Hi, there you all. Here is the next chapter of my X-Men Evolution fanfic, which I hope you are looking forward to reading. As I said before, I don't own any of the X-Men Evolution Universe or any of what it contains. But the new guy and the events in this story are mine so bear with me and please don't sue.

Here's to my ever so kind reviewers.

Agent-G: Thanks for that acknowledgement. I was hoping that new description of his powers and why he was unknown would be better than the TX-Gene approach. However, I really think you should give me time to revel more about him. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate your advice, but I'm well aware of what a character needs to be credible. As for weaknesses, you'll see that he has them. It may not be obvious at first, but if you'll just give me time, you'll see where his flaws are. There will be an explanation for all that, but it will be a few chapters before that happens,so just be patient. As for Kurt and Amanda, I am planning to put those two together in this fic and I plan to have her in the story numerous times. This story's major genre is romance so expect a lot of love in the air down the road!

Nettlez: I see a real big fan of my work in you my friend! And that is something I am always thankful to have! Simon will be meeting the X-Men, but it will be a couple of chapters down the road. I've got some chapters in between planned out. You'll probably be intrigued by them I'm guessing!

Slickboy444: It's so great to hear from you again my friend! It's so great to see you like my work even though I'm redoing it. Agent-G suggested a few things to me and I saw the logic in them, so I figured I'd redo this work a little. But not to worry! I'll make this as exciting and as great as my last version of this. I was really touched when you described this fic as "kick-ass." Yeah I figured a Jean/Scott fan like you would like the little romantic scene I placed in there. They will be the second biggest couple in this fic. I'm pretty sure you can guess who the main couple will be (wink)! I'm also a very big fan of your work! Your creativity is always intriguing to me! It's a pleasure to support good work like yours!

Whylime: So you understood my description of Simon's powers. Good thing too! I'm no expert in physics, but I figured I knew enough about energy to explain Simon's powers. You'll see more of that in a later chapter as to how his powers work. And just in case you're wondering, there are reasons why Simon's energies are different colors. Simon's bag of tricks is full of surprises, some of which the X-Men don't know about yet! Thanks big time!

Prophecy: I'm glad you like this! That only drives me to write more! So, you think Rogue and Simon are alike personality-wise then huh? That's what I intended my friend! Any hints as to what that may lead to?

Author's note: This story is taking place a few days after the episode "The HeX Factor." "Day of Reckoning" hasn't occurred yet and won't for a while. I need to introduce events that are significant to my storyline before then. Also, Mystique has not taken over and posed as Xavier yet, as you may have already figured out. Jean and Scott have admitted their feelings for each other already as well. I think they did that way too late in the series. Remember, this is an AU, so be wary that things are unfolding differently here than in the actual series. It will be explainedas the story unfolds.

P.S: Also, for those of you who recieved alerts with nothing on the site, I'm sorry about those. I wasn't trying to tease or mock or anything, I just saw some major errors in my chapter and simply had to take it off in order to fix them. I'll be real careful not to do anything like that again!

Chapter 3

Visions of the Future

Darkness was all that was present. Nothing less, nothing more. Just plain darkness, featureless and colorless. But while she was without the power of sight, Irene Addler was far from helpless. Her other senses were always working to compensate for her loss of her eyes. Her eyes were too badly injured to function, damaged beyond repair. She could see no longer. The impenetrable black glasses she always wore and the wrist strap walking cane she always carried with her made her blindness obvious to whoever saw her. But while sight was lost, something else took over.

Irene sat in the hunter green velvet armchair in her living room in her suburban house in the state of Mississippi. It was evening and the sun was still up a fair distance up from where it would sink below the horizon, as the sun was known to do in the summer, which had started just a few days earlier. Nothing new had happened in the past twenty-four hours, just like any other day. A day without sight, and without any involvement from anyone else other than herself.

Of course, a day in the life of Irene Addler never passed without thinking of her foster daughter. Irene thought of Rogue, and of how she had come to be in her care. More than five and a half years ago, a young, disturbed, and frightened young girl was placed in the care of the blind woman. It was all thanks to that old friend of Irene's, Raven Darkholme.

As strange as it may have sounded, Rogue had two foster mothers. Mystique was the first. Irene was the second. It was something that could easily make one ask questions. But while asking the questions may have been easy enough, answering them would be another matter altogether. The answers were for reasons often thought of by most people as totally unreasonable. They were secret answers, answers never meant to be known by anyone. And as Raven's mutant name would suggest, secrecy was perhaps the prime characteristic of her life, both public and inside.

Irene, or Destiny, as she had come to be called, felt a tingle of sorrow and regret as she thought about her foster daughter. She hadn't had any contact with he ever since Mystique had enrolled her at Bayville High School up in New York. Truth be told, Irene knew that that sort of day would come. Mystique had adopted Rogue and had then left her in Irene's care while she was out performing her duties for Magneto. Now that Rogue was no longer in her care, and had also left the Brotherhood to join the X-Men, Irene had less contact with Raven Darkholme than she had in quite a while.

Irene simply sat back in her armchair and relaxed herself. Relaxing in a comfy armchair felt good, but emotion could make even the most comfortable of positions have little to offer where comfort was concerned. At times when she thought of the young teenage girl who she had come to take care of over the past few years, Irene didn't feel very good relaxing at all.

Irene was trying to clear her mind of whatever she didn't want to think about when it happened. As she had experienced so many times, Irene felt her mind go blank, then full to the brim with a sudden burst of thought. Even before the split second that it took was over, she knew what was going on. Her ability to see the future was kicking in. Irene didn't have much control over her future seeing. In fact, she really didn't have any at all. This ability seemed to happen at random with her, as if it had a mind of its own.

Images began to fly though Irene's mind at incredible speeds, moving so quickly that she didn't have to time to distinguish on from another before it all became blurred together. It was like her thoughts were going through the spin cycle of a clothes washing machine.

Irene let out a sudden gasp as the images suddenly came to quick halt and began playing like they were recorded on a tape. Images of the X-Men started to come though. She saw Xavier and his other three instructors as well as his students. Then finally one identity separated from all the others. It was of the girl with the dark auburn hair with a snow-white streak through it, ivory colored skin, deep violet shadowed sea green eyes and a full mouth. Rogue.

Irene grew silent and mindful. She sensed something she hadn't encountered before. It was a new identity. As far as she could tell, it was of a young teenage boy, about a year older than Rogue. Rogue's image suddenly vanished and was replaced by what Irene could only distinguish as the unknown male teenager she was sensed mere seconds before. Irene couldn't sense what his name was, for she hardly ever could tell the name of a new person when she encountered one in her visions. Sometimes she could, but those were few and far between.

But just as quickly, as the images of Rogue and the unidentified teenage boy surged through Irene's mind, flashes of images raced through her mind with breathtaking speed. She could tell from the fast moving images that they were involved in a great many things, most of them terrible. But still, the images were moving so quickly that she couldn't grasp their full meaning that well.

Suddenly, through the steady stream of images, she began to see that unnamed boy again. She still couldn't figure out his name, for her visions revealed no one speaking his name or he himself doing it. She saw a different image of the new boy's face, but this time the new boy's eyes were filled with hatred and aggression that she seldom had even heard of in her life. Then the images changed again and the unknown boy's face was replaced by that of Rogue, who now displayed the same fierce uncontrolled anger and aggression she had seen earlier in the unnamed boy's face.

Seconds later, the images began to move so fast that Irene couldn't keep up with them at all, they moved so quickly. She tried to follow them as best she could, but the stream of visions traveled so fast it became a blur of color. Irene felt her head starting to pound and spin from the strain. She gritted her teeth hard. Droplets of sweat gathered at her hairline. She placed a hand to her head to try to lessen the pain of this overwhelming series of visions. She had never encountered anything like this before.

Suddenly, with such intense suddenness, two images finally came clearly. Irene gasped at the impact of the images stopping so suddenly. She could see Rogue's face, and the boy's. Both of them were in agony. She could see it clearly. Pain filled their faces in the sensation, lines of agony and excruciating misery slashed into their features. Their eyes were screwed as tightly as they could go, their mouths wide open emitting their ear-piercing cries of agony. Irene couldn't see what was causing their pain, no sign of it anywhere. She saw no burns on them, or wounds of any sort. It was like it was their minds that were torturing them. But she couldn't tell.

Then, it all went blank. Rogue's face vanished as the mysterious boy did. All the screams faded to silence and darkness claimed her once more.

Irene fell back into her chair as they images and sounds faded. Such overwhelming visions. Irene couldn't remember a time when she had experienced visions as vivid as that. Irene tried to relax as best she could. It was all she could do to prevent herself from leaping to her feet in surprise.

She tried to shake her head to clear it. Her heart was racing, adrenaline surging through her like heat waves through air. Yet all the feelings were easily suppressed by Irene's concern for her foster daughter. Rogue may not live with her anymore, but she did still care much for her safety. Irene suddenly knew that Rogue was in danger. She was sure of it. And from what she could tell, it was life-threatening danger of the highest degree. And so was that boy she saw.

Irene was still mystified by the appearance of that blond-haired, green-eyed boy. He wasn't Cody, the boy Rogue had first absorbed when her powers first manifested. In fact, Irene couldn't tell he was mutant like Rogue was or if he was a normal human being and she still didn't know his name or anything about him. All she could tell was that he was going to play a major role in her foster daughter's future. And from the looks of it, it was going to be a future with a tragic end, for both Rogue and the unnamed boy.

Irene sighed. She realized she had to make a phone call immediately. She rose out of her chair and went over to the phone. Because she had walked through the house so many times, it was no trouble for her to make her way over the phone without seeing where she was going. In fact, she could have done it without using her cane or anything.

Irene picked up the phone and punched in a number. She heard the ringing on the phone and waited for the person she was calling to pick up.

Pretty much the only thing that was going through Mystique's mind right now was planning. And not simple planning, but complex planning. It wasn't that anything bad had happened that she wasn't prepared for, but she had to make sure she had plans and fail-safe ideas to keep everything in place.

Currently, Mystique was actually pleased. More pleased that she had been in a mighty long time to be precise. For one thing, she now had a member of her Brotherhood that was actually worth something on the battlefield. Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch. The Hex Factor was really what gave her the edge in battle. If anything, Mystique could probably have Wanda fight all her battle for her as a solo Hex spell caster. Nothing wrong with that at all. Well almost nothing. No mutant was perfect, and neither was the conditions they fought under or the reason why they fought to begin with.

Mystique was still very disgusted by how the Brotherhood had preformed against Xavier's team lately. Without the help of the Scarlet Witch, they were next to useless. They had grown soft, flabby, and rusty in terms of capabilities in mutant combat.

Mystique had realized not too long ago that were some obvious reasons for that that she hadn't figured out before. One was that Xavier trained his mutants on a regular daily basis so that they could improve their abilities to their best and iron out all the kinks or flaws that each of his students had. None of the Brotherhood, either Fred, Todd, Lance, or Pietro, had bothered to even consider training. If one flaw was obvious to first glance, it was arrogance and overconfidence.

Another was that most of the X-Men had powers that gave them considerable advantages over the Brotherhood. In almost every case she had seen with the Brotherhood going off against the X-Men, the X-Men's powers seemed to be more favorable than her own team's. That she couldn't do anything about, but she could do something about training. The four male members of her team needed training like a 500-pound ten-year-old would need fat reducing medication. All Wanda needed was more training from Agatha to focus her amazing anger and tortured thoughts into power to fuel her unstoppable Hex powers.

And that was what Mystique was planning on right now. She had to make sure that Wanda was kept under reps. The main reason that she had busted Wanda out that asylum was so she could aid her in defeating the X-Men. She knew all too well why she had been put there in the first place. By her own father when she became too unmanageable. Wanda was undeniably dangerous, but in Mystique's opinion, that was surpassed by the need of a means to overthrow Xavier and his team of peace-seeking mutants. Magneto had not been too pleased to say the least when Mystique had told him of her plan to use Wanda to stop the X-Men. But then he had told Mystique to use her only until the X-Men were out of the way and then he would deal with her himself. That response had mystified Mystique, but she had said nothing about it.

Mystique was still plenty angry at Magneto from not letting her join what he considered the fittest on Asteroid M. She was his right hand employee, by God. If that wasn't enough to be by his side what was? But as angry as Mystique could be, she couldn't really act upon it. Magneto's powers far surpassed her own. He could crush her like a bug if he so desired. He had given her a second chance, but only just. If she stepped out of line too far for a second time, her time as his assistant would be up and gone like yesterday's news.

Mystique sat in her room of the Brotherhood Boarding House. For the past two hours, she had been up here all alone with her thoughts of how to proceed with freshening up the Brotherhood members who were floppy in the combat field and getting Xavier and his students out of the way. And maybe, turn some of them to the Brotherhood.

Thinking about that made her think of her children. Mystique had often wondered if she could turn her own children to the Brotherhood. She had succeeded with one of them in the past, but only for a short time. Her adopted daughter had turned away from her once she saw Mystique's true intentions. That in itself was a big disappointment for Mystique for Rogue had held enormous potential for the Brotherhood. Mystique still cursed the day that Rogue had sided with Xavier. But in truth, she herself was to blame for that. If she just hadn't let her guard down too much, then maybe Rogue would still be with her. But it looked like that she wouldn't come near Mystique if she could avoid it anytime soon.

As for her biological son, Nightcrawler, Mystique reasoned that her chances of him joining the Brotherhood, either willingly or by force, were extremely slim, maybe at a 3 chance at best.

Mystique quickly dismissed that thought though. The Brotherhood was in need of more mutants, but perhaps they could do alright without the help of her children. After all, it might just simply cause some unnecessary friction and trouble in the Brotherhood if she did recruit them. She was about to go out of her room downstairs to check to see how Wanda was doing with Agatha when the phone rang. Mystique rose up from her sitting position on the bed and picked up the phone on her bedside table.

"Hello," Mystique answered.

"Raven," came a voice on the other end that Mystique recognized immediately. It was Irene Addler, a.k.a. Destiny. She hadn't heard that voice for a very long time.

"Irene?" she asked, somewhat surprised by Irene calling.

"Yes, Raven. I needed to call you. Something just came up."

"What's the problem, Irene?" asked Mystique.

"I just had some very troubling visions, Raven. They were about Rogue."

The mention of her adopted daughter's name made Mystique's heart rate quicken. The last time Destiny had a vision about Rogue, it had almost ended in disaster. And the fact that Irene had used the word 'troubling' in her last sentence wasn't reassuring at all either. Mystique immediately knew that something bad was possible.

"What were those visions, Destiny?" asked the blue-skinned woman, "What were they concerning Rogue?"

"I can't quite say for certain," Irene answered, "They were unlike any vision I've experienced before."

Destiny uncertain of her visions? This was getting interesting.

"You're uncertain?" asked Mystique, as if the word was the last one she would choose to use in Irene's regard, which in truth it was, "Every time you've had visions, you've been almost completely certain about them coming to pass. That isn't like you, Irene."

"I assure you, Raven, the message they gave me was strange and unusual. My visions give me probabilities, but this was unusual."

"What was so strange about it, Irene? Is Rogue in danger?" asked Mystique, narrowing her golden eyes in confusion.

"As far as I can tell, she may be in danger of losing her life," came Destiny's answer.

Mystique's heart suddenly skipped a beat. She did care for her adopted daughter to a certain extent, even though that extent varied form day to day. Today and right now, it was leaning more toward the higher level of the spectrum.

"How? Is someone going to try to kill her?' asked Mystique quickly.

"That I don't know. All I saw was her face, and she was screaming and in agony, but I couldn't tell what was causing it or when it would happen."

Mystique fell silent. She scratched her bright red hair with one of her blue-skinned hands. If there was something Mystique hated it was being uncertain about something. Uncertainty was something she had grown to hate and this type of not understanding was almost enough to drive her off the deep end.

"I suppose I'll have to be extra watchful of this event should it happen," said Mystique. She was about to say good-bye when she suddenly had another question. "Did you see anything else in your visions, Irene?"

"Yes I did," Irene replied, "I saw someone who I have never seen before."

The mention of a stranger in Destiny's sights made Mystique's ears perk up with wonder. Usually, Destiny's visions didn't include an unknown individual unless the person played a key role in them. The combination of Rogue in danger of dying and the involvement of someone new was making to tension rise. "Who was that person?" demanded Mystique, unable to keep the demand out of her voice.

"I'm not certain," responded Irene, "It was a boy about Rogue's age, or maybe a year or two older."

"Did you get an image of his face?"

"Yes. He was blond and had green eyes. But that was pretty much all my visions revealed to me about him. I couldn't tell if he was a mutant like Rogue or not. But I did see one thing about him."

"What did you see about this boy?" asked Mystique.

"I saw him suffering and in agony, just like Rogue. As far as I can tell, Raven, he's in danger of dying just like Rogue is. It's almost like their fates are somewhat intertwined."

Irene's words were leaving Mystique mystified, as they usually did. Something was obviously coming up in the future, but what that was was uncertain. Even to Destiny, which was not very encouraging. But the mention of this unnamed boy, however, Mystique found intriguing. From what Irene had said, he was doomed to the same fate that Rogue was. How was this unknown teenager connected to Rogue?

"Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Irene. I'll be sure to keep a close watch on Rogue and for this boy you mentioned. By the way, did your visions tell you his name?" asked the shape-shifter.

"No name came to me," said Irene, "I've told you all that I currently know about him."

Mystique was silent. She would obviously have to watch out for this boy. It was strange though. Was this unnamed teenager the cause of Rogue's pain and suffering and death? Or was it the other way around? Could they be so terrible an influence on each other that they ended up dying because of it? Mystique had many questions about Destiny's visions, but most revolved around the blond-haired teenager that had been mentioned. Possible explanations started to run through Mystique's mind. But one of the biggest questions she had about the strange boy was if he was a mutant or not.

She really wanted to know more, but Irene had given her all the information possible. And the statistics she had given Mystique on the unnamed boy were not much to go on. Fair-haired, green-eyed, nineteen-year-old teenager. That was hardly the amount of information needed to locate anyone in particular. For now, this would have to wait.

"Thank you, Destiny," Mystique said at last, "I will keep a close watch on Rogue and an eye out for that boy you mentioned."

"Thank you, Raven. I'm concerned for her safety," said Irene.

"As am I," said Mystique, "But I find this unnamed boy in your visions a concern. He may be a threat to Rogue."

"I'm still not certain as to what role he plays," said Irene, "But he will play a major role in both your futures. I better go now."

Mystique hung up.

And that concludes Chapter 3! Chapter 4 will be up soon so stay tuned as more and more stuff unravels. And remember, REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW!