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.

Notes: I'm sorry for the long delay, but I've been correcting the story over and over -and I'm not satisfied yet-, and besides I was one week away the computer. But thanks for the reviews! Thanks to: Pinkchick –who always puts up patiently with me, Alrischa –glad of you love it-, Slickboy –always a pleasure hearing from you-, Wen1 –I hope Dark Phoenix keeps seeming frightening-, Illmantrim –I try doing my best-, Phoenix83ad –thanks for your comments and I think Jean's fury is well explained in former chapters: she is resented but she refuses hating Scott because that's what Emma wants, so she turns her entire hatred towards Emma; and Jean always loves and hates passionately-, Lili –here's the update- and Summers Groupie –I'm glad of you like my Phoenix stories; it really means a lot to me-. Please, keep sending your kind comments!

This chapter isn't the beta-read version. I have troubles with my account so I haven't been able to post it. I'm sorry; I'll post it as soon as I get it.

I recommend Scott/Jean forum (jott. to all Scott/Jean fans that read this story.

Rating: PG.

Disclaimer: Marvel owns the books. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby are their true parents.

Feedback: To Please, I need reviews! English isn't my primary language, so I need much advice.

Part Five. Phoenix Unleashed-

An alluvium of debris was raining upon her, a torrent of rubble and solidified water with enough power to squash and crush her fragile and puny human frame in a second of unimaginable pain.

Overflowed by a blood-chilling horror, she shut her eyes for a second.

Nothing happened.

Dumbfounded and wary, she opened her eyelids. A gasp escaped from her lips.

Black nothingness surrounded her. Slick, murky shadows floated around her, dulling her senses and suffocating her lungs.

A surge of fright crawled along her spine, draining color from her face. She recognized the setting.

A wall of ethereal, glowing fire circled her. A figure slid through the flames. A gloom, crimson-haired ten-year.

As she walked, her body grew and her face matured, her size and weight increased, her limbs became longer and slimmer and her curls lengthened in a flowing cascade of fire. As she aged, her clothes blurred and shifted in every costume she had ever worn, from her blue-and-yellow uniform to her Dark Phoenix outfit. And her hopeful, innocent face became tainted with abject shadows and scarred with pain.

Emma forced herself to stand her ground. "Why have you crawled back from death, Grey? Were you scared of Scott had gotten over you?" She spat viciously. "You like proving he's fully wrapped around your finger, right? I wonder how long Madelyne needed to realize that."

"Your words are meaningless gusts of empty air." Phoenix rebuked flatly. Her face betrayed no emotion, except for the storm brewing in her pupils. "My memory is a shadow-filled void I can't fathom- and truthfully I don't care now. I know you've hurt me; your actions have earned my hatred. I require no further knowledge."

Emma folded her legs, ready to pounce on the woman. But her body didn't answer. It was paralyzed.

Her enemy flung forward one arm. A crimson flame sprouted from her fingers and slammed Emma into a coal-black wall of glossy darkness. The White Queen moaned, feeling the claw of impious fire crushing and grazing her psionic self with its razor talons.

She couldn't react, struggle, defend, fight. Helpless fear shattered her mask of enraged contempt.

Phoenix saw the dread flashing on her prey's face. Wild, sick glee bubbled in her belly and her face split abruptly in a hard, delightful smirk. A myriad of sensations throbbed and burnt in her body and mind with a fire impossibly hot. A fire flooded her with a delighted thrill, a wicked arousal, a joyous rapture. A rapture of victory achieved and revenge quenched.

She was going to enjoy this.

"Pitiful, selfish creature. Ruled by the very emotions you openly despite. I know what you want. You seek power. Very well, I shall grant your wish. Through my you will know power. Such like no human being has dreamed of."

Her blank eyes shimmered with unholy amber light.

A tempest of embers incinerated Emma's shields to cinders and waves of foreign emotions crashed into her mind. Ache. Suffering. Grief. Loneliness. Rage. Fright. Rejection. Every one belonging to Jean Grey. Her joys and sorrows, her wishes and fears, her passions and frustrations, her loves and hates. Feelings, thoughts and remembrances swarmed in her brain, drowning her.

Phoenix poured brutally into her head each single detail of Jean Grey's life. Every emotion Jean had felt, every memory she had got, every moment she had experienced, every fact she had learnt. The entire knowledge the celestial avatar had stored through her entire life, during all her incarnations was now hers.

Emma sensed her telepathy growing uncontrollably; expanding beyond anything a human being can handle. A deafening mayhem flooded her head, a legion of voices shouting at once in a horrific cacophony. There were so many, billions of them blending in a rumbling thunder, and she felt so tiny and insignificant and she couldn't shut them out and she was losing in them, slipping in them, and she was going crazy, and she was forgetting her own self...

Power like she had never imagined sang in her. Blistering fire simmered in her core, filling her mind with staggering visions. She traveled to the farthest reaches from the cosmos in a blink. She raced the comets and played with the stars. Her fingers touched the infinite. Her eyes contemplated the face, the glory of God. The millions of absolute and contradictory truths and lies of the universe flashed in her mind.

Incapable of bearing it, she fled. Incapable of fleeing, she hid. Incapable of hiding, she screamed. Incapable of screaming, she blacked out. After all she was only a human woman in a human body with the power of a god.

Phoenix listened to her appalling screams of agonizing pain. And chuckled. Obsidian flames burnt in her, fueled for her dark passions. They were twisting her, shattering her, blackening her. Darkness sullied her soul, and only a tiny speck of shining light endured, like a beautiful blossom strangled by black weeds.

The flower withered, folded on itself and wilted.

Dark Phoenix arched back her head and cackled. Her laughter shook Astral Plane like a thunder.

Dark Phoenix perused the pile of boulders, her eyes reflecting a weird mixture of wicked glee and abhorrent grief. She clicked her fingers. Gigantic rocks disintegrated and the huge mountain materialized -whole again- on its foundations, towering and prideful.

Dark Phoenix contemplated the snow-capped peak in deep silence. Insanity glowed on her eyes. A wild joy and exhilaration thumped and boiled within her chest. Her power was vast, unimaginable, limitless. It provoked in her an unexplainable rapture, a thirst, a hunger. She craved for it. The need consumed her.

Her lewd leer drifted towards the woman had been buried underneath the avalanche of debris. Her mind was a blank void. Her body, encased in a gleaming crust of diamond, rested motionless on the cold soil. Only the shuddering rise and lower of her chest showed she was still alive.

She was still alive just because Phoenix refused killing her quickly.

That woman had defied her choler. She had brought her pain. She had ignited her hatred. Her unforgivable offenses, her petty revenge had unconsciously unleashed her power again in a defenseless cosmos. She had to pay. First with her soul; now with her mortal shell.

Emma Frost's body was lifted from the floor and hovered silently as Dark Phoenix built up her power. Sunlight flashed around of her clenched fists and she prepared for pulverizing her atoms.

Crimson blasts burst suddenly around her, drilling craters on the frozen land. She turned around.

A crowd of people was approaching to her, dashing uphill or gliding on the glacial air to land gingerly on the battered slope. A weird quiver shook her while she perused theirs features. They... disturbed her.

A tall, brown-haired man walked ahead the group and pleaded. "Jean! Don't do it! Please!"

His face, his voice was painfully familiar. They cracked a chink in her armor of bleak obscurity. And a surge of forgotten sentiments fluttered in her. She remembered having sought him, thinking he could save her, heal her, fulfill her. But it was too late now. For her. For them. For everything.

Dark Phoenix felt her heart bleeding with charring pain. And she wept. Because she knew what was going to happen. And she couldn't stop it.

Hope and resignation, love and hatred, passion and pain dueled within her like snapping dogs. It hurt her with the strongest ache she could imagine. Thus she lashed out.

"Jean! Don't do it!" He screamed.

Dark Phoenix's expression darkened somberly. She raised a hand. His golden visor was abruptly yanked from his face and flew to her open palm. Scott instantly shut his eyes, feeling his optic blasts thrusting against the barrier of his eyelids.

Her fist crushed the gadget as a telekinetic jab in Scott's midsection sent him sprawling on the snow.

The X-Men gawked at the scene, silenced by horror. Storm struggled against her panic as she scrutinized that woman, searching desperately for her best friend in those eyes of inhumane aloofness. And she cried, not finding her. And another witness of Phoenix's tragedy bolted forward, without waiting for orders. If he was lucky, he pondered, he'd divert her attention from Cyclops. And if he was EXTREMELY lucky, he'd knock her out and they'd save her from herself.

Colossus lunged at the woman, throwing a terrible punch capable of demolishing a mountain.

The brutal sonic wave of the hit reverberated through the large valley.

Dark Phoenix didn't even stagger. The redhead woman glared at him -her momentary weakness vanished- and stared mutely downwards.

Suddenly Piotr sensed the tough ground turning gelatinous like quicksand and dissolving beneath his boots. He yelled before his heavy metallic body sank rapidly into the soil, swallowed in bowels of stone.

"Peter!" Kitty Pryde squealed and dashed forward, but a firm hand grasped her arm.

She peeked backwards to see Havok glaring sternly. "Drake and I will draw her attention. Hurry up!"

Shadowcat nodded briskly and turning intangible dove in the solid rock. Alex glanced at Bobby.

"Come on, Iceman. Let's take her down." Bobby shook his head in disbelief, but he didn't sneer. He knew Alex wasn't such crazy to believe his own words.

He focused. Arctic coldness rose around him. Billows of thick mist obscured his shape and humidity crystallized around his body, hardening in snowflakes. His fists shimmered with cobalt brightness and he flung them forward, unleashing a blast of icy energy.

Dark Phoenix stared unemotionally at the glacier stream flowing towards her. The frozen gale dissolved in vapor of water barely it touched her burning-hot skin.

She glared at Iceman. He wouldn't attack her again.

Bobby felt something crawling into him. Sudden and immense pain stabbed and slashed his entrails, like claws shredding him internally. His body writhed with feverish tremors, and a cobweb of cracks fractured his frozen skin. Finally his coat of ice burst in glassy fragments of blue shards, revealing flesh underneath.

He screamed and collapsed, fainted, over the snow.

Alex gasped, stunned of seeing Bobby again human. He discarded swiftly the thought and powered up his cosmic energies when a reflection stopped him. His blasts were stellar plasma converted in thermal waves. And Dark Phoenix fed with stars...

"Therefore your power would strengthen me." The woman uttered brusquely. She raised her palm to face level.

Alex was abruptly hauled in the air. Energy throbbed in him and flowed along his limbs and at his hands. His body blazed before his fists launched hot-melting heat waves towards Dark Phoenix. She absorbed greedily the tasty morsel, draining him dry from energy, and tossed him scornfully on the ground.

An ugly smirk darkened her features.

Lorna watched Alex lying limply and released a bloodcurdling cry of pain. Then she threw at Dark Phoenix an incensed glare full of acid poison. "Bitch! If you've harmed him, I swear I'll kill you!"

Cobalt electricity crackled along her frame, from her hair to her fingertips, and a greyish-blue halo shrouded her. Polaris floated upwards and invoked the same power had catapulted an island out of the planet, now fueled by a despaired anguish and bleeding choler clutching her.

The valley shuddered, shaken and rocked by an earth-cracking quake. A thunderous boom split the air and a whole mountain was ripped from its bedrock, lifted airborne and hurled at Dark Phoenix.

"Surely you must be jesting." Dark Phoenix stated evenly, not cowed at all. With a flicker of thought she froze in mid-air the unimaginably weighty projectile. Lorna gaped, amazed and incredulous.

Dark Phoenix grinned viciously as her magnified telekinesis crumbled the mount to rubble and hurled the millions of sharp boulders towards Lorna. The green-haired woman grimaced with horror and tried erecting a flimsy screen to repel the lethal hailstorm.

A burst of purple smog swallowed Lorna and disappeared. The barrage of shrapnel sliced through empty air and dropped harmlessly at the bottom of the valley.

A split-second later Nightcrawler materialized on the ground, his arms draped firmly round Dane. His teammates approached him hurriedly, Kitty and Piotr phasing out of the land, Warren carrying an unconscious Bobby in his arms and Alex limping laboriously towards them.

"For a several hairs' width." Kurt quipped. Nothing could ruin his good mood.

"This isn't time to joke, Wagner!" Warren yelled. He glanced at the redhead, her expression stern and impassive after her impressive displays of power. "This is pointless. She's playing with us."

"It doesn't matter!" Havok spat weakly. He leaned on Beast, wheezing roughly as his body replenished his energy absorbing cosmic plasma. His pupils wandered briefly over Polaris, flashed momentarily with pain and hardened with a glint of steel. "We have to defeat her, not matter what. Kurt! Try taking her by surprise!"

The blue-furred mutant teleported behind Dark Phoenix and wrapped tightly his arms around her waist. Instantly tongues of liquid fire erupted from her body, engulfing him. He let her go with a howl and dropped on a puddle of melt snow. The boiling water put off his singed fur.

Dark Phoenix sneered cruelly and took off in a burst of light. Cosmic blazes sprouted from her, the Phoenix effect enfolding her as she soared upwards. With an unearthly shriek the enormous raptor spread giant wings of fire. And its looming figure filled the sky.

She hovered in the core of the maelstrom, supreme ruler of everything she saw. Her face was smug but serene. Her face lied. Blazes danced and leapt wildly within her. A passion -sweet and painful at once- transcended human mind's boundaries fueled them.

She was Dark Phoenix. She held the universe's fate in her hands. Nothing could stop her. Certainly not the ants prowled the valley beneath her feet. She could read their innermost thoughts. They intended assailing her, combating her, stripping her from her power or slaying her. She wouldn't brook it.

She clenched firmly her hands. A dull glow pulsated on them. The light intensified in a blinding shimmer, and the blazes flowed at it. Her fists drew and absorbed the red twister of telekinetic fire as the air around her vibrated and sizzled. Then she linked her fists and shot a massive spear of glowing energy.

The pillar of psionic power struck the steer hillside, unchaining a violent quake as it drilled miles of hard stone in a few seconds.

Hot magma, Earth's red blood, erupted from the rift. An unstoppable stream from molten rock gushed from the open wound and slid slowly down the mountain. And towards the X-Men.

"Oh, stars and garters." Beast stammered. "I had only seen Thor performing something like that."

Polaris raised her arms. A sparkling energy barrier parted the air, stopping the flood. The lava crashed silently in the dike and accumulated around it, like a river blocked by a dam. The translucent shield trembled, dangerously strained for a wall of rock liquid.

Dark Phoenix sniggered. She could read and taste that woman's emotions: Exhaustion. Resolve. Anger. Frustration. Regret... That feeling was particularly funny. She rued having wasted her energies in an impulsive and rash rage fit.

Of sudden she was startled by a flaring thought -forged with bravery and resolution; warm and light sentiments confused her- irradiated from the windrider. The dark woman invoked the elements and molded a hurricane lifted her upwards. She navigated easily over the winds and met her, face-to-face, in the sky.

"In the name of the love we share... Let us help you! Please, Jean, for pity's sake!"

"Ask not for pity from Dark Phoenix." Her voice stated flatly. "There is none in her."

Unfathomable grief ravaged her gorgeous face. "Understood."

A glossy cloud glazed her azure eyes.

Dark billows gathered in the horizon. Swift, roaring hurricanes arose and stormed the valley with violence. Thick masses of ebony clouds rolled along the sky, draping over it an immense raven canvas crackled with inner fires. Blizzards and hailstorms whipped the mountains and dense rain pounded mercilessly on Earth. Flashes of electricity illuminated the glum blackness and ominous thunders burst with terrible rage.

Storm stretched her arms upwards. Forks of amber lightning streaked along the tempest clouds, merged in a gigantic vortex of electricity and spilled theirs power in her body. A huge sphere of glowing electricity surrounded her and an ecstasy mesmerized her briefly. She basked in the immeasurable force she tamed, in the stinging touch of the sparks, in the ear-shattering rumble of the thunders, in the stench of the burnt ozone. Then the god-like rapture faded, the humanity returned... and she struck.

Storm arched back her fist, channeling the entire power in it, and unleashed a massive and dazzling thunderbolt capable of obliterating the whole mountain range.

Dark Phoenix watched the stream of energy zigzagging towards her with nonchalance. Her fist smashed the blast swiftly and abruptly, shattering it. The bolt exploded in thousands of electric spears, and the X-Men were stricken for the lightning storm.

With a silent burst the protector shield faded in flickering sparks and the roaring sea of flames rushed downhill, spilling everywhere, swallowing all in its path of devastation... and burying the mutants.

Dark Phoenix landed softly on the boiling river. Her telekinesis sealed off-handily the gap in Earth's crust and her body absorbed swiftly the heat of the bubbling magma, transforming the lava into tough rock.

Thick, sticky steam rose from the ground, fogging the barren terrain. She stared at the surface of black slag and narrowed her eyes. The bedrock cracked and several telekinetic bubbles emerged from the rifts. Every mutant lay into one psionic cocoon.

Angel came around slowly, and spotted her. His blue eyes gazed at her green pupils, trying desperately reaching her. "Jean, please... If there is anything human remaining within you..."

"There isn't." She replied frostily. "Your appeal has been heard... and denied. And now it's time to carry out the sentence. Any last thoughts?"

Dark Phoenix gathered the entire group into one single telekinetic sphere and hit them a hundred different ways at once.

For a moment, her goddess-masque slipped... and her face shattered with a grief that transcended thought. But the moment passed, the humanity faded... and only Dark Phoenix remained.

"No one? Good." She smirked, as her eyes observed their wretched hides.

As the battle raged, Nathan and Rachel picked their father from the ground, lifting him to his feet. Rachel held awkwardly Scott's shoulder as she fumbled clumsily in his uniform's pocket. Gingerly she took out one pair of red sunglasses and slipped it over his nosebridge.

Scott adjusted his shades and opened cautiously his eyes. He contemplated Ororo, hovering above them and blasting tongues of electricity at Phoenix.

He focused in that scene, trying blocking the voice in his head, that faint whisper had grown in a thundering rumble. Help me.

"Fools!" He scowled. His soft but hoarse voice startled them. "Don't they realize what they're doing? Haven't they learnt anything from the last time?"

Nathan regarded him warily. He'd never seen his father so... determined and so upset at once. "What do you mean?"

"They mustn't fight her." He wheezed out. His voice was ragged, his legs wobbled unsteadily and he needed aid to stand upright. Nevertheless, strength, tenacity and willpower oozed in him. "We can't defeat her..."

"What? But..." Rachel stammered.

"Listen to me, damn it!" He snapped, fury seeping in his words. "We CAN'T defeat her. Don't you remember what happened that time? We can't triumph over her physically. It's like strike an ocean with one sword!"

"What do you suggest then what we do, Slymm?"

HelpmeHelpmeHelpmeHelpmeHelpmeHelpmehelpmehelpmehelpmehelpmehelpmehelpmehelpmehelpme-

A deafening explosion alerted them. Nathan stared forward to see waves of molten metal flowing towards them. Swiftly his telekinesis lifted him and his family, letting the blazing river of glowing red magma welled beneath them.

"We have to do something!" Rachel cried. "She's going to kill them!"

Not again. She wouldn't bear seeing her friends perishing -again- as she watched, helpless. AGAIN.

"No!" Scott stated firmly. "She shan't do it! If she wished killing us, we would already be dead! She's only defended from our attacks so far!"

Nathan narrowed his eyes. "What are you planning, Scott?"

HELP ME, SCOTT!

Scott didn't talk. He lowered his mindshields, allowing them a brief peek. Both siblings exchanged startled looks, colored by alarm and deep worry.

"Slymm" Cable breathed roughly. "Are you crazy? She can kill you!"

Scott's expression hardened with bleak stubbornness. Stubbornness chilled Nathan to the bone.

"So what?" Scott saw his son's stare of horrified shock and sighed. "Look, Nathan. I've always believed in taking responsibility for my actions. So I taught you and I'd bet my counterpart taught it to your sister as well. And it's past time of practicing what I preach."

Rachel gasped, staring at the man she had called father -wondering if she'd get to know him truly sometime- and at the woman could be her mother, prisoner in madness' clutches. Scott was right. There only was one chance to save everyone. Moistness clouded her vision and she made up her mind.

Marvel Girl sprinted swiftly towards Dark Phoenix, rearing her fist. Her arm fired a sizzling bolt of telekinesis between her and the mutants, disrupting violently the power flux. The X-Men landed gracelessly onto the dried lava, and Summers felt a smile quivering in her lips.

Dark Phoenix swiveled her attention at her, and Rachel's smile vanished. Her green stare bored in her, piercing her, stripping her, and the young telekinetic shuddered. The baleful evil smoldering in those eyes felt... so wrong. The sight ached in her.

"Do you wish battling me, child?"

Rachel banished the panic flooding her and stared back unflinchingly. "I wish not, mom. But you don't give me another option. I can't allow you going through with this."

She arched her red eyebrows. Still her face was bereft of emotion and Rachel couldn't decide if she was thrilled, amused or merely annoyed. "I sense your power. You are no match for me, but you can be a worthy challenge. If you wish stopping me... you are most welcome to try."

Flames swallowed Dark Phoenix and she darted at the stormclouds. Orange power flared around Rachel, lengthening in fire wings, and she soared upwards swiftly. She grimaced, dwelling in the irony of that battle. Marvel Girl against Dark Phoenix.

Her mother was waiting in the sky for her, a smile perking up her lips. Her right hand snapped her fingers together and fired a volley of energy spikes in rapid succession.

Summers glided deftly among the flaring spears tearing the air, streaked towards Dark Phoenix and stored her whole telekinetic power in one single, brutal, fierce punch.

The kinetic cloak shielding Dark Phoenix wavered tremulously, but it didn't shatter or dissolve. Rachel blinked, aghast, and Dark Phoenix grinned mockingly.

The next thing Rachel knew, a telekinetic bolt smashed her, and the jarring impact hurled her towards the land below with a deadly speed. Marvel Girl grunted and twisted her body, altering telekinetically her fall. She dove downwards, skimmed over the ground and flew upwards. Using her fall's momentum to gain speed, she positioned behind the older psychic and her mind hurled an assassin bolt of sizzling energy.

Dark Phoenix actually staggered in midair. Yet she didn't fall down. Gradually the woman spun around. She glared at Rachel, and new rage swirled in her shadowed eyes.

Both women unleashed at once two swift telepathic blasts. Both attacks met midway in the air, entangled and cancelled at each other. Mother and daughter frowned. Slowly their bodies glowed with crimson brightness as they powered up their psionic powers.

They bolted wordlessly at each other.

Sky rumbled and ground cracked. Air quaked violently with the impact and mountains crumbled down. The overcast firmament flared with two fearsome raptors dueling passionately, parrying each hit, each thrust, each feint. Their power was awesome and terrific.

However as the battle progressed, Rachel realized she was losing. The fight was wearing her energies down whereas Dark Phoenix hardly displayed fatigue. She needed her full strength to even scratch her adversary's defenses whereas Phoenix's weaker blows strained dangerously her shields.

Rachel stifled a cry when a dazzling bolt shattered her telekinetic shield. As she dodged it banking sideways, an idea floated in her mind. It was crazy, but... She wiped the sweat droplets drenching her clammy forehead and readied herself.

Dark Phoenix cupped together her hands, psionic fire crackling and pouring from them, and unleashed a wide arc of power. If the attack connected, it would incinerate her enemy in all levels, physical and psychical. Rachel gulped, praying for her trick worked.

She lowered her shields fully. Cosmic flares bathed her; but instead of searing her flesh and scalding her bones, filtered into her, filling her with nearly infinite energy. A burning, powerful fire ripped apart her body, too fragile to bear that kind of power. Rachel moaned, and crossing her arms, released it abruptly.

A giant shockwave swept the sky and slammed brutally Dark Phoenix. Her mass plummeted dangerously fast downwards, but she slowed down her descent with her telekinesis, rotated her body airborne and landed on her feet. Her legs wobbled unsteadily, nonetheless. The blast had dazed her.

A yellow blur -Logan- tackled her to the ground, seizing firmly her wrists.

One second later he crashed headfirst into a rampart of rock. His body plopped down onto the tough ground, glowing with orange embers as his singed skin started regenerating.

Dark Phoenix rose and pinned a baleful glare at Wolverine. The mirth, the mischief and the temper glowed on those emerald pupils had faded, drowned for a seething, quivering ire. She powered up her telepathy to shatter his headblind mind like glass when a puzzling deja vu stopped her. A hazy image floated in her muddy mind, overlapping to the real scenery. Had she seen this earlier?

Cyclops shot a quick glance at his son.

"Now, Nathan!"

For a moment Cable stared regretfully, thoughtfully at his father. Scott was about of encouraging him when he felt fingers probing gently his mind, tugging him from his body and placing him in another.

Darkness. Utter, glorious, thick, pitch-black darkness.

Scott navigated around the mindscape, blind and deaf in that dim blackness. He couldn't see Jean in that intoxicating blackness. He couldn't see her in anywhere. Still he knew how finding his wife.

Tentatively, warily, he sought in his own mind for the long-time dormant link between Jean and him and struck one of the frayed, torn chords.

The whole expanse rumbled with a loud and terrible shout, a roar of unnatural rage slammed Scott.

"HOW DO YOU DARE?"

Scott kneeled down in excruciating hurt. Bright light melted the shadows and tall walls of fire -red and burning- sprouted from the floor, surrounding him. The flames grew and linked above him, shaping a vault.

The curtain of blazes parted. Standing in the gap, a shadow among shadows, was his wife.

"How do you dare to invade my mind, my sanctuary?" She hissed. Hate, fury and pain dripped from her voice and twisted her visage. "You are not welcome here."

Tendrils of blood-red flares coiled around his body menacingly, hissing like venomous vipers.

Scott rose slowly, feeling billows of heat oppressing him. He stared back, concealing and repressing his dread. "I came to talk."

"I won't listen."

"Then kill me... If you can."

Phoenix frowned suddenly. A vague vision gleamed on the flames, weakening her concentration. Taking advantage from her momentary hesitation and confusion, Scott focused.

The setting around them shifted.

Embers. Flames. Blazes. A memory.

Midnight. A lavish park. Air boiled with fire. Scott Summers and Jean Grey were facing at each other: He, stern like a rock and serene like water; she, fickle like wind and furious like fire.

"Have you come to fight? I hope so." She grinned malevolently.

"I came to talk." He stated casually.

"I won't listen."

"Then, kill me. I can't stop you. I won't even try. Be true to your malefic destiny, Phoenix- Kill me... if you can. But if you can't, then ask yourself why? You're Dark Phoenix...power incarnate...no force in existence can stand against you. The X-men have defied you...fought you...yet we live. Why?

Doubt crept in her mind for a moment. "You're not worth killing."

"That's one answer. But there's another. True you're Dark Phoenix, but you're also still Jean Grey. No matter how hard you try, you can't exorcise that part of yourself it's too fundamental. You can't kill us because you love us, and we you."

"Dark Phoenix knows nothing of love."

"Oh? For love of the X-men you sacrificed your life. For love of me you resurrected yourself. For love of the whole universe you almost died a second time to save it. Know nothing of love? Jean you are love! Your existence, your very creation springs from love. From the noblest emotions a human can attain. And now you want to deny that. Deny yourself?"

"Yes! No. I..." She gazed at him with despair "hunger, Scott...for joy. Rapture beyond all comprehension. That need it is a part of me, too. It... consumes me."

"It doesn't have to. Let me help..." He implored.

The figures on the vision glimmered and dissolved in bright fire.

Dark Phoenix stood still, mute, motionless.

More memories assaulted her mind. Confusing her. When her power had been unleashed, her former self had been incinerated in the blistering blazes. Her former life had lost meaning to her. But now...

A tide of forgotten feelings washed over her, puzzling her. An unbearable hotness spread in ripples within her chest. An emotion sped up her heartbeats and fluttered in her belly. Less crushing and burdensome than an ocean of thought, but infinitely warmer. More inward. More sensual.

She craved for it. She moved closer that man and touched gingerly his cheek. He looked back, trying changing his frightful reluctance in serene acceptance. With a reassuring look she softened her touch, dissolved his seamless mental shields and peered into.

A torrent from visions, flashes and glimpses of another life welled up and swirled around her. And every remembrance stirred a memory in her mind, like shards of a mirror reflecting the light. Her heart burnt and tears moistened her eyes. The emotion was so strong, she could drown in it.

So she did. She plunged in the liquid whirlwind of thought that circled her. Both of their minds entwined with each other, merging so fully neither of them seemed exist apart of the another.

Embers. Flames. Blazes.

Central Park. Two persons strolled along a silent and lonely path. Glittering moonlight and the soothing murmur of the trees stroked them.

"Never someone adopted me." He muttered, forcing himself to stripe his heart. "The orphanage was the only place I knew... until I ran away. Telling you all of this isn't easy, Jean... I... I love you! I loved you since the very moment I saw you!"

She smiled. With infinite happiness. "Me too, Scott. With all my heart."

And they kissed.

A glossy-black jet soaring across Atlantic Ocean. Scott Summers and Jean Grey, locked in passionate embrace in the cockpit, wishing the moment never ended.

"Jean, you're everything to me - as necessary as the air I breathe. I used to say, 'I love you' without truly understanding what I was talking about. I know now- a little, anyway. Jean, I love you."

New Mexico. Sunrays of dusk bathed a lonely butte. Two lovers snuggle at each other, basking in the afterglow of an intense lovemaking.

"It's weird having your psychokinetic talent hold back my optic blasts."

"I wanted to see your face...all of your face." She whispered, a beam warming her expression.

"Disappointed?"

"No. Scott I'd...like to establish a permanent rapport...a psychic bond...between us. Part of me in your head, part of you in mine. I know I'm asking a lot...total sharing, total intimacy, total... trust. I'll understand if you say no."

"I say yes." He answered. She touched his forehead, and his minds merged.

Midnight. Jean Grey lay collapsed on the ground, no longer doused in a firebird's flames. Scott Summers scooped her painstakingly in his arms, calling his name over and over. And thinking.

"She's so still. I'm not even sure if she's alive. I want her to live...but what if she's still Dark Phoenix? I'll love her just the same. For better, worse, richer, poorer, sickness, health, till death do us part."

Green eyes blinked tremulously. "Hi."

"H-Hi yourself."

"If I didn't know better I'd say those thoughts I just picked up sounded like a proposal." She latched his arms around his neck.

He lowered his head. "They did, didn't they? Well, what do you say Red?"

"I say yes!" They kissed at each other. Knowing all would be right as long as they were together.

Moon surface. Moondust carpeted the ruins of a barren citadel. Scott Summers was floating on the air, encased in a golden bubble of telekinesis. Jean Grey approached to him. Her face was pale, her expression tormented.

"I'm scared, Scott. I'm hanging on by my fingernails. I can feel the Phoenix within me, taking over. Part of me...welcomes it." She stared at him, shivering for the inconceivable guilt ravaging her. "You want me to fight? I have. I am...With all my strength. But I can't forget that I killed an entire world -five billion people- as casually, as unthinkingly, as you would crumble a piece of paper. I want no more deaths on my conscience. Your way, I'd have to stay completely in control of myself every second of every day for the rest of my immortal life. Maybe I could do it. But if I slipped, even for an instant, if I...failed...If even one more person died at my hands..."

Her voice broke, choked. She placed one hand on his face and her fingers brushed tenderly his cheek. "It's better this way. Quick. Clean. Final. I love you, Scott. A part of me will always be with you."

A blast glowed in the darkness and struck her, rendering her in charred, smoking ashes. He felt his heart dying.

Walls of sterile metal surrounded them everywhere. Scott Summers and Jean Grey sprinted along the maze of tunnels, fleeing from a madman accused them of sins they knew nothing about.

"If he's a powerful enough telekinetic to keep YOUR teke abilities at bay... What can we do to stop him?"

"Only one way to find out, man of mine."

"The hard way?"

"And if that's the only road to take, there's no one I'd rather have at my side."

More images of two lifetimes flashed. Her mind explored the rich tapestry, feeling awareness returning to her progressively. Her existence was wholly entangled with that man's, like if they were one.

Though there were foreign memories nestled in his brain. Memories had damaged him badly, awfully. Memories of a Devil.

Embers. Flames. Blazes. A memory.

Bright cobalt light flooded the atmosphere. Apocalypse stood in the center of the chamber, smug and confident, ready to thief the power of The Twelve and Nate Grey's body, an unholy rite would grant him absolute power over everything. Scott Summers and Jean Grey crawled over the littered floor, beaten but not vanquished. Summers stood up, offered a last love-filled glance to his wife and leapt between them.

"You've always held us in contempt, Apocalypse! We were your puppets, whose purpose was to serve your grand design. You cut yourself off from your own humanity so long ago... you forgot how truly powerful it makes us. You look pretty impressive trying to imprint yourself on the soul of a boy. Let's see how well you fare- against a man!"

Summers pushed X-Man aside, ruining the ascension, defeating Apocalypse, saving the world. But nobody saved him. Apocalypse still needed a host body. And he was right there.

His black soul, oozing evil and darkness poured into him.

Scott screamed as a massive tide, large as an ocean and pitch-black as midnight drowned his mind. Nur invaded his body, overwhelming his soul with laughing easiness, and Scott felt tiny, like a bug flattened under the weight of a mountain. Miasma spread everywhere, clawing his mind, smashing and slicing in thousand bleeding pieces his sanity, stabbing his brain with slimy tendrils and rooting in his psyche. Raping him, infecting him, breaking him.

Five thousand years of memories of bloodshed and war and death and destruction and evil crushed his mind and swayed his sanity. Visions of cities razed, countries burning, bodies -millions of them- rent and mangled, floating in pools of blood. They implanted deeply in his brain until he wasn't certain of which pieces belonged to him and which to Nur. They frightened him. He didn't want nobody saw it, saw what that evil had changed him into. He didn't want his wife saw it. He was now filthy, impure. He'd soil her.

However she saw now. She saw why he had become so distant, so aloof, so withdrawn. And then she saw what he had done with Emma.

Black rage corroded her.

Still she also saw something else. Something her severed psi-link hadn't been able to warn her about. Since the merge she hadn't visited Scott's mind, she hadn't explored the expanses of his skull, she hadn't studied the changes. She hadn't been able to know it until now.

Camouflaged among Nur's dregs, entwined along the tentacles of slippery scum, there were pale-golden threads of thought. Silky and thin, almost imperceptible.

Stealth suggestions filtered in Scott's mind and printed in his thoughts. Doubts and fears disguised amidst the hesitations and anxieties had created Apocalypse. They had changed, twisted, altered something in him. Nur's memories had driven him to turn his back on her, to refuse talk to her, to forget she could understand. But those manipulations had damaged his faith in himself, theirs love, theirs marriage, and ultimately had driven him to betray her.

And she knew who had done it.

That... filthy... fucking...

Black and thick like boiling tar was the hatred menaced with devouring her. But it couldn't extinguish the light flickered again into her. A light made of love, mercy, sorrow. Bottomless grief ached in her heart when she gazed at his wrecked mind.

He shouldn't suffer like that. He shouldn't be damaged by memories weren't his. He shouldn't feel guilty of events he wasn't responsible to start with. He shouldn't pay for someone else's sins. He shouldn't be tarnished for that blackness. That evil shouldn't dwell in him.

It was not fair.

It was so wrong. So utterly wrong. And no longer she would let it go on.

Her self exploded in ivory flares that dissolved the darkness to ashes.

She had rested in blessed darkness for what seemed forever, her sleep not disturbed. Occasionally, faces and visions would disquiet her dreams, and she stirred uneasily in the depths where she lay. Driven by restless curiosity, she drifted upwards, but each time she tried surfacing, dark feelings plunged in the morass. Rage. Sorrow. Loneliness. Hurt. Hate. Betrayal. Frightful emotions panicked her and sent her again to the bottom. She remained curled up in the abyss until a light gleaming on the surface called her.

She rose from the waters and spread her wings. Like she had always done. Like she would always do.

Jean Grey woke up gradually, feeling a deep drowsiness dulling her senses. Her body lay limply on a tough surface, numbed with a biting chill pervaded the air. An irritating ache throbbed in her temples and an intense fatigue and languor overwhelmed her. She felt groggy, like if she had slept for a long, long while.

Slowly she parted her eyelids. Dazzling sun and a gorgeous sky blue greeted her. Silvery clouds darkened it partially, shreds of a violent storm the wind unraveled peacefully.

Feeling whole for first time in a long while, she shifted to a kneeling position on the hot floor. Her eyes perused with weirdness -and fondness- her surroundings.

Her friends and family circled her. They offered a disastrous aspect: bedraggled, battered and bruised. Nevertheless they displayed expressions of relief and elation.

Jean glanced at her suit, bright emerald instead of dark crimson. Then she noticed the flame-haired woman hunkering down beside her, a woman she believed she'd never see alive again. Jean gasped, gawking at that face so similar to hers, except for those vibrating blue irises.

She shut her mouth and stared again at the X-Men, beaming tentatively.

"It seems that I just gave you a fine workout, doesn't it?"

"You can tell that again, darling." Logan chuckled, incapable of stifling the cheerfulness returning to him.

"It doesn't even begin to describe it properly, Red." Hank muttered.

Ororo squatted beside Jean and clasped firmly her hand around her fingers. "I'm very happy of seeing you alive again, dear sister. So, so happy." Wetness glistened on Ororo's eyes, filled with tears of emotion. In those green pupils she had found again her best friend.

Jean released her hand and brushed gently the tears off her face. "We have plentiful time to catch up, Ro." Her lips split in a perky smile and her eyes shifted to the other girl, her daughter in another time. "Rachel. I have around one million of questions to you, but they can wait for now."

She rose from the ground and glanced at her stepson. A motionless figure hung limply in his arms. Jean walked at him, placing one hand on his shoulder as she gazed at his face with adoration.

She smiled. The link, the threads binding together her two souls, was woven again. A hollow void in the half of her brain, the thought space where her husband used to live before Apocalypse, was again filled. And she knew as long as they were together, they could fight anything.

She remembered she needed look after a certain matter.

Revenge gleaming darkly on her eyes, she sat up and looked around for Emma, ready to quench her fury.

But the White Queen was in nowhere to be found.

Notes: The chapter title is a reference to UXM 105, and several lines and some scenes are intentionally taken from Dark Phoenix Saga. It's my way to pay homage to my favorite X-story.

Polaris threw Krakoa -a mutant island- out of the planet in Giant Size X-Men 1. Powered up by Storm, Cyclops and Kaos, she nullified the gravity beneath the island. I think Lorna deserves more credit than she usually gets.

The scenes in Jean's mind are borrowed from: UXM 136; UXM 138; UXM 129; UXM 133; UXM 136; UXM 137; X-Force 17; and finally, XM 97.

If some Emma's fan is disgusted, all I can tell him/her is: wait for next chapters. Yes, she was manipulating Scott in my story, but I haven't said she acted of her own volition. I assure she'll look better at the end. Still I NEEDED exonerate Scott not matter what. I SHAN'T have one of my favorite Marvel characters being an adulterous cheater. I want his responsibility in that crap erased and he and Jean are happily together again.

Besides, I think my theory is rather solid to be official anyway. If Scott was so withdrawn he couldn't rely on his own wife -and he always trusted her-, why would he open to a woman was a former enemy and he barely knows or respects? Needless to say he always took responsibility for his actions and blamed himself when something went wrong; but Morrison's Scott didn't show any guilt and ran off instead of facing what he had done. That wasn't like him at all, and Apocalypse isn't a valid excuse when you hear what Morrison thought of the character. And -surprise, surprise- when he was away Emma, he settled on Jean.

To be continued...