Chapter 14- Crosstime hopscotch


Confused, Jubilee realized she felt a hundred pounds lighter. For an instant she saw Gambit's face on the viewscreen and heard Wolvie's voice. Then she saw herself drifting in a glass sarcophagus for another instant.

"You shouldn't be here," said the red headed woman, in spikes and leather.

"Who the hell are you," Jubilee asked blinking up at the woman who was drifting near her.

"I'm called Rachel," said the woman, who was only a few years older than her. "Rachel Grey Summers…"

"Jeez louise… you mean like Jean and Scott Summers?" Jubilee got out. "As in Cyclops and Marvel Girl?"

"Yes…" said Rachel. Her body shimmered with gold energies, and Jubilee saw they were floating above dark clouds.

"Where am I?"

"In the boundary between the Nexus of All time and your world… but not your world," Rachel said. "Some call it the astral plane…"

"Who…" she trailed off.

"Look OUT!" Rachel hissed, grabbing her with a gloved hand and pulling her aside as a huge wave of gold and red slammed through them. It rippled like molten lava, with intense heat that left them staggering and floundering. Gold energies surged and the redhead threw her arm out, forming a massive gold claw that caught Jubilee.

"Whoa…" said Jubilee. "Major weird what WAS that?"

She felt like retching, and groaned as the redheaded female steadied her. Jubilee blinked up to see the Phoenix force blazing around the girl, out of her own memories of seeing Jean with it. They had not taken her into space, but she had seen the manifestation of incredible powers.

"Some guy named Bishop, trying to go home… again," Rachel said, her voice twisted and humming with power.

"Wait, that time hopping dude… what gives?"

"You're here an not here, Jubilation Lee," said Rachel.

"Why do YOU have the Phoenix power?" Jubilee demanded.

"Because it was inherited," she said. "You're not from this dimension, this universe, Jubilee. Somehow your astral self slipped into my universe… crossing my path as I was coming back from the Nexus…"

"Excuse me, I'm really majorly confused," Jubilee blinked. "What in HECK…"

"Alternate realities, Jubilee. Yours is one called 657… mine is one called 616. Each with its own timeline. You could call it the Omniverse. I sensed your psychic vibrations were not in synch with this reality…"

"Um… yeah right…"

"You have latent psychic powers coming to the fore. And no doubt this scares you, having an OBE… but luckily I found you before you ended up lost… and unable to get back to your body…"

"How can I just… drift like this?" Jubilee asked, trembling in the grip of the powerful claw that drew her towards the cross time Phoenix.

"You're an astral projection. I am as well. But the phoenix power allows me to sense time and travel through it. I can help send you back to your reality, but not without establishing a mind link…"

"I don't KNOW you…" Jubilee trailed off. "You look like Jean… is she your mom or sister?"

"My mother in this time. It's confusing I know," Rachel explained. Those scars on her face fanned out like sunrays from her nose across her cheeks. Strangely compelling and sinister. Where had such a powerful telepath gained such wounds?

"Wait, you know me… but how? Mind reading?"

"No, you exist in my reality as well… but this is the future, the 21st century, or near the end of it," Rachel said. "Doubtless you remember the incident where all psychics were collected by Apocalypse…"

"I saw him… in our world…"

"That must be why you were drawn here…" Phoenix mumbled. "Your precognitive abilities are impressive…"

"I shoot plasma, how the HECK can I be psychic?"

"The Phoenix force enables me to see the nature of matter itself. And from what my probes tell me, your energies are mentally generated. But in order to generate and sustain them…"

"I have to absorb emotional energy from myself or people around me… I got that whole thing from Betsy already! Sheesh!"

"You mean Psylocke?" asked Phoenix, her eyes flaring gold. "Betsy Braddock? Sister to Captain Britain?"

'Yeah, I guess," said Jubilee. "Look, this is really interesting, but I wanna get BACK an' help Wolvie kick Apocalypses' butt…"

"I will help you get back. But there are some things you must know… that you must tell Xavier…"

"Um, newsflash, he's with Lilandra…he got SICK…"

"Open your mind and think the images to me…" Rachel said. "I won't hurt you… if you trust my mother in your reality, you can trust me…"

"All right, but don't burn my brain, lady," Jubilee winced. Rachel Summers folded an aura of golden energy around her body, or her astral form. It shimmered and crackled, golden tendrils brushing her mind gently but with great power. Willing up the images she sent them at Rachel full force. Just as quickly, other images were flashing.

"Another flash forwards. Similar to my own abilities… though not as powerful… but distressing. You were meant to see these things, Jubilee. But you lack control over the powers. I can help…"

"Psylocke promised but she didn't do squat," Jubilee huffed.

"She hasn't the power of the Phoenix force. But I can easily make the adjustments to help you make sense of the power. "

"Just a minute… what IS my power? Before you go messin' around in my noggin, tell me…" Jubilee demanded.

"I owe you that much, and more… your power is Time Empathy. Similar to precognition. Sensing time folding in on itself. Precogs can stare through the gaps between one moment and the next… through the weaknesses in Time and Space to see what may come to pass… but your abilities are enhanced by time still healing from the wounds Apocalypse inflicted."

"So I'm seeing through cracks in time? Majorly weird…" Jubilee shivered. "But empathy is feelings, not images."

"True, but even empaths can take on psychic images if they are powerful enough. And perhaps given enough emotional energy… like the near death of Xavier, has boosted your powers enough to match those of a precog telepath..."

"Everyone's vibes are making my powers manifest?" said Jubilee.

"A secondary mutation. Don't be scared. The jubilee of my universe had the same power, but developed it much earlier… and died…"

"God… I'm gonna DIE?"

"Eventually. But our worlds are different. Similar, parallel but not intersecting till now. In 616 I crossed time and became a member of the X men. But in your reality, I was snuffed out long before the Phoenix force could pass to me. It fled my mother, to deep space... there are only a few wielders of the Phoenix in the Omniverse. Far few who draw from the same wellspring. Your Jean Grey was but one. Now I hold the power, and I will help you thwart Apocalypse. He had a toehold in my world, and it is very late. But for you, he will not destroy your world this day…"

"How could he come back?"

"Your body hums with some of his energy…"

"Wait I was supposed to be his VESSEL, but that jerk Cortez…"

"Must be the vessel for him to enter your world. His physical body was destroyed, but he took Cortez and is using him to gain a toehold…"


"Get me BACK!" she cried. "If that nutball is gonna do what you say, and what I saw, I gotta get back to Wolvie so we can stop him! I can't just drift here all day!"

"I shall try," Rachel Summers said quietly. "But not before you see what your potential could be…"

"Isn't that cheating?"

"Not necessarily, because you're not from my reality," Rachel chuckled. That mischievous glint reassured Jubilee she could trust this woman.

"Psylocke did this thing…"

"She is of Otherworld, and has some knowledge, but she is outclassed. Even now her thoughts are seeking yours across time…. Look… see through my probes," Rachel whispered. Jubilee felt the field envelope her. Across planets and waves and images of time she heard a faint echo.

"This is the Astral Plane, right?"

"A part of it. Where thought and energy are one… where all psychics meet on a level playing field…"

"Like the Shadow king?"

"Yes, that bloat of a misbegotten… but listen… Psylocke's calling you," Rachel's voice echoed in her mind.

Jubilee cast her mind out like a net, as Rachel showed her. Reaching out to hear the distant chatter of billions of thoughts. Like a purple beacon, the mental query echoed through time and space. Jubilee thought she could see a purple butterfly flitting through infinity. Other astral images bubbled up, where thousands of telepaths surfaced and vanished in the haze. Images recombined and shifted, as the butterfly called her name.

"Jubilee! Where are you?"

"Here," said Jubilee. "I'm here, Betsy…"

"Child, you had us worried sick… who…."

"You must forget me. I am but another time traveler about to go home," came the bird of fire as it carried Jubilee's form in its astral claw.

"The PHOENIX… good lord," Betsy's butterfly image exclaimed, flaring bright before subsiding. "I remember you from the Nexus…"

"Indeed. I have come across this one…"

"Thank God for that… but why are you… she… here?"

"Consider me a friendly word of advice. Don't let Storm take the bait. Convince her to stay. Jubilee has shown me what has happened, and she knows what may be… and since YOU are the only psychic besides my mother… or the Jean Grey of your time…"

"Understood," Betsy's butterfly form chimed. It reached its wings out, extending its purple tendrils towards Jubilee.

"Go with her, let her take you back, Jubilee… it's all right," said Rachel. "You shall not see me again… give my regards to the X men…"

The claw released Jubilee and she drifted through the astral plane. Falling faster till the butterfly form of Psylocke caught her astral body and fluttered back. A screech tore across time, and the bright bird of flame was snuffed out. Amethyst power curled and spilled protectively as Betsy's powers urged Jubilee back towards another part of the Astral Plane.

"I know what I suspected," said Psylocke.

"This is NUTS!"

"For one moment all the psychics had one mind. One touch. I struggled to erase it, but couldn't. What do you think compelled me to join your X men? Not just warren, but that vision of disaster. I saw for a second what could befall all times, but when I heard Apocalypse was destroyed…"

"Did you KNOW Xavier was gonna…"

"I sensed that I had to stand with the others in your world. To stop the one I saw called Magneto. I am on the side of the Angels; no pun intended… now we must get you back to your body… Wolverine is distressed beyond belief…"

"Can you stop Storm?"

"I shall, and she won't like that you and Wolverine are going to Genosha… but he was right to call Scott and Jean…"

"This is gonna ruin his vacation…"

"Yes but at least he might ease up on you and Logan," Betsy joked. Telepathic laughter bubbled, and Jubilee joined in the morose joke, whistling in the dark.

"So, that's our Earth…" Jubilee saw, rather sensed. Not so much saw visually but perceived with some inner eye. For a second she perceived her astral form, a figure of dazzling rainbow lights, and groaned.

"I can't take you the rest of the way. There's your soul cord… that which binds your body to your soul…"

"You mean THIS?" Jubilee asked, tugging on a long thin tendril attached at her navel. "Wicked…"

"Follow that back and into your body… and know that Storm will be stopped in time… good luck…"

"Wait, what do you mean…"

"You will find out… things have moved on and I can't stay…" Betsy's mind drifted.


Darkness and light. Pushing through the haze she pulled on the rope, and jerked downwards. The earth rotated under Jubilee's astral form. She suddenly dropped from a great height. Under her the Earth's swirling clouds drifted across an enormous sphere. When they commented it was like some big blue marble they weren't kidding. Faster and faster she rushed, clouds streaking past as the ocean blurred into view, and she was following the taught stretched cord that snapped back like a rubber band.

From her view, three islands blew up. She willed her astral body to stop so she could get her bearings. From her aborted vacation with Gambit and Storm she had seen Genosha. It was the major island of a small archipelago. Three islands, one inhabited, and the size of Hawaii.

The smaller medium sized one was left wild and feral, for raw materials exploitation. While the third was where the human 'flatscan's had made their stronghold. The third small rocky island was home to a fortified base, about the size of Rappa Nui, and brimming with the survivors who left Genosha.

A streak of fire shot through the sky, screeching. For a moment she was blinking up at a canopy, then snatched out and clinging to the cord that stretched from her astral form to the disintegrating jet. Bashing a streak of smoke and fire like a comet, she saw it pull up before skimming onto the beach and coming to a halt.

"Jubilee! Say soemthin' darlin!" Wolverine's gutteral cry echoed. It snapped her into reality for a second, then back. She was seeing the plane from outside. Not only that, but she was moments from waking only to drift back out to see herself laying there in the front seat, about to be burned to a crisp.