"You were all ridiculous." Emma Frost pointed out. Her arms were folded to express her disappointment at the recovering mutants of the school. "Attempting to combat the Void head-on? I thought you lot were all about the power of love and friendship. Wits and words, you illiterate imbeciles. Not all power comes from the mutant gene."
"Fat lot your words did, Frost." Kitty Pryde fired back. Her head pounded and Emma's nonsense was hammering her harder. "Besides, I seem to recall you charging in as well."
"He's gone." Rachel interjected as she landed between the two bickering women. "My dad-"
"The Void." Emma swiftly corrected.
Rachel shot a glance at the blonde telepath, who returned her incredulous look by raising an amused brow. Clearing her throat, Rachel continued, "The Void. It's gone. I can't sense him."
"It." Emma sing-songed, drawing amusement from the glares she received. "Ladies, get it through your thick skulls. That wasn't Scott—it was the Void commandeering Scott's body."
"Whatever it is doesn't matter." Old Man Logan gruffly pointed out. The old timer looked far worse than a man with a healing factor should look. He was seated on the ground, legs crossed, as Ororo Munroe's unconscious head rested on his lap. "What matters is where it went. And how we can end it."
"So eager to kill, Logan?" Erik Lensherr spoke up from where he remained hovering above them—standing guard over the chanting Magik, who was attempting to locate their prey through the mystic arts.
Below him, the awakened but still injured Psylocke glared hard at the Master of Magnetism. He remained nonplussed. Erik chuckled. "I suppose nothing really changes."
"That thing nearly killed all of us. And now it's gone." Logan leveled his gaze at the gathered crowd. "I don't think we're lucky enough that that thing is simply smelling daisies right now."
Murmurs of agreement coming from the school-based mutants followed the Old Man's statement.
"Hello? Am I the only one wondering why Emma Frost is here?" The time-displaced Tyke pointed out. "There's something strange about the fact that she's here."
"Run along now, little one." Emma shooed him. "The grown-ups are talking."
"She's plotting something." Tyke exclaimed and pointed an accusing finger at her. "And she's distracting us from that fact!"
Rachel's head suddenly snapped to the side. "Uncle? Where are you going?"
Alex Summers glanced behind him, suddenly realizing that his quiet escape was botched by his niece. With an annoyed glare, the blond mutant gruffly answered, "Where else?"
"And how do you plan to locate him?" Emma asked, her tone far more civil than when she spoke with the other mutants.
Alex shrugged before pointing at something in the sky. "By commandeering that."
Everyone followed his finger to a very familiar plane that was rapidly approaching. Collectively, they all sighed as they realized the cavalry was, as usual, late.
The Avengers were coming.
-0-0-0-
Jeen could feel it.
For several weeks now, she dreamed of fire. Every night, she could feel the fires caress her skin; could hear the fire cackled and caw, calling for her.
The Phoenix was coming.
What she did not expect was that something else came first.
As the gathered mutants and Avengers bickered amongst themselves on the next course of action, she turned towards her teammate.
"You holding up alright?"
Scott—her Scott—craned his head up at her. "Yeah." He looked like hell to her. If everyone else were to be believed, then he really did go through hell fighting that… beast. "Did they finally stop bickering?"
Jeen turned to the adults. They all seemed to be confused about the presence of Emma and Magneto, more so about the former. The White Queen, for her part, was leaning against a broken pillar, eyes closed. She looked a mix of boredom and irritation as she rubbed her temples with one hand.
"I think it'll be a while longer."
"We're wasting time here." Scott pointed out. His tone was sharp and ready, and Jeen's heart thundered with worry.
He was eager to return to battle.
"Can you feel it?" She probed, taking the seat next to him and placing a hand on his shoulder.
Scott shook his head. "It wasn't looking for me."
Jeen frowned. He was very tense.
"Scott…" She started, trying to find the correct words to tell him, when she noticed somebody approach them.
"Break time is over, kids." Illyana Rasputin announced with a wild grin. "Emma found them. It's time to go."
Scott stood up before Jeen could protest.
-0-0-0-
"You really are at fault, you know." The pale mutant remarked seconds before he was severed in half.
Sinister had briefly considered fleeing to fight another day. However, given how quickly the Void Beast had tracked him, he knew this was going to be his last stand.
And in all honesty? Things were going according to plan.
He and his other bodies charged at the abomination, only to be dealt with a swift end.
The beast growled again as more came.
"You just had to grow, didn't you? Our fun and games have finally ended." Sinister chided as legions of Marauders charged. "Do you recall how this all started, Scott? It was a little over a century, in London, when we first met, didn't we?"
Tendrils tore through the clones. Blood and gore spilled over the large underground bunker, but Sinister paid it no mind.
A sad smile curled on his lips as he reminisced.
"You and Jean were lost. I was lost, too." He murmured. The beast turned in his direction and he caught a glimpse of red hair. "I supposed it is fitting that this is where we end. Just us three again."
The world once more turned into white as he detonated all of his nuclear generators. All one billion megatons ergs of it.
And it still was not enough.
The Void Beast howled and swallowed the energy of the sun.
It glared at the last of its hated one.
"No words at all?" Sinister asked, saddened. "This is why I dislike transcendents. It's all roars and growls without a single ounce of wit."
He looked around at the destruction—or lack thereof as the beast consumed everything.
There was a twinge on his chest that his hand could not heal.
Was this what it was like to finally feel?
"Well, old chap. This is the end. You've grown—and will continue to grow beyond what you are now. Just remember—it was I that set you down this path, just as you did me. It was I that orchestrated your perfection. It is I that is your true patriarch."
Not that irresponsible space pirate.
Not that anachronistic telepath.
And not that megalomaniac Jew.
Nathaniel Essex stared into the red orbs of the abyss and smiled.
"Give my regards to the wife. Tell her that death was never a good look on her."
Dark tendrils stabbed through him.
The first pierced through his chest.
Then his heart.
Then his eye.
Then his leg.
More and more, they stabbed.
And as nothingness approached, he felt it.
A tug.
It extinguished his soul.
The Void Beast howled its supremacy.
And its growing hunger.
Bright blue disks opened around it as more fresh souls offered themselves to it.
-0-0-0-
It was like a prison.
He rattled and railed against the metal bars but none would answer. His body—its body moved against his will.
His shouts and his pleas were drowned.
Drowned by the darkness and its red eyes.
He watched, helplessly, as familiar figures were violently struck.
The blonde—she was precious, too—was trying to touch his mind.
He wanted so desperately to reach out to her.
But it growled, and its tendrils sought out to strangle her diamond form.
Stop.
He needed to stop.
Why wouldn't it stop?
He wept.
Why was this happening?
Why couldn't it let him rest?
He redoubled his efforts to form—form?
What was he creating again?
His consciousness swam in a haze.
He felt her mind touch his.
It growled angrily.
By pure chance, its gaze lowered, catching the precious one in its grasp.
Jean.
Yes, the precious one had a name.
Help me.
The emptiness was consuming him.
A shrill cry rang through the void.
-0-0-0-
"PHOENIX!" Jeen screamed as fire erupted in the space between them and the beast, forming a familiar raptor that haunted her dreams.
"The Phoenix is here!" She heard someone announce and felt the collective dread of both the mutants and the Avengers.
This—this could get very ugly, very soon.
"What now?" Someone else asked, panicking.
"Nobody move!" Another answered—Alex.
Jeen could not tell for sure—she was too transfixed by the burning figure in front of her.
A mad howl reverberated through everyone's hearts—reminding them that the beast was still untamed.
The Phoenix approached the Void.
Tendrils that swallowed the light met wings of pure fire.
A battle of cosmic titans; a reckoning that could easily split the Earth asunder.
And that was when everyone saw it.
Before everyone's eyes, they saw fire envelope the corpse of Jean Grey-Summers that the Void had been cradling. Her body burned—but rather than turn to ash, it began gaining form. What once was bone became flesh; what once were strands of red hair grew into a sea of flames. The purest of white and the richest of gold adorned her.
She gasped.
Jean Grey-Summers opened her eyes once more to the world.
The Void Beast howled—but for the first time, it was not angry, and the Phoenix sang in triumph before embracing its one true avatar.
Gingerly, she reached up to palm the cheek of the beast.
"It is time for you to wake as well, my love." Her voice echoed through everyone's minds.
Gradually, the darkness and the emptiness receded until it formed a man with brown hair and glowing red eyes.
Jean floated, righting herself so that she could wrap her arms around the shoulders of her beloved, drawing his gaze onto herself with her own.
"Breathe, Scott. Breathe life and contain the Void as only you can."
And he did.
The new avatar of the Void was reborn.
"They're alive." Ororo gasped in disbelief.
"What the hell is going on!" Logan growled in confusion.
"Everybody stand down!" Alex commanded once again.
"Captain, tell your men not to move!" Emma added.
The couple ignored everything around them.
Instead, light and darkness swirled around them, engulfing them.
"Come. We have much work to do. A little blue girl has run away and we must find her before a very evil man uses her again."
And with that, they were gone.
-0-0-0- The Epilogue -0-0-0-
"Isn't it rather petty—even for you—to be stealing a ship?"
Emma Frost needn't look behind her to see the frown on the young Scott's face. She felt him creep behind her—honestly, the boy had much to learn before he became as proficient as her man—but she did acknowledge his nerve to sneak aboard the ship with her.
"I see you share Scott's keen powers of observation." She replied, a mocking smirk twisting her lips.
"And I see you're sneaking out. That's just like you." He took the seat next to her, and a cursory glanced showed that his fingers were near the control to his visor.
Cautious.
How delectable.
"Witless insults. I would say it's child's play, but with you? Apt." Emma waved at him dismissively. "Now, is that all?"
Slowly, the young Scott's hands settled on his lap. "…you don't know how to fly." He murmured.
"Speak louder, darling." Emma drawled as if talking to her son. Now wasn't that simply Oedipal in the most bizarre way? "Words are tasteless when unheard."
The boy scowled. "I said you don't know how to fly a ship. Let alone this one."
"I was in a room filled with those that do know." Emma pointed out. "If you're smart, you would connect the dots."
"…"
"That was your cue to exit." She prompted him.
"I'm coming with you." He declared. "I've had my share of navigating in space."
"Darling, I don't need you." Emma tucked a blonde hair behind her ear haughtily. "You're better off here playing hero with the people that do."
"Yeah, well, you don't know me—us, that well." It was an incredibly loaded statement and she needn't use her powers to understand what he meant. His was an unnecessary presence. "I want to go."
"We don't all get to have what we want."
"But isn't that why you take? Isn't that what you're doing now?" The young Scott persisted. "And let's face it—you and I both know you'll never last long out there chasing them. You and I both know that you need me."
"And me as well." Another voice chimed in.
Both turned to see Rachel Grey enter the pilot's cabin. The red-haired telepath crossed her arms defiantly. "Don't even think of getting rid of me, Frost. This ship doesn't belong to you."
"Does your financier know you've snuck away?"
"My parents have decided to go on a galactic road trip." Rachel remarked. "I don't think the school will mind my disappearance."
"And here I thought you'd run away again." Emma's blue eyes twinkled with laughter. "After all, the Phoenix is involved."
Rachel refused to take the bait. "I'm here to bring them home. Same as you."
"Me, too." The young Scott confirmed.
Emma sighed. Begrudgingly, she knew she was better off with company.
Even when the ship had autopilot, someone had to push the button.
But that didn't mean she had to look happy about this arrangement.
"Is this everyone?" Emma asked snidely.
Blue light erupted as two more figures entered the scene.
The reality-displaced Rachel and the time-displaced Scott pointedly ignored the scowling Emma Frost, who had thrown her hands up in defeat. "It was a rhetoric!"
"You've got room for two more." It was a statement instead of a question, and Emma scowled as a familiar scarred blonde made his presence known.
Beside her, the demon smirked and rested her sword lazily on her shoulder.
"Illyana…" Emma drawled before her gaze settled on her companion. There was no point figuring out what Illyana wanted; the demon was likely doing this for her amusement alone.
"Alex…" Emma's brows crossed as a headache came over her. She had half the mind to tell him off, but she was too tired to rehash the same spiel she had given her other two stragglers. "I take it there is no way to convince you against chasing after your brother?"
Alex folded his arms and stared at her stonily. "I've lost Scott more times than I can count because I was never there for him. This time—with him off saving the galaxy, I plan to be right there with him."
Emma rolled her eyes. "It was a simple 'yes' or 'no'; not an invitation for a sentimental speech." Looking at the gathered mutants, Emma's frown deepened. "This is turning out to be a Summers family reunion." She said, before adding. "Plus one Grey."
"And one Rasputin." Illyana cheerfully added while to her side, the redhead frowned.
"I'm a Summers too." Rachel corrected. "If anything, it's a Summers plus one Rasputin and one Frost."
"I deeply regret telling my girls to stay." Emma groaned. "Scottie, be a dear and close the hatch now. The longer it remains open, the more we invite stragglers."
"Who made you captain of this ship?" Tyke frowned but nonetheless complied.
"I commandeered this ship and you lot are stowaways."
"I can port her out." Illyana stage-whispered to the time-displaced Cyclops. "Say the word and she'll be in the Savage Land without her heels."
"Settle down, Illyana." Alex mediated. "We're not throwing Emma off at least until we've escaped the atmosphere."
Emma rolled her eyes.
"And here I thought spacefaring had class. I've clearly joined the Starjammers—or a second-rate iteration of Quill's ragtag outfit. I cannot decide which is worse…."
"That reminds me—shouldn't we have a name?" Rachel pointed out. "If we're to travel together, then our group has to be called something, right?"
Everyone stared at the ginger mutant.
"What?" Rachel's face lit up with embarrassment. "I mean—we're a team now, right?"
"Very well. Since you lot are so endearingly sentimental, I shall name this group. Henceforth, Scott, Jean, and the universe shall tremble when we approach, for we are-"
-0-0-0-
Stareater:
ResurreXion
-0-0-0-
Omake 1 – Mind Chat (Taking place during the Battle)
Rachel, keep us linked.
You can't tell me what to do, Emma!
Listen to her.
Alex! You can't possibly side with her—she's evil!
Focus! You can't expect me to keep saving your collective butts!
Please, Illyana. My Scott's a pushover, but he can tame this beast.
I can't tell if you're insulting or complimenting me. Him.
Tykeclops, you remain supporting Alex. Illyana, keep everyone alive.
Ugh!
Now I know you're just insulting.
Listen to her, Tykeclops.
Not you too, Illyana!
If I'm keeping us linked, what the hell will you be doing Emma?
Emma?
Quiet. She's doing big girl things.
I don't like how you're supporting her, Alex!
Yeah! She's evil, Alex! You know that!
Focus, everyone! Don't make me kill all of you—you know I will!
Everyone, be silent. I'll take charge while Emma is busy.
Alright.
Sure, Alex.
Can I just kill all of you?
Look! It's stopped.
What did Emma do?
I don't know.
…she didn't let me kill all of you.
-0-0-0-
Omake 2 – The Space Team
"Not an hour past Jupiter and already we are under siege!" Emma growled as she held on to her seat. Their ship made a hard turn as it narrowly dodged enemy fire, and diamond woman glared at their pilot. "Tykeclops, this is all your fault!"
"Stop calling me that!" The time-displaced Scott Summers shouted back while his eyes remained glued forward. "And you can't possibly blame me for this!"
"Captain Frost, we're being hailed!" Illyana, the designated navigator, waved.
"Well, you don't have to sound so cheerful, Illyana. Put them on-screen."
"Hello, Earth scum—"
"Urk." Scott choked at the sight.
"—I am Captain Vileena Malafect, and I can see you have on your deck the man who broke my heart and killed my father!" The whole crew glared at their young pilot who seemed to shrink in his seat. The red woman on screen added to the glares as she shouted, "Scott Cyclops Summers! Prepare to become space dust!"
The transmission abruptly ended as a new wave of laser fire assaulted them.
"Captain! Permission to throw Tykeclops at the bogey?" Illyana suggested eagerly.
"Permission denied!" Scott shouted passionately.
"Permission delayed." Emma grudgingly said, "Havok, darling, have you and Rachel adjusted the suits yet?"
"We're ready."
"Alright. Everyone, get changed. Illyana, prepare to port us out in five minutes." Emma stood from her seat just as Rachel and Alex returned with the new suits. It looked tacky and generic, and Emma felt she would literally die wearing it, but it would have to do. She hoped that little trigger-happy tart on-screen had at least some sense for fashion otherwise the universe was hopeless.
Glancing at everyone and noting they were properly geared, Emma grinned predatorily.
"Alright you miscreants. Tykeclops, you're on point."
"I said, stop—"
Blue light engulfed him and he disappeared from sight.
"…"
"Oops?"
Rachel panicked and shouted at their insane teleporter. "Beam me out! Beam me out! Send me to him!"
Emma massaged the bridge of her nose in aggravation. "It is time for us to acquire a spaceworthy vessel. And rescue our pilot before he gets violated."
Illyana snickered and Rachel turned red with her frantic shouting.
"Move out!"
Blue light erupted around the remaining crew just as the X-Ship crashed into the much larger vessel.
It was on that day when the first of many legends would be told about the legendary crew that would charge through all manner of hell just to crash their ship as part of their boarding strategy.
Spacefarers be warned.
A/N: Finally finished this fucking waste of time. Big ugh.
Anyway, this thing sounded better in my head. The premise was always for Scott and Jean to return as avatars of both the Void and Phoenix, respectively, and go on to do cosmic Marvel shit. Emma and her crew tag along, trying to bring them back to Earth, but end up saving the galaxy from the next MacGuffin threat along the way.
Basically, this idea was a setup for space adventures because apparently the X-Men can't do big kickass space odysseys for reasons.
Unfortunately, this story went into developmental hell because it was growing waaaaaaaay too big for a oneshot and I had no time to write. So, lest this becomes another Distant World, I needed to trim the excess fat- and most of that umami-filled meat- and fry this motherfucker bare-bones. Fucksticks! These were supposed to be 1-2k drabbles, but my compulsion to add unnecessary developments bloated this into a 7k word monstrosity that had no business being born. Ugh.
What an utter waste of time. Double ugh.
On happier news, Little Nightmares is an amazing game. Someone please write a story where Scott adopts Six, please. Raincoat-chan needs a hug.
And food.
Lots of food.
Peace out.
