In The Heat

An X-men: Evolution fanfic by Lavender Gaia

Editing by NO ONE! This is a non-beta'ed chapter. See the A/Ns for details.

Assistance by Laine

Chapter Ten: Prophecy

Disclaimer: I do not own X-men Evolution, any of its characters or Rachel Summers. They are all property of Marvel.

Dedicated to strayphoenix for being the sweetest fan in the history of the world. I love you!


When Jean awoke, the first thing she realized was that she wasn't in the Danger Room. She was on a soft something covered with a warm blanket and through her squinting eyes she saw a ceiling covered with fluorescent lights. To her left were voices, apparently discussing a critical matter by their tones.

"Do we know what happened yet?" Mr. McCoy asked.

"You know as much as I do, Hank," the Professor sighed. "I've been trying to keep the kids away and find out if anyone was in the general area during the time of the accident."

"I'm still not sure this was an accident, Charles. If my estimation is correct, we've never seen power like this before." Beast's voice was low and grave.

"Not even Apocalypse?"

"It's hard to say." It was Hank's turn to sigh. "We certainly never got to test him out and chart his abilities with our files. Whether or not we know all of what he can do is up to speculation. But what we've seen here today, well…it's impressive to say the least. The only machine that wasn't destroyed was the recorder of total energy. I tinkered a little bit and got a print out."

Jean assumed that he handed it to her professor when she heard his cry of, "Dear Lord!"

"I said, 'Oh my stars and garters,'" Beast entrusted, "But yes, the same general concept came over my mind."

"These readings show that whatever was in there was more powerful than Jean and Magnus's powers put together! Or at least the last bit we have from both of them. She's certainly grown some since then, it was two years ago, but I can't think that either of them could accomplish this," he mused and there was a hint of fear in his voice. "I do wonder what they were focusing on though…"

"What do you mean, Charles?"

"This couldn't have just been a release of energy. It must have been channeled through or at something. Otherwise, instead of the Danger Room being unusable, this would have made Mystique's Defcon 4 attack look like a pile of knocked over Lincoln Logs." He set the paper down on a nearby monitor and leaned back in his wheelchair. "There's the possibility of whatever it was taking out not only the mansion, but everything in a mile radius."

Jean coughed; as much as this conversation was extremely interesting, her throat was painfully dry. The two men looked over at her. "Oh, good, you're awake, Jean," Mr. McCoy let out a breath of relief. "Are you alright?"

She groaned gently, lips and mouth too parched to answer. "She needs some water, Hank," Xavier said as he held the cup of water to her lips and helped her drink. Jean wasn't sure if she had told him or if he had read it herself, but she grunted her thanks and drained the plastic cup.

"I'm fine," she told the men, though her aching body protested the lie. Nothing was broken, but she was sore all over and her head throbbed when she tried to sit up. "What happened?"

"Our immediate guess was that something attacked the Danger Room, along with you inside it. Obviously you weren't their main target or you'd probably be in worse shape right now," Beast explained. "Do you remember anyone in there with you?"

She shook her head, wincing from the pain of the motion. "What do you remember?" Xavier asked gently.

"I remember…explosions. And smoke. It's kind of fuzzy," Jean admitted, biting her bottom lip sheepishly.

"That's to be expected, you have a slight head injury." Beast went to go get her some aspirin as Xavier stroked her hair affectionately. "We want to keep you here overnight just to keep an eye on you."

Jean nodded. "That's fine."

"I'm going to go see what's keeping Hank," he told her a few minutes later when he still hadn't returned. From her bed, Jean could hear someone arguing, then Mr. McCoy's sigh of defeat. The next thing she knew, a large animal was climbing on the bed and it wasn't even Wolverine.

"Hey, Sarina," she scratched the dog behind the ears and realized that the dog wasn't her only guest.

Scott kissed her on the top of the head. "Hey, sweetie."

Rachel sat on the edge of the hospital bed and grabbed her mother's arm. "Are you ok?" There was an intense look of worry on her face; while Scott just seemed concerned, this was on an entirely different level.

"I'm fine, Rach," her other arm reached up to stroke the other redhead. Rachel's stoic face relaxed a bit, but her green eyes displayed a hint of fear that somehow Jean felt only a mother would recognize. "Just a couple of bumps."

"I still can't believe we let a dog in here," Beast grumbled, but stroked Sarina's head anyway.

"She's the one who found her, Mr. McCoy," Rachel protested. Jean looked at her quizzically and her daughter explained, "Sarina kept barking and trying to lead us there, but we didn't listen until the explosions. And she helped pull you out of the rubble."

"She tried to," Scott put in. "Logan growled at her and she hid behind Kitty."

Jean laughed and stroked the dog's floppy ear. "Well, thank you, Sarina."

"Here's some Tylenol P.M., Jean. The professor and I think you should get some more sleep, but don't think something's wrong if we wake you up a few times a night," Mr. McCoy explained as he handed the pills to her with a glass of water. "You did have a head injury and we have to make sure you're not slipping into a coma. Because that would be bad."

She nodded. "Right. So I guess I should say goodnight then." Jean kissed Rachel's forehead just as Scott kissed hers. "Good night, you two."

"Night, Jean!" they chorused as she swallowed the gel caps. Sarina whimpered, then hesitantly followed her mistress out of the room.

In a few minutes, Jean fell asleep, visions of flames dancing behind her eyes.


A few days later, a few of the mutants were settled in the rec room. Rogue was curled up on one of the large, cushy arm chairs with a book. Bobby and Amara were using the unsupervised time to prove that they were definitely going out as they made out on the couch. Jean was on the floor in front of the television, playing a video game. This was a rare occurrence for the girls of the Institute, but since the boys were off doing something else, she'd claimed it.

After hearing yet another scream of pain, Bobby looked up from his beautiful girlfriend. "Jean, what are you playing?"

"An old game I found in the back of the cabinet," she nodded to the box on the table.

Ice Man picked it up, then gave her a look. "Genocide, Much?? You said you hated this game when I used to play it!"

"Well, maybe I never gave it a chance," Jean defended herself as there was another agonizing scream an large explosion as the orange planet on screen blew up.

"Whatever," He shrugged. "What level are you on, anyway?"

"Fifty-five."

"Fifty-five! Fifty-five!" Much to Amara's dismay, Bobby jumped off the couch and crouched in front of the TV, checking the level at the top right-hand corner of the screen. "Oh. My. God. You're on level fifty-five. How on Earth did you get so far?"

Amara sat up and glared at the back of his head. "What's the big deal?"

"Hardly anyone passes level thirty!" Bobby explained, eyes still bugging out in disbelief. "You have to do some of the most depraved things ever. This is only a concept game; the Professor got it from the company so Wolverine could kill people in the game and doesn't have to take out his anger on the students. It never even went to stores because they would have to make the rating so high no one would be able to buy it. The Wolverine can't get past thirty. Did you use cheat codes or something?"

"No," she answered as another person was beheaded.

"But…how…I…you have to be the devil to play this game! I only got to level six before I got sick!"

"Leave her alone," Rogue told him. Apparently, she'd be listening. "Everyone has their little sadistic tendencies."

"Some more than others," Bobby glared at her momentarily. "But seriously, they say Hitler wouldn't be able to play level ten!"

Jean narrowed her eyes at him. "Listen, Ice Man. I'm still your teacher and we have classes tomorrow. If you don't stop calling me Hitler, I'm going to use you as my Guinea pig when we do non-powered self-defense!"

This shut him up. He sat back on the couch and put an arm around Amara, who leaned against him again. But Jean didn't want to play anymore. She leaned over and shut the system down, returning the controller before standing up and stretching out her limbs.

Luckily, at that moment Rachel and Scott were seeking her. "We're going to take the dog for a nice long walk," her boyfriend explained. "Do you want to come with us? If you're feeling up to it."

"That sounds great." She looked down at her pajamas. "Let me just change, ok?"

Rachel nodded. "Take your time. We, uh, kinda have to find the dog."

She chuckled. "Ok, I'll be down in five." Jean jogged up the stairs and into her room. All of a sudden, she felt a little disoriented. It was as if the world had fallen out beneath her and she tugged it back under her feet. The room shook around her.

When she'd finally stabilized herself, everything seemed to have shifted a foot to the left. "Whoops…" Jean decided she'd just move it all back later. Instead, she decided to open the closet and pull out a shirt to wear. But, unfortunately, it didn't just open. It flew off its hinges and landed by her feet.

Jean held back a scream, desperate to calm her heart down. "I just used too much power. That's it. It's ok." Deciding that her TK currently wasn't at her disposal, she picked up the door and leaned it against the wall next to her half open closet.

There was a knock on her bedroom door. "It's Rachel!"

She didn't really care if Rachel saw her change; it was her daughter after all. It's basically a mix of her and Scott's body. A brief image of his muscular form with a few of her certain feminine traits flashed through her head, but she shook it away. "Come on in."

The smaller redhead slid inside and quickly closed the door behind her. "Whoa, what happened to your closet?"

"Door just fell off," she shrugged, not wanting to explain about her malfunctioning powers. "It was pretty old." Jean looked through her closet, trying to imagine what she wanted to wear on the walk when Rachel gasped excitedly. "What? What's wrong?"

"Why didn't you tell me you knew how to rearrange molecules?" she asked, staring enviously.

"What?" Jean repeated, then stared down at her clothes. She was wearing something completely different. "I…I just…I didn't…"

Rachel sighed wistfully. "Mom always did that. She loved playing pranks on Dad. I never really got it yet."

"I didn't do it on purpose!" she finally spat out.

"Huh?" Rachel blinked. "You can't do this on accident. That's like saying that you accidentally did a quadruple flip in midair."

Jean bit her bottom lip. "I really didn't mean to. I just…"

"Whatever," Rachel rolled her eyes. "Stop trying to be modest, it doesn't suit you." She stuck her tongue out at her mother, then dragged her back out into the hallway. "Let's go!"

They went downstairs and slipped on their sneakers that were by the front door. Scott had been waiting and slipped the leash on to Sarina's collar. The trio decided to take the scenic route, though no one talked for a few minutes.

Jean searched her mind for any current news that she hadn't told them. "Oh, by the way, I came up with a codename," she said. Though originally she'd planned to tell her whole team at once, but these two were more of her family than anyone back in Connecticut.

"Really?" Scott looked over at her, interested in this. "What is it?"

"Phoenix."

"That's nice," Scott nodded. "Cyclops and Phoenix…sounds like a mythological comic book."

Everyone but Rachel chuckled. "Where'd you get it from? I mean, that's sort of random, don't you think?"

"Actually, it's from a bedtime story my dad used to tell me," Jean explained. "I think I originally heard it when my sister Sara had a family tree assignment. Our family is pretty boring, so he made something up."

"Can I hear?" Rachel requested. "I mean, even if it is just a story, it's my family too."

Jean thought it over. "Sure, give me a second to remember." A few minutes later, she said, "Well, the Grey family originated in Ireland."

"Big surprise," Scott snorted, fooling with his girls' hair.

She smacked his arm playfully. "Anyway, the matriarch of our family was Aideen Grey. She'd married Nathan Grey and the two had four boys and one girl. Of course, this was nothing too special, except that she was known in her town to be a healer. It was always in private and even after they were healed, no one could quite understand how it happened. All they would remember was a fiery heat and they were fine.

"Eventually, people from all over came to seek her help. And they called her the Phoenix Woman, because the way she could pull someone back from the edge of death and gave them a new life was like a Phoenix beginning a new."

"That's a nice story," Scott told her.

"I'm not done yet!" Jean grinned. "Anyway, Aideen wasn't just a healer. She was also sort of an activist. She took it upon herself to try and rid her patients and friends of a corrupt government. But she was caught, and despite the protest of the citizens, was put to death. Unfortunately for them, they decided that she was also a witch and should burn to death."

"She promised all of her friends that she would return someday and set everything right again; Aideen felt that it was her responsibility to help the world with her power. And as the flames roared around her, she recited:

Fear not, everyone,
I shall try not to stray.
Please trust me when I promise,
I'll return some day.

My descendents shall come,
And avenge this horrid deed.
I shall consume the fire of my heir,
To once more help those in need.

They can not presume to break me,
To rip me from my core
With it I shall rise from the ashes,
Better and brighter than ever before.
"

Jean smiled lightly. "Needless to say, when I turned that in for my family history project, I got an A."

Scott wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "It was a great story."

"What makes you guys think it's just a story?" Rachel asked quickly. "I mean, there's a good chance it could be real."

Her parents gave her a look. "C'mon, Rach, it's just something my dad told me."

"I've never known the grandpa from my world as one to lie; maybe it's different here." Rachel called Sarina back from where she was chasing a squirrel. "Maybe she was a mutant. I heard about Apocalypse. If there were mutants that far back, there's just enough of a chance that there could be one in Aideen Grey's time. She might have had healing powers, maybe even TK and telepathy like us!"

Jean put a hand on Rachel's arm and was suddenly surrounded by fire and smoke and cries of some sort. When she took her hand away, it was gone. "Maybe, Rach. Maybe."


A/N: This is more of an explanatory chapter than anything else and I wanted to get this out before school starts, which is in less than 12 hours. That's why it's not beta'd or anything, just set out how I wrote it. I'll probably go back and replace it with a fixed chapter later, but enjoy this for now.

This is probably insanely different from the comic origin of how she got her powers, but

Questions, comments, reactions and reviews are greatly appreciated.


Review Responses:

Carby6: I'm so glad you like it. Thanks for reading.

DOJ: Well, basically my theory is that Magneto is pissed at Kurt because he had to deal with a pregnant Mystique. I can just hear him while operating on our fuzzy dude, "You know, she made me go out at three in the morning to get her Reese's ice cream and dill pickles! Do you know how far away the nearest 7-11 is from our castle? REALLY FUCKING FAR!"

Wen1: Here is the origin for her codename. You'll be getting more information about the SUV and the crash soon.

Amazing Redd Phoenix: I have a suspicious feeling that everyone in the world lives in either Florida or Michigan, they just don't know it. And I disagree about the original Phoenix. She destroyed one planet and Scott and Jean weren't married yet, so she couldn't exactly destroy their marriage. That trophy goes to one bitch slut Emma Frost.

Jenskott: Mine version is going to be different from the original in a lot of ways, though I'm trying my best to stay close to the original. Here's a bit more about the Danger Room trashing, I'll be showing more in the next chapter. I really love writing the Rachel scenes; I miss the in character ones like in the Excalibur comics. The ones where she likes Emma are just…well, bad. Let's leave it at that.

Slickboy444: Here's some more about the Phoenix. I have a ton to tell about Rachel, but it really isn't the right time yet. I hope you stick around for it. I'm so happy you enjoy my Bobby/Amara.

Strayphoenix:hands over a pack of Entenmann's chocolate chip: Yay, you got it right! I'm very happy you're enjoying the fic so much. I love doing a great job for everyone, though I'm not sure this chapter is really up to par.

Rogue14: The fact that everyone likes Bobby/Amara is so great. I love writing them. Here's the story about the codename. Hope you enjoy it.

Callisto: Oh, I don't think you're weird. I'm thrilled that you enjoy this so much. I love the dog too. Probably because she's based on mine. I hope you like this new chapter.

Jacx: Thank you!

Diaz F: The reason for the name Phoenix is explained here. I'm happy that you like Bobby/Amara. Thanks for reviewing.

Sweetmidnight: That makes me so happy. I hope you like this new chapter as well!