Chapter 12

"Promise me something," Jean spoke to Logan as they faced each other at the bottom of the Blackbird's ramp.

"Now?"

"Yes," she affirmed, resting her hands on his shoulders as if trying to steady herself against the coming battle. "If we get out of here safely, if we both make it out alive, we get married."

"Married?"

"Yes. The white dress, the huge reception, the girls as flower girls… the whole thing."

Logan's arms wrapped tightly around her waist and pulled her to him, aligning her body along his and kissing her temple delicately.

"Is that a yes?"

"Yes." Logan felt the relief rushing through Jean in the way her body relaxed against his. He walked his mind back over the situation and chuckled.

"What?" Jean asked, confused as to what he found so funny while they were about to walk into, arguably, the hardest battle of their lives.

"You just proposed to me under the Blackbird, on a mission to rescue our daughter," he told her frankly.

Jean's face screwed up in annoyance before she too, understood the humour in the situation. Then she started to chuckle. "I'm sorry, did you want the flowers and candlelight?" she quipped.

"No, but I wanted you to have them."

"What?"

"The ring is back at the mansion, in my top drawer and has been since Brazil."

"You haven't said anything!"

"I haven't had the chance to plan anything or check with Michele and Jane first."

"We're not checking with them now," Jean pointed out.

"I think they'll be ecstatic," Logan responded, lightly kissing her lips.

"Guys," Ororo called. "This is it."

Logan pulled Jean into a rough kiss, plundering her mouth while she simply surrendered. "I love you," he whispered, taking the few seconds they had before boarding the plane to remind her. "Don't ever forget that."

She smiled slightly. "I won't," she promised. "And I love you too."

It wasn't long before they were landing outside of the concrete buildings that had once held a government testing facility. It was interesting for Jean to feel the passion coming off of all of them, the rage, the horror and the dedication. Michele and Marie were their comrades, their family. They were important.

"We all remember the plan, right?" Ororo asked unnecessarily, looking into the seats behind her. "No one's going off to play hero."

Logan rolled his eyes when they met her pointed stare. "Just leave Golden Boy to me and we'll all be happy."

"Remy is going to go in and get Marie and Michele. You guys trust that Marie will bring Michele out alright?" Ororo asked, regardless of the fact that they'd been through all of this before. It had taken some convincing to get Jean to agree but eventually she'd come around.

"I'll be locked onto Michele as soon as I can find her," Jean replied, allowing some of Phoenix to slowly bleed into her consciousness. This would be the first time she allowed Phoenix almost completely free and she was sure it would feel absolutely liberating.

"Hank will be here when Michele and Marie get on the plane and he'll make sure to take a look at both of them and make sure they're both okay," Ororo continued. "Everybody ready?"

The group gave affirmative nods, each one of them going through their own mental checklist and mental peptalk pre-fight. Many of them wondered if this would be it, if this would be the battle to decide which side mutants would be on in the near future. They all realized there was so much more at stake.

After a few minutes of silence, Jean met Ororo's gaze, flicking between hers and Logan's. "Let's do this," she almost growled, eyes flashing dangerously.

Logan pulled Jean aside as the others climbed on the plane. "If you're going to keep track of me, don't let it distract you."

She almost smiled. He knew her way too well if he was already aware she would be keeping mental tabs on his safety. She revelled in the power floating through her system for a few seconds, securing his mental imprint into her subconscious. "It won't," she promised.

He nodded shortly. "Good." Then climbed on the plane.

The area looked quiet when the landed, as if the place was deserted and lifeless. However, Jean and Logan could both sense and smell and hear people, mutants. His senses were screaming, things becoming clearer, the smell of battle, the smell of fear, the smell of his mate just off to his left… he took a moment to revel in it.

"Let's go."

It didn't take long for them to invade the surrounding buildings, nor did it take long for them to find the largest group, the meeting where Magneto was outlining all that would happen when they ruled the world. He heard Jean chuckling darkly beside him and rewarded her with a feral grin, seeing the wildness in her black eyes.

By this time, Magneto had stopped speaking, focusing on the new intruders. Soon the entire room had shifted to face them, eyes narrowing, adrenaline starting to rush through mutant systems. Logan's smile widened as he took them all in.

"Scooter's mine."

Then it began.

It didn't take Logan long to lock on to Cyclops' scent, simply because the scent of stark fear clung so fiercely to the odour. Scott had fought with the X-men and, theoretically, knew their strengths and weaknesses, but he'd never attacked one of them before. Scott Summers had never experienced the overprotective X-men, especially a team so in love with those they were rescuing.

Scott had made one fatal mistake that Logan had a feeling he'd made before. He'd underestimated the bond of those fighting under Xavier and how deeply the twins and Logan and entrenched themselves in that bond. In Logan's opinion, it had been Scott's arrogance that led him to believe he could play on their forgiving natures in order to get what he wanted.

Instead, Scott triggered a reaction he was going to regret initiating. He was about to experience the X-men fighting for their own, not defending the non-mutants, but fighting to rescue something they held dear: each other.

Logan, watch your back, his redhead warned from somewhere behind him. Logan mentally blanched. He'd been so focused on Summers he hadn't been paying enough attention to everything around him. That included those that had the guts to attack him from behind.

It was a simple swipe backwards that had his enemy keening to their death and the Wolverine took pleasure in the kill. Logan allowed it to take him over even further, arousing his baser instincts as he threw himself into battle.

Jean had just as quickly locked onto Scott's mental signature but shrugged it off, looking instead for his companion: Emma Frost. The idea that the woman had preyed on her family, had the guts to waltz into the mansion, pretending to be her replacement in Scott's affections to rip apart Jean's family turned the redhead's stomach.

She felt the power rippling through her muscles as she walked, creating a path without thinking and through fear. Magneto's pawns made way for her in wondering terror, watching and avoiding an attack from her. Jean's mind was already a part of every person there, already seeping in, prepared to destroy if need be.

She sensed Logan to her right, battling his way through more courageous mutants that had the guts to attack him as the Wolverine, the same way she simply swept aside those attempting to take her on. The Phoenix and the Wolverine were on a mission, and nothing was going to get in their way. Period.

Jean's mind slipped from person to person, sometimes inflicting unseen damage, sometimes simply passing through them in her venture to the end, to Emma Frost, Magneto and the man she'd once called the love of her life. It felt good to let Phoenix take control, felt good to let it snuff out so many lives in her quest for one.

For the first time she was experiencing exactly what Logan did when Wolverine took over in battle. There was a thrill behind the killing, a surge in her blood as her enemy took their last breath that she both loved and resented. The small part of her that was still Jean shook at exactly what she was doing.

Killing ruthlessly.

This moment would haunt Jean Grey for the rest of her life, but Phoenix enjoyed control immensely, especially after being locked up for so long. The simple act of taking a life thrilled Phoenix and the Jean part had to wonder if maybe Jean liked it too. Each was a part of the other, Phoenix and Jean, Jean and Phoenix. If Phoenix liked killing, then a part of Jean liked killing too.

Phoenix pushed the rational mind to the very back, focusing on the rage, protectiveness and possessiveness that rocketed through her system. These people had not only taken her child, but imprisoned her love and tried to cage her. They were going to learn, and fast, that there was now no way to keep the Phoenix a caged bird.

Wolverine and Phoenix met at the head of the crowd, a trail of dead behind them and awed living surrounding them. At the front stood Magneto with his closest mutants, Juggernaut, Pyro, Cyclops, Emma Frost, and his second in command, Mystique. This was what they'd been waiting for.

This would be the epic battle.

It was disgusting at how clichéd this moment was. Here they were, the top end of the good guys and the bad guys about to face off in a battle that would undoubtedly leave one side injured severely, and one side dead completely.

Ororo Munroe watched as a third party observer, her part of the battle simply to keep the pawns occupied to allow the best to battle it out. She also understood Jean and Logan's need to finish this for themselves. These were the people that attempted to use their family against their friends and the overprotective, possessive and loving pair couldn't stand that.

It surprised her to look at this as the battle to end all, the one that would decide which side would be spending years recovering and allowing the other to dominate the world and notice that Charles Xavier would not be directly involved. Charles and Magneto had been partners, friends and here the X-men were, about to face off against the latter, without the direct support of the one person who knew Magneto better than the rest.

Xavier had done his part thought, she realized watching Jean and Logan. He'd instilled in each of them love, devotion and honour, morals, values and tolerance that had them fighting as they were today. There was no competition in the X-men. Each knew their place and each knew the other strengths and weaknesses. No one fought against one another for the 'coveted seat'. There was no right-hand person in Xavier's warriors that wasn't a mutually made decision.

Ororo saw the first attack, a physical one from Juggernaut, and knew the final battle had begun. She watched Iceman jump into the fray to take on Pyro, a fight that was as much a cock-fight as it was a battle for world domination and grimaced.

She only hoped Jean and Logan would be able to give their side the advantage.

The Wolverine was disappointed that his number one foe was not around to battle with, but Sabretooth missed the epic battle in his drowning death at the Statue of Liberty. Instead, Wolverine had to content himself with new foes, ones like Juggernaut that could hold a candle to Wolverine in most arenas. Still, it was no Sabretooth and all too easy to bowl the large man over to focus on someone else.

Mystique.

Now there was a challenge, Wolverine realized as the blue woman attacked, kicking at his chest and knocking him backwards. He snarled as he charged her, spinning quickly when she flipped over to evade his attack and jabbing forward with his claws. He'd stuck her once and thought he'd killed her, but he hadn't been that lucky.

This time, she wouldn't be that lucky.

Phoenix hadn't bothered to start off small and aimed her first attack at the woman responsible for her daughter's presence at the battle at all. There was no fear on Emma Frost's face, just as there was simple calm on Phoenix's.

"Being replaced is difficult, isn't it Jean?" the woman taunted. "Finding out that your fiancée is not only terrified of you but switched sides because of you?"

Jean winced at the words, the hurt stinging slightly in the back of Phoenix's mind. However, that didn't affect Phoenix in the slightest. There was a difference between the killing machine that inhabited the body of Jean Grey and Jean Grey herself and Emma was about to learn the ruthless difference.

"Its hard to always play second banana, isn't it? You know he'll never hold you in the same esteem he did Jean. You'll always be the replacement, always be the second," Phoenix taunted in reply, twisting Emma's arm painfully without laying a finger on her body. Phoenix intended to make this bitch pay for the trauma she'd put her family through and Emma Frost was going to… slowly and painfully.

Mystique lay unconscious in the foray of watchers, a testament to Wolverine's skill and temper. The vacant eyes focused on the brown-haired man left, completely ignoring the mastermind behind it all and focusing completely on the traitor in front of him.

It didn't take a rocket scientist to know that this battle was the one everyone was looking for. Those that knew the two men knew of their long rivalry, a rivalry that started over a woman and would now end in the bloody battle both had craved from day one.

"Come on you coward," Wolverine growled at his foe. "Fight me like man."

"That would have to mean you were a man too," Cyclops shot back scathingly. "Quite obviously, you aren't."

Wolverine grinned cruelly. "It kills you that she picked me. It kills you that she picked the 'animal' over the 'human', doesn't it, One-Eye. She picked the bad boy over the Golden Boy and you hate that." It wasn't usually like Wolverine to use words, preferring the more direct approach to battle, but in this instance, it seemed fitting.

"It kills you that I had her first," Cyclops shot back easily.

"She's mine now," Wolverine countered. "That's what matters to you."

"I've moved on," Cyclops replied, making the first attack and missing. "I have someone else."

"Second best," Wolverine growled, attacking and managing to knick his opponent's arm. Then the talking ceased in favour of true battle.