Strayphoenix - Thanks! Precogs are fun to play with, although I had a really hard time wrapping my mind around the particulars of her gift for later chapters. Nonlinear time... bah. : )
Mourning Star Under the Moon - Well, that is the question, isn't it? One hint: I'm sticking with cannon. And Alice is definitelygoing to have something to do with the X-Men. But she isn't going to change anything.
Part Two
Irene sat at the dining room table, deep in thought. The house felt empty now that Rogue was gone. It had been a long time since Irene had heard the soft tread of the girl's feet, her soft southern twang. The darkness of the house seemed deeper than usual, broken only by scattered visions, foretelling of a present and future that was so near, yet so far out of reach.
Her flimsy foresight had warned her of another precognitive, a girl with more power as a seer than Irene would ever have. The erratic visions Irene received were nothing compared to what this girl, Alice, saw. Such a powerful gift could be a powerful asset, but a deadly handicap were it to fall into the wrong hands. She hated to think what would happen if Alice was found by Xavier.
Raven would be furious. That was one of the reasons why Irene had been hesitant to allow Rogue to return to her adoptive mother, even though she knew she had no power in the decision. Raven could be harsh, cruel, twisted…everything a mother shouldn't be. And yet, the only way of preventing Rogue from going to Raven would be to turn to Raven's enemies. That she would never do; could never do. The betrayal would likely cost her a great deal, both in guilt, and in blood.
Professor Xavier frowned as he sat in Cerebro, helmet clamped firmly over his bald head. He listened in silence as Pietro Maximoff tripped his new student, Evan, sending him flying into the side of a nearby building. Evan's mental exclamation of pain rang in his head.
Xavier started slightly at the feel of another mental signature, that of a mutant. He left the scene, patching into the security cameras. There was Evan and Pietro, battling on the street. Nowhere around were there any other people, especially not those matching the signature he'd felt – distinctly feminine, yet with the youth of one of his students. He frowned, steepling his fingers as he returned to the battle mentally.
The signature was gone.
Three Months Earlier
Alice opened her eyes blearily. Swallowing, she winced. Her throat was parched. Yawning, she sat up, pushing aside the covers and sliding out of bed. The cool wood floor of the hall outside her bedroom pressed against the bottoms of her bare feet. Shivering slightly, she padded into the kitchen, getting a glass from the cupboard and pouring a glass of tap water for herself.
She leaned against the counter, eyes closed, as she drank it, processing the images from her dream. There had been two new characters. One boy – Pietro, she remembered – with his silver hair slicked back with massive amounts of hair gel, and a skateboarder by the name of Evan.
She put down her glass and padded back down the hall, longing for the warmth of her bed. She'd sort out the new characters in the morning.
Irene sat at the table as Mystique read the evening newspaper and talked about her newest student, Pietro. From the sounds of him, he was one of her usual recruits – a juvenile delinquent. He seemed a bit more arrogant and cynical than most of her team, which consisted mainly of children who would have been perfectly nice children, had they been given a home with parents who actually cared whether they existed.
"Raven, could you cut out a section of the newspaper for me?" Raven asked. "It's in the obituary section."
"Who's the girl?" Mystique asked, getting out a pair of scissors.
"Oh, just someone I saw once," Irene said coolly. She wondered privately which hands were worse - Mystique's or Xavier's.
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