Time may change me,
But I can't trace time

            ~Changes, David Bowie


CHAPTER 5: PHOENIX RISING

The Past

Anomaly changing direction, Nimrod II noted, his sensors firing with sudden information. Tracking coordinates

His voice modulator erupted in an ear-shattering squawk of static as he was hit with force equal to the velocity of a bullet.

Hit sustained, his voice crackled, then resumed as he careened through space. Assessing internal damage. Operating at 88% optimal efficiency.

Anomaly identified as… impossible. System malfunctioning. Employing defense systems.
Thrusters reversed his slow spin and with rapid correction and aligned him with his assailant.

"Come on, big guy," Jean said, her body poised like a ballet dancer against the backdrop of space, prepared for another strike against the robot. "This is the part where you get to be amazed."

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

The Present

It wasn't a happy ending to equal "and they lived happily ever after", but given their record of crises that that tended to end with crippling pain, massive bloodshed and death, the X-Men would take it.

Magnus was conscious, but quiet and still as he laid in the bio-bed, Rogue hovering at his side. Blinking lights and quiet beeps communicated the perfection of his functioning systems to the otherwise silent jet.

Storm unhooked herself from the pilot seat in the cockpit, leaving Logan in charge of the control systems.

"It is good to see you well again, Magnus," she said with a faint smile as she approached the bio-bed.

"I would have to agree with that," Magnus said with a small smile of his own.

"We were lucky today." Storm shook her head and marveled at the youth of his features. "It is about time."

"Yes, quite… lucky," he agreed with a nod, and for a moment, she had the sense that he was talking about something else entirely.

She frowned—

"Storm!" Logan yelled from the cockpit, the tension in his voice already causing her feet to move in that direction. "Get up here!"

"What is it, Logan?" she asked as she leaned next to his chair.

But he didn't have to answer. "It" was immediately apparent the moment she glanced out the window.

Lightning crackled across the sky, bright blue and blinding, and even from here, she could tell that it wasn't natural. The feel of its peculiar electricity sent icy chills over the surface of her skin and she shook her head, trying to block its strange, garbled resonance from her mind.

It rolled itself into a ball, pure-white tips of lightning lashing at each other as they coiled together.

"That is not natural," she said, mind grasping to understand what was happening.

Logan paused long enough in his manipulation of the controls to shoot her a brief look of disbelief. "Ya think?"

She opened her mouth to speak—and the sky split apart as reality itself seemed to come undone, tearing a gaping wound in the backdrop of the red and gold sunset-painted sky.

Lightning flashed and seared the air around them, and the cockpit filled with smell of burnt ozone.

"Goddess! Logan, pull away from it, now!"

"I'm tryin' Storm, but the flamin' thing's pullin' us in."

Storm gasped as the Blackbird yanked sharply to the left, set on a course straight for the chasm in the sky.

Through its ragged edges, Storm thought she could see the stars.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

The Past

"I can hear you," Jean mocked, reading the robot's thoughts easily despite the electronics that interspersed its conscious, organic thought systems.

It raised an arm at her, and she watched in wonder as it transformed, five fingers elongating and thickening like so much clay. The ends of the fingers opened into craters that became deep chasms, and she could read in its thoughts what was happening and what it was about to do to her.

A Cyclonic Plasma Emitter. The term itself meant little to her, but she could understand clearly the five oscillating barrels that spun like a traditional revolver as the robot leveled them at her. But instead of crude projectiles it would emit a plasma capsule meant to annihilate her by blasting her apart at an atomic level. Efficient, deadly; so the designer had described it when logging its capability within the robot's database. Like touching the sun.

Jean bared her teeth in a feroucious grin.

"I've eaten suns, you scrap-heap."

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

The Present

The lightning began to disintegrate, leaving Storm in relative mental peace, though it did nothing for her physical proximity to danger.

"We have to get everyone outside the jet," she said, her voice rising with tension, but not giving way to panic.

"And then what, darlin'?" Logan asked, looking up at her with earnest eyes. He had let go of the controls that no longer responded to his touch. "We all get sucked into the black hole body by body 'stead o' all at once?"

She cut bright blue eyes at him with such anger that he might have shivered, had he not known her so well.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

The Past

A blast of white energy--so high on the light spectrum that Jean could barely see it--flashed from the tips of Nimrod II's fingers, barreling into her with a lack of force that left her surprised. She felt it though; searing heat that licked and danced against her body, making her skin tingle, her atoms crawl. It wasn't exactly like eating a sun, but it was more than enough power to fuel her for weeks. She drew it in, kept it close like a lover, and let it disperse throughout her body, warming her.

Designate mutant unknown still exists. Impossible.

Performing bioscan based on genetic data.

Designate cosmic force known as
Phoenix. Impossible.

"You keep saying that," Jean retorted. "I think your programmers left out a few probabilities." She lashed out with the energy of the Phoenix force and smashed the robot aside like a baseball with one fiery wing.

Nimrod II squawked with static again, but he was prepared this time, his thrusters kicking and stopping his velocity through space.

Designate cosmic force known as Phoenix also identified as mutant Jean Grey, Marvel Girl. Improbable. Mutant identified as Jean Grey is known to be dead in the year 2004. Designate Phoenix Force as Jean Grey is also known to be destroyed.

Jean's eyes narrowed as the Nimrod II spoke, so caught by his words she was nearly oblivious to the fact that it was gearing for its next attack.

"Time to find out exactly how much you know, robot."

Jean reached out with the totality of her telepathic power, grabbed the slippery surface of Nimrod II's thoughts—metallic and organic combined--and pulled.

She was a mutant of inconceivable power, a goddess in the eyes of some. Her telepathic power was unrivaled, even when Charles Xavier had existed, and she was an indomitable force of will given flesh through his teachings.

And still, she wasn't ready for what she discovered.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

"What's going on?" Lorna shouted from her passenger seat.

Behind them, Logan could hear the disengagement of seat belts as the X-Men rose to the occasion.

"Madelyne!" Storm shouted.

"Right here, Storm," the red-head replied with a sour expression.

"You, and Polaris! Use your powers to pull the jet away from this… whatever it is. Bobby, I want an ice wall up between us and that portal."

"Storm, if we crash into it—"

"Do it!" she snapped at Bobby. "Wanda, I want your probability power in effect."

She turned to Lorna and Madelyne. "I will use my power in tandem with both of yours. Between your powers and my gale force winds, it should be enough."

Lorna nodded, and as Storm's eyes turned white and Madelyne's closed with focus, she turned to Piotr. "I'm gonna need you to armor up, big guy."

Colossus, already unstrapped from his seat, simply nodded, metal armor rippling over his form into place.

"Brace yourselves," Lorna said through gritted teeth.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

The Past

The alien technology of Nimrod II's memories and thoughts swirled through her, and she was lost to them.

Electronic systems hummed with near-precision, nearly repaired already from her onslaught, and nanobytes scurried over the surface of her mind, hurrying to repair the remaining damage. For a moment, she managed to keep hold of her senses, to cling to her sense of self. And then the knowledge of his memory banks pulled free, and she was completely overwhelmed. More information than any human mind could have contained was unleashed on her in an instant, and if she'd had a moment to process it all, she might have untangled it. But instead she was being swallowed by it; claimed by the technology that ruled his systems above all, organic and electronic combined.

She was a creature without remorse, without feeling, and for a moment, she was totally free. She was a machine with a single purpose; to destroy. She was a machine with thought, a machine that could learn and adapt and implement and destroy anything that crossed her path. But this was not her purpose. Her purpose was to kill one mutant above all, and to prevent the timestream from being altered beyond that one goal.

But she had already altered time… one mutant lay dead by her hands. It was an unfortunate event, but in all likelihood would alter little.

Kitty… the part of her mind that was still human cringed with sadness and shame.

She grasped hold of the whisper and clung to it like a lifeline.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

The Present

They were too far inside the pull of the portal to reverse the jet now; Lorna knew that the instant she reached out with her power. Only one chance left, then, and no time to explain.

Simple geometry and physics, Lorna thought, trying to convince herself. We're spinning left, so throw left.

She lifted Colossus from the ground and threw him into the left wall of the Blackbird with all the force she dared. He landed with a crash that dented the wall of the Blackbird but left it intact, and the plane lurched more quickly to the left with the sudden weight shift applied. Lorna focused, struggling to tighten her power, to bring several tons of jet under her control. Imagining the magnetic particles she pulled from the air as a giant hand, she grabbed the jet an invisible grasp. Sweat stood out in beads on her forehead as she gritted her teeth, almost pleading with her power to work.

"Lorna!" Logan shouted, and his voice reached her mind as if through a long, winding tunnel. "Yer pushin' us into it!"

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

The Past

Time travel. She/it had traveled backward in time…

In that moment, she understood everything. The purpose to which this thing had been created, the point at which it had arrived and why, and everything about its systems; internal processes, weaponry—everything.

She might be able to destroy it… maybe. Perfectly insulated, its brain would survive a nuclear detonation and the subsequent electromagnetic pulse, and the nanobytes that strengthened its outer titanium shell would ensure that its body survived. It would take all of her considerable power to ensure that its mental systems did not survive to fuel its body, but she could do it…

And yet, there was something that was more important than destroying this technological miracle of a machine that had dared attack her. Something more important, even, than the mission it had been sent on.

Her brain, fragmented and divided as it was with all the information she processed, still possessed the heart and soul of an X-Man. They had to be told what was happening. Had to know this thing had been sent, and by who, and why. She had to find them.

Internal systems breached. Security compromised.

She focused, bending the robots internal systems to her will, found the time she needed to be, and turned to the rest of her task. She didn't understand everything about how this creature operated, but it had been created by humans, and it still operated within the parameters of their understanding. She locked down the section of its mind that controlled its weaponry and higher functions, severed the connection to its thrusters, found the targeting coordinates of its system and laid a course.

With a sheer focus of will, she pulled free of the robot's thoughts, and snapped back into her body.

"I don't have enough power to destroy you and find them," she admitted. "But I think a tour of Omega Centauri ought to delay you for a few hundred years."

Gathering Nimrod II in a talon of energy, she launched it to the furthest recesses of space.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

The Present

"What the devil is she doing?" Madelyne cried.

Lorna tried to speak, to explain, but words failed through the haze of pain she existed in, her power burning in each cell of her body like small, searing flame. "Look… in my… mind."

Madelyne closed her eyes, reached out, and found the thought she searched for floating on the surface like a beacon.

"She means to sling-shot past it," the red-head reported to Storm, her cheeks high with color. "She believes there is no time to reverse the pull."

"Can she do that?" Logan asked.

Madelyne shook her head, and glanced out the window, the portal so large now it consumed almost the entire view through the window. Lightning arced and raced around its edges. "She isn't sure."

"Then we have to help her," Storm said, and reversed the flow of her power.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

The Past

Time travel. Prior to merging with Nimrod II, Jean had known very little about it. But now the equations seemed to balance in her mind, understood on some base level, if not actualized.

I don't know how…

Think.

Matter moved through time and space. Nimrod II had needed a recorded rupture in time/space to arrive in this point in time, but she had no such foreknowledge. To go where she needed, she would have to…

She couldn't. It was impossible. And yet… and yet… the idea resonated in her brain, based on the scientific data in Nimrod II's data banks and sparking ideas that she herself could not have formed.

She possessed the power to manipulate molecules on a base level, enough to provide the friction and fire of the Phoenix bird… and if she could vibrate them at the correct frequency…

I don't know how, she wailed, desperate inside the confines of her own mind.

Think, the voice at the back of her mind commanded.

I tried!

Then do.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

The Present

"Storm!" Lorna cried, falling to her knees. "I… can't hold much longer."

"Keep pushing, Polaris," Storm grated out, voice only slightly less strained than her own.

"Wusses," Madelyne hissed, pushing even harder with her own power.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *         

Jean-Luc and Irinee' huddled together in the body of the Blackbird, terrified by the knowledge that they could do nothing to circumvent this turn of events.

Wanda stood next to Colossus, her arm linked through his. He had risen from impact unharmed, and for that, she was thankful, but her fingers clenched at the air, wishing desperately that she could give something more tangible than her affectation of probability.

Siryn stood, her fingers laced through Magnus', Puck at her side. Rogue stood near to them, her fingers digging deep into Magnus' shoulder.

Bobby stood near Lorna, only able to watch, his part in the drama ended with the erecting of an ice shield. Dazzler stood near him, not quite touching him, and he reached out, linked his hand in hers.

Storm stood, stiff and straight; her chin trembling with the force of her efforts, her entire being focused on commanding the winds outside.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

The nose of the Blackbird tilted at a crazy, dangerous angle as it came within reach of the portal, yawning cavern of electricity closing around the X-Men from every side.

Not enough, Lorna thought, her breath short and panting, her thoughts scattered and broken. I can't do it. I can't…

Then we all die, Madelyne sent, her voice cold and resentful as it filled Lorna's mind.

I can't… but I can't let them all die.

From within the haze that surrounded her thoughts, Lorna screamed, pushing through the barrier of her powers upper limits, and her cry of rage turned to one of anguish as she felt every atom in her body ignite in sudden flare of agony. Piotr's metal body had given her the jump start of speed that she needed, and her own power over the jet had kept and increased it; now she applied everything she had to one last desperate rush of speed as they approached the portal, using its own gravitational pull to help bring them closer in. One final push and the nose of the jet began to turn further left, riding the edge of the portal's pull, and then shot past it into the open sky.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Convergence

Threads of reality dripped from her body, and she was caught in them like a butterfly in mid-transformation, wrapped in a shimmering chrysalis of time and possibility.

The future and past of a thousand worlds thundered through her mind in a parade of overwhelming images, assaulting her with millions of minds and memories that were not her own. She twisted and stretched to disentangle herself, weaving cosmic energy like a needle as she caught the torn threads and began to sew them back together.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Lightning crackled with one, last ferocious arc, and then disappeared.

Storm heaved a sigh of relief, and Madelyne sagged to her knees, the heavy burden of the jet released at last.

Lorna collapsed to the floor, unconscious.

"Storm!" It was Logan, his voice ringing through the jet with urgency. "I'm picking up something on the scanners."

"What… is it… Logan?" she asked, voice faint and faraway.

"It's…" Logan paused, rechecked the equipment to be sure of what he was seeing.

"It's a person."

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

The stitching wasn't perfect, but it would have to do.

She knotted the last thread, and moved on.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

"Move to intercept whomever it is," Storm said, fingers flexing as she let go of her power.

The pull of the portal ended, Logan took control of the helm once again and turned the jet.

"It is over," Storm said with certainty. She took a deep breath and turned, walking toward the cockpit. "What ever happened, it has ended."

"No, darlin'," Logan said, his voice filled with an emotion she could not immediately name.

Against the expanse of the near-dark sky, the Phoenix fire burned like a brilliant star.

"I think it's just beginnin'."

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

For an instant, she was aware of each and every one of them, their awareness like tiny bright lights aboard the jet, each one calling out with its own, familiar resonance.

I did it. I made it.

Something wet, thick and warm trailed over her lips. She reached down, wiped her face and lifted her hand.

Blood. She was bleeding. She tried to process the thought and failed, feeling the connections of her brain stutter in a sudden convulsion of pain.

The Phoenix fire flickered around her body like a guttering candle, and then vanished.

She plummeted like an angel from the heavens.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Such a simple thing for her to reach out with her power, to bend the patterns of the winds to her will. The process was nearly second nature after so many years of practice, and it took only a split second of thought to bring it into action.

A split second of thought that tore at her heart and all her loyalties, tangling them in a snarled ball of confusion.

Are you so petty then, Wind-rider?

She closed her eyes, quelled her pride.

No. Of course not.

"Jean!" Logan exclaimed. "I'm going down after her."

He gripped the steering column, angling the nose of the jet downward, and Ororo laid a hand on his shoulder, stilling him.

"I have her," she said.

And as Jean's body began to rise from its downward spiral, drifting toward the jet on gentle winds, there was a sudden stirring from just behind them.

"Jean?" Madelyne's voice fairly sneered with distaste

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Siryn strapped into the co-pilot seat alongside Storm, Logan knelt over the still body of Jean Grey.

Gently, with a delicateness that belied the strength in his blunt fingers and corded muscles, he wiped the blood from her face and shook his head.

"What the bloody blazes did you do, darlin'?" he asked, voice soft with wonder.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

"Dr. Hayes?" the cool voice inquired from the intercom. "Are we ready, then?"

"We are, sir. Subject has been restored to health and has been very responsive to hypno-therapy." She licked her lips and paused. "We know where to send him."

"Then we know where they are?"

"That, and a great deal more."

There was a pause on the other end, and when he spoke again, his voice quavered with something deeper than excitement. "Excellent."

It had been a simple thing for Veronica to wrest the answers she required from their accidental captive. The injection had lulled him into a deep state of unconsciousness that left him aware on a very base level; one that made him quite impelled to tell them the answers to whatever they asked. She had left Renaldo for a time to complete his work, and then returned, holding specific questions as handed down to them by the man in charge himself. Still, she had been very careful. Scans of his brain activity had shown signs of great alteration around memory access, most likely protection from telepathic invasion to take information by force. But there was nothing, apparently, that prevented him from confessing anything he knew of his own "free will".

"Subject has been loaded into the teleporter, per your instructions. We stand ready to deploy him at your command, sir."

"Do it."

"Yes sir."

She turned. "Renaldo?"

Her assistant nodded, pushed a button, and the teleportation chamber fired to life.

It wasn't nearly as grand as the sci-fi shows she had watched when she was a child—in fact, in comparison, it was very nearly anti-climatic. The pure, white walls of the chamber were lit with normal, fluorescent overhead light, and the body that lay on the floor—clothed now in the ordinary jeans and t-shirt she had managed to scavenge—looked just as unremarkable as the bland walls around him. And then, as if caught in an invisible wave of desert heat, his body began to shimmer and disappear, vanishing like a mirage on the horizon.

"It's done, sir."

His voice was the sound of covetous joy.

"I wish I could see their faces."