-A/N-: Finally, chapter 24.

Beta'd by The 42.

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In all her time at the Institution for Young Mutants, Marie D’Ancanto had never once been in a gathering quite like this—a congress which included her, as well as the other X-Men from her generation, not just the ‘important’ adults. There was that one time at the campsite at Alkali Lake way back when. But even then, she, John nor Bobby was let into that conversation between the grown-ups. As though they weren’t ready to be X-Men. As though they weren’t good enough. Rogue vaguely remembered how she had to resort to getting Nightcrawler to take a closer look.

So, it came as a small surprise to Rogue when Charles Xavier telepathically called for an emergency meeting—seconds after Sam’s frenzied announcement during dinner—with all the X-Men as well as the two outstanding members of the now-defected Brotherhood. The Professor was unduly concerned with the fact that the murder of the two young mutants (whom Rogue found out to be a girl named Amara Aquilla and a young man named Lance Alvers) took place not too far away from the mansion itself.

Needless to say, Bobby, John, Piotr, Ororo, Raven and Rogue herself had left the dining hall as a group as soon as Xavier’s urgent message reached them. Upon reaching the Professor’s large office, Rogue noticed that they weren’t the first ones there. Logan, Magneto, Hank McCoy and even Kitty were already seated, talking in hushed voices among themselves. It was then that she realised that she hadn’t actually seen Pryde at dinner.

She can’t still be upset about Worthington’s death…? Rogue briefly wondered if Kitty had locked herself in her room all day until now.

Right now in the Professor’s room, which seemed pretty overcrowded at the moment, the discussion on how they should react to this latest atrocity—courtesy of the Eradicators—was underway.

“This is getting ridiculous, Charles,” Erik Lensherr stormed, his voice deep and authoritative. “How many more mutant deaths do we need before you start to retaliate? I know the coordinates of their base. I see no wrong in storming their headquarters and getting rid of them once and for all.”

For some strange reason, Rogue seemed to want to agree with that notion—even though it came from Magneto, the man who tried to kill her a few years back, and sounded almost debauched. How many more innocents must perish before they start fighting back?

“As much as I hate to admit it, Metal Head is right,” Logan said darkly, turning to the Professor. “Something has to be done or we’ll have mutants being killed left, right and centre. If we hit ‘em now, they won’t see us comin’.”

A short, pensive silence filled the air as Xavier frowned, leaning back in his desk chair and steepling his fingers. His eyes swept the room slowly and almost searchingly, gaze moving from person to person.

Rogue was startled. The Professor was looking straight at her, his face expressionless but his manner expectant.

‘I don’t know, Professor,’ Rogue replied truthfully. ‘But I think Magneto and Logan are right. We should at least try to do something about this.’

She was met silence.

Moments later, Xavier finally spoke up and addressed Logan’s suggestion.

“It isn’t so simple, Logan,” he said. “And although I realise now that quite a few of the people in this room right at this moment agree that we should attempt to stop these people, acting too soon may be too rash a move. Besides,” he looked back up at Erik, “you’ve heard what the state officials disclosed. They’re doing what they can at the moment to source out the threat-”

“Have you completely lost your mind, Charles?” Magneto’s voice was hard with anger. “Do you honestly believe that the government can help us? They are homo sapiens, Charles. Petty, powerless creatures. And they’re all the same. Do you think they would bother with affairs concerning us mutants? In no way do they have our best interests at heart.”

“Now wait just a second. I beg to differ-” Hank McCoy started reprovingly, but was cut off when the metal manipulator continued his heated tirade.

“I know where they are, where their base is located. We have to destroy them all now, without the aid of the government. This is our fight and I won’t stand to work alongside a petty band of ignorant humans.”

From one of the far corners of the room, away from the rest of the group, Mystique gave a snort of mocking laughter. “The Cure made you a human once,” she said out loud, almost amusedly, but her tone of scorn was hard to miss.

Erik turned and gave her a level stare. She returned his look with a glare of her own. The air almost seemed to cackle with tension.

Rogue looked at the both of them in mixed fascination, then exchanged a glance with John, who looked at her with a shrug, mouthing ‘not my problem’ as though he didn’t quite care that two of his former acquaintances were at loggerheads with each other. But the frown on his face told Rogue everything she needed to know. He did care. Because these two people were practically the only family he had. And it broke her heart to see John so bothered by this. So much so that she practically felt like leaping up and screaming at them to kiss and make up.

“Professor,” Ororo spoke up then, ignoring the on-going glaring competition between Magneto and Mystique, “is there anything we can do?”

“At the moment? No,” Xavier replied shortly. “But I will get Erik, Raven and Hank to work on the location of the headquarters of these anti-mutant extremists. Once we’ve scouted the area, I assure you, we will come up with something. What troubles me about the two deaths that transpired today is that no one knew how they were killed.” He shook his head.

“No one knows. But on the news, they said… they think it was poison. Or some sort of infection that weakened their whole life system severely.”

It was Kitty who spoke this time, her voice subdued and quiet, but unwavering.

Hank McCoy nodded contemplatively. “That would not be a bad theory, considering the fact that Tabitha Smith was killed the same way. Only Worthington was killed by an explosion. Perhaps the mutants were physically injected with some viral contagion.”

“Maybe it was the altered Cure that Blacken was talking about,” Bobby offered.

“That girl was killed before the Cure was stolen from Worthington Labs,” John pointed out, absentmindedly lighting his wrist igniter once and snuffing the flames with a single thought.

“Doesn’t mean we should rule out that verdict,” Hank said wisely. “And please don’t do that. We don’t really want the mansion to burn down at a time like this.”

John scowled and let his hand hang loosely by his side. He didn’t bother telling the blue, fur-covered man that if he were to accidentally cause something to catch on fire, he could put it out easily with just a bat of an eyelid.

“I knew we should’ve taken care of that ridiculous ‘Cure’ when we had the chance,” Erik muttered darkly.

“Right. I think that is all on this matter for tonight. You all are free to leave my office. However, I need to talk to Raven, Erik and Hank for a moment. In the meantime, no student is to leave the premises under any circumstances without adult supervision. This includes you young ones as well,” Xavier added gravely, nodding towards Rogue, John, Bobby and Piotr. “It’s not safe out there anymore.”

-

That night, everyone went to bed early. Curfew was brought forward and no one was to be out of their dorms after half-past nine unless they were hungry and in dire need of food from the kitchen, or needed the bathroom and didn’t have one in their own rooms.

John had no idea where the hell Pietro was and he hadn’t seen the speedster all day. That didn’t mean he gave a rat’s ass though. He still hadn’t forgotten the little fiasco down the hallway where the audacious, silver-haired teen verbally abused both him and Rogue. And he would never forget it.

I should really kick that fuckin’ bastard’s ass for what he said to Marie, John fumed as he unstrapped his wrist igniter and placed it on his bedside table.

When Pietro wasn’t in bed that night, John just assumed he was being his rebellious self and wanted to stay out past curfew.

He still had difficulty swallowing the fact that his roommate was – is – Magneto’s son, let alone the fact that the old man even had children. But despite the fact that Pietro was indeed his former leader’s son, John felt held no level of respect whatsoever for the pathetic brat.

Getting into bed, John flicked the switch to his bedside lamp and drifted off to sleep in the darkness. Not even the slightest sliver of moonlight filtered through the blinds to illuminate the room No. Tonight, John was well aware of the strong wind outside which howled faintly through the cracks in the window. Dark, ominous clouds covered the sky and there was not a twinkling star to be seen through the darkened veil. In his last moments of consciousness, John thought of Rogue.

And in his blurred thoughts, Marie was always as stark as the white streaks in her hair.

-

Midnight. Rogue made her way through the dark, gloomy mansion as silently as she could with John’s lighter in one hand lighting her way. Her thin, flimsy nightdress whispered through the air as she walked. The dim, orange glow of the fire cast strange, indistinct shadows across the ground and along the walls, making the hallway seem surreal and almost dreamlike. The kitchens were just a few more corridors away. She just hoped she wouldn’t run into anyone on the way there. Which was unlikely, since there wasn’t a soul nor sound to be heard throughout the mansion, apart from the distant billowing of wind outside.

The truth was, she wasn’t at all hungry—despite not having a full dinner that night. It was just that she couldn’t sleep. And she didn’t know why.

In the past, before the Alkali Lake incident and before John had left, the three of them—her, John and Bobby—used to always get up at irregular hours of the night and meet up in the kitchen to just talk and hang out.

That had been when Bobby and John shared a room. When she and Bobby were still in a stable relationship. When John had tried so hard not to be a third wheel in their little golden trio.

It’s funny how things change.

But then again, they always do, don’t they?

She finally got to the kitchen, zippo still in hand.

Something was odd. The lights were on, but there wasn’t a soul to be seen.

She hesitantly stepped into the small, enclosed kitchen and tilted her head to the right, trying hard to discern any sound, scent or anomaly in the air even though she knew that she had no idea if Logan’s powers were still within her. She wondered if there was a way to turn her powers on and off. Either way, whether or not her borrowed powers were working, she sensed nothing out of the ordinary.

She treaded her way towards the dividing table and gingerly sat down. Everything seemed too quiet and too still. Snapping John’s lighter shut, Rogue tossed it high up into the air and caught it deftly in one swift movement, then immediately set the metallic object down on the stone counter with a flamboyant clink, which echoed sharply around the kitchen. She remembered clearly how John used to always do that to amuse both her and Bobby. Now, she understood why.

Clink.

“John! Cut it out! Do you want to wake the whole school up?” Bobby hissed, his eyes darting towards the doorway of the kitchen apprehensively. “We’ll get caught out if you keep playing with that stupid lighter of yours!”

John rolled his eyes and looked to Rogue almost sympathetically. “Is your boyfriend always this pernickety? I swear, he never used to be such a goody-goody. What the hell did you do to him?”

Rogue shook her head. “Ha, ha, ha.” Her voice was sarcastic, but she was smiling openly. “Very funny, John.”

John gave her a mocking bow. “I try,” he replied as modestly as he would allow himself.

Bobby snorted.

John turned to him and raised an eyebrow. “What? Your girl thinks I’m funny. Why can’t you?”

Bobby looked slightly put out. “Oh, you’re a real laugh, John. A real joke.”

John ignored him.

Rogue stared musingly at deep nothingness as she thought back to the night when that incident occurred. She was surprised that she even remembered that it had ever happened. She never used to understand why the hell John acted like such an overconfident show-off half the time the three of them hung out.

But she finally did understand, after touching him for the first time at Bobby’s house during his reckless outburst.

John Allerdyce was such a show-off because he was trying to catch her attention. To impress her.

“Will you stop showing off?”

“What, for her? It’s not my fault your girlfriend’s getting excited.”

There was a sudden a noise just beyond the kitchen door. Like a low rustling of fabric, or a soft breath of wind. Rogue blinked, breaking out of her reverie, and looked up and out the door into the darkness beyond.

“Hello…?” she said quietly. “Is anyone there?”

She was met with otherworldly silence. She could’ve been sitting in a deserted graveyard and it wouldn’t have made any difference.

Thinking it was just her imagination, she shrugged mentally and got off the chair to get a snack from the fridge.

Just as she bent over to retrieve a packet of chocolate coated nuts, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand, and then felt herself go cold all over. She spun around quickly, eyes darting all over the kitchen. And the last thing she remembered was a sharp, excruciating pain to her forehead—like something hit her over the head. She felt herself collapse to the ground, limp. And all was dark.

-

The next morning, John was rudely awakened by a loud, frantic banging on his bedroom door.

“’Dyce! Open up!” Bang. Bang. “JOHN!”

It was Bobby.

John twisted and turned in his bed as sunlight pierced his line of vision like white-hot needles. It sounded like World War III outside and John wished that Bobby would stop trying to give him a headache. What now? He wondered, more than a little annoyed.

But there was something in Bobby’s voice that wasn’t quite right.

“What do you want, Drake?” John shouted back as he sat up abruptly.

“Open the door!” Bobby demanded yet again.

John did as he was told, wondering what the hell has happened this time. Another death? Another mutant murder?

He yanked the door open viciously and was surprised to see that Kitty was with Bobby. And they both looked as though the world was about to end in a matter of minutes.

He waited for one of them to say something – anything – and not just stand there in unnerving silence.

Bobby looked much too upset to say anything. It was Kitty who opened her mouth to speak.

“Last night…” she started shakily. “T–there was an…” she broke off and tried to start again, composing herself as best as she could. “There was a note,” she said at last, “We f-found it in the kitchen. They’re gone. She’s - they’ve… she and – and Pietro. She’s been… kidnapped… by them.”

John looked blankly at Kitty for a few seconds, not able to comprehend what she had just said. As though his brain wasn’t going to accept what she wanted him to.

“Kidnapped?” he echoed vacantly.

And then it hit him. His heart stopped. He didn’t even need them to tell him who ‘she’ was. She’s been kidnapped. Rogue’s been kidnapped. His Marie had been snatched away. By them.

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-A/N-: Time for some thrilling heroics.

we-r-the-cure: A big scene with Rogue and Magneto? Hmm, well, for now I can tell you one thing: Rogue and Magneto will come to an eventual understanding of each other, and maybe even finally respect each other. But you’ll have to wait and see.

Obiwanfan: I wouldn’t say I’ve been updating often (my bad!) but I’m really glad that you find this fic one of your favourites. (:

Dementa: There you go! I (kinda) brought Magma into the fic! And Avalanche too. But not in a way you would’ve thought, huh?

PsYcHoThErApY17: Been waiting long for this chapter? Haha. Sorry for the wait. I’ve been working on a novel that I’m going to write (and hopefully publish) in the near future. I love how you quote your favourite lines from each chapter. And I love how you’ve stuck with this fic for so long. It’s gonna’ end soon (about 6 chapters to go?) and who knows? There might be ANOTHER sequel. LOL.

blazingfire03: Ooh! You asked a lot of questions in your review. Wait, hang on. WELCOME ABOARD THE STRANGER SHIP AND THANK YOU FOR BEING A READER! Okay, back to the questions. I can’t answer your second and third one without giving away the plot. But I can answer your question about John’s parents and whether they’ll be appearing in future chapters. The answer is: I highly doubt it. The reason why I included them in many of John’s (and Rogue’s) flashbacks is to give you guys a better understanding of how John came to be and why he feels the need to be rebellious and reckless. He obviously feels resentment towards his parents and that explains why he looks up to Magneto and Mystique as ‘sort of’ paternal figures.

Jamie: I hope this chapter answered all of your million questions that you asked. LOL.

THe TrUtH about RoSeS: I know what you mean when you say that John seemed OOC in the last chapter. I had huge qualms about the chapter before I posted it because everyone was getting too out of character. But I suppose there’s nothing I can do about it now.

And to the new readers, Nyx – Night Goddess, ShadowStar21, monkeylvr700, M.J.L.S, Chibi-Kari, grace as well as the older readers, Chica De Los Ojos Cafe, storytellergirl, xLiLix, Kumiko Eharu, yaba, jade598, zshp1411, randabeth, Psyc0gurl0, Kryptonite, thanks for reading and reviewing!