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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
- 4
- 5
- 6
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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.
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 Five. Phoenix Unleashed-

An alluvium of debris was raining upon her, a torrent of rubble and
solidified water with enough power to squash and crush her fragile and puny
human frame in a second of unimaginable pain.

Overflowed by a blood-chilling horror, she shut her eyes for a second.

Nothing happened.

Dumbfounded and wary, she opened her eyelids. A gasp escaped from her
lips.

Black nothingness surrounded her. Slick, murky shadows floated around
her, dulling her senses and suffocating her lungs.

A surge of fright crawled along her spine, draining color from her face.
She recognized the setting.

A wall of ethereal, glowing fire circled her. A figure slid through the
flames. A gloom, crimson-haired ten-year.

As she walked, her body grew and her face matured,
her size and weight increased, her limbs became longer and slimmer and her
curls lengthened in a flowing cascade of fire. As she aged, her clothes blurred
and shifted in every costume she had ever worn, from her blue-and-yellow
uniform to her Dark Phoenix outfit. And her hopeful, innocent face became
tainted with abject shadows and scarred with pain.

Emma forced herself to stand her ground. "Why have you crawled back
from death, Grey? Were you scared of Scott had gotten over you?" She spat
viciously. "You like proving he's fully wrapped around your finger, right?
I wonder how long Madelyne needed to realize
that."

"Your words are meaningless gusts of empty air." Phoenix rebuked
flatly. Her face betrayed no emotion, except for the storm brewing in her
pupils. "My memory is a shadow-filled void I can't fathom- and truthfully
I don't care now. I know you've hurt me; your actions have earned my hatred. I
require no further knowledge."

Emma folded her legs, ready to pounce on the woman. But her body didn't
answer. It was paralyzed.

Her enemy flung forward one arm. A crimson flame sprouted from her
fingers and slammed Emma into a coal-black wall of glossy darkness. The White Queen
moaned, feeling the claw of impious fire crushing and grazing her psionic self with its razor talons.

She couldn't react, struggle, defend, fight. Helpless
fear shattered her mask of enraged contempt.

Phoenix saw the dread flashing on her prey's face. Wild, sick glee
bubbled in her belly and her face split abruptly in a hard, delightful smirk. A
myriad of sensations throbbed and burnt in her body and mind with a fire
impossibly hot. A fire flooded her with a delighted thrill, a wicked arousal, a
joyous rapture. A rapture of victory achieved and revenge quenched.

She was going to enjoy this.

"Pitiful, selfish creature. Ruled by the very emotions you openly despite. I know what
you want. You seek power. Very well, I shall grant your wish. Through my you
will know power. Such like no human being has dreamed of."

Her blank eyes shimmered with unholy amber light.

A tempest of embers incinerated Emma's shields to cinders and waves of
foreign emotions crashed into her mind. Ache. Suffering.
Grief. Loneliness. Rage. Fright. Rejection.
Every one belonging to Jean Grey. Her
joys and sorrows, her wishes and fears, her passions and frustrations, her
loves and hates. Feelings, thoughts and remembrances swarmed in her
brain, drowning her.

Phoenix poured brutally into her head each single detail of Jean Grey's
life. Every emotion Jean had felt, every memory she had got, every moment she
had experienced, every fact she had learnt. The entire knowledge the celestial
avatar had stored through her entire life, during all her incarnations was now
hers.

Emma sensed her telepathy growing uncontrollably; expanding beyond
anything a human being can handle. A deafening mayhem flooded her head, a
legion of voices shouting at once in a horrific cacophony. There were so many,
billions of them blending in a rumbling thunder, and she felt so tiny and
insignificant and she couldn't shut them out and she was losing in them,
slipping in them, and she was going crazy, and she was forgetting her own
self...

Power like she had never imagined sang in her. Blistering fire simmered
in her core, filling her mind with staggering visions. She traveled to the
farthest reaches from the cosmos in a blink. She raced the comets and played
with the stars. Her fingers touched the infinite. Her eyes contemplated the
face, the glory of God. The millions of absolute and contradictory truths and
lies of the universe flashed in her mind.

Incapable of bearing it, she fled. Incapable of fleeing, she hid. Incapable
of hiding, she screamed. Incapable of screaming, she blacked out. After all she
was only a human woman in a human body with the power of a god.

Phoenix listened to her appalling screams of agonizing pain. And chuckled. Obsidian flames burnt in her, fueled for her
dark passions. They were twisting her, shattering her, blackening her. Darkness
sullied her soul, and only a tiny speck of shining light endured, like a
beautiful blossom strangled by black weeds.

The flower withered, folded on itself and wilted.

Dark Phoenix arched back her head and cackled. Her laughter shook Astral
Plane like a thunder.

<><><><>

Dark Phoenix perused the pile
of boulders, her eyes reflecting a weird mixture of wicked glee and abhorrent
grief. She clicked her fingers. Gigantic rocks disintegrated and the huge
mountain materialized -whole again- on its foundations, towering and prideful.

Dark Phoenix contemplated the snow-capped peak in deep silence. Insanity
glowed on her eyes. A wild joy and exhilaration thumped and boiled within her
chest. Her power was vast, unimaginable, limitless. It
provoked in her an unexplainable rapture, a thirst, a hunger. She craved for
it. The need consumed her.

Her lewd leer drifted towards the woman had been buried underneath the avalanche
of debris. Her mind was a blank void. Her body, encased in a gleaming crust of
diamond, rested motionless on the cold soil. Only the shuddering rise and lower
of her chest showed she was still alive.

She was still alive just because Phoenix refused killing her quickly.

That woman had defied her choler. She had brought her pain. She had
ignited her hatred. Her unforgivable offenses, her petty revenge had
unconsciously unleashed her power again in a defenseless cosmos. She had to
pay. First with her soul; now with her mortal shell.

Emma Frost's body was lifted from the floor and hovered silently as Dark
Phoenix built up her power. Sunlight flashed around of her clenched fists and
she prepared for pulverizing her atoms.

Crimson blasts burst suddenly around her, drilling craters on the frozen
land. She turned around.

A crowd of people was approaching to her, dashing uphill or gliding on
the glacial air to land gingerly on the battered slope. A weird quiver shook
her while she perused theirs features. They... disturbed her.

A tall, brown-haired man walked ahead the group and pleaded. "Jean!
Don't do it! Please!"

His face, his voice was painfully familiar. They cracked a chink in her
armor of bleak obscurity. And a surge of forgotten sentiments fluttered in her.
She remembered having sought him, thinking he could save her, heal her, fulfill her. But it was too late now. For
her. For them. For
everything.

Dark Phoenix felt her heart bleeding with charring pain. And she wept.
Because she knew what was going to happen. And she couldn't stop it.

Hope and resignation, love and hatred, passion and pain dueled within
her like snapping dogs. It hurt her with the strongest ache she could imagine. Thus
she lashed out.

<><><><>

"Jean! Don't do it!" He screamed.

Dark Phoenix's expression darkened somberly. She raised a hand. His
golden visor was abruptly yanked from his face and flew to her open palm. Scott
instantly shut his eyes, feeling his optic blasts thrusting against the barrier
of his eyelids.

Her fist crushed the gadget as a telekinetic jab in Scott's midsection
sent him sprawling on the snow.

The X-Men gawked at the scene, silenced by horror. Storm struggled
against her panic as she scrutinized that woman, searching desperately for her
best friend in those eyes of inhumane aloofness. And she cried, not finding
her. And another witness of Phoenix's tragedy bolted forward, without waiting
for orders. If he was lucky, he pondered, he'd divert her attention from
Cyclops. And if he was EXTREMELY lucky, he'd knock her out and they'd save her
from herself.

Colossus lunged at the woman, throwing a terrible punch capable of
demolishing a mountain.

The brutal sonic wave of the hit reverberated through the large valley.

Dark Phoenix didn't even stagger. The redhead woman glared at him -her
momentary weakness vanished- and stared mutely downwards.

Suddenly Piotr sensed the tough ground turning
gelatinous like quicksand and dissolving beneath his boots. He yelled before
his heavy metallic body sank rapidly into the soil, swallowed in bowels of
stone.

"Peter!" Kitty Pryde squealed and
dashed forward, but a firm hand grasped her arm.

She peeked backwards to see Havok glaring
sternly. "Drake and I will draw her attention. Hurry up!"

Shadowcat nodded briskly and turning
intangible dove in the solid rock. Alex glanced at Bobby.

"Come on, Iceman. Let's take her down." Bobby shook his head
in disbelief, but he didn't sneer. He knew Alex wasn't such crazy to believe
his own words.

He focused. Arctic coldness rose around him. Billows of thick mist
obscured his shape and humidity crystallized around his body, hardening in
snowflakes. His fists shimmered with cobalt brightness and he flung them forward,
unleashing a blast of icy energy.

Dark Phoenix stared unemotionally at the glacier stream flowing towards
her. The frozen gale dissolved in vapor of water barely it touched her
burning-hot skin.

She glared at Iceman. He wouldn't attack her again.

Bobby felt something crawling into him. Sudden and immense pain stabbed
and slashed his entrails, like claws shredding him internally. His body writhed
with feverish tremors, and a cobweb of cracks fractured his frozen skin. Finally
his coat of ice burst in glassy fragments of blue shards, revealing flesh
underneath.

He screamed and collapsed, fainted, over the snow.

Alex gasped, stunned of seeing Bobby again human. He discarded swiftly
the thought and powered up his cosmic energies when a reflection stopped him. His
blasts were stellar plasma converted in thermal waves. And Dark Phoenix fed
with stars...

"Therefore your power would strengthen me." The woman uttered
brusquely. She raised her palm to face level.

Alex was abruptly hauled in the air. Energy throbbed in him and flowed
along his limbs and at his hands. His body blazed before his fists launched
hot-melting heat waves towards Dark Phoenix. She absorbed greedily the tasty
morsel, draining him dry from energy, and tossed him scornfully on the ground.

An ugly smirk darkened her features.

Lorna watched Alex lying limply and released a bloodcurdling cry of
pain. Then she threw at Dark Phoenix an incensed glare full of acid poison. "Bitch! If you've harmed him, I swear I'll kill
you!"

Cobalt electricity crackled along her frame, from her hair to her
fingertips, and a greyish-blue halo shrouded her. Polaris
floated upwards and invoked the same power had catapulted an island out of the
planet, now fueled by a despaired anguish and bleeding choler clutching her.

The valley shuddered, shaken and rocked by an earth-cracking quake. A
thunderous boom split the air and a whole mountain was ripped from its bedrock,
lifted airborne and hurled at Dark Phoenix.

"Surely you must be jesting." Dark Phoenix stated evenly, not
cowed at all. With a flicker of thought she froze in mid-air the unimaginably
weighty projectile. Lorna gaped, amazed and incredulous.

Dark Phoenix grinned viciously as her magnified telekinesis crumbled the
mount to rubble and hurled the millions of sharp boulders towards Lorna. The
green-haired woman grimaced with horror and tried erecting a flimsy screen to
repel the lethal hailstorm.

A burst of purple smog swallowed Lorna and disappeared. The barrage of
shrapnel sliced through empty air and dropped harmlessly at the bottom of the
valley.

A split-second later Nightcrawler materialized
on the ground, his arms draped firmly round Dane. His teammates approached him
hurriedly, Kitty and Piotr phasing out of the land,
Warren carrying an unconscious Bobby in his arms and Alex limping laboriously
towards them.

"For a several hairs' width." Kurt quipped.
Nothing could ruin his good mood.

"This isn't time to joke, Wagner!" Warren yelled. He
glanced at the redhead, her expression stern and impassive after her impressive
displays of power. "This is pointless. She's playing with us."

"It doesn't matter!" Havok spat
weakly. He leaned on Beast, wheezing roughly as his body replenished his energy
absorbing cosmic plasma. His pupils wandered briefly over Polaris, flashed
momentarily with pain and hardened with a glint of steel. "We have to
defeat her, not matter what. Kurt! Try taking her by surprise!"

The blue-furred mutant teleported behind Dark Phoenix and wrapped tightly
his arms around her waist. Instantly tongues of liquid fire erupted from her
body, engulfing him. He let her go with a howl and dropped on a puddle of melt
snow. The boiling water put off his singed fur.

Dark Phoenix sneered cruelly
and took off in a burst of light. Cosmic blazes sprouted from her, the Phoenix effect enfolding
her as she soared upwards. With an unearthly shriek the enormous raptor spread
giant wings of fire. And its looming figure filled the sky.

<><><><>

She hovered in the core of the maelstrom, supreme ruler of everything
she saw. Her face was smug but serene. Her face lied. Blazes danced and leapt
wildly within her. A passion -sweet and painful at once- transcended human
mind's boundaries fueled them.

She was Dark Phoenix. She held the universe's fate in her hands. Nothing
could stop her. Certainly not the ants prowled the valley beneath her feet. She
could read their innermost thoughts. They intended assailing her, combating
her, stripping her from her power or slaying her. She wouldn't brook it.

She clenched firmly her hands. A dull glow pulsated on them. The light
intensified in a blinding shimmer, and the blazes flowed at it. Her fists drew
and absorbed the red twister of telekinetic fire as the air around her vibrated
and sizzled. Then she linked her fists and shot a massive spear of glowing
energy.

The pillar of psionic power struck the steer
hillside, unchaining a violent quake as it drilled miles of hard stone in a few
seconds.

Hot magma, Earth's red blood, erupted from the rift. An unstoppable
stream from molten rock gushed from the open wound and slid slowly down the
mountain. And towards the X-Men.

"Oh, stars and garters." Beast stammered. "I had only
seen Thor performing something like that."

Polaris raised her arms. A sparkling energy barrier parted the air,
stopping the flood. The lava crashed silently in the dike and accumulated
around it, like a river blocked by a dam. The translucent shield trembled,
dangerously strained for a wall of rock liquid.

Dark Phoenix sniggered. She
could read and taste that woman's emotions: Exhaustion. Resolve. Anger. Frustration. Regret... That
feeling was particularly funny. She rued having wasted her energies in an
impulsive and rash rage fit.

Of sudden she was startled by a flaring thought -forged with bravery and
resolution; warm and light sentiments confused her- irradiated from the windrider. The dark woman invoked the elements and molded a
hurricane lifted her upwards. She navigated easily over the winds and met her,
face-to-face, in the sky.

"In the name of the love we share... Let us help you! Please, Jean,
for pity's sake!"

"Ask not for pity from Dark Phoenix." Her voice stated flatly.
"There is none in her."

Unfathomable grief ravaged her gorgeous face. "Understood."

A glossy cloud glazed her azure eyes.

Dark billows gathered in the horizon. Swift, roaring hurricanes arose
and stormed the valley with violence. Thick masses of ebony clouds rolled along
the sky, draping over it an immense raven canvas crackled with inner fires. Blizzards
and hailstorms whipped the mountains and dense rain pounded mercilessly on
Earth. Flashes of electricity illuminated the glum blackness and ominous
thunders burst with terrible rage.

Storm stretched her arms upwards. Forks of amber lightning streaked
along the tempest clouds, merged in a gigantic vortex of electricity and
spilled theirs power in her body. A huge sphere of glowing electricity
surrounded her and an ecstasy mesmerized her briefly. She basked in the
immeasurable force she tamed, in the stinging touch of the sparks, in the
ear-shattering rumble of the thunders, in the stench of the burnt ozone. Then
the god-like rapture faded, the humanity returned... and she struck.

Storm arched back her fist, channeling the entire power in it, and
unleashed a massive and dazzling thunderbolt capable of obliterating the whole
mountain range.

Dark Phoenix watched the
stream of energy zigzagging towards her with nonchalance. Her fist smashed the
blast swiftly and abruptly, shattering it. The bolt exploded in thousands of
electric spears, and the X-Men were stricken for the lightning storm.

With a silent burst the protector shield faded in flickering sparks and
the roaring sea of flames rushed downhill, spilling everywhere, swallowing all
in its path of devastation... and burying the mutants.

Dark Phoenix landed softly on
the boiling river. Her telekinesis sealed off-handily the gap in Earth's crust
and her body absorbed swiftly the heat of the bubbling magma, transforming the
lava into tough rock.

Thick, sticky steam rose from the ground, fogging the barren terrain. She
stared at the surface of black slag and narrowed her eyes. The bedrock cracked
and several telekinetic bubbles emerged from the rifts. Every mutant lay into
one psionic cocoon.

Angel came around slowly, and spotted her. His blue eyes gazed at her
green pupils, trying desperately reaching her. "Jean, please... If there
is anything human remaining within you..."

"There isn't." She replied frostily. "Your appeal has
been heard... and denied. And now it's time to carry out the sentence. Any last thoughts?"

Dark Phoenix gathered the
entire group into one single telekinetic sphere and hit them a hundred
different ways at once.

For a moment, her goddess-masque slipped... and her face shattered with
a grief that transcended thought. But the moment passed, the humanity faded...
and only Dark Phoenix remained.

"No one? Good." She smirked, as
her eyes observed their wretched hides.

<><><><>

As the battle raged, Nathan and Rachel picked their father from the
ground, lifting him to his feet. Rachel held awkwardly Scott's shoulder as she
fumbled clumsily in his uniform's pocket. Gingerly she took out one pair of red
sunglasses and slipped it over his nose bridge.

Scott adjusted his shades and opened cautiously his eyes. He
contemplated Ororo, hovering above them and blasting
tongues of electricity at Phoenix.

He focused in that scene, trying blocking the voice in his head, that
faint whisper had grown in a thundering rumble. Help me.

"Fools!" He scowled. His
soft but hoarse voice startled them. "Don't they realize what they're
doing? Haven't they learnt anything from the last time?"

Nathan regarded him warily. He'd never seen his father so... determined
and so upset at once. "What do you mean?"

"They mustn't fight her." He wheezed out. His voice was
ragged, his legs wobbled unsteadily and he needed aid to stand upright. Nevertheless,
strength, tenacity and willpower oozed in him. "We can't defeat
her..."

"What? But..." Rachel stammered.

"Listen to me, damn it!" He snapped, fury seeping in his
words. "We CAN'T defeat her. Don't you remember what happened that time? We
can't triumph over her physically. It's like strike an ocean with one
sword!"

"What do you suggest then what we do, Slymm?"

HelpmeHelpmeHelpmeHelpmeHelpmeHelpmehelpmehelpmehelpmehelpmehelpmehelpmehelpmehelpme-

A deafening explosion alerted them. Nathan stared forward to see waves
of molten metal flowing towards them. Swiftly his telekinesis lifted him and
his family, letting the blazing river of glowing red magma welled beneath them.

"We have to do something!" Rachel cried. "She's going to
kill them!"

Not again. She wouldn't bear seeing her friends perishing -again- as she
watched, helpless. AGAIN.

"No!" Scott stated firmly. "She shan't do it! If she
wished killing us, we would already be dead! She's only defended from our
attacks so far!"

Nathan narrowed his eyes. "What are you planning, Scott?"

HELP ME, SCOTT!

Scott didn't talk. He lowered his mindshields,
allowing them a brief peek. Both siblings exchanged startled looks, colored by
alarm and deep worry.

"Slymm" Cable breathed roughly.
"Are you crazy? She can kill you!"

Scott's expression hardened with bleak stubbornness. Stubbornness
chilled Nathan to the bone.

"So what?" Scott saw his
son's stare of horrified shock and sighed. "Look, Nathan. I've always
believed in taking responsibility for my actions. So I taught you and I'd bet
my counterpart taught it to your sister as well. And it's past time of
practicing what I preach."

Rachel gasped, staring at the man she had called father -wondering if
she'd get to know him truly sometime- and at the woman could be her mother,
prisoner in madness' clutches. Scott was right. There only was one chance to
save everyone. Moistness clouded her vision and she made up her mind.

Marvel Girl sprinted swiftly towards Dark Phoenix, rearing her fist. Her
arm fired a sizzling bolt of telekinesis between her and the mutants,
disrupting violently the power flux. The X-Men landed gracelessly onto the
dried lava, and Summers felt a smile quivering in her
lips.

Dark Phoenix swiveled her
attention at her, and Rachel's smile vanished. Her green stare bored in her,
piercing her, stripping her, and the young telekinetic shuddered. The baleful
evil smoldering in those eyes felt... so wrong. The sight ached in her.

"Do you wish battling me, child?"

Rachel banished the panic flooding her and stared back unflinchingly. "I
wish not, mom. But you don't give me another option. I can't allow you going
through with this."

She arched her red eyebrows. Still her face was bereft of emotion and
Rachel couldn't decide if she was thrilled, amused or merely annoyed. "I
sense your power. You are no match for me, but you can be a worthy challenge. If
you wish stopping me... you are most welcome to try."

Flames swallowed Dark Phoenix and she darted at the stormclouds.
Orange power flared around Rachel, lengthening in fire wings, and she soared
upwards swiftly. She grimaced, dwelling in the irony of that battle. Marvel
Girl against Dark Phoenix.

Her mother was waiting in the sky for her, a smile perking up her lips. Her
right hand snapped her fingers together and fired a volley of energy spikes in
rapid succession.

Summers glided deftly among the flaring spears tearing the air, streaked
towards Dark Phoenix and stored her whole telekinetic power in one single,
brutal, fierce punch.

The kinetic cloak shielding Dark Phoenix wavered tremulously, but it
didn't shatter or dissolve. Rachel blinked, aghast,
and Dark Phoenix grinned mockingly.

The next thing Rachel knew, a telekinetic bolt smashed her, and the
jarring impact hurled her towards the land below with a deadly speed. Marvel
Girl grunted and twisted her body, altering telekinetically her fall. She dove
downwards, skimmed over the ground and flew upwards. Using her fall's momentum
to gain speed, she positioned behind the older psychic and her mind hurled an
assassin bolt of sizzling energy.

Dark Phoenix actually
staggered in midair. Yet she didn't fall down. Gradually the woman spun around.
She glared at Rachel, and new rage swirled in her shadowed eyes.

Both women unleashed at once two swift telepathic blasts. Both attacks
met midway in the air, entangled and cancelled at each other. Mother and
daughter frowned. Slowly their bodies glowed with crimson brightness as they
powered up their psionic powers.

They bolted wordlessly at each other.

Sky rumbled and ground cracked. Air quaked violently with the impact and
mountains crumbled down. The overcast firmament flared with two fearsome
raptors dueling passionately, parrying each hit, each thrust, each feint. Their
power was awesome and terrific.

However as the battle progressed, Rachel realized she was losing. The
fight was wearing her energies down whereas Dark Phoenix hardly displayed
fatigue. She needed her full strength to even scratch her adversary's defenses
whereas Phoenix's weaker blows
strained dangerously her shields.

Rachel stifled a cry when a dazzling bolt shattered her telekinetic
shield. As she dodged it banking sideways, an idea floated in her mind. It was
crazy, but... She wiped the sweat droplets drenching her clammy forehead and
readied herself.

Dark Phoenix cupped together
her hands, psionic fire crackling and pouring from
them, and unleashed a wide arc of power. If the attack connected, it would
incinerate her enemy in all levels, physical and psychical. Rachel gulped,
praying for her trick worked.

She lowered her shields fully. Cosmic flares bathed her; but instead of
searing her flesh and scalding her bones, filtered into her, filling her with
nearly infinite energy. A burning, powerful fire ripped apart her body, too
fragile to bear that kind of power. Rachel moaned, and crossing her arms,
released it abruptly.

A giant shockwave swept the sky and slammed brutally Dark Phoenix. Her
mass plummeted dangerously fast downwards, but she slowed down her descent with
her telekinesis, rotated her body airborne and landed on her feet. Her legs
wobbled unsteadily, nonetheless. The blast had dazed her.

A yellow blur -Logan- tackled her to
the ground, seizing firmly her wrists.

One second later he crashed headfirst into a rampart of rock. His body
plopped down onto the tough ground, glowing with orange embers as his singed
skin started regenerating.

Dark Phoenix rose and pinned a
baleful glare at Wolverine. The mirth, the mischief and the temper glowed on
those emerald pupils had faded, drowned for a seething, quivering ire. She
powered up her telepathy to shatter his headblind
mind like glass when a puzzling deja vu stopped her.
A hazy image floated in her muddy mind, overlapping to the real scenery. Had
she seen this earlier?

Cyclops shot a quick glance at his son.

"Now, Nathan!"

For a moment Cable stared regretfully, thoughtfully at his father. Scott
was about of encouraging him when he felt fingers probing gently his mind,
tugging him from his body and placing him in another.

<><><><>

Darkness. Utter,
glorious, thick, pitch-black darkness.

Scott navigated around the mindscape, blind and deaf in that dim
blackness. He couldn't see Jean in that intoxicating blackness. He couldn't see
her in anywhere. Still he knew how finding his wife.

Tentatively, warily, he sought in his own mind for the long-time dormant
link between Jean and him and struck one of the frayed, torn chords.

The whole expanse rumbled with a loud and terrible shout, a roar of
unnatural rage slammed Scott.

"HOW DO YOU DARE?"

Scott kneeled down in excruciating hurt. Bright light melted the shadows
and tall walls of fire -red and burning- sprouted from the floor, surrounding
him. The flames grew and linked above him, shaping a vault.

The curtain of blazes parted. Standing in the gap, a shadow among
shadows, was his wife.

"How do you dare to invade my mind, my sanctuary?" She hissed.
Hate, fury and pain dripped from her voice and twisted her visage. "You
are not welcome here."

Tendrils of blood-red flares coiled around his body menacingly, hissing
like venomous vipers.

Scott rose slowly, feeling billows of heat oppressing him. He stared
back, concealing and repressing his dread. "I came to talk."

"I won't listen."

"Then kill me... If you can."

Phoenix frowned suddenly.
A vague vision gleamed on the flames, weakening her concentration. Taking
advantage from her momentary hesitation and confusion, Scott focused.

The setting around them shifted.

Embers. Flames.
Blazes. A memory.

Midnight. A lavish park. Air boiled
with fire. Scott Summers and Jean Grey were facing at each other: He, stern
like a rock and serene like water; she, fickle like wind and furious like fire.

"Have you come to fight?
I hope so." She grinned malevolently.

"I came to talk."
He stated casually.

"I won't listen."

"Then, kill me. I can't
stop you. I won't even try. Be true to your malefic destiny, Phoenix- Kill me... if you can. But if you can't, then ask
yourself why? You're Dark Phoenix...power incarnate...no force in existence can stand
against you. The X-men have defied you...fought you...yet we live. Why?

Doubt crept in her mind for a
moment. "You're not worth killing."

"That's one answer. But
there's another. True you're Dark Phoenix, but you're also still Jean Grey. No matter how hard
you try, you can't exorcise that part of yourself it's too fundamental. You
can't kill us because you love us, and we you."

"Dark Phoenix knows nothing of love."

"Oh? For love of the
X-men you sacrificed your life. For love of me you resurrected yourself. For
love of the whole universe you almost died a second time to save it. Know
nothing of love? Jean you are love! Your existence, your very creation springs
from love. From the noblest emotions a human can attain. And now you want to
deny that. Deny yourself?"

"Yes! No. I..." She
gazed at him with despair "hunger, Scott...for joy. Rapture beyond all
comprehension. That need it is a part of me, too. It... consumes
me."

"It doesn't have to. Let
me help..." He implored.

The figures on the vision glimmered and dissolved in bright fire.

Dark Phoenix stood still,
mute, motionless.

More memories assaulted her mind. Confusing her.
When her power had been unleashed, her former self had been incinerated in the
blistering blazes. Her former life had lost meaning to her. But
now...

A tide of forgotten feelings washed over her, puzzling her. An
unbearable hotness spread in ripples within her chest. An emotion sped up her
heartbeats and fluttered in her belly. Less crushing and
burdensome than an ocean of thought, but infinitely warmer. More inward. More sensual.

She craved for it. She moved closer that man and touched gingerly his
cheek. He looked back, trying changing his frightful reluctance in serene
acceptance. With a reassuring look she softened her touch, dissolved his
seamless mental shields and peered into.

A torrent from visions, flashes and glimpses of another life welled up
and swirled around her. And every remembrance stirred a memory in her mind,
like shards of a mirror reflecting the light. Her heart burnt and tears
moistened her eyes. The emotion was so strong, she could drown in it.

So she did. She plunged in the liquid whirlwind of thought that circled
her. Both of their minds entwined with each other, merging so fully neither of
them seemed exist apart of the another.

Embers. Flames.
Blazes.

Central
Park. Two persons strolled along a silent and lonely path.
Glittering moonlight and the soothing murmur of the trees stroked them.

"Never someone adopted
me." He muttered, forcing himself to stripe his heart. "The orphanage
was the only place I knew... until I ran away. Telling you all of this isn't
easy, Jean... I... I love you! I loved you since the very moment I saw
you!"

She smiled. With infinite happiness. "Me too,
Scott. With all my heart."

And they kissed.

A glossy-black jet
soaring across Atlantic Ocean. Scott Summers and Jean Grey, locked in passionate
embrace in the cockpit, wishing the moment never ended.

"Jean, you're everything
to me - as necessary as the air I breathe. I used to say, 'I love you' without
truly understanding what I was talking about. I know now- a little, anyway.
Jean, I love you."

New Mexico. Sunrays of dusk bathed a lonely butte. Two lovers
snuggle at each other, basking in the afterglow of an intense lovemaking.

"It's weird having your
psychokinetic talent hold back my optic blasts."

"I wanted to see your
face...all of your face." She whispered, a beam warming her expression.

"Disappointed?"

"No. Scott I'd...like to
establish a permanent rapport...a psychic bond...between us. Part
of me in your head, part of you in mine. I know I'm asking a lot...total
sharing, total intimacy, total... trust. I'll
understand if you say no."

"I say yes." He
answered. She touched his forehead, and his minds merged.

Midnight. Jean Grey lay collapsed on the ground, no longer
doused in a firebird's flames. Scott Summers scooped her painstakingly in his
arms, calling his name over and over. And thinking.

"She's so still. I'm not
even sure if she's alive. I want her to live...but what if she's still Dark Phoenix? I'll love her just the same. For better, worse,
richer, poorer, sickness, health, till death do us part."

Green eyes blinked
tremulously. "Hi."

"H-Hi
yourself."

"If I didn't know better
I'd say those thoughts I just picked up sounded like a proposal." She
latched his arms around his neck.

He lowered his head.
"They did, didn't they? Well, what do you say Red?"

"I say yes!" They
kissed at each other. Knowing all would be right as long as they were together.

Moon surface. Moondust carpeted the ruins
of a barren citadel. Scott Summers was floating on the air, encased in a golden
bubble of telekinesis. Jean Grey approached to him. Her face was pale, her
expression tormented.

"I'm scared, Scott. I'm
hanging on by my fingernails. I can feel the Phoenix within me, taking over. Part of me...welcomes
it." She stared at him, shivering for the inconceivable guilt ravaging
her. "You want me to fight? I have. I am...With all my strength. But I
can't forget that I killed an entire world -five billion people- as casually,
as unthinkingly, as you would crumble a piece of paper. I want no more deaths
on my conscience. Your way, I'd have to stay completely in control of myself
every second of every day for the rest of my immortal life. Maybe I could do
it. But if I slipped, even for an instant, if I...failed...If even one more
person died at my hands..."

Her voice broke, choked. She
placed one hand on his face and her fingers brushed tenderly his cheek.
"It's better this way. Quick. Clean. Final. I love you, Scott. A part of me will always be with
you."

A blast glowed in the
darkness and struck her, rendering her in charred, smoking ashes. He felt his
heart dying.

Walls of sterile metal
surrounded them everywhere. Scott Summers and Jean Grey sprinted along the maze
of tunnels, fleeing from a madman accused them of sins they knew nothing about.

"If he's a powerful
enough telekinetic to keep YOUR teke abilities at
bay... What can we do to stop him?"

"Only one way
to find out, man of mine."

"The hard
way?"

"And if that's the only
road to take, there's no one I'd rather have at my side."

More images of two lifetimes flashed. Her mind explored the rich
tapestry, feeling awareness returning to her progressively. Her existence was
wholly entangled with that man's, like if they were one.

Though there were foreign memories nestled in his brain. Memories had
damaged him badly, awfully. Memories of a Devil.

Embers. Flames.
Blazes. A memory.

Bright cobalt light flooded
the atmosphere. Apocalypse stood in the center of the chamber, smug and
confident, ready to thief the power of The Twelve and Nate
Grey's body, an unholy rite would grant him absolute power over everything.
Scott Summers and Jean Grey crawled over the littered floor, beaten but not
vanquished. Summers stood up, offered a last love-filled glance to his wife and
leapt between them.

"You've always held us
in contempt, Apocalypse! We were your puppets, whose purpose was to serve your
grand design. You cut yourself off from your own humanity so long ago... you
forgot how truly powerful it makes us. You look pretty impressive trying to
imprint yourself on the soul of a boy. Let's see how well you fare- against a
man!"

Summers pushed X-Man aside,
ruining the ascension, defeating Apocalypse, saving the world. But nobody saved
him. Apocalypse still needed a host body. And he was right there.

His black soul, oozing evil and darkness poured into him.

Scott screamed as a massive tide, large as an ocean and pitch-black as midnight drowned his mind. Nur
invaded his body, overwhelming his soul with laughing easiness, and Scott felt
tiny, like a bug flattened under the weight of a mountain. Miasma spread
everywhere, clawing his mind, smashing and slicing in thousand bleeding pieces
his sanity, stabbing his brain with slimy tendrils and rooting in his psyche. Raping him, infecting him, breaking him.

Five thousand years of memories of bloodshed and war and death and
destruction and evil crushed his mind and swayed his sanity. Visions of cities
razed, countries burning, bodies -millions of them- rent and mangled, floating
in pools of blood. They implanted deeply in his brain until he wasn't certain
of which pieces belonged to him and which to Nur.
They frightened him. He didn't want nobody saw it, saw what that evil had
changed him into. He didn't want his wife saw it. He was now filthy, impure.
He'd soil her.

However she saw now. She saw why he had become so distant, so aloof, so
withdrawn. And then she saw what he had done with Emma.

Black rage corroded her.

Still she also saw something else. Something her severed psi-link hadn't been able to warn her about. Since the
merge she hadn't visited Scott's mind, she hadn't explored the expanses of his
skull, she hadn't studied the changes. She hadn't been able to know it until
now.

Camouflaged among Nur's dregs, entwined along
the tentacles of slippery scum, there were pale-golden threads of thought. Silky and thin, almost imperceptible.

Stealth suggestions filtered in Scott's mind and printed in his
thoughts. Doubts and fears disguised amidst the hesitations and anxieties had
created Apocalypse. They had changed, twisted, altered
something in him. Nur's memories had driven him to
turn his back on her, to refuse talk to her, to forget she could understand.
But those manipulations had damaged his faith in himself, theirs love, theirs
marriage, and ultimately had driven him to betray her.

And she knew who had done it.

That... filthy... fucking...

Black and thick like boiling tar was the hatred menaced with devouring
her. But it couldn't extinguish the light flickered again into her. A light
made of love, mercy, sorrow. Bottomless grief ached in her heart when she gazed
at his wrecked mind.

He shouldn't suffer like that. He shouldn't be damaged by memories
weren't his. He shouldn't feel guilty of events he wasn't responsible to start
with. He shouldn't pay for someone else's sins. He shouldn't be tarnished for
that blackness. That evil shouldn't dwell in him.

It was not fair.

It was so wrong. So utterly wrong. And no
longer she would let it go on.

Her self exploded in ivory flares that dissolved the darkness to ashes.

<><><><>

She had rested in blessed darkness for what seemed forever, her sleep
not disturbed. Occasionally, faces and visions would disquiet her dreams, and
she stirred uneasily in the depths where she lay. Driven by restless curiosity,
she drifted upwards, but each time she tried surfacing, dark feelings plunged
in the morass. Rage. Sorrow. Loneliness. Hurt. Hate. Betrayal.
Frightful emotions panicked her and sent her again to the bottom. She remained
curled up in the abyss until a light gleaming on the surface called her.

She rose from the waters and spread her wings. Like
she had always done. Like she would always do.

Jean Grey woke up gradually, feeling a deep drowsiness dulling her
senses. Her body lay limply on a tough surface, numbed with a biting chill
pervaded the air. An irritating ache throbbed in her temples and an intense fatigue
and languor overwhelmed her. She felt groggy, like if she had slept for a long,
long while.

Slowly she parted her eyelids. Dazzling sun and a gorgeous sky blue
greeted her. Silvery clouds darkened it partially, shreds of a violent storm
the wind unraveled peacefully.

Feeling whole for first time in a long while, she shifted to a kneeling
position on the hot floor. Her eyes perused with weirdness -and fondness- her
surroundings.

Her friends and family circled her. They offered a disastrous aspect:
bedraggled, battered and bruised. Nevertheless they displayed expressions of
relief and elation.

Jean glanced at her suit, bright emerald instead of dark crimson. Then
she noticed the flame-haired woman hunkering down beside her, a woman she believed
she'd never see alive again. Jean gasped, gawking at that face so similar to
hers, except for those vibrating blue irises.

She shut her mouth and stared again at the X-Men, beaming tentatively.

"It seems that I just gave you a fine workout, doesn't it?"

"You can tell that again, darling." Logan chuckled,
incapable of stifling the cheerfulness returning to him.

"It doesn't even begin to describe it properly, Red." Hank
muttered.

Ororo squatted beside Jean and
clasped firmly her hand around her fingers. "I'm very happy of seeing you
alive again, dear sister. So, so happy." Wetness
glistened on Ororo's eyes, filled with tears of
emotion. In those green pupils she had found again her best friend.

Jean released her hand and brushed gently the tears off her face.
"We have plentiful time to catch up, Ro." Her lips split in a perky
smile and her eyes shifted to the other girl, her daughter in another time.
"Rachel. I have around one million of questions to you, but they can wait
for now."

She rose from the ground and glanced at her stepson. A motionless figure
hung limply in his arms. Jean walked at him, placing one hand on his shoulder
as she gazed at his face with adoration.

She smiled. The link, the threads binding together her two souls, was
woven again. A hollow void in the half of her brain, the thought space where
her husband used to live before Apocalypse, was again filled. And she knew as
long as they were together, they could fight anything.

She remembered she needed look after a certain matter.

Revenge gleaming darkly on her eyes, she sat up and looked around for
Emma, ready to quench her fury.

But the White Queen was in nowhere to be found.

<><><><>

-Notes: The chapter title is a reference to UXM 105, and several lines
and some scenes are intentionally taken from Dark Phoenix Saga. It's my way to
pay homage to my favorite X-story.

-Polaris threw Krakoa -a mutant island- out of
the planet in Giant Size X-Men 1. Powered up by Storm, Cyclops and Kaos, she nullified the gravity beneath the island. I think
Lorna deserves more credit than she usually gets.

-The scenes in Jean's mind are borrowed from: UXM 136; UXM 138; UXM 129;
UXM 133; UXM 136; UXM 137; X-Force 17; and finally, XM 97.

-If some Emma's fan is disgusted, all I can tell him/her is: wait for
next chapters. Yes, she was manipulating Scott in my story, but I haven't said
she acted of her own volition. I assure she'll look better at the end. Still I
NEEDED exonerate Scott not matter what. I SHAN'T have one of my favorite Marvel
characters being an adulterous cheater. I want his responsibility in that crap
erased and he and Jean are happily together again.

-Besides, I think my theory is rather solid to be official anyway. If
Scott was so withdrawn he couldn't rely on his own wife -and he always trusted
her-, why would he open to a woman was a former enemy and he barely knows or
respects? Needless to say he always took responsibility for his actions and
blamed himself when something went wrong; but Morrison's Scott didn't show any
guilt and ran off instead of facing what he had done. That wasn't like him at
all, and Apocalypse isn't a valid excuse when you hear what Morrison thought of
the character. And -surprise, surprise- when he was away Emma, he settled on
Jean.

To be continued...
- 4
- 5
- 6
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Firebird Rising