Disclaimer - I do not X-Men: Evolution and I lay no claim to them. I do own Ava and Adam Jensen plus their parents. I also own Ben. I will not make any money from this.

A/N Okay this is nearly finished. Just the epilogue to go. Yay!

Chapter 11

Ava had always had vivid nightmares that had plagued her day and night. She remembered constantly screaming for her parents in the middle of the night. Yet she was also a very brave girl. She had been really friendly until her powers kicked in and she became withdrawn. She alienated herself because she didn't wish to hurt anyone.

Everyone who knew her would vouch for how caring and kind she was unless she was put into a bad situation. She always seemed to have strong control over her emotions and herself as a person. Now she had been put into an impossible situation and she no longer had any control.

Magneto was on one side of her and Ben on the other. They reminded her of all those cartoons where the good and bad parts of yourself argued either side of your head. She wanted to laugh but she was terrified. Her hands were outstretched and her eyes were wide but unseeing.

"Please get out of here now. Everyone" she cried but no one was moving.

"Don't you understand that I have no control left? If you don't end up killing each other you will go insane" she spoke in a voice that sounded to old for her body.

~*~

Everyone had stopped moving when Ava had begun to scream. Worried that she was in trouble everyone had taken an unconscious step towards her.

Jean what is happening? the Professor's voice sounded inside her head.

It's Ava. Something is wrong. She doesn't have any control left Jean began to reply when suddenly the room shifted.

Jean lost concentration because something was in front of her. A tall, burning replica of herself. The flames flickered around her and seemed to move as if they were laughing at her.

"You will kill them all. Did you know that?" the replica laughed at her.

"No I won't. You're not real."

"I am. I am what you will become. I am powerful and I will kill everyone you love."

Jean began to scream at that.

~*~

"Jean. What is it?" Scott's distraught voice was heard by everyone through the headsets.

Everyone could clearly hear Jean screaming in fear.

"Nightcrawler, what is happening?"

Kurt didn't know what was going on and he was going to reply when something moved in front of him.

"You are an abomination. You are the devil's imp. You are impure in the eyes of God" someone said to him.

Kurt's eyes widen as he saw a group of people standing in front of him with fear and anger in their eyes.

"I'm human" Kurt replied.

"You are evil incarnate" the leader of the group spat at him.

Kurt took a step back only to find himself surrounded by angry, scared people who were yelling rude things at him.

"Burn him, kill him, send him back to hell" the crowd began to chant.

"I'm a good guy" Kurt tried to explain but fear was creeping into every inch of his body.

He began to yell in fright.

~*~

Rogue saw Kurt freeze and begin to yell. She realised that Ava must be losing control as she saw Kitty and Lance begin to scream followed closely by Fred, Toad and Evan. Only Scott, Magneto and herself were not affected as of yet.

"Scott, Ava's causing this. Everyone is stuck in his or her worst nightmare. Scott...Scott are you there?" Rogue tapped at her headset but threw it down when she heard him begin to scream as well.

She ran up to the boy, Ben, and pulled him away from the screams.

"She's grown a lot stronger" he said in a numb voice.

"How is she doing this?"

"I think this is her worst fear. Loosing control" Ben replied slowly.

"Can you stop her?"

"No. I haven't seen her like this before."

Rogue knew that there was only one option left. Setting her shoulders she removed both of her gloves. She had to knock her unconscious before someone died. She made her way through the scared people and wanted to cry. She was a loner but no one deserved to see people like this, it was worse than torture.

She was nearly at Ava's side when the girl turned and stared directly at Rogue.

Rogue stared back and began to reach a hand up only to be paralysed by her own fear. She backed into the recesses of her mind where she found every person she had ever absorbed.

"You killed me, Rogue. You absorbed my life and spat out my husk" one person said.

Others appeared, people that Rogue had never met. All of them saying that she killed them. Rogue felt her mind slipping into darkness and she collapsed onto the floor.

~*~

Magneto saw the girl collapse and he knew that he had to do something. His thought it was his helmet that was stopping the nightmares but he realised that he had lived through his worst nightmare in the concentration camps.

He strode towards Ava and, carefully avoiding contact, lifted Rogue's hand grabbed Ava's hand. He then joined them together and watched with a satisfied grin as Ava's eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed next to Rogue.

He heard the screams begin to subside and watched as, one by one, everyone began to recover. He paced among those present to make sure that they were okay. He was actually worried because he had underestimated Ava and had nearly killed everyone here.

He had only wanted to render the X-Men useless for a small amount of time as a scare tactic but he realised that things had gotten worse.

"Is everyone all right?" he heard Scott's voice call out.

"I think so."

"Not really."

"I'm alive, if that counts."

~*~

Charles had gotten himself inside the warehouse as quickly as possible, closely followed by Storm and the new recruits. He found his students, the Brotherhood and some of Magneto's crew all trying to comfort each other and calm down. He saw Rogue and Ava's inert forms lying next to each other.

"I'm never gonna sleep again" Rogue said as she stirred and forced her eyes open.

"Rogue, I am glad to see that you are all right."

Charles looked around and saw Ava's parents and brother. All were shaken and not too willing to come any closer to the mutants. He felt that something was still wrong. Someone in the room was feeling a great anger towards someone else in the room.

Charles wheeled over to where Ava lay. He noted sadly that the mark on her face had covered her hands and had spread to her cheeks. She began to stir and she opened her eyes.

"Ava, how are you feeling?"

She couldn't reply because she couldn't stop crying. Charles waited for her calm down.

"I hurt you all. I don't want to loose control again. Please help me."

"We will Ava. You are safe here" Charles replied.

"But I hurt people. I...I am evil" she cried.

"You are not evil, Ava. You just have a special but difficult gift and with training you will gain control" Charles tried to comfort her.

"It's hard to be different - especially in a world that persecutes you for being different" she said in reply.

~*~

Ava looked around the room feeling sick, she had done all this and she had nearly killed everyone here. Except for her family and Ben. They had not been affected which had surprised her. She stood up on shaky legs and walked towards her family but was shocked to see her dad walk away.

"I am sorry, if that is any consolidation: she heard a familiar rich voice say.

She turned to see Magneto standing behind her, his helmet under one arm and a very disturbed look on his face.

"I'm not going to say forget about it. You stuffed up and nearly got everyone killed because of some grudge. I can't forgive you for that" Ava said before walking out of the way.

~*~

Magneto watched as she walked away and he was about to turn to Charles when he realised that Ava's father was rushing towards her at a great speed. He didn't see the sharp piece of metal that he held until it was too late. He tried to run towards her and reached out with his power at the same time but he was too slow.

He saw Ava turn with a look of surprise on her face, which turned to pain when the piece of metal embedded itself into her chest. He heard her gasp in pain and saw everyone look up in confusion. He heard Ben scream, an agonising sound, which was, followed by others running and shouting.

~*~

Ava felt the metal stab deep and she wasn't that surprised. She hadn't told her parents that she was a mutant. She knew that her mum would not hold it against her but she knew her dad hated mutants. But she had never thought that he would kill his own daughter.

She heard the others as they rushed to her side. She felt Magneto's power as he mentally pulled the metal from her chest.

"I didn't want to hurt anyone anymore. It's better this way" she said as the room went dark.

There was no more pain. She was free from her nightmares.