[center][img]https://images.cooltext.com/5050635.png[/img][/center][hr][COLOR=Gold][INDENT][B][SUP][SUB][H3]XAVIER'S SCHOOL FOR GIFTED YOUNGSTERS[/H3][/SUB][/SUP][INDENT][indent][B][SUP][SUB][H3]~ [i]THEN[/i][/H3][/SUB][/SUP][/B][/INDENT][/indent][/B][/INDENT][/COLOR]
[INDENT][INDENT][color=black][sup]August 20, 2004  |  2:42 P.M.  |  Salem Center, New York[/sup][/color][/INDENT][/INDENT]
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Mystique's yellow eyes darted back and forth, eyeing each of the young X-Men and taking stock of the situation. To her left, both of her longtime mutant cohorts - John Allerdyce, and Dominikos Petrakis, known as Pyro and Avalanche respectively - were unconscious. The two had gone against four of the X-Men, managing to hold their own for some time before several tricky maneuvers resulted in their defeat. To her own credit, Mystique had faced off against the young telekinetic Jean Grey for some time before being cornered and restrained.

This had not been what she had intended when planning this assault on Xavier's mansion. Her initial strategy was to sneak inside and eliminate each of her enemies one-by-one out of revenge for the last time the X-Men had come against her group of subversives. And, unlike the last confrontation, this time she had brought along a secret weapon; a powerful metahuman runaway Mystique had recently taken under her wing. She had spent the past several weeks twisting and corrupting the naive, young girl's mind to better suit Mystique's own goals. 

So, when the four of them had been discovered only shortly after arriving on the school's front grounds, Mystique had allowed herself the confidence of knowing they could win a direct engagement due entirely to their newest member. This runaway possessed the unique and useful ability to drain the life-force from an individual through physical contact, and take on any talents and extranormal abilities they may possess. Mystique and her crew had already tested this mutant power on a showboating 'hero' only days ago, using the girl to completely drain the so-called Wonder Man of all his energy, and empowering her to incredible levels. 

When the six young X-Men had first arrived, Mystique sent her new recruit to head off Calvin Rankin, the largest threat among them, while she, Pyro, and Avalanche dealt with the remaining five. Calvin, codename the Mimic, was powerful indeed, but Mystique knew that, even if a battle of pure power wasn't in the girl's favor, she would still be able to render the X-Men leader unconscious through a simple touch, thus leaving her further supercharged to deal with those who were still left standing by that point.

However, something had gone awry.

Mystique turned her gaze to the skies, shouting up towards the two figures dueling two hundred feet above. "Rogue!" She called out to the girl, "what's taking so long? Get down here [i]now![/i]"

"I'm tryin', I swear! He just won't stand still," the girl answered with a distinctly Southern accent. Raising her hands up, a surge of deep purple energy rocketed from Rogue's palms towards her foe.

Calvin flapped his angelic wings, borrowed from Warren Worthington, and narrowly dodged out of the way. At the same time, he reached out with his mind to nudge Rogue's outstretched arms to the left, sending the beam of energy sweeping in the opposite direction. 

He had been using his superior aerial mobility to repeatedly evade, only using the powers mimicked from his teammates for defensive purposes, and to redirect the intended attacks of the girl. Cal hadn't encountered this one before, not on any of the past handful of occasions he and the rest of the X-Men had run afoul of Mystique and her crew, and the way Rogue handled herself in a fight made it clear to him that she was drastically inexperienced. He knew that, in this moment, they were meant to be enemies, but there was just something about this girl that led him to hold back. Despite having never met her, knowing nothing about her prior to this incident, there was still something [i]familiar[/i] about her.

Another blast of ionic energy rushed towards him momentarily blocking his field-of-view, and Calvin hurriedly flew up to avoid the attack. As he rose above it, he glanced back to where Rogue had been just a moment before to notice that she was gone. Spinning around Calvin had but a split-second to react as a gloveless hand reached out to grab his face. Instinctively, he pushed outward with a wave of psionic energy that sent the girl back, her fingertips swiping the air just inches in front of Cal's face. 

Before she was pushed back, the girl had been close enough for Calvin to get an unintended empathic reading. Despite not attempting to probe Rogue's mind, her powerful and conflicting emotions emanated from her in such a way that it was impossible for him to miss at that range. The sense of familiarity Calvin had been faced with since encountering this stranger returned stronger than ever, and in that brief moment Calvin's face lit up with understanding. 

The frustrated Rogue closed in again, attempting to reach out once more. "Why won't you just stand still?" She punctuated each word with a sloppy swing of her fist.

Cal continued to nimbly duck and weave from the blows, but he kept the distance closed this time instead of darting away. For the first time, he spoke out to the girl, "we don't have to do this. Rogue, isn't it? That's what Mystique called you? It's not too late, there are other ways to-"

He was cut short as Rogue's fists flashed with brilliant, purple energy that finally made contact. The forceful, close-range blast caught Calvin square in the chest and sent him careening down several dozen feet before managing to right himself in the air once more. He was unable to catch his breath, however, as the girl was immediately upon him again with a flurry of awkward, but powerful punches. 

"I just want to talk!" Calvin struggled to get these few words out fast enough while still maintaining his evasive maneuvers. The concentration it took to dodge the girl's incoming barrage made it difficult to form the words quickly, let alone string together a full explanation. 

Rogue's fists began to glow again, and, Cal, not wanting to take another of those energy blasts, finally reacted. Stopping, he shot his own hands out to grab onto the girl's wrists. "Enough already. Just stop, okay? There's no need to fight."

Rogue did stop, her eyes going wide as she stared at the hands clutched around her bare wrists. "H-how're you..." She looked up into the eyes of Calvin, her shock at such an act evident. "I'm... I'm touchin' you, but you're... you're not..."

Calvin watched as the fight, what little there had been to begin with, left her face. Throughout their brief skirmish, Cal had gotten the distinct impression that his supposed foe wasn't all too committed to their bout. Her attempts at attacks had looked hesitant to him, almost resigned. And that nagging sensation of familiarity had only increased as this impression had become more clear to him. It wasn't until he had inadvertently 'read' her emotions in the moment that he understood. The feelings of fear, reluctance, and the overwhelming desire from Rogue to fit in, to be accepted, and to have a place to belong were all too recognizable to Cal. 

"I don't understand," Rogue continued.

"I do." Calvin released his grip on her wrists. "You're like me."[/indent]
[center][b][color=gold]* * *[/color][/b][/center][hr][color=gold][indent][indent][indent][B][SUP][SUB][H3]~ [i]NOW[/i][/H3][/SUB][/SUP][/B][/INDENT][/indent][/indent][/color]
[INDENT][INDENT][color=black][sup]November 12, 2017  |  6:40 P.M.  |  Hudson Valley, New York[/sup][/color][/INDENT][/INDENT]
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Memories of the first time he met Rogue flashed through Calvin's head as he surveyed the scene of her last known whereabouts. Thoughts of how their paths in life had taken such similar turns, both lost souls desperate for acceptance who became enticed by the wrong crowd. Both ending up at Xavier's mansion as the intended weapon of a metahuman terrorist, and both encountering someone who would change their lives for the better by setting them onto a new and improved path. 

For Calvin, that individual had been the professor, and it was because of that experience that he, in turn, was able to convince Rogue of a different way, and help guide her down that better path. One that, in the years that came, wholly became connected to his own in ways he had never expected during that fateful encounter. 

But now, some unknown entity had placed an obstacle along their intertwined paths, dividing and separating them. And that obstacle, the believed kidnapping of Rogue, originated here, just outside the town of Poughkeepsie. 

Rogue and Megan Gwynn, codename Pixie, had been assigned to track down mutant resistance leader Mystique. Although it had been some time since their old foe had been a problem for the X-Men, the shapeshifter was one of the few aware of Cerebro's existence, as well as possessing the capabilities for the kind of strike that had been perpetrated in the heart of the mansion. The mission was simply to discover the whereabouts, and monitor the movements of Mystique, not to engage. Rumors had been circulating for weeks that the blue-skinned woman had been seen in the area of Dutchess County, but according to Megan's report, she and Rogue had been unable to locate any trace of her. 

The two had separated only momentarily, to do one final scan of the area, with plans to reunite on the East bank of the Hudson, not far from Poughkeepsie Bridge. Megan, however, upon finishing her final patrol arrived at the spot and waited for Rogue before eventually growing concerned and searching for her mentor. Backtracking to the spot where they had initially split up, the young X-Man trainee discovered signs of a struggle and a blood trail that led off to a nearby, isolated road. It was on that road that Calvin now stood.

The sun had already begun to set nearly two hours ago, and scanning the entire length of the road by eyesight for what little may remain of a couple day's old splashes of blood would take more time than Calvin was willing to spare. Thankfully, though, one of the handful of powersets Calvin had mimicked long ago was that of good friend Victor Creed. Known as Sabretooth, Victor was a metahuman with several gifts, one of which being a dramatically enhanced, keen sense of smell. Using this borrowed ability, it only took Calvin a matter of minutes to locate the blood trail mentioned by Megan. Even dried, the metallic tones stood out to his nose.

He knelt down in the road, running his fingers across the dried splotches. He wasn't able to determine if it belonged to Rogue, but if it were hers, there wasn't enough present to indicate she had been gravely injured. Not that Calvin believed she could even [i]be[/i] seriously harmed, not with the powerful energies that coursed through her, shielding her from virtually all physical damage. He still wasn't sure how, whoever was responsible, had even been able to take Rogue out given her capabilities. 

Continuing to examine the road closely, Cal could now see that the trail of dried blood came to a sudden stop. In its place, however, extended a new trail. The faint trace of tire tracks along the asphalt started not far from the final puddle of blood, itself slightly larger than the rest, and headed North down the road. The size of the tires led Calvin to believe it had been a large van, or truck, and the evidence of its departure seemed to suggest it had sped off in quite a hurry. Given the larger puddle, he guessed that whoever had been injured in the apparent fight had entered a vehicle that had been lying in wait here, and driven away. He was willing to bet the bloodied individual was likely one of her captors, though how someone who could subdue a powerful metahuman like Rogue had been able to be hurt, either, left just as many questions in Cal's mind. 

Regardless, the fact that those responsible had had an escape vehicle ready suggested this was planned. But for that to be the case, they'd have had to have been able to either predict or track Rogue and Megan here. And the latter seemed highly unlikely given the two had teleported here via Megan's fledgling sorcery. 

[i]So, who could have known they'd be here? And why only take Rogue, and leave Megan?[/i] Calvin found his thoughts briefly flash towards the possibility of a mole, but dismissed it almost immediately. He and Scott were the only other two who had been aware of the details for this mission prior to Rogue going missing. Even if he had the remotest cause to believe they had been betrayed, which he didn't, it wasn't probable.

Still, though, he had a trail now. And, as faint of a track as the light tread marks were, it was something Calvin could follow with his heightened vision. It would take time, he knew, but wherever the tire tracks led, it would bring him one step closer to finding Rogue. And whoever it was responsible for taking her from him in the first place. 

[i]I'll find you, love. Just a little longer. I'll find you.[/i]
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