Minefields

The door to her room was unlocked. Rogue lay silently on her stomach, her combat boots dangling above her head. Her body was pressed into her dark emerald bed and she was chewing on the end of the eraser. A spark of inspiration came to her and she furiously wrote it in her notebook. Her pencil moved with grace up and down, left and right across the white sheeted pages encased in the dark green leather. She stopped again, her pencil left hanging precariously at the edge of the page. She put the eraser in her mouth again, gnawing slowly but hard as her brain worked to conjure magic from within. She moved her pencil back to the paper to begin writing.

"Hi Rogue! I just got back from dance team tryouts and I am like, so tired! You don't mind if I have a soda on your bed, do you?" Kitty had burst into the room and caused a spatial distortion in the perfect silence Rogue needed to concentrate. Kitty walked to the mini-fridge and selected a soda. Popping the top and taking a long, loud sip, Kitty practically jumped on Rogue's bed. Rogue looked down at her pencil and found that the tip had broken against the paper when she was startled. Kitty leaned over and stuck her face right between Rogue and her notebook.

"Whatcha writin'?" she asked in her annoying voice. Her mouth dribbled a bit of soda on the paper and the spot quickly spread into a quarter-sized wet, brown stain. She leaned back and wiped her mouth. "Oops, sorry," she said, giggling. Rogue clenched her teeth in anger and pressed her notebook shut. She was about to rip Kitty's head off when Jean appeared at the door.

"Kitty," she said, AI need you to come with me and buy something for Scott's birthday. Plus, maybe we can hang out and shop for some clothes for ourselves. What do you say?" Jean's question was answered by Kitty in her high-pitched voice.

"Okay, that sounds great! I'll see you later, Rogue, maybe I'll bring you back a veggieburger, okay?" Kitty grabbed her purse and headed out the door with Jean. Rogue snapped her pencil to pieces in her fingers, the broken pieces being casually sprinkled over the floor. She walked angrily to the door and slammed it hard.

Doesn't anyone know how ta close the damned door!?" Rogue crossed her arms and leaned against the door. She screamed at the top of her lungs, AAND AH HATE VEGGIEBURGERS!" Rogue's eyes moved to a picture frame that had fallen and shattered when she had slammed the door. She bent over and picked it up, turning it over to look at which picture in contained. It was a photo of her dressed in her red gown with arm-length red gloves. Rogue pulled the picture from the broken frame and her finger slid across a piece of jagged glass.

"Ah, dammit!" She dropped the picture frame in the garbage can and looked at her bleeding finger. A long, thin cut ran from the base of her right ring finger to its middle knuckle. Blood flowed freely and Rogue tried to hold it shut as she ran into the bathroom. She wrapped the cut in gauze squeezed it as tight as she could. The gauze grew a red stain but held fast. She held her finger and winced in pain. "Ow, gawd dammit that hurts. Ah hope it doesn't start to git infected." Rogue carefully cleaned up the broken glass and deposited it in the garbage. She sat down on her bed and sighed heavily. Her arms were crossed and she gazed out the open window at the blue sky. She silently wished it to grow grey and overcast, full of purifying rain.

She didn't care anymore. Rogue grabbed her tenchcoat and slung it over her shoulders. She grabbed her small black purse and stormed out of the room, slamming the door yet again. She didn't care if anyone stared. As she passed a hat rack she stopped and pulled someone's black baseball cap off the rack and placed it on her head. It fit her like her leather gloves, smooth and natural. She knocked the hat rack onto the floor, spilling the other hats over the floor. Stepping on a few, she walked out of the big doors and headed to the school's parking lot. Spotting Scott's car, an evil grin flashed across her lips. She reached in her purse and pulled out her room key, holding it between her forefinger and thumb. As she walked past the red sportscar with white stripes she forced the key against it side, leaving a long scratch almost five feet long. Getting an even larger evil grin, she reached into her purse and extracted her long, medieval-style stiletto dagger. The blade was almost six inches long, all matte black and screwed on to a red-stained wood hilt. She jabbed the blade hard into each of the tires, leaving deep gashes that quickly leaked air. She twirled the blade in her fingers and left the vandalized car in her wake.

She passed through the parking lot searching for a car until she reached a black Lincoln Navigator. Rogue admired the large SUV and then walked around to the driver's side. She grasped the hilt of her dagger and slammed the pommel in the center of the window. The glass shattered inward onto the driver's seat. She reached through the broken window and unlocked the door. She opened it and began to sweep the pieces of glass outside onto the raven-black pavement. Rogue climbed into the driver's seat and used the knife to pry open the steering column, laying the internal ignition system bare. Her slender fingers moved with the ease of a pro through the tangle of wires. With the wires spliced, she jammed the knife blade into the key slot and turned it. Life was breathed into the engine and it purred its complacency. Rogue smiled another evil grin and shifted the SUV into gear. The big black vehicle barreled out of the parking lot and jumped the curb onto the road.

"Oops. Ah guess ah should be a bit more careful." Rogue laughed as she began cranking the SUV up to and then over sixty miles per hour. Near the bottom of a hill she swerved into the left lane and pushed the SUV over seventy to pass Jean Grey's little Honda. Jean swerved to the right as the big SUV rampaged past her little car, Kitty shrieking in terror.

"Hey! Watch it!" she yelled. A black gloved middle finger responded to her words. The big black Navigator thundered down the road and left Jean's car in the dust.

"Who was that?" Kitty asked, her soda spilt all over her chest. Jean just shrugged. "Whoever it was, they need to learn how to drive."

Rogue didn't stop driving West until she arrived in the small city of Roswell, New Mexico. For some reason she stopped there. Using the last bit of her money, she rented a hotel room for a night and threw all her possessions, a baseball cap, a trenchcoat, and her purse, onto the bed. She stripped off her clothes and took a long, hot shower. The hot water was soothing across her tired body. She ran the shampoo through her hair and scrubbed a weeks worth of grime off of her skin. Feeling a bit rough, she went to shaving her legs with her black dagger. She moved the blade expertly and didn't leave a single scratch. Rogue wrapped herself in a towel and went to washing her clothes down the hall. She didn't care if anyone stared.

Rogue returned to her room and let her clothes wash. From her purse she extracted some black leather polish and two rags. She went to scrubbing her boots in the sink and then applying the polish in two coats. She used the second rag to massage the shine out of the leather. The boots gleamed even in the dim, fading light of the Roswell evening. Rogue walked down the hall to the laundry room to collect her laundry. She collected it all from the dryer and put it in a basket. Her green blouse didn't smell like twinkies and dirt anymore, and that was all that really mattered. As she walked past the other laundry machines, she came across an unclaimed basket full of clothes. She sifted through it and found two black T-shirts, a pair of faded jeans, a black bikini and some black pants. These she put in her basket and returned to her room. It was now about eight o'clock and Rogue was feeling the hunger. Her stomach grumbled, having been sustained on only meager portions for nearly a week on the road. Rogue dressed in the black pants, T-shirt, her gloves and her cap. Her newly-shined boots matched the outfit perfectly. Looking in the bathroom mirror, she smiled and posed. She thought that she looked like a SWAT team member. Rogue grabbed her purse and headed out to find a bite to eat.

Rogue rummaged through her purse for any cash she had. She found $7.42. Rogue left the Navigator in the parking lot; she had decided to leave it in case anyone started to get suspicious of the busted window. Luckily for her, a Burger King was just down the road. She strolled in and ordered a fish sandwich and a coke, deducting $2.49 from her already meager supply of cash. She took the first bite and made a sour face.

"Ugh," she mumbled. "Ah can make better fish than this garbage." She smothered the rest of the sandwich in mustard and forced it down. The coke made it taste a little better. Her mind wandered, and she started thinking about just why she was in Roswell. She couldn't think of a single time she had even heard of the place except for the usual "alien crash" nonsense. Every turn she made seemed to take her farther and farther into the unknown. She didn't know how or why, but she felt like her next step could cause an explosion. Like she was stuck in the midst of minefields, Rogue wondered if her next daring step could bring her crashing to oblivion. She found herself surprisingly unconcerned about her fate. Rogue didn't know what she wanted or how she aimed to get it. All she knew, and all she cared about, was forgetting everything she had left behind. She walked out of the restaurant and down Main Street. Silently she walked along, turning down a few side streets to avoid the noise and commotion. She walked through an alley past a yard and heard strange sounds coming from inside. She hugged the fence and peered over it to see what was going on.

"Wow," she said. A group of boys, her same age, were fighting one another with swords. The steel-on-steel contacts resounded throughout the night and were music to Rogue's pain-filled ears. There were three of them. The first one was dressed in a loose, black coat and cape. The sleeves were torn and ragged and hung loose around his muscular biceps. His hands were clasped around a red and black katana, the blade of which swept through the air with a gentle hum. The second boy wore a dark gray cape and hood, wielding two swords that shown like diamonds in the low light. His face was covered and it gave him an ominous, evil look that complimented his skill with the twin blades. The last figure was garbed in a gray and black poncho, under which he wore a large leather belt with a dagger that matched Rogue's. Across his back was a claymore scabbard and his neck was wrapped with a large hood-shawl combination that hung low around his neck. Around his head was wrapped a gray bandana, stained with sweat. His blade was nearly five feet long, a black and silver Scottish claymore that swung in wide arcs and decapitated small trees with ease. The three battled for nearly an hour before dropping their weapons in exhaustion. They drank iced glasses of Powerade and then began throwing daggers at a cardboard target, the Ace of Spades card being stapled to the center as the bullseye. Rogue took her opportunity and quietly opened the door. She pulled out her dagger and flung it, expertly aimed, at the middle of the target. The Ace of Spades was pierced straight through. The boys turned slowly to see who had hurled the perfect throw. Rogue smiled at them.

"Hi, boys, do yah let girls play too?" Rogue's smile faded when she saw the looks on the faces of the boys. Each held a stare of pure evil that bored into her soul. They answered in unison.

"The Rogue. . .he told us you were coming. . ." She gasped and took a step back, the boys grasping their swords as they circled around her. Suddenly, a brass pommel struck the back of her head. Rogue collapsed and consciousness slipped from her mind. The man who had hit her stepped from behind the shadows. He was dressed in a black suit and wore dark sunglasses. He dropped the sword and held his hand to his earpiece.

"Suspect is contained, I repeat, suspect is contained. The trio is with me, we have the precious cargo." Overhead a helicopter circled almost silently. Its motor wash blew Rogue's hair over the cool ground. She didn't care if anyone stared.