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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
- 7
- 8
- 9
<><><><>

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.

<><><><>

Pat Eight. The Fate of Phoenix-

She stood up, straight and proud, alone amidst a sea of souls, rising up
over the nearby humans like a silent and towering mountain, high and steer and
terrible. Liquid fire enveloped her body and swift winds stroked her inhumanly beautiful face. Above her the night shrouded
the sky as a dark canvas, spreading as far as her sight reached. Rivers of
stars twinkled on the indigo blackness, greeting their daughter and mistress. Around
her the world was colored with hues of white and black.

Light. Ivory.
Warm. Bright. Glorious.

Shadow. Ebony.
Frosty. Deep. Breath-taking.

Light embraced her. Shadow beckoned her, lured her, tempted
her. It would annihilate her, corrupt her, blacken her soul and turn her into a
monster thirsty for power and drunk with it. But it would make her whole also.

Part of she was terrified. Part of she didn't care.

Because, even though she rejected the very thought, she knew she had no
choice.

Light can't exist without casting a shadow. Shadow can't exist without a
light to spawn it. She couldn't be good or evil, Phoenix or Dark Phoenix. She
was everything. Love and Hate. Life, Death and Rebirth.

It was her gift. Her burden. Her
curse.

Jean Grey shook her head and spun around at her foe. Her eyes narrowed
to slits, her heartbeats sped up, her fists clenched and her knees flexed. She
let the exhilarating thrill of the battle thumped in her with blazes burnt
everything idle musings.

"You? I thought you were hidden in
some hole!" He shouted. His voice sounded faint and remote. "What do
you want?"

Her thoughts drifted away, and she tried focusing, she tried ignoring
her craving for grabbing the Moon in hers hand and crushing it.

"You can't beat me." She whispered hoarsely. A migraine
throbbed in her temples and her vision was foggy. "Not matter how fast you
are, I'm far quicker. And you can't copy my powers anyway. You wouldn't know
how using them."

"I'm very willing testing that premise, Phoenix. I shan't be
defeated so easily."

She could sense Sun on the brink of rising, and she just felt how
ravenous she was. She yearned for consuming that golden, warm light. Obliterate
the solar system, soar free along the universe, forget
Jean Grey had ever existed. But she squashed down that horrific craving, down
where she couldn't feel it, where it couldn't harm her.

"What do you fight for?" Jean muttered. A deep ache clutched
her body, like flaming claws tearing and corroding her entrails.

"What?"

"What do you strive for?" She elaborated impatiently. And raggedly. She couldn't breathe. "What do you expect
accomplishing in this life?"

"I... I don't really expect anything. I�ve never harbored goals,
dreams or warped ideals. I devoted myself to amass money and conquer power to
not being helpless... But why am I telling you of this? Why do you care?"

The redhead woman felt her strength and courage returning and quelling
down her evil impulses. "I fight for a free world where beauty and life
isn't a fading remembrance. A world where a kid can play in
the streets without fear to get shot for being different. A world where
my children live happily without leading rebellions against dictators, being
used by madmen or getting killed by megalomaniacs. I fight for freedom, for my
family, for the FUTURE. And in the name of that dream I STRIKE!"

She raised her arms. Blazes roared and the Phoenix unfolded its
wings, majestic and terrible. Unnatural, terrific brightness flooded her eyes
with gold and she shrieked in challenge.

Gideon tapped in his mutant skill. He needed no more than one second to
copy her powers.

In a split-second Jean broke in his mental barriers, blocked fully his
power and knocked him out in oblivion.

And meanwhile she battled firmly the horrible temptation to rummage
through his mind, peek at every obscene thought, read every dark memory, learn every filthy secret. And then wiping everything out
and turning him a blank slate, or cracking its skull and look to his brain
oozing. Only for tasting her power.

She shook the though off and disdainfully threw him away using a
fraction of her telekinesis.

Flames boiled in her, flooding her with a rare, indescribable joy and
she whimpered with delight. Then she spun around to glare at the soldiers
scattered onto the grass. With theirs fists clenched in fury, she contemplated
theirs faceless masks. In her mind the features warped and transformed in the
faces of every foe she had ever battled since Magneto invaded that military
base one lifetime ago. Rage and hatred crept in her and fueled her power. An
inferno of blazes burnt into her heart and she could restrain it no longer.

A horrific red light colored an atmosphere seemed being in flames. Air
thickened with sizzling heat and crushing pressure, and wind arose. A maelstrom
of telekinesis whipped the lawn, picking roughly anything unattached the ground
-boulders, leaves, branches, soldiers, everything except the X-Men- and
dragging it in the typhoon was spinning in swift circles above the mansion.

The hurricane blew and howled, drowning the screams uttered the
soldiers, flayed by the violent wind and the cloud of pulverized and shattered
debris floated around them. Though Phoenix ignored theirs
yells.

"I've been putting up with your kind since I was fifteen. Villains and villains' minions. Always
irradiating hatred, always spreading violence. Always taking people I
care for away me. Will you ever stop?"

Visions of other time flashed in her mind like forks of lightning. She
saw her precious daughter turned into a slave, a thrall, a hound when she was
barely fourteen because her parents hadn't protected her. She saw her little
boy growing during an endless war, losing his childhood and the happiness he
deserved, battling the dictators that razed the future, rising after each
heart-wrenching loss -his wife, his son, his clan- and fighting the fair fight
how his parents had taught him... even though they hadn't been there for him.

Her eyes narrowed dangerously, pouring out a fire of choler. A furious,
loud, inhumane bellow erupted from her lips.

"Away me, away my family, away MY
LIFE!"

An earth-shaking explosion boomed, splitting the ground and shattering
the atmosphere. In the twister�s core a fireblast
detonated, rippling through the sky like a tide of blazes.

Everything inside its radius was incinerated and obliterated in a
fraction of second.

Phoenix contemplated the
fire engulfing the sky and dissolving with a weird mixture of rage and grief. Then
horror washed out any emotion from her twisted expression when she understood
what happened.

The breaking. The snap.
The fall. The release. The
letting go.

Flames exploded inside her body, searing her flesh and she felt a
limitless energy ripping her bowels, tearing her skin and flowing, unstoppable,
out her.

Her legs tottered and she kneeled clumsily on the field, wrapped her
burning body with her arms and screamed piercingly.

Strong arms embraced her suddenly and soft lips kissed her mouth. She
half opened her eyes and made out the figure was kneeled in front of her,
charring in the sea of flames.

No, not him, she grieved. Anyone but him.

Scott, she told mentally. Please, don't do this. Don't waste your life.

It wouldn't be much of a life if I stood by and let you die. He replied
through the link, echoing the words she had uttered long ago. And you're
missing the point, honey. If you can't control your powers, everybody will die.
We also can pass away together.

Jean sobbed, startled of the sense that phrase
made. It was better spend theirs last minutes embraced and remembering their
love than waste them in regrets, arguments or recriminations.

Closing her eyes she kissed back as tongues of gigantic flames consumed
them and earth-cracking tremors shook the ground.

The intense heat evaporated her tears.

<><><><>

Many heroes through the planet felt the imminent holocaust.

Peter Parker, Spiderman, lurched forward on his bed, abruptly awoken by
explosions resounding into his skull. His spider-sense was rumbling like a
thunder. Praying whoever was in world-saving shift that night knew what was
doing, he snuggled up to his wife.

In the Fantastic Four's HQ, Sue Richards cradled her fretful son as her
husband, her brother and her friend stared a monitor. As she tried soothing Franklin's sobs, she heard
Ben mumbling "Crap. We're dead."

In Tony Stark's mansion, sirens blared insistently, assembling the
Avengers in front of the monitor. Scarlet Witch watched the raging firebird the
screen displayed and palmed her head. "Why do global disasters strike
always when I�m sleeping?"

In Asgard, Thor jerked his head skywards. The
ground, the skies... were shivering like if something was crushing them. Like
if Ragnarok had come. An unfamiliar emotion -dread-
filtered in him. The blonde Thunder God whirled his hammer, tearing a gap in
the space's fabric, and stepped through it.

In the atmosphere's borders, a violent trepidation almost knocked Silver
Surfer out from his cosmic surfboard. The silvery being regained his balance
awkwardly and aimed his cosmic awareness at Earth. Instantly he streaked
towards America, hoping against
hope being in time.

In Greenwich Village, New York, Stephen Strange
levitated with his eyes tightly shut. Earth's Supreme Sorcerer was monitoring
the events since Selene's death had stirred him from
his dream. Curiously, there was no fear in his face. Only
concern.

<><><><>

Nathan stared with horror how his father kneeled in front of his mother
and they burnt together, doused in fire.

He stepped forward when one hand touched warily his shoulder. He turned
around to look in fearful green eyes.

"Nathan, don't go." Madelyne
whispered meekly. "Don't you see the fire surrounding them? It'll kill
you."

"As opposed to be sacrificed to demons in a ritual would combine
Earth and Hell?" He retorted fiercely, and his words sliced through her
like a spear. Madelyne actually took one step back
and covered her mouth with one hand. Her breathing was strangled, her eyes
tearful. "Maybe don't you give a damn if my father and Jean burn, but I'm
not going to stand by and let them die again! So help me or stay out of my
way!"

Straight after he stomped towards the bonfire. Brusquely he stopped
halfway and stood eerily still.

Madelyne knew he wasn't in his
physical body anymore. Distressed, she stared at the two persons prostrated
within a growing pillar of crimson fire.

"I hate you, you know. She muttered. "I hate you for having
come back. I hate you for not having ever allowed Scott found love with someone
who loved him back. I hate you for having raised my son."

A tear rolled down her cheek and dripped on the grass.

"I hate you for what you took away me. I hate you for what you did
me... And I hate you for what you force me to do."

She shut her eyes with a painful shudder and sailed towards the Astral
Plane.

<><><><>

"Emma... Emma..."

The insistent, impatient whisper echoing in her head brought around
Emma. The woman stirred restlessly as her awareness returned and her eyelids
fluttered open. Fiery light blinded her and she propped dizzily on her elbows
as her memory tried to reconstruct what had happened. She remembered the
mission, the mountain, Jean Grey going mad with fury and pain, and ravaging her
physically and mentally...

And nothing more.

"Emma. Listen." The voice barked sourly again, and the White
Queen realized the soil was quivering. Actually the air itself also shivered,
like if an earthquake was breaking ground and sky in pieces. Breaking
the planet in pieces.

A dark vision drifted in the air in front of her eyes and took human
shape. Tessa's astral self glared down at her. "It was about time to you
awake."

"What is happening?"

"Look for yourself."

Emma stood up to watch the blazing typhoon she had seen in her
nightmares, growing, enlarging, expanding. Its root
drilled the ground, its peak speared the sky, and flames forked in its top,
taking gradually a raptor's terrifying shape. Shockwaves burst from it in
ripples spread throughout the land, shaking it violently.

"Oh, shit." Emma choked out.

"What you said." Tessa stated coldly. "I estimate we have
one minute left to evacuate Earth and five more to get away from solar system. But
very soon there shall not be universe left to flee... unless you help
Jean."

"ME?" Emma bristled. Tessa felt her indignation, her anger
inflaming; still she ignored it disdainfully.

A blizzard of sparkling embers flared of sudden in the air and coalesced
in the orangish shape of a firebird. Emma winced
unwillingly. Fire and heat... scared her.

Rachel Summers' bodiless voice reverberated through the atmosphere. "Honor. Altruism. Self-preservation. They give motives to help people. Out of ethic, out of selflessness or selfishness. From you
I'd expect the later rather the first one, but truthfully I don't care what
your reason is as long as you help."

Emma was about of retorting when the dark air vibrated and shimmered
again, and a butterfly-like purple flare flickered. The White Queen gasped in
shocked recognition. "You? It can't be! You're
dead!"

"Yes, I get that a lot" The butterfly quivered, like if it was
laughing. "It's a quite long story which incidentally still I have to
hear, but not now... because if we don't save the world, it will certainly be
irrelevant."

Rachel nodded firmly and vanished. The three telepaths followed her
towards the Astral Plane.

<><><><>

Light. Heat.
Fire.

Embers. Flames.
Blazes.

Waves of radiant golden-ivory light swept over them, blinding them with
its immaculate brightness. Slowly theirs eyes get used to the dazzling light
and the heat wrapping them like a blanket, and made out the scenery where they
had landed.

An unimaginably massive whirlpool of churning energy filled the Astral
Plane, made from swirling colors and throbbing lights and slick shadows and
searing heat and frosty cold. Its coils, tendrils of luminous flames, spiraled
lazily around the vortex and spread throughout the realm, tearing and shredding
its foundations. And floating in the twister's core was Jean Grey, naked and
curled up, shivering like if she was in terrible, charring pain.

Betsy and her two partners gaped at the scenery and shuddered frightfully.

In front of them hovered Nathan alongside his sister, both standing in
front of Madelyne. The three were perusing quietly
and thoughtfully the vortex.

"It's worse than I believed. Her power is shattering the
Plane." Emma wheezed out.

Tessa raised one eyebrow and stared quietly at the maelstrom of
unleashed power. "Some suggestions?"

Betsy shrugged uncaringly. She wasn't really troubled. "In the old
times we waited while a Summers thought of
something."

Abruptly Cable and Marvel Girl turned at each other. "Are you
thinking..."

"... What I'm thinking? It's barely possible." Rachel quipped.
"It may work."

"It MUST work."

Psylocke rolled up her eyes and
sighed. She should have betted money. "What is yours plan?"

Both siblings whirled around. Nathan displayed a grim frown but Rachel
smiled self-assuredly. She eyed uneasily to Betsy, nonetheless.

"It's simple. Jean is dying why she's absorbing energy from the
whole universe and it's more than she can handle now."

"So we cut off her endless energy supply and she'll be forced to
use her own energy or tap in Earth's psychic atmosphere-"

"Therefore she shall only employ energy her body can assimilate and
control. And it'll resolve another trouble, since she won't have to eat stars
to keep theirs energy levels. It's brilliant." Tessa mused thoughtfully
and frowned. "But is it possible?"

Rachel nodded firmly. "Sure. We just have to pour our powers in
Nathan."

Emma's arched an eyebrow. She was feeling a curious deja
vu. "Like in the Gathering of the Twelve?"

"NO." Nathan barked angrily, his eye flashing golden in the
colorful atmosphere. "Better, hopefully."

Madelyne sighed, breaking her
silence. "I suppose it's our best option, but I'm not sure of our combined
power is enough..."

A deep, kind voice resounded. "Would you accept my assistance,
then?"

Everyone's heads jerked around, searching for the owner. A large power
was arriving, and the Astral Plane shifted and rippled harmoniously to receive
it.

A glowing figure faded into being. His likeness wasn't very impressive
-old, bald and lean- but power flowed in him like a serene storm. His telepathy
was almost so formidable like Jean's or hers children, but it didn't collapse
or frighten the Plane. His power comforted it. He was a part of that world, and
obeyed its rules even though they bent to his will.

The Professor Xavier smiled at them kindly. "Shall we begin?"

Nathan nodded and stepped forward, towards Jean. There was no time to
questions.

He spread his arms. His astral shape emitted an amber aura, and light
welled from him. His shape glowed, submerged in a shapeless pool of liquid fire
surrounded by rings of flames, shimmering like a newborn star whom brightness
dulled Jean herself. The remainder telepaths gawked at the impressive display
of power as they gathered and flung theirs own energies in the light.

The streams of telepathic energy flowed into the maelstrom. It gleamed
and blazed with thousand different colors, like a crucible of light, and the
streaks merged in a pool of hot, pure ivory.

Nathan quivered and shuddered, strained by the appalling, endless power
flowed around and into him, a fire capable of extinguishing stars with one
thought. He struggled for controlling it, for restraining it. Of sudden he felt
like if he had stomped over a limit, and then there was nothing he couldn't
manage.

He stretched his fists onwards. Ribbons of energy swirled around the
power stream flooding Jean, strangling it like a tight slipknot. Then he raised
one of his arms to eye level. Light wisps coiled and intertwined with each
other and a razor-sharp, wicked-looking psimitar
flashed in his fist, his curvy edge crackling with sparks.

Nathan lifted up his blade and traced swiftly a downward light arc,
shooting a tiny glowing beam towards the spot where the energy's coils were
suffocating the firestream.

The lightning bolt streaked through the space. Light sliced through
light. And the world exploded.

<><><><>

The astral plane shuddered and collapsed, whipped by an uncontrollable
storm of power coursed through it.

A thundering explosion detonated in someplace of the realm and its
shockwave swept through the mindscape, obliterating everything in its path
until reaching the borders of the plane, beyond Earth.

Countless millions of blazes of red, orange and golden fire poured out
in the cosmos.

<><><><>

Pain. Weariness.
Drowsiness. And also elation.

Those were the emotions Jean Grey felt as her consciousness returned
sluggishly, along with the feeling of her throat clogged, her body tightly
wrapped in soft fabric, her ears buzzing with a steady drum, her nostrils
tingling with an acrid scent. The sensations were unpleasant. As well as comforting. If she felt the world surrounding
her, if her senses were active, it meant she was alive. Alive.

She blinked weakly. Bright light and limitless whiteness hurt her eyes
and she averted her face. Across the room she saw a snowy, blurry shape prone
in one bed. Her husband, heavily sedated and asleep, with his body wrapped
firmly in bandages, just like hers. And sitting between them, Jean made out a
red and black shadow.

Oh, not. Not her.

The visitor contemplated her with a smug silence, like if she was
finding the situation awfully funny. Still she wouldn't talk. Her eyes bored in
her, like if she was spying her thoughts. Jean rose and reinforced her shields.

Finally she disrupted the silence. "It was about of you wake up. Your
husband and you suffered third grade burns. Your bodies resembled smoking
coals. Beast was working for hours to save you as the telepaths coached your
souls to stay with us. We were frightened of you'd pass away or fall in a
coma."

"We?" Jean quipped humorlessly.
"Funny. I didn't think you cared."

"I don't. Does it matter?"

"No." Jean answered quietly. Madelyne
tossed backwards her flaming strands nonchalantly.

"I was worried over NATHAN. He was so forlorn and upset, hovering
and pacing around and brooding gloomily and pondering if you died it�d be HIS
fault -I don't understand why, but after dealing with Scott I know better than
trying and interfering in a Summers' self-flagellation-. And my son doesn't
need or deserve another cause to grieve. I've given him too many, in
fact."

Jean stared at her sadly. Madelyne arched her
eyebrows, feeling curiosity. And at once thrill.

"What is that, Jean? Am I feeling grief of you? Sorrow?
Mercy? A bit late to it, don't you believe, my sister?
Since you stole all what I loved, all mattered to me, and left me alone with my
hatred and my despair."

Jean narrowed to slits her eyes. Grief dwelling in them had faded,
quickly replaced for smoldering anger.

"Oh, but you know now what is it like, don't you? You know now what
is like being abandoned, being stolen, being unloved, don't you?"

Jean's hands grasped tightly the covers, ignoring the blistering sting
on her skin. Madelyne missed it.

"Tell me, Jean: what was it like? Did it hurt a lot? Did it feel it
like hell? I'm DYING for knowing. My entire life I've been waiting that you
hurt like I hurt, you grieved like I grieved, and now you've done I'm so
glad-"

A brutal telekinetic slap rocked abruptly her head backwards, almost
knocking her over.

In front of her Jean was giving off an aura of orange fire. Her eyes
flared with a murderer glow and her hair strands floated upwards, like blown by
a wind.

Phoenix had punched her
if she'd thought the satisfaction would make worth the ache in her knuckles.

"Shut up, Madelyne! Only shut up your
fucking mouth before I fucking close it for you!" She grated. "I'm so
SICK of listening to you wailing how much you have suffered, poor abused and
abandoned thing, how evil I am, how much I stole from you, how I should have
stayed dead and how much you hate me. Do you know what you stole from me? Do
you know how much _I_ hate you?"

A low rumble shook quietly the infirmary's walls. Madelyne
just stared in dumb shock.

"I DIED, Madelyne. I fucking died and I
crawled back from fucking Death because I needed Scott, I needed see him again,
feel his love again. And then I found out he had already found a replacement:
he only needed another redhead. And my friends and my lover loved you only
because we have the same FACE!"

"I was alone. I had nothing, I had lost everything, and I wanted it
back. But I couldn't have it because you STOLE it from ME. You occupied my
place. You married my love. You bore the child should have been my son. And do
you accuse me of thieving your life? You started it, Madelyne;
I just got it back."

"And of course, I had to be fair, hadn't I? I had to be
understanding and merciful. Poor Madelyne.
She has suffered so much. It's my entire fault for not being dead. Bitch.
Perhaps I should have gifted you my body too and altered Scott's memories so he
forgot I'd existed ever." Jean paused, glaring balefully at Madelyne all along. "I hated you, yes. And I hated
myself for it, since I knew, deep down, you were just a victim."

Jean looked away, and feeling more serene, lay back.

Madelyne kept quiet. Startlingly a
smile curved and widened her lips. She clapped. "Go, sister. It was about
time of seeing you snapping on someone."

"Go to Hell, witch. And let me sleep. In that
order."

"Seriously" The woman inched forward, her stare suddenly harder
and more piercing "you've denied always your dark side. You've behaved
like a charming princess, incapable of committing wrong-"

Phoenix rolled sideways
on her bed and glared back. Self-righteous bitch.
"No. I DIDN'T. I can be angry, petty, stubborn and irrational; I know it
and I've never tried hiding it." She growled. "That's another of your
lies to fuel your self-pity and turn your misery and despair into spite and
hatred. You aren't the Evil Twin, you chose being evil. Sinister and demons
manipulated you and twisted you, and I'm truly sorry for it, but it was always
your choice, evil has always been your choice, and you can only blame yourself
for it. I knew darkness dwelt in me long before you rubbed it on my face. Simply
I didn't want to give in it."

"You didn't? Not matter who was his first girlfriend, Scott was my
husband until you came and called him back, ignoring
me and his feelings like if they didn't care at all."

Jean sat up, her eyes glowing, choleric. Sizzling heat pervaded the room.
"A LOT you know. Scott didn't leave you to get in my pants how you
doubtless believe. He came to see if I was really alive, not to restart our
relationship. After he traveled back to Alaska and I let him go.
But you had disappeared for then. He believed Nathan and you had got murdered
and he was moping for MONTHS, feeling guilty each time he peeked to me." Jean
arched back her head and chuckled abruptly. "He didn't know you were too
busy having adventures with the X-Men and fucking his own brother to be
bothered in calling and tell: 'Honey, our son has been kidnapped'. Do you think
seriously I'd stand by while you crushed him?"

Her interloper arched a thin red eyebrow. "But you walked away when
that blonde witch messed around with him. Why did you act differently?"

Jean clutched fistfuls of the sheets, looking thoughtfully downwards.
"How was I supposed to know? I thought that he needed her more than me.
That he didn't love me anymore. And unlike OTHER people I wouldn't turn our
bond in an iron chain to shackle him to me. So I set him free. How was I
supposed to know he was being controlled?"

"Jean, you ARE telepath. You could have-"

"I could have, I could have. Hindsight is always perfect. In the
moment..."

"- in the moment you respected his privacy, didn't want to read his
mind or scan him deeply, and when you did, you were too furious to perform a
thorough test. Am I right?"

Jean kept quiet. Slowly, mutely, hesitantly, she nodded.

"Tell me, Jean. What did you want to do that woman?"

Jean's jaws clenched. "Leave me alone, Madelyne."

The woman just grinned viciously. "Go on, sister. Tell me what you
wanted to do her. Did you ever imagine them fucking? Yes, you did. You thought
of that witch dressing with your robes, lying on your bed, fucking your man.
You imagined her smiling victoriously when he hugged her naked body for first
time, smirking gleefully when he filled her, grinning madly while she took his
member and swallowed it whole. What did you want to do her, Jean? What do you
wanted to do when your imagined her spreading her legs and begging being
penetrated?"

Deadly silence pervaded the atmosphere.

"Leave me alone now that you can." Jean hissed.

"Come on, Jean. You know you can be hateful, jealous, twisted and
temperamental. Let it out."

Jean stared hardly at Madelyne for a tense
instant. "I wanted to kill her. I wanted to stake her and burn her like a
witch. I wanted to rip her fucking head off and piss on it. I WANTED TO KILL
HER. Glad now?"

Her venomous leer was replied by a smug nod. Jean wished to retort
something, anything to hurt her, when drowsiness numbed her muscles. Her body
collapsed softly on the bed as her eyesight blurred.

"What... is... happening...?" She stammered falteringly.

"You must have spent your last adrenaline in that outburst.
Painkillers must be kicking again. Rest then. Don't
worry; I shan't try to slit your throat as you sleep."

An acid rebuke formed in Jean's lips before she shut lazily her eyes.
Very soon her chest was swelling and lowering steadily.

Madelyne contemplated her face. Peaceful and serene. For a second glimmered on her eyes a
pang of regret. The former Black Queen shook her head and turned around towards
the second bed.

"Cease your pretending. I know you're awake."

Scott Summers stirred beneath the silky sheets and leaned sideways to
face her. His head was fully bandaged and his goggles shielded his eyes, but Madelyne knew he was looking to her. She didn�t need
observing the red flare flickering on the lenses to know it.

"Hi."

"Hi, Scott." Madelyne replied quietly. Sensing his awful awkwardness she
pondered, ironically, that after so long she didn't know what telling him.
"Don't worry. I'm not looking for revenge."

"You... You don't?"

"No. I got revenge from Selene some hours
ago because the occasion presented itself, but... I don't want you and your
second wife dead anymore."

Scott was uncertain of what thinking of it. "Why? Is it for
Nathan?"

Her look sharpened abruptly and he cringed. "Partially.
Mainly... I'm exhausted. When I lost the love I had,
knowing I couldn't get it back, I turned to my hatred and my rage. And it was
enough. More than enough. It gave sense to my life.
Then, one day, Apocalypse killed you. Do you know what I felt
then?"

He shook his head silently and waited.

"Nothing. Neither
pleasure, nor joy, nor elation. Not even sorrow. I'd devoted my second
life to my hate, and when its source disappeared... I felt hollow. Worn off my
hatred, I had nothing. Then I understood I'd wasted my second chance in
reopening and stabbing old wounds. I'm tired from hating you, Scott."

For a long while neither of them said anything.

"I never wanted to hurt you." He muttered hoarsely. "I
loved you, Madelyne..."

His ex-wife's eyes widened. Then they narrowed suspiciously. She
frowned, intuiting his thoughts. "But you weren't IN LOVE with me."

"No." He shook his head miserably. "I DID think I did. I
convinced myself of I had got over Jean, that I loved you for yourself, not for
your face and you were another person with different traits I loved too. And
then, during the Asgardian Wars I saw Rachel dressed
like Phoenix for first
time..."

He shivered slightly, remembering the woman he didn't know was her
daughter. Red hair cascading over her back like a
flame, red and gold spandex wrapping her like living fire, the firebird's
emblem rising its wings on the forefront. Jean's splitting image. "And my
heart ached. Then I knew I hadn't got over Jean. That I'd never got over her.
Still you'd got married with me and you weren't guilty of my pathetic troubles.
The least I could make was hold my part of the bargain. Though I was living a
lie, and it was tearing me apart..."

"You never were a convincing liar, Scott." Madelyne
snorted, crossing her arms together over her chest and folding one leg above
another. Her enraged grimace left her countenance, replaced by a thoughtful
frown. "I've spent these last months dwelling in my past life. I blamed
the X-Men, Jean and you for everything, including things I'd done to myself. I
tried slaying Nathan after having accused you of abandoning him. I slept with
your brother after accusing you of spurning me. I used the X-Men to further my
goals and tried getting them killed when no longer they served me, right like
Sinister. As much as I'd like starting to accuse you and accurse you only for
the delight of seeing you flinching, you were another Sinister's
tool in that mess. How can I know I didn't force you subconsciously to love me?
In fact how do I know I loved you really? I was brought to life by a Jean's
shard. Perhaps my love was nothing but her feelings carved in me, like her
features and her memories. How do I know my love was real? How I know I am
real?"

Scott regarded her quietly. Misery and despair were warping her
expression, usually bereft of emotion except mockery or loathing. "I don't
know what telling you, Maddie. Descartes said once:
'I think, therefore I am'. I don't know if it's some solace."

The former Goblin Queen barked out a bitter laugh.

"But you are alive. Isn't it enough? And while you're alive, you
exist. You feel, love, hate, grieve, laugh, cry. As long as you're alive, you
have something. Something to cling to, not matter what your
origins or your past are. That... is a lesson I learnt harshly when I
lived in the streets."

Madelyne regarded him silently for a
long while. "I believe I better leave now." She rose, her black cloak
flapping behind her, and she curled hesitantly a scarlet lock around one
finger. "Sometimes I wish not having known you, Scott. Other times I wish
not having been your wife but only your friend. But then I wouldn't be a
mother. I suppose all action has good and bad consequences. It isn't a wonder
your time-traveling children are so paranoiac about fixing the future."

She shook her head and sauntered towards the door. "Farewell,
Scott. But if you want really proving me you're sincerely sorry, try and
confront your troubles instead of running off."

She shut the door noiselessly.

Scott lay back in the bed, relishing on the fresh covers easing the ache
slithering over his skin, and stared at Jean's direction.

Only the sound of two ragged breaths and two buzzing monitors disturbed
the silence in the infirmary.

<><><><>

-The title is taken, of course, from UXM 137.

-The appearance of more Marvel heroes can seem pointless since they
didn't take part in the action, but I needed mention them AT LEAST. Mutants
don't live in a vacuum.

-Emma's characterization was a trouble from the beginning. I wanted
erasing Scott's blame in the affair, but I thought laying the whole blame in
Emma and portraying her like an evil witch would oversimplify the story and
qualify like character bashing. And I don't tolerate character bashing. It is offensive
and a waste of time. So I thought it'd be better if she was a puppet all along.
She'd manipulate him, but not of her own volition. I didn't intend to showing
her like a nice person -I don't think she is-, but I didn't want depicting her
like a total b***h. Anyway her personality and motivations will be explored
more deeply in the next chapter.

-I wanted writing a confrontation between Scott, Jean and Madelyne since I decided the Goblin Queen would be in my
story. It can make a fantastic scene since there's so much rancor and regret,
fury and guilt going from all sides. There's a very good story where Jean and Madelyne lash out at each other: 'Burn' by Poi Lass. It can
be found in 'Fonts of Pryde and Wisdom' Archive. I
recommend it.

-The great battle against Hellfire Club has left many aftereffects in
the X-Men and many unresolved issues. Check the next chapter to fin out how the
mutants cope with the changes.

To be continued...
- 7
- 8
- 9
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Firebird Rising