HLJ

*Update to everyone: My beta-profile is now active, so if you want me to take a look at a story, just send me a message.

Author's Notes: Hello readers, both old and new, and welcome to the final chapter of X-Tamers: New Mutants. This last chapter appears along with the episode "The Cauldron – Part 2" and will lead to the next story in this series, so keep a look out for that. I hope you enjoy the story, and as always, please read and review.

Disclaimer: I own neither Digimon, nor X-Men: Evolution. All original characters and plot-lines are mine however, and permission needs to be granted before they are used.

And now, on with the final chapter...

Cue cool theme music…

New Mutants – The Cauldron

The main hall of the mansion was in ruins. Burn marks and cracks covered the walls, while windows and furniture was smashed to pieces around them. Kitty and Kurt looked at the mess, almost not believing their eyes.

"Vat happened here?" asked Kurt and they stepped through the rubble.

"Professor!" shouted Kitty, both out of worry and still wanting to tell him what they had just seen, "Storm!" Neither of them noticed as one of the hall's still intact statues above them changed shape, into that of the blue-skinned mutant Mystique.

"Is anyone here!" shouted Kurt.

"I am," said Mystique, as she leapt down and landed in front of the pair.

"No way!" came a familiar voice from where the doorway had been. The group looked to see that Evan, Toad and Kazu were standing there, while Kenta, Henry and Takato brought up the rear, all looking disheveled.

"I guess that means you're a loser too," finished Toad as he continued to watch Mystique.

"Don't ever call me that!" growled Mystique as she grabbed the boy by the collar.

"Vhy are you here…Mother?" asked Kurt.

"No one discards me," said Mystique as she shoved Toad to the side, "Especially not Magneto."

"Who's Magneto?" asked Kitty, "What happened here?"

"You missed one massive battle," said Wolverine as he staggered through the door, his clothing so shredded, it looked as if he had being fighting some wild animal.

"Someone start from the beginning please," said Kurt, still confused about what was even happening...

Vvvv

"Welcome Charles," said Magneto, as the man finally felt his wheelchair stop moving. After the Blackbird had landed on the mysterious structure of metal and rock that he was now on, Magneto had extended his powers to the man's chair, and guided him down to the room where he now found himself, the most obvious features of which were two round metal doors in one wall, and the three glass cylinders in the other, each containing a female X-men.

"What is this!" exclaimed the Professor, seeing Storm, Jean, and Rogue, "What have you done to them?"

"Relax Charles," said Magneto as he appeared from the shadows, the Brotherhood members who had won their battles standing behind him, "They are merely resting. They'll be free soon."

"Release them at once!" said the Professor in a far angrier tone than he usually used. He could do nothing to enforce this however, both due to his rules and the special helmet that Magneto wore, which blocked his powers just the same as the Juggernaut's.

"I will," said Magneto, as Sabertooth emerged from a side hallway, "But first we have some business to attend to. This grouping seems a little uneven." As he said this last part, he pulled a small medallion out of his pocket: an X in the middle of a circle. He turned and the object floated, carried along by his powers, until it settled in front of Rika.

"What's this?" she asked.

"I think you should show your true team colors," he said, and she noticed as the other Brotherhood members had moved to surround her in a half-circle.

"What do you mean?"

"Don't play me for a fool!" growled Magneto. He then turned to Professor Xavier, "Though I must admit Charles, this was a good plan on your part."

"What are you talking about Eric?" asked the Professor.

"After Mystique told me about our newest member, I began to wonder; why would a girl abandon what appeared to be her best friends to join us. So I had my mutants begin to keep watch, and then had Quicksilver follow her on one of the late night trips she so often took. Do you know where she went?"

Xavier gritted his teeth slightly, and Rika tensed up, her eyes darting around the room.

"She went to your Institute," said Magneto, "And she simply passed through your security system, an easy task for someone with the codes."

"You've been spying on us the whole time," said Blob, cracking his massive knuckles.

Rika dodged the boy's bear hug and teleported out from the middle of the group. She reappeared in the air and took aim at the tubes above the other mutants' holding tanks, hoping to cut the knockout gas and release them so they could at least have an even team. However Magneto stretched out his hand and a cable came free from the ceiling and ensnared her. That however was not what focused everyone on the scene.

Instead, the girl let out a scream, like her skin had been scalded. In fact, she actually fell to the ground, and her skin began to shift, as if it were made of pixels, in and out. Magneto released his control over the cable, and the girl fell to the ground, her form slowly returning as tears of pain leaked from her eyes.

"Interesting," muttered Magneto as Quicksilver rushed over and shoved the girl into a glass container, which quickly filled with gas that the girl was suspended in, "Another mystery to these mutants."

"You've gone too far this time!" said Xavier.

"I was merely restraining her until I have a chance to clear her mind of those things that would cause her to betray me."

"Besides," he said, pointing to the doorway behind the Professor, "Some of your students are able to see what I'm offering as a true blessing…"

Professor Xavier turned to see two mutants entering the room. One he recognized from the images he had seen earlier in the day, Alex Summers, as his name would have been. And the other, was…

"Scott."

Vvvvv

The X-men and their companions were currently racing toward "Asteroid M" as Mystique had called in the XN-Velocity, a hybrid jet-helicopter that had been hidden underneath the Xavier Institute. Everyone except Mystique and Wolverine seemed slightly uneasy in the craft as it groaned under the pressure of high-speed flight, and they were not comforted after finding out this was its first test flight.

"Too bad we'll be an ally short when we get there," said Mystique as she continued to watch the radar.

"What do you mean," growled Wolverine, tense in case the shape-shifter would try to betray them mid-flight.

"One of my students," she said, "Or should I say yours. Ms. Nonaka won her match, and by now Magneto has dealt with the little spy."

"She was a spy?" echoed from the voice in the back, while Wolverine simply mumbled under his breath.

"If you knew she was a spy," Toad called up, "Why didn't you tell us?"

"The others knew," said Mystique as she adjusted some switches, beginning to notice something on the radar, "We just didn't tell you because your relationship with her, we couldn't risk our knowledge being compromised."

"Relationship?" blurted Takato, "What relationship?" Rika wouldn't be…dating him, would she? The thought passed through Takato's head, but was almost immediately thrown away.

"Picking up something big on the radar," said Mystique, "Asteroid M, 463 miles and closing." That would seem far, except for the rate at which the Velocity was going at which they would be there soon. At these words the assembled mutants began to check their equipment and suits, the question left for a later time.

…

Soon, the Velocity was in sight of Asteroid M, and they could see two figures on a small platform that would have been perfect to land on. Wolverine used the cameras mounted on the Velocity to zoom in and see who was welcoming them.

"Scott?" he said, seeing one of the strange mutants' eyes light up in his customary red glow. The pair launched a twin laser attack within seconds that struck the aircraft, causing it to begin to careen almost out of control.

"Hold on tight!" shouted Wolverine as he directed the falling Velocity toward the platform, silently urging the two mutants to get out of the way. They began to as the aircraft crashed onto the platform and chased them down a wide hallway, its wings stripped off. It continued into a huge room where it finally crashed into a wall, its tail propeller sending rocks and debris tumbling down onto the pair of mutants and burying them.

The X-men leapt from the craft however they could, Toad kicking open the escape hatch. He was followed by Wolverine, before finally a blue hand followed.

"Knock, knock," said Mystique, emerging from the craft.

"Mystique," said Magneto, as the Brotherhood members behind him took a slight step back, "You never could take no for an answer." The blue mutant leapt at him, delivering two solid kicks to his chest before he countered, sending her flying with a strike from a steel bar.

Wolverine meanwhile had sliced the power cords to the containers holding the other X-men hostage, before being bowled over by an upgraded Sabertooth.

"Rika," said Takato, as the Japanese mutants rushed to their friend, who was still recovering from whatever effect Magneto's attack had had on her.

"I'm fine," she said through gritted teeth as she stood up.

"You were really a spy the whole time?" asked Kazu.

"Now is not the time to discuss that," said Rika as a laser-blast cut through the rocks that had been trapping Scott and his brother, "Help the others!" She teleported away from them and reappeared just as Magneto was hurling Mystique around the room with a piece of one of the bases computers. She crossed her arms and unleashed a flurry of diamond shards, which bounced off Magneto's armor.

They did however, cause the mutant to change his focus to her, and he sent a small burst of magnetic waves at the girl, causing her to double up in pain again. She collapsed to the ground as the attack continued, Magneto's rage at being not only stopped, but also at the destruction of his base around him, beginning to come to light.

"Now you will know what true power is traitor," he said.

"Get away from my sister you freak!" came Toad's voice, and he slammed into Magneto's chest, knocking the mutant over and breaking his hold on Rika. However, this was not the biggest reaction, as most of the X-men paused for a moment, the word sister on their lips.

Mystique took this moment to leap again at Magneto, who used his powers to strike her with a pipe that had broken loose from the ceiling. It hit with such force that she was sent flying across the room, past Takato and her fallen students that the boy was trying to wake up as the structure collapsed around them. The blue mutant finished her flight by landing in the Genetic Enhancer, from which a burst of energy emerged.

"Get out of my enhancer!" cried Magneto as he flew in after her, the door closing and sealing shut behind him.

This cry managed to awaken the two Brotherhood members, and they ran at the blocked exit, Blob using his power to smash a hole through the rock. Takato however, had tripped from the rumbling and shaking that was now passing through the collapsing structure. Pipes burst and rocks began to tumble from the ceiling, and one of the computers attached to the massive Genetic Enhancer exploded, causing the door to reopen. From the activated a machine a wave of radiation exploded outward, passing through the structure and the mutants within.

"X-men, fall out!" shouted Wolverine over the crashing around them. The group began to escape through the now-open passage to the X-jet. All of them except Scott, Alex…and Takato, who, being nearest the Enhancer had been exposed to the most radiation. And if the X-men had been back at the mansion, they might have seen Takato's D-Arc light up.

"Ahhh!" shouted Takato, and the X-men turned to see his body covered in a grid-like pattern, before flames covered it.

"No way," thought the Tamers, as they flashed back through their memories to seeing most of their partners doing the same thing.

Takato emerged from the flames with his eyes covered in the same red glow they had when they had first gained the mutant, as power had driven him out of control. Flames, covered his body and grew, taking on the shape of a dragon, before they continued to slowly expand.

"Takato!" shouted Rika, but she couldn't get closer, the room already beginning to heat to near-unbearable levels. The X-men gave a look back and ran to the Blackbird, getting onboard with Scott and Alex right behind them. The pair was about to jump on after them, the Enhancer's effect on their minds worn off, but the platform beneath them collapsed, sending the jet and the mutants tumbling.

The Blackbird managed to right itself as Scott and Alex joined hands, using their combined powers to slow their decent and land gently in a pool of water created by the ice they had melted. Far above them Asteroid M was consumed in flames, before a form was visible falling from one of the openings, followed by two metal orbs that vanished into the night sky.

"Takato!" shouted Henry and Nightcrawler was already on his way. The blue mutant teleported up to the falling boy and grabbed him, bamphing again seconds later to appear next to the now landed Blackbird.

"Ow, hot, ow!" said Nightcrawler as he dropped the boy, who melted a small hole in the ice where he landed. The intense heat had left burn marks across his fire-proof suit, but it slowly began to fade and he sputtered awake as the water in the pool touched his face.

"Look out!" yelled Jean from the door of the jet, as massive chunks of rock began to fall from the charred hulk that remained of Asteroid M. The Blackbird didn't have enough time to get off the ground with everyone and Scott and Alex looked at each, nodded, and aimed up, firing a three beams of energy that combined and burst through Asteroid M, sending it exploding outward where the debris wouldn't harm any of them.

"Let's get Takato back to the Institute," said Scott with his eyes tightly closed, both he and his brother's powers returned to normal levels. Jean handed him his glasses and the combined mutants boarded the Blackbird, which shot back to Bayville at full thrust.

Vvvvv

A few hours later, most of the X-men were safely in bed. Takato had woken up during the span, and they had managed to determine that his powers had been through some kind of upgrade due to the radiation, he would have to master them again. Of course, only the Tamers knew just what the upgrade seemed to be, and they had unfortunately learned about him having to learn to control them once more, as an accidental sneeze had send the group to the floor for cover.

Rika had remained on watch as the others went to bed, eventually nodding off in her chair from the long day she had been through. It was half-an-hour later when she woke up in a dark room.

"Takato," she said, finding that she was now lying on the bed. She stumbled in the room, finally locating the light switch, to see that the boy was gone, the only traces of him remaining were sitting on the nightstand. They were his goggles, their fire-proof coating dully reflecting the light, his D-arc, the easiest means of tracking him, and a letter, which she grabbed, reading the kanji.

"To the Tamers and the X-men," it read, "I almost caused a lot of damage to you all tonight, and I don't think it's safest for me to stay near you, at least until I can control my powers again. I hope I can see you all again soon, but I'm asking you don't try to follow me. That's why I'm leaving my D-arc and goggles to you Rika, keep them safe for me…Takato."

"Takato!" said Rika, trying to find a fire-alarm, something to wake up the mansion.

…

Meanwhile Takato was walking alongside one of the roads built into the cliffs high above the beach, occasionally glancing back the way he had come from, wondering if the X-men had noticed his note yet. He didn't want to leave, not really, but he felt it was a lot safer, especially now that he had lost control of his powers again, except now they were even stronger.

"Good luck guys," he said, as a pair of headlights shined into his eyes. Seconds later, a car pulled up beside him and the trunk popped open. A few minutes later another car passed, the road was empty.