My Destiny Belongs To The One Who Sets Me Free

Marie took the cure for so many reasons, never entirely sure if even one of those reasons was a good one. But she should have learnt to trust that old addage 'never trust the mad scientist that promises you the keys to the world.'

' In my hands love lies bleeding...'- Hemorrhage- Fuel.

Rogue stepped closer to the edge of the icy ridge so she could see, could see it all burn. The forests, the stone buildings, the people, and the places... the world was on fire and she had lit the fuse.

It didn't hurt as much as it should have, as much as it used to. There was a time in the beginning when it had burned, much like the fires in the distance. When the feeling of so much power had threatened to overwhelm her, when the idea that she was no longer cured, no longer herself but merely a thing, a creature modified, designed and released to kill…simply to kill…

She turned back to the man lying in the snow and approached him slowly. The wind whipped up around her and drifts of snow rained down like cold crude confetti. Her hair matted by blood not her own stuck firmly to the sides of her face, the white streaks taking on reddish unholy hue.

She stopped just before she reached him; glancing downwards she had spied something in the snow that triggered a lifetime of memories. Not all dead then she thought, funny, they could enhance the mutant side of her, but could they have realised twinges of humanity still remained? Some semblance of a heart that beat and a love that refused to die.

Crouching down she picked up the playing card, harmless now, the deadly charge from it long gone. The Queen of Hearts, cruel irony, a small smile playing on her lips Rogue turned the card over in her bare hands.

She knelt next to his body, surveying him quietly at first, before taking his cold hand and prying the staff softly from his still curled fingers. She held his hand for a while bringing it up to her lips and gently kissing it, then she placed the card in his palm and laid his hand gently over his chest.

'Remy, mon chère why didn't ya just let me go, given up like the rest of 'em. Ah wouldn't have had to hurt ya…' She bowed her head silently vainly wishing she knew something of a God, some sort of prayer to reverently whisper over his still body. It seemed unfitting that he should just ebb away on cold slabs of ice…., dead, by her hands.

But she was a creature of death, an unholy, unnatural thing, the harbinger of doom, the apocalypse itself. Prayer, forgiveness…reverence was not hers. Life was not hers.

The sudden snapping of a twig behind her brought her out of her reverie. Lifting her head slightly she smiled, a familiar scent attacking her heightened senses, and the old sensations of one more fight worth fighting returned.

Of course, he like Remy did not give up easily, he fought bitterly and his near invincibility might just mean that he would prove the adversary she had long craved for. Could it be that it would end…, that he was bringing her a promised end?

'Hello Logan…' she greeted the familiar swishing of adamantium blades with calmness and her usual Southern lilt. 'It's been a long time and an even longer road…old friend.'

'Marie…' he replied. He watched her carefully, he had let her defeat him once before, that fight had almost cost him her life, but not this time. He looked past her shoulder and down to the fallen Remy.

She seemed to read his thoughts perfectly, 'Ah didn't want to, but we both know sometimes the animal in us won't be denied. Ah did ask him to go. Fool, fool of a boy to think he could defeat so many of us.' She shook her head, 'Trying to reach his Marie…even after ah'd told him she was long gone.'

'Is she gone…?' Logan asked, even though somehow always knowing the answer that would be returned.

Rogue tapped the side of her head, 'First casualty ah'm afraid…' She rose slowly to her feet and turned to him slowly.

She turned to look at the vast emptiness around her, and then looked towards him again, 'Familiar ground Logan, do ya recognise it?'

Of course he did, the old labs were here, buried somewhere underneath these mountains of snow. Those labs where they had taken so much from both of them, the epicentre of both their nightmares, the place where they had ripped open his skin and poured that white hot metal into him. Just like her he had burned here.

And here was the place where they had turned her into this, with their experiments, their promised cure, with their lies, all damned lies. Here was where she had died and it had been born.

She smiled at him once more, but Logan thought he could see a solitary tear starting at the corner of her eye. It gathered pace and rolled down her cheek. Logan suddenly realised Marie was not all gone, somewhere behind those eyes lay the sweet girl he had once dismissed so casually, an accursed mistake that had led to all this.

And he wished to heaven he had not seen it, not seen that faint trace of that sweet girl of so many years ago. It would make this so much harder.

'Marie…' he whispered, 'You know why I'm here, what I have to do…'

She nodded her head firmly, Rogue had returned and Marie was banished. She was after all a killing machine, and just like him she wasn't going to go easy.

'Ah know..., just like ah know ah have to kill ya for trying…'

The wind whipped around them once more, but both held their ground firmly, ready for the bitter fight to the death.