DARK FLAME

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Yes, people, I have returned. Amazingly, this is not part of the Shadow King Saga. This, is, by itself, another story. A crossover with Teen Titans, to be exact. Although my prose skills are average at most, my plot-constructing skills are considered by most to be quite good, so read and you shall enjoy. Well, I think.

Anyways, in this fanfic, the emphasis is not on an OC. Amazingly, it is not. It is, however, on Jean Grey. Ever since she has became one with the Phoenix, Jean has had her powers magnified to incalculable scales. What happens when she loses control? Will she go mad or will the Phoenix take over? Or, worst of all, will Jean cease to exist?

Since I have created many, many OCs before, I shall just introduce my X-Crew to prevent mix-up.

The X-Men consist of Professor X, Wolverine, Beast, Storm, Jean Grey as the Phoenix, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Rogue, Shadowcat, Spyke, and Colossus. The trainees are Iceman, Jubilee, Cannonball, Sunspot, Psylocke, Multiple, Candle (Veronica Andrews, 15, a red-headed girl with the ability to create and control fire; she was one of the Shadow King's pawns in the previous story, and upon being released from his psychic control she decided to join the X-Men), Magnify (Jackson "Jake" Cattermole, 16, able to amplify any form of mutant ability; also decided to join the X-Men after being released from the Shadow King's psychic control), Psyche (Dylan Ecker, 15, an empath who can project his consciousness out of his body; he's still a trainee because throughout half of his test in the first Shadow King story he was possessed by the Shadow King and it didn't count), Berzerker, Magma and the Scarlet Witch (because their test was influenced by the Shadow King, and as such, it didn't count).

What are we waiting for? I proudly present Dark Flame!

(P.S. anything written in these brackets represent telepathic communication.)

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Prologue

"The point is," Edward Kelly, who was running for mayor, declared loudly into the microphone attached to the stand behind of which he stood, "that mutants are dangerous. The mutation in them gives them special abilities, abilities that threaten the rest of the world. What say you to allowing a man with the ability to crush steel with a thought walk on our streets?" Kelly said, his brow furrowed with authoriative indignation. "What is stopping him from tearing down the door of a bank vault?

That's not all. Some other mutants have stunning, horrifying abilities. Some mutants have the ability to go into one's mind and control his or her actions. Can you imagine if one day, you are possessed by such a mutant and go on a killing spree, and then be left to deal with the consequences?" Quiet but noticeable murmurs spread across the sea of audiences.

"It is in my opinion that," Kelly continued, "mutants must register themselves and declare their abilities to the authorities in full. I suggest this so that the citizens of Bayville, Massachusetts may be safe from the threats that the mutant strain may pose. If we work together, the disease that is the mutant strain in humans can be controlled. Thank you."

Kelly walked off the stage, as the audience clapped their hands in support.

In a place far, far away from the rally, Erik Lehnsherr, otherwise known as Magneto, sat in a chair made of the purest metal, his face contorted in rage. He slammed his fist on the steel tabletop, causing a china teacup to tip over and break, emptying the cream-coloured contents all over the table. Some of the tea spilled over onto the grim stone floor.

"Kelly called the mutants a disease," Magneto said through gritted teeth, the anger in his voice extremely noticeable. Also, the fact that a metal bookshelf behind Magneto was slowly being bent into a ball showed his extreme anger as well. Any telepath around him would probably have been suffering from migraine.

"Miserable human!" Magneto growled. "Kelly does not realise that we, the mutants, are the next stage in human evolution! By eradicating all of the mutants, how will the human race progress any further?" This "eradication" of humans, however, was not the source of Magneto's sudden unbridled fury.

"They never said they would get rid of all mutants, Magneto," Gambit, a tall and muscular Cajun man, sporting a tan-coloured coat over his maroon and black bodysuit, with a head of dark brown hair, the missed stubs of beard on his chin complementing his manly physique, said idly as he played with the Queen of Hearts and the Ace of Diamonds he held in his right hand.

"Look where the situation's headed, Gambit," Magneto said, looking up from the puddle of tea on his otherwise unstained table. "Kelly is suggesting that all mutants are to register their powers with the government. Sooner or later, all of us will be rounded up and put in concentration camps where we will all have to be cleaned of the X-gene in us." "And you know they will get rid of all the mutants, because...?" Gambit asked in the same idle tone with which he put his first statement across. He was still preoccupied with his Queen of Hearts, which was glowing bright orange, as if it were on the verge of exploding into a magnificent fire.

"Think, Gambit," Magneto replied. "Kelly said that the mutants can be 'controlled'. How will he control us? Even if he puts all the existing mutants in concentration camps, it doesn't mean that other mutants will not surface! And the only way the government can control those is if they remove the problem permanently; remove the mutant gene in mutants."

Magneto stood up and walked to the front of his metal table, and continued, in a more vindictive tone, his argumentative one-sided conversation about how Kelly would proceed to eliminate the mutant strain.

"To prevent Kelly from making every mutant register themselves, we must remove the problem from the root," Magneto said; his intention was very clear to Gambit, who was beginning to give some of his attention to Magneto, instead of his cards. "We must dispose of him."

"Call in Pyro," Magneto said to Gambit. "Tell him I want to see him immediately." Gambit kept his cards and left the room.

Magneto turned around to face his bookcase. He lazily flicked his hand in its direction, and immediately, it floated a few inches into the air, and began bending itself into what it was supposed to look like; a bookshelf, not a ball of scrap metal. When it looked like the bookshelf it once was, it settled down on the floor in its original position.

Magneto walked slowly back to his chair, sat down, and waited.