Chapter 6
With Rouge:
It's really late now. Way past curfew and Remy and me have only just set out. We're on his motorbahke, him in front and me behind. No helmets which Ah was a little concerned abaht at first but it quickly stopped bothering me when Ah slipped mah hands arahnd Remy's waist. He was so warm and made me feel so safe and at ease. Ah had to keep mahself in check so that Ah didn't start hugging him instead of just holding on to him. What surprised me though was that Ah wanted to hug him. Ah really want to be close to him...
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Back At The School:
Kitty was the first to realise Rogue wasn't around when she failed to turn up to the German lesson which they both shared. That bit of gossip mixed with the news of Hank and Rogue's 'discussion' made everyone just assume she had sought out the seclusion of her bedroom. Kitty and Jubilee had been tempted to go up and try to talk to her but in the end concluded that maybe their friend just needed some cooling off time. So, they decided to give her until dinner time to come down of her own accord. When she didn't make an appearance, they took it upon themselves to go to her room and try to talk to her.
"Rogue?" Jubilee called into the door as she gently knocked. "Rogue? You okay?"
"You weren't in German and you didn't come down to dinner either and we're just wondering if you're feeling all right." Kitty explained. No reply. Jubilee tried to turn the door-knob but found it was locked. "C'mon Rogue! Please let us in." Still no reply from the other side and a worried expression began to form on Jubilee's face. "What's wrong? Why won't you talk to us?" Kitty once again called in.
"Maybe she can't talk to us..." Jubilee squeaked.
"What?" Kitty sighed distractedly as she tried the door-knob herself.
"What if something's happened? Or what if she's done something stupid?" Jubilee gasped, growing more frantic at the workings of her over active imagination.
"This is Rogue we're talking about Jubes! She wouldn't do anything to herself." Kitty insisted sensibly as she knelt down and tried to peer through the keyhole.
"But she's been acting differently lately, you can't deny that." Jubilee pointed out. "Over the last month or so, her concentration has just gone, she's always tired and sometimes it's like she's in her own little world!"
"So?!" Kitty asked, shaking her head a little in exasperation.
"So?! Kitty, you've heard the rumours! You know what the teachers think!" Jubilee reminded.
"Again, so?!" Kitty hissed, standing up again. "What makes you think they know? From what I can tell, today was the first time any of them had even tried to talk to her about the way she's acting and look how that ended up! Believe me, they know exactly what we do, nothing!"
"I'm still worried." Jubilee said stubbornly with a light frown, not appreciating the angry hissing from her friend. She gave a side-long glance at the door. "I'm going to get Logan to come and open the door for us." She stated as she turned to go. Kitty's eyes widened in slight alarm and she lurched forward to grab hold of Jubilee's wrist.
"Are you thick in the head?!" Kitty muttered, pulling Jubilee back. "Get Logan up here and it'll all spiral out of control. We can deal with this on our own. She is our friend after all."
"How can we deal with this if we can't get her to talk to us or get in to talk to her?" Jubilee challenged. Kitty simply dragged her towards the dor and they passed through it into Rogue's bedroom. Kitty threw a playful smirk Jubilee's way and she replied by playfully sticking out her tongue. However, the relaxed and playful atmosphere was shattered when they simultaneously realised the room was empty and the window was open. Both acted immediately, Kitty running to the bathroom, just in case, and Jubilee dashing over to the window. She climbed onto the dressing table and stuck her head out of it.
"She's not in her bathroom." Kitty revealed, sounding more then a little relieved, as she reached Jubilee's side and leaned over a little so she too could look down out of the window.
"D'you think she could've made that?" Jubilee inquired, refering to the long drop from the window to the ground.
"Not without breaking something." Kitty guessed. She drew her head back from the window and stood up right, contemplating the possibility.
"Well, she must've got out somehow and the window is open..." Jubilee mused as she also drew back into the room.
"Rogue?" The Professor's voice suddenly came from the other side of the door. Kitty and Jubilee froze and locked eyes with each other.
"Rogue, can we come in? We just want to have a talk with you." Jean's voice then came through and brought Kitty and Jubilee to action. They began to try and push in opposite directions and ended up in a frantic slap battle.
"Open up kid. We know you're awake, Kitty and Jubilee are in there with you." Logan's voice came. The two girls froze again, both mid-slap.
"Why are they all here?!" Jubilee hissed out a whisper so that Logan would have less chance of hearing her.
"What makes you think I know?!" Kitty hissed back. Another knock and a call of Rogue, this time from Ororo.
"What should we do?" Jubilee whined desperately. "We can't let them in! Not with Rogue not being here!" However, no sooner as Jubilee had said that then Kurt suddenly appeared a few feet away from them. The two girl's heads whiped to face their German teacher in an instant. He looked back at them before glancing around the bedroom and looking back to them again.
"Vhere is she?" He asked. Neither girl answered and instead averted their gazes to their feet. Kurt kept his eyes on them for a moment longer beore turning and moving towards the door to unlock it so the other teachers could enter.
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With Rouge:
Rogue let out a bored huff from her position on the roof top of a building which over-looked the harbour where Remy had arranged to meet Juli. She hadn't failed to note how cliche the location was and it would've amused her, had she not been so nervous. After all, it was dark, it was shadowy and she was going to be around a bunch of theives. Anyone would be nervous. As Rogue had promised to keep out of the way unless there was trouble, she had quickly teleported onto the roof she was still on. She was finding that she actually quite enjoyed teleporting now that it no longer gave her a headache and she could judge her reappearances properly. After she had got into a semi-comfortable position, Rogue had begun to watch and wait, which hadn't been so bad at first but now the time was dragging, various parts of her body were going numb and boredom was swiftly starting to set in. She no longer had any clue what time it was but she did know it had been an hour or so or at least that's what it felt like.
Rogue rolled onto her back and stared up at the black sky. It was a cloudy night so no stars were visible and the moon often disappeared behind a veil of mist. With nothing to preoccupy her mind, Rogue's thoughts began to process what had happened to her over the past day or so. So many changes in her life, the discovery of the other powers she still had, learning to use teleportation well in little less than half a day and, the most significant thing, she had met Remy. First head Remy and then, a few hours ago, real Remy. This led her mind to focus on the subject of the Cajun charmer. She still wasn't sure exactly how old he was. She imagined he was early to mid-twenties though he rarely acted like it. His sense of humour closely resembled that of the boys she knew at the school. The sense of humour which usually bugged her. It didn't bother her with Remy though. Maybe it was because he was in her head and so in a way she shared his specific sense of humour. Or maybe it was more to do with the fact that she liked him more than the boys at school. Because she did like. It was just how much she liked him she wasn't sure on yet. She supposed her feelings could be described as a crush but it didn't really feel like one. What she had felt for Logan when she met him, now that was a crush/hero worship. What she felt for Remy wasn't like that. For the amount of time she had known him, a crush would've made sense. It felt so much deeper than a crush though...
A sudden, involuntry shiver pulled Rogue out of her thoughts and she realised she was actually really cold. She rolled back onto her stomach and looked down over the edge of the roof to see Remy leaning up against a wall opposite her, shuffling one of his packs of cards. She sighed a little. She was bored, cold and lonely. Three things which Remy could rectify...Just as she considered going down to him, she saw three figures, and when lit up by the orange glow of street lights it was clear one of them was Juli, coming towards Remy from the left. She instinctively pressed herself against closer to the roof below her and watched intently as they reached her friend. She shuffled closer to the edge so she could get a better look at the four men below. She could see their lips moving as they spoke but was too far away to actually hear what they were saying and that fact quickly began to annoy her.
"This is stupid!" Rogue muttered mentally to head Remy. "Ah can't hear a damn thing!"
"Do you really need to hear dhough chere?" Head Remy reasonably asked.
"If Ah can't hear what's goin' on, how am Ah supposed to know when he needs mah help?" She pointed out. At that moment, one of the two other men, who was obviously just an anonymous lacky, grabbed hold of Remy.
"Remy t'ink dat's a pret'y good sign dhat it be time to help." Head Remy said as Rogue pushed herself up on her arms.
"Wha' should Ah do?" Rogue gasped, her confidence leaving her as panic and fear for her friend set in.
"Jus' let it flow." Head Remy simply advised before his presence drew back, Rogue figured so he could better concentrate on helping her. She gave a small sigh as she got to her feet and took a few steps backwards, knowing that she needed to act quickly so that nothing had a chance to happen. When she was satisfied she was far back enough, she took off in a sprint towards the edge of the roof. Upon reaching the edge, she dove forward and off of the building before quickly disappearing in the familiar wisps of blake smoke.
Rogue judged her re-entery perfectly and appeared inches from Juli who stood facing Remy. She was still out-stretched horizontaly from her dive and she used the remaining momentum of the jump to collide with Remy's rival, kocking him to the ground. Still using the left over momentum to her advantage, she flipped off of Juli as Remy used the distraction to wrestle out of the hold of Lacky One and kneed him roughly in the stomach. Rogue vanished half-way through her flip and came back just above Lacky One, who was still recovering from the blow he had recieved from Remy. She twisted her body around in mid-air and kicked him squarely in the head before disappearing once again. Remy threw Lacky Two over his shoulder just as Rogue popped back into the world again. However, Juli had recovered by this point and he immediately headed to Remy and managed to tackle him to the ground. When Rogue saw this, she intended to go over and help Remy but a sudden gun shot stalled her movement. She spun round swiftly to see the two anonymous lackies were both aiming guns at her.
"They have guns?!" Rogue's cried silently as she thought quickly and began to teleport in random directions so a decent aim couldn't be established on her.
"Dhey are assassins. O' course dhey're gon' have guns!" Head Remy exclaimed, reacting to her panic and annoyance.
"They're assassins?! Ah thought they were thieves!" She gasped.
"Remy never said dhey were t'ieves chere and you never asked." He pointed out.
Rogue frowned at the fact she wasn't told everything and considered the turn of direction the situation had taken. Now they weren't up against more thieves, they were up against assassins and that just made Rogue feel ten times worse about the whole thing. Plus, she was stuck having to deal with the two lackies who were still firing at her in the faint hope that they might get lucky and hit her. She wasn't able to help Remy and that was the whole point of her being there. She was supposed to be helping him!
Another unexpected gun shot startled her and diverted her concentration from her teleporting. She vanished before she meant to and when she reapeared it was a couple of feet above the ground. She fell with a surprised cry and grunted in pain when she landed on her back on the hard concrete. The number of gun shots increased and she heard the ping of bullets ricocheting off of the ground from mere feet away from her. She instinctively screamed and covered her head with her hands.
"Rogue!" Real Remy cried, her scream drawing his attention away from Juli. Juli used that moment of distraction to his advantage and managed to land a punch to Remy's jaw. Rogue saw this as she had scrambled to her feet, growling in fustration. Everything was going wrong! They were losing; She was dividing Remy's attention and was thusly hindering him rather than helping him. Maybe if she could take away the threat of the guns then she would at least be able to deal with the lackies more easily. She wasn't sure how she could do that though. She could try teleporting right in front of them and grab the guns away, but that would make it a Hell of a lot easier for them to shoot her. She suddenly started to regret the fact she had never absorbed Jean before. If she had, she could use her telekinesis to get the guns away...But there was someone who she had absorbed a huge dose of who would be very useful...
"Ah need Magneto's power." She suddenly ordered head Remy.
"No Marie! He too powerful an' you haven' had any practice wit' it!" Remy's voice protested.
"It's mah head it's mah choice!" Rogue yelled desperately.
"But Marie..." He began. Another group of shots came which were quickly followed by the sound of chipping concrete.
"Now is not the time for discussion you know! Just help me will ya?!" She yelled again. Head Remy frowned. He didn't like this but Rogue wanted it and so did the one who was really giving all the orders. So, reluctantly, he fished out the part of Magneto that still remained and began to bring him forward as slowly and gently as possible.
Rogue gasped as the pain in her head began to sting as suddenly as a slap in the face. It was definately the most intense pain so far but Rogue knew she couldn't complain. This was what she had decided, what she wanted. However, that didn't stop it from hurting and she gave a sob as she fell to her knees. Her hands came up to her and she screwed her hair into her fists as she bit back a scream for Remy's sake. The pain suddenly pulsed and she gave a choaked gasp of surprise and suffering. In front of her, the guns in the lackies hands left them and flew away into the near-by water. Another pulse came which intensified the pain. The two lackies followed the example of the guns and were thrown into the water, the extra bullets and knives in their pockets moving them as they were repelled by the magnetic field.
Rogue felt the presence of Magneto being drawn back into the recesses of her subconcious and the pain began to subside. After merely a minute or so, the pain was completely gone though she did feel a little dizzy. She shakily got to her feet and held her head lightly in her palm. Her breathing came out in heavy pants as she concentrated on staying up straight and scanned the surroundings in search of Remy. She quickly spotted him as Juli shoved him roughly against the wall of a building. Fear seized her and she reacted immediately, without thinking. She teleported within a foot of Juli and approached him as quickly as her wobbly legs would let her while she removed the glove from her right hand. Upon reaching Juli, she roughly grabbed his bare neck, squeezing it tightly just for her own satifaction.
Rogue gasped as memories began to flood her mind and continued to even once Juli had passed out and fallen out of her grip. Many of the memories she couldn't define as they either passed too quickly or were too confused. However, there was one memory which seemed so much clearer than the rest;
~Flash~
A man with long brown hair tied back into a ponytail was in a small office-like room, tied to the chair he was sitting on.
~Flash~
A retreating view of the man in the room through an open doorway. A grim green painted door swings shut and two men suddenly appear and stand guard by it.
~Flash~
A retreating view of a sequence of corridors; left, right, right, left, backward, left, backrward, right, backward.
~Flash~
A retreating view of a corridor from a open double doorway. Two large, green stained doors slammed shut and the view continued to retreat, revealing the corridors were part of a large, old mansion.
~Flash~
A dank, dark swamp with mines floating in the water.
~Flash~
An ordinary street in...
It all bacame too much for Rogue and with a gasp, the memories vanished and reality came crashing back with such force that a wave of faintness unbalanced her. Her knees buckled beneath her and she fell towards the ground, no longer having the strength to support her own weight. However, Remy managed to lunge forward and catch her before she actually hit the hard, unforgiving concrete. He quickly scooped her into his arms and together they made a quick retreat. Remy had known Juli for long enough and Rogue had enough knowledge of him in her head to know that he had come with extra back-up and neither of them were in any condition to fight anymore.