driftfleet | .05 if i live the life i'm given, i won't be scared to die

Entry tags:

.05 if i live the life i'm given, i won't be scared to die

Who: Rogue and anyone, really
Broadcast: Video, why not?
Action: The Star Space Station
When: Basically all week, Video Sunday afternoon

[ Video ]

[Rogue doesn't really like addressing the fleet at large, so she keeps it brief.]

Alright, folks, here it is - one of the best places we've been yet ta stock up. What's on your 'must bring back to the ship' list an' [more importantly, maybe] how are ya plannin' on storin' it?

[She's got her own list, but she knows the way these things usually go and she doesn't want to forget anything in case it winds up being a long, long dry spell before they hit another place this good.]

[ Action - All week ]

[Sooner or later, Rogue always falls into a routine. She's too well known in the fight circles now to make any real money, so she's taken to working as a chef/bartender at one of the middling-to-fancy restaurants. When not there, she is either 1) shopping (thank you, space gods, for a place that finally carries lipstick) 2) in the 'datary' checking out books to be 3) read in the garden. or jogging in the garden. Let's be honest, being around actual plantlife feels amazing after the desert planet, the frozen planet, and let's not forget -- space. Garden, reading, ~~wine~~ whiskey, chocolate, lipstick -- a good day. And then it was time to start it all over again.]

[By the time Rogue had given Kitty directions to where to meet, she'd had time to get... nervous about it. Which was dumb, but true. They'd talked fine enough over the communicator, why should meeting in person be any different?

In any event, Rogue hopes that Kitty will like the place. It was one of those middle level spots that she could easiest afford, and she's found a table that would let them both have their backs to the wall, let them both keep an eye on the door. She waits, gloved hands curled around her coffee.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Iceman, Dazzler, Sabertooth, Wild Child, Blink, Morph, Banshee, and Sunfire. [She leaves out some of the more obvious once she'd already mentioned like present company. And some of the strays who had been part of the team but had left whether under good terms or bad. She also skips the names of her students.]

[She'll do her best not to bring up the wife thing again.]

[If it happens, it happens. Rogue is fairly sure Remy will not be as considerate.]

I only know two of those names. An' I'm a pretty surprised at one of 'em.

[Sabertooth. Of all the people who Rogue's touched, whose dirty secrets, childhood pains, and sordid pasts she's experienced, Victor Creed is unique. Despite his past and her understanding of his pain, his choices have left her such little sympathy for him that it is harder for her to picture him as an X-Man than it is to picture herself as Magneto's wife.]

Is Sabertooth the one who surprises you? [Because that wouldn't surprise her.] He's done a lot of good lately. He watches out after Blink, but when I met him he was trying to capture me for Apocalypse, so I haven't always been his biggest fan. [She's still pretty far from his biggest fan, but she'll work with him. She looks to Rogue for confirmation. She's surprised by how few of the names she recognized at all.]

Oh, and I left off Pietro and Storm and the ones you already know. Logan and Jean too I guess. Though they were off on their own. [Maybe this grouping felt too obvious to her in their own ways.]

(OOC: Or maybe it was because the first line of my tag didn't show up! That's weird. I wonder if I'm forgetting anyone else I had in there. Gah.)

Yeah, that's the one.

[Although she's surprised about Pietro too. Though -- actually, if Magneto is leading the X-Men, that's not too surprising. Daddy's calling, after all.]

Glad ta hear Storm's around too.

Me too. [She'd liked having Storm around especially when she was new to the X-Men, fresh off her losses.]

Who else did you know? I know Kurt never heard of Morph.

Pietro. Jean. You, of course. [She tilts her head a little, thinking.] My team back home is Scott, Jean, Kurt, you, Spyke -- Evan, Ororo an' Logan. Then there's the New Recruits: Jubilee, Wolfsbane, Magma, Canonball, Multiple, Berserker, Sunspot, an' Iceman.

Jubilee and Sunspot work with Gambit's X-Ternals. Canonball and Magma were Apocalypse's. Never heard of the others.

[A slight tightening of her eyes as she thinks of Sam and Amara working with Apocalypse -- that's grievous, those poor kids. But there's something far more pertinent to her interests here, let's face it.]

Gambit's X-Ternals? What's that?

[Because that sure sounded like Gambit had his own team. Gambit. His own team.]

He struck out on his own when things got......complicated. [Guess who was at the center of the complication.] They rob from Apocalypse's forces and give to the people who need it. [He actually became Robin Hood, yes.]

[Rogue would probably strike out on that guess.] ...sounds like the sort of thing he'd be good at.

[If only he could see that about himself.] He started off with the X-Men, though? [Pause a beat, try to reconfigure in her mind:] Magneto's X-Men? [...] Ya know, back on my world, Magneto called his team the Acolytes.

[A little bit of a rabbit trail, maybe, a little bit of a reminder to herself that she shouldn't be too interested in alternate Remys because... complications.]

He did. [Well, he probably had other things going back when the world was more than it became, but he'd been with them. She looks at Rogue, not wanting to be thought of as some other, lesser kind of X-Man. Not that it should matter, but... It's not fun hearing over and over that your boss is the bad guy in other worlds.]

He never called us that. Pretty sure he got the X-Men name from Xavier. He was trying to follow his path.

[Rogue turns that around in her mind for a moment and decides she needs more information.]

So - Apocalypse. He's got mutants workin' for him, doin' what? What's he tryin' ta do?

End game? I'm not sure. He just seems devoted to the survival of the fittest mantra. He has his scientists working on ways to bring out the genetic potential of mutants and use some humans as genetic fodder for the Infinites. Mm, those are his soldiers. Some people get pushed into forced labor prisons. But a lot of it is just genocide too. [Not the most uplifting information.]

[No, it wasn't uplifting -- but this was their lives.]

Okay, paint me a picture here - Apocalypse has soldiers, labor camps - he's taken over countries, then? An' genocide is against the normals?

Normals, sure. Humans. Flatscans. [She hasn't used that word in awhile.]

Big chunks of the world were irradiated and damaged to the point you'd barely recognize a map. New York is his stronghold, but all North America is his. There are human settlements in Western Europe. That's where the Human High Council is.

Are you sure you want to know this?

[Rogue only hesitated a moment, but it wasn't due to any fear of a possible horrible future. Rather, she was taking Kitty's measure, trying to decide if it would be worth the cost to the girl to share what had happened to her home. Evidently, Rogue decided Kitty could take it.]

It's your world, isn't it? 'course I want to know it.

[It's not her first time telling these stories. It's not exactly that it gets easier. In some ways it gets harder because with more distance and more exposure to what life is like without all the horror all the time it can make it harder to revisit not just what her world was like but what she was like in the world. She's definitely changed in her time away and she's not always proud of who she was and what she did. But there's still something cathartic about talking about it and definitely more of a bond. She likes feeling understood and that's hard to do if you're hiding a large part of what made you who you are.

Rogue's answer makes her smile.]

Then the fun continues. He had four horsemen.

Edited 2016-03-05 02:29 (UTC)

[Rogue nodded slowly.] Heard tell he was collectin' something like those back home too, but that was after my time.

[So... go on.]

[She smiles.] I'm not even sure what to say. Describe my whole world? What do you want to know?

The basic points, I guess. You said chunks of the world are destroyed -- he did that? Is that what he's tryin' ta do? An' what's the Human High Council? What are we fightin' for?

[She's not much one to invade so much, but how else was she going to understand?]

Part of that was the Human High Council retaliating with nuclear strikes. I don't think he wants to destroy everything. He wants to keep a lot of it for himself while killing off or repurposing anyone he sees as weak.

[Nuclear strikes. Great.]

...so then I'm guessin' the Human High Council isn't as Nazi as it sounds? It's more an attempt for them ta just keep from gettin' wiped out?

Oh, they can be dicks, but they're trying to keep themselves alive. [So she's not too hard on them even if she'll take down their sentinels if they go after her and hers. Or she would if she were still there and there was still a there there.]

[Rogue considered this for a moment. She turned over all the information Kitty had given her, put the pieces together as she took a sip of her drink. Then she set the glass down very carefully, giving the motion far too much attention, before looking back up at Kitty.]

Sounds like a nightmare.

You get to wake up from nightmares. [She manages a smile.] Then again, here I am.

.05 if i live the life i'm given, i won't be scared to die

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[ Action ] I'm so sorry I've been so slow. Thank you for putting up with me!

[ Action ] I'm slow myself right now.

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