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Firebird Rising	By : Jenskott Category: X-men Comics > Het - Male/Female > Scott/Jean Views: 3256 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men comics, or any of the characters from it. I make no money from from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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<><><><>

Firebird Rising

Author: Jenskott
Summary: Jean Grey is dead. Will Phoenix be able to rise
from the ashes again? What will happen if she does it? My own
version of the new 'Phoenix Endsong' series.
Notes: Thanks again to Pinkchick for
reviewing!
Disclaimer: Marvel owns the books. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby are their
true parents.
Feedback: To jorgisimox@hotmail.com. Please, I need reviews! English
isn't my primary language, so I need much advice.

<><><><>

Part Three. Wandering Wraith-

Annandale-on-Hudson.

Dark night settled slowly on the country, unfolding its black and starry
canvas along the domed sky. As the dusk perished, casting its last bright rays
upon Earth, silent shadows invaded the world. A pale moon hovered on the sky,
round and bright, and brushed with its silvery light the darkened and cold
town. Large storm clouds spiraled around the dazzling disc, and their tendrils
-thick and black like treacle- entwined with each other, draping the moon.

In the nocturnal sky a bird glided over the wind, cradled by the
glittering starlight. With deft flaps the animal swooped at a house surrounded
by a quaint little garden and landed smoothly on a ledge. Its wings folded
quietly and its sharp eyes spied through an open window.

Shadows flooded the silent kitchen. Wavering moonbeams pierced the
penumbra, illuminating weakly the furniture and outlining with pale brightness
two rigid figures sitting around a table. An aura of eerie quietness shrouded
them; a pregnant, tense silent only disrupted for their faint breaths. They
were frozen like two statues, mute and motionless, shocked by a pain
transcended reason. John Grey gripped tightly the table, staring blankly at the
varnished planks of wood. His wife, Elaine, buried her face in her hands. Her
spectacles rested, forgotten, on the board.

They had lost their two daughters. And they had just buried the younger
of them for second time.

With a slow, cautious motion, the door swished open,
and nine-year Joseph Bailey showed up on the threshold. His lips opened to
mutter a greeting, but his eyes took a quick peek at his grandparents' faces.
Instantly he shut back its mouth and looked away. Quietly he retrieved a jar
with orange juice from the fridge and two glasses from the cupboard and slipped
rapidly out of the kitchen, avoiding looking at their eyes.

He dreaded the lights and shadows swirled on them.

Joe sauntered in the parlor where his twin sister, Gailyn
Bailey, lay lazily on a couch. Her right hand held a glossy-black remote, and her
thumb skimmed pensively over its buttons. Noticing her brother's arrival, the
redhead girl ceased her device's inspection and swiveled her attention to the
young boy.

Gail gazed at his expression. The grieving worry marring her features
deepened. "From bad to worse, right?"

Slowly and numbly, her brother nodded.

Since Aunt Jean's death theirs grandparents didn't seem really live.
They just... existed. Barely. They moved mechanically
through the day, struggling to keep busy with anything to avoid thinking and
remembering and feeling: get up, eat breakfast, go to work, return, eat lunch... But as
the day moved on they ran gradually out of chores, and in the fall of the night
reality seized them with its ruthless clutches. Grief overwhelmed them with paralyzing
despair, and they withdrew within theirs shells.

They resembled walking corpses, pretending some semblance of life they
didn't posses anymore.

The young boy shook his head mournfully and laid the jug and the glasses
on the low table in front of the TV. He flopped down noisily onto the smooth
couch and sighed with sorrow. Depression was nestled on his chest as a heavy
flagstone. His pupils wandered idly over the ceiling's beams while his sister
grasped the remote and brushed her digit over a button. The TV turned on with a
burst of light and sound.

"... Therefore we think the best option to fight the proliferation
of empowered beings is..."

Joe blinked. Alarm colored his face and he turned swiftly at the redhead
ensconced by his side. "No! Gail, don't dare to touch the..."

Too late.

Glowing rage warped Gailyn's face in an
unrecognizable mask and her arm flung the remote like a spear. The black
projectile pierced the screen and stood embedded in the cracked glass.

"Damn it!" The young redhead girl cried in despair and
incomprehension. "Why can't they let us alone?"

Her fists hammered violently the table and split jagged rifts on the
wood. Joseph cringed, wondering how much punishment could endure the furniture.
Although he was collected, quiet and patient, Gail had inherited the
indomitable temper from the Grey women.

Though she was eerily still after her raging outburst. Her temples
glistened with sweat and her body quivered with each ragged gasp her lips
exhaled. She had unleashed the pent-up frustration and fury fueling her
strength, and now they had left her... she felt hollow except for the grief
numbing her heart.

A bright and wet sheen fogged her blue eyes. Her shivering hands
shielded her face and she burst into tears. As she sobbed bitterly, venting her
sorrow, she felt warm arms wrapping around her and pulling her in a comforting
embrace.

Her chin rested on her brother's shoulder as he stroked reassuringly her
back. "Take it easy, sister."

"It isn't fair. Why can't they let us in peace? We never asked
being mutants. I never asked these damned powers. I hate them! I wish I was a
simple flatscan." She wailed among faltering,
wretched weeps. "People with powers use them to hurt other persons. And
people without powers hurt who have them."

He sighed. "That isn't true, Gail-"

"It isn't?" She seethed brusquely. Her body stiffened and
turned colder. She disentangled from him and glared straight at his eyes. Her
aqua pupils were now sharp shards of frozen ice. And her
expression, darkened and terrible. "Dad and mom were killed because
we're mutants. We were kidnapped and brainwashed by an egg-thing because we're
mutants. Our aunt is dead because she was a mutant. Powers only bring troubles.
Our family would be happier if they didn't exist."

Joe curled his lower lip, unable of refuting wholly what she had just
said. He drew a tissue from his pocket and wiped thoughtfully the wet paths
trailing down her blushed cheeks. "The dreams are driving you mad too,
aren't they?

She nodded. "Yes. Every night is the same scene. Nanny kidnaps us
and brainwashes us. X-Factor storms into her aircraft and Aunt Jean rescues us.
It isn't nice, but I'm not complaining about it. You suffer worst."

Joseph grimaced. His nightmares replayed always Aunt Jean's funeral. In
his fantasy that day was grey and bleak, overcast with raven clouds wept
heavily and drowned the land with theirs black tears. The vision, deeply etched
in his memory, needled him with staggering pangs of pain. He shuddered, not
wishing reliving that experience ever again. But ironically, he had lived
through it earlier.

"Do you remember Aunt Jean's first funeral?" He mused aloud.
"Do you think she'll be able to live again?"

Gailyn tucked uneasily a red curl
behind her ear. "I don't know. But... How do you
think we would feel seeing our aunt resurrecting over and over while our mom
keeps dead? How do you think Grandpa and Grandma would feel, after having
mourned for nothing? They'd be frightened of she'd pass away again, and they'd
never be sure of her death was real. Perhaps they'd question whether she's real
or not. Christ, I know it sounds awful, but maybe is better Aunt Jean stays
de-"

Her troubled, regretful voice trailed off, and color dripped from her
dried cheeks. Her lips thinned and horror dilated her pupils. Joseph arched his
eyebrows in weirdness and he was about of inquiring what was wrong when his
eyes focused upon a nearby mirror. His breath ceased.

The mirror was reflecting a window placed behind them. Masked amidst the
slimy, murky shadows there was a gloom face, framed in a spectral orange flame.
Aunt Jean's face.

Joseph Bailey felt horror seeping in his veins and freezing his blood,
but he spun around and bolted towards the window. When he reached the
windowsill, though, there was no trace of any stalker.

He inspired deeply, forcing himself to remain serene despite his wild
heartbeats. Slowly he turned around. Gail stood behind him, pale and startled
but serious, with her arms folded in front of her chest.

"Whatever we have seen..." He wheezed out, shivering. "We
won't tell one word to the grandparents."

His redhead sibling nodded sternly.

Unbeknownst to them, a bush trembled in the garden. A golden bird slithered
among its leaves and slunk away in the night.

<><><><>

The woman trudged along the streets with light steps and a heavy heart.
Her blurry sight perused the adults walking, the cars racing and honking, the
children playing. No one saw her, though.

No one could.

A hum tantamount to billions of voices screaming at once buzzed in her
brain. An ocean of minds whose excruciating pressure crushed
her. Her legs wobbled with each shuddering step, and she felt tempted to
shut the voices out. Or shut them up. She could. A simple thought, a frown, a
wave of her hand or a click of her fingers and the numberless lights blinding
her mental eyes would black out. Still she felt reluctant to do it. They were
too pretty. And somehow they gave her... Peace. Lulling
comfort. Shimmering warmth.

Her path led her at a bend of the street. The sidewalk was empty and no
cars drove on the asphalt. Still her mind was seeing another image, overlapped
to the real scenery.

Two ten-year girls played
cheerfully with a Frisbee, oblivious to the traffic. The redhead girl tossed
the disc with a particularly vicious throw and her partner rushed to catch it.

The woman's green eyes widened and she felt anguish, panic and ancient
pain biting her at once. Cold sweat drenched her temples. Her heart thundered
in her chest and her body trembled with terrible shudders. She knew that a
disgrace was about of happening and she couldn't impede it.

A blue car rammed brutally the brunette girl.

Her fragile body crashed violently, harshly, on the tough asphalt and
lay motionless on it like a broken puppet, twisted in an awkward angle.

Her best friend cried and rushed to kneel by her side, holding her,
hugging her, cradling her body. The flame-haired kid caressed tenderly her
bruised face, feeling the greatest horror and pain she had known ever.

Her eyes bulged abruptly. She was feeling Annie's pain! She felt her
fractured bones splintered and her pulped organs bleeding. Alien thoughts
filled her head before dying away. Her heart stopped beating in her chest.
Black haze dimmed her vision, and of sudden she was descending along with Annie
in a bottomless darkness. Blackest, deepest and chilliest than nothing she had
previously imagined. Her dearest friend stood on the edge of the abyss, and
glancing sideways at her with grieving eyes, dove in it.

Leaving her alone in the darkness for two years.

The woman kneeled on the pavement, burying her face on her hands. A
cascade of bitter tears flowed from her sore and reddened eyes.

"Don't leave me, Annie. Please, don't leave me. I didn't want
killing you. I swear you I didn't want!" She cried.

<><><><>

The woman looked upwards, gazing fearfully at the large white building.
The sight made her head dizzy, her stomach sick. Staggering emotions of hurt,
dread and anguish overflowed her and urged her to cover, flee, hide. But she didn't it. She didn't know why that building
induced that overwhelming terror in her; and precisely that ignorance and that
fear impelled her to step in it, even though her soul screamed.

She never avoided a confrontation or a challenge. Never.

She bit her lips, studying again the fa�ade of the mental ward and
walked through the ample doors. She crossed the wide foyer, invisible as a
transparent ghost. Her vigilant look scrutinized everything, from the white
plaster covering the walls to the people inhabiting the rooms and halls.

Her senses were aware of everything and everyone at once. She smiled.
The aggressive, pained and grieving thoughts of the people dwelling in that
jail didn't obliterate her mind. Not even the ocean of thought flooding her
skull was now squashing her, harming her. Actually she relished the delightful
taste of the emotions invading her. They made her feel... Alive.
Really alive.

The woman skidded to a halt in front of a room's door. Her emerald eyes
peered furtively into the padded cell through a little window. There was a
patient inside, but she didn't see it.

A redhead twelve-year wrapped in a straitjacket, strapped to one bed and
heavily sedated. A middle-aged man and his wife cast at her stares of
excruciating pain. A bald man in a wheelchair shot an assertive look of
reassurance at them and motored towards the girl. His sharp mind detected
instantly the evil voices harassing and damaging her head, and he erected a
shield to keep them out and preserve her sanity.

Black fire burnt in her mind and incinerated the mirage. The woman
turned around and fell back upon the door. With her eyes tightly shut she
inhaled deeply. Emotions kept crashing in her mind's shoreline like sea waves.
She drank them. They filled the horrific, chilly hollowness spread within her.
They fueled the glowing blaze burnt in her core, impeding the void swallowed
her. They... were like a drug her body craved.

She grasped each strand of thought she felt and tracked its source down.
One of them led her to a husband standing by his schizophrenic wife's bed.

Husband. She repeated the word in her
mind. Husband. It seemed holding any specific meaning
to her. Her heart sped up its rhythm with the mere mention. Was she betrothed,
engaged, married someone? The idea stirred many flaring emotions in her. Most of them warm and positive.

Some of them gelid and negative.

Ache. Sadness. Anger.
Disdain. Hurt. Sorrow. Fury. Scorn. Pain. Grief.
Rage. Contempt. Torment. Loath. Wrath.
Hate. HateHateHatehatehatehatehate-

No! She can't hate. She can't hate him. That is what that harlot wants.
She wants she despises him, loathes him, hates him.
Then she'll own him. She wants him. All for herself.

Bitch!

The woman blinked, feeling her rage waning. The flares fueling her
hatred wore off, substituted by sheer puzzlement.

She walked away, still ignorant and lost. Though some missed
pieces fitted again in her brain's jigsaw.

<><><><>

Jamaica
Bay.

A peaceful wind, tasting of salt and freshness, shoved the waves towards
the coast. An endless tide of water rolled towards the sandy barrier and broke
in the shore, spraying a shower of bubbling and snowy surf everywhere. The dark
waters sparkled with the lights of the rising dawn, filling with shimmering
brightness.

The woman wandered aimlessly along the shoreline like a piece of living
driftwood. Her legs trod heavily on the sand; and with each fatigued, unsteady
step, her body swayed as a reed beaten for the wind.

Her feet left a sinuous trail of footprints on the wet, muddled sand.
Her glazed eyes contemplated the rumbling waves crashing ceaselessly in the
beach. Dread bubbled in her belly and constricted her chest.

Her foot kicked the golden dust ruefully, cursing her blank memory. Why
was she fearful from the sea?

She sat cross-legged on the sand, gazing at the immensity of the ocean.
Its beauty was magnificent and terrible at once. She stared skywards, listening
peacefully to the seagulls' squawks and shut her eyes. Her mind reached
outwards.

Then she sensed them. Animals, plants and rocks.
Human beings. Stars above. Infinite trillions and trillions of lights glittering in a
mesmerizing constellation. A web of bright dots whose center was herself. Life flowed through her body, welling in and out
it, in a cycle as ancient as the very time.

The buzz of billions of minds was now kinder, softer, warmer.
It had merged in a song.

A song without lyrics, a language without words. Still she
understood. She understood it in her heart.

Life. Death.
Love. Hate. Joy. Sorrow. Light. Shadow. Male.
Female. Each aspect from the universe has its opposite
side, and they shape a whole.

The Creation.

The elements in the universe are like threads on a tapestry. Cut one
strand, break the balance, and it falls apart. And then a new universe will be
born from the ashes of the old one. Life, Death and Rebirth.
That cycle had guided the cosmos before it existed and would keep doing it long
after the last star had exploded.

Now she understood because she had died. She needed to die to learn
really to live.

As she listened to the starlight, the woman woke up and observed the mesmerizing
waves. They seemed welcoming her, like an old friend. However their sight
intimidated her with indescribable panic. Why? What had happened to her? She
required answers.

A sheen of red fire slid down into her eyesight.

Embers. Flames.
Blazes. A memory?

Sky flared with a crimson light as a massive bird of gleaming metal
plummeted down from the outer space. The shuttle descended like a meteor and
collided with the ground in a blast of blazes, heat, smoke and molten shrapnel.
The majestic engine shattered in several pieces, and big chunks of its hull
sank in the sea.

Waters rose as a liquid mountain and battered brutally the beach. The
destructive waves invaded the coast in devastating tide before retreating. A
heavy, dead silence settled on the bay in the wake of ocean's choler.

Abruptly several figures emerged hastily out of the water, seeking
oxygen desperately. However one of them headed again for the depths, ignoring
angrily the man that tried reasoning him out of it.

Before he dove downwards, though, the sea lit up with a rainbow of
flaring colors, and a massive blast exploded in the ocean. A woman, clad in a
tight green-and-gold outfit, soared from the depths, enveloped in a giant,
bird-shaped fireball, brightest than thousand suns. She spread her arms upwards
and shrieked.

"Hear me X-men! No longer am I the woman you knew! I am Fire! And
LIFE INCARNATED! Now and Forever... I AM-"

Abrupt pain speared the woman's mind, shattering the image as a thin
glass. She cried as the shards stabbed her brain, harming it and hurting her.

The woman collapsed over the sand. Her past insisted in eluding her,
punishing with growing harshness every try for getting it back. Still she tried
clumsily grasping the glimpses of the memory was fading to black in a corner
from her mind. Nonetheless she couldn't distinguish that people or recognize
their features.

Above all the woman ached for remembering the face of the determined and
brave man who hadn't given up on her. But she could only recall two red flares
glowing on a hazy blur.

<><><><>

Once upon a time that establishment had been a coffee shop where
beatniks and hippies gathered to drink hot coffee and recite cheap poems. Once
upon a time it had been one of the most fashionable, most lively and most prosperous
bars in Salem Center. But it had
happened several decades ago.

The place was closed down nowadays. An iron padlock bolted the door.
Blinds covered the windowpanes.

The woman glanced gingerly at the shop, sensing the residual psychic emanations
coated its wide walls. She read the erstwhile bright 'Cafe A
Go Go' sign, dangling limply atop of the door. She felt an odd, wistful
longing.

Shaking her head, she strode forward, ignoring the brickwall.
Her molecules filtered among the stone like water through a sieve, and she
walked through it like a ghost, stepping into the bar.

Darkness surrounded her everywhere. Thick layers of filth blanketed the
tiles. The dingy atmosphere smelt of dust and neglect. Stray sunbeams sneaked
among the blinds and dispelled faintly the shadows, shedding some clarity in
that brad, empty and lonely room.

The woman focused and drew the psionic prints
from the place. Throbbing pain pulsed in her mind, but she refused giving up.
She clenched her jaws and absorbed the energy. An excruciating headache
clutched her temples but she forced herself to go beyond the pain. Shadows
stirred steadily and bright fire circled her.

She stretched out her hand and grasped another thread to weave her lost
memory's tapestry.

Embers. Flames.
Blazes. A memory?

Bright lamps hung from the ceiling. Foul smoke pervaded the atmosphere.
Tables and chairs were packed with people drinking and laughing. Slow music
blared from a jukebox and several couples exploited the moment to dance freely.

In the middle of the dance floor were waltzing a man and a woman. He was
a brown-haired man, tall and slim, beautiful and earnest, staring intensely at
his match behind his crimson shades. She was a redhead, green-eyed woman, lean
and athletic, mesmerizing and vivacious, sporting a dreaming gaze as her date
led her in an endless dance.

Soft music enfolded them like a warm blanket. The woman gazed sweetly at
him and laid her head onto his flat, broad chest. She listened to the rhythmic
beats of his great heart and purred dreamily. In that moment she knew that she
was right where she wanted being. She wanted remaining wrapped in his
comforting arms forever. She wanted spending the rest of her life with him.

Three young men studied their actions, crowded together in a nearby
booth: a bulky, clever-looking man, a brown-haired, smiling boy and a handsome
and tall youth. The two first observed them with stares of delight and relief,
whereas the latter one managed a happy smile despite his wounded heart.

Later that night he overcame his fear to
rejection and gave her his heart's key. She'd take it and let him
into her heart, her mind and her body, and never look back.

A dazzling lightning burst in the woman's mind, and she returned to the
physical world. Her legs gave out and she plopped down on the floor. Her head
burnt, but her heart was filled with mirth.

A face floated in her mind now. A handsome, slim man
with lanky brown hair and elusive, beautiful smile. A scarlet haze
flared behind his shades, and that glow sparked a powerful, aching emotion in
her core.

She yearned for seeing him, like a thirsty wayfarer yearns for water.
She felt he could be her oasis in her aimless wandering for the desert.
Nonetheless she prayed for he wasn't a mirage.

<><><><>

Egypt. Akkaba.

Waves of dunes spread endlessly through a vast amber landscape. Ruins of
an ancient city, half-buried by the sand and the centuries, disrupted the
monotonous skyline.

Intensely glacial wind swept the vestiges of the city and battered the crumbled
walls and pillars. Moonshine illuminated with ivory glow the lonely, wrecked
wasteland, like it had done for fifty centuries.

Its sparkling light revealed several conspicuous figures creeping
stealthily among the boulders and zigzagging towards the blackened remnants
from the pyramid. Draped with light robes, the individuals crawled as far as
the entrance from the majestic sepulcher.

Their leader contemplated the collapsed walls from the royal tomb.
Greediness flashed on his narrow eyes and a frightfully dark smile tugged
upwards his lips' corners. Very soon his master's secrets would be passed to
his disciples. Apocalypse would roam the planet again, and his vassals would
reign over everything.

"I wouldn't bet on it." A soft voice, deceitfully cheerful,
sneered brusquely behind them.

Startled by the deep and unexpected sound, the Dark Riders squad whirled
around.

A massive and cracked column was flying towards them. Three Riders
jumped hastily out of the way, but the rest were swept and flattened beneath
the crushing weight of several tons of stone. A pool of fresh blood spread
underneath the giant rock, dyeing the sand with scarlet.

The survivors stared horrified at the projectile had been tossed at them
like a tiny pebble. As they observed it, too stunned for panicking, a sinister
shadow slid over them. Irrational fear overwhelmed them and they spun
cautiously towards its source.

An awesome figure, half-lit by the ashen moon,
stood up on a tall pillar, towering over them. A huge man, bulky and stern,
draped with an indigo robe concealed his powerfully muscled and well-built
frame. Leather gloves protected his hands, and his right fist clutched a long
metallic spear of razor-sharp, curvy edge. An amber flare erupted from his left
eye, lighting up the shadowed folds of his cowl.

"Hi. I'm Cable." He whispered with a very twisted grin.
"Perhaps you've heard about me."

They had done. Swiftly the Dark Riders picked their assault rifles and
aimed the long pipes at him. Frantic fingers pressed nervously the triggers.

Nothing happened. The mechanism had been telekinetically broken down.

"You HAVE to be fucking kidding." Cable growled, hopping off
the column and landing on the sandy ground with an inaudible thud.

In a split-second he had rapidly crossed the distance separating him
from Apocalypse's worshipers. His fist struck furiously a Rider's jaw with a
crunching uppercut and his telepathy smashed another foe's mind in smithereens.
The third Rider tossed his harmless weapon away and unsheathed a long and
vicious-looking dagger. With a fluid motion Nathan hurled his long pike towards
him, impaling his windpipe.

The Dark Rider collapsed limply over the dust. Nathan regarded silently
the corpse in the moonlight and gazed at his eyes. Dulled,
glazed and lifeless. Bereft of soul. His mask
of tough ruthlessness cracked for one second, and compassion and regret flashed
along the chinks.

He clenched his jaw and the moment of weakness faded. Nathan Summers
slid his blood-stained psimitar out of the cadaver,
spun around and walked at the ruins of the pyramid with a grim stride. As he
navigated among the boulders blocking the entrance and penetrated into the
bowels of the obscene building, unbidden memories floated in his mind. Those
walls were coated with blood of civilizations sacrificed to a madman. His
telepathy could feel it. But the throbbing hurt smothering him, the bottomless
agony weighing him down, was personal and heartfelt.

In that place he had lost his war. In that place his father had waged
his battle in his name. In that place his nemesis had murdered his father. And
even though his mother had managed rescuing him, he had lost pieces of his soul
in the process. Everything because he had been a pitiful failure in the moment
of the truth, and Scott gave his life, his soul, his future to save him and
give him another chance.

His legs faltered, suddenly weak. He leaned on a wall and breathed in
and out slowly, struggling against the asphyxia clutching his chest like a
claw. Awful heartache, poisonous guilt and burning self-loathing consumed him;
beyond healing, beyond repair. Nathan repressed and squashed inwards the
overwhelming feelings threatening spilling out of him like churning lava, and
resumed his descent in the tunnel.

His walk in the darkness ended in a gate. The access
to the chamber where Nur had tried the merge. And destroyed Slymm in the process.
Since The Battle he had endlessly cursed that place. He had been forced to
return once to fix his mess but he didn't wish seeing it ever again.

Nevertheless he couldn't ignore it forever. Remains of Apocalypse's
technology rested still here. And Dark Riders prowled around the world,
coveting that power. Or their master's resurrection.
It was a menace too hazardous to be ignored.

Besides unpleasant dreams had disturbed his
nights for weeks. Nightmares of Jean in Akkaba. And during his wakefulness he sensed a voice
summoning him, a presence tugging from him. The last time he had experienced
something like that, he had traveled to Time's End to rescue his little sister.

Uttering an Askani curse, the roughened
warrior inserted the sharp tip of his psimitar
between the metal sheets and channeled his formidable telekinesis along the
shaft. A potent rumble echoed, and the gates slid open with a grating noise of
steel grinding rock. Dim, unnatural light flooded the doorway and Nathan
Summers walked determinedly where angels fear tread.

His glaring eyes roved around the room. Metal planks paneled the walls
and alien circuitry dangled from a funnel pierced the vaulted ceiling. The
floor was layered with metal in a succession of concentric circles. And on the center of the chamber...

Nathan staggered, like struck by a thunder. His heart almost stopped. It
couldn't be.

The figure huddled on the very center from the room remained curled up
and looking downwards. Her lean body was bare, enveloped in a robe woven with
blazes, and her long cascade of flaming rich hair fell over her face, darkening
it in shadows. Her eyes observed fixedly and obsessively the ground, like if
she was searching any missing object. An aura of gloom sadness shrouded her
like a protective invisible cloak.

Her shoulders trembled and stiffened abruptly, like if a stir on the
atmosphere had alerted her at last of the scrutinizing presence of an intruder.
A fierce shine lit up her eyes.

Nathan was suddenly smashed on a wall. Unbearable pressure squeezed
mercilessly his body. He struggled against it, but the force restraining him
didn't loosen at all. He gasped in amazement. He could snuff out a star with
his unbridled power, but she was seizing him with a mere gesture.

Slowly, gradually, the woman rose. Folds of fire cascaded down her body and
clung to it like a second skin. Her motions were sluggish and weary, like she
was half-asleep or dazed. She didn't seem really aware of her surroundings.

"You aren't like the others. I can feel it." Her lips drawled
languidly. "Who are you?"

She lifted fully her head and their eyes connected.

An electric current streamed between both minds, overloading them. A
blinding flash burst into their heads, like the light of a dying star. The
shockwave expanded to the Astral Plane and rocked its very foundations with a
seismic quake.

Embers. Flames.
Blazes. A memory?

Midnight. A moon, twenty
centuries older, glowed on the polluted sky, illuminating a weird-looking tower
of organic structure. On the tall rooftop a mature redheaded woman and a
ten-year silver-haired boy were huddled together. The boy was sat onto woman's
lap as she cradled him and consoled him. Her soft, sweet words lulled slowly
the child in a peaceful dream.

The blazing fire receded, dissolving the images. The dusty chamber
reappeared around them.

Time passed. Nathan and the woman gazed wordlessly at each other.
Awkward, uneasy silence surrounded them, and neither of them dared to break it.

The woman regarded him warily and approached to him without breaking eye
contact. He seemed almost frightened from her. His fear confused her and
unsettled her greatly. She didn't want scaring him.

When she was close enough, she laid tenderly her hand on his cheek. He
squirmed as a fretful, skittish colt, and she noticed her telekinetic grip was
squashing him. Ashamed of her carelessness, she slackened slightly her
strength, allowing him breathing.

"Who are you? Why am I feeling this deep connection to you?"
She mused wonderingly. She felt his bewilderment and tilted her head, boring
her hollow stare in his greyish-brown eyes. "I
can feel it. A link, a bond. In my
heart, in my soul. Who are you? Who am I?"

Nathan blinked quizzically. Could that amnesiac, confused woman be
really his mother? Alive again? His analytical mind
examined the possibilities but he realized he really needed more information.

Her hand drifted downwards. She placed it tenderly on his thorax,
sensing the scars riddling the hide and the heart thumping beneath. "You
know him, don't you? The red-eyed man. You know him.
You're also linked to him. Shall you take me to him?" She begged with
misery and wrapped her arms around his solid frame.

Nathan performed a swift, superficial scan. She was dreadful and
desperate and yearned for warmth, solace, reassurance. Her memories were lost
and she wanted getting them back, but she couldn't. Given that a telepath never
forgets anything, she had to be repressing them with a subconscious block.

She was sinking in despair and needed a piece of driftwood to avoid
drowning. She needed help.

"Yes, I know the red-eyed man." He replied finally. "I
can take you to him and help you to get back your memories... If you come along
with me and let me."

The woman nodded quietly. Her head rested wearily on his chest and she
sighed with elation.

A warm sensation of relief soothed her chest. Perhaps she had found at
last that she had been desperately looking for. Home.

<><><><>

-Notes: Jean Grey's infancy was narrated in UXM 241. I think she was
committed to a mental ward but perhaps I got that detail mixed with another
universe -but it's possible it happened, and it's my history so I'm using it
anyway-; she was transformed in Phoenix in UXM 101; Scott and Jean danced
together during Bobby's birthday in UXM 33, and Scott told Jean he loved her
afterwards; the Apocalypse/Scott merge happened in XM 97; and the scene with
Jean and young Nathan is taken from 'The Adventures from Cyclops and Phoenix'
3.

-Jean's nephew and niece are mutants but I don't remember their powers
have ever been revealed. I suppose psionic powers
would be logic, but I think would be cool if they had physical powers instead.

To be continued...
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Firebird Rising