Okay, y'all. This may or may not be the last chapter. I haven't decided on whether or not I will do an epilogue.

DISCLAIMER: As always, I own nothing of this story but the drama going on in Rogue's mind. Enjoy!

Rogue blanched at the word. Friends. Images of Risty, her lively "friend" slid through her mind like something tortured and distorted. Her chest tightened and a bolt of rage rose from her belly.

"I have no friends!" She spat as the white streaks of her bangs blended swiftly into her lengthening hair. Her pale, almost purplish skin warmed to a deep caramel color as she threw out her arms to meet the billowing winds that had sprung from nowhere. She was dimly aware that she was rising from the ground. She gathered the force of her gale and threw Logan and Cyclops unceremoniously from the warehouse. Lightning played around her splayed fingers, flickering around the edges of her vision.

She could just barely make out Jean and Cyclops over the roar of the wind as she rose from the warehouse, regaining her outward appearance as she did so. This wasn't Storm, or Magneto or Sabertooth. This glorious rage was all Rogue. It was her fury at being used for hours by a plethora of ghosts in her head, at being so thoroughly outshone by Jean in Scott's affections. It was at being a mutant at all, unable to touch, unable to be touched. It was for being deceived by Risty. Mystique. Her Mother. It was all the same. But most of all it was for being left so utterly, excruciatingly alone.

She didn't care what happened, what she had to do. She had spent far too long hyper-aware of her mutation, ever on the alert that she might hurt someone. But tonight she didn't care anymore. They were all the same, all out to hurt her and she would destroy them all. Her eyes gleamed with Scott's destructive power as her hair billowed around her face like a very misplaced halo.

She would destroy everything. And she would take savage pleasure in it. Rogue snarled as she sent a laser streaking at the X-Men. Jean lifted her teammates and dragged them backwards out of harm's way.

Rogue was lining up her next attack when a shriek of reverse wind announced the X-Jet cutting its way haphazardly through the gusts. Rogue grinned languidly, madly. Nothing could stop her; certainly nothing made of metal. A wave of her hand sent the jet tumbling through the air to her left and she groaned with primal satisfaction. They were attacking her, inside her head and out of it, but she would not be contained.

She hovered almost lazily over the scene, raining lasers nonchalantly down on the X-Men as they scrambled for cover. Inside her mind, however, her psyche was in turmoil. The phantoms in her mind clamored for her attention, each one buffeting her with their power, each one chanting in unison: Alone. Alone. Alone. It fueled her rage as she indiscriminately chose her targets running on the ground beneath her.

Rogue grunted in surprise when she suddenly felt her body being forcibly dragged back to earth by Jean's telekinesis. She was livid. Her other threats here were faceless and of little importance beyond a cursory knowledge of what powers they held; against Jean Grey, however, Rogue held a personal, venomous grudge. She braced herself against Jean's onslaught and, allowing herself a growl of satisfaction, flooded Jean's mind with her own telepathy, lifting her roughly with her telekinesis and sending her flying backwards. Rogue was rewarded with a pained scream.

Cyclops stepped in front of Jean, and Rogue retained just enough of her sane self to feel dejected at his protective stance. She faltered just an instant in her blinding rage—why was she doing this again?—when he sent a beam of red heat in her direction. She quickly slid back into her state of towering wrath and blocked it telekinetically. There was an answering thrum of power at the impact before Rogue returned fire with a well-aimed bolt of concentrated lightning. She missed by an inch as he leapt backwards.

Rogue focused on conjuring another bolt when a pop of suction—familiar even in this splintered state—sounded from over her left shoulder. She whirled around as arms and legs circled her.

"You're coming with me, Rogue," Nightcrawler announced gruffly, locking her in place and readying to bring her to the ground below. She felt the tell-tale pressure, the uncomfortable sensation of the teleport's hold on her body, before she twisted away from Nightcrawler. She sent him sprawling to his intended destination, but returned to her original place above the fray.

She steadied herself mid-air from the teleport when Storm sent a formidable blast of wind at her.

"Rogue," she pled. "I'm sorry, but I can't let you hurt any more people!" Rogue's stomach plummeted with the sudden spike of barometric pressure as Storm raised a column of wind around them. Lightning hurtled toward her as she raised her hand to intercept it. There was so much electricity. Her throat burned and she could taste something metallic in her mouth. Rogue raised a hand and gathered the power to her. Thunder pealed once, twice, three times as it chased separate bolts into Storm, who faltered under their combined strength.

It was getting overwhelming, maintaining the rage, fighting to keep control of her mind and battling the X-Men's constant attacks all at once. Her fury was giving way to exhaustion and the mental threats were blurring with the physical. She needed help, she knew she did, but she couldn't tell who she was fighting anymore or what was real. She was dimly aware of Logan giving gruff demands below her, but she couldn't make out his words over the ghosts in her mind as they howled for control. Rogue brought her hands to her aching head, moaning in pain. She couldn't last much longer. She curled into an airborne fetal position and prayed for the whirls of anger and fear to stop.

Logan's bear-like arms enveloped her as he used his forward momentum to send them hurtling to the ground. She gasped, calling on the winds to steady them somewhat before they could smack into the pavement. There was an instinctive terror, a paralyzing dread to falling that she couldn't escape. The wind whistled around her and she couldn't will herself to breathe. She felt Logan twist in the air so that he was at her back before a bone-crunching crash announced their impact onto a car's roof.

She rolled off of him and split into several copies of herself, vaguely sensing that she would need more power to beat Wolverine in a fight. Five sets of Rogue's eyes locked onto his in challenge.

He was panting, his body probably healing a broken rib or two from their crash landing. "Rogue." He his breath hissed through his teeth. "I know what it's like for nothing to make sense in your head. I've been there."

Rogue reached for the adamantium coating Wolverine's skeleton and twisted. She raised an arm and bid the metal to splay his arms and legs from his body as he hung a foot off the ground.

Rogue withdrew a step as lasers flared into being around the eyes of her four copies. The combined force of so many sent Wolverine flying onto the side of a heavy van. Rogue and her copies charged him with angry snarls, each teleporting at the last moment before appearing in a tight circle around Wolverine. They lifted him again, suspending him by his own bones.

"Listen to me, kid," he rasped as he twirled in a slow circle. "The others inside you, you're letting them push you around. The Rogue I know wouldn't take that off of anybody!"

Rogue recoiled, her irritation coming sharply into focus. What?! He didn't understand at all! Amidst the towering, gyrating fury of her anger and betrayal, somehow this small misunderstanding managed to break through. She was suddenly aware of the damage she had inflicted on the surrounding streets, and not to mention her teammates. Her thoughts, while still a little sluggish with the trauma of the evening, were becoming more linear. She gasped, too terrified to even begin to believe she might be coming back to herself. In that moment she knew that Logan, someone, believed in her. Even if he didn't know all of the circumstances behind her behavior or understand exactly what was going on in her mind, he still had faith in her. Her dark, pillaring anger was shot through with the striking of a single spark, one spark of hope.

She whimpered, recalling the copies and rubbing her eyes weakly. But the fight was back in her as some sort of last reserve of strength seeped slowly back into her mind.

"That's right," he encouraged. "Stand up to them." Rogue hit one knee, drawing in her arms to cradle herself and releasing Logan from her magnetic hold.

"Logan. There's too many of them!" She swung her arms in a vain attempt to fight off her attackers.

"Fight it, Rogue." He crouched beside her. "Stay tough."

The phantoms of Magneto and Juggernaut resented the treatment when Logan brought his hand up to stroke Rogue's hair. But Rogue reveled in how nice it felt. She'd remained outside of human contact for so long. Sabertooth roared with vigor in her mind, intent on attacking Wolverine directly. Rogue rebelled against it with only half of her attention. She was trying to remember how long it had been since someone had touched her. She couldn't remember the last time she hadn't been perpetually anxious about contact with her skin. She was mesmerized. When Sabertooth slammed against her control, she wasn't ready.

"No!" She cried aloud. He was unrelenting as he clawed at her control, but he fell back with the arrival of someone new. She couldn't register who it was, but they wanted control of her mind, she was sure of it. "No!" This time it was in denial. She would not return to that place of rage and darkness. "NOOO!" This was half plea-half demand that he stop, that they all stop and let her be. There was a faint echo of several of their voices in her cry, but she couldn't make them all out. They were winning. She was failing, and she knew instinctively that should she lose control this time, that it would be well and truly lost forever.

Stop resisting me, Rogue. The force overtaking her in her mind urged her to stand down. She glanced up. Professor X wheeled gravely toward her, and even in her state of total panic she recognized a familiar sense of peace at his presence. Help me. We can wipe out those personalities together, one by one.

Rogue moaned. Her head was aching, but she forced herself to stop fighting and listen to Professor X.

"Come on," Logan urged. "You can do this."

The professor helped her reassemble her shield of light just as he had begun to teach her to do as soon as she joined the X-Men; it was to prevent this sort of transference. This time, however, they were not only shielding her mind. They were fighting off the mob of personalities who threatened to overtake it. Rogue groaned, falling forward so that her hands and knees were planted painfully on the asphalt. Her fingers curled into fists and her nails bit into her palms as she faced the ghosts in her mind.

Naturally, her first opponent was Cody Robbins, the football player whose innocent touch had had the misfortune of befalling her previously latent mutant abilities first. She focused all of the strength she could, all of the renewed vigor she'd received only moments before from Logan, and channeled it into meeting Cody's memory in her mind. Together, she and the professor flooded the boy with concentrated, psychological power until his form disappeared from her mind.

She immediately felt the change from having just one less person in her mind. The thrill she received from the small liberation hit her like an espresso shot. She could actually imagine that this might work!

A shadow of Nightcrawler dissolved into nothingness; Quicksilver put up more of a fight, but he too vanished in the end. With each expelled personality, Rogue felt her senses returning to her. It was like emerging from a nightmare and finding that the sun had risen outside. She could do this!

Storm and Cyclops went next. As she met Blob, she felt the curious and still unfamiliar sensation of her body stretching out to meet his proportions. She was suddenly aware that her body must be taking the shape of each person she eliminated. The idea was dizzying, so she hastily ignored it.

Mystique—she felt cold, but this time controlled, anger. Risty—her heart wrenched. Kitty, Sabertooth, Avalanche, and Arcade were gone in short order. Magneto was more forceful, but with renewed Rogue's renewed fervor at the idea of possible freedom from the personalities, he too disappeared. Jean, Toad, Beast, and finally somehow hardest of all was Juggernaut. Perhaps his phantom in Rogue's mind prided himself on being "unstoppable" as well.

Rogue was suddenly aware that her throat was hoarse from screaming. She was shaking, almost feverish and her limbs felt like rubber. But her mind was blissfully, blessedly her own as she collapsed into Logan's arms.

Just before her eyelids finally surrendered to exhaustion, she thought she saw a flash of something red waving from a nearby rooftop like a flag. Perhaps there was a flicker of blue skin. But then Logan's arms felt so warm and comforting that she didn't much care who else was out there.

KaliAnn: Thank you! I appreciate your feedback.

Kamiragem: I hope this was soon enough!

Mistyfoxmaid: You're right, it definitely was about time. Thanks for your patience!

high lord mage: Why, thank you!