Chapter Text
Rogue ducks under the table at the same time Gambit does. His eyes widen and he backs up so that he's as far away from her as he can be without being out from under the table. She's careful not to touch anything, even the floor. Her hands hover awkwardly in front of her.
Their eyes meet as salt and plastic rain down around them. Rogue winces at the sound. It's a mess alright, but Rogue can't even risk cleaning it up without exploding the broom and dustpan. At least they're both okay, even though the alarms are still blaring almost unbearably loud.
"Are those alarms… me?" Rogue faltered, pressing her hands together.
Gambit frowns. His face is shadowed underneath the table, and Rogue can't help but feel like it's fitting. "I don't think so. That's never happened when I've used my powers in the mansion."
That's not the same thing, Rogue thinks, but he's probably not wrong. Rogue backs out of the table and stands up. It's a bit harder without her flight to help her balance; every movement that she makes feels so much heavier without it. She doesn't offer her hand to Gambit, but he crawls out after her anyway. "So we're under attack."
"I'd bet," Gambit nods, already reaching for his cards before jerking his hand back. "You going to go, chère?"
Rogue scoffs. This is one of the worst ideas Rogue has heard from Gambit, and she's heard some pretty awful ideas from him. She doesn't know how these charges work! She could maim or kill anyone in her vicinity just because she accidently touched some rubble. "Are you kidding me? Gambit, I can't control your powers at all."
"That's pretty good against a threat, no?" Gambit smirks. Rogue imagines how it would feel to strangle him. "Do you think it's Sentinels out there?"
"What do you think, swamp rat?" Rogue says, rolling her eyes.
"I think it is."
"What?" Rogue says, taken aback. "Why?"
"Just a feeling. I think you're going to need to go out there and fight, Rogue."
Rogue's eyes widen. "No, how could you possibly—"
"Maybe my cards ain't the best idea, but you don't need control for a battle like this. Remember how I was talking about emotions earlier? Trust your anger. Just try not to charge something near another X-Man," Gambit rattled on. He comes to a stop, nodding to himself, until he amends, "unless Wolverine is asking for it."
"Why are you telling me all of this instead of going yourself? Too scared?" Rogue can feel her horror growing at the idea of actively using out of control powers. Does he really fight without any restraint on this power every time?
"I'm not going to be helpful in a fight right now, chère. I don't exactly have your strength or flight, and I think Jean's powers are starting to go away. Even if I could control them in the first place, I'd just be a liability if it is Sentinels out there! You can actually do some damage."
Rogue freezes suddenly. "You don't have my strength?"
He shakes his head, then punches the table as hard as he can. Remy hisses as he shakes his hand out, but the table only moved a little bit. She stares — how could that beam tell those powers aren't truly hers? She can't sense Carol Danvers in her head, but with the Professor's help, it's been a while since she has. If Gambit doesn't have her powers, is she…
Remy's voice snaps her out of her thoughts. "Rogue, they need you. Go."
Rogue hesitates, taking a few steps towards the door before stopping. "What about you?"
"Don't worry about Gambit," he says, looking at the floor. He's heading towards the opposite door. "I'm going to find Jean and get her somewhere safe. She's defenseless right now. Cyclops should head to the fight."
"Remy, it ain't your fault," Rogue grimaces. It's mine. "Just— get to Cerebro. Defenses and a worst case scenario weapon is your best bet."
Gambit nods and runs towards the med bay without another moment's hesitation. Rogue watches until he turns a corner. She has to face this fight, and she has to face it now. Any X-Men can take a fight, but they could definitely use her as backup. Hank's exhausted, Jean's been drained, and everyone is stressed from the whole scenario. Sentinel swarms are a rough fight on a good day.
Rogue breaks out into her own run to the ground floor, taking the stairs two at a time instead of waiting for the elevator. The main mansion is mostly untouched, but once Rogue pushes the large oak doors open she sees why. The lawn is in utter disarray. Fires are spreading as a swarm of Sentinels are encroaching on the mansion. There large chunks of Sentinels laying around the place, downed. The front gate is almost entirely destroyed.
The fires can be put out later. For now, Rogue should focus on attacking. There's nothing else she can do. She runs onto the battlefield and grabs the first big rock she can find and throws it at the closest Sentinel. "Hey, ugly! Catch!"
The rock bounces off the Sentinel's shin before exploding inches from it midair. The plating has been torn away by the blast, and the cables are smoking and crackling. Its focus breaks as it turns to see what caused the damage.
Wolverine uses the distraction to launch himself up at it with a grunt and tear into the exposed leg cables, then while it comes crashing down, tear into its neck. It groans under its own weight and topples backwards.
"You good to fight?" Wolverine asks as he falls back next to her. He's still looking at the next Sentinel instead of her. He's panting.
Rogue winces. Probably not, but she can't exactly stop. Gambit was right, they need her now, even if she's not at her best. "Of course, sugar."
Wolverine nods, and charges towards another Sentinel with a deep shout. Rogue makes her way to an area with the most rubble, hoping no Sentinels will spot her. Of course that hope is in vain — these things are literally designed to hunt people like her. One of the Sentinels about to charge at Cyclops changes course as it says something she can't quite make out through the noise.
It mechanically lumbers towards her. It starts shooting lasers from its hands, holding them out as if to brace itself. Rogue curses, changing her running pattern and forcing herself to run faster. The lasers barely miss her and hit the smoking grass behind her.
The Sentinel stays far enough back that she can smoothly pick up a random rock on her path and fling it behind her. She doesn't hold her breath or look back even when she hears the explosion. The giant footsteps behind her don't stop.
Okay, maybe her aim was bad. The next time she finds a sizeable metal rod and turns around just enough to aim and ensure that the Sentinel was actually hit. The Sentinel reels a bit from the blowback, but ultimately doesn't stop.
For all her concern about hurting someone without control, her current levels are barely touching these Sentinels at all. She yells in frustration and chucks a charged rock at one of the many targeting Storm. The blast is enough to destroy its knee. Finally, some damage! Rogue almost whoops, until the Sentinel turns towards her, its eyes glowing green.
Shit. Rogue didn't think this far ahead. All of her other blasts have been barely effecting them! Now she has two of these things on her tail? At least that's one less attacking Ororo. They're charging at her from opposite directions, and she's really wishing they could've just waited a bit for this attack so she could've gotten more of a handle on these powers. And some sleep. Two fights in one day wipes a girl out, you know? Yeah, she could use some sleep
Reminding herself to breathe, Rogue glances around the battlefield for something to use. Rogue's seen Gambit do this hundreds of times effortlessly — all she has to do is channel him. And her anger. Well, Rogue has plenty of both.
Her eyes land a large piece of abandoned Sentinel plating. She can't exactly throw it at one of them like this, but she can probably use it differently. Gambit's gotten mighty creative with his power usage before, and she can remember some of how he did it.
She crouches on the Sentinel plating and waits. The Sentinels are still charging, and they're getting closer. Almost…
One of the Sentinels makes a grab for her and Rogue slams her hand against the Sentinel plating beneath her. She tries to channel all her fury into the charge, recalling every time she's lost something, or almost did. Her thoughts keep flowing back to Remy as the telltale noise of his charge rings in her ears.
The Sentinel plate explodes, launching her upwards. The explosion is like an emotional release made physical. The arm of the Sentinel reach for her is completely blown off, and the other one is pushed onto its rear. For a brief moment, it almost feels like she has her powers again as she floats above the battlefield.
This might be a rough landing, Rogue thinks as she starts to fall. Before she can try to think of a plan, the Sentinel reaches for her with its undamaged arm. Rogue doesn't try to dodge and lets herself be caught. Its grip is particularly rough as it snatches her from the air.
"Asset One acquired," the Sentinel intoned. What is that supposed to mean? Before Rogue can even open her mouth to ask, she can see the Sentinel's arm grow pink. Guess she hasn't suddenly become a master at Gambit's powers, but at least that's exactly what she needed to happen.
"Oh no," the Sentinel says just before it explodes. Rogue is thrown from the Sentinel's hand with a bang. She rolls as she hits the ground, then quickly snaps up to look for any other threats nearby. The other Sentinel from before is heading her way. Those bruises are going to hurt tomorrow.
Rogue squares up, eyeing the area in her vicinity for anything that could give her a good explosion without having to get captured again. She's already diving for a chunk of brick that seems a bit too small to do anything as Cyclops releases a blast aimed at the Sentinel's foot. It topples over, and Rogue hurls the brick at its head. If it wasn't down before, it sure would be after that.
"Did you see Jean on your way here?" Scott says urgently as he jogs towards her. His head is on a swivel, looking around the entire battlefield. "And where's Gambit?"
Rogue crosses her arms. "I told Gambit to go to Cerebro. He better have listened. He said he was going to find Jean and take her with him."
Scott sighs in relief before saying, "Okay, the fight is almost done here. Hank's found some things he wants to investigate. Could you go down with him to tell Gambit and Jean what happened? We're just going to do some clean up here until Hank can tell us what he thought was important."
Rogue bristles at the implication she's not fit for clean up duty, of all things, but grimaces when she remembers he's not exactly wrong. The only reason she was even any help in the fight was because not she can explode things while touching them, a power famously not for any kind of cleaning. There's a reason Gambit sat this one out with powers that rely on touching people rather than things and Jean's fading telepathy.
Rogue rakes her fingers through her hair. "Yeah, sounds good, Cyclops. But what even did happen here? I was pretty much only around for the end of things."
"We don't know exactly why the Sentinels attacked. Normally, the Sentinels don't attack the school itself, so Beast thinks it has something to do with the fight from earlier and whatever the Sentinels from earlier did to you and Gambit. I would think they came back to do more of whatever that attack was, except they didn't try it again." Scott starts to fidget with his utility belt. Ah.
"So you think they wanted to take me and Remy. To experiment on."
Cyclops sighs. "Yeah. Maybe it wasn't intended to swap you powers. Or maybe it was, and they want to see how well it worked. Either way, you probably shouldn't leave the mansion for a bit."
Rogue squeezes her hands into fists, then releases them. It's not enough to fuck with their lives and bodies, but they want to kidnap them too? These bottom feeders never stop, do they?
Beast's voice rings out of Cyclops' communicator, telling everyone to get to the war room. Once everyone's in the room, Beast says, "I was able to notice some serial numbers on some of the Sentinel parts during this fight, so I found a site where they're producing these things."
"So we take the fight to them, this time," Storm says, crossing her arms. Quiet fury rages in her eyes like approaching storm clouds.
"Precisely."
Storm inclines her head. "Rogue, Gambit, Jean, can you fight?"
Gambit shrugs. "I didn't get Rogue's strength with this whole deal, and I need to teach Rogue how to use my powers before that kind of fight. An indoors fight is an easy way to make sure the entire building collapses."
Cyclops pulls a face and shakes his head as Rogue's shoulders creep up towards her ears. She's never been a loose cannon like this before, and she's really not enjoying the feeling of it. She'll have her own powers soon enough, if this works. And then Gambit won't be stuck not being able to touch another human being for the rest of his life, and Rogue will be able to touch anything without worrying about a charge.
Jean holds her hand open as if expecting something to happen, but nothing does. "I can start the clean up. I'm still a bit drained, so my powers aren't at full strength yet. I can try if you need me, though. We need to figure out this weapon before they can use it again."
Scott hesitates, then sets his jaw and nods. "Okay. Everyone who's able to fight, meet at the plane tomorrow morning. Get some sleep tonight, team."