Who: Rogue, Hydra and later Logan and Kitty WherE: Alaska what: Vacation, Ambush, Pick Up When: after This Rating: Violence, Swearing, etc Status: Complete
Rogue waited for Kitty to get busy doing something, taking a shower while she waited, then threw some clothes in a backpack and headed to work. She only stayed long enough to write the schedule out for the next week or so before taking off. She threw her phone in her bag and bought a small solar charger before catching an Uber to the airport.
She rarely touched her income so she was able to afford a last minute flight out of the OC. Normally she'd take the bike but with all the bad weather she preferred to skip the hard work until later. She afforded herself a little luxury, and bought herself a first class flight.
To Alaska.
She hated hurricanes, and wildfires, but between her own abilities and those she'd stolen over the years, she could take a back country trip into Katmai national park and not worry. Everyone saw her as the chef, the sweet southern belle. They all forget she'd been a thief and a runaway long before she'd ever had a Dream. Paired with her Dreams, she was sure she'd be fine. Alaska was far enough it only the most determined of her friends would come looking.
She made a short list, deciding on what things she'd purchase upon arrival, not wanting much to weigh her down. Rogue spent the flight organizing the details, the back country permits under another name and arranging for the things she needed set for her when she landed. Then, she napped.
Her eyes twitched open as the plane began its descent into the airport. She stretched the kinks out of her muscles and waited impatiently for them to come to the gate. Long legs carried her out to the waiting Jeep that would take her into the backcountry, everything in the back for her. Sometimes it paid to keep money around.
They advised her to wait until daybreak to head out, citing bears and moose and so forth, but she packed the bigger bag and checked the gear and took off. She wanted to cover enough ground so she left less of a trail, mindful of where her steps took her. She knew where she wanted to camp for a day or two, and trekked without stopping, drawing on Logan’s echo to keep both her strength up and her hearing.
She landed deep in the park, setting up her tentsile tree tent, and caching her few food items in a small bear proof container which she hung inside. She used the place as base camp for a few days, content to explore into the evenings. A long hike brought her back late evening, a couple fish over her shoulder. She almost missed the scent and stopped, eyes narrowing.
There were worse things than bears or moose. Though a moose could be pretty bad.
A shot rang out, splintering a tree to Rogue's right. And then another hit the ground, spraying dirt. A third shot rang out.
The hunt was on.
Rogue dropped the fish and dove behind the tree as the second shot hit the dirt where she'd been standing. A third told her it was no one mistaking her for an animal.
She pushed off the tree and took off, low to the ground, using trees for an advantage as she moved in a circle, trying to figure out where she was being hunted from.
A dozen more shots rang out, and then it was like she was in a warzone. The woosh of a rocket came from the west, an RPG headed straight for her.
Rogue took a moment as she tried to flip through her arsenal of powers to mutter what the ever living fuck under her breath. She drew on one from Remy, charging a rock and flinging it at the RPG even as she hit the ground, trying for Logan's healing to help mitigate the damage.
Several of the shooters fired sleeping darts at Rogue, and another fired one of those animal capture nets. Despite everything, they wanted her alive.
She hit the ground and rolled, fingers scrabbling to pull the dart out, too late to be effective against the meds. She started to get up even as she was pulled under, but got tangled in the net. She tried to keep her eyes open as she hit the ground again.
Military style boots crunched in the gravel, approaching the downed woman. A gruff voice said, “Take the samples, then dump her in the river.”
Rogue focused as she saw the boots, struggling d get enough energy to grab the leg they were attached to.
A needle jabbed into the side of Rogue’s neck, and rough hands pushed up the back of her shirt. A wide needle was inserted into her spine.
As if trying to remove bone marrow wasn’t bad enough, someone put a knife over her finger.
Rogue let the surge of pain be the catalyst, digging in deep and very much needing Logan's abilities right now. There was no time to hope it worked, so she willed her limbs to move. To swing at those stuffing needles into her. Skin on, no less, because she needed answers .
The men scrambled away, one wrenching the needle in her spine out hard, not caring if it injured her further. There was confused shouting, and another gun shot.
There were flashes of images. Confusing and unusual images. Men with red eyes, a blonde woman with wild hair. Experiments on men and women. A symbol like an octopus.
Rogue hit the floor again, her head spinning, images in her mind that were overwhelming. She couldn't get her legs to listen right now paired with the burn of a gunshot, she was hurting. An inner voice just told her to lay still and stop trying.
And for a few moments she did. One leg was definitely out of commission, she couldn't feel that foot. One hand had a finger dangling half severed. She groaned slid claws out of her good hand, slicing the finger off. It would get in her way.
Someone tried to grab her hair to pull her to the river. Someone else shouted for him to put a bullet in her head, and a gun cocked. One of the images was very clear - they had too much trouble with taking people alive, so were going to grow test subjects from scratch.
A surge of anger swept through her and she pinned the one grabbing her hair to the ground through hiss chest. She stopped caring about useless limbs because that was not a happy image. She used him as a launch pad to go after the one with the gun, no one was growing a copy of her. Which meant she was going to track down everyone.
They started to panic, their leader abandoning his men as he took the samples and bolted towards a waiting helicopter. A large man jumped onto Rogue’s back and jabbed a knife into her side.
Rogue wasn't proud of herself but she charged the one who stabbed hers clothes and launched him towards their leader. “I just wanted a freaking few days away from home I swear to god.” She cursed as she charged at the helicopter, it was a limping charge but she was not in a forgiving mood.
In the midst of the manplosion, a door on the chopper swung open. There was a woman sitting at a large 50 caliber machine gun, and she opened fire.
She couldn't move fast enough to avoid everything and growled in annoyance. “Are you kidding me!? Fucking god damn pieces of shit.” She hit the ground, and rolled, trying to get under the spray of major pain and he a hand on the helicopter before it took off. She was incredibly glad for the dreams, it was the only way she had a clue how to not die.
Something punched her. A man with glowing red eyes, a black mist that wafted off of him. He moved like a shadow, trying to stay between her and the helicopter as it tried to lift off. A sacrificial lamb, but for Hydra, that was SOP.
She got her feet under her and looked at him then at the helicopter. She wrinkled her nose for a moment trying to judge how much laid a hand on him was going to suck. She sighed and ran at him, fully intending to lay one hand on him and use him to jump off of. She gave of a 25% chance of working but it was better than zero
He was there one second, and then like mist the next, moving behind and around her like something out of a horror movie. Grabbing for the back of her top, he tried to yank her back.
She cut her shirt off and kept going, rifling through the rest of her dream given goods and dropping the temp to freezing, hoping to catch him in it even as she used flung ice at the helicopter’s blades.
The blades froze over, and the helicopter fell out of the sky. The shadow man’s movements slowed until he was frozen in place. Red, demonic eyes glared at her. He actually hissed.
“Seriously?” content with the helicopter falling from the sky she turned her attention back to the shadow guy. She wasn’t entirely sure how to end him, beyond trying to kill him while he was frozen - though she really didn’t want him in her head she moved to try to lay a hand on him, knowing she’d risk melting a small patch of skin first, ready to freeze him again if she must. She needed to know more.
The man's eyes suddenly rolled back into his head, and a seizure ran through him. The ice cracked and splintered, foam coming out of his mouth before he went still.
Except for the crackling of fire from the crashed helicopter, all was silent.
Rogue sighed, whatever, and carefully picked her way back to the treeline, watching to make sure no one popped out of the wreckage in tact. She wanted to watch it burn before she dared go back towards camp and her things. Everything hurt, even leaning hard on Logan's powers left her hurting, slow and missing a finger. Her spine was trying to tell her to stop moving, but she couldn't do that.
She needed to get ahold of people because what the fuck? Once satisfied no one was alive, she’d carefully make her way back towards camp. Grateful she hadn’t been in her tent when they’d found her, and only hoping her things were in one piece.
The camp was, unfortunately, a mess. Hydra had ransacked it while she was away, taking anything they thought they could get samples from. The tent was torn up and trashed, most of her supplies were scattered across the campsite and someone had shot a poor squirrel.
Rogue sighed and started cleaning up, ignoring how much everything hurt. She didn't believe in leaving a mess behind in a park. She skinned the squirrel, though, and started a small fire, cooking him over it, while she finished packing up. She had no doubt the phone that'd been tucked in a pocket was broken but when she sat down to eat she pulled it out. Maybe she'd get lucky. Probably not.
The screen was cracked but there was a single, solitary bar of signal.
She almost jumped for joy, but instead regulated her pleasure to sending out a couple texts - mostly to Kitty and Logan. in Alaska, who wants to pick me up? Blew up a Hydra helicopter, btw. I hurt now. (Coordinates of the park visitor center) and carefully hit send, setting the phone down gently as she took a bite of roast squirrel. Not the best meal but…
Only after the text sent did the phone finally give up the ghost and die. Judging by the frantic texts that were attempted to be sent back, the message did manage to get out and Logan and Kitty got their butts onto the Blackbird to come pick her up.
Rogue hiked her ass back to the visitor's center, dumped her things on the edge of the lot and waited. She was burning energy like it was going out of style, but she'd gotten the scrapes healed up and her back started, she figured the finger would figure itself out later. She was well aware she was half naked in the parking lot but she didn't have a fuck left to give about it.
They arrived in short time, and Kitty helped Rogue on board. While she returned to the controls, Logan carried Rogue to a seat and rested his hand on her forehead. "Take my powers, darlin'"
She decided to wisely not argue. “I cut my own finger off, pretty sure take my powers is the best thing I've heard all day, I exhausted my store of them on the hike back.” She let tightly wound control go, just to top off his power so she could finish patching herself up. It was gonna suck for a bit but.. “I need a vacation from my vacation. Pro tip, when there's a needle in your spine punching people is ill advised.” She wiggled her toes, well, tried. Things were still reconnecting so she got a twitch.
"Yeaaaah... lets get you home," Kitty said, glancing back worriedly. The Hydra mention was bad enough. She could guess what they wanted to do to Rogue.
Logan could guess they were still working on whatever bullshit they liked to work on. Enhancing soldiers. But he'd worry about that later. Right now, they needed to take care of Rogue.
Rogue would worry about all that later. “Home good, thanks for coming to get me.” She gave Kitty a tired grin before closing her eyes and leaning carefully against Logan, bare shoulder finding clothed shoulder. “You too.” She murmured before crashing. She'd way overdone it, pushed past limits she hadn't known she had. She'd go over everything with them later, but right now sleep won out.