Chapter 4: Awakenings

His dreams were filled with fire and screams, pyramids and costumed men, and the dreams were red, always red. Something far away was on the verge of being awakened, something evil, and it must be stopped, as futile as those efforts would ultimately be. There was a girl at the center of it all, and if he could concentrate, if he could focus this lucid nightmare, then he would see her clearly and know why she was so terribly important.

Larry Trask awoke with a pounding headache. It was like the brutal hangover he had suffered two summers earlier in Georgetown after being coaxed into a few too many vodka shots by his then friend, Jerry. It was the first and only time he had ever gotten drunk.

"Th…the room's spinnin'…" he murmured, not sure if he was talking or thinking.

His eyesight came into focus, and he found himself staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. His other senses returned slowly; he was laying on a couch with a blanket thrown over him, and a television was blaring. A female newscaster's voice buzzed in his ear.

"In our top story, the mutant situation has…"

"Where am I?!" Larry sat up, the memories of his assault coming back to him with the force of a sledgehammer.

"You're in my home," said a voice not far away. Larry looked over the couch to see a woman standing in the doorway. Her brown hair was cropped short in a boyish style, and sunglasses hid her eyes. She had traded her white costume for a casual blouse and jeans, but Larry knew who she was immediately.

"Destiny," he whispered.

"You know who I am?" She inquired, not sounding surprised. Was she testing him?

"Yeah…" Larry murmured, his temple still pounding. He felt a most peculiar sense of déjà vu, like this had already happened. In his dreams, it did. "You're Irene Adler. Destiny. And right now we are going to have a long talk." His head still spun. How did I know that?

She smirked. "You're good."

"Who were those men? Why did they come after me?"

"They were sent by a man named John Wraith, a colonel who served in the Gulf War and is currently the head of a secret government organization known as AEGIS. He worked with your father." She strode across the room to sit in a chair facing the couch.

"Dad!" Larry exclaimed. Irene had sounded an alarm in his brain. "Something's happened to him."

"Quite right, of course," she replied in that even, unsurprised tone of hers. "A lot has happened in the 22 hours you were asleep."

Before the shock of that last bit of information could sink in, Irene picked up a remote control from the coffee table and turned up the television's volume.

"…The President of the United States issued a full pardon for the mutants identifying themselves as the 'X-Men' and the 'Brotherhood of Mutants' after their heroic acts against the super-strong criminal known as the Juggernaut. The impassioned speech given by mutants Ororo Munroe and Dr. Henry McCoy before Congress is also believed to have influenced the President's decision…"

Larry's eyes widened at the various clips that played on screen—an intense battle atop a dam that would put a summer blockbuster to shame, a furry blue man in a designer suit speaking before the United States Congress—it was too much to take in so quickly.

Then there was a sound bite from President McKenna's national address: "I can assure you that the real culprit behind the Sentinel attack that endangered our citizens has been caught…"

"Oh no." Larry's eyes were wide, horrorstruck.

There, on the evening news for the entire world to see, was Bolivar Trask. Arms handcuffed behind his back, he was pushed into the back of an armored car by two policemen. Trask did not try to hide his face or lower his head; he looked directly at the shaky camera, his gaze steely and unrepentant.

"No," Larry repeated, refusing to believe what he was seeing. "No, no, no…"

The newswoman resumed her spiel. "Bolivar Trask, a former anthropologist, was apprehended yesterday after evidence found in the underground lair in Bayville connected him to the giant robot known as the Sentinel. He confessed to creating the deadly weapon, and has been incarcerated--"

"No!" Larry jumped to his feet, almost knocking over the table. "This can't be happening!"

"It can, and it is," Irene said flatly. "Please calm down."

"Dad…" Larry murmured weakly. Then his head snapped up. "Tanya! Oh my God, Tanya's gotta be worried sick--!"

The young man was half-crazed. Far too much was happening for him to think straight, and before Irene could stand Larry had bolted across the room and down the hall, throwing open the front door as if his sister, and his previous life, would be waiting for him on the other side.

But Larry wasn't just in another house; he was in another town, another state. He was immediately assaulted with heat and humidity instead of Summerduck's cool breezes, and the modest one-floor homes that made up Irene's neighborhood were certainly not the affluent townhouses he had grown accustomed to in the previous months.

"You're in Caldecott, Mississippi," Irene informed him from inside the house. Larry just stared at the unfamiliar street, feeling as though the wind had been knocked out of him, as if nothing would ever be right or sane again…

"You said I was out for 22 hours…"

"Yes. It was necessary for me to take you to a safe place."

Larry turned sharply. "I remember it now! You drugged me!"

"It was imperative that I remove you from the area as quickly and quietly as possible. It would only be possible if you were unconscious. My organization's connections allowed for us to travel by air without any questions being asked."

"And what's to stop those guys from grabbing my sister?! They already got Dad!" Oh, if only she could see the outrage on his face.

Irene took his arm, and he let her draw him back inside and into the den. "You misunderstand, my boy. It was you, specifically you, they were told to abduct. And while they worked with Bolivar Trask they did not order his capture. He was abandoned and offered as a sacrificial lamb to the public, to keep them from digging too deep into why the Sentinel was created and who funded the project."

Irene removed her glasses to rub her eyelids. Her eyes were white and milky. "Your involvement in all of this was an unfortunate quirk of fate."

"Okay." Larry took a deep breath, swallowing hard. "They didn't go after me because of what my father did. So why did they?"

"I believe you already know the answer to that, Lawrence Trask."

"No!" he snarled and turned his back, suddenly sick of her cryptic bullshit and not wanting to look at her anymore. Nevertheless, she was right, and Larry could feel the words lingering on his lips. He couldn't say them aloud because he knew if he did they would come true, and could never be taken back.

"I'm a mutant, aren't I?" he whispered, the words weighing heavily on his young shoulders. "But what does that mean?"

"It means that you, like many others all over the globe, are a carrier of the X-Gene. You are homo superior, the next wave of human evolution, and there is a power within your body unlike any possessed by homo sapiens."

"And my power is—I can see things before they happen?"

Irene nodded. "You dream of the future."

He shook his head back and forth, tortured by the terrible knowledge. "Why is this happening to me now? I mean, a week ago I couldn't guess what song was about to play on the radio, and now I have visions of my best friend getting hit by a car!"

"Some mutations are present at birth. Others emerge at puberty, or are triggered by a traumatic event. Your power, Lawrence, is like a light behind a door in your mind. Before, the door was only an inch open. Only a little light could enter. But once you were confronted with the Sentinel on TV—saw that the impossible was real, that the dream had come true—the shock knocked open the door fully."

"Then close the door!"

"That," Destiny said simply, "is impossible."

"Then why did you help me?!"

Larry turned away from her again, bracing himself against the back of the couch and digging his fingers into the cushioned edges. Furrowing his brow, Larry was surprised to feel Irene's hand on his shoulder. The gentle pressure was meant to reassure him, and it was the first compassionate gesture she had made toward him.

"I helped you because I understand what you're going through, more than any other mutant. I, too, can see the future."

"Yes…That's right." Larry raised his head and looked at her, knowing, without needing to be told, why she bore the name Destiny.

"Most mutants have unique powers. Perhaps you'll see two that have the same color fur or come across a handful of telepaths, but it is rare for two mutants such as you and me to coexist."

"So how did you escape? Does the government go around hunting mutants? Is that why no one's heard of them before now?"

Irene smiled as if his innocent questions amused her. "No, it's not a regular occurrence for mutants to be hunted down like animals. Our numbers are still small, though, from what I've heard, more are being born every generation. Many choose to hide their powers, not understanding what they are. Others make their presence known. I am not surprised to find that the government is aware of us and has kept our existence a secret from the public."

"So, again: why me?"

"Think about it, Lawrence. The future is yours to witness! There are many humans who would want to take that knowledge from you."

"Oh my God." Larry started to laugh; it was either that or start screaming. "I never asked for this."

"It will get better, I promise you," Irene said softly. "You will stay here, and I will guide you, help you gain clarity. For now, you should rest. Your head is hurting, is that not correct?"

"Yeah," he replied wearily. Why the hell are you even asking?

She nodded her head towards the couch Larry had woken up on, and the blanket thrown across it. "I'll get you some aspirin."

Irene headed for the kitchen to retrieve the medicine, but Larry's voice stopped her.

He whispered, "Thank you. But…please…don't call me Lawrence. It's Larry."

Nodding silently she left, leaving him alone to think.

---

It took Irene several minutes to fetch the aspirin for her young houseguest, and when she returned he was standing up and holding in his hand a picture taken from a tabletop; in it Irene was being embraced by a teenage girl in a green dress, her auburn hair streaked with white. She was very pretty and familiar.

"Is she your daughter?" he asked.

Irene could guess what he was looking at. "Not exactly. I raised her like I would my own after a close friend could no longer care for her."

"Uncle" Robert Chalmers briefly came to mind. Another dear person whose face he probably would never see again. He tried to focus on the picture. "I know she was one of the mutants." It would be a while before he'd have the nerve to say "one of us."

She chuckled. "My own little Rogue."

Rogue. The word was more than a nickname; for Larry it carried an extra importance, though the feeling was strange and he did not know what to make of it. He dismissed that thought, concentrating on something else.

Irene did say there were few mutants in the world…I guess it makes sense that she'd be related to one on the news. "So are you one of them? The X-Men, I mean."

Irene slipped the bottle of aspirin into his hand, and he put down the photograph. "No."

Well, that was a simple enough answer. But there was more he wanted to know.

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound insensitive or anything…but how were you able to do all that when you saved me? Unless, you're not really…"

Again, she wore that amused smile. She even laughed. "Oh, I am quite blind." She tapped her temple. "However, as useless as my eyes may be, I can still 'see' with my mind thanks to my mutant gift. With it I can mentally scan the probability spectrum and distinguish the sights and sounds around me. Thus, I was able to fight off your attackers."

Larry shuddered; he felt a fresh wave of anxiety rush over him, like any moment the world as he knew it, the reality that was now a lie, would fully cave in and crush him. "I feel like an idiot, asking all these questions…if I can see the future, why is this all so unknown and scary to me?"

"Your mutant power's just emerging. Give it time and more things will become clear. I will teach you how to master your gift…would you like to start now?"

Larry lifted his head and gazed into the dark reflection that stared back in Irene's sunglasses.

"Yeah, I would."

---

As Larry had told Jessica only a few days earlier, he didn't believe in fortune telling. He had nothing but laughs and a shake of the head for phone psychics, palm readers, and those aging hippies who would throw tea leaves at him whenever he walked by their shops. It wasn't hard to imagine Tanya smirking and making a cutting remark about how silly he looked sitting on a basement floor with his legs tucked under him, listening for words of sage advice from a woman who claimed to see the future.

Hey, big brother, what's so funny about tarot cards now?

An image flickered in his mind's eye, and then was gone: The Wheel of Fortune.

"Concentrate." Destiny's voice was sharp as a blade, and Larry rightly paid attention. "What have you seen?"

"The Sentinel attacking…and, I think, my father activating it."

"What else?"

"I saw my friend Cal hit by a car right in front of me."

"And after that?"

"My attack in the alleyway."

"After that?"

"I was talking with you about my powers."

Irene nodded once. "These things have all come true?"

"Yes." Larry opened his eyes slowly. His eyelids felt heavy; recalling the images from his dreams was harder than it seemed.

Irene began to talk, and her words were surprisingly soothing. "Think of time as a tapestry that is unfinished. Think of each individual stitch as a different person or possibility. It takes a certain pattern and alignment of thread for the tapestry to take shape, and for the design to become clear. I see the future in terms of the possibilities, what may be, not necessarily what will be. Maybe it is the same for you, but from what I have seen in my visions, you have the potential to see the greater design."

"Then…everything I see in my visions…will come true?" Larry swallowed a lump in his throat. Everything?

"We shall see."

"You…" Larry changed the subject slightly, "Had visions about me, specifically?"

Irene's expression did not change. "I saw a young mutant in need of rescue, one very much like myself. I also saw that I would save him. He was, of course, you."

"So that night, before my power manifested, you were in front of my house…waiting."

Larry took in a slow, deliberate breath. "I remember my first dream, about the Sentinel. It looked like it was going to attack me. But in reality it attacked the X-Men and the Brotherhood. My father made it…to attack mutants?"

Irene felt a small tinge of regret. Naturally their conversations were building up to that precise question, but she wished she could afford to spare the troubled young mutant any more suffering.

"Yes. The Sentinel's purpose was to find, capture, and exterminate mutants."

Exterminate! The word, and all its implications about Bolivar Trask, struck Larry like a blow to the face. To say that Larry was shocked to hear this about his father's work would be underestimating a boy who, sadly, was becoming used to bad shocks.

"My father created it."

This is my most important project yet, Lawrence. I won't pretend I don't know how difficult these last few years have been for you and your sister, but soon you will understand everything. I've done everything for you, you know that.

"My father created it," Larry repeated. His eyes were distant, as if he was looking for something he had lost. It came and disappeared.

Irene reached forward and cupped the young man's chin in her hand, drawing his attention back to her.

"Let's continue."

---

Larry entered the room and immediately felt like an intruder. In Irene's small house the only available bed belonged to her absent foster daughter, so it was decided for him that he would sleep in her bedroom.

Hours had passed, with the sun eventually setting in the horizon. His first lesson was long over. He stood in the dark doorway, examining his new surroundings. The girl's room had obviously been untouched since her abrupt departure several months earlier, as clothes remained scattered on the carpet or hanging out of open dresser drawers. The walls were plastered with posters of various Goth rock gods, their pale faces staring back at Larry with looks of detached depression. Closing the door and taking a deep breath, Larry could smell the lingering scent of the girl's incense as he undressed.

Larry was annoyed with his own embarrassment. He did not make a habit of spending nights in girls' beds, and the room still felt so lived in that he could mentally picture Irene's daughter walking in at any moment, and getting a big shock.

Who's that sleeping in my bed? The storybook line popped in his head suddenly, further causing his cheeks to burn red. His sister was right. He was a just a big dork, after all. Certainly not the Big Bad Wolf.

The bed was partially hidden by a black fishnet curtain that was draped over three sides. Crawling inside it was a bit problematic. He rolled onto his stomach and pressed his face against the pillow, trying to block out the outside world.

Despite his personal insecurities, he had to admit that sleeping in the room of another mutant, in another mutant's house, made him feel connected to them. Grounded, even. For once, it didn't feel like he belonged in another world, that the events of the past few days weren't part of some fantastic movie with him cast as the unwilling star. Maybe things weren't so completely crazy after all.

He lay there, almost afraid to sleep, and pieces of the future as witnessed in his dreams floated to the surface of his waking mind. He actually wished he could recall more about them, and silence the nagging voice in his head that told him this was important and worth remembering.

Pyramids…an awakening…and the girl is the key.

"Rogue," he whispered, pondering the significance of the name, not knowing he would see its owner soon.

A/N: Okay, glad to get some of the exposition out of the way. For anyone possibly interested in seeing Larry in the comics, he made an appearance in the recent "What If…Magneto and Professor X Had Formed the X-Men Together?" special. It's worth checking out, if only for seeing Kitty dressed up like a punk schoolgirl.

Thanks for reading! --Sandoz