Deep within her psyche, a teenage Rogue strolled through the streets of a dark and seedy metropolitan cityscape. Neon lights illuminated every street corner, but the skies high above were pitch black – no moon or stars to light the night. Not even the flashing red dots of airplanes or helicopters traversing the sky. It was like a set piece from a classic noir film. Her psyche was a twisted and inverted reflection of the real world, one created either by her dark personal experiences or her gloomy state of her mind.
It was there that the phantoms of all of the men and women she had ever touched over the years lived. They walked about the city with her, each wandering aimlessly in different directions and down opposing streets. They were like ghosts, transparent and colorless, but nonetheless distinct. As Rogue herself wandered the streets, the more villainous personas would occasionally call out to her – taunting her that they would return, that they would have her, that she should embrace them to know truth – but she paid them no mind.
The woman she was there to find was nowhere in sight, and yet, she could sense that she was indeed there, somewhere. She was always at the forefront of her psyche. The first person she had ever deliberately hurt with her powers; a true heroine that didn’t deserve the trauma that she unleashed on her; and the one victim that held more power over her than anyone else.
Rogue stopped at the end of a street as she felt a chill run up her spine. She turned around and saw a tall, muscular woman with long wavy blonde hair. Unlike the others, she appeared solid and fully colored, much like Rogue herself. The woman wore long black gloves and boots, and a black one piece with a striking gold lightning bolt across the chest, and a red sash around her waist.
It was the woman who she came for: Carol Danvers, also known as Ms. Marvel.
“Hello, Rogue,” Carol said. “I didn’t expect you to be back so soon.”
“Ah needed to come an’ thank you,” Rogue said. “Not just for savin’ our lives back on Genosha, but… but for keepin’ your word…” Carol stared at her with hands her hips. “You coulda stayed in control. You coulda reclaimed your life or made me pay for takin’ yours or…”
“Don’t forget who the real super-hero is here,” Carol said as she crossed her arms over her chest. “I have a feeling that you’re paying for your actions. There’s no need for me to take revenge… Well, maybe not yet, anyway…”
Rogue turned away and sighed, tears welling in her eyes.
“Look, if ah could change what ah did to you, ah would,” she said. “If ah could boot you outta my brain an’ right back into your body, ah would – powers and all – but ah just don’t know how.”
“Maybe you need to fix that then,” Carol snapped at her bitterly.
“Ah’m tryin’! Don’t you think ah –“ Rogue began as spun around to face Carol, but the woman was gone. She became flustered. “Hmph. Why do ah even try?”
Rogue stormed off down the streets of her psyche, eventually disappearing into the shadows. High above the streets, standing on the edge of a building, the Carol persona watched her as she left. She knew that Rogue could summon and manipulate her any time she wished, and every other phantom in her psyche for that matter, but that girl was her own worst enemy. Her turbulent emotions and past trauma were hurdles that she just couldn’t get over. She would never reach her true potential until she did, but maybe one day...
It was there that the phantoms of all of the men and women she had ever touched over the years lived. They walked about the city with her, each wandering aimlessly in different directions and down opposing streets. They were like ghosts, transparent and colorless, but nonetheless distinct. As Rogue herself wandered the streets, the more villainous personas would occasionally call out to her – taunting her that they would return, that they would have her, that she should embrace them to know truth – but she paid them no mind.
The woman she was there to find was nowhere in sight, and yet, she could sense that she was indeed there, somewhere. She was always at the forefront of her psyche. The first person she had ever deliberately hurt with her powers; a true heroine that didn’t deserve the trauma that she unleashed on her; and the one victim that held more power over her than anyone else.
Rogue stopped at the end of a street as she felt a chill run up her spine. She turned around and saw a tall, muscular woman with long wavy blonde hair. Unlike the others, she appeared solid and fully colored, much like Rogue herself. The woman wore long black gloves and boots, and a black one piece with a striking gold lightning bolt across the chest, and a red sash around her waist.
It was the woman who she came for: Carol Danvers, also known as Ms. Marvel.
“Hello, Rogue,” Carol said. “I didn’t expect you to be back so soon.”
“Ah needed to come an’ thank you,” Rogue said. “Not just for savin’ our lives back on Genosha, but… but for keepin’ your word…” Carol stared at her with hands her hips. “You coulda stayed in control. You coulda reclaimed your life or made me pay for takin’ yours or…”
“Don’t forget who the real super-hero is here,” Carol said as she crossed her arms over her chest. “I have a feeling that you’re paying for your actions. There’s no need for me to take revenge… Well, maybe not yet, anyway…”
Rogue turned away and sighed, tears welling in her eyes.
“Look, if ah could change what ah did to you, ah would,” she said. “If ah could boot you outta my brain an’ right back into your body, ah would – powers and all – but ah just don’t know how.”
“Maybe you need to fix that then,” Carol snapped at her bitterly.
“Ah’m tryin’! Don’t you think ah –“ Rogue began as spun around to face Carol, but the woman was gone. She became flustered. “Hmph. Why do ah even try?”
Rogue stormed off down the streets of her psyche, eventually disappearing into the shadows. High above the streets, standing on the edge of a building, the Carol persona watched her as she left. She knew that Rogue could summon and manipulate her any time she wished, and every other phantom in her psyche for that matter, but that girl was her own worst enemy. Her turbulent emotions and past trauma were hurdles that she just couldn’t get over. She would never reach her true potential until she did, but maybe one day...
“THE HOUSE THAT BUILT ME”
Part Three
Editor's Note: This issue takes place after X-Men Annual 2008 but before New X-Men #1.
Gunfire and screams filled the halls of the Caldecott County Sheriff’s Department.
“Freeze! I said freeze!”
“Cover me!”
“Aww shit!”
“Stop her! Don’t let her near the – uuff!”
Sheriff Avery Fleming fled the battle between his men and the sole woman raiding his offices that night. He ran downstairs into the old building’s basement holding cells, slamming and locking the door behind him. He then turned and ran further down the basement corridor, clutching his bleeding and bandaged forearm. Before he could get far, an explosion of black smoke and brimstone blinded him.
“Howdy there, Sheriff Fleming,” a woman said as she suddenly emerged from the cloud before him.
“Christ!” Fleming cried out as he skidded to a stop.
Before he could react, Rogue snatched him by the collar, turned him around, and slammed him against a cell in one swift motion. He dropped the keys in his hands in the process.
“Remember me?” she said with a sneer as she manhandled the sheriff. “Southern belle you were gonna let burn t’ death in her childhood home t’ protect your biker buddies?”
Fleming shook in her grasp and tried to raise a finger. “Now hold it right there, lady. You gotta believe me when I say I didn’t know what they did t’ you --“
“Y’mean that they shot me in the head an’ splattered mah brains all over the floor?!” Rogue cut him off, pressing her arm into his neck and choking him again the cells. “That they kidnapped some poor defenseless girl an’ are doin’ God knows what t’ her?! S’far as ah can tell, sheriff, if you’re in their pocket then you can’t be any better than ‘em.”
“You’re assaultin’ peace officers!” Fleming gagged. He struggled against her deceptively strong hold. “And… and… I-I’m an elected official! Do you know what kinda trouble you’re in?!”
Rogue scoffed. “Please, sugah. This ain’t the first time ah’ve slapped around a crooked lawman an’ ah reckon it ain’t gonna be the last.” She relieved her elbow from his neck and dragged him down the corridor of cells to the very last one. Once there, she tossed him on the floor of the cell with a resounding thud! and walked in behind him.
“This looks cozy,” she mused factiously, glancing around. She looked back to the sheriff and cracked her knuckles. “Now, why don’tcha be a good li’l rat an’ tell me what ah need to know to save some lives?”
Fleming groaned as he slowly started to rise.
“Fine… fine… just don’t hurt me…”
“No promises.”
“What do ya want to know?” Fleming asked as he rubbed his sore back.
“How ‘bout who those goons were outside mah house, t’start with?” Rogue asked. “And why’d they try t’ kill me and what do they want with the girl?”
“They’re a ‘motorcycle club,’ call themselves the Grim Hangmen. Do a little ‘community work’ around these parts. Roy Handler’s their chapter president,” Fleming explained in a exasperated tone. He sat on the bench on the back wall of the cell and hung his head. “The girl… is Handler’s niece… Ran away from them not too long ago. She’s like you. She’s got… abilities... Powers. Nothin’ like what you can do, but she does stuff for them.”
Rogue crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes.
“Like what?”
“Helps them grow plants,” Fleming answered simply. “Pot, mostly, but they figured out she can help ‘em grow the hard stuff, too.”
“Drugs?” Rogue reasoned. “Like coca to make cocaine or somethin’?”
Fleming nodded reluctantly. “Yeah. Top quality stuff, too, or so I hear. They stumbled upon a real gold mine with her, and lemme tell ya, they ain’t givin’ her up without a fight.”
“Well, that makes two of us then. Where’s she at now?”
“Probably at the junk yard on the outskirts of town,” Fleming said with an exhausted shrug. “The chapter owns it. They do most of their work there, legitimate an’ otherwise.”
“Gotta say, you’ve been one helpful guy tonight, sheriff. More helpful than ah expected you’d be,” Rogue said as she uncrossed her arms and slowly approached him. She put a foot on the bench between his legs and leaned in closer to him. “But then again, a weasel like you seems like you’re real helpful so long as it suits your interests, am ah right?”
“Please, lady… I’m not a bad man, honest…” Fleming struggled to rationalize himself for her. “My wife’s got cancer… we couldn’t afford the treatments…”
A look of disgust washed over Rogue’s face. “Then ya should’ve voted Democrat instead of dabblin’ in biker gangs, drugs, an’ child slavery, ya dirt bag.” Fleming dropped his head in his hands and sulked. She was right. If his wife ever learned the truth it would destroy her more than even the cancer could.
Rogue lifted her foot off of the bench and turned around to walk out of the cell. She looked up at the security camera in the corner of the corridor outside.
“Hey, sheriff,” she said and looked back to him. He looked up and she gestured to the camera. “Smile. Ah’d say we just got your confession on candid camera.”
Fleming froze as his eyes went wide in realization. It was as if ice water filled his veins. He suddenly bent down to his feet and pulled a pant leg up, revealing a gun holstered to his ankle. Rogue suddenly disappeared in a flash of black smoke and brimstone and reappeared in front of Fleming right as he pulled the gun to the bottom of his head.
“Ah don’t think so, pumpkin!” She shouted as she snatched the gun out of his and whipped him across the face with it. “You ain’t gettin’ off that easy.”
Rogue disappeared in another puff and reappeared on the other side of the cell door. She slammed it shut, locking Fleming inside, and tossed the gun aside. “Now, you sit there an’ think about what you’ve done. Got a feeling you’re gonna have plenty of time t’ figure it all out…”
Fleming laid on his side, stunned by the blow. Before he could pull himself up and protest what she had done to him, she was gone just as quickly as she had appeared. He held the large welt already developed on hi s face. Without his keys and gun, with his men surely dispatched, and with an admission of guilt recorded on surveillance cameras, he took a deep breath and considered his options… and the thought of unbuckling his belt and using it as a noose crossed his mind…
******************************************
With one more puff of smoke and brimstone, Marie appeared in an alleyway several blocks away from the sheriff’s department, having successfully fled her raid on the station. It was about as far as she could get away utilizing her surrogate brother’s powers.
She put her hands on her hips and took a deep breath, thinking about her next move. She knew where Roy’s boys were meeting with Callie, but she wasn’t quite sure how to get there without exhausting herself or drawing too much attention. The sheriff’s department likely put out the call that a mutant was rampaging, so lawmen were likely keeping an eye out for anything too conspicuous.
It was then she overheard a man and a woman talking outside of the nearby bar. She peered out of the alleyway onto the street, seeing a lanky young man with dirty blonde hair and wispy facial hair. He was talking to a barfly, a frizzy haired woman with a pooch belly in booty shorts and a tank top. Marie noted pretty quickly the man was wearing a black vest that had the words “Grim Hangmen” and “prospect” patched on it.
“Oooh, it’s so big,” the barfly said as she stroked the crossbow in his hand. “Does it got a lotta kick?”
“You know it, darlin’,” the prospect answered with hick swagger. “You gotta have some serious skill to handle this kinda weapon. Want me to show you how t’ use it sometime?”
The barfly giggled and slapped him on the chest softly. “You tryin’ to ask me out, you big bad prospect?”
The prospect chuckled and bit his lip, and they continued chatting. Not far on the other side of them, a dirt bike caked in oil and mud was parked on the street.
Marie leaned back into the alley and closed her eyes, accessing another skill set from her catalogue.
A life time ago, Remy LeBeau would knock on Rogue’s window in the middle of the night and convince her to follow him into the woods of the Xavier Estate on nothing but a promise that she wouldn’t regret it. The two hadn’t known each other for long but were quickly finding that they kindred spirits of sorts. They were young, brash, trying to escape their pasts, and finding their turns as heroes to not be the most comfortable of fits. Only time would reveal what an intense love theirs would become, but in those early days, Rogue was still quite skeptical of the charming Cajun’s advances.
“This your idea of some kinda romantic midnight romp, Remy?” Rogue asked as she ducked under and brushed away branches. “Sneakin’ off and trudgin’ through the woods in the pitch dark? Gotta tell ya, seems a li’l more serial killerish than Lance Romance.”
“Ahh, keep an open mind, petite,” Gambit said playfully. “I know this won’t be the first time I’ve surprised you… or the last…”
Rogue rolled her eyes as she followed her teammate through the woods into an open clearing. He approached what looked like a random collection of bushes in the middle of the clearing and began peeling away branches and balls of shrubbery. To his teammate’s surprise, there was something underneath all of it.
“Voila!” Gambit said with a gesture and a bow as he tossed away the final branch.
“What ‘n the heck is this?” Rogue grumbled as she approached an old motorcycle standing unveiled before her. “Oh mah lawd… Is that Wolvie’s bike?!”
Gambit nodded mischievously. “Sure is. Figured we might take it for a little joyride on this fine evenin’,” he said, smirking. “You in?”
“Don’t you think he’ll notice if ya hotwired it?”
“Nah. Clumsy ol’ me bumped into your boy Logan in the hall this mornin’…” Gambit said with a coy smile, lifting a set of keys hanging from his index finger. “And clumsy ol’ Logan lost the keys t’ his bike in the process.”
Rogue’s eyes widened in disbelief, but then softened into a mischievous grin.
“Oh, you dastardly swamp rat. You know that’s a real good way t’ lose a hand, right?”
“Lives like ours wouldn’t be worth livin’ without some danger in them, no?” Gambit mused as he climbed on top of the motorcycle and inserted the key. Rogue reluctantly stepped up behind him and straddled the motorcycle, then wrapped her arms around his waist. Gambit started up the iron hog, confident that its powerful roar wouldn’t be heard by their sleeping teammates.
“Now you hang on tight, petite,” Gambit said as he kicked up the kickstand and revved the motorcycle. Rogue smiled softly to herself as she tightened her grip around his torso and leaned in close to him. It wasn’t often that she felt so safe with or so close to another person, but that night was such an amazing exception. Something about Remy LeBeau left her feeling disarmed but never judged.
Before she knew it, they were speeding out of the clearing into the forest and heading for the back roads of Westchester County, and for the first time since she left home she felt utterly free from the shackles of her past.
A mischievous smile flashed across Marie’s face when she opened her eyes. She shook out her hair, relaxed her eyelids, and loosened her shoulders before walking out of the alley onto the main street, swaying side to side like a drunkard. She had seen enough in her day to mimic the routine pat.
The prospect was the perfect mark. He was cocky, distracted, and more than a little buzzed. Plus he looked like a prospective member of Roy Handler’s biker club, or possibly another chapter, so he would likely be too embarrassed to report what was about to happen to him to the police.
“So ya wanna go squirrel huntin’?” the prospect said with a cheesy grin.
“Now?” the barfly chuckled. “But it’s so late!”
The prospect leaned in close to her. “Best time, sweet thang. They’re nocturnal, y’know… a lot like me...” He made a snickering noise and twitched his nose more like a rat than a squirrel. The barfly screamed playfully and recoiled as he pretended to scratch at it.
It was then Marie bumped into him and then staggered away quickly, grumbling and mumbling some kind of apology along the way. The prospect and barfly glared at her briefly.
“Stupid drunk bitch,” the prospect said under his breath, visibly annoyed. He straightened out his vest and looked back to the barfly. “Anyway… Now, how ‘bout that ride? Squirrels are waitin’.”
The barfly seemed distracted. Her eyes stared over the shoulder of the prospect.
“Uhm…” she stammered. “Ah think that ‘stupid drunk bitch’ is takin’ your ride.”
“What?!” the prospect shouted and spun around, spooking the barfly.
A dozen or so feet away, Marie had straddled his dirt bike and slung his bolt quiver over her back. She put his key in the bike’s ignition and started it up. The prospect ran after her, but shed sped off before he could even get close to her.
“Hey! Hey, you stupid bitch! Get back here!!” he yelled, but she was gone. The barfly began chuckling hysterically as the prospect flailed his arms and continuing cursing. “Fuckin’ shit, man!”
******************************************
In a matter of a few short minutes, Marie flew out of Caldecott’s city limits on the prospect’s stolen dirt bike and cut into the surrounding orchards, skipping the county’s back roads. She didn’t have much of a plan other than to get to the junkyard meet with Roy Handler and his boys before they hurt Callie or took her somewhere else, or worse. As she bumped up and down over the orchard’s uneven terrain and the trees flew by, Marie couldn’t help but worry about how bad this confrontation could truly go. Over her time with the X-Men, she tended to rely more on impulse and raw emotion to guide her decisions, but that gradually changed as the years went by…
It took some time for Rogue to settle in with the X-Men after the formation of the Gold and Blue teams, and it took even longer for the teams to get comfortable with their new configuration. Scott Summers, the Blue team’s leader known as Cyclops, had quite a different approach to leadership than Ororo Munroe, the Gold team’s leader known as Storm. He was very structured and disciplined, and though he was friendly enough, seemed fairly introverted at times. Storm, on the other hand, often followed her instincts and expressed her emotions freely. She also tended to be more warm and maternal off the field, allowing others to bond with her easier.
Rogue definitely felt closer to Storm due to her personality and their time together, but she was on the Blue team and that meant spending more time with Cyclops. She felt like it was worth getting to know him and one day, when she had little else to do, found herself traveling down into the depths of the mansion looking for him.
As she sauntered into the Danger Room in full uniform, Rogue saw that her teammate, who was also in uniform, was sitting at a small round table with an empty chair across from. There was a black and white chess board on the table, with wooden pieces moved about as if they were in midgame.
“Hey Slim,” Rogue said as she approached him.
“Hi Rogue,” Cyclops replied quietly without turning away from the game in front of him. “Something I can help you with?”
Rogue looked around and developed an uncertain expression on her face. The Danger Room was empty, but the electronics hummed actively.
“Ah uh… heard you were down here trainin’. Thought ah could get in on some action.”
Cyclops perked up and turned halfway toward Rogue to face her. “Definitely,” he said with sudden attention. He showed her a chess piece, a white knight. “Do you play?”
“Uh… Nope…” Rogue answered half-heartedly. “Never have, really.”
Cyclops nodded.
“Let’s change that then,” he said as he set down the piece. “Computer, reset program.”
The Danger Room hummed to life for a brief moment. The chess board and pieces on the table vanished in a fizzle of light, and then reappeared in the starting position a brief second later. Rogue walked around the table and sat down across from Cyclops.
“Gotta admit… This ain’t exactly what ah had in mind for training.”
Cyclops smiled coyly. “You know, training isn’t always about dodging robotic death traps and beating up hard light holograms. Even the CIA trains their operatives with games.”
“How does that work?” Rogue asked with a raised brow.
“Believe it or not, it’s relatively easy to teach somebody how to throw a punch and take a hit,” Cyclops squared up with the table. “With enough training, reflexes alone will teach you how to survive a fight and maybe even win a few against less experienced opponents, but what about how to think?”
Rogue glanced over the pieces on the board as Cyclops spoke. She recognized the pieces and the concept, but could only imagine it as a more complicated version of checkers.
“Most people follow their instincts or their training when they get into a conflict, and don’t consider much else afterwards,” Cyclops continued to explain. “That’s the beauty of a game like chess. Not only does it teach you how to think about your next move, but it teaches you how to plan for the next ten moves after that.”
Rogue snickered. “You’re really earnin’ those four-eye jokes right about now, Slim.”
Cyclops pointed at Rogue with a half-smile and a furrowed brow.
“Poke fun all you like, but believe it or not this is the type of training that will help you save lives some day,” Cyclops shot back. Rogue scratched the back of her head and tried not to roll her eyes. Maybe the dork had a point. “So, are you in?”
“The professor had t’ have made you field leader for some reason,” Rogue said with a shrug. “So sure, show me how it’s done, Slim.”
Cyclops smiled more fully at this.
“Great. Let’s start off by reviewing your soldiers and what they can do…”
Skidding to a stop at the edge of the orchard, Marie found herself at a cliff’s edge overlooking a clearing where Caldecott County’s junkyard rested. She could see lights on the other side of the junk yard as well as hear the sound of motorcycles and trucks pulling in. She knew they had to be down there.
Marie took a deep breath as she considered her next move. She could easily tank through Handler’s gang with the super strength and metallic skin of somebody like Colossus, or let loose with a flurry of lightning and tornados in the vein of Storm, but she knew that could put Callie at risk of crossfire or of being taken hostage. Even a handful of X-Men would easily be able to simultaneously draw the gang’s fire, take them down, and protect Callie, and that’s what she needed to do, but she was just one person… Then again, maybe she didn’t have to act as just one person would.
That was the solution, she thought. With a plan quickly developing in her mind, Marie pulled off the goggles hanging from the dirt bike’s handlebars and pulled them on over her eyes. She revved up the bike and roared down the hillside towards the junkyard.
******************************************
TO BE CONCLUDED…
******************************************
AUTHOR'S NOTES
Hey all,
Originally, I wanted this issue to be the big finale to this story, but by time I completed it this bad boy clocked in at around 21 pages. To put that into context, the last two issues were 13 pages and 11 pages respectively. It just made more sense to split this issue into two for pacing purposes. So, expect the action packed finale next month in X-Men Unlimited #56!
Catch ya then!
- Cory Wiegel
July 18th, 2017
“Freeze! I said freeze!”
“Cover me!”
“Aww shit!”
“Stop her! Don’t let her near the – uuff!”
Sheriff Avery Fleming fled the battle between his men and the sole woman raiding his offices that night. He ran downstairs into the old building’s basement holding cells, slamming and locking the door behind him. He then turned and ran further down the basement corridor, clutching his bleeding and bandaged forearm. Before he could get far, an explosion of black smoke and brimstone blinded him.
“Howdy there, Sheriff Fleming,” a woman said as she suddenly emerged from the cloud before him.
“Christ!” Fleming cried out as he skidded to a stop.
Before he could react, Rogue snatched him by the collar, turned him around, and slammed him against a cell in one swift motion. He dropped the keys in his hands in the process.
“Remember me?” she said with a sneer as she manhandled the sheriff. “Southern belle you were gonna let burn t’ death in her childhood home t’ protect your biker buddies?”
Fleming shook in her grasp and tried to raise a finger. “Now hold it right there, lady. You gotta believe me when I say I didn’t know what they did t’ you --“
“Y’mean that they shot me in the head an’ splattered mah brains all over the floor?!” Rogue cut him off, pressing her arm into his neck and choking him again the cells. “That they kidnapped some poor defenseless girl an’ are doin’ God knows what t’ her?! S’far as ah can tell, sheriff, if you’re in their pocket then you can’t be any better than ‘em.”
“You’re assaultin’ peace officers!” Fleming gagged. He struggled against her deceptively strong hold. “And… and… I-I’m an elected official! Do you know what kinda trouble you’re in?!”
Rogue scoffed. “Please, sugah. This ain’t the first time ah’ve slapped around a crooked lawman an’ ah reckon it ain’t gonna be the last.” She relieved her elbow from his neck and dragged him down the corridor of cells to the very last one. Once there, she tossed him on the floor of the cell with a resounding thud! and walked in behind him.
“This looks cozy,” she mused factiously, glancing around. She looked back to the sheriff and cracked her knuckles. “Now, why don’tcha be a good li’l rat an’ tell me what ah need to know to save some lives?”
Fleming groaned as he slowly started to rise.
“Fine… fine… just don’t hurt me…”
“No promises.”
“What do ya want to know?” Fleming asked as he rubbed his sore back.
“How ‘bout who those goons were outside mah house, t’start with?” Rogue asked. “And why’d they try t’ kill me and what do they want with the girl?”
“They’re a ‘motorcycle club,’ call themselves the Grim Hangmen. Do a little ‘community work’ around these parts. Roy Handler’s their chapter president,” Fleming explained in a exasperated tone. He sat on the bench on the back wall of the cell and hung his head. “The girl… is Handler’s niece… Ran away from them not too long ago. She’s like you. She’s got… abilities... Powers. Nothin’ like what you can do, but she does stuff for them.”
Rogue crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes.
“Like what?”
“Helps them grow plants,” Fleming answered simply. “Pot, mostly, but they figured out she can help ‘em grow the hard stuff, too.”
“Drugs?” Rogue reasoned. “Like coca to make cocaine or somethin’?”
Fleming nodded reluctantly. “Yeah. Top quality stuff, too, or so I hear. They stumbled upon a real gold mine with her, and lemme tell ya, they ain’t givin’ her up without a fight.”
“Well, that makes two of us then. Where’s she at now?”
“Probably at the junk yard on the outskirts of town,” Fleming said with an exhausted shrug. “The chapter owns it. They do most of their work there, legitimate an’ otherwise.”
“Gotta say, you’ve been one helpful guy tonight, sheriff. More helpful than ah expected you’d be,” Rogue said as she uncrossed her arms and slowly approached him. She put a foot on the bench between his legs and leaned in closer to him. “But then again, a weasel like you seems like you’re real helpful so long as it suits your interests, am ah right?”
“Please, lady… I’m not a bad man, honest…” Fleming struggled to rationalize himself for her. “My wife’s got cancer… we couldn’t afford the treatments…”
A look of disgust washed over Rogue’s face. “Then ya should’ve voted Democrat instead of dabblin’ in biker gangs, drugs, an’ child slavery, ya dirt bag.” Fleming dropped his head in his hands and sulked. She was right. If his wife ever learned the truth it would destroy her more than even the cancer could.
Rogue lifted her foot off of the bench and turned around to walk out of the cell. She looked up at the security camera in the corner of the corridor outside.
“Hey, sheriff,” she said and looked back to him. He looked up and she gestured to the camera. “Smile. Ah’d say we just got your confession on candid camera.”
Fleming froze as his eyes went wide in realization. It was as if ice water filled his veins. He suddenly bent down to his feet and pulled a pant leg up, revealing a gun holstered to his ankle. Rogue suddenly disappeared in a flash of black smoke and brimstone and reappeared in front of Fleming right as he pulled the gun to the bottom of his head.
“Ah don’t think so, pumpkin!” She shouted as she snatched the gun out of his and whipped him across the face with it. “You ain’t gettin’ off that easy.”
Rogue disappeared in another puff and reappeared on the other side of the cell door. She slammed it shut, locking Fleming inside, and tossed the gun aside. “Now, you sit there an’ think about what you’ve done. Got a feeling you’re gonna have plenty of time t’ figure it all out…”
Fleming laid on his side, stunned by the blow. Before he could pull himself up and protest what she had done to him, she was gone just as quickly as she had appeared. He held the large welt already developed on hi s face. Without his keys and gun, with his men surely dispatched, and with an admission of guilt recorded on surveillance cameras, he took a deep breath and considered his options… and the thought of unbuckling his belt and using it as a noose crossed his mind…
******************************************
With one more puff of smoke and brimstone, Marie appeared in an alleyway several blocks away from the sheriff’s department, having successfully fled her raid on the station. It was about as far as she could get away utilizing her surrogate brother’s powers.
She put her hands on her hips and took a deep breath, thinking about her next move. She knew where Roy’s boys were meeting with Callie, but she wasn’t quite sure how to get there without exhausting herself or drawing too much attention. The sheriff’s department likely put out the call that a mutant was rampaging, so lawmen were likely keeping an eye out for anything too conspicuous.
It was then she overheard a man and a woman talking outside of the nearby bar. She peered out of the alleyway onto the street, seeing a lanky young man with dirty blonde hair and wispy facial hair. He was talking to a barfly, a frizzy haired woman with a pooch belly in booty shorts and a tank top. Marie noted pretty quickly the man was wearing a black vest that had the words “Grim Hangmen” and “prospect” patched on it.
“Oooh, it’s so big,” the barfly said as she stroked the crossbow in his hand. “Does it got a lotta kick?”
“You know it, darlin’,” the prospect answered with hick swagger. “You gotta have some serious skill to handle this kinda weapon. Want me to show you how t’ use it sometime?”
The barfly giggled and slapped him on the chest softly. “You tryin’ to ask me out, you big bad prospect?”
The prospect chuckled and bit his lip, and they continued chatting. Not far on the other side of them, a dirt bike caked in oil and mud was parked on the street.
Marie leaned back into the alley and closed her eyes, accessing another skill set from her catalogue.
A life time ago, Remy LeBeau would knock on Rogue’s window in the middle of the night and convince her to follow him into the woods of the Xavier Estate on nothing but a promise that she wouldn’t regret it. The two hadn’t known each other for long but were quickly finding that they kindred spirits of sorts. They were young, brash, trying to escape their pasts, and finding their turns as heroes to not be the most comfortable of fits. Only time would reveal what an intense love theirs would become, but in those early days, Rogue was still quite skeptical of the charming Cajun’s advances.
“This your idea of some kinda romantic midnight romp, Remy?” Rogue asked as she ducked under and brushed away branches. “Sneakin’ off and trudgin’ through the woods in the pitch dark? Gotta tell ya, seems a li’l more serial killerish than Lance Romance.”
“Ahh, keep an open mind, petite,” Gambit said playfully. “I know this won’t be the first time I’ve surprised you… or the last…”
Rogue rolled her eyes as she followed her teammate through the woods into an open clearing. He approached what looked like a random collection of bushes in the middle of the clearing and began peeling away branches and balls of shrubbery. To his teammate’s surprise, there was something underneath all of it.
“Voila!” Gambit said with a gesture and a bow as he tossed away the final branch.
“What ‘n the heck is this?” Rogue grumbled as she approached an old motorcycle standing unveiled before her. “Oh mah lawd… Is that Wolvie’s bike?!”
Gambit nodded mischievously. “Sure is. Figured we might take it for a little joyride on this fine evenin’,” he said, smirking. “You in?”
“Don’t you think he’ll notice if ya hotwired it?”
“Nah. Clumsy ol’ me bumped into your boy Logan in the hall this mornin’…” Gambit said with a coy smile, lifting a set of keys hanging from his index finger. “And clumsy ol’ Logan lost the keys t’ his bike in the process.”
Rogue’s eyes widened in disbelief, but then softened into a mischievous grin.
“Oh, you dastardly swamp rat. You know that’s a real good way t’ lose a hand, right?”
“Lives like ours wouldn’t be worth livin’ without some danger in them, no?” Gambit mused as he climbed on top of the motorcycle and inserted the key. Rogue reluctantly stepped up behind him and straddled the motorcycle, then wrapped her arms around his waist. Gambit started up the iron hog, confident that its powerful roar wouldn’t be heard by their sleeping teammates.
“Now you hang on tight, petite,” Gambit said as he kicked up the kickstand and revved the motorcycle. Rogue smiled softly to herself as she tightened her grip around his torso and leaned in close to him. It wasn’t often that she felt so safe with or so close to another person, but that night was such an amazing exception. Something about Remy LeBeau left her feeling disarmed but never judged.
Before she knew it, they were speeding out of the clearing into the forest and heading for the back roads of Westchester County, and for the first time since she left home she felt utterly free from the shackles of her past.
A mischievous smile flashed across Marie’s face when she opened her eyes. She shook out her hair, relaxed her eyelids, and loosened her shoulders before walking out of the alley onto the main street, swaying side to side like a drunkard. She had seen enough in her day to mimic the routine pat.
The prospect was the perfect mark. He was cocky, distracted, and more than a little buzzed. Plus he looked like a prospective member of Roy Handler’s biker club, or possibly another chapter, so he would likely be too embarrassed to report what was about to happen to him to the police.
“So ya wanna go squirrel huntin’?” the prospect said with a cheesy grin.
“Now?” the barfly chuckled. “But it’s so late!”
The prospect leaned in close to her. “Best time, sweet thang. They’re nocturnal, y’know… a lot like me...” He made a snickering noise and twitched his nose more like a rat than a squirrel. The barfly screamed playfully and recoiled as he pretended to scratch at it.
It was then Marie bumped into him and then staggered away quickly, grumbling and mumbling some kind of apology along the way. The prospect and barfly glared at her briefly.
“Stupid drunk bitch,” the prospect said under his breath, visibly annoyed. He straightened out his vest and looked back to the barfly. “Anyway… Now, how ‘bout that ride? Squirrels are waitin’.”
The barfly seemed distracted. Her eyes stared over the shoulder of the prospect.
“Uhm…” she stammered. “Ah think that ‘stupid drunk bitch’ is takin’ your ride.”
“What?!” the prospect shouted and spun around, spooking the barfly.
A dozen or so feet away, Marie had straddled his dirt bike and slung his bolt quiver over her back. She put his key in the bike’s ignition and started it up. The prospect ran after her, but shed sped off before he could even get close to her.
“Hey! Hey, you stupid bitch! Get back here!!” he yelled, but she was gone. The barfly began chuckling hysterically as the prospect flailed his arms and continuing cursing. “Fuckin’ shit, man!”
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In a matter of a few short minutes, Marie flew out of Caldecott’s city limits on the prospect’s stolen dirt bike and cut into the surrounding orchards, skipping the county’s back roads. She didn’t have much of a plan other than to get to the junkyard meet with Roy Handler and his boys before they hurt Callie or took her somewhere else, or worse. As she bumped up and down over the orchard’s uneven terrain and the trees flew by, Marie couldn’t help but worry about how bad this confrontation could truly go. Over her time with the X-Men, she tended to rely more on impulse and raw emotion to guide her decisions, but that gradually changed as the years went by…
It took some time for Rogue to settle in with the X-Men after the formation of the Gold and Blue teams, and it took even longer for the teams to get comfortable with their new configuration. Scott Summers, the Blue team’s leader known as Cyclops, had quite a different approach to leadership than Ororo Munroe, the Gold team’s leader known as Storm. He was very structured and disciplined, and though he was friendly enough, seemed fairly introverted at times. Storm, on the other hand, often followed her instincts and expressed her emotions freely. She also tended to be more warm and maternal off the field, allowing others to bond with her easier.
Rogue definitely felt closer to Storm due to her personality and their time together, but she was on the Blue team and that meant spending more time with Cyclops. She felt like it was worth getting to know him and one day, when she had little else to do, found herself traveling down into the depths of the mansion looking for him.
As she sauntered into the Danger Room in full uniform, Rogue saw that her teammate, who was also in uniform, was sitting at a small round table with an empty chair across from. There was a black and white chess board on the table, with wooden pieces moved about as if they were in midgame.
“Hey Slim,” Rogue said as she approached him.
“Hi Rogue,” Cyclops replied quietly without turning away from the game in front of him. “Something I can help you with?”
Rogue looked around and developed an uncertain expression on her face. The Danger Room was empty, but the electronics hummed actively.
“Ah uh… heard you were down here trainin’. Thought ah could get in on some action.”
Cyclops perked up and turned halfway toward Rogue to face her. “Definitely,” he said with sudden attention. He showed her a chess piece, a white knight. “Do you play?”
“Uh… Nope…” Rogue answered half-heartedly. “Never have, really.”
Cyclops nodded.
“Let’s change that then,” he said as he set down the piece. “Computer, reset program.”
The Danger Room hummed to life for a brief moment. The chess board and pieces on the table vanished in a fizzle of light, and then reappeared in the starting position a brief second later. Rogue walked around the table and sat down across from Cyclops.
“Gotta admit… This ain’t exactly what ah had in mind for training.”
Cyclops smiled coyly. “You know, training isn’t always about dodging robotic death traps and beating up hard light holograms. Even the CIA trains their operatives with games.”
“How does that work?” Rogue asked with a raised brow.
“Believe it or not, it’s relatively easy to teach somebody how to throw a punch and take a hit,” Cyclops squared up with the table. “With enough training, reflexes alone will teach you how to survive a fight and maybe even win a few against less experienced opponents, but what about how to think?”
Rogue glanced over the pieces on the board as Cyclops spoke. She recognized the pieces and the concept, but could only imagine it as a more complicated version of checkers.
“Most people follow their instincts or their training when they get into a conflict, and don’t consider much else afterwards,” Cyclops continued to explain. “That’s the beauty of a game like chess. Not only does it teach you how to think about your next move, but it teaches you how to plan for the next ten moves after that.”
Rogue snickered. “You’re really earnin’ those four-eye jokes right about now, Slim.”
Cyclops pointed at Rogue with a half-smile and a furrowed brow.
“Poke fun all you like, but believe it or not this is the type of training that will help you save lives some day,” Cyclops shot back. Rogue scratched the back of her head and tried not to roll her eyes. Maybe the dork had a point. “So, are you in?”
“The professor had t’ have made you field leader for some reason,” Rogue said with a shrug. “So sure, show me how it’s done, Slim.”
Cyclops smiled more fully at this.
“Great. Let’s start off by reviewing your soldiers and what they can do…”
Skidding to a stop at the edge of the orchard, Marie found herself at a cliff’s edge overlooking a clearing where Caldecott County’s junkyard rested. She could see lights on the other side of the junk yard as well as hear the sound of motorcycles and trucks pulling in. She knew they had to be down there.
Marie took a deep breath as she considered her next move. She could easily tank through Handler’s gang with the super strength and metallic skin of somebody like Colossus, or let loose with a flurry of lightning and tornados in the vein of Storm, but she knew that could put Callie at risk of crossfire or of being taken hostage. Even a handful of X-Men would easily be able to simultaneously draw the gang’s fire, take them down, and protect Callie, and that’s what she needed to do, but she was just one person… Then again, maybe she didn’t have to act as just one person would.
That was the solution, she thought. With a plan quickly developing in her mind, Marie pulled off the goggles hanging from the dirt bike’s handlebars and pulled them on over her eyes. She revved up the bike and roared down the hillside towards the junkyard.
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TO BE CONCLUDED…
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AUTHOR'S NOTES
Hey all,
Originally, I wanted this issue to be the big finale to this story, but by time I completed it this bad boy clocked in at around 21 pages. To put that into context, the last two issues were 13 pages and 11 pages respectively. It just made more sense to split this issue into two for pacing purposes. So, expect the action packed finale next month in X-Men Unlimited #56!
Catch ya then!
- Cory Wiegel
July 18th, 2017