Growing up, Anna Marie was a sweet young girl. She enjoyed several friends in her sleepy Mississippi home, always outgoing and cheerful. Her life changed however when she tried for her first kiss with her boyfriend Cody. During the kiss, she suddenly found herself thinking different thoughts, remembering different things. And more distressing, she felt Cody go limp beneath her. Scared and unsure what was happening, Anna Marie ran away.
Soon it became clear how seriously Cody was suffering: when he was discovered, he was identified as being in a coma and received hospitalization. When the police started to search for her for questioning, Anne Marie was unsure what she would say. Packing some things and heading on the road, she hitchhiked her way out of her home town, trying to find somewhere she could be safe. Anywhere.
On the road, Anna Marie took up the name Rogue while she traveled down the highways. She soon discovered that if she touched anyone with her bare hand, she would absorb her victims memories, abilities and portions of their personality. Soon she met a woman who had some answers: Rogue was a metahuman, born with the strange ability to steal the very essence of other people. Still scared, but Rogue now had someone who had some answers, and seemed to be willing to help her.
The other woman quickly took Rogue under her wing. Powered herself and teaching Rogue more about the sudden explosion in metahuman activity, the pair eventually started to run jobs together, using their powers in tandem. A small heist here or there, but slowly things started to get bigger and more dangerous. But it was an exciting life, even as Rogue started to wonder if what they did was technically right. But her friend seemed to know what she was doing. So Rogue trusted, and continued to work with her new partner.
The thrillride came to a prompt stop. Another heist, and Rogue and her partner were actually met by another metahuman hoping to stop them, one of the newfangled costumed superheroines. Scared, unsure if they would get away and ordered by her partner, Rogue attempted to use her powers to subdue their opponent. What occured next was intoxicating, as she felt the other womans power flood into her own cells. The strength, the power. It was overwhelming and thrilling, but it also causes her to forget what she was doing; soon the heroine fell limp in her hands. Just like Cody. And just like Cody, the victim of Rogue's touch seemed to slip into a coma. The thing that Anna Marie all those miles ago ran away from caught up to her once again.
Scared, freaked out and flooded with new, seemingly permanent powers, Rogue became increasingly convinced she couldn't live the life of a criminal. Fleeing from her partner, uncertain of the future, Rogue continued to do what she did best: run, this time making her way to the Big Apple to disappear. Alone, scared and uncertain of the future, Rogue began to try to establish herself a new life. And she started to think of how she could make up for her past misgivings, considering her newfound fantastic strength and flight, realizing she may have one way to make it up to the heroine she stole the life: to become a hero herself.
Psyche:
Distant: Rogue isn't the warmest or friendliest person, especially to strangers. This is pasrtially a defense mechanism to keep people at bay, as she worries if she gets close to people she will eventually hurt them. Inwardly she would like to have more people that she could trust and be close to, but the danger is too great for the risk. For now she remains sarcastic, closed off and bitter.
Compassionate: Rogue doesn't like bullies, and will often stick up for the little guy when the chips are down. And despite her cool exterior, she is rarely cruel and malicious to others; in fact, those that can break through her shell, often will find a core sweetness. She will reach out to help others, even if she shrinks back when someone else does the same, merely because she can't stand to see others in pain.
Remorseful: Rogue has had a short life, but she already has several things she regrets. Chief among them are the two lives she's convinced she's ruined, the people who she put into comas with her ability. Add that, her criminal acts and the fact she ran away from home at the first sign of trouble, and she is a young woman with a lot to unpack and consider. She is hoping to make up for her past, but she is weighed down by guilt.
Cautious: Between her uncontrollable powers and a criminal record that crosses state lines, Rogue is reasonably cautious with her actions. This means that she doesn't jump into impossible scenarios, or trust someone without cause or reason. She is still given to fits of heroism, but often with a question of what exactly she's doing. With Rogue, no move is made without special consideration; acting impulsively can lead to disasterous results.
Motivations
The reasons why Rogue has been pushed to herodom are complicated; on the one hand, she is foundationally a good person who has been adrift for a longtime. But more basically, she is also seeking her own sense of repentance. And there is the whole question of how much of her personality is even hers anymore; a large part of what drives Rogue towards herodom is a sense of trying to rediscover and reclaim who she is. If she can help other people in the process, that is a side benefit as far as she is concerned.
Goals
On the most basic level, Rogue wants to make things right. A sense of duty has overtaken her mindset recently, and she's not 100% unsure it isn't due to the heroine she recently absorbed into herself. Still, she wants to make a new life for herself, by doing good and hurting as few people as she can.
Absorption
Making skin-to-skin contact with another living thing causes Rogue to begin to absorb some form of their life force. This has two significant and related effects: Rogue beings to absorb the skills, memories, abilities and personality of the touched, and the touched gradually weakens. Both of these occurances are exponentially related to how long contact lasts. A mere brush of her hand will only allow Rogue to absorb the persons abilities for a matter of seconds and the victim will only notice a slight lightheadedness; a longer touch of a few seconds will transfer the information several minutes and cause the touches to feel fairly weak. If she ever holds on to a victim for anything resembling two minutes, uninterrupted, the tranfer will be complete and permanent, and the touched falls into a coma-like state. It should be noted that only abilities that are related to organic life can be absorbed, not from technological forms such as power suits or androids. At this time, Rogue has no control over her powers, unable stop the transfer from occurring or the speeds with which it does.
Strength
While most powers that Rogue absorbs eventually fade away, a couple have stayed with her seemingly premanently. The first is enhanced strength, well beyond traditional human ability. This allows her to lift up to 50 tons of weight, and exert relative force onto structures.
Flight
Another ability that Rogue absorbed permanently was the ability to fly. This can range from simple hovering up and down, and can reach up to speed of around 350 MPH. Performing feats of strength requires upmost concentration, and she is vulnerable in the air of being knocked off course and away if not properly bracing herself.
Durability
The final special power that Rogue has permanently absorbed is a high ability to withstand punishment on her body. This means that she can withstand falls from high distances, high caliber gunfire and even low-level energy blasts with minimal physical damage. She is not full invulnerable however, and continued to exposure to extreme punishment or conditions can wear down her defense to the point where she takes serious damage, as if a typical human.
"Lost" Memories
The specifics of Rogue's powers are something of a mystery; eventually most abilities, personalities and memories fade away. But sometimes, parts of memories stay with her. This can be a very bad thing (see "Ghosts" in flaws), but it also means that she occasionally knows things she otherwise wouldn't. She can rarely force herself to recall something when needed, but occasionally a stray phrase or voice will stir something buried deep in her fractured psyche. The information comes, and then fades back into the gray, but the recalls can assist her in key moments.
Stealth
Between having to avoid human contact and her own past as a criminal, Rogue has developed a mature ability to disappear and remain unseen. Sometimes this means blending into her surroundings, other times it means sneaking unseen, aware of her surroundings. Whatever the method, Rogue is very good at remaining unseen until she wants to be.
Combat
While Rogue ultimately prefers to avoid a straight hand-to-hand confrontation if she can help it, she has learned a few way to defend herself or to subdue someone being a general danger. This is both her own skill, learned from confrontations on the road, as well as some learned from her past absorbing. All in all, she can certainly hold her own with most combatants.
Acrobatics
While staying hidden is always preferable, there are sometimes that you just have to run. To this end, Rogue has built up an impressive ability to vault, climb and otherwise use her environment to escape, in the process gaining some rather impressive acrobatic ability. Some might call it parkour, but Rogue prefers to think of it just as improvising and surviving.
Street Smarts
Rogue has spent the last several years on the road, not always living exactly the legal lifestyle. This has led to her developing a series of information about how the "real" world works, and how to make sure she survives. While she may not have contacts in every city across the country, she can dig around, knows how to keep herself safe on the seedy side of town and even can blend in among riff-raff when needed.
Dance
Shhh, don't tell anyone because it would totally rock her moody cred, but before her life devolved into craziness, Rogue loved to dance. Never classically trained and certainly not up on any recent "trends", but Rogue can move with grace to most music, having a natural sense of rhythm that helps her move along naturally.
Out of Control
The nature of Rogue's powers alone make them extremely dangerous, but the fact that she can't control them makes them that much more terrifying. Any small touch activates her powers, and the transfer itself can make it difficult for her to disengage. Rogue has gone to great lengths to keep herself as covered as she can, but mistakes still happen, and people can get hurt around her if she's not extremely careful.
Ghosts
The ability for Rogue's brain to accept memories and personalities typically comes with an expiration date. However, shards of other people can float around within her mind, causing her personality to become fractured and confused. This is especially true for the hero that Rogue absorbed and her first victim, her boyfriend Cody; they are permanent parts of her psyche that is sometimes to difficult to seperate from her own thoughts and memories. This burden of other people's lives inside her head can be very frustrating, confusing and (on especially bad occasions) nearly debilitating. Imagine if you had a chorus of different opinions, memories and personalities floating around your head? Yeah, that's Rogue's life.
Self-Esteem
To put it mildly, Rogue doesn't have a very high opinion of herself, between her dangerous powers and checkered past. She sees herself as damaged goods, and suspects others view her the same way. Even when people are kind to her, she puts up defenses, and makes internal excuses for why someone would try to be nice to her. It can make her stubborn, cranky and hard to get along with, which in turn is partially why she does it: to protect others from her.
Drifter
Rogue has a habit of constantly being on the move. This means she rarely stays in one place for any significant amount of time. She doesn't set roots very easily, and even if she does, she starts to think about moving on again. This creates a scenario where she has few things that tie he down, meaning she has a harder time finding stability and regularity.
Wanted
True to her name, Rogue has nowhere to really lay her head, having been on the road for several years now. This is partially because she never feels at home, but more practically its due to the criminal record she has generated across state lines. For this reason she can't allow herself to be spotted by suspicious souls, especially by police who might be debriefed to be on the lookout for her. She hasn't exactly made the America's Most Wanted list, but she certainly is on some watch lists and might come up in national databases if her fingerprints are found as a person of interest; good thing she usually wears gloves.
Old "Friends"
In addition to Rogue's checkered past getting on some wanted lists, she also has gained some specific enemies. The first is her previous partner in crime, who is none too happy about being abandoned. While she is likely not looking out to hurt Rogue, she will likely try to bring her back into the fold of illegal activity if they ever cross paths. The other person seeking her out is the heroine that Rogue 'borrowed' the powers of; unbeknownst to Rogue, she survived her coma-like fate, and now searches out Rogue to seek some revenge. Regardless to say, that latter confrontation could be less friendly than the former. But both could make things uncomfortable.
