just tell me what she has to do, and it'll get done."

‹_Or I could just leave you there,_› suggested Emma. ‹_Isn't 'friend' a bit of a strong word?_›

'_You used it yourself,_' Rogue pointed out. '_Besides, what else am I gonna say? Cranial cohabitor?_'

"Well, that vas out of the blue," said Kurt.

"I didn't want to get your hopes up before I knew it could be done," Rogue explained. '_That and it took some persuading to get her to come here._'

‹_I don't exactly call bombarding me with the same stupid song about some guy named Henry and his sex life over and over persuasion, missy!_›

'_It worked for Sam Wheat, and it worked for me. It's persuasion._'

‹_You could take over the Hellfire Club with an attitude like that._›

'_Mmm. Aren't you working on that already?_'

"Man, I'm telling you," commented Forge, watching the ghostly image of two girls walking to the locker room, "I'm ready to go home."

"Just how far does zis Middleverse extend?" asked Kurt mischievously.

"Stops just short of the girls' locker room," replied Forge without looking up from what he was doing. "Isn't that a burn?"

"So, that includes tha boys' showers, then?" asked Rogue.

"Oh no you don't!" shouted Kurt, grabbing Rogue by the arms as she started to walk off in that direction.

"Yeah, if we have to suffer, so do you!" added Forge.

Rogue lifted her hand in mock surrender. "Hey, all the boys in Bayville high fit into one of the categories of jock, nerd, or geek, anyway. Ah'm surprised you don't have girls flocking around _you_ just because you _don't_." She poked Kurt in the chest.

"You sure you're not related?" Forge asked innocently. "Done."

"What is it?" asked Kurt, ignoring the question and peering at the device the other boy was holding up.

"This little baby will alter the phase-shift frequency of your teleport power," Forge explained.

Nightcrawler grimaced. "Err, my English is a little –" he made a gesture like a compressing vice with his fingers "– limited."

"It means, you can take us back home, sugah," supplied Rogue.

"No, that'll require more power than the batteries have got," said Forge carefully, "this just has enough juice to send Kurt back by himself long enough maybe to tell someone to reset the projector. Which, I guess, is pretty pointless by now. But we'll still need it to get back through, and it'll need more power…. Damn, I should have thought this out more…."

Rogue snorted, and gestured to her mother's car. "Voilà! Power Source."

"Far out!" exclaimed Forge, and ran over to it with the device.

"I svear," said Kurt, folding his arms and staring after him, "That homie's lingo is _so_ whack!"

Rogue thwapped him over the back of the head. "Don't do that," she protested. "Puns are bad enough on their own without actually playing on your words like that."

Ten minutes later, the device was hooked up to the car's engine and ready to go. Neither Kurt nor Rogue bothered to ask Forge why he hadn't just removed the battery and used that.

* * *

"So," said Emma, setting up the device on a bench next to the carpark – Rogue had indicated that a _lot_ of space would be needed, "Shadowcat, is it?"

Kitty nodded. "Most people just call me Kitty."

"Someone broke into the server of a club I know using that alias. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

"I didn't, like, have anything to do with it," Kitty replied nervously.

Emma had given up on getting through to Kitty's mind, which was as intangible to the telepath as her body, but she recognised the signs of a kid who'd done something criminal lying through their teeth. "It's okay, I won't tell anyone."

"Nothing to do with anyone hacking into the Hellfire Club," the girl said.

The White Queen hadn't expected it to be this easy. "The fact that you knew I was referring to that at all implies that it _was_ you. It's not exactly the kind of information that the Club advertises, you know."

Kitty hung her head. "I didn't break anything. Just had a look around."

"You know, some people within the club would consider that to be breaking things," replied Emma. "Like I said, though, I won't tell anyone; This is our little secret, okay?" '_Anyway, I couldn't let what the Club would do to you if they found out happen._' 

Kitty nodded.

"There's a good girl. I could use a kitty cat of your talents…."

Kitty looked up at her, eyes wide. "I don't do that kind of thing," she said, "I just, like, look around for my own curiosity!"

But Emma could see the stars twinkling in that expression. She smiled. "Well, if you change your mind, just give Rogue a yell and I'll get in contact with you."

‹_Okay, we're ready,_› that very person said from across dimension. ‹_By the way, I don't appreciate being treated as your secretary._›

'_Wait up, we've got a little trouble,_' replied Emma.

Trouble was the other three X-Men, walking right in front of the device. "You better get out of the way, Cyclops," said the telepath. "You _do_ want Nightcrawler back, don't you?"

"Of course," replied Scott, "But I don't see why I should trust you."

"I don't see how you see anything with that visor," Emma snarled, "however, it's as I said. I, also, have a friend on the other side of this device. We just have to reset it, and they'll do the rest."

"Uh-huh," said Jean, "And just what did you do to Kitty?" She pointed at the girl who was staring into the distance.

Kitty shook her head, and glared at Jean. "I'm fine," she stated. "I'm just, like, thinking about something, okay? We can trust Emma…."

"Oh, so Miss Frost has a first name, now, does she?" Scott asked sarcastically.

"People generally do," replied Frost with equal venom.

"We know a Rogue who doesn't," supplied Evan, trying to be cutting, but completely failing to achieve.

"Whatever," growled Emma. "Now, **will you all just get out of the friggin' way!**"

The X-Men were about as prepared to rebel against that tone of voice as the Brotherhood were to annoy Rogue when she was in a bad mood. But if it wasn't one thing….

"Hey, there they are!" announced Toad, leading the Brotherhood in the exact way the X-Men had entered. "An' they still got that vape ray I was tellin' you about."

"Alright," said Lance, walking pointedly up to Scott. "Now it's our turn. Where is she?"

"Where's who?" asked Scott, genuinely oblivious to what Alvers was talking about.

"You know who I mean!" yelled Lance, and the earth shuddered. "Rogue! Mystique sent us to look for her, and we figure you've done something to her."

"Rogue's working for Mystique?" asked Scott angrily.

"She won't be," snarled Emma, "If you don't let me reset this damned thing, so that she, her little brother, and the other guy they met there, can come home!" She glared at Lance.

Instantly, he felt a pain in his head, and almost as quickly he fell to the ground, unconscious.

"What did you do to him?" asked Kitty quietly.

"Don't worry, he's fine," replied Emma, "I'm just giving him nap-time for a bit. I do it all the time and it hasn't hurt anyone yet, figuratively speaking. Now let's see…." She looked at the panel at the back of the device. '_I see "restart", but no "reset"._'

In Middleverse, Rogue relayed that to Forge.

"That's it!" he exclaimed. "Tell her the press that!"

Emma pressed the restart button. "You may want to get out of the way, Blob," she warned, just before a pink bubble opened up in front of him. Fred just stood and stared at it. Emma slapped her forehead.

Suddenly, a car horn sounded, and Principal Darkholme's car, carrying Kurt and Forge in the front seat, and Rogue in the rear, burst through the newly created portal.

Rogue jumped clear, right over the top of the car and Fred, as they collided. Nightcrawler and Forge, on the other hand, hit the airbags.

"What the heck are these?!" exclaimed Forge.

"Re-entry cushions," explained Kurt, patting his. "Cool, hey?"

Meanwhile, Rogue had walked around to where Emma was. She grabbed her by the choker, and slammed her against the nearest wall.

"You're welcome," the telepath grunted sarcastically.

"Why did you let them know we're siblings?" demanded the southerner.

Emma gave the best impression she could of a shrug while her shoulder blades were pressed into her back. "They won't even remember I was here. Where's the harm?"

"Hello? Kitty?" Rogue indicated with her free hand the girl who was now walking up to them. "Her mind ain't exactly gonna be easy to wipe, seeing as how you can't even find it."

"I though you said you two were friends?" the valley girl asked Emma.

"It's complicated," the woman replied. "Right now we're in a bit of a tussle about a secret Rogue needs you to keep. You can keep a secret, right?"

"You mean Kurt being her brother?"

"Well, can you?" asked Rogue. "Ah mean, even from Kurt himself."

Kitty hesitated. "Why from him?"

Rogue sighed, and let Emma down to the ground again. She picked up Kitty's hands in hers, and clasped them together, knotting her own fingers with the younger girl's. "It's a… weird way to be related, and via a person that Kurt really would probably rather not be related to." She looked deep into Kitty's eyes. "Can you keep that secret for me? Ah promise you Ah'll make it up to you, any way ya want."

Kitty, looking back into the southerner's eyes wasn't sure what she could see there. Any way she wanted? There had to be a catch, but she couldn't work it out for trying. "Okay," she mouthed, nodding.

Rogue grinned. "Thanks," she said, and then took hold of Kitty's head and kissed her hairline. "When you think of what you want," she instructed, now looking into the girl's eyes again, "you just give me a call, 'kay? Same number as Lance."

"Okay," replied Kitty, still slightly suspicious, but warming to the idea.

The southerner smiled warmly. "'Kay. You run along now."

Kitty smiled at this, and turned to go back to the others. Rogue gave her a pat on the butt before she'd actually got as far as starting to walk yet. "There," she sighed, "walks a living liability." She turned to face Emma. "Do you know how hard I've worked to avoid liabilities?"

Frost smirked. "And it was all ruined by your little brother. Trust me on this, there's always liabilities. Welcome to the real world."

Some distance away, Mystique put her viewfinders down and shook her head. So, her daughter didn't trust her as much as she used to? At least she was growing up.

* * *

¹Precalling: Like recalling, only from something you don't know yet. The trap there is that what you precall may be of something that is yet to happen and, as such, might not.

From the shortest chapter yet to ditto with the longest. Not really proofread – it's 6am and I still haven't gone to bed, but I _did_ run it through the spell checker. Multiple times.  
_Dec 29, 7:54pm AEST_: Now has been proofread.

Ooh, I'm starting to have fun with the sound effects now [:·) Blame _X-treme X-men_. Yep, I've been reading _comics_….

It's revealed a few times that Mystique is Austrian, even though a lot of the online X-Men and Marvel info sites continue to record her place of birth as 'unknown.' Heck in Mystique #20, Fantomex outright said she was! Just anticipating misguided reviewers here :·)  
Speaking of which, any and all reviews will be greatly appreciated. I really need them on this one, which may well be my most serious attempt at fanfiction to date.

I've passed the 100,000 words mark! I now have more than one hundred thousand words of story archived on Fanfiction.net! Not that this won't be up past that by itself by the end of season two….

Responses to Reviews:

**UncannyAsianGirl**: (Only read this if you're intrigued. You can stop at any time, I'm not forcing anyone)   
Wow. What a long-winded and mind-numbing review ;·P Okay, it's not quite like your 1000 word super review, but hey.  
Hmm. You think maybe I should add some necrophilia, too, then? Just for the sake of completeness? ›;-› Just kidding! But to be fair, Rogue isn't really _with_ anyone, except maybe Remy when he shows up, and then their relationship has a backlogue.  
You don't see the recurring theme in "Mystical Children"? Hmm. You probably will soon, unless the recurring theme you're seeing is a result of your dirty mind. I'll keep the Sabretooth thing in mind :-) Damn Skippy Psylocke's outfit is tacky! Her face is just wrong, too…. But then, I never considered the character design in _Evolution_ to be one of it's good points, though it is better than the godawful animation….   
I got the skull tools thing from the Spotlight on Mystique on UXN [UncannyXmen.Net] (Specifically the Costume Gallery), I have never personally seen it used in the comics, but then I haven't read that many of them either.  
I think it can be safely assumed that Mystique informed Rogue of Quicksilver and she just _knew_ to play dumb. It's one of those things, y'know?  
Music video sounds interesting, but you need to be more careful with them. Not everyone likes fans as much as Marvel does.   
Actually, I must be really annoying you with Rogue's accent with this one too, eh?


	7. Creed Versus

_Creed Versus_

The security guard stepped lightly, surveying everything she saw on the north perimeter. 'She is messing up the energy matrices below me something awful,' she thought, but Storm was playing the part of an unremarkable human, and had to be discreet, relying only on the senses that someone without her ability to see energy patterns had.

A girl rose up through the concrete behind her. Apart from that, you might have thought she was just another girl, out having some fun. If you overlooked her body tight spandex suit, black with yellow lining and a purple stripe down the middle, her utility belt onto which was clipped a professional radio transceiver, and the can of knock-out gas (actually, it was just slightly compressed air with a scentless talc in it). 'This is too easy,' Shadowcat thought, and she tapped the security guard on the shoulder, spraying the gas in her face as she turned around. "North perimeter secure," she said into the radio after the guard had fallen to the ground.

Around the other side of the building, Wolverine was finding the part more difficult. He'd never had merely human senses that he could remember, and so had nothing to compare it to. He ignored the creaking that he heard above him, and only turned around when he heard the foot falls of someone landing softly on the ground behind him, guessing that a man with a trained ear would be able to pick them up too.

The boy he faced was more remarkable in appearance than Shadowcat, when he didn't concentrate on it. He generated bone spikes that protruded from the skin sheathes that covered his entire body, and had been holding onto the building's wall using a set of eight small spikes from both his forearms. They were gone, however, as he sprayed the knock-out gas (again, scentless talc) in the male guard's face. "South perimeter secure." He'd got over his tendency to casually use slang during training.

"Okay, clean rescue, guys," came the reply. Cyclops, the leader of this little band, was proud of his team. They would be able to do anything soon, he knew it; With a little help from technology – for example if he didn't have the ruby quartz visor that covered his eyes, when his team-mate Nightcrawler teleported him into the room, he'd have sent a blast of energy straight into the victim they were rescuing, seriously harming or possibly even killing her. As it was, they were in serious trouble of doing the same if the telekinetic they relied on to stay in the air didn't hold them; "Jean!" he cried.

"You guys are getting heavier, I swear," the redhead looking in from the roof complained. This had happened the last three times as well, and every time she thought she could handle it, they got just that little bit harder to hold than she expected. She was holding her hands to her head, a gesture that boosted her own confidence in her powers to hold objects by her will. As it was, she was stretching it to hold either one of her companions up, let alone both of them. She lowered them as gently as she could.

Trying to put aside his assumptions, Scott called out to the victim. "Hey! Can you hear me?" he cried. When there was no response, he shook his head. "She's out," he declared, and raised his hand to his visor.

His first shot missed the chain he was trying to break. "Nice aim," commented Nightcrawler sarcastically. The furry blue mutant was vital to the mission, having the power of teleportation, but he was also the trickster of the troupe, something which the other often found to be remarkably annoying.

In this case, it just made Cyclops more determined, and his second shot fired true, breaking right through the chain as it made contact. The duo floating in mid air high-fived, and for once Jean managed to keep them steady. "I wish you guys wouldn't do that," she groaned as a 'droid silently dropped onto the roof behind her. True to the character it was simulating, Jean received no mental reading from it.

"Hey, Jeannie." A cold hand grasped the telekinetic's face, and she turned to see a certain southerner looking down at her. Not needing to be told, she sighed loudly and dropped all concentration on the two mutants inside, who promptly fell to the floor. Their path dropped them right through the IR beams that criss-crossed the room, and where alarms would usually sound, the beams just faded, setting off an irritating if quiet beeping. Xavier didn't feel that his team of super-powered kids was yet up to that kind of distraction.

Nightcrawler had pushed away from Cyclops and landed on his feet, and now pulled the team leader to his. "I think zat Jean was got by Rogue," he observed, "so what now?"

"We get the victim and port out," Scott instructed, carefully walking around to somewhere he could see their face, but out of reaching range; You could never be too careful — what if Jean had been bludgeoned? Fortunately enough, Scott recognised her face. "Principal Darkholme," he called, "are you awake?" Still lacking any response, he reached down to pick her up.

"Bad move, Mr. Summers," Raven pointed out, and as she kicked his legs out from under him, the induced image _changed_ so that now the person throwing him bodily at Kurt was Mystique. Above the tangled mess they now lay in, a tinkle signified breaking glass, and Nightcrawler only just teleported them out of the way before the Rogue-droid could slam its knee into Cyclops's chest.

"Split up!" he yelled immediately after they reappeared on the other side of the room. "I'll take Rogue, you concentrate on Mystique!"

Kurt obeyed immediately, teleporting behind the shapeshifter, where he commenced his routine of teleporting and punching in serial, dancing around his target like the circus acrobat he was. Soon enough he had an opening to flick-kick the switch on the back of the droid's neck, and it shut down, collapsing on the floor.

Scott had no such luck. Rogue ducked under his entry shot, and from that point on countered every move he made, before flipping around him and smacking him in the back with the small of her hand, which caused him to fall to his hands and knees.

Seeing this, Nightcrawler launched himself into the air and ported, so that he reappeared in a flying kick which connected with the image of the southern girl. She fell flat to the ground and stopped moving.

Very carefully, Cyclops pushed himself back up onto his feet. "Good work," he congratulated, still standing close to Rogue.

A little _too_ close, it turned out. "Gotcha!" declared the southern girl, grabbing onto his arm and using it to pull herself to her feet. Her other hand, ungloved like the first, reached for his face, gaining a purchase on his cheek. The simulation wasn't completely realistic, as the feeling of having your very energies sucked from your body was absent, but nonetheless, a glow built up in the girl's eyes, before she looked across at Nightcrawler and blasted him instead, while the team leader was still struggling against her vice-like grip.

Panicking, Cyclops's free hand flew to his visor, but before he flipped the switch, his instructor's voice boomed directly in his head. "_Cyclops, you are unconscious,_" Xavier directed. "_It is up to Kurt, now._" The student complied, and let himself fall to the ground.

Nightcrawler's eyes widened in panic as he watch his partner fall, and he only just ported in time to avoid being hit again. He continued to port around as the girl ran after him, and it was soon clear that he was becoming hysterical.

"_Storm, he has forgotten that this is only a simulation,_" the Professor noted, addressing the weather witch telepathically. "_Your intervention is necessary._"

"_Yes, Charles,_" she replied, removing her proprietary cap. As she flew into the room, descending from a window, she untied her hair, and breathed in deeply. "I, commander of the winds and rain, goddess of the storm, command you to stop," she declared authoritatively, accompanying her speech with a crash of thunder. A lightning bolt formed on her hand, and she cast it on the android replica of Rogue, causing it to short circuit and fail.

It seemed to Kurt that Storm was killing the girl, and he fell to his knees, hurling the contents of his stomach onto the floor. When he looked up, his rapid breathing steadying out and his heartbeat slowing, the familiar metal surroundings of the danger room presented themselves.

"Are you all right?" asked Ororo, wrapping an arm around the teleporter's shoulders and helping him to stand.

"Yes, I z'ink so," Kurt replied, nodding. The action caused him to retch again, but it was dry. He looked at the robot arcing on the floor and frowned, and then something else caught his eye. Across the floor, leaning against one of the walls was another unconscious girl. "Vhat about Kitty?" he asked.

"She'll be fine," grunted Logan, although he was unsure. Scott had effectively seen his parents die. Ororo likewise, and additionally had grown up in a war zone — alone. Jean's powers had manifested when her best friend was hit by a car, killing her. Xavier had fought in wars, and Kurt had nearly _been_ killed several times by angry mobs, one even that had killed some of his friends already. As for himself, Logan didn't want to think about it. Kitty, on the other hand, had never seen anything of the sort. It was stupid to even predict how she'd react when she woke up. Probably something like Evan, who was watching on coldly, although the fear behind his eyes was clear to the keen and experienced sight that Wolverine possessed. He picked the girl up from the floor, and quietly walked off in the direction of the med bay.

"Well, I hope you all learned something today," announced the Professor, entering the room.

"Like what, man?" asked Evan, slowly becoming reanimated. "You stack the surprises more than Kurt stacks his pancakes?"

Xavier smiled. "That might be one way of putting it. I was going to say that things are not always as they seem, and to expect them to change when you're least ready."

"There was something more specific in today's, though, wasn't there?" Jean inferred.

"An… old friend of mine recently reminded me," exclaimed Xavier, "there is something I haven't told you that you should really know about…. I chose Raven Darkholme for a reason."

"What are you saying?" asked Kurt, one eyebrow raised. "Our principal _is_ Mystique?"

"That's precisely what he's saying," interrupted Jean, angrily. "And you didn't think to tell us earlier?"

"No, I…" Xavier paused for a moment while he tried to sum up what he wanted to say. "I wasn't sure how you'd react, I didn't know if you'd be… _receptive_ to the truth."

"So you lied to us?" the telekinetic continued, glaring at him.

"Jean, he didn't–" Scott started.

"Well it's the same us lying to us!" she exclaimed, knowing where the sentence was headed. "We had a right to know who she really was."

"What did you think ve were going to do, go after her?" supplied Kurt.

"Man, we know better," Evan added. "She wants to play like nothing's going down? Then so can we."

"You're right," admitted Xavier, looking over his charges. "All of you. I _must_ apologise for keeping this secret from you, but please understand there are many challenges in your future. Secrets, elements of surprise. Some, you are ready to deal with, and some you're not. In the future I will try to do better knowing which is which."

"Well, it's nice to know we've all got something to learn," observed Scott, smirking a little. "And speaking of learning, we've all got school in an hour, people. We'd better get going."

There was a collection of groans – wasn't early morning Danger Room enough torture? – though the team still followed their fearless leader from the room.

* * *

Rogue was standing at her locker filtering through numerous useless textbooks to find the two she needed for her afternoon classes when Kitty glomped her from behind, hanging her arms around the southerner's neck. "Hey," she said casually, resting her chin on her shoulder.

The power thief raised an eyebrow and glanced back at her. "Ya know how dangerous that is, right?"

Kitty shrugged. "I figure now that we're, like, friends and all, you wouldn't, you know… what you do call what you do?" she asked, lifting her head and looking inquisitively at the older girl.

"Ah 'absorb' life force, memories, powers, et cetera," Rogue sighed, turning to face her. "Which would be great, but Ah can't turn it off."

"Oh," said Kitty, letting her face fall. "I guess that sucks."

The southerner slapped a hand over her face and groaned. "Yeah, yeah it does. Liter'ly."

"Oh man, I didn't even like, see that one," the younger girl admitted before bursting into a fit of giggles.

"You're almost as scary as the 'human' population of the school," stated Rogue, making quotation marks in the air in the appropriate place. "Since when were we friends, anyway?"

"Since you decided to join the X-Men," replied Kitty, still giggling.

Even though she'd been expecting it, Rogue's eyebrows shot up and she pushed the valley girl off, turning to face her. "What?!" she demanded, grabbing the other teenager's shoulders.

"Well, you said you'd, like, make that promise up to me any way I wanted," Kitty explained, biting down on her tongue in a grin. "I've thought about it, and I want you to leave the brotherhood and join the X-Men. I think it'll be better for you."

"Better for me or better for you?" Rogue asked sceptically. "Ah mean, Ah know you're prob'ly thinkin' like, 'The Professor helped me, and Jean, and Scott, he can, like, help you, too,' but Ah can't help s'posin that maybe y'allre trying to loosen up the opposition. An' if ya think Mystique's mad at _you_, imagine how she'll be to a deserter?"

‹_Yeah, right,_› Emma commented sardonically. ‹'_Momma' probably couldn't ask for this opportunity to crop up more easily._›

"No, I mean it," replied Kitty, hurt – though the pout and brimming tears could have been fake, it was hard to tell with her. She began to chew her lower lip nervously. "The Professor is really great, and we actually look out for each other — all we're trying to do is fit in and help people. I mean, like, what's the brotherhood? Everyone for themselves and try to, like, do as much bad stuff to the normies as possible?"

Rogue raised an eyebrow. "Normies?"

"You know what I mean," Kitty huffed, her whole body dropping with her shoulders. "Listen, the Professor's probably the best chance you've got of getting your powers under control, and anyway would you prefer working for a world where mutants oppress the other humans like Mystique wants, or where we can all live together, in harmony?"

Rogue turned back to her locker and sighed. There was no point explaining to Kitty that she'd made that choice, or at least one like it, long before the younger girl had even heard of mutants, or that Mystique just wanted to ensure the survival of mutant-kind, and where would it get her anyway? "Ah don't need help," she declared, before spying her book and trying to pull it free. It refused to budge, even as she shook it hard enough to rattle the locker and its neighbours. "Fucking God damned piece of shit!"

Kitty ducked under the arm the southerner was using to brace against the frame of the locker, and reached in, easily pulling the book out with her powers. She handed it to Rogue and smiled triumphantly. "Just think about it, 'kay?"

Rogue took the book from her hands grudgingly, and slammed the locker door closed through the girl's intangible body. "Okay, Ah'll think about it," she acquiesced. "Ah'm not makin' any promises though."

Kitty grinned from air to ear and she leapt forward to hug the southerner. "That's great!" she practically yelled down her ear. "I am _so_ looking forward to seeing you at the Institute!"

"Hey! Ah said _not_ making any promises!" Rogue reissued angrily.

"Well, I guess that's like, okay," replied Kitty, letting go of her and sinking back to her own height. "I just can't guarantee I won't break mine, then."

Rogue narrowed her eyes at the younger girl. "It's a load of decision for one l'il secret," she attested.

"Well, that's how it is." Kitty put her hands on her hips and slouched sideways for attitude. "If you don't like it, well I guess you'll just have to, like, put up with Fuzzy Blue asking questions."

"You're a sly bitch," the southerner accused of her contemporary's retreating back.

Then X-Man stopped in her tracks. "Bite me," she sneered, grinning to herself before she started walking.

The southerner snorted, and as she watched Kitty swagger away she allowed a sly smile to creep onto her features as she formulated a plan. "Oh, I will. Don't you worry about that, Miss Pryde."

"What isn't Miss Pryde worrying about?" Principal Darkholme asked of Rogue, appearing suddenly behind her and placing a hand on her shoulder. The girl turned to face her. "My office, please."

Mystique was, to say the least, surprised, when Rogue tapped the back of her neck with an ungloved hand on the way into her office. It was only brief, but the shapeshifter lost form for an instant and cringed from the contact.

Rogue grabbed Mystique by the shoulders and spun her around to face her daughter's and surprised eyes. "You shouldn't be scared of me, mom," the southerner voiced, hardening her expression as she did so as though she were the mother. "It was only a light tap… to find out what's on the top of ya mind."

Trying to catch her breath, the metamorph stood up and looked down at her daughter. "Of course. It's just– It's. Look, can you just give me some warning before you do that again."

"Warning?" Rogue smirked and raised an eyebrow. "Since when have I ever given _warning_?"

Mystique huffed. "I thought as much. So, about this–"

"Ah'm not ready," the southerner declared, folding her arms and glaring at her mother.

"We don't have the time, dear," the shapeshifter started, aware that the change in her daughter's voice back to its southern tongue meant that she was about to get angry. "Magneto–"

"Oh screw Magneto and his plans!" Rogue screamed, "What are you now, his lackey?!"

Mystique winced, and was thankful for the soundproofed office. "And work at the same level as Victor?" she asked sarcastically. "I wish we had more time, dear, but the man continues to push his own plans too fast. I don't want you to have any association with the Brotherhood when he tries to get his little scheme in the air."

"What about you?" the southerner asked. "Did ya think that maybe Ah don't want you puttin' yourself in danger? Hey, and you _promised_ to spend time with me. When's that gonna happen now?"

"We'll find away. We _are_ both excellent as disguise and subterfuge, in case you forgot. And I can handle myself with Magneto, dear."

"Are you implyin' Ah can't?" Rogue now stood with her feet apart and hands on her hips, tapping one foot impatiently on the floor and glaring at her mother.

"I–" Mystique hung her head and sighed. "I want us to get a good foothold in with Xavier in case anything goes wrong, really," she admitted. "I want _you_ to have somewhere to go…."

"Almost anywhere on the globe, Mom," the teen replied. "We got houses all over, fake I.D., we can meet up with Irene again somewhere. Get jobs, lay low if we have to."

"You know that's not what I mean!" her mother snapped. "I'm well aware that we have those places…. I mean, keeping the plan on track as much as possible."

Rogue sighed. "Listen, Mystique," she started, "When 'Asteroid M' happens, well Ah've seen a bit of it. Brotherhood or X-Men ain't gonna matter particularly much, an' Ah already have a reputation wi' the students there — Xavier's not likely to pass up an opportunity to take on a girl who'd otherwise end up servin' old Buckethead, 'specially if his kids put in a good word for her. Why don't we just keep takin' it one step at a time, an' Ah'll join the X-Men when Ah'm good 'n ready."

There was an awkward pause before Mystique spoke. "Very well," she said, "but I want you to remember that this is what you wanted."

"Whatever," her daughter replied before storming out the door.

On her way to class, Rogue was dwelling so much on the ramifications of the last two conversations that she was only just aware of Evan running along the corridor with a hand-held video camera, and they very nearly collided. In order to maintain the status quo, she grabbed him by the shoulders and rammed him into the nearest row of lockers. Kitty would now have issues getting her own books out. "What do you think you're doin', sticks-fer-brains?!"

Clearly Evan was distracted too. "Uh, hey, just filming stuff."

"Huh," snorted Rogue, and slammed him into Kitty's locker again for good measure before marching off towards class. She stepped around a corner, and a glimpse of the future hit her. "Creed..."

She jumped back around the corner, but it was too late. Spyke had scarpered. "Aw, damn," she muttered.

* * *

Later on, Evan had some real problems. While he'd been skating home to the Institute, some large and hairy mutant (who he now knew was called 'Sabretooth') had stolen the camera and discovered, by virtue of Evan having filmed it, that Logan was residing at the Institute, and also where it was. Sabretooth had already shown up at the Institute once, and the X-Men had seen him off, but Spyke had overheard the professor and Wolverine discussing that he was likely to try and take on Wolverine somewhere again, probably by kidnapping a student to lure him away.

"You see the trouble you've caused," he said to himself. "If only there was some way I could fix this... this mess!"

Just then, Kitty walked past, listening to some CD or other. Evan had an idea. "Hey, Kitty..."

"What is it, Spyke?" she asked.

"You're auditioning for the school play, aren't you?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"Well, maybe we can help each other out," explained Evan. "A filmed audition would save you time at school, wouldn't it?"

"Um, I guess so, but what do you need help with?"

"I'll explain on the way. But just to warn you first, we might need to do a bit of improvising."

Soon after, in a clearing outside the premises, Kitty was dancing for the camera. "Yeah, that's great!" exclaimed Evan.

"Are you sure about this?" asked Kitty. "What do you plan to do about Sabretooth if he does come?"

"Hey, we can take hi—"

Evan was cut off by Sabretooth hoisting him into the air. "You're mine!" the feral growled.

"Been expecting you," Evan replied, growing spikes. "You gotta be sharp if you're gonna mess with the Spyke."

This was enough to put Sabretooth off, who threw him to the ground. "Then I'll take you!" he barked, turning on Kitty. He leapt, and crashed to the ground straight through her.

"Yeah right, I'm so sure," said Kitty, before noticing that Spyke wasn't moving. Sabretooth kicked her legs out from under her.

"You weakling," accused Evan of Sabretooth as he rounded on Kitty for a knock-out blow. Bet you can't—"

Again Evan had been cut off by Sabretooth, who now had him held fast to a tree by his neck. "Weakling?" he growled.

Just then, Wolverine jumped out of the undergrowth. "Picking on kids, Creed?" he asked. "Big mistake."

Sabretooth slammed Evan's head into the tree, knocking him unconscious. Kitty fainted as Logan tackled Creed to the ground.

"Yeah, why?" asked Sabretooth.

"Because it really ticks me off," shouted Wolverine, throwing him away.

Sabretooth flipped in the air and landed on his feet. Grunting, he threw himself at Wolverine, who blocked the first two punches, but missed the third, an uppercut he wasn't expecting. As the sounds of an approaching motorcycle got louder, Creed continued to wale on Logan until he was an inanimate bloody mess — still breathing, but only just, and certainly not lucid. He was rearing up for a devastating attack when Rogue slid her bike to a halt in the clearing.

"Message for you, Victor," she said. "Magneto will have ya hide if you continue this now."

"Yeah, right," replied Creed, and delivered the blow. Amazingly, Logan continued on breathing, but now blood bubbled out his mouth with every breath.

"Suit yourself," Rogue said under her breath. "Maybe this will drive the point home." She vaulted off the bike and delivered a flying kick to Sabretooth's midriff, before brushing Logan with an ungloved hand. She took a defensive pose, identical to the way that Wolverine would stand, and on the back of each hand, a triplet of foot-long claws unsheathed. Unlike Wolverine's, these were not Adamantium, but each blade was a single diamond crystal, perfectly sharp and glistening in the sunlight.

Creed leapt.

Rogue side-stepped the tackle, and deflected the following right hook easily. The next punch lifted her off her feet, but she back-flipped, kicking Sabretooth hard in the face. As he staggered backward, she swiped at him several times, cutting deeply into his arms. It wouldn't last long, but it didn't have to. The southerner kicked Creed's legs out from under him and at the same time shoved him to the ground, kneeing him in the groin as she landed on top of him, and in the same motion, grabbed his face. She held on long enough for her opponent to fall into a coma, and sheathed her claws as she stood. Further claws and hair tried to sprout from her, but what shape-shifting ability she retained kept it in check.

"Nice work, kid," said Logan, limping over. He was no longer bleeding. "But what are you doing here?"

Rogue nodded to the bag slung over her bike. "Figured Kitty was right," she lied, "and with the Brotherhood the way they are, Ah need a change of air. Then Ah happened to hear fightin' on the way over to join the X-men."

"And what makes you think Xavier will take you?"

Rogue shrugged. "It's worth a try, at least. Ah think Kitty's coming around."

Indeed, Shadowcat was slowly getting to her feet. "Oh, my head..."

"What happened?" Evan asked, also picking himself up of the ground.

"What happened," replied Wolverine, "is you two got yourselves grounded. What the hell were you thinking, Spyke? The two of you could have been killed!"

"Would've been, if Ah hadn't shown up," said Rogue, smirking as she put her gloves back on. "Y'all need my help, Ah can see that."

* * *

Back at the Institute, all the X-Men were gathered in the common room while Professor X evaluated Rogue.

"You say she took down Sabretooth by herself, Logan?" he asked.

"Using my powers, yeah," replied Wolverine. "And after I'd softened him up."

"Well, it seems you're a very talented young girl, Rogue," Charles continued.

"Why, thank you," she replied.

"Hmm. Rogue. Rogue..." Charles shook his head. "Do you have another name?" he asked, curiously.

"Not one that Ah care to use," the girl replied darkly. "Bad memories from the orphanage and all."

"I see," replied the professor. "And you're sincere in your desire to join the X-Men?"

Rogue nodded. "You guys seem to actually, you know, care for each other. More'n I can say for anyone back in the Brotherhood."

"Very well. I'll get in touch with your adoptive mother, uh–"

"Irene. She's a little hard to get hold of, but Ah've already spoken to her about it. She'll get in touch with you."

"I look forward to speaking with her. Jean, could you show Rogue to one of the rooms?"

"Yes, professor," replied Jean, and went to take Rogue's hand.

The southerner flinched. "Don't do that," she said. "Ah don't want to be absorbin' people by accident, and Ah can't shut it off."

"Oh, sorry," said the redhead apologetically. "Follow me."

"I think you'll like this place," Jean continued as Rogue started to unpack her stuff on the bed. "We're all very close here."

"Uh-huh," said Rogue, unconcernedly. "Ah don't suppose Ah could have have some privacy? Ah need some time to, uh, recover."

"Oh, of course," replied Jean, shutting the door.

When she was sure that Jean was far enough away, Rogue flipped open a small radio device. "Well, I'm in," she said, losing the accent. "I hope you're happy."

"Good," replied Mystique, from the other side of the channel. "I'll be in touch."

* * *

_Chapter notes:_

Hi all (assuming anyone actually reads this). Sorry about the long (extremely long) wait. Didn't mean to abandon you. It just took me this long to recover my data after a complete computer failure.  
A big bunch of thanks to all those who've reviewed, and also those people who sent me messages asking to pick it up again. Your enthusiasm is appreciated. I hope to keep a much tighter schedule for updates in future (although I'm still yet to find my plot outline, so bear with me as a lot of it's probably going to be from memory).


	8. Shadowed Past

_Shadowed Past_

It was a pleasant day, Rogue thought, sitting on a park bench. Sun was shining, birds were singing, all the cliché stuff. The only thing wrong was the mild temperature that didn't agree with her. She nestled further into her coat. Across the way, a familiar purple-haired figure was looking around for someone. Rogue waved to her, and the girl made her way over to sit with the southerner.

'Risty Wilde' was another one of Mystique's aliases. Born in England, in the Lancashire countryside, she grew up in Manchester. Occasionally she would come to New York state to visit relatives, and was sure to drop in on her friend that she'd met years back on a holiday to Caldecott County, Mississippi.

"There better be somethin' useful to you on this," said Rogue, handing her a disc. "You have _no_ idea how many layers of intrusion detection there are on that computer. I'm not even sure I _managed_ to clear my tracks."

"Really?" asked Risty.

"Well, no, I did," admitted the southerner. "But it was tough."

"Hey, let's get an ice-cream," Risty suggested, standing up. "Hmm. You're sure that only a telepath can actually use the system to find mutants?"

"Completely," Rogue replied as they started walking. "If you don't believe me, there's blueprints for the next version of the system on there. Or you can just ask Buckethead."

"What?" the other girl asked, shocked.

"Apparently he helped Xavier design and build the damned thing – back when they were pal'in around."

"Oh."

"Anyway, apparently it actually works by amplifying the operator's own powers," Rogue continued as they approached an ice-cream stand. "Ah'll have a scoop of choc an' one of vanilla with pistachios an' chocolate sauce," she said, addressing the vendor.

"A single choc-mint, please," Risty added, handing over payment for the ice-creams. The vendor promptly made up their orders and handed them over, not noticing Rogue take the money back. With a little suggestion, he had in his mind received payment and given change. He'd never suspect anything.

As they walked away, Rogue handed the money back to Risty. "My treat," she offered, shrugging.

Risty giggled. Mystique was very good at staying in character. "How's life at the boarding school?" she asked.

By way of a response, Rogue frowned. Survival training camp had not been fun, though at least she'd had an opportunity to 'accidentally' shove Tolanski off a cliff – unfortunately, he'd survived. The two of them walked along in silence for a while.

As they reached the road where Rogue's bike was parked, Risty asked, "how's Kurt?"

Rogue stopped. The other girl turned on her heel to face her. "Well?"

"I don't think he's ready to know who y'are, yet," said the southerner.

"I didn't suggest–"

"You've been thinking about it. We're running out of time to let him know. No way is he going to accept it after Magneto's plan."

Risty pulled a contemplative face. "But how?" she asked.

"Don't worry," assured Rogue. "I have a plan. I'm going to arrange a special meeting between you two." She looked at her watch. "I've got a training session. I'll fill you in on the details later."

Rogue undid the chain that was holding her motorcycle to a signpost, and stepped over the saddle. "Need a lift?" she asked, retrieving her helmet.

"Thanks, I'll walk," replied Risty.

The southerner shrugged. "See ya later," she said, before revving the engine and powering off.

* * *

Nightcrawler slept fitfully. Using Frost's telepathy, Rogue was inciting him to dream of one fateful night, back when he was very young. It wasn't hard to do; the memories were already there. She simply had to bring them to the surface.

_Wolves howled outside as a green light was cast over the room he was in. A woman – his mother? – approached. Seeing what was happening, she rounded on the man entrusted with his care._

"_Monster!" she accused, bundling the infant Kurt up in her arms. "What have you done to him?"_

_After kicking the man backward, she turned and fled. Kurt cried as she ran through dark halls._

"_Come back at once!" the man commanded as she left the castle, but she didn't stop._

_Soon she was out in the woods, which presented a new danger. Wolves. They appeared from behind every tree and mound as she passed them._

_As the woman continued to run, the wolves gave chase, the man following not far behind. Somehow, he was floating through the air, his cape billowing behind him._

_Eventually the woman came to a rickety wooden bridge. Unsure of her footing, she began to cross slowly, but the man and the wolves caught up. As though they were obeying his commands, the wolves began to tear at the woman. Unable to defend herself properly, she flailed at them with her free hand, and tried to keep Kurt out of reach._

_One of the wolves caught the woman's robes as she was backing away. She tripped, and Kurt fell from her arms. The last thing he saw as he speed toward the river was the woman trying to catch him._

Kurt woke screaming. Soon the door was opened, and Rogue ran into the room.

"What is it, Kurt?" she asked innocently and Jean and Scott arrived behind her.

"I was having zis dream," Kurt replied. The others walked into the room. "A nightmare. Zere vas a castle, and... mein mutter. My real mother! She vas being chased by wolves. There vas a man..."

"What's going on?" Kitty asked sleepily from the door.

"Kurt's having nightmares," replied Jean.

"Oh? What about?"

"She dropped me..." muttered Kurt. "What does it mean?"

"_Maybe the professor can help?_" Rogue suggested to Scott. He said it aloud, unaware that it was not his own thoughts.

"Perhaps, but it's getting late," said Jean. "It should wait until morning."

"_No, that's okay,_" Xavier interrupted telepathically. "_This may be important. Kurt, please come to the library with Jean. And the rest of you try and get some sleep. You all have finals tomorrow._"

Rogue smirked as they went their separate ways. '_This is going to be easier than I thought._'

In the library, Professor X was seated in a chair opposite the couch on which Jean was sitting. Kurt was hunched over his knees on a chair, looking at his hands which he'd clasped together as though praying.

"I've always known that my parents adopted me," he said, "but they never said anything about fishing me out of a river..."

"Don't worry Kurt," assured the professor, wheeling his chair over to Kurt as the furry mutant sat up. "We'll try to sort this out.

"Now, just relax," he continued, holding his hands near Kurt's face. "Try to think of the dream."

Kurt concentrated, and with the professor's help was in the dream again. The castle, the wolves, the bridge. Then there was more. In the dream, Kurt woke again to see the world floating past, and then saw his adoptive father, smiling, reach down to lift him from the stream. He passed Kurt to his wife, who was equally happy. The last thing was the sight of his cloaked mother, who now seemed somehow familiar, waving as he was carried away.

Kurt and Xavier stared at each other, brows furrowed, before they both sat back.

"Well? What can you tell me?" the teleporter asked.

"That wasn't just a dream, Kurt," the professor explained. "That was a repressed memory. I wonder... do you remember anything else from when you were that young?"

"No," replied Kurt. "This is the first time anything like this has happened."

"The question is, 'why now?'" the professor continued. "Well, I think we've had enough excitement for one night. We'll look into this more tomorrow, after school."

With that he left the room. Kurt teleported back to his room, and Jean followed the professor. "_Something wrong?_" she asked.

"_The others in the dream... I know who they are; and I don't like it. I don't think Kurt will either._"

* * *

The next morning Xavier was up early to visit principal Darkholme before any of the students arrived at Bayville High.

"I know about your relationship with the boy, Mystique," he said. "What I don't know is what Magneto did to him. Why did you run that night?"

"Dear, dear, Charles," the shapeshifter replied. "How incredibly frustrating for you; to realise that that amazing mind of yours knows so very little, really."

"What were you two up to in that castle? Was it worth the loss of your son?"

That was as good a cue as she was going to get, Mystique figured. She let loose a thought, her memory of that event, and made sure that the exact location of the castle became known to Charles. Then she tensed and turned around.

"Get out!" she yelled at the telepath. "Get out now." She pointed to the door.

Charles did as she said, but paused at the door. "Just in case you're curious," he advised, "he turned out to be a very fine lad," and continued on his way.

Raven watched as Charles left the premises. "Happy hunting," she said, smirking.

In the Blackbird, Wolverine thanked Xavier for the telepathically transmitted coordinates, and set for launch. Rogue watched on from the shadows at the back of the cockpit.

When she felt that they had gone far enough that Logan wouldn't turn back, she stepped forward and sat in the co-pilot's seat. "Sweet ride" she said, grinning.

"What the– How'd you?" Logan glared at her. "What are you doing here?" he growled.

"Figured ya maight need some help," replied Rogue.

"I do** not **need help doing re-con," the feral complained.

"Well, it can't hurt, can it?"

Wolverine growled quietly to himself. "You better not slow me down, skunk."

"Ah see a castle down there," said Rogue. "Think this maight be the place?"

Logan picked up the radio mic. "I'm at the place, Charles. I'll set her down in the woods nearby and go in on foot."

"Good," replied the professor. "Keep me informed. By the way, you wouldn't happen to have any idea where Rogue is?"

"Yeah, Charles, Stripes stowed away on the jet. I'll make sure she stays–" Logan looked around, but Rogue was no longer on the plane. He spotted her heading towards the castle. "Well, Logan out," he said into the radio, before rushing out after the southerner.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" he yelled when he caught up with her.

"Ssh," Rogue replied, putting a finger to her lips. "I think the Blackbird's been spotted. Keep it down unless you want them to find us, too." She then started off towards the castle again, running stealthily through the undergrowth.

Logan was only managing to track where she was going by scent, and only just managing to keep up, to boot. "She's good...," he muttered to himself. He stopped suddenly at the edge of the forest, facing a sheer rock-face. "Maybe not good enough."

Rogue dropped to the ground next to him from a nearby tree. He grunted, and started climbing. The southerner followed closely behind.

At the top of the cliff, Logan stopped to sniff the air. He looked back down the cliff – Rogue was nowhere to be seen.

From across the other side of a stone bridge that crossed a deep ravine, the girl shouted "Come on!"

Logan looked up to see she was already inside the castle. He grumbled to himself and ran across the bridge.

Inside the castle, he'd lost Rogue again. Sniffing, he caught her scent – and Magneto's. He followed it up a case of stairs.

"Watch out for the EMF trap," said Rogue from the shadows on the other side of a doorway.

Logan took out the generator on one side before continuing through, and ran ahead of the southerner straight into the firing path of some motion-sensitive laser cannons. As he started dodging, Rogue came up behind him and reflected a ray straight back into one of the cannons, destroying it. Wolverine took the other one out with his claws, and turned around to find that Rogue had run off ahead of him again. Feeling more cautious than he had been, he took cover behind a pillar before looking around it, so see nothing more dangerous a large double door hanging open. He ran up to it, to discover a lab that had been trashed and mangled. Rogue was crouching on the floor sort through the wreckage.

"Looks laike some kinda DNA lab," she said.

"Yeah," growled Logan, sniffing and looking around. Suddenly, he heard a beeping – there was a bomb stuck to the wall with less than 10 seconds left on the timer. "Let's get out of here!" he yelled.

"One step ahead of you," replied the southerner, running past.

Wolverine instinctively rushed the nearest window and jumped through it. Behind him the entire floor that the lab was on exploded. He looked around, unable to see Rogue.

He picked up his hand-held communicator. "It was a DNA lab, Charles, and it looks like I was expected. Whoever was running the place moved out real recently."

Presently, Rogue sauntered casually out the main door of the castle, pocketing something in her jacket. "We better clear off too, sugah," she said, grabbing Logan and picking up the pace. As they ran, the castle collapsed behind them.

* * *

Back at the Institute, Kurt paced around his room. When he'd got home from school there'd been a message waiting in there, written on some notepaper.

"If you want to know the truth, come to the new mall construction site at sundown," it had said. "Come alone!"

Well, it was nearly sundown now. He placed the note in a drawer, and looked out the window at the setting sun. "Why not?" he said, and 'ported away.

Shortly after, there was a knock at the door "Yo, Kurt!" Scott announced, opening the door. "Professor X say he may have some info– Kurt?" The Alaskan looked around at the empty room. "Kurt!"

He looked back into the corridor, and saw Jean nearby. "Hey, do you know where Kurt is?" he asked. "The professor wanted me to fetch him."

"Haven't seen him," replied Jean. "Hang on, I'll see if I can find him," she continued, and started scanning with her telepathy. "He's no-where on the grounds," she eventually concluded.

"_This doesn't bode well,_" Charles interrupted. "_I fear someone may have lured him out of the mansion. Can you two check his room for clues as to where he might have gone._"

Scott and Jean entered the room and started looking around. It was Jean that found the note. "Oh, no."

Scott took it from her. "Get the others," he said. "We gotta move."

Elsewhere, Kurt looked apprehensively around the deserted construction site. "Okay," he announced. "So, I'm here."

"Hallo, Kurt," said a voice behind him. The teleporter turned to see a cloaked figure.

"Hey, you're the one from my dream!" he exclaimed. "Who are you? Why don't you show yourself?"

"You already know me," said the figure, and removed her hood. "Son."

"No," cried Kurt, stepping back at the sight of Mystique. "No, it's impossible!"

Mystique held out a hand towards him and opened her mouth to speak.

"What happened to me?" demanded Kurt, interrupting. "Why didn't you come back for me?"

"Magneto would have found you again!" the shapeshifter exclaimed. "I couldn't take the chance that he would do those things to you..."

"There he is!" Jean's voice rang out across the site.

"Didn't I tell you to come alone?" hissed Mystique.

"Mystique!" yelled Scott, beside Jean. Shadowcat and Spyke were there also. "What are you playing at?"

Kurt leapt between the X-Men and his mother. "No, wait!" he said.

"Let's shake this up!" yelled another voice from the other side of the site. It was Lance – the Brotherhood had arrived.

"No! Get away from here!" yelled Mystique.

"No can do, boss lady," said Pietro, running up to her. "We've got higher orders." He held up a hand and clicked his fingers.

In response to this signal, Lance started the ground shaking. Toad hopped towards the X-Men as Cyclops blasted Alvers, sending him flying and stopping the shaking. Blob was not far behind.

"Stop this at once!" shouted Mystique, desperately.

Kurt turned to face her. "I want answers, Mystique!" he said.

"I've told you all that I can," replied the shapeshifter, before turning and running.

Jean tried to use her telekinesis to stop Mystique, but the woman countered this by turning into a crow, putting the X-man off balance and escaping.

On the ground, Spyke had managed to defeat Toad, and Blob had run right through Kitty, landing head first in a cement mixer that Scott promptly turned on. The only one left was Pietro, who was running in circles around the X-Men, occasionally smacking one of them.

"Oh, I'm done with this," exclaimed Kurt, and promptly teleported directly into Quicksilver's path. He punched the speed freak in the face, knocking him out cold. Shaking the numbness out of his hand, he turned to the others. "Let's get out of here," he said darkly.

* * *

Later on, Xavier had called Scott, Jean, and Logan into the library to discuss what had been happening. In front of a roaring fire, the two teenagers were seated on the couch opposite the professor, Logan slouched on one of the sofa's arms.

"So, Mystique is actually Kurt's mother?" asked the feral.

"It would seem so," confirmed Xavier, "although I'm not convinced that the memory wasn't shaken loose by another telepath. I fear that until we get to the bottom of that, we cannot be sure of the truth. There was nothing left of the lab?"

"Nothing," sighed Logan. "Whoever was runnin' it didn't want us finding anything; but before it went kablooey, it looked like the kind of place that doctor Frankenstein might've been comfortable in."

"Genetic experimentation on mutants...," said the professor, drawing a disappointed breath. "I hadn't realised that he would go that far. And poor Kurt..."

Logan stood up, and placing his hands in his pockets, stalked away. He stopped after a few steps.

"So, when are you going to tell Kurt and the others?" asked Scott.

Now Logan turned around. "I'm not so sure the elf needs to know," he said. "At least not yet; some of this stuff could be pretty damaging."

Hearing this, Jean hugged her knees and Scott hung his head. They didn't want to know either.

"I'd like to hear what Rogue has to say about your trip, too," said the professor. "Do any of you know where she is?"

"She took of pretty much as soon as we got back," offered Logan. "Something about a dinner-date with a friend before they go back to England."

"That'd be Risty," supplied Jean. "Rogue told me she flies over every now and then to visit some family, and normally meets up with Rogue while she's here."

Not far away, Rogue and Risty were indeed sharing dinner at a restaurant. The southerner removed something from her jacket pocket, and placed it on the table. It was a red crystal, half an inch across.

"Look familiar?" she asked.

Mystique picked it up. "If I didn't know better I'd say it was one of the Gems of Cytorrak. I always thought they were larger than this, though."

"I picked it up from Magneto's base in Germany, just before it was destroyed completely. I think he must have managed to chip it off one of the major crystals while he was busy tearing up the equipment in there."

"Curious; I was told they were unbreakable. You don't suppose he would have had these when he was experimenting on Kurt?"

"I intend to find out. My guess is these having something to do with what he's doing on that Asteroid too – he just hadn't taken the crystal up there yet."

Risty sighed. "Just what is that megalomaniac trying to do?"

"I dunno," replied Rogue. "I don't think we're going to find out until it's started, though. What I do know is that it's not mysticism in these stones. They're a strange configuration of Ruby that emit an unusual radiation." The southerner handed some hand-written documents to Risty. "I found these, too. They detail his research on them, but there's no dates."

* * *

When she returned to the mansion, the first thing Rogue did was seek out Kurt. The teleporter was perched on the balcony of his room, staring out at the landscape, and the moon overhead.

"C'mon Kurt, let's get you some food," the girl said from the corridor. "Ah bet you haven't eaten since your encounter with Mystique and her dopes."

"You heard about that?" asked Kurt, 'porting over to her.

"News travels fast in here," replied Rogue, putting an arm around some shoulders and leading him down the corridor.

"I still can't believe that Mystique is my mother," sighed Kurt as they walked into the kitchen.

Kitty, who was at the table with her laptop, overheard this, and sat up suddenly. Rogue shot her a look that said 'not a word' in no uncertain terms.

"Well, there is a certain resemblance," the southerner offered jokingly.

"That doesn't mean anything," replied Kurt, who had actually been thinking the same thing.

"Well, maybe you should wait till the prof' finds more answers for ya. Then you'll know f' sure."

Kitty shot a look of her own back at Rogue. The older teen shook her head.

"Somehow I think he already knows more than he's willing to tell me," said Kurt, not noticing this.

"Maybe," said Rogue, "but if he does, he's prob'ly got good reasons for not telling you."

"Yeah, sure," sighed Kurt, looking away.

Rogue walked over the the refrigerator and retrieved a pizza box from it. Sitting back down, she placed it in front of her brother.

"Listen, Kurt," she began. "Ah know what you're going through. We'll both keep lookin', and we'll find our answers together someday. Okay?"

"Yeah, okay," said Kurt, and dug into the remains of the pizza.

"Hey, big day at school tomorrow," Rogue digressed. "Ah should get some sleep. You too, Kitty." She stood up and looked pointedly at the other girl.

"Oh, I guess you're right," replied the other girl, and stood up, unplugging her laptop and closing it. The two of them walked off, to the room that they now shared.

* * *

Kitty was unable to sleep that night, though. She tossed and turned until finally she could take it no more. Getting up she walked over to Rogue's bed.

"Hey," said the younger girl.

"What to you want?" mumbled the southerner.

"Why are you lying to Kurt?" Kitty continued. "Everyone else, too. 'Little secret' my foot."

"It's for'is own good..."

Angrily, Kitty grabbed Rogue's shoulders and turned her so they were face to face. "How is that for his own good, exactly?"

Rogue scowled at Kitty, and then grabbed her by the waist, tossing her onto the bed and rolling on top of her. She planted one knee on either side of the girl's waist, and held _her_ shoulders down. Leaning down, she growled into Kitty's ear. "You listen to me. Kurt's got enough on his plate already, and Ah can't tell him any more without letting him know that we're related."

Kitty phased up though the southerner and stood up. Crossing her arms she asked, "What's so bad about that?"

Rogue grabbed a pillow and swung it around, hitting the other girl in the back. "That'd imply that Ah knew all along," she explained as Kitty turned around. "Which'd be more confusing for'im. Do ya want the guy to go into meltdown?"

"I guess not," replied Kitty, walking back to the head of the bed.

"Not a peep out'a you t' _anyone_, then," ordered Rogue.

"Oh yeah? Well..." Kitty grabbed the other pillow of the bed and swung it at Rogue. "Take that!"

Rogue retaliated immediately, standing up and pushing Kitty back, then hitting her with the pillow again.

In the awkward manner that all such pillow manoeuvring has, the fight continued, one blow for every one received, until Kitty walked backwards into her bed and fell over, and Rogue fell down on top of her. Amazingly, they managed to avoid touching skin-to-skin. Kitty giggled and pushed Rogue up off her. "Get off me," she complained.

Rogue shrugged, snatched her pillow away from Kitty, and turned to walk back to her own bed. That's when Kitty ambushed her with one of her own pillows. Again the fight took them across the room, and this time Kitty fell on top of Rogue.

The southerner grabbed Kitty's shoulders, and when the younger girl looked up, she said, "Go to sleep, ya fool."

"Okay," replied Kitty, and promptly collapsed on Rogue's breast.

"That's not what Ah meant," the southerner protested. Presently, Kitty started snoring. "Great," Rogue sighed, rolling her eyes, and let her own head drop.

* * *

_Notes:_

Yup, Mystique never released Juggernaut. Obviously with a man on the inside, she didn't have to.  
I hope the obligatory gratuitous pillow fight was enjoyable for all those who thought it was missing from the TV show (You _know_ Jean would have broken it up, so I didn't include her).

Thanks again to everyone who reviewed during the extremely long break: **Chica De Los Ojos Cafe**, **emi13**, **alydhe**, **The Past**, **Tzarista**, **ScrewyLouie12**, **Nathalia Potter**, **acepro Evolution**, and the anonymous reviewers RebelRogue127 and t.t.  
A Big Thanks also to **sleepy26**,**Kai3anime**, and **MidniteAngelGoth** who reviewed the last chapter so promptly.

Next chapter, we jump straight into The Cauldron for an action-packed chapter that concludes part one.

(This is where I would traditional ask you for reviews. It would be nice if I could have some constructive comments. Or, you could even tell me why you hated it.)


	9. The Cauldron

_The Cauldron__  
_

The young girl with white stripes in her hair sat on the swing, silently watching the other children on a carousel not far away. Occasionally she would swing back and forth slowly, never taking her eyes off the other children.

"Are you going to go and talk to them, Anna, or just sit there and glower at them?" her mother asked.

"Don't know, momma," the girl replied. "What if they don't like me?"

"Well, my little rogue, you won't know if you don't find out."

"This is really boring," another voice said. Anna looked across at the other swing, where there was now a little blonde girl, dressed all in white. "Don't you have any more fun memories from your childhood, Rogue?"

"No-one asked you to come, Emma" the southerner's younger self replied, kicking back and forth to swing higher and faster. "You kinda' invited yourself."

Emma stuck her tongue out, and started her own swing going.

"Go on and talk to them," continued Anna's mother, as though Emma wasn't there — which she hadn't been, not _then_. "If they don't like you at first, they will learn to."

"Okay," her daughter said, and jumped off the swing as it reached the end of its arc forwards. She rolled when she hit the ground, muddying her clothes, but got up and started running towards the other children despite this, as five year olds are wont to do. When she arrived, she stopped and stood patiently.

The other children weren't interested in stopping the carousel spinning, but after a few turns one girl grabbed Anna by the arm and pulled her up onto it. As soon as she had a purchase on one of the bars, Anna pulled away nervously, and shied away from the other girl, who asked, "What's wrong?"

"Ah don't like being touched," replied Anna.

"Um, oh-kay," the other girl said, one eyebrow raised. "Anyway, could your mom give us a push?"

The woman obliged without Anna forwarding the question, and soon the children were spinning fast.

"So, my name's Katherine," the girl called. "What's yours?"

"Anna, but my friends mostly call me Rogue."

"You can call me Kitty!"

That wasn't right.

The first friend Rogue had made that day _was_ called Katherine, but hated being called Kitty, or Kit, or anything like it. The young Rogue blinked a few times and looked again, and sure enough Kitty Pryde was now in her place, teen aged and shouting gleefully as the carousel span. As she looked around, the southerner saw not the children she'd grown up with, forming a kid gang and terrorising the neighbourhood (Rogue's house had been the perfect hideout, because her foster mother never really stopped them from doing anything), but the X-men and Brotherhood, obliquely playing together while Mystique spun them around. There was also a blond teenage boy with skin that had more sun than the rest of them combined, and Rogue had suddenly grown up also.

Suddenly, metallic tentacles appeared out of nothing and nowhere, first taking Mystique away, then Kurt, Evan, and Todd. The bright day turned into absolute black around them as Scott and the blonde one were grabbed and placed down a distance away, where they stood up and faced the other way as Kitty and Jean were picked up roughly and thrown to the ground, where they lay unconscious. Somehow Xavier and Storm were now on the ground with them, and the carousel had disappeared.

Emma's hands snaked around Rogue from behind, and she placed her head on the southerner's shoulder. "What was _that_?" she asked.

"I'm not entirely sure," the Mississippi girl replied, "but I have a pretty fair idea."

She forced herself awake. Hot, heavy air, a stone seat, views across the bay.

Rogue sighed, closing her eyes again. The spring transition had been much quicker than she'd hoped for, and in contrast to the freezing winter she'd barely endured, the southerner was now faced with the choking heat and humidity of a coastal summer. At least the breeze coming off the sea was helping.

Opening her eyes, she concentrated again on the crystal on the table in front of her. Like the shard of the Gem of Cytorrak stowed safely in her backpack, it was a deep red. It also emitted a kind of radiation, or rather slowly evolved a gas that did, as the crystal in question was ruby quartz, which tended to carry the gas radon in it – the only "noble" gas that had a consistent radioactive decay, and a product of former breakdown of denser radioactive elements; although now her thoughts were running off on a tangent, Rogue considered for a moment whether the radiation emitted from the Gems was part of this earlier breakdown.

'_Alright, focusing again._'

Unlike the aforementioned gem, the crystal she was gazing at had several flakes of metal arranged just off the centre, and was carefully cut to about 7 inches tall by 3 inches in diameter. This crystal was a metaphor for Rogue's self, and her task, set by herself and Jean Grey, was to remain focused on the centre of the crystal, which was deliberately made hard due to the imperfections nearby.

The pairing might have seemed odd to most people, but Jean Grey was a person whom Rogue had discovered was more similar to herself than she thought possible, and was plagued by much the same problems – albeit stemming from less internal sources. For this reason, the two of them had decided to try this method together. Rogue had suggested it initially (on advice from Kitty), reasoning that if they could master finding the centre of the crystal, they would be able to centre themselves, and Jean was convinced immediately. The two would have a session every week where they would support each other trying to remain focused on the crystal, both recording the number of times the other was distracted by the imperfections, and noting what outside influences caused this to happen.

The problem she faced with tackling a task with another, was that both people really needed to be in the same place, and Jean was consistently busy after school when the sessions were supposed to be taking place. So far out of the bits and pieces of time they'd cobbled together they'd managed three quarters out of an hour of the seven half-hour sessions they'd been supposed to have. Recently Jean had started running so late that Rogue had offered to take the older girl home riding pillion on her bike; She'd politely declined.

The southerner fished the gem shard out of her bag and placed it on the table, focusing on it instead. Immediately, she felt the rush of power, and knew that she could call on the template of any power she'd absorbed. She balled a fist and three bone claws shot out of it. Glaring at a nearby rock, she unleashed an optic blast, sending it flying. She shook her head; it all felt artificial. She retracted the claws and looked back at the large crystal. Trying again to focus on its centre, she felt the gem shard's power lose its hold on her, and a wave of relative normality was refreshing.

She heard Scott's car, a kit replica Cobra powered by an 8 cylinder Cosworth engine, arrive at the front of the mansion. "Finally," she said, pocketing the gem shard and making a mental note to show Scott how to bolt an exhaust system together properly, before the inconsistent hum and sharp whistles drove her insane.

Sensing something wrong, she sat suddenly bolt upright. "Toad...," she muttered. "It's really begun."

Standing up, she replaced the training crystal into her bag and ran across the grounds, arriving at the well just in time to see a metal sphere floating away on magnetic winds. Tolanski was sitting next to the well, grumbling to himself.

"Was that Jean Grey?" the southerner asked.

Toad, having just lost a one-on-one fight with the red-haired telepath, was in no mood to give any kind of useful answer. "Whatever, yo," he said, before hopping away.

Rogue considered following him for a moment, but then decided to head into the mansion instead. At the door, a ginger cat rubbed against her legs. "Nice of you to give me some warning," she said to it sarcastically, before going inside.

Upon closing the door, Kurt teleported into the room right in front of her. "Did you hear?" he said, "The professor found Scott's little brother. We're going to Hawaii!" and he 'ported away. Rogue hurried upstairs to prepare – for battle.

Kitty blushed for a second when Rogue burst in on her, but then picked up two swimsuits to show. "What do you think? The blue, or the purple?"

"Ah don't think we're gonna have time to go swimming," replied the southerner, bending down to grab her X-Men uniform.

"What swimsuits do you have?" Kitty asked.

"Ah burn too easily," Rogue said dismissively. "Ah'll stick to what Ah'm wearing now."

"Isn't that a bit heavy for beach wear?" the younger girl continued, observing the power thief's complete body covering solution. "You'd look totally hot in a two piece. Maybe with a sarong or something."

Rogue stood up and faced Kitty, her mouth agape. "Did you even listen to a word Ah just said?"

Her room-mate shrugged and put the blue swimsuit down, before packing the purple one in with her uniform. "Well, we better get going or they'll leave without us," she said, running out of the room.

"Don't bother rushing," Rogue said to a door that Kitty hadn't bothered to open. "You won't make it."

As she walked down to the hangar she heard the sounds of the Blackbird taking off, and arrived behind Kitty and Evan just in time for Kurt to 'port in carrying a body-board, already decked out in board shorts and a colourful shirt.

"Here I am," the furry mutant announced, "ready to give my all to the cause. Hula hula!" He looked shocked, and then turned around to confirm that their transport had already departed. "Oh man!"

"We were never goin'," Rogue observed.

"You can't blame Scott," said Kitty, although looking upset. "Meeting a brother he hasn't seen in like ten years; I wouldn't want a crowd either. No way."

"Hey," Kurt exclaimed, clicking his fingers, "I'm thinking, Hawaii, not the only beaches in the world, right?" He looked around the faces of the other three, who all seemed confused by his outburst. "Hello? Road trip anyone?"

Soon the German boy was driving the X-Van out of its garage, Kitty and Evan changed and seated already. The roof slid back as Rogue ran up.

"Hustle it up, Rogue, before Auntie O shows up and dry docks our planes," shouted Evan.

"Shut up," replied the southerner as the same ginger cat she'd seen before ran across her path. "I couldn't find Jean, so I left her a note," she lied as she got into the van.

Kurt drove them out of the institute. Behind them, the cat changed into Mystique, and she informed the brotherhood that the four of them were on the move.

On the coastal road, Rogue enjoyed the breeze coming off the beaches as they travelled along in silence. Then she caught wind of something altogether less pleasant. "We're bein' followed," she disclosed. "It's the creep squad."

Immediately the ground rumbled.

"Be on the lookout for random rock-slides and sudden tremors," said Kurt just as the road in front of them started to break up. He avoided the artificial mountain, but then Alvers's more nimble jeep was right behind them. A little too close, as he rammed the van a couple of times, and then Kurt had to swerve around a boulder that Avalanche had dislodged onto their path, skidding down a bumpy side track that led down to a cove, and more immediately, the Blob. Unable to stop in time, they crashed into the behemoth Texan.

Rogue grabbed Kitty and jumped clear, but the other two were trapped as Dukes, after making some comment about 'coming here often' literally shook them out of the van, and Avalanche buried them in the sand with his powers. As the jeep pulled up behind the X-Van, Rogue moved quickly, but Pietro managed to get out of the way and she zapped Toad instead.

Shadowcat phased Dukes into the ground as Nightcrawler teleported himself and Spyke out, but apparently this wasn't enough, as the Texan rose from the sand quickly and punched Kitty in the gut, winding and dazing her.

Evan tackled Lance, and the two wrestled on the ground for a few moments before breaking away and standing for a face of; but Spyke was too close to a rock ledge, and a quick tremor sent him tumbling. Kurt ported directly behind Pietro and attempted to take him to the ground, but the silver-haired boy was too fast and side-stepped him, pushing him off the edge of the very same ledge. Both the X-Men fell unconscious.

"Hey, here comes our reward!" said Dukes, pointing to a quartet of metal spheres that were now floating in.

Behind him, Kitty regained her composure and attacked him with a flying leap, phasing as she sent him into a cliff, burying him up to his neck. "Break out of _that_!" she shouted, back-flipping off the trapped boy as the spheres opened.

She screamed as metal tentacles grabbed her from behind and pulled her into one of them. Avalanche, Quicksilver, and Rogue simply stepped into the other three.

Eventually, Blob's screaming woke the other three. Nightcrawler quickly teleported directly in front of Dukes's face. "Alright, spill it, Blob!" he demanded. "What just happened?! Where'd the others go?!"

"I'm not telling you anything!" Fred replied.

"Well, I guess you're stuck there, then," Kurt said, "until someone with a wrecking ball happens to drive by."

"Well, we don't owe that crummy Magneto nothin' no more," said Toad dazedly. "That's for sure."

"Who's Magneto?" asked Evan.

"One major mega-mutant," Tolanski answered. "He's gleaning out the best from the worst, and we lost. Guess what that makes us? Losers."

Kurt, losing his temper, grabbed Todd by the shirt. "What Happens To Zer Winners?" he demanded.

"Get him out," the other boy replied, indicating his stuck comrade, "and I'll tell you."

* * *

When Rogue eventually stepped out of her steel prison, her surroundings were entirely different.

"Welcome to Sanctuary!" Pietro exclaimed. "Asteroid M."

Rogue looked around. Against one wall, she saw Jean and Ororo suspended in stasis tanks, and Lance was placing an unconscious Kitty into a third. Another had a pair of foreboding round doors and a control panel. Opposite that was a radar station, and there were hangar doors in the furthest wall. A staircase leading away both up and down suggested that the place was much bigger than this one room.

"Now for your personal tour. If you look over here–" Quicksilver began.

"Save it. Ah don't care." Rogue walked over to investigate the doors. In her pocket, the gem shard started humming. She lifted it out, and it shot onto the wall next to the panel, sticking there. She left it and walked away, guessing that no-one would notice. Now she walked to through a short corridor to another room that was dominated by a large window facing out onto an asteroid that had a city built into it. "He really put a lot of effort into this," she said to herself. "Shame, really."

Hearing Magneto's voice, Rogue walked back into the other room to see him standing in his trademark cape and helmet. Xavier was there also, looking shocked and horrified at the suspended X-Men.

He placed a hand on Ororo's tank. "Magnus, you haven't saved them. You've abducted them." he accused, slamming a fist down on his chair.

"A certain amount of persuasion may still be needed, I'll admit," replied Magneto, folding his arms, as Quicksilver and Avalanche fell in behind him.

"But for every unbeliever," he continued, looming over the professor and raising a hand, "there's a new convert." He waved his hand and the hangar doors opened, revealing Scott and his brother, Alex.

"Scott, no!" Charles gasped as they walked over to Magneto. "Scott, I don't understand," he continued, shaking his head.

"Professor, wait," Scott said, walking to him. "We're here to listen, that's all."

"What about them?" Xavier asked, turning to reveal the suspended mutants. "Are _they_ here to listen as well?"

Scott let out his own gasped and turned to face Magneto. "Hey, what is this?!" he yelled.

"Simply a precaution, Scott," the man replied. "Not everyone has the maturity to accept the need for change as you do. Not yet."

"Let them out, now!" Scott demanded raising his hand to his glasses in preparation to shoot Magneto. Lance stepped up in front of his leader, prepared for a fight.

"I will," Magneto said calmly, pushing Alvers to one side. "We just need to proceed cautiously," he continued, walking past Scott to his imprisoned friends. "Trust me. They are perfectly safe."

"_Are they safe, Scott?_" Xavier asked telepathically. "_Are any of us safe? I know this man well. His motives can not be trusted. He's bitter–_"

Scott looked up at the professor, and Magnus realised what he was doing. Using his power on Charles's wheelchair, he floated his old friend into a suspension tank and closed it. Xavier's last act as he fell unconscious from the knock-out gas filling the chamber was to instruct Wolverine to lose the battle he was fighting with Sabretooth.

"Way to draw attention," Rogue said to Scott, bumping him with her shoulder. "Ah don't think shooting those things is going to be a good idea, by the way," she added as he prepared to blast the professor out.

"Why not?" he asked sharply.

"Decompression."

"The girl is right, Scott," Magneto supplied. "He wouldn't survive."

"Well, odds aren't that great for you, either," the Alaskan retorted.

"Can it, Cyclops," Rogue said.

"Scott, c'mon man," Alex said, walking up to his brother. "So they're getting a little time out, so what? Look, I don't get it either, but no-one should be getting hurt here.

"You can't blame Magneto for wanting to be careful! And all I know is he just wants to help," he continued, and rubbed the knuckles of one hand in his other. "And I need his help. So c'mon, holster that thing, would ya?"

"I don't like it," Scott stated, shaking his head.

"But your brother is right Scott," Magneto said. "I'm not your enemy." He removed his helmet and smiled. "Nor am I Charles. Very soon you will see the truth."

"So, what's with the tech?" Rogue asked, nodding to the round doors. "That got somethin' to do with your 'help?'"

"Why, yes, it does," Magneto replied. "Hmm. You must be the Rogue?"

"Just Rogue, no 'the,'" the southerner corrected. "So, let's see this machine."

"Not yet. I have a few more things to tend to. Please, look around."

Magnus turned and left. The three teenagers variously shrugged at each other.

"I have to... uh, go and think about this," Scott said, and walked off down a corridor.

Alex looked dumbly at Rogue for a couple of seconds. "So, uh, I'm Alex," he said, holding out a hand cautiously, as though the girl was going to bite it. "What's your name?"

The southerner looked distastefully at his hand. "Just Rogue." She wandered off in roughly the same direction as Magneto had gone, leaving Alex with his arm outstretched.

"Dude, what's with her?" Alex asked, dropping her hand.

"She's like that with everyone," Lance replied, sidling up to him. "And uh, she's a bit sore about not being able to touch anyone."

A little way away, Rogue observed that last minute preparations appeared to involve waiting around for another sphere to arrive in a secluded spot. Magneto opened it to reveal Sabretooth, who immediately crouched as though tracking something. He started to run toward Rogue.

"Well, well, well," the southerner said, stepping out of the shadows. "Looks like it remembers me."

"You!" Sabretooth shouted, bearing down on her. Behind him, Magneto yelled out for him to stop.

Rogue stood stock still, skipping backwards at the last moment to allow Sabretooth to tackle her to the ground without injuring her. The feral pinned her arms down to the ground, but made the mistake of leaving his face within a few inches of hers. She leaned her head up and kissed him. As he fell asleep, she threw him aside and stood up slowly.

"You know, Ah reckon Logan could've beaten him," the southerner said to Magneto. "Genetic enhancer, huh? Not that the creep had any idea what that meant."

Magneto sighed. "Come, Rogue," he said, leading her to the place Scott and now Alex were. "It is time to meet the future."

"How has he promised to help you, Alex?" they heard Scott as as they approached the brothers.

"Not just Alex, Scott," Magneto declared. "You as well. Everyone! Together we shall embark on a wondrous renaissance. I invite you to be a part of it."

'_That's some well mixed concepts,_' Rogue thought as they walked back to the main room.

Presently Scott asked "What's in it for you, Rogue?"

"Ah need help with my powers like anyone else," she said. "Just wanna know what this is about. It'd be great to be able to touch again."

"I built it right into the asteroid," Magneto declared ahead of them. "Behold! The next step in mutant evolution," he continued, pointing to the doors.

"What is it?" asked Scott, shrugging.

"A genetic enhancer," Magnus replied. "Perhaps you've heard of the legendary gems of Cytorrak?" He procured a red crystal from his pocket. "Well, they _do_ exist. Once believed to possess mystical properties, these stones actually emit a very... distinctive radiation."

"Hey, hey," Alex interrupted, "wait a minute. You mean you're going to _nuke_ us?"

"I'm going to evolve you!" declared Magnus excitedly. "Finish your growth!"

‹_Zealot much?_› Emma supplied, making Rogue giggle.

"No more pain, Alex!" Magneto continued, grabbing the surfer by the shoulders. "And no more hiding behind that visor, Scott," he said before turning to Rogue.

The southerner raised an eyebrow and placed her hands on her hips.

"Just _imagine_ your potential...," the old man said, his eyes glazing over. He recovered, and continued, "Your powers will be fully realised, giving you complete control!"

"What about them?" asked Scott, indicating the incapacitated X-Men. "I want them released!"

"They will be," replied Magnus, "but only _after_ you've gone through the transformation. I want them to see what I'm offering."

Raising a hand, he opened the hinged door with his powers, and powered the machine up. "And it _is_ an offer, Scott," he continued. "I won't force you to go through it."

"We're supposed to just trust this thing works?" the Alaskan retorted. "You go through it, then."

"I have," replied Magneto, placing his hands on his hips. "I'm fully advanced. But why don't I provide you with a real first hand demonstration?" He turned to Lance and Pietro.

"Uh...," his son started, and looked at Lance, who scratched his head, looking in the other direction.

"Ah'll go through," offered Rogue. "Looks like your boys are chicken."

"Very well," said Magneto, smirking.

Rogue stepped through the door, and immediately could feel the crystals' presence. She could _feel_ the powers of those outside calling for here to just reach out and use them. '_Okay, Emma, you're up,_' she thought as a purple cloud of light swam toward her, '_hold this shit out._'

The southerner felt herself go numb as her body crystallised. As a single molecule, no external force could penetrate her skin, but all she could do was watch on as she was moved through the machine on a conveyor belt. As she passed the cloud, however, Emma returned control of her body to her, and she was able to unfreeze and fish a small device from her pocket. It had no metal to alert the 'master of metal' to its presence, but the plastic sprung timer that started to tick as she removed a pin would set off a high density explosive in exactly six minutes. She and Mystique had decided that a world devoid of emotion was _not_ the way the future of mutant-kind should be.

As Rogue stepped over the threshold, diamond turned back into skin. "Well, my head feels a lot clearer," she lied, stepping up to Magneto's side.

"Boys," the man said, "It's time to reach your full potential."

"What do you think, Scott?" asked Alex, rubbing his knuckles again. "I want to, but... but not without you."

Scott looked cogitative for a moment, but then smiled and nodded.

"And now for an appreciative audience," Magneto muttered as they walked to the machine, and waved a hand, causing a machine to pump oxygen into the stasis chambers to wake the incumbents.

They woke up as Scott and Alex walked into the chamber. "Scott, no, don't!" yelled Jean, muffled drastically by the glass which she banged fists on.

"_Scott, I know what Magneto is doing,_" Xavier disclosed, "_This thing will alter your mind. Get out of there! Please!_"

Magneto shut the door with his power, trapping the two brothers inside. "Too late, Charles," he said, clenching a fist. "He's mine, now."

"_Rogue, do something,_" the telepath pleaded as realisation dawned on Kitty and she stepped through the glass.

"Choices, choices," Rogue said under her breath, and then leapt on Magneto, tackling him to the ground. She tore his helmet off, and grabbed his cheek while he struggled uselessly. Standing up after she absorbed him, she waved a hand in the direction of the chambers and they opened, allowing the three trapped inside to leave.

"Hey!" Lance exclaimed, and started shaking the floor.

Behind Rogue, Sabretooth entered the room, and roared upon seeing the southerner, before bounding towards her. While Rogue was still off-balance, Quicksilver dashed up and delivered a blow to her midriff, sending her straight into the enraged feral.

There was a flurry of movement which ended in Creed crouching over the girl, this time with his face far enough away that she couldn't reach it. "You're mine, now," he growled, just before a chunk of iron ore slammed into the side of his head. This wasn't enough to knock him out, but Rogue used the momentary confusion to tuck her legs under her attacker and kick out, flipping him over her head and loosening his grip so that she could escape – just in time to see Kitty phase through the enhancer's steel door. An instant later, the massive iris opened and the Summers boys stepped out, with white hair and dramatically muscled bodies. Wincing at being caught off-guard twice, Rogue switched off the enhancer to prevent Kitty from joining them in 'evolution.'

"You!" shouted Scott, pointing at Rogue. "You're ruining everything, traitor!"

Creed tried to tackle Rogue again, but this time she side-stepped him just as Alex blasted a beam of energy in her direction, which sent the feral flying backwards into the now empty stasis pods, collapsing the machinery on him. Alex tried to blast her a few more times, and getting sick of merely dodging, she started hurling metal at him – which prevented him from shooting her, but nothing actually reached him through the shields of plasma that he was now creating around himself.

"Blow that," the southerner muttered, and pummelled the boy with Emma's psychic blasts.

It was at about this time that Pietro noticed the radar warning. "We've got incoming!" he shouted.

"I'll deal with it," Scott said, and stalked off.

After a few seconds, Rogue said "Will somebody stop him?! He's gonna blast the reinforcements, and Ah'm a bit busy here!"

By way of response, Jean telekinetically lifted her friend off the ground. "What did he mean, 'traitor?'" she asked.

"Ah'll explain later," Rogue replied, before yelling "Kitty, get outta there!"

With one powerful and final blast, Rogue finally succeeded in shutting down Alex's mind, just in time to notice Sabretooth crawling out of the rubble. When he charged the southerner, she simply transformed her arms to diamond and let him run into them, her fingers slicing right into him as she gripped onto his soft belly. "Y'all just don't know when to give up, huh?!"

"I'll kill you," Creed growled, "for what you did."

"Not even," the southerner whispered into his ear before brushing her cheek against his and throwing him directly into the genetic enhancer, straight through Kitty who'd just stepped of it. "Stay phased!"

Behind Kitty, Rogue's bomb went off. As the debris went flying through her, Magneto turned his head groggily. "My machine...," he gasped.

"That ain't gonna be enough to stop 'im, Ace," said Wolverine from the door, holding Quicksilver in the air. "Little punk tried to punch me," he explained when Rogue shot him an inquisitive glance.

Behind him, Mystique, Toad, and Blob sauntered in, and Kurt teleported into the room with Spyke. Mystique stalked to where Magneto was lying, and picked him up by his collar.

"You dare to discard me," she hissed, "to do battle like some kind of underling. How could you?"

"You've been playing me since we met," the old man replied, struggling for breath. "How could you expect me not to?"

Mystique glanced briefly at Rogue. "_He doesn't know that much,_" the southerner supplied telepathically, "_just that you haven't been straight with him. He doesn't know about me. Don't respond, the others will hear you._"

Just then, Cyclops blasted the shape-shifter in the side of the head. She dropped Magneto as she was borne through the air, smashing into a power distribution board that crackled electricity around her, and she slumped to the floor. Across from Rogue, Alex had been slowly recovering from being incapacitated, and now he shot a beam of energy at Jean, forcing her to release her hold on Scott and defend herself instead as the ground started to rumble again.

"Enough with the tremors, man!" Blob shouted at Lance.

The seismicist shrugged. "That's not me," he replied, panic rising in his voice, "this rock's cracking up!"

"Storm, Rogue, prepare the jet," Xavier instructed. "Jean and I will try to deal with these two."

Storm obediently headed off, following telepathic directions to the location of the jet, and Rogue grabbed Kitty, following after her. Wolverine and Evan followed after also, while Kurt teleported ahead.

"Yo, you comin', Lance?" asked Toad.

Tolanski, Dukes, and Alvers were soon behind the X-men, who were patiently trying to break through a rock-slide that had blocked their passage to the observation deck. Storm was repeatedly throwing lightning bolts at the rocks while Rogue pummelled them with diamond fists. Both were more effective than Spyke's attempts to break them up with his spears.

"It's only about 10 feet through," said Kitty, stepping out of the blockage.

"Ten feet too many," muttered Rogue.

"Hey, maybe you guys want to, like, help out or something?" the other girl postulated.

"Or do y'all wanna die up here?" added Rogue.

"Outta' the way!" exclaimed Blob urgently, and charged at the wall. The X-men scattered before him, and he went straight through, sending rubble flying.

"Everyone to the jet!" ordered Storm.

"Ah'm gonna go see what's keeping them, Ororo," Rogue declared, and headed off before the weather manipulator could protest.

She met Xavier and Jean in the corridor.

"We couldn't force them," explained Xavier. "They're too powerful now."

"What about Mystique?" Rogue asked.

"I couldn't find her, or Magneto for that matter," replied Jean.

The southerner rolled her eyes and continued on her way.

"No, don't!" Jean started, but it was too late – a large section of roof landed on her comrade.

"We have to go," urged the professor.

"But Rogue–"

"–will refuse to do anything other than handle herself, Jean, _if _she's still alive; If not, we can't help her anyway. Stop worrying and get to the jet."

Under the wreckage, a diamond-formed Rogue sat still for a moment. Carefully calculating, she punched upward, and was rewarded with a hole in a ventilation shaft that had been embedded in the roof. She slithered in and clambered along it. While she did so, she heard two pairs of footsteps running overhead, going towards the Blackbird. Soon she reached the point where the roof had broken off, shearing the vent's edges. She crawled through and looked around – she'd made it all the way to the machine hall. Her mother was still slumped against one wall, but there was no sign of anyone else. She walked over to the metamorph.

"Mom... Mom!"

Reading no mental signals she leaned down to check for other life signs. Shallow breathing indicated that Mystique was still alive. She picked up the woman, and slung her over one shoulder. The asteroid shuddered violently, and Rogue's intuition told her that going to the X-jet was impossible. She made her way the the landing strip instead, hoping that the XM-Velocity was still there.

As she smashed rocks that were in her way, hope slowly diminished until at last she reached the jet-powered helicopter. It was clearly not going anywhere – a large boulder had crushed the middle of the craft.

"Why didn't I see this coming?" Rogue asked herself as she removed her mother from her shoulder, before looking down at the desert landscape below. "Well, at least we're not far up."

She jumped, turning herself to diamond, and cradling Mystique into her breast.

* * *

On the observation deck, the Blackbird was still waiting – for at least _someone_ to come running out. The deck rattled violently a few times, and Logan was about to take off when two white-haired figures appeared.

"Look!" shouted Jean. "It's them. Here they come."

Scott and Alex were within a few feet of the plane when the observation deck split, casting a ravine between it and them, and sending the X-jet spinning away. Wolverine had to take some evasive manoeuvres, and while he was doing so, the asteroid shook violently, tossing the brothers off. As they fell, Scott grabbed his brother's hand, and the two of them directed their powers at the ground, slowing their fall so that they could land on their feet.

The Blackbird hovered above them, and the undercarriage door opened, but there was only enough time for Jean to shout "Scott!" before Logan had to move it out of the way of falling boulders. One wing clipped the ground and the plane crashed down ungracefully, but remained intact.

It became evident quickly that the entire asteroid was going to come crashing down on them all, and with a wordless agreement, Alex and his older brother directed their powers up at it with full force, the heat from Alex's plasma blasts combining with the concussive force from Scott's to make the whole thing explode. Just before it did so, two metal spheres shot out of the launching chutes, and just after, a secondary shock-wave cancelled the effects of the Summers boys' 'evolution.' The two of them collapsed.

Scott started to open his eyes again, but felt the searing pain of his out-of-control power, and choose instead to keep them shut.

"It's okay, Scott, I'm here," said Jean, walking up to him.

"Jean!" the boy exclaimed. "Is everyone okay?"

"Hmm," was Jean's only response as she placed Scott's glasses on his face.

Scott opened his eye to see the X-men and brotherhood, with one notable exception. "Where's Rogue?" he asked.

"She went back for Mystique," explained Xavier, wheeling up. "She didn't make it out."

"Well, didn't anyone go after _her_?" Summers continued.

"Scott, we saw several tonnes of rock and metal fall on her head!" Jean shouted, exasperated.

Everyone who hadn't been witness to this gasped.

"Why was she going after Mystique anyway?" asked Kurt, confused.

Only Kitty responded in any meaningful way, by glaring at him.

"What?!"

"You should've gone," the girl grumbled. "She's _your_ mother. _You_ could've got her out quicker."

* * *

About four hours later and nearly twenty miles away on the floor of a canyon, Rogue finally found a road – a broken up single-lane carriageway, but a road nonetheless, and at least it was tarmac, which indicated that it was probably used by more than one car a week. She hid Mystique behind a rock, and waited by the wayside.

After ten minutes, a pair of headlights approached. Rogue held out a hand, carefully transformed to catch the light, but the car showed no sign even of slowing down, and continued past. This happened twice more.

Rogue didn't give the fourth car a choice. She stepped out into the middle of the road as the car approached, and held up a hand demanding it stop. As the car skidded sideways, she transformed her whole body into diamond and braced for impact.

The car never hit her, halting a few inches away. The passenger door popped open, and Rogue, returning to normal, dashed to it.

"Well now, ain't dis a s'prise?" the driver asked as she leaned across, preparing to grab him. He turned his head towards her, revealing a pair of glowing red eyes. "What y' doin' down in Arizona, chérie?"

* * *

_Chapter Notes:_

Slow update, I know. Sorry.

So ends part one ("To be continued..."). Thanks to **Dark Inu Fan** and **Wanda W**, who reviewed last chapter, and everyone who's reviewed so far.  
Stay tuned for part two, with new big and bigger reveals, more plot deviation, and – wait and you'll see.


	10. Argumentative

_**Truly Rogue – Part II:  
**_Change and Exposure

_Previously, everything had been going well for the Darkholme family, until Rogue discovered that her recently manifested powers weren't quite under her control – any absorption of an unwilling party would result in the victim's psyche, displaced and confused, trying to take over. What's worse, the powers aren't as permanent as they could have been, except for those of a telepath, Emma Frost, whose psyche was not absorbed so much as a psychic link created that means that both she and Rogue are passengers in the other's head. When things took a turn for the worse in an incident at Asteroid M, Rogue was separated from the X-men. With at least one of her friends becoming suspicious of the secrets our dear Mississippi lass is keeping from them, and with Mystique barely holding on to life after a substantial hit from Cyclops's concussive eye-beams, will a chance meeting with an old friend be enough to keep our subversive family on track, and just why is the Ragin' Cajun out in the desert in Arizona anyway?_

* * *

_Argumentative_

It was set back about two hundred feet from the road, the best it could be described as was "rustic," and it was a shack.

"I don't believe this," Rogue protested as Remy pulled up. The bombed-out Cadillac had been bad enough, but now this?

"Fo' what it's worth," replied the Cajun, opening the door and stepping out, "neit'r do I. But we gotta keep a low profile, and this is 'bout as low as we c'n get." He started to open the back door of the car, which promptly fell off – not waking the invalid, of course, but still the bang resonated off the valley.

Rogue smacked the front passenger door against the latch repeatedly, each time thumping it a bit harder, until the door behind it fell off also. Her door still remained open.

"T'aint gonna get any mo' secure," commented Remy, carefully lifting Mystique from the back seat. "Ni any less. Leave it."

"'Spose no-one with half a brain would steal that hunk'a shit anyway," conceded Rogue. "There better be a heater in there. It's freezin'!"

Remy just shook his head, and kicked on what had to pass as the door of the shack, on the basis that it wasn't strong enough to be a wall.

"Who'sit?" came a voice from inside.

«C'est moi,» replied Remy. «Ouvert la porte, te fou!»

The door was pushed cautiously open, revealing a dark-haired man, about Remy's height but slightly older. "What took y' so long?" he asked.

Rogue stepped out from behind the car, with groceries hanging off each arm. "Hey, Theo," she said.

«Rogue! C'est fantastique voir tu!» the man exclaimed. "C'min."

Inside the building was another man, with red hair and a cheesy moustache.

"Emil!" exclaimed Rogue, before having to push him back to stop him from kissing her cheeks. "Just need Henri and the whole gang's here."

The three cousins went silent, and Emil stepped back, bowing his head. Remy carefully laid Mystique down on a foam mattress, and took the grocery bags from Rogue, placing them down on a counter, the only flat surface in the place.

Eventually, Emil sombrely said "Henri's why we're in Arizona. I guess Remy didn't tell y'."

Rogue looked over to the red-eyed boy, her stare alone demanding an explanation.

"'es been kidnapped, chère," he explained. "Guy goin' by t' name of Piotr Rasputin."

Rogue furrowed her eyebrows. Where had she heard that name before?

"Claims to be working under orders," Theo added. "Someone's collecting guys like Remy together for some kind of fraternity or sometin' like that."

This jogged her memory, and Rogue hissed, her body _changing_. Her eyes flashed white as diamond claws stuck out from her fists and she otherwise blended into the shadows. Outside, lightning crashed across an empty sky. "Magneto," she growled. "Ah'm gonna kill'im. I shoulda' killed 'im."

"Whoa, whoa, calm down," said Theo hastily as Emil tried to back further away, his progress impeded by a heavy chair. "Wow, you're one'a them mutants like Remy, too?"

Rogue looked at her claws in surprise, and they sheathed back into her skin. Her eyes turned back to normal, and she became fully visible again.

"Can't say I din't 'spect that," observed Remy. "Or at least somethin' like it. Dat's a lot o' power you were throwin' around dere, chérie... What d' you actually do?"

"Absorb life force, memories, and powers," replied the Mississippi girl dismissively. "A more important question is, what does Magneto want with Henri?"

"I t'ink the answer to dat question is, 'nothin','" Emil stated, "I t'ink what he _want_ is Remy's attention."

"Well, he got it," said the mutant Cajun. "I ain't 'bout to lose another fam'ly member."

"Ouais, when it's y'_own_ frère..." Theo mumbled darkly.

"Drop it," growled Emil. "That weren't Remy's fault."

"Sure it was," Remy riposted. "I–"

"Y'all can stop the blaming match," Rogue demanded angrily. "You were set up, it went bad, and now is _not _the time, anyway. I need some help here!"

Mystique groaned in her slumber.

"What's wit' her, anyway?" asked Emil, rummaging through the bags for water.

* * *

"Anna Marie Darkholme, you get down from there this instant!" Raven yelled to her daughter, who was halfway up a willow tree hanging over the mighty Mississippi River.

"Oh, let her play," said Irene, across from her friend at the table where they were seated. "She's not hurting anyone."

"If she falls out of that tree, we might never find her until she washes up in Venezuela," complained the other woman.

"She won't," Irene said simply, and sipped her coffee. "Or any of the others."

Raven left it at that. When her companion said something was or wasn't going to happen, you left it at that.

At the next table over, Emma studied the interaction carefully. The other woman was clearly blind, but was perpetually aware of her surroundings. Outside of this dreamscape, that might have been a problem, but any interaction of the other elements of the dream would depend on something altering Mystique's memory.

Emma took a sip from her own cup. Her subject could dream up some quite good coffee.

The young Rogue clambered down the willow bark and ran right up to Raven. "Momma, can me an' Katy an' Cody an' Betty an' me get ice-cream?" she asked, just as a van's ironically merry tune became audible to the adults.

Raven, concerned that ice-cream trucks weren't all happy and friendly places, looked over to her friend, who shrugged briefly. "Alright," Raven said, handing over a 5 dollar bill. "But _only _one each, and if I catch you asking for yourself twice again, you'll regret it."

Anna grinned and took the money – which was quite a lot for a 6 year old – skipping off to her friends who'd been looking on.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you've grown a soft spot for your daughter," Irene commented.

"Spying on my childhood?" said a voice by Emma's ear. The telepath looked around as a teenaged Rogue sat down next to her.

"I thought your 'momma' could use some help getting out of her coma. I've been stitching memories back together for the last week, and I think I'm about ready to have a go at her conscious mind."

"Really?" asked Rogue, stealing some coffee from Emma's cup. "Why would you do that?"

Emma smiled. "Well, there's this sort of game," she admitted, confident that she was stronger than Rogue on the telepathic plane, "and I don't like playing with damaged pieces."

"Ya know, I can always come after you again," the southerner warned.

"Hey, I'm helping, aren't I? Look, anything I try to do to her is going to be corrected by her mutation after she regains consciousness – her mind has this sort of way of fitting together that I've never seen before, like somewhere out there there's a complete copy of it that keeps the main article in line."

Rogue narrowed her stare. "Well, I'm keeping an eye on you, Emma Grace Frost."

They heard a gasp. At the next table over, Raven had actually noticed the exchange, and was now looking at the pair in confusion. She was not sure whether they belonged, and while no-one else paid them any heed, the woman's concentration was making the world around them hazier by the minute while they stayed as solid as ever.

"Hmm, looks like we're making some definite progress," observed Emma. "Time to tackle this head on."

* * *

Back in Bayville, Kitty sat on Rogue's bed, her knees drawn up to her chest, sobbing. Her hair was unkempt, and her clothes were grotty – she was still wearing her uniform, a week later.

How could they? They hadn't even gone back to check if Rogue was somewhere in the wreckage.

She could hear their voices outside the door now.

"She's been sitting like that for over a week," said Jean. "She doesn't move from that spot except to eat, and she does _that_ once a day, at about two a.m. It's not healthy."

"It's getting everyone everyone else down, too," added Scott. "Especially Kurt, who's starting to blame himself for this."

"Well, you heard what she said to him back there," replied Logan. "She implied it was his fault."

"Charles, I appreciate that you want Kitty to work through this herself," said Ororo, "but this just can't go on. Especially with the new students arriving soon."

"Alright, I'll see what I can do," Xavier conceded, and called "Kitty!"

The girl lifted her head and glared at the door, but made no move to open it.

"I'm outta here before the smell hits, Chuck," said Logan. "You three, too." Kitty heard four pairs of footsteps pace off down the hall.

"_Kitty, this is for your own good,_" the telepath continued, and the door opened.

The girl sprang into the air and tackled Xavier, phasing as she grabbed on to him. She kept phasing down until they were in the ventilation ducts between floors, and then let go of the professor before leaving the way she came.

"I let this go too far," Xavier admitted to himself, and looked up. The next vent was only ten feet away, if he could just brace his arms against the walls.

Alright, his left arm – he'd foolishly allowed his other to be trapped under his chest, which would have been fine if he had any way to free it, but the limited space in the shaft wouldn't allow anyone of his size to do that without use of their legs.

He'd managed to move about eighteen inches before giving up and reaching out with his mind. There wasn't space for Kurt to teleport in next to him, but he could wait for the boy to crawl to where he was.

Soon enough, Nightcrawler had him back in his chair in the library, where the others also gathered. Xavier explained to them what had happened.

"That's it!" shouted Jean. "If she going to lash out at us– I'm going to go and fix this!" She started to storm out of the room, but Xavier signalled to Logan, and the instructor was between Jean and the door quicker than she could follow.

"You can't just wipe her mind, Jean," the professor pointed out. "She's under a lot of stress, and her–"

"No, you listen to me, professor," the redhead retorted, turning to face him again, "If she's going to make low attacks on people like that, how is she any better than the Brotherhood, or Magneto? I can't just let her hurt you."

"I'm kinda' with Red on that point, Chuck," Logan added, shrugging.

"That doesn't mean that we should sink to that level," replied Ororo, "even if it would be to protect her."

"So what are you going to do, professor?" asked Scott.

"There's only one reasonable course of action that I can see," said Xavier. "Kitty's emotional well being is not ours to attend to. We have to send her home."

When they again went to Kitty and Rogue's room, though, the door into the corridor was wide open, as was the tall window out onto the balcony, and the girl was gone. Her uniform had been neatly folded up and placed on her bed, and there was a note on it. Jean picked it up, trying not to breathe in the stench from the uniform.

"I guess Rogue was wrong about us after all," she read aloud. "People who care about each other don't talk behind their backs."

Suddenly, Wolverine was out the window, following the easy trail. Once it was on the ground, it went in a straight line all the way to a sheer cliff edge overlooking the bay.

"She wouldn't have jumped, vould she?" asked Kurt, 'porting in behind him.

Logan shook his head. "No, or at least she didn't," he said, nodding to the dusk-shadowed rocks below. "There'd be blood."

Kurt put his arm around Logan's shoulder and teleported them to the base of the cliff, and the man sniffed around some more.

"She was definitely here, and lingered a bit," he said, "But then she went into the bay."

"Don't scents sort of stick to the water?" asked Kurt hopefully. "Can't you track that?"

Logan shrugged. "That works on ponds and still water," he said. "Clings to the mud in streams, gets more difficult in rivers – but still possible. The sea is different. The waves bury the smell and the salt changes it."

"_Following her now won't help, anyway_," Xavier advised. "_She's alive and using her powers; It looks like she's headed towards the train station. I believe she'll be safe until she's ready to come back_."

"Oh, this is all my fault," sighed Kurt. "She was right. _I_ should have gone back for meine Mutter, not Rogue."

"No, Elf," replied Logan. "What happened happened, and you can't change it. If you want to talk about should'ves, the only one that makes any sense is 'we should've called up Kitty's parents as soon as she started sulking.' Charles is right, the place for her right now is home."

Under a bridge not too far away, but not too close either, Kitty wrung out her top before putting it back on. Her underwear was sopping wet, but at least she didn't smell so bad now, and the wax proofing of her backpack had mostly kept what clothes she'd taken from getting wet. She walked up the hill to the road, and waited. Soon there was a car, and she held out a hand, one thumb pointing in the direction they were already heading – into the city, where she could get a train back to Chicago.

She groaned when she recognised the face of the boy driving the Jeep.

"Hey, Kitty," Lance said, leaning across and opening the door. "Small world, huh? What can I do for you?"

"Just take me to the station, please," she huffed as she sat down. "I'm going home."

"No can do," said a voice from behind them, and suddenly there was a rag across her face. Kitty hadn't seen Pietro lounging across the back seat, and the last thing she heard before the chloroform took effect was his sniggering.

* * *

Mystique woke groggily to the sound of heavy snoring. The air on her face was freezing, and whatever the thing she was wrapped up in weighed down on her, but at least _it_ was warm. She sat up cautiously, wondering where she was, and how she'd come to be here. When she finally saw through the haze on the inside of her eyes, she wondered who the black-haired man, the red-haired man, the brown-haired man, and the girl with white stripes in her hair were.

More importantly, who was she?

She shook her head and looked at the others again, and now noticed with clearer vision that the girl's eyes were open, and she was looking back at her.

"Hey, mom," the girl said.

Mystique peered at her, and through the jumble that was her memory came a name. "Anna?" she said.

"Ssh," replied the girl, nodding. "You lie back down, I'll make you some tea."

Mystique took Anna's advice as the girl stood and prodded the boy lying next to her with her toe.

"Remy!" she hissed.

"Jus' five mo' minutes, Rogue," he replied vaguely, and then sat up with a start. "She awake?! Merde merde merde, she gonna kill me! Je suis trop belle à mourir!"

"Sheesh, Remy, I just need some heat for the kettle. Momma ain't gonna kill you for sleeping in the same bed as me."

'Bed' was a bit of an overstatement. The thieves each had a roll-up foam mattress that they'd brought to sleep on and a sleeping bag. Now Mystique had one to herself, Theo and Emil were sharing one, and Remy shared one with Rogue, who was also wound tightly in Remy's overcoat the avoid skin contact.

The Cajun mutant sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, then pushed his fingers backwards to rub his eyes. He stood up wearily, and wandered over to the counter behind Rogue, who poured some bottled water into a lidded metal jug, and held it out for him. Remy placed one hand under the jug, and let the energy flow. The water bubbled for a while, but didn't boil yet. Remy let go, and said "'bout three seconds."

Rogue quickly put the jug back on the counter, and slammed her hand down on the lid. There was a muffled "boom," and some hot steam left via the spout. The Mississippian let her hand off the makeshift kettle and continued the process of making tea, eventually ending up with three mugs of steaming hot liquid. One remained black and bitter, but the other two were subjected to several spoons of sugar and powdered milk. She handed the unaltered tea to Mystique and claimed one of the others, leaving Remy to do what he would, which apparently involved the use of four different bags of spice and eventually the declaration that powdered milk tasted horrible.

"How are you feeling?" Rogue asked her mother as she sat up again to accept the mug. Behind them, Remy tossed a not-insignificant amount more sugar in his tea.

"Dizzy," replied Mystique, and sipped her tea. "Where am I, anyway?"

Rogue laughed briefly. "Only the most disreputable, undersized tin shack in Arizona, possibly the world."

"How did I get here?"

Rogue had to think of how to best answer that one. Eventually, she came up with "We sort of fell off an Asteroid."

"Aren't they supposed to be a very long way away?"

"Pretty far. But this was one much a lot more down to Earth, as it were. Magnetically bound."

"Magneto," Mystique snarled, and stood up suddenly. Remy rushed to catch the woman in case she fell, but the shape-shifter was steady, and brushed his hands aside. "Asteroid M, yes, I remember now. Summers shot me."

"In his defence, he _was_ brainwashed at the time," said Rogue, "and as I remember it, I specifically asked you to stay home. Why'd you have to go and interfere, mom? You might've ruined everything!"

"You're defending Xavier's puppets, now?"

"Don't change the subject. You don't trust me any more, do you?"

Mystique sighed, and narrowed her eyes, glaring at Rogue over her tea. "It's getting harder," she admitted. "You're not as... agreeable as you used to be."

"You mean malleable," accused the girl. "I don't do exactly what you want all the time no more. Well, that's just what several years of almost constant separation will do to you, ain't it?"

"But it gets worse, I mean, Frost for example, what happened there? I send you off to absorb someone, and now you're chumming with them instead?!"

"Well, that's explainable. It went wrong. I could've killed her, nearly did by accident, an' I wasn't sure exactly, well, _who_ I'd be afterwards, and now it's weird like we're Siamese twins sharing a brain. Destiny's vision ain't proper fulfilled yet, ma, and my powers ain't what you thought yet. Everything becomes kinda' blurry after a while, like if I hold on to someone for even, say, a second, I feel like I _am_ them for a minute, and if they're strong enough, I don't know, I might just become them, and don't even get me started on how horrible it is not to be able to touch anyone. On top of that, I can't just recall anyone at a whim like y'all said it was gonna be."

Mystique winced at the southern American grammar, but smiled at her daughter after a moment. "I guess I might have had some unreasonable expectations," she said, and then raised one eyebrow. "_Might've_? You're normally more definite than that."

"That's, uh... complicated," started Rogue, grimacing. "For a while now, I think since 'absorbing' Emma, the echoes of power I got from you and Irene have been fading gradually. It's difficult to interpret what I see of the future, and I can barely style my hair without touching it no more."

Across the room, where Theo and Emil were now standing, there might not have actually been the sound of a jaw hitting the floor, but its surprising absence was followed by Emil's "Uh..."

Mystique's head snapped around to face the cousins. "I know the devil boy," she said, "but who are these two?"

"That's Theo and Emil," said Rogue, pointing out faces respective to names. "Remy and Henri's cousins."

"Oh, the wrecking crew," said Mystique.

"'Scuse me, madame," said Emil, "But I couldn't help noticin', before y' had a massive wound on de side of yo' head, an' now y' don'. Wassat about?"

Mystique shot a disdainful look at the boy, and placing her hands on her hips, changed into an exact replica of him. «C'est un truc à moi.»

Emil's face filled with astonishment. "Wow," he said, walking up to the metamorph. He reached out to touch her face...

Mystique grabbed onto his forearm with one hand, and twisted it, pulling the stunned Cajun toward her in a fashion that forced him to spin around so she was now behind him, one of his arms locked behind his back and the other pulled outwards, perpendicular to his shoulder and hard enough to cause considerable discomfort. Immediately Remy had a charged card or three ready, and Theo had one end of his staff an inch away from Mystique's face, while Rogue simply buried her face in her hands.

"Listen, _human_," the woman growled into Emil's ear while changing back into her 'neutral' form. "We are not a walking freak show, and the only thing that prevented me from killing you just now is deference to the inexplicable feelings that my daughter harbours towards your family. Your cousins would have no hope of saving you, and you definitely couldn't defend yourself." She threw the boy forwards into his older cousin's arms. "You will respect me, or face the consequences."

"Mom!" Rogue hissed.

"Dere's someone outside," said Remy, sucking the charge back out of the cards. Mystique assumed the form of a woman about the same age as the rest of them, with blonde hair and tanned skin.

"Well, who'd that be?" asked Theo.

* * *

When Kitty came to, she could hear muffled but loud bickering.

"You were just going to let her run home!"

That sounded like Pietro.

"And you just _happened _to think that dosing her with chloroform that you just _happen_ to have on your person at all times or something was a good idea?! I was going to ask her first!"

Definitely Lance. You could tell, among other things, by the way that it was accented with ground tremors.

Kitty looked down at her bonds. What kind of idiot tied _her_ to a chair with _rope_? Well, presumably a Brotherhood kind of idiot. She stood up, phasing through them, and walked to the door. She undid the makeshift gag, and it turned out to be no more than a cotton handkerchief. They'd locked her in a room with a spyhole in the door that she could see out through, although all she could see was a bit of corridor and Pietro's back. She stuck her head through the door and was pleasantly surprised to find there was nothing else interesting to see.

She crept through the door, walked up behind the speedster, reached one hand up, and slammed the side of his head into the wall. Lance appeared again as the Pietro slumped to the ground.

"Ask me what?"

"Um," said Lance, trembling slightly. Kitty creeping up behind someone and knocking them out cold without warning was a rather sobering concept to him. "Um, we were hoping, maybe, that you could, uh, break into Mystique's room and get us some cash."

"What for?" Kitty asked suspiciously.

"Food. We're starving. Blob's about ready to eat Tolanski."

Kitty nodded. "But then what?"

Lance only shrugged.

After a while, Kitty continued, "Alright, I'll do it, but a deal's, like two-sided, yeah? You've gotta let me stay here in return."

"Here?!" Lance exclaimed, eye wide.

"And I can promise, there _will_ be changes. At least one of you is going to have to like, get a job, and you'll clean up this damned mess, or there'll be trouble."

"For a handful of cash?"

Below Kitty, there was a groan. She placed a foot on Pietro's chest, and brushed her matted, salty hair to one side. "Uh-huh; That or you can go hungry. Your choice. What's it going to be?"

'Yeah, I can make this work,' she thought. Deep inside, though, she felt uneasy about it.

* * *

_Chapter Notes:_

Shiny first chapter of the second part, with some changing attitudes and revealed truths. Hope you enjoyed.

Thanks **Murasaki Tsukimaru**, **Darkness-Lightness**, **Slave2Writing**, **Dark Inu Fan**, and **Kyuubi-Titan** for reviewing.

Next time (which should arrive quicker since I'm no longer writing two stories at once), what do the new recruits think of the dark places left by Rogue and Kitty's absence? Remy becomes Gambit, and more...


	11. Showdown

_Showdown_

_Note: "St. John" (that's Pyro's name – "St." is obviously not his title) is normally said "sin-jan"._

As the thieving cousins crept around the back of the now entirely defunct Cadillac, Rogue and Mystique headed in the other direction, hidden only by the night's shadows and a mental shield. Soon all of them would separate, and depend on their own skills to stay hidden.

Piotr Rasputin, the man now ambling across the front 'garden' was huge. Huge, and covered in metal. His companion, on the other hand, looked weedy and skinny, although Rogue didn't want to make any real judgements on that while he was next to the hulking Russian. As she got closer, she recognised his face though – one St. John Allerdyce. Presumably that meant he was a mutant, too, although he wasn't using his powers just now.

"Mr LeBeau!" Rasputin yelled as the five of them spread out. Theo stuck to the wall of the canyon while Emil crept along the line of the fence that separated from the cliff just where the Cadillac was parked, and Remy remained behind the car. Mystique slunk into the shadows on the featureless ground like only she could, and Rogue intensified her mental shield to stalk directly up to the two visitors, confident that they wouldn't notice her.

Perhaps she was a little _too_ well hidden, as Allerdyce lifted a nozzle from his backpack and Rogue was barely able to dive out of the way before a jet of flame shot from it and ignited the already damaged car. "Why don't you come on out, and we'll have ourselves a nice barbecue," he laughed manically. "I'll chuck a prawn or two on for ya."

'Well that all makes sense now,' Rogue thought.

A glowing rock flew up into the air from behind the car, and followed a neat trajectory to its landing point directly on top of the cackling pyromaniac's backpack. Rock and backpack exploded, spraying petrol all over the ground behind him.

"Strewth!" shouted the Australian, rolling forwards in case the liquid caught fire. "That's just not on, mate!" He flexed his hands, and the flame leapt from the car to the shack, which caught quickly, before the shape of the flame changed into a dragon.

Piotr charged the infernal building, which collapsed around him when he barreled through the front wall. He threw the debris off him, and looked around. Seeing no-one else in the burning piles, he walked to the car.

It exploded violently.

Rogue chose that moment to slip a hand around St. John's face. He didn't see it coming, and wouldn't know what happened. The flames died down, and a raging ball of Cajun tackled Piotr, bringing the dazed Russian to the ground.

"Tell me where's Henri," demanded Remy, standing over the man, the tip of his staff against Rasputin's throat. "I 'magine dat metal skin o' yours blows up somet'in pretty."

Piotr responded to this by kicking upwards to try and put Remy off balance, but the Cajun jumped aside quickly, and while Piotr did manage to get to his feet, Remy was behind the Russian and held the staff across the front of his body, bracing it against his foot so that his opponent couldn't throw him off forwards. A tell-tale glow surrounded Rasputin.

"One wrong move, an' you're in little bits all o'er the place," continued Remy. "I won't ask again; Where's mon frère?"

Piotr smirked, and nodded towards the car he and St. John had arrived in before his skin became organic again. He had intended to slam his assailant into the ground behind him, but the backlash from Remy's charge threw the Cajun flying through the air and he landed on his arse in the sand.

His staff, on the other hand, rose gently into the air, and twisted into a knot. The back door of the car opened, and Sabretooth stepped out, dragging a bound and gagged Henri out behind him. Magneto descended from above.

"Remy LeBeau," he said, and waved his hand vaguely. The knotted metal that had been Remy's staff flew sideways and embedded in the cliff. "I would suggest you tell your cousins to disperse before they get hurt – and they _will_ get hurt."

Creed growled and pushed Henri along in front of him.

"As you can see, my associate far outmatches your brother," Magnus continued.

Remy stood and unfolded four cards – all faces of the Spades. "Let him go," he demanded, selecting the Ace and charging it.

"Join me, and your brother will be returned to his family," said the other man calmly. "Otherwise… Victor here is hungry for violence. Who knows what could happen?"

"_Don't do it, Remy,_" Rogue urged. "_You can't trust this creep._"

The thief hesitated for a moment, then said defiantly, "Let m' frère go, firs', _then_ we talk."

Behind Sabretooth, the car started up – Mystique was behind the wheel. The feral looked around in surprise, and while we wasn't looking, Rogue tackled Henri to the ground and extended her shield around him. Henri looked surprised – of course, he hadn't seen the girl coming either. Rogue cut his shackles with diamond fingers and pulled him to his feet, then fled, dragging the Cajun behind her. He caught his stride and started running too.

Behind them, Mystique put the pedal to the metal and ran Creed down. Rogue pulled Henri behind some rocks and ungagged him.

"Rogue, where'd you come from?" he asked.

The Mississippian shushed him and pressed a bottle of water into his hands. "I can hide us from the others," she hissed, "but if Buckethead sees me, gig's up. So we stay hidden, and we gotta stay quiet."

Mystique dived out of the car as Magneto lifted it into the air. "Mystique!" he shouted as she hit the ground and rolled. "What have you done with my hostage?!"

The shape-shifter stood up and shrugged, smirking. Magneto threw the car at her.

"He gone," said Remy. "An' y' won't get the better of 'im again. So I guess dis is all null an' void."

"Not so," replied Magneto, turning back to the Cajun. "What if I told you I could bring your cousin, Etienne, back?"

"No...," gasped Rogue, and gave Remy her opinion telepathically.

Henri started to move, but the girl pulled him back down, shaking her head.

'If there's any chance, I can't say no,' Remy thought, intending for Rogue to hear. Aloud, he said "Huh. Y' should've set that wager straight off. We'll see, shall we?"

Magneto smiled. "Then you shall be known as Gambit," he said. "Meet your colleagues. Colossus, Sabretooth, and… Pyro." He floated to the ground where Allerdyce was lying and examined his unconscious form. "Rogue!" he shouted angrily.

The newly renamed Gambit walked up behind him. "Now, you leave her outta dis, y'hear?"

Magneto glared at him, but said nothing, and stretched both arms upwards. As he looked dramatically to the sky, the metal from both cars melted and twisted into the air, and formed into four spheres that floated gently to the ground. Slits appeared in the tops, and opened out. Piotr picked up St. John and stepped into one, and Creed walked into another. Magnus gestured for Gambit to step into a third.

"What's dis?" the Cajun asked suspiciously.

"Transport," replied Magneto sharply. "Step in, we're moving."

Remy looked into the sphere, and gingerly stepped over the side into it. His new employer stepped into the fourth, and closed them up again, making Remy panic.

"Non! Lemme out!" he cried, banging the side.

"Calm down," replied the metal in Magneto's voice, as the perfectly round room shook around Remy. "You'll get used to this very quickly. We travel very fast at high altitudes, so the spheres need to be entirely sealed. You wouldn't want to fall out, would you?"

On the ground, Rogue ran out onto the sand and cursed as the domes floated into the air and sped away. Theo and Emil appeared from behind an outcrop and the fence respectively, and Henri stepped out around the rock. A large snake erupted from the sand and morphed into Mystique.

"Well, that could've gone better," the shape-shifter said.

"It were Remy's choice dere," observed Henri. "He can look after 'imself, ouais?"

"Stupid decision," retorted Rogue. "Much as I love Eti, he–"

"He don't need t' come back," Theo cut in. He shook his head sadly. "Should let the dead lie, Remy."

"That bastard's lying, anyway. He's no more able ta raise the dead than anyone else."

"So, how're we gettin' outta here?" asked Emil brightly.

"We jack a car," replied Rogue.

"No-one comes up here," Theo observed, folding his arms.

"Hand me your lighter, sugah."

"What?"

"Don't ask questions, just hand it to me!"

Theo gave Rogue a brass Zippo, and she walked down to the spot where Pyro had been. "You guys might wanna step back a few yards," she called as she flicked the lid open, and applied the flame to the sand before jumping back quickly.

The reason why was soon clear as the petrol that had soaked into the ground quickly caught fire. She closed her eyes and lifted her hands up, concentrating, and suddenly the flames leapt a hundred feet into the air, twisting and coiling as they lit up the landscape around them. The giant fire burned brightly for a few seconds, then winked out as suddenly as it had started, the fuel spent. Underneath, there was no longer sand, but a smooth sheet of brightly coloured glass.

It was this glass that held the attention of the two men that turned up to investigate the flash they'd seen from the highway. They were too enraptured to even hear their car being driven away.

Later, they'd attribute the whole thing to aliens. They generally did.

* * *

"So those are the new recruits," surmised Logan, looking out the window at the young teenagers that were terrorising the grounds outside. There was a girl who kept shifting in and out of the form of a red-haired dog while variously throwing and chasing a plastic disc, a boy flying around apparently on fire, and another flying boy wrecking the landscape every time he left the ground in his game of catch with another who kept forming ice all over the place to redirect the ball. Closer to and more hostile were another boy and three girls who were variously throwing around bolts of light and electricity, explosive balls of energy, and large fireballs. He grunted, and continued "looks like we've got our hands full."

"Yes, a spirited bunch of kids," confirmed Xavier. "I'm afraid it's going to be even more difficult to keep a lid on things, and to maintain our anonymity."

"Not to mention our buildings," the other man added as a particularly large fireball flew right past the window. "We're definitely going to need more instructors, and maybe a coupla' tanks."

Charles laughed. "Can you imagine what they would do if they got control of the tanks?"

"On second thoughts, maybe that's not a good idea," Logan agreed as they left the room.

In the common room, Ororo, Scott, Jean, and Kurt were clustered around the television, watching a news report.

"The man, whose identity is a mystery, is in critical condition in hospital," said the anchorwoman, "however police have confirmed that despite paramedics treating several of the school children for shock, no-one on the bus was seriously injured."

"What happened?" asked Logan.

"There was a car chase which ended up with the guy's car falling off a bridge onto a school bus," replied Scott.

"If only I'd gone to my match," said Jean. "We take that way home. We could've helped!"

"Assuming you were there at the right time," Charles observed.

"You kids are still recovering, Red," Logan pointed out. "You shouldn't need to worry about anyone else."

"Speaking of which, any word on Kitty?" asked Jean.

Charles hesitated, so his Canadian friend prompted him with "You better tell 'em Chuck," before stalking out of the room. Ororo merely met the telepath's questioning look with a steely stare.

"Kitty never went home," Xavier said, giving in. "I've spoken to her parents a few times, and we've filed missing person reports both here and in Chicago. I don't believe she's left Bayville, as Cerebro has registered her using her power a few times, but all over the place – she's very mobile. The most common has been the Brotherhood house."

"Then she's likely staying there," exclaimed Jean. "They've kidnapped her! If we–"

"We have no reason to believe they've hurt her," replied Xavier sternly. "As I've said she's very mobile, and there is no way those boys could force her to stay somewhere she didn't want to be, anyway. We can't reasonably inform the police without revealing ourselves, and any one of us will just hurt the situation. No, I believe that we as yet only have one slim chance to get Kitty back.  
"Cerebro has registered a lot of mutant activity in one spot in the Sonoran desert, a few miles away from where Asteroid M was located. This included a single mutant with multiple power signatures."

There was a mix of various shocked reactions from everyone present.

"Rogue?" asked Scott.

"It's possible," replied Xavier.

"Well, we should go and get her," suggested Kurt.

"Unfortunately, even if that was her, she's moved on from the area," Xavier sighed. "Otherwise I would have sent Logan already. Some UFO chasers reported an alien sighting there at the same time as Cerebro registered the activity, and the local sheriffs didn't find anyone when they investigated."

"Isn't there _something_ we can do?" Jean asked. "If she's out there, we need to help her."

Charles shook his head. "There were a couple of instances of non-homogeneous powers like Rogue's being used heading east from there, but they stopped in Louisiana. Unfortunately at that distance I'm unable to track mutants that aren't using their powers, and in some cases not at all. Rogue in particular rarely showed up at all even within the Institute grounds."

"Anyway, if you need to help someone so badly," added Logan, "Help the new students get settled in. They don't even know where their rooms are, yet."

Scott and Kurt had no trouble at all with the boys. They took them to the wing, showed them the room allocations, and they were settled in as soon as they'd tossed their gear on their beds as though they were on summer camp, the way that teenage boys do.

Jean had a little more trouble when one of the girls, Jubilee, asked who was in Rogue and Kitty's room.

"Well," explained Jean, "No-one's in that room at the moment."

"Maybe one of us could branch out into it?" suggested Tabitha, and went to open the door. "Why's it locked?"

"Uh, we can't use that room at the moment due to structural damage," replied Jean.

Tabitha turned around so Jean couldn't see her pop a cherry-bomb into the lock. "Structural damage?" she asked with an eyebrow raised, just before the lock exploded. She pushed the door open hurriedly, and looked in, Jubilee and a third girl, Amara, joining her.

"Hey, there's someone's stuff in here," accused Jubilee.

Jean shut the door in their face with her telekinesis. "Well, those would be Kitty's and Rogue's," she explained. "They're… away, at the moment."

"You know the pauses make ye a bad liar," the last girl, Rahne, pointed out. "Even if they cannae smell it on you." Rahne Sinclair was a mutant lycanthrope, and tended to know what emotion caused what she was smelling. Jean's stress wasn't so obvious in this form, but Rahne could tell she wasn't being entirely straight with them.

"Listen, there's a lot of bad feeling in that room," Jean said angrily, "and you'll learn all about it later, but as for right now, just leave it be."

"Well, don't get your knickers in a twist, miss perfect," said Tabitha. "We were just curious."

"I wonder what she's so upset about," Amara whispered to Jubilee.

"You can just keep on wondering," replied Jean, calming down against all rationality. "You'll find out eventually, I promise."

Rahne partially transformed, and leant up against the door.

"What are you doing?" asked Jean.

"I'm sensing," Rahne growled, and then changed back into human form. "Wow, that _i _some bad juju in there. Sommun's been verra upset an' angry in there, and pretty recent, too."

"Sooooo, what happened?" asked Tabitha. "Was there a big fight, or did they get kicked out for having boys over, or–"

"If they'd bin kicked oot, d'ya think there stuff'uld be there still?" Rahne pointed out.

"Maybe they ran away together?" suggested Amara. "That'd be so sweet…."

"Two girls?" retorted Tabitha. "Yeah, right. Anyway, they had totally different stuff."

"They were probably in opposing gangs and shot each other," said Jubilee, "and they're now in separate hospitals recovering." When the other three looked at her suspiciously, she tried to validate her claim with "Hey, it happens."

"Yeah, maybe in LA," Tabitha replied. "Not everyone behaves like that, you know."

"What kind of name is Rogue, anyway?" continued Jubilee.

"Rogue was her codename," replied Jean. "We don't know what her birth name was – she never told us."

"Why're you talking like she's de'ad?" asked Rahne.

"I saw. About thirty tons. Of concrete. Fall, on her head," replied Jean, sneering through her teeth. "Can we just move on now, please?"

"So wha' happened to the other girl?"

* * *

Kitty woke up with a feeling of dread, and a feeling of sickness. Her head was pounding, she felt nauseous, and the inside of her mouth was dry. "Wha' happened?" she asked the world groggily. She rolled over the edge of the bed, and saw the empty bottle – 'Finest Kentucky Whiskey.'

"Oh yeah, that happened." From memory, at least half of the bottle had gone down her. She rolled back over, and her leg touched someone else's. She looked over sharply, and the feeling of dread increased ten-fold when she realised she'd willingly got into bed with Lance. She didn't remember what had happened next.

She sat up, and feeling around her hip was relieved to find that she was still wearing underpants, even if that was _all_ she was wearing. It was then that the nausea hit properly and she gagged. Swinging her legs over the bed, the former valley girl grabbed her t-shirt off the floor and pulled it on before sprinting down the hall to the toilet, and felt the full wrath of last night's adventure in self-loathing.

About ten minutes later she washed out her mouth at the bathroom sink and, leaning against the wall the whole way, slowly made her way to the kitchen. She filled a glass with water and gulped it down, only to throw it right back up again.

"You wanna take small sips at first," said a nervous voice behind her, "or that'll keep happening."

Kitty turned around to see Dukes shielding his eyes and blushing furiously at the table. "Thanks," she said, surprised to find her voice rough. "What are you doing up so early?"

"Havin' breakfast before work," Fred replied while the girl refilled the glass. "Got a job at a packing plant moving stuff."

Kitty took a couple of sips of the water, and when she found that they were staying put in her stomach, sat down at the table. "Good," she said. "It's nice to see someone taking initiative. You can open your eyes, by the way."

Fred cautiously lowered his hand, and started digging back into the sandwich he'd made himself.

"Do you guys have any Tylenol or something?"

The boy shook his head and swallowed, before saying "They send Toad schiz, and Pietro an' me just find'em useless. I don't know about Lance, I don't think he even _gets_ headaches."

There was a wolf-whistle from the door. "Nice pants, Kitty-cat," said Pietro, swaggering in.

"Piss off, dickweed," replied Kitty, flipping him a one-fingered salute.

"That's not nice language," complained Fred. "A nice girl like you shouldn't use it."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Freddy. Could you?"

Dukes looked Pietro square in the eye. "Piss off, dickweed," he said, and flipped him a one-fingered salute, making Kitty grin. "She's hung over, so treat her nice."

"Thanks, Freddy," the girl said, and stood up, finishing off her glass of water before she went upstairs to her own room.

The room was sparse. There was a hard bed, and no clothes storage, so it was all in two piles on the floor – 'clean' and 'dirty'. Kitty pulled what she was wearing off, and sorted a less sticky pair of knickers from the pile. Jeans and bra followed quickly, but she was still looking for a shirt when there was a tentative knock on the door.

"Who is it?" the girl asked.

"It's Lance. Uh..., about last night."

Kitty stuck her hand through the door and pulled Lance into the room. "What about last night?" she asked, turning back to the pile to ferret through it.

"I, uh... just, um... Did you like it?" asked the shocked boy, putting the clothes she'd left in his room on the 'dirty' pile.

"I can't remember. Did anything happen?"

"Yeah, I mean, we slept in the same bed."

Kitty pulled a short-sleeved button-up top triumphantly from the 'clean' pile and turned to face him. "I _know_ that, d'uh. I mean did any_thing_ _happen_?"

Lance's eyes widened and he threw his hands in the air. "No! No. You asked to, but you were so out of it. I didn't want that for you."

"Good," the girl said as she threw the shirt over her shoulders. When they walked out the door, Kitty with her dirty washing bundled up in her arms, there was a suspicious cloud of dust stretching down the hall. Kitty walked into the bathroom and phased through the floor to the laundry.

While she was loading her clothes into the washer, Pietro walked up behind her. "I heard you and Lance talking," he sneered. "What would your X-geek friends think?"

Kitty slammed the washer door, elbowed him in the stomach and grabbed the back of his head, shoving it into the machine. The girl then pressed the 'Start' button. She waited until it had filled with water before pulling his head back out. "You know, I like, don't care," she said casually, and stormed out of the room.

* * *

The jazz club was crowded, and colourful. Mystique, disguised again as she was when she first brought Rogue to New Orleans, sipped her whiskey-laden coffee and sat back, avoiding joining the argument for once.

"So, you're just gonna let Remy get nabbed by this guy?" Rogue accused.

"Like Henri said, 'twere Remy's choice," replied Theo.

"We'd need Jean-Luc's approval anyway," added Henri. "An' he ain't so happy wit' Remy recently."

"This ain't about the guild!" shouted Rogue, and turned to Emil.

The boy shrugged. "I'd love t' help–"

"But y' aren't gonna," Theo cut in. "Y' get caught, or worse. 'Were breakin' out got Eti, if y' recall."

"Oh get over it already," the girl demanded. "It wasn't Remy's fault. Your brother drowned while he was occupied fighting off the guards!"

"He don't need help," said Henri. "Gods know I trust y', Rogue, but the boy went freely."

"You're just gonna let that man take your brother? You know what he does to people? Tell'em, mom."

"You know my feelings about the devil boy, darling," replied Mystique. "If you want to help him, you're on your own."

"He'll use him against us, you know. He helped look after you while you were in a coma!"

"Oh, surely he'd never do anything against _you_ dear. Come on, we're going to keep Irene waiting if we stay any longer."

Rogue stood up. "Fine. Fine! Ah'll see y'all some other time. Maybe." She stalked out of the club, followed by her mother.

The limousine's door opened as they approached. Mystique slid onto the back seat next to Irene, and Rogue sat heavily on the rearwards facing seat in front of them, slammed the door shut and glared out the window.

"So what's the news?" asked Mystique, changing back to her normal form as the car started to move.

"I see trouble at the Xavier Institute," Destiny replied. "One of the students' powers are slowly spiralling out of control, and will soon endanger everyone living there, including your son."

"Kurt?" sighed Rogue, turning to face her 'aunt,' who gazed back at her with sightless eyes.

"You are the only one who can stop her, my child," continued the seer. "The one that will be known as 'Phoenix.'"

* * *

_Notes:_

In this version of events the argument at the end of school between Scott and Lance never happened, ergo neither did the fight at the soccer game, which incidentally also didn't happen at Bayville seeing as Jean wasn't there to get them into the finals or whatever. In fact, you'll notice that almost all the parts that would make it relevant to "Growing Pains" are missing or changed.

Thanks **Kyuubi-Titan**, **Murasaki Tsukimaru**, **Dark Inu Fan**, and **Wanda W **for reviewing the last chapter.


	12. The Pros and Cons of Telepathy

_The Pros and Cons of Telepathy_

A muffled boom; Silence. The door creaked open, and a moderately built man stuck his head around it. Martin L. Smith, now stepping right through the threshold, was about to make the biggest heist in his life.

In theory.

"Tabby, come on," he hissed. "We're not there yet."

The blonde teenager sullenly followed her father into the room. "You know, when I said 'the bank,' it was supposed to be a joke. You weren't supposed to actually rob it."

"Shut up and open this next door already," Martin replied, turning the handle just in case – as it happened, the door was unlocked, and pushed open a fraction. "Alright, there's security cameras in the next room, so you need to take 'em out," he said, facing his daughter.

Tabitha prepared an explosive too large for one hand, and Martin turned back to the door. It was open all the way. "Shi–"

The man was kicked in the chest by another figure, which had descended from the other side of the door frame, catching him on the upside of an arcing swing. Martin flew backwards and hit the wall. The figure somersaulted off the frame and landed neatly in front of Tabitha. The girl squealed and her bomb shrivelled into nothing.

"He lied to you," the figure said, indiscriminate in the dark shroud. The tones of its feminine voice described a British accent. "Turn him in, it's for the best."

"Who are–" Tabitha began. "Oh."

The figure had vanished. Boom-Boom looked back at her father, slumped against the far wall – he clearly wasn't waking up any time soon.

Sirens sounded outside, and Tabitha made a decision.

* * *

Taryn looked apprehensively at the students crowded together in the auditorium. In the middle of her view was Jean Grey, the girl who she thought should have been up there instead – alright, so she hadn't been at the semi-final, so what? He contributions earlier in the Soccer season should have made her the "Most Valuable Player" anyway. Besides, she'd lost a friend during a field trip; Just how shallow could her team mates _be_?

Jean, on the other hand, was happy for her friend. From what she'd heard, the midfielder had made a great contribution to the last game they'd played, delivering the ball to field forward accurately every time.

"I, uh…" Taryn began. '_I wish it was Jean up here._'

The telepath shook her head. That was weird.

'_How long is this going to last_?'

Jean turned to glare at the person behind her who had said – no, thought that. But she wasn't probing, why would that happen?

'_When is this going to be over_?'

'_I wish she'd just get on with already, I want to go_._'_

Jean tried to discretely clamp her hands over her ears as the rush of thoughts assaulted her. Not only was this ineffective in stopping the cogitations, but proved impossible to pull off as well. Soon the thoughts all coalesced into one: '_What is her problem_?'

She ran from the room.

Taryn watched with confusion as her friend, so normally calm and collected, fled awkwardly through the crowd, Scott following her. "I want to thank everyone on the team who helped me get here..."

Outside, Jean made it as far as the steps before she couldn't go any further, she almost collapsed onto a stair and sat there, knees hugged to her chest, the barrage of thoughts increasing in intensity even out here.

One particular one made it clear through, and even cleared the rest. "_Are you okay, Jean?_" asked Scott, sitting next to her.

"Scott, I–"

"Careful there," said a voice behind them. The two mutants turned to see one the teachers, Dr. McCoy, looking down at them in a not unfriendly fashion. "That looked pretty serious back there."

"Uh, Jean's just been having some problems with her head recently..." Scott started, trailing off as he realised how stupid it sounded.

"Mm-hmm. I better call Xavier, he'll send someone to pick you up, I'm sure," Hank said. "_You_ should get back inside, Scott."

"No, really, I'm fine," Jean protested as the teens stood up.

"Hmm? Well you don't look it. Come on, I'll sign you out for the day. We don't need our best athlete out of action for the track and field try-outs tomorrow, do we?"

Reluctantly Jean gave in. "I guess you're right...."

"Will you be okay?" asked Scott.

"Yes, I'll be fine," Jean said, "Now go on before you miss the rest of Taryn's speech."

Jean was still feeling too hazy as they walked to the front of the school to notice that they hadn't been anywhere near the phones. She was, however, mildly surprised to see Logan lean against the X-Van when they reached the car park.

"How did you get here so fast?" she asked.

"What are you talking about?" said Wolverine. He nodded to the teacher. "Hank."

"Logan," Hank replied. "Didn't know you were back. It's been a while, we'll have to catch up."

"Guess we've both been busy, eh?" Logan said before shifting his gaze back to Jean. "Come on, Red. Let's go." He paused after opening his door, and looked back at the teacher. "You know what you have to do if you want to 'catch up,' Hank. Think on it."

* * *

"Finally, drinks are ready," said Rogue, placing the tray on the table as she sat down.

"_This_ is what they call coffee?!" exclaimed Mystique, carefully placing her cup down with refined disgust. She wore the guise of Risty Wilde, which blended well with the table's other occupants.

"I believe this is miss Frost's idea of a joke," replied the third conversant, a slender Asian girl, sporting purple hair drawn into a low bun held in place by a slightly translucent and somehow alive-looking pink clip. "I do apologise. I think she's becoming complacent with you."

"I know she is," said Rogue. "Incidentally, she is, in fact, listening."

"Oh. Board meeting not going well?"

Rogue's eyes flashed blue. "Oh it's going incredibly well, miss Braddock, just would you believe it's the most boring thing–"

There was an odd moment while the southerner appeared to be fighting to interrupt herself.

"Did I give you permission to do that?! No, I didn't."

"People are staring, dear," said Betsy.

"So, your name was... Psylocke, was it?" asked Mystique. "And you're a friend of Emma Frost's?"

"I prefer the term 'associate,'" replied the telepath. "I'm looking after her business interests in Westchester for the time being."

"And you're greeting us because?"

"No particular reason. Professional courtesy I guess." Psylocke sighed. "One of the... interests I've been watching is your 'X-Men' friends. I feel I should say I haven't seen anything unusual in any of them, no odd behaviour or anything, so I'm not sure what you're worried about there. Of course with Xavier around I can't do any... deep searching, shall I say. We're not all so proficient at hiding from his machine."

"It's a tricky one, I'll admit," said Rogue. "If you want some help there, you just ask. One thing...."

The southerner tapped Psylocke briefly on the cheek.

"Hey, that stung!" she complained, rubbing her face.

"Hmm, yes, interesting," Rogue said thoughtfully, tugging her glove back on. "Although, I wonder how you happened to end up like _this_?"

Betsy looked at her through narrowed eyes. "It's a long story."

"Another time, then." The southerner looked thoughtful for a moment. "I wasn't aware that Xavier had new students. This 'Boom-boom' sounds almost entertaining – in the same manner as a train wreck would be."

"You know, it rather spoils the concept of a meeting, you doing that," said Psylocke. "I was going to _tell_ you about all of that."

"Yes? Well we're a little pressed for time at the moment," replied Risty, standing up. "It has been nice meeting you," she continued in a cheerful, sardonic tone, before standing and heading for the exit.

As Rogue stood, rather less precipitously, she stroked the other girl's chin with her hand, drawing her face up. "It really has been nice," she said. "You're a very interesting person. Keep in touch."

"Oh, do come _on_," said her mother from the door.

Rogue smiled hugely and waved to the telepath before running after Risty.

Psylocke watched them go with a bemused expression, then looked back down at her drink. "Strange people," she said to herself.

"Mmm, I agree," said the waitress behind her.

Psylocke turned around quickly, and there was Tabitha Smith, grinning at her. "You were that shadowy ninja thing the other night, weren't you...?"

Outside, Rogue glared at her mother as they stepped into a completely inconspicuous blue sedan. "Did you have to be so rude?"

"You heard Destiny, we have a world to save, and we _are_ running short on time."

"World? A couple of do-gooders who'll get in the way," retorted the girl as she started the engine and pulled off. "If this 'Phoenix' thing gets loose, it'll be mutants out on top."

"Much as I would like to agree with you dear, not even Irene could see the social ramifications of the sort of destruction she'd cause. Besides, have you no concern for your brother?"

"Oh, he'd be fine. Once he stopped trying to save the day for all Smurfs and butterflies, of course."

* * *

Jean was feeling a little off colour at the track & field try-outs. Though she wouldn't admit it to anyone, the previous day's events had taken a great toll on her. For the first time in a long while, she was feeling physically drained, and not up to the task of – what was she doing again? Right, throwing javelins. That was more of a shock, she thought, picking up one of the spears, that she couldn't even concentrate on what she was doing. So much effort she'd spent on getting past that.

Suddenly, she could her the thoughts of everyone nearby, if you were talking in a purely world view sense. The thoughts of the entire population of Bayville, and a little beyond, came crashing into her head at once, and she became confused so quickly that she lost all sense of self, let alone the capacity to work out where, or who she was. The girl collapsed to the ground, clasping her hands over her ears as if it would have any effect.

She began to reach out for anything she could touch, to try and make the barrage of thoughts fade away. Her confusion prevented her from remembering she had a physical body, so instead things started to move by telekinesis. The javelin rose up into the air, spun around directly to point at the nearest source of the problem, a group of girls about to start running the 200m race, and they were only saved from being skewered when Dr. McCoy, still coaching physical education, dived on the spears.

Jean tried to stand, and staggered into the shot put field. Immediately the heavy balls started flying around, and structural damage to the bleachers was only prevented by the fast actions of Scott, who shot them into safer directions with optic blasts. Even so, he missed one which sailed right into Duncan Matthews's back as he was slinking off the the showers, having been dismissed for pushing Summers. The footballer sagged to the ground, losing consciousness from the pain.

Not noticing this, Scott ran up to Jean as she collapsed again, catching her as she fell. "Jean, what's wrong?" he asked concernedly.

Somehow this centred Jean enough to remember herself. "Scott?" she said. "I can't stop it. I can't...."

Now Jean, too, fell unconscious.

"Get her to Xavier," said McCoy, walking up behind them with the unconscious Matthews held easily in his expansive arms. "God knows no-one else will know what to make of this. I'll sort Matthews. **Go!**"

Despite his stunned silence, Scott didn't protest, and scooped Jean up to take her to his car. He muttered to himself all the way back to the mansion, trying to work Dr. McCoy out.

* * *

Pietro wandered down the stairs groggily as the knocking grew louder, and more insistent. "I'm coming, I'm coming," he protested.

The door flew in off its hinges before he got there, and he just dodged out of its way in time. "Great, now we don't have a door," he said, before looking up to see a gloved fist coming straight for his face. He didn't manage to dodge that in time, however, and collapsed to the floor as the blood started to pour out of his nose.

"Now that _was_ satisfyin'," said Rogue, looking up the stairs to her new audience. "Where is she?"

Lance and Todd simply stared, until Rogue stepped over the stricken door and marched up the stairs towards them.

"We thought you were dead, yo," said Tolanski at he backed away from her.

"Rogue?" piped up a feminine voice behind the boys. "Rogue!" Kitty exclaimed again, diving through the stunned pair. "How can you–? What hap–? But you–!"

Then the excited girl made the mistake of tackling her friend to the ground in a hug, which might not have been so bad if she'd left it at that or even only pecked Rogue on the cheek. She groaned vaguely as she fell asleep, her lips falling from the other girl's.

Rogue pushed Kitty's head to one side before carefully standing up, hooking the peppy teen's arm around her shoulders as she did so.

"It's like a dream–" said Kitty hazily, waking vaguely.

"If you say so, sugah," said Rogue, and looked up at the boys. "So, while we're all dreaming, want to save the world?"

"What from?" asked Lance.

Rogue smirked. "The X-Men."

They arrived at the mansion gate to find the grounds in full lock-down mode. Kitty was fully awake now, if still in a state of disbelief. "What's happening?" she asked.

"Someone's gone haywire inside," replied Rogue, turning to face her peers. "You know as well as ah do that the mansion's defence system is supposed to work both ways."

Behind her, the roof of the medical wing exploded.

"Also that it might not always work." She turned to face the vortex of chaos that had appeared above the mansion. "Looks like the handiwork of one Miss Jean Grey," the southerner continued, before placing her palm on the reader for the gate.

"Identity confirmed," came the metallic reply. "Access denied; Authorisation has been revoked for user 'Rogue.'"

"Figures. Kitty?"

Kitty stepped up to the system and placed her palm on the reader.

"Identity confirmed. Welcome 'Katherine Pryde.' Please enter override code."

"Override code?" said the girl. "I don't know any override codes!"

Rogue tried a few on the keypad – each one was declined. "Looks like they've changed 'em," she said. "Fry it."

"That won't open the gate," protested Kitty, but upon seeing the look the Mississippian gave her, waved her hand through the security interface anyway, and it failed with an electric sizzle. The gates remained firmly shut.

"Shame that Blob's not here," said Rogue. "Lance, tear the gate down."

Avalanche smacked the ground with his fist, rippling the ground almost up to the front doors of the mansion. The gates landed in a heap on the ground. "Why'd you disable them first?"

"The noise the alarm makes annoys me," replied Rogue as they picked their way through the twisted metal and stone rubble.

"I still can't believe I'm doing this, yo," said Todd, clearing the debris in one easy leap. "Why am I doing this again?"

"You don't want me to pummel you."

"Oh. Right."

"Keep an eye out for automated turrets," said the girl as they walked up to the gate. "They pop up from the most unexpected–" she ducked as razor-edged discs flew over her head "– places."

Lance punched into the air in the direction the discs had come from, disintegrating the machine that had launched them. "I thought I'd taken all of them out," he muttered.

In front of them, the ornate fountain in the centre of the driveway disengaged from its footing and rose out of the ground, exposing a triplet of laser cannons built into a rotating mechanism.

"Get behind me!" shouted Rogue.

Quickly the other three did so, and the southerner turned her skin to diamond as the cannon fired directly at her. The refracted beams were directed straight back at the base of the cannon, shearing the entire construction off at the base. The statue toppled over, crushing Scott's car.

The four mutants walked up to the shuttered doors of the mansion. The thick steel which now protected the normally glass-fronted atrium showed no signs of having any kind of door.

On the other side of the steel, the X-Men were trying to devise a plan to try and calm Jean Grey, and bring her back under her own control. For the last few minutes they'd been silent, having come to a stalemate in the discussion.

It was Scott who broke the silence. "Professor, we have to try something," he said, standing up. "I can't just sit by. I'm going to try and talk to her," he continued, before starting to walk towards the door again.

He couldn't hope to leave before Logan stopped him, however. "Look, bub," the feral said, standing in his way, "we've lost enough people already trying to do stupid things. Don't be the next one."

Xavier seemed contemplative for a moment, then looked up. "It seems we have visitors," he said. "Some of the brotherhood are outside."

Storm touched an invisible switch on the bottom of one of the large picture frames, and the portrait turned into a CCTV feed. Avalanche, Toad, and Shadowcat were visible on the front steps.

"Well, I might be able to get through, but why should we help them?" asked Kitty, and there was a moments pause. "They left you for dead! Didn't even go back to look."

"By rights Ah should've been dead, Kit." Rogue wandered into the picture in front of the group. "An' if I was, there'd be nothing to find."

There were various gasps and statements of astonishment from the assembled X-Men.

"Besides which," the southerner continued, "this isn't about just the X-Men. Whatever's happenin' in there isn't being contained, and I don't like anyone's chances of stopping it if we don't help."

At this point, Kurt ported outside. Shortly afterwards, he and the four arrivals were back inside.

"Uh, hi," said Rogue. This was met with dumbfounded stares from all but Wolverine and Xavier. The girl brushed a lock of white hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear. "Thought you'd be glad to see me?"

"Nice timing, Stripes," said Logan.

Rogue counted the persons inside the foyer theatrically. "I see there's been some new arrivals," she said, and turned to the professor. "Where's Jean?"

Xavier returned her look with a steely gaze. "She's in the medical wing," he said simply.

"Red's the one twisting everything about," supplied Logan. "Got too much power running around inside or something. Any ideas?"

"If the problem's too much power," said Rogue, "maybe she needs some drained off."

‹_No way,_› said Emma. ‹_You can't let another telepath in here. Think about it. It'd ruin everything._›

'_Yeah, I'd rather just kill the bitch,_' thought Rogue. '_Especially after what happened with you. But that's gonna cause more problems than it solves. Besides which, she's a naïve child. Don't think you can handle that?_'

"She needs something focus on," said Charles, the expression on his face not changing.

"Huh, that'd be right. She never did take the crystal thing seriously."

"As I said before," said Scott. "Let her focus on me. If Rogue can drain some of the power off...."

"And that would make you so happy, wouldn't it, golden boy?" Rogue's eyes flashed electric blue for a moment. "If you were the most important thing in her world." The southerner couldn't help but smirk as Logan growled imperceptibly to the rest of them.

"Hey," said Scott, sounding wounded. "I just don't want her to–"

"It might just work," said Rogue. Internally she continued '_Someone's got a crush on Scott Summers._'

‹_Oh, you're so very clever,_› replied Emma sarcastically.

"We're running out of options, Charles," said Logan.

"Very well," replied the professor. "Storm, stay here with the younger students."

When they reached the medical wing they found that the operating theatre and surrounding rooms were a maelstrom of morphing detritus, and Jean floating in the centre with an eerie glow.

"Her telekinesis seems to be rearranging matter on a molecular level," observed Charles. "I fear we haven't much time."

"Clocks running, let's move!" barked Scott, and the X-Men ran forward into the room.

After about 30 seconds of being forced back, they stopped.

"Got a better plan than shooting single bits of stuff as you run forwards?" asked Rogue, who had stayed back with Kitty and the Brotherhood boys. "Maybe you should try taking your visor off for once."

"That'll hurt Jean!" the Alaskan complained. "I couldn't!"

"Yeah, right," replied Rogue. "Gotta do what Ah have to," she continued, and elbowed Scott in the gut before grabbing on to his face.

"Was that necessary?" asked Logan, cocking an eyebrow as the boy collapsed.

Rogue didn't respond, but let a loose a giant concussive blast that obliterated most of the flying objects. Not needing any prompting, Wolverine charged in immediately afterwards and leapt into the air to tackle Jean.

The southerner grabbed Shadowcat's hand. "Sorry, Kit," she said, and turned to Nightcrawler. "Get me in there!"

Kurt grabbed his sister and they 'ported in just as Logan was thrown back violently. Kurt was caught in a second wave, but his sister had been ready for this and phased, avoiding the redhead's fury as Nightcrawler teleported away again. She reached forward, and felt the pressure building up – Jean was adapting to the change and would be able to touch her soon.

Emma struck out with a psychic blast, suppressing Jean's power briefly. ‹_Go!_› she urged.

Rogue rushed forward and pressed her fingers against Jean's forehead. The rush of power was so intoxicating that she wanted to pull away, but using the telekinetic power she forced herself to stay there, succeeding despite another psychic explosion from the other girl.

Jean, however, was proving to be very powerful indeed, and it was not only her telekinesis that was out of control. Around the two girls, the landscape became fuzzy, until soon everything was black, just the two of them floating in a ghostly light.

There was another explosion of energy, and the two of them flew backwards and landed on some sort of surface that was indistinguishable from the rest of the mindscape.

"For someone in so much turmoil this is an awfully blank mindscape," a familiar voice said behind Rogue.

"What are you doing here?" hissed the southerner.

"You and I both know you can't handle this by yourself," replied Emma, helping the girl to her feet. "Besides, it's not exactly like I'm here by choice."

"Look again," said another voice. Rogue turned to see Xavier standing near where Jean was still lying, her hands clasped over her ears and her eyes tightly shut. "It is not blank, merely so filled that one thing is indecipherable from another." He looked down at his student. "I can't reach her."

"I'm gonna hate myself for this," said Rogue, "but something's gotta give." The southerner walked to where Jean was and knelt down.

"I shouldn't have to tell you what a monumentally bad idea this is," said Emma.

Rogue picked up Jean's hand in her own.

On the physical plane, the two of them were on the ground again, and though the storm still raged there was little debris in it. Scott was also lying still not far away.

He stirred slightly "Jean! It's Scott. Please, listen to my voice! Focus on it!"

"Scott?! Where are you?" replied Jean. Neither had opened their eyes, and both were echoed by Rogue's lips.

"Jean?!" said the Alaskan excitedly.

"Help me, Scott!"

"I will Jean, just focus on me."

Rogue floated into the air.

"I... I can't. I'm losing you..." said Jean

"No! Don't tell me what you can't do," Scott replied. "I know you better than anyone ever has, or ever will Come on, you can do this."

Jean sat up slowly. "Scott?"

The Alaskan woke sharply. "Je–"

A massive explosion of light filled the surroundings, centring on Rogue. It faded into her body, and when everyone's vision was restored, they saw Scott and Jean sitting up, fully conscious and facing each other, and the operating theatre in immaculate condition around them. Rogue was lying comatose on the table, her skin transformed to diamond and a dull glow covering her body.

Xavier approached her carefully.

"What's wrong with her, Chuck?" asked Logan.

"Looks like Rogue has overextended herself," replied the professor.

"Looks to me like she arrived in the nick of time to save all your butts," said Lance. "That's kinda funny."

"Indeed, it does seem she arrived prepared for that too." Xavier turned to face the assembled mutants. "Do any of you know this woman?" he asked, and projected a mental image of Frost into each of their minds.

They all shook their heads; Kitty biting her bottom lip while she did so.

"I did see her though; with Rogue," said Jean. "She seemed to know something about what was happening."

"Yes. I think she's a telepath, but I don't know what she has to do with Rogue."

"Well, she helped, didn't she?" asked Kitty.

Logan snorted. "She helped _this_ time. That doesn't automatically make her a good guy."

"Indeed," agreed Charles, and looked back to Rogue. "And I fear it may be some time before we can get any answers."

* * *

_Notes:_

Nine Months. Ouch. Sorry for the delay. I got caught up in a lot of other stuff, and for most of that time this was stuck with only the first bit with Tabby in there. I'll try not to leave you on _this_ cliff-hanger for so long (I know, I know, empty promises and all that).  
Don't read too much into Psylocke turning up. I'm not sure what to do with her as yet.

Thanks **Murasaki Tsukimaru**, **Darkness-Lightness**, **Dark Inu Fan**, **Kyuubi-Titan**, **tfobmv18**, **Undefined Soul**, **XxBlood-Red-AnglexX**, **blackrider11**, **RogueNya**, and **Cosmic-lover** for reviewing chapter 11, everyone who's reviewed any chapter before, and of course all you people who are still reading this shit.

Next time: Our southern belle has returned, but what are the X-Men to make of this?


	13. Observation

_Observation_

Rogue pulled back carefully on the bow string. They were alone in the wooded park – the practice target seemed out of place in surrounding that otherwise showed no signs of human habitation.

"More tension," Mystique said softly. She was standing so close behind that her warm breath condensed on the girl's hair. "Use your entire body as a frame for the power."

Her daughter strained against the bow, and the string slipped off her fingers. The arrow flew wide of the target and clipped a tree, bouncing into the grass. "I don't think I'm strong enough," Rogue complained. "Why do I need to learn this, anyway?"

"There will be times when your power will be useless to you, my child," her mother replied patiently, "and for these times you must excel at fighting without your gifts. Now, let's try again." She picked up an an arrow, and gripping Rogue's hand that was on the bow, slotted it between the child's finger and the wood. She fit the butt of the arrow between Rogue's fingers, and pulled back on the string with her.

"There," she said. "Hold it there." She let go and stepped back from her daughter. "You feel that?"

This time the bow slipped out of Rogue's hand and snapped back into her arm, the arrow falling to the ground. The girl pouted.

"Hmm," said Mystique, and took the weapon from her unresisting daughter's hands. She picked the arrow up from the ground, and slotted it into the bow again. "Now you see what I'm doing here? I keep my leading arm bent, pull back gently, but firmly, and..."

The arrow sailed through the air neatly, and struck the target dead-on the centre of the bulls-eye.

Rogue put her hands on her hips. "I know the theory."

"Do you?" said her mother. "Hmm. Well perhaps I should start you on a weaker bow."

"Give me that," the girl said, and took the bow from her mother. She selected an arrow, pulled back on the string, and let it fly.

The arrow slid to a halt in mid air about half way to the target. Birdsong stopped, and Mystique was frozen in her odd smile.

"Are you _still_ asleep?" asked Emma, marching across the wood towards them. In this place, she made the sun shine off her in a way that caught the eyes with a pretty glow.

"I believe the term is 'comatose,' Frost," replied Rogue, straightening up and turning to face her. "What do _you_ want?"

"Well I've been having Betsy keep an eye on you. It's been a couple of weeks. You might like to know that Xavier's going to try something drastic to wake you up, so you better stop thinking of _her_." She pointed to the metamorph.

"What's with the sudden concern?" asked the southerner.

"I look after my business," Emma replied, then looked at the frozen arrow. "Hey, this one's hilarious," she said, and let time return to the memory.

The arrow continued to fly straight, but clipped the top of the target and shattered. Emma burst out laughing.

"I mean, come on," she said. "_That_, from _you_! Classic!"

"Better," said Mystique, oblivious to Emma's giggling. "You'll get it with practice."

"Get out!" snapped Rogue, glaring at the blonde.

"Yeah, yeah," said Emma, and disappeared.

* * *

Kitty eyed the professor suspiciously. "What are you going to do?" she asked, blocking the door to the theatre. It had proved impossible to move Rogue in any way, and she had been lying on the operating table in the same position for the last three weeks, skin still hard as diamond and the same dull glow surrounding her. Kitty wouldn't move from the doorway unless Lance or Fred came to take over for a while.

"I just want to try and find out what's keeping her from waking up," Charles replied. "Kitty, attempting to reach her with telepathy is the only course of action that makes any sense."

"Well I don't trust you!" the girl retorted.

"Kitty, just what do you think we're going to do?" asked Jean, standing behind the professor. "Honestly. We want Rogue back as much as you do."

"I doubt that. You would've gone back for her."

"Wewanted to," replied Jean. "The professor believed there was no point."

"Yeah, the professor 'believed.'" Kitty made quote signs in the air. "And I was the _only_ X-Man to argue with him. Looks like the Brotherhood has more respect for her than any of you do."

"And what can _they_ do?" asked Kurt, teleporting behind Kitty. "Shake her awake?"

"Hey, other side of the door, Kurt!" yelled the girl, and phased through him, pushing him back out with the others.

"You can't keep us out forever, Kitty," said Logan.

"Get that woman down here."

"Kitty, even if we _could_ contact her, there's a fair chance she won't want to help Rogue," said Charles. "She may well have been in Jean's mindscape because Rogue had absorbed her personality. I'm sorry, but I can't let this continue. Nightcrawler?"

In a rehearsed movement, Kurt grabbed Kitty by the wrist and teleported both of them out to the common room.

Kitty slapped him across the face. "Don't you **ever** do that without my permission."

"I'm sorry, Kitty!" said the teleporter, lifting his arms theatrically. "But the professor is right. It's the only way of finding out what's happening with Rogue. She's stuck in some kind of stasis, and I really want to know she's going to get better. She's been like a sister to me."

"Right she has!" the girl exclaimed, poking him in the chest. "More than you know. Why didn't _you_ speak up at the time?"

Kurt looked at the ground. "I was afraid," he replied.

"Of what?"

"I... that I might... I mean, Mystique. I still didn't want to accept that she might be my mother. I can't help thinking, did Rogue do that for _me_?" the boy said, and raised his head again.

"Oh." Kitty tried to find fault in this, but she couldn't pin it down. "That's.... Oh. Um, I don't think she did it for you. I mean, not just for you."

* * *

Rogue sat back on her chair, eyes closed, listening to the waves. She dragged her fingers through the sand, relishing the unusual experience.

"You know, we should do this more often," she said. "Take some time...."

"There's so much to do, though," said Irene, who was sitting bolt upright on the next chair over. "We haven't the time for frivolities."

"Oh relax, Destiny," said Mystique, raising her glass. "If we don't make time to have fun–"

"Oh, give me a break!" shouted Rogue as time stopped again. She sat up sharply, and turned.

"Hey, I don't like this either!" replied Emma, walking up to her, hands on hips. "But while you've been sitting around feeling sorry for yourself, I've had Psylocke watch what's going on around you. Xavier is this far –" she touched her fingers together "– from going probing. I can't hold Jean in and him out at the same time."

"Well what do you suggest, Gracie?" asked the southerner as the scene around them changed to the inside of a diamond geode. Sitting in between them was Jean Grey, trying to use her telepathy. "If you remember, it's preventing little Red Riding Hood here from crying wolf that's got my body in this state."

Jean looked up. "You are _not_ getting away with this," she said, glaring at Rogue. "You _or_ Mystique."

Rogue punched her in the face. "Sometimes I just love my dreams," she said, kneeling over Jean's now prone form, "because you can't do jack all to me, and I can do whatever the hell I want to you. You're just a figment of my imagination." She dropped forwards onto her hands, and brought her nose to within an inch of Jeans. "I saved your hide and this is the thanks I get? The real you would keep a godamn secret."

Jean spat in Rogue's face, resulting in the southerner smacking her forehead into the redhead's nose.

"Much as I'd love to watch you beating the crap out of this 'figment of your imagination,'" said Emma, "it's not getting us anywhere. Or, should I say, it's not getting _you_ anywhere. No skin off my nose when you get caught."

"Yeah until you have X-men poking around in Massachusetts. Then where you have X-men, you get Magneto too, and sooner or later the govern—"

Around them the crystals of the geode rumbled.

"That's not good," Emma inferred.

"You are sooooo busted," said Jean, grinning.

Rogue sighed, and smacked the redhead in the face again, this time with the palm of her hand. Leaning down on Jean's face, she raised her other hand to her temple, and let out a psychic blast. A massive tremor rippled through the geode, and a giant crystal broke loose directly above Emma, who dived away just in time, landing on her face.

"Well shit," the blonde said, getting up. "That broke right through."

"Yeah, she's immensely powerful. I know. It's not gonna take much more for her to break through your stone temple with actual telepathy."

"You think she can do it?"

"Only about a thousand times over. I said immensely powerful. Can end the world with her mind kinda powerful."

Out in the real world, Xavier was thrown across the room, his chair striking the wall and throwing him out.

"Well, this is most unexpected," he said, as Hank helped him up.

"That was Jean's power," remarked Beast.

"Indeed. It seems she reacted to me trying to break through the mental block set up by this... form...."

Hank looked up at the monitors, still showing no life signs. "I wonder what's going on in there," he said.

"I also," replied Charles. "She could be trying to protect us from Jean's remnant. If only I could get in without hurting her... I could help to purge it. It must be quite a battle in there."

In the corner of the room, the shadows moved. In Rogue's mindscape, Emma advanced on the southerner.

"I do _not_ want Magneto near my children," she yelled, and grabbed Rogue by the collar. "Get this under control. Learn. To. Use. Your. Damned. Powers."

Rogue kneed the telepath in the stomach and twisted her around, hooking her arm under Emma's throat. "—!" she started.

She didn't continue, because behind them, Jean was giggling. Slowly it became a cackle, but this didn't last long.

The redhead collapsed to reveal Psylocke, who waved vaguely. "Uh, hi," she said. "Am I interrupting anything?"

"We were about the break out the psychic strap-ons," Emma sardoned.

"I believe it," replied Betsy. "Um. Just wanted to say, they believe there's some kind of battle between Rogue and Jean's remnant going on in here...."

"That has the _essence_ of truth," said Rogue, releasing her choke-hold on Emma and looking down at Jean. A purple protrusion was apparent in the small of her back. "What did you do?"

"Oh, that's just a pseudo blade. It sort of gives the my opponent the impression they've been stabbed while not actually doing the physical damage."

"But it can still kill."

"Uh-huh."

"Why didn't you bring this up when I interviewed you?" asked Emma.

"I figured by the time I realised it was that kind of job that you already knew," said Psylocke. "Besides, you gave me the job anyway."

"How long will that last?" asked Rogue, indicating the blade.

"Oh that's just a simple one. It shouldn't really even be having that much effect, but I've never tried it on a psycho-avatar before. It'll last until I go away. But I can make a more permanent effect if you want."

"Do it," said Emma.

Psylocke grimaced for a moment, and a psionic blade appeared in her hand, shimmering purple as it grew to a length not less than two feet. She slid it slowly into the back of Jean's neck, pushing it up into her skull as the redhead screamed, until finally Psylocke's hand was on the back of her neck. Jean fell silent, catatonic, and the other two noted that there was no further protrusion, merely a purple glow in her eyes.

"And that will last?" asked Rogue.

"She's completely incapacitated until one of us dies," said Betsy. "It's a sort of full cortex mental block, but with sharp edges. I don't know quite how your powers work, though. I'd recommend against trying to access hers. The repercussions could be anything from her waking up fully, or the blade leaking out into your own mind."

"Sounds painful."

"Extraordinarily. You may also be able to expect all sorts of weird nightmares – and they'll be dangerous. Whatever you do, don't touch her."

"But she'll be quiet now?"

"As the grave. Trust me on this."

"Miss Braddock, I do believe we're done here," said Emma. She turned to Rogue. "You better not put a foot wrong with this."

"Like I would?" replied the southerner, but Emma had vanished. "How did you get in here, anyway?" she asked Psylocke.

"It's complicated," said Betsy. "A different psionic power. Moving through shadows. Works across some dimensions, and all. The mind is a very shadowy place."

"So... are you going then?"

Psylocke looked around. The geode had disappeared, replaced by nothing but blackness and the three girls. "Curiously enough, when a world is made entirely of shadow, I cannot enter or leave it. Would you mind very much imagining a light? I can't stress enough on you how much this little trick is costing in terms of thermodynamic balance."

Rogue raised an eyebrow. "Thermodynamic … ?"

"First law of thermodynamics; Energy, and as a side effect matter, cannot be created or destroyed. Because I'm not present in the physical universe, the matter that would normally be, well, me, doesn't exist. As such energy expands to take its place, roughly the same amount by the speed of light squared. This speeds up the universe. Only a little bit now, but just you wait a few hundred thousand millenia and the difference—"

"Alright, alright, if it stops you give me a physics lecture." A light burst into life behind Rogue, and Psylocke vanished.

The southerner looked down at Jean. "Remind me to beat the crap out of you later," she said. "I mean really, not just here," she continued, before closing her eyes.

Rogue sat up suddenly, and looked around. She was in the operating theatre at the Mansion. Professor X was by the bedside, and Jean, Scott, Logan, Ororo, and Evan were standing behind him with another blue furred man.

Suddenly Kitty ran into the room, Kurt close behind.

"I couldn't stop her–" the teleporter started to explain.

"It's okay," said Charles. "We're... finished here."

Kitty looked up at her old friend. "Rogue!" she shouted, running to her. "Did they do anything to you? What did he do?"

"Ah'm fine, Kit," replied the southerner. "The prof didn't do anything. Maybe wants to ask some questions."

The younger girl glared at the professor. "Hey, she's recovering, you know," she accused.

"Ah said I'm fine. Calm down. Now if someone could tell me what's been going on the last little while. Start with who _this_ guy is," Rogue said, indicating Beast.

"You remember Mr. McCoy from your school?" Xavier said. "Well, he went through a bit of a transformation. Meet 'Beast.' He's an instructor here now."

The blue man held out a hand. "Pleased to meet you."

"Why does everyone keep doing that?" asked Rogue. "Ah'm Rogue....  
"Ah'm not gonna shake your hand, because Ah think I've absorbed enough people for a while. Anyway, Ah've been in at least four of your classes."

"Yes, of course," said Beast. "I just, um.... Well it amused me, anyway."

"...Amused you," muttered the southerner. She swung her legs off the table and stood up. "Ah'm sure there's more news than that," she said. "It's kinda oppressive in here, isn't it? Let's go outside."

Silence followed her with the younger X-Men and Wolverine all the way out into the gardens; Charles, Hank, and Ororo claimed to have some administrative thing to attend to. "Oh, come _on,_" Rogue said when it was obvious no one was saying anything.

"I, uh– I'm going to check how Duncan's doing," said Jean.

More excuses were mumbled until only Logan and Kitty remained.

"Well, that was anticlimactic," said the southerner.

"Well, I have to say myself, 'Wonder why you went back to rescue Mystique,'" said Logan.

"They're all suspicious of you," whispered Kitty. "I wouldn't hang around here if I were you."

"Where else am Ah gonna go?" asked Rogue.

"No-where," replied the Canadian gruffly. "You both belong here."

"Well I'm not staying!" said Kitty. "Not if you all treat each other like this."

Wolverine just grunted and stalked off.

"Anyway. You ran off and joined the Brotherhood?" Rogue said. "Whatever possessed you to do that?"

Kitty glared at her. "How did you know to find me there?"

"Let's just say Ah ran into some people with information on my way back. For someone who just said everyone else was suspicious, you're sounding pretty snappy yourself."

"It was just the way everyone like, turned their back on you completely. I didn't want to be part of that."

Rogue grinned. "Well thanks for the thought, Kit, but these guys are one thousand percent better than those creeps you're hanging out with now."

"I don't think they're that bad after all. I got them organised better, and–"

"And they're going to depend on that if you keep hanging out with them, Trust me, Ah _know_. Let Magneto keep them in line." Rogue started walking towards the mansion's garage. "Hell, Mystique's probably gonna show up any day soon anyway, and she'll kick you out for sure."

"You can't really want to like, stay here, can you?" asked Kitty, following her.

Rogue opened the garage and pushed her bike out. "There's worse places," she said, handing Kitty a helmet. "Come for a ride?"

"I'm... not sure," the younger girl said, taking it cautiously. "I mean, you just woke up from a coma...."

"So I've had three weeks sleep. Oh come on, what harm can it do?" asked Rogue, kicking the bike into life.

"All right," said Kitty nervously, and she clambered onto the pillion seat and strapped the helmet on.

"Great. Let's hit the road!"

* * *

"And you just left the two of them alone?" asked Charles.

"Something supposed to be wrong with that, Chuck?" asked the room's other incumbent. "You said yourself that Rogue seemed to be better than ever."

"I... I guess not," replied the telepath, moving to the high-arched window to gaze over the grounds. "I just worry about Kitty. We're going to have to work hard to regain her trust."

"You're changing the subject, Charles. If I didn't know better I'd say you were suspicious of Rogue." Logan ambled to Xavier's chair. "Most of us are, me included. But I didn't worry about it 'til now."

"If I believed she was any danger to anyone–"

"Yeah, right. You'dve told us. But I can tell you have reason to doubt."

There was a soft knock at the door.

"Come in, Jean," said the professor, turning to the door as the redhead opened it. "How can I help you?"

"I was just... I'm trying to find Rogue," she replied.

"Took off about an hour ago with Kitty," said Logan, still facing the window. "They'll be back. Stripes' stuff is still here."

"How's Duncan?" asked Charles.

"Getting better," said his student. "But the doctors are still puzzled by the nature of his injuries."

"It's for obvious reasons that we can't tell them the truth. Don't blame yourself, Jean – you had no control over what happened."

"Why are you looking for Rogue, anyway?" asked Logan, now turning to face Jean.

"I wanted to thank her for helping me out back there." Jean held up a box by way of demonstration. "I mean, she didn't have to do what she did."

Wolverine smirked. "She really thought she did. We can all thank her for that. But you wanted her to answer some questions, too."

"I do have a couple. Everyone does. But they can wait." The last sentence was spoken darkly.

"I believe that's not the general feeling," said Charles, going past Jean into the corridor. "I know that Scott, at least, is doubting her motives. Ororo, Kurt, and Evan don't know what to think."

"What about Kitty?" asked Jean, following her teacher in step with Logan.

"Indeed. What _about_ Kitty? Yet another series of questions to be answered." Charles sighed as they arrived at the mezzanine overlooking the atrium, where the new recruits were at work and play. "However, we must ask ourselves the question: What are _they_ to make of _us_?"

* * *

Evan bounced the basketball a couple of times, and lined his shot up carefully. "C'mon man, I mean the first thing she did when she came back was totally save our butts," he said, and tossed the ball. It bounced off the backboard and rolled around the hoop before falling through. "You gotta respect that."

Scott caught the ball and dribbled it out to the key as Evan stood aside. "Yeah, the first thing she did." His shot went wide and the rebound left the court. "We hadn't heard a thing from her until then, either. Every time the professor _tried_ to find her, he couldn't. Oh, and she just _happened_ to turn up with half the Brotherhood in tow and a telepath in her head to help straighten Jean out."

There were a couple of bamfs and Kurt appeared hanging from the backboard his feet, the ball held in his hands. "The lady could've been there by coincidence," he said, and dropped the ball through the hoop while simultaneously somersaulting to the ground. He smacked the ball to Evan. "And I don't think she could have got in by herself. The Brotherhood house isn't far away, so she could have gone to them for help. That Kitty was there was a bonus."

"He's got a point," said Evan, and executed a perfect lay-up, passing the ball to Scott afterwards. "Then again, that she didn't call up _is_ kinda suspicious."

"Whatever" said Scott, and stalked off, tossing the ball over his shoulder as he did so. "I have some serious questions for that girl." The ball swished through the hoop, and Kurt caught it behind the line, he and Evan watching the Alaskan go with puzzled expressions.

"What is his deal?" asked Evan. "Jean means everything to him. Shouldn't he be thankful for Rogue doing what she did?"

"Scott tries to look out for all of us," replied Kurt. "It must get to him. I can't help thinking we could have avoided all of this if _I'd_ gone back."

"Hey, it was hardcore back there."

"I could have done it. If not for mother, then for Rogue."

"Hey, she got out, didn't she?"

"But what happened since then?"

"That _is_ the big question." Storm descended onto the court from above, touching down lightly. "Perhaps not so important as the fact that she came back, though. Come, boys, the Professor wants to see everyone in the library."

"Why didn't he just send out a call like normal?" asked Kurt.

"I don't know," replied Ororo, "but I'm sure he had a reason. Have either of you seen Scott?"

* * *

The two girls lay on the grass of the hillock, their heads about a foot apart, staring up at the sky.

"You know, I haven't looked for pictures in the clouds since I was a kid," said Kitty.

"You _are_ a kid," replied Rogue. "You can look for pictures if ya want, but I ain't ever seein' anything but clouds."

"You must be pretty worn out from that coma."

"Worn thin, maybe. It was actually pretty restful. Ah don't get to dream my own dreams very often."

"Oh?"

"The people Ah've absorbed... they never leave. Not properly. It gets a bit crowded in my head."

"Oh. I didn't know."

"That's 'cause I never told anyone."

Kitty turned around to face the southerner. "Why not?"

"My problem." Rogue shrugged. "Ah deal with it."

Kitty lay back down and they remained silent for a while, though the girl was fidgety. Eventually, she spoke up again.

"So, I guess I know why you went back for Mystique. How'd you survive the asteroid breaking up? Jean said the main corridor like, collapsed on you."

"Well Ah can't say I didn't have some help there. Jean reached out, put a bubble around me, Ah think — it stopped the concrete actually hitting me. Then, as it happened, I was right under the main ventilation shaft. It was already pretty broken up, so I could punch through it."

Kitty sat up suddenly. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Punch _through_ it? Concrete?"

"And steel. Lots of steel – Ah thought afterwards that maybe the only thing holding it together was Magneto's power. Anyway, you saw me in that stasis. Hard as diamond."

"You can move like that?"

"There's limits to it. Had an advantage for a while because of remnants of shape-shifting."

"Oh." Kitty paused for a moment. "The strength you'd need, though...."

"Of course, ya didn't see the bit where I absorbed Sabretooth... again."

"Oh."

"Ya seem to be sayin' that a lot, Kit. Something on your mind?"

"What happened to Mystique?"

Now Rogue paused. "Well, she survived, if that's what you're asking. Ah got her out."

"How'd you get out before it exploded, though?"

"Ah jumped."

There was another pause while Kitty waited for the rest of the answer. There didn't seem to be anything else forthcoming.

"You jumped? From over 200 feet up?"

"Well Ah _was_ in the air for a while. Ah was kinda hoping for a mid air rescue, but Ah guess you guys were otherwise occupied. Ah won't say landing wasn't tricky – the diamond form helped there, too. Hit the ground real hard."

"Huh. So why didn't you call?"

Rogue smiled. "You and Ah both know you skipped the mansion within a couple of days of gettin' back. How could you possibly know Ah hadn't called?"

"Well, I just figured– Hey, how did you know that anyway? You never really told me."

"Some of us know people outside of the Institute, ya know. Emma told me. Well, someone who works for her, anyway. Courtesy call when Ah got back or somethin'."

"Oh."

"Anyway, Ah left an obvious enough trail for the prof' to follow. Ran into some old pals down there. And Magneto again. He's got more cronies."

"Well that's great," said Kitty sarcastically. "What about your mom?"

"Who knows what she's doing? Ah mean, she fell out with Magneto, that's for sure." Rogue picked at her fingernails. "Maybe if certain X-geeks had come back for me we'd know exactly where she is and what she's doing, but Ah guess that wasn't a priority."

‹_You __**do**__ know exactly where she is, though,_› Emma accused. ‹_**And**__ what she's doing._›

'_What I'm saying here concerns you – how?_' replied the southerner.

‹_So sue me for taking an interest. Are you keeping secrets from this girl or not?_›

"Do you really think she'll lead the Brotherhood again?" asked Kitty.

"Those losers? In their nightmares. Which probably means yes."

Now the Chicagoan was on top of her peer, glaring down at her. "I don't get it. Whose side are you on? I mean, like, what the hell was that supposed to mean anyway?"

"An' here Ah thought you'd got it worked out." Rogue licked her bottom lip. "What ya gonna do now, girl?"

"Urgh!" Kitty stood up and walked over to the bike. "Like, take me home."

The southerner leaned up on her elbows. "And just where is that, Kit? You don't wanna go to the X-men, you can't go back to Chicago – not now. You _know_ you don't belong with the Brotherhood."

"What, you read my mind now?"

"Not yet, but Ah could." Rogue walked up behind the younger girl. "You want that?"

Kitty narrowed her eyes. "Are you, like, trying to take advantage of me?"

"So, you admit you're confused and vulnerable, then?"

"What?!" Now she turned to face Rogue, flinging her hands into the air. "I mean it, really. I don't get anything you're saying."

"You're the one who insisted Ah joined the X-men, then turned your back on them as soon as anything went wrong. Let me tell ya something, Kit. They did everything they reasonable could. The professor knew Ah was alive– and kickin'. Ah let them know Ah'd left that desert. They _knew_ Ah'd met up with some other folks. Ah _didn't _let them know where to look for me. Ah'm a lot more precocious than any of 'em, an' really you shoulda' known that already."

"They abandoned you."

"They didn't know how to say they couldn't find me, and you wouldn't let them, Kit. C'mon, it's the best place for you. Don't you just wanna help people?"

Kitty nodded sullenly in response.

"Well you'll find out eventually that the Brotherhood ain't about that. Be sure, Kit, Magneto's got his thumb on them, and do ya really want ta end up doing his dirty work?"

"I- I guess not."

"Then do yourself a favour and come back to the X-men." Rogue straddled the bike and started it up. "If you want ta help those boys, maybe you can get them to come too, but Ah doubt it."

"What if Mystique–"

"Mystique's a transient, Kit! She'll only come lookin' for someone if she thinks she has a use for 'em."

Kitty clambered onto the pillion seat. "But she's your mother!" she yelled over the noise as Rogue revved the engine.

The southerner laughed. "Well o' course! Why don't you ask Kurt 'bout that?!" she shouted back.

* * *

Charles looked over the assembled mutants. "Thank you all for coming," he said.

After a short pause, Scott said "What's this about?"

Wolverine, behind the professor, snorted. "What's everything been about recently? It's Rogue."

"Thank you, Logan," said Charles darkly. "It is, indeed, about Rogue."

"What about her?" asked Jean. "She's back, everyone rejoice. Yay."

"It's not as simple as that," replied the professor. "For one thing, Rogue has every reason to feel betrayed by us, since we – since I left her alone in the desert. Another concern is that I have seen evidence to suggest that perhaps the _only_ reason she joined us is that Kitty asked her to. With Kitty in the brotherhood it's reasonable to expect Rogue to go back to them.  
"And can we really blame her if she does not wish to stay with us? Trust has to go both ways. I know that many of you are conflicted, and it does, indeed, seem rather convenient that Rogue arrived with just about everything that was needed to dispel a situation that was occurring at the time. If we are suspicious of her, she will be suspicious of us – and isn't that fair?"

"Well, would she even've come back if she didn't have some kind of outside information?" said Scott. "Where did it come from? Why didn't she tell us? How are we supposed to trust someone if they keep secrets from us?"

"She saved my life, Scott," said Jean. "Probably all our lives. I was losing myself in there – I don't know what would have happened. Of all of us, _you _should remember how I was when the professor brought me here; And Rogue had a lot of options back there. She could have saved everyone else by crippling me, did you think of that? You remember how brutal she was when she was working for Mystique? Maybe it would have been easier on her. But she chose not to hurt me. I'm happy for that. I'd put my life in her hands. Wouldn't you? Everyone has secrets. Even the professor."

Wolverine perked up, hearing a noise that no one else did.

"So where's this going, prof?" asked Evan.

"I intend to welcome Rogue back with open arms, and I'd appreciate it if you all endeavoured to do the same," replied the Professor. "That is, of course, assuming, that she wants to come back," he continued, turning to the door.

Momentarily afterwards, Kitty and Rogue phased through the large oak doors, giggling.

"Well, Ah'm sold!" said the southerner. "Not like I was goin' anywhere else, anyway. What d'ya say, Kit?"

"I'm– I'm still not sure," replied the other girl, sobering up. "I, uh–"

"Ya really don't know who to trust, huh?" Rogue turned to the adults present. "Ah'm ashamed of you. Couldn't even work out how to help one little girl. Ah mean, come _on_! Her room-mate vanished, probably dead, and you thought she could work through it herself?!"

"Well–" started Jean.

"And you! You thought it would be okay to just run in there and blow the memories away? That's the lowest of insults." Now Rogue turned on Logan. "You let her get captured by the brotherhood. Shame on you."

Stunned silence filled the room.

"Did I miss anything in that?" Rogue asked aside to Kitty.

"Well, I let the whole thing happen, I guess..." said Kurt.

"Is that what you think, is it? Well Ah s'pose no one thought to counsel you about it either, did they?"

"I'm gonna pack the rest of my stuff," said Kitty after a while, and phased out through the doors again.

"Vhy _did_ you go back for Mystique?" asked Kurt. "I'm sorry, but I _have_ to know."

Before the girl could speak, Xavier said "When Rogue made the decision to join us, her motivations were unclear. What she told me was that she felt she had a better chance of learning to control her powers here. I believe that she joined us because she shares the knowledge that we're all in this together now, and in going back for Mystique embraced that vision better than any of us. She has put her life on the line to save all of us, no matter our leanings."

'_Oh you are so full of yourself,_' thought Rogue, making Emma giggle. Out loud, she said "You make me sound like the freakin' messiah of all mutantkind."

‹_Just what would they do if they knew the truth that you're only hanging on to them because they might be useful later?_› wondered Emma.

"I know all of you have homework to attend to," said Charles. "Rogue, if I could have a moment?"

Rogue followed the professor up to his office. Once there, Charles moved behind the desk and said nothing.

"Look, professor, I ain't got beans to spill on some big secret if that's why you asked me here," said the southerner.

"I'm concerned, Rogue," Xavier said, "and I think you know why. Your return has been a blessing and a curse. I have reason to believe that there are things you have been keeping from us, and you should be aware that if I deem that they are threatening I _will_ find out what they are, with or without your co-operation. I must put the protection of my students above your personal privacy."

"That's pretty funny, professor, after your little speech about trust."

"My position is that I will trust your discretion. If there is anything that could harm your peers, I want you to tell me."

"Well that's interesting, professor. Very interesting, but right now, Ah need to stop Kitty from doing something _else_ stupid."

"One other thing, Rogue," started the professor suddenly as the girl made for the door. "In Jean's mind.... Did you sense any kind of … dark foreboding?"

Rogue turned abruptly, and looked contemplative for a moment. "Ah sense forebodings, dark and otherwise, on everyone nearby, all the time. Ah don't know, maybe that just rubbed off on you."

On Xavier's desk, an ornate Gothic knife rose into the air and spun gently around the blade's axis, before diving point first into the woodwork between two of the telepath's fingers with a loud _thunk_, appearing to burn momentarily. When he looked up from it, Rogue was gone.

‹_Don't see why you need me around if you can manipulate Xavier's thoughts like that,_› remarked Emma as the southerner ran through the halls to her room.

'_You mean the trick with the letter opener? He was already thinking like that. What I felt in miss Grey's mind.... I'm not sure I shouldn't have killed her then. Although, given, I'm not sure that'd work._'

‹_You've got balls using her telekinesis after what Psylocke told you, anyway._›

Kitty stood up guiltily when Rogue burst through the door of their room. She barely had time to brace herself before the southerner was on top of her, tackling and bearing her down to the bed behind her.

"You're not seriously gonna leave me here by mahself, are you?" Rogue asked, almost sobbing.

Kitty looked shocked momentarily, but shoved her friend off. "You don't seriously believe I'm going to believe that act, do you?" she accused. "I told you, come back to the Brotherhood with me. They'll accept you."

Rogue laughed. "They won't," she said. "They don't accept _you_. They're in awe now, they're scared of you. When that wears off, no respect. We'd end up beating 'em into submission, sugah. And we could do it, too, but it's the wrong way. No, Ah can't go back there."

"Freddy got a job," replied Kitty.

"That might last a little while, but you know Dukes. He means well, but – well you remember when he first arrived right? With Jean?"

"But surely, that was under Mystique's orders, right? He–"

"Uh-uh." Rogue shook her head. "Mystique actually asked me to go sort it out before he made a scene."

"Oh. Anyway, I'm sure with a little help, Lance could–"

"Not that boy. Never keep him outta of trouble."

"There was one night, he could've had me. I wanted him to. But he wouldn't."

"Sure, Kit. He wants to make an impression now. But what he's got for you is just clinging onto the past, anyway. Poor guy never wanted to leave Chicago, now the Brotherhood's all he's got. He ain't changin' them, and he ain't changin' away from them. Oh he might try, but he'll never get away from what he used to want."

Kitty grunted, and picked up the duffle bag she'd filled with stuff. Phasing through Rogue, she made for the balcony door.

When the southerner spun around and grabbed her wrist, Katherine Pryde had a few choices. She could, for example, have phased through the other girl's grip and kept walking. She could have yelled out. She could have slapped Rogue.

What she chose to do, however, was phase her friend _and_ herself, and used her unique leverage against nothing to throw Rogue through the window, only letting go when the southerner was clear of the glass.

The result of this was the Rogue, moving at a speed that Shadowcat in normal circumstances would not be able to achieve upon an adult "human" body, hit the stone balustrade – which cracked and fell away, allowing the southerner the cruise further onto the lawn below. Except that in this instance she hit a stone path instead.

Sauntering easily down from the balcony, Kitty walked unconcernedly past her. "Didn't see that coming? Or didn't want to admit you could?"

"That really hurt, y'know," said Rogue, slowly standing up as blood dripped from her mouth. "Could've done some real damage there."

"I've seen you walk away from worse," replied Shadowcat, shrugging as she continued walking away. "Hell, seen you leap and bound away from worse."

Rogue grimaced and dashed in front of the other girl, whereupon she fell on her, wheezing. "Ain't so... easy... when it's just me. Got no regen– reg–"

Kitty winced as the southerned coughed violently then hacked up a large gob of blood that coated both their shirts. "Oh shit," she whimpered, dropping her duffle bag as she fell to her knees, Rogue now leaning on her entirely.

"Christ, Half-pint," said a familiar gruff voice behind her. "Most unlikely pair possible. Never expect anyone to get the better of Stripes like that, didn't expect you to have it in you."

Rogue chuckled. "Guess it got so unlikely it was inevitable."

"You should _not_ be talking," said Logan. "Reckon you've got yourself a punctured lung."

"Oh my gosh I'm so sorry!" cried Kitty, as the Canadian pulled Rogue off her and lay her down on her side.

"Spare a thimble, guv?" the southerner said before falling unconscious.

Soon Hank was there too, carrying a stretcher with Scott in tow.

"Sheesh, what happened here?" asked Scott as Beast arranged Rogue onto the stretcher.

Logan merely grunted, but then Kitty burst into tears. "Kitty," he started, moving to comfort her.

Shadowcat flinched away from him, and fled. Wolverine crouched to chase, but then stopped.

"I think she'll come back," said Hank, reaching down for one end of the stretcher.

"Yeah," sighed Logan, and picked up the other side, the two of them lifting it to hip height to carry Rogue to the infirmary.

* * *

_Notes:_

Further apologies for the long delays. Seven months this time. Well and truly a habit now, I guess. My only excuse this time is that it's chapter 13. I've actually rewritten large amounts of it several times, and it still feels a bit forced. In fact I had to deviate from my outline a long way for it to make any sense in the context of later chapters at all.  
So, again I thank **RogueNya**, **Murasaki Tsukimaru**, **Cosmic-lover**, **Dark Inu Fan**, S*, woohoo*, Bets*, and spiritgirl* (*anonymous) who reviewed the last chapter, and all you readers who still haven't given up on this rarely updated lamefest.

Next Chapter: Something actually interesting happens. I promise.


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