Adrian: Hello, everyone! I'd just like to take this moment to say that the funny thing about this particular chapter is that I started writing it before I'm done with the previous chapter. However, it turns out I got super-SUPER bad writer's block where I couldn't write ANYTHING, and not just write, but I couldn't bring myself to draw anything, either. And then I was just super busy with life. But, in honour of me finally reading the X-Men: Legacy issue where Rogue got control of her powers, I'll be updating a lot more from now on (hopefully). This is partially inspired by Phoenix: Warsong.

And because this is an interlude, it may not be quite as long as I would've hoped. Although, I have to say, I have about four interludes planned for this story altogether: "Flame", "Witch", "Ice", and "Storm". If this story lasts longer than I hope, there might be a couple more, but for now, that's the plan.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Not even my computer. –sniffle—

LISTENING TO: Hot Stuff vs. World, Hold On by Craig David Feat. Bob Sinclair; Allequa (Remix) by Shurwayne Winchester Feat. Collie Budz; Get Out Alive by Three Days Grace

Out of the Frying Pan

Interlude: Flame

Running. She was running. She didn't know how long she'd been running, but it felt like it had been years. Years spent just running as fast as she could down this dark, seemingly never ending corridor. The walls of the hallway had long ago started to crack, and the shadows slithered continuously behind her. She kept running. From what, she didn't know, but there was something there. Something in the shadows. Something dark.

It was following her.

And it was getting closer with every step she took to get away. There was no escaping it. The more she ran, the closer it got, and there was no end to the hall in sight. The young girl whimpered.

'Jean.'

The soft voice whispered to her, wrapping itself around her, seeping into her pores. It spurred her on, and her speed increased as she raced away from the creeping shadows that were waiting to devour her.

'Jean,' it murmured to her again, louder this time, but with a warmth that beckoned to the child, offering protection and safety from the rapidly gaining darkness.

'Jean,' came a third time: with a beckoning now. An urge to run to this voice for shelter. To join with it.

"Where are you?!" the panicked girl cried as her sprint increased down the hall.

And then—there. Among walls cracked and crumbling in the far distance stood a door. Chancing a glance back over her shoulder the young child panicked when she saw that the shadows were lapping at her heels. She pumped her legs faster, her heart pounding in her chest. She was almost there...almost—Jean shrieked when the shadows wrapped around her ankles, tripping her, dragging her down mere feet from the door to her freedom.

"NO!" she screamed, kicking out at the intangible things holding her hostage while with her last ounce of strength she jumped for the door, fingers wrapping around the handle, and jerked it open with all her strength. There was a moment when everything around her paused, frozen as if in time, and an audible, pleased humming seemed to smother the young girl, striking Jean with a terror never before felt.

'Join me,' it commanded.

And then her entire world went up in flames.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"I'm sorry, Dr. and Mrs. Grey, but at this point our only solution is for Jean to come and live at the mansion. I know that this isn't what you want, and I admire that, but that is what will be best for your daughter. Jean is a very special girl, and I've done all I can to help her here, but her nightmares are growing worse, and she was levitating this entire neighbourhood. If she continues without the proper help, her developing powers will...will kill her, I'm afraid," the wheelchair-bound professor spoke to the anxious parents. The three of them sat in the living room, the Professor seated across from the parents clutching each other on the main couch.

"So...there's really nothing more you can do here?" Mrs. Grey asked quietly. When Charles Xavier had first approached her about her daughters developing abilities one year ago, she had been angry. Sarah Grey had thought that the man was a nutjob, even when he'd shown her what he himself could do. And then Jean had begun to levitate things with her mind, and she'd shared with her husband, John, the card the distinguished Professor had left her. The man had suggested that the then ten-year-old girl come stay at the school he was opening in Bayville, New York, but the loving parents had absolutely refused the possibility of sending their young daughter off to some strange boarding school. Now, it seemed, they had no further choice.

"I'm sorry to say," Charles responded, "but, no, there's nothing else I can do from here. I would really prefer to leave Jean here, with her family, if I could as there are so few mutants with loving families like yours in the world, but she will be better served if she came to the Institute. I can guarantee that she will be well taken care of, and I currently have two other students who I'm sure she'll get along with splendidly. You met Ororo already, and we have another boy around Jean's age, Scott Summers. And at the school, I will have more time to personally help your daughter control her mutation. I give you my word."

The two worried parents looked at each other, silently communicating their worries and anxieties. They knew in their hearts that this was best for her, but their love didn't want them to let go. Not when she was still so young. The phone ringing broke the silence.

"Pardon me," Sarah excused herself, "Let me get that." With a quick sweep of her skirt, she was gone into the kitchen.

"I...I don't feel comfortable letting her go just yet. Maybe in another year or two, when she's a little older, but she's only getting ready to turn twelve, and we don't feel that she should be separated from her family at this stage," John finally responded, running a hand through his luscious red hair.

Charles nodded. "I completely understand your worry, and normally I would agree with you, but Jean is a very special case, even among mutants. It's imperative that she learns to control her powers before they begin to control—is everything alright, Sarah?"

The blonde woman had returned to the room, completely ashen-faced. "That was the school," she whispered hoarsely. "Something's happening with Jean."

'Ororo!' the Professor called out with his mind. The teenage African punk goddess walked into the room, head held high, hands shoved into the pockets of her tight pants and headphones to her walkman hanging around her neck. Even in the midst of teenage rebellion the proud girl didn't slouch.

"Yes, Professor?" she asked politely, strong accent overpowering her words.

"We need to get to the school. There's been an emergency." His tone left no room to misinterpret that time was completely of the essence.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Fire was everywhere. On her, in her, around her. It was inescapable. It clutched her and burned her and saved her and hurt her and protected her and ripped her apart until she didn't know where she ended and the flames began. She was the fire, and the burning inferno surrounding her, inside of her, tearing out of her, everywhere around her, was she. Her body was ablaze in this unstoppable firestorm, and her mind was slowly being consumed by the flames. Crying out, the young girl curled in on herself—or what she thought was herself.

'Jean.' And the voice was back, there, not around her, but IN her, clawing at her mind, cleaving it apart as undeniable, uncontrollable power poured in.

"Leave me alone!" the child shrieked, unsure whether she spoke the words aloud or in her mind. She wasn't sure of anything anymore, not even who she was or what was going on. All she knew was that terrible, horrible, all-consuming burn of the fire slowly eating away at her.

And then, for just a second, the blaze seemed to extinguish as it came upon something it couldn't destroy. Something...stopping it. Blocking it. The girl breathed a small sigh of relief as the horrible, all-consumingness of the inferno stopped for a moment...

...And then it reared up, even stronger than before, intent on destroying everything in its way with such an unyielding fury that she didn't even have time to scream before something indescribable happened to her mind.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Jean's eyes snapped open, her breath coming hard as she clutched at the pillow her head rested on. Sitting up slowly, the young woman rested her sweat drenched face in her hands, attempting to gain her calm. She did not need this now. There was enough going on as it was without these horrible nightmares and visions returning. There was college, and mutant laws that were constantly being discussed in the Senate. There was Gambit and all the issues the X-Men currently had to deal with with his out of control, extremely destructive abilities. There was—

A sharp knock on the door interrupted Jean's train of thought. Reaching out gently with her mind, the twenty-year-old determined that it was only Scott.

'Come in,' she called mentally, noting the turning handle of her room door.

"Hey," he whispered softly, coming to sit on the bed next to her. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Jean replied, leaning softly on her fiancé's shoulder. She realized that the psychic link the two of them shared had probably alerted him to her distress. "It's just...these nightmares I used to have when I was a kid are coming back. I thought they were gone ever since the Professor did whatever he did the day I came to live at the mansion. You know, the day my powers first went spiralling out of control."

"Also the day we first met," Scott pointed out, smiling into Jean's soft red hair. She hummed softly in return, a slight smile on her face before she pulled away from her boyfriend.

"It's just that—Scott. I have this feeling like something bad is going to happen—and by bad, I mean really bad, phenomenally bad, cosmically bad, worse than Apocalypse bad—and that it somehow involves me," she half whispered. A strange look was on the telepath's face. It was a cross between terror and horror at whatever feeling she was experiencing. "I just—I just want my nightmares to go away!" the woman hicced, turning her head back into her fiancé's shoulder, this time with tears in her eyes.

"It's okay, Jean. Just talk to the Professor in the morning, he'll help you with whatever's wrong."

Wrapping his arms around his soon-to-be wife as she smiled and quietly sobbed, the visor-bound man determined that absolutely nothing was going to harm his Jean.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

'It is time,' the overpowering voice announced, its presence booming everywhere, in every pore of her body, and throughout everything that made her who she was. 'We will be one,'it demanded. 'We ARE one!' it screamed. She couldn't fight anymore. That all-consuming fire had decimated everything in its path, everything that separated the girl from the flame. There was nothing protecting her anymore. And there was no strength left to resist. Jean disappeared into the overwhelming inferno.

And Phoenix emerged.

TBC...

Adrian: Wow, it's been insanely long since I last updated. But, alas! A new chapter! A short, interluded one at that, but ah, well. I tried. This is overcoming writer's block, for me. A very long, extended writer's block, as I stated above. And then life got in the way. I'm really sorry about the long wait. A proper chapter should be up soon, and by soon I actually mean 'within the next month' as opposed to last chapter's soon of 'within the next year'. I hope you enjoyed!

And, for the record, Phoenix will be making an appearance into the actual timeline of this story, not just the interlude. But not Dark Phoenix. ...Well, not YET, anyway...

Review!