Rainfall.
There is rainfall
on her skin, rainfall quenching the fires, quenching the parched ground,
sizzling on the smoke that still coils about her, thin and ephemeral.
Xavier is lying
prone beneath her, and she can smell the stench of his blood, feel the moist
coolness of it against her cheek and her hands.
It is wetter than her tears. She
stopped crying a long time ago - she can't say when, minutes or hours - but she
hasn’t left his side. She still can't
let go of the twisted hope that somewhere, somehow, he's still alive. She's searched the astral plane, and he isn't
there. Still, she doesn’t give up
hope. She can't believe that her
teacher, her mentor - the only man whose words had ever touched the barren,
hollow core inside her - could be gone.
She sits up.
For the first time
she sees him, sees his bruised and battered face, staring up into her own as
though to impart some final words of comfort to her, words that would now find
no articulation. The red bloom on his
shirt is cool and sticky. It has left
its imprint on her hands, her cheek, her heart.
And yet still she stares down at him with the expression of a child who
knows and yet cannot believe that a parent will never come back. As if she could will him back to life just
through the power of her glance.
“C'mon, kid.”
A soldier is behind
her, poking her in the back with the butt of his rifle. He's getting impatient; she can feel it. She can feel the tendrils of his psyche
snaking out towards her, prickly, like needles puncturing her skin, making her
flesh goosepimple. She says nothing.
“C'mon, get up.” He
prods her in the back again. “You don’t know how lucky you are, mutie. Dr.
Campbell's decided he has uses for you.
Hey, are you listenin' to me? Get
up!”
She doesn’t
care. She doesn’t care what this doctor
wants with her, she doesn’t even care if the soldier shoots her right now, on
the spot. She lifts her face, sees a
grey expanse of sky and rainfall, charging down towards her from the heavens -
she wants to open her arms to it, she wants to welcome it into the very depths
of her being. She closes her eyes and
opens her mouth. She tastes the rain on
her tongue, wild, feral, the flavour of creation, of passion, of life. Something flares inside her, and for some
reason she is happy, indescribably happy and she has no reason to be but it's
so powerful she can feel it thrumming through her heart, her throat, her eyes…
“Did you hear me,
mutie? Get the fuck up!”
The soldier grabs
her by the upper arm, forces her to her feet.
She lets him. The feeling has
dissipated - she feels nothing now, she is empty. The soldier clamps something tight and metallic
round her neck - a power disrupter - then guides her away roughly, and she
makes no resistance. As she walks away
through the charred rubble of Xavier's mansion, she sees the bodies.
Warren, Bobby,
Illyana, Kurt, Alison…
She averts her
eyes, she stops looking.
She can't deal with
the possibility that there's no one left but her.
The doctor is
standing in what used to be the hallway, a little way from the general ruckus
of the soldiers who still secure the place.
He smiles when he sees her, smiles in a way she finds repugnant. He is dressed smartly in a suit, not a
lab-coat; but his hair is long and shaggy, his features are harsh and
prematurely lined, his chin is obscured by thick, black, bristling facial
hair. She stares at him.
Bluebeard…
“Allow me to
introduce myself,” he greets her; his voice is low, gruff and insidious. “My
name is Dr. Campbell, but you, my dear, may call me Ahab. I'm a geneticist, just like your old friend
Xavier. And you are Rachel Summers, am I
right? The daughter of the famous Scott
Summers and Jean Grey?” He chuckles to himself, reaches out and touches her
chin. His touch repulses her and she
shrugs him away disdainfully. But there
is no anger on his face. Again he merely
chuckles.
“A feisty one,
eh? Excellent. I have need of someone like you, Rachel. Ah, believe me, there are not a few people
who would sell their very souls to get their hands on you, but, thanks to a
little careful manoeuvring on the part of myself and Mr. Trask, from this day
forward you will effectively cease to exist.
Everyone will believe that you were killed in today's culling, just like
the rest of you X-people.”
She stares up at
him, defiant; nevertheless her heart is sinking, drowning…
Because she can't be the last, she can't be the only one left…
Ahab chuckles
again, turns, gestures for her to follow.
She does so, hearing footsteps following her, feeling the barrels of
guns trained upon her back. She looks
back, only once.
She sees the
human-sized bundles dotted across the hill.
I am the last, she
thinks. I am the last X-Man.
God help me.
* * * * *
Rogue resurfaced as
if from water, opening her eyes again to find herself half propped up against a
tree clutching her broken arm, gasping for breath. She wasn’t sure how long she'd been standing
there, but it couldn’t have been very long since she was still in the forest
surrounding the Hound pens, and she could still hear the compound's siren
wailing in the background. She was only
dimly aware of her own consciousness, fighting for dominance - Rachel was even
stronger than Remy had been, and her own memories, her own experiences were
still raging through Rogue's head like a storm over an ocean, while Rogue
bobbed, virtually unheeded, in the epicentre.
She knew why. Rachel wanted out. For the past six years she'd been nothing
more than Ahab's puppet, brainwashed and tortured into submission, made to live
a life of horrors a hundred times worse than that Rogue herself had experienced
- and she had been conscious of the monstrosities she had been complicit in the
entire time.
Rachel wanted what
Rogue wanted.
She wanted to be
free, she wanted to be whole and human once more. She wanted to break free of her cocoon, she
wanted to live, she wanted to be.
She was fighting
Rogue's mind for dominance.
And there was no
way in hell Rogue was ever going to allow that.
Nuh-uh, sugah, this is mah body and Ah'm
keepin' it.
The storms were
raging, railing against her, but Rogue closed her eyes, focused on the
epicentre, shielding herself against the onslaught, feeling it buckle against
her yet refusing to balk.
Stay still, honey, Ah don't wanna fight
you. Ah'm tired and Ah'm weak, but Ah
ain't gonna budge. This ain't your body,
it's mine. Your own's okay, Ah didn’t
hurt it. You'll wake up soon, and you'll
probably be able to break free of Ahab's brainwashin' now that Ah've broken
into your mind. But Ah need a little
favour in return, Rae. Ah need to siphon
off a little of your power, okay? Just a
little. Please?
It took a phenomenal
amount of willpower just to reason with the storm inside of her but it worked;
little by little it began to abate, to disintegrate, until there was nothing
left but a stark, lingering calm. Her psyche was back in the neatly ordered
chaos Raven had taught her to keep it in.
Permission had been granted.
Rachel's power was
hers.
Rogue opened her
eyes, feeling the strange new mutant ability flow into her veins. It felt different to anything she had ever
felt before, heady and exhilarating and terrifying. Whereas with Irene's powers Rogue had been
able to see Time, now Rogue could sense
it. And it was tangible as matter,
all-encompassing as space, it was seeping through every pore in her body,
flooding her organs, thrumming through her heart and her brain. It was everywhere, and she could touch
it. She could control it.
She glanced about
her, her breathing choppy. Pain was
searing through every limb she possessed, aching dully through her brain,
taking over the first flush of euphoria Rachel's power had afforded her. She was in the depths of the wood; whilst
under Rachel's psyche, she'd travelled as far as her wounded leg would
allow. Rachel's desperation to escape
had carried her this far. From here on
in it was down to her, and she had precious little time before Rachel's powers
ran out.
No time to
waste. She trudged back up the hill,
dragging her injured leg behind her. A
fifteen-centimetre length of metal piping was impaled in her thigh, but she
knew better than to remove it. Already
the wound was bleeding profusely, and if she gouged out the spear she wouldn’t
be around for much longer. But she'd
lost enough blood already. Her limbs
were cold and numb; her vision was blurred a sickly tint of yellow and she had
to consciously fight back the urge to vomit.
Several times on her path she stumbled, barely able to pick herself up
again. To lie down, to fall asleep, to
never wake up again… How tempting it would be…
But she
couldn’t. She wouldn’t. Every time she got up again it took her minutes
to do so, but she wasn’t going to give up.
She grit her teeth and soldiered on, up the hill, towards the bank where
all this had begun… Back to him. Back to
the only reason she had left.
And Rachel's powers
were already fading. She hadn't made contact
long enough. Time was starting to become
invisible again, it was starting to fade, it's indomitable flow was becoming as
faint as feathers brushing against her skin, against her face and her soul and
she was never going to reach him in time, she was never going to reach him in
time to take him away, take them both
away from everything…
The Hounds were
baying again. There were noises in the
woods, shouts and calls, this time from humans.
They were closing in on her, and she wasn’t fast enough. She tripped again, biting on snow. Another few inches forward and she would be
over onto the bank, and Remy would be lying there, waiting for her. And Time was cobwebs tickling her flesh,
making her hairs stand on end, flowing away…
“Please…”
She propped herself
up on her right arm, muscles pistoning, grinding, sweat on her forehead, her
vision darkening, footsteps nearby and she was on her feet, she was stumbling
forward, her eyes moist and stinging…
“Please…”
She could feel the
voices around her, the psyches of six guards infringing onto the periphery of
her fading telepathic vision, and she knew with a gut-wrenching certainty that
she couldn’t make it, she would never
make it…
She pressed on,
hauled herself up over onto the bank, seeing his inert form lying in the
snowdrift only three metres away, just out of reach.
…And Time was
dragging the guards towards her inexorably, and she could feel the moment
approaching, as certain as the tides, as certain as birth and life and death…
A gunshot broke the
stillness of the woods, echoing like a volcanic eruption, bringing fresh clumps
of snow raining down all around her from the tree canopies above. She heard the muffled cry of a man behind
her; then another gunshot, and another - she didn’t dare heed it. With all the willpower she possessed she
focused on reaching that one unmoving bundle in the snow, and she wasn’t going
to give in until she did. One metre… Two
metres… Nearly there… And it was going, it was fading, she could feel nothing…
Please, one more minute, one more minute so
Ah can take us away… Please, it's not fair, Ah can do it, Ah know Ah can, Ah just need one more minute…
More gunshots. And suddenly she was there again, back in
that mansion, feeling the explosion in her back and time stretching on into
infinity, with every moment bleeding into eternity, and for an instant that
lasted forever she saw, she understood… She understood that everything existed
already, and that all she had ever had to do was reach out and grasp it with
her own two hands…
And she was. She was stumbling, she was reaching out with
her unbroken hand, she was falling against him, pressing her cheek against his,
feeling his breath on her lips, feeling him live…
And Time was a
myriad of threads, vibrating, thrumming, pulsing, brushing past her, whipping
in an unknown wind, fluttering away…
“Please!”
She was struggling,
struggling to snatch those threads back, trying desperately to catch them and
rein them in, to will them towards
her…
“…No…No… Please no…”
And they were
slipping out of her hands, and she was losing it… another world, another time,
the place she'd always wanted, the Remy she'd always wanted, the Rogue she'd
always wanted to be…
And then it was
gone.
Rachel's power had
left her and so had any hope of leaving this cold, dead world behind.
She slumped, her
mouth opening in an inarticulate moan of fear and rage and despair.
“Nonononononono……”
Anguish. Anguish in the very core of her being as she
buried her face in his chest and wept.
Anguish as she felt the last vestiges of Rachel's powers slip from her
like a snake shedding its skin. No
more. No more running away. No more haven. No more sanctuary. No more life worth living.
The Rogue she could
have been sailed away on the tide, never to return.
*
She remained there
cradled against him for what felt like a very long time. Then she felt the others behind her, even
before they spoke. Their footsteps in
the snow, the stench of cordite and the click of Pyro's lighter. The world was slowly coming to again.
“I thought I might
find you here,” the same calm, frosty voice of Mystique spoke behind her.
She sat up slowly,
her limbs heavy and burning.
“Did Irene--?” she
began, but Raven interrupted her.
“Yes. She told me everything. On the way down.”
So. Irene had known her secret and had kept it
until the last possible moment…
“A second longer,”
Rogue whispered, “and Ah would've been able to skim us both away…”
“Quite.” Raven
spoke softly, distastefully. “The things we do for love…”
Rogue stared down
at him, the beautiful face, the cold, blue lips that had kissed her pain away
so many times.
I'm willin' t' take de risk, chere. Are you?
“Always…” she
whispered.
She half-turned,
looked back over her shoulder.
Mystique's stern expression, Forge's guarded one, Dom's frowning one,
St. John's sneering one. Some things
never changed, no matter how far you ran to hide from them all. That, at least, was one certainty.
“Ahab's men?” she
asked.
“We took care of
them,” Mystique replied grimly, raising her gun - a hefty-looking contraption
of Forge's, no doubt.
“And Rachel?”
Raven's mouth
twitched.
“Gone.”
Rogue looked back
down at Remy again. Gone as in taken
back into the compound by Ahab, or gone as in escaped into the wilderness? Did it matter?
“Ah absorbed her,”
she murmured. “Ah know how her powers work… Ah think maybe Ah weakened Ahab's
control on her, destabilised it if not broke it all together… Maybe she might
find her way to us in the end after all…”
Raven grunted. To her this was just another bodged job, and
despite everything, Rogue knew she was going to be in the doghouse again. She knew she deserved it. She'd risked exposure of the Brotherhood, risked
her own life and Remy's. She'd played a
dangerously selfish gambit and failed.
Ahab and Trask probably had their mark now. There'd be another inevitable bout of
running, of hide-and-seek. And Remy… he
would have Essex to contend with. She
didn’t want to think what Sinister would do to any of them for that
matter.
She didn’t know
where she found the strength left but she pushed herself onto her feet, and
only as she did so did it occur to her how much blood she must have lost. Her injured leg felt almost dead; to all
intents and purposes, her dislocated arm may as well not have been there at
all. And something wasn’t right with her
vision…
She staggered; the
next moment she felt Mystique's arm on her, propping her up against her own
strong, lithe body. When Rogue looked up
into her face it was like looking through clouded glass.
“Promise me
somethin',” she mumbled.
“What?” Raven
asked. Rogue drew in a beleaguered
breath, answered wearily: “Say we'll take Remy back with us.”
Raven's eyes
flashed.
“Rogue, you're
wounded, you're not thinking straight…”
“Ah've never thought
so clearly in all my life. You leave him
here, he'll die.”
“Once Sinister
realises what's gone down here, he'll be as good as dead anyway.”
“Then at least let
him stay until he's okay. Please. Otherwise you can leave me out here with him
too.”
There was a silence
- Mystique stared at her, her gaze burning - but Rogue didn’t feel it at all.
“You do know what
you're asking from me, don’t you?” she spoke, though the edge had gone out of
her voice.
“We can hide from
Essex, and besides, you're more than his match, momma. Please.”
She swayed again,
feeling her legs give way; Raven held her upright with an effort.
“Rogue, we need to
get you patched up…”
“Please…”
Ah ain't leavin' his side again…
Raven's eyes were
still burning.
“All right,” she said.
Rogue managed a
smile.
“Thanks, momma…”
And then she sank
into welcome unconsciousness.
* * * * *
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24 : Go to Chapter 26