X-Men

by Stuart Moore

  She closed the notebook.

  Jean Grey, the Phoenix thought. You could have been so many things, lived so many lives—but you were always too busy. Battling evil mutants, following Scott Summers around the globe. Living and training and fighting alongside the X-Men.

  Always too busy dying.

  “Jean?”

  She whirled around, hair trailing flame in the air. Her father, John Grey, stood on the landing in his robe and slippers. When he saw her face, he hurried down to meet her.

  “Jean—my god!”

  She flinched away. No, she thought. Oh, please, no!

  “We—we haven’t heard from you in weeks. Where have you been?”

  She backed away, almost stumbling over the coffee table. His thoughts—my power is too strong now, too sensitive. He’s an open book to me!

  The others followed, their thoughts jangling in the air. Her mother Elaine, smaller than she remembered, in a robe and glasses. Sara, a slightly older version of Jean, with the same emerald eyes.

  “Wow,” Sara said, running her eyes up and down the Phoenix costume. “Mom wasn’t kidding. You have changed.”

  “It’s good to see you, dear.” Her mother’s voice was hesitant.

  The Phoenix turned away. It’s the same with all of them, she thought. I can’t help reading their minds. Nothing’s secret—nothing’s sacred anymore.

  “That… outfit.” Sara reached out a hand, touched Jean’s sleeve. “It’s true, then? You’re some kind of super hero?”

  “You look thin, dear,” her mother said. “Are you eating enough?”

  “I’m fine,” the Phoenix said, her voice echoing off the walls.

  I’m not fine. Get out of my mind, all of you. Get out!

  I should never have come here. I can feel Mom’s love for me, her concern, but beneath that feeling—buried so deeply, she probably doesn’t even know it exists—she’s afraid of me.

  “It’s very late, Jean,” her father said, switching on a light. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”

  Dad’s worried, too. He’s as edgy as Mom. And Sara’s terrified. She has two kids—now she’s wondering if they’ll turn out to be mutants like me.

  She looked down at the notebook in her hand. A relic of her old life—just like this house, these people. With their petty lives and their fear of the unknown. Of the gods, the Homo superior who would replace them.

  A flame rose up from her fingertips. The notebook caught fire and burned to ash, falling like snow on the carpet.

  “You fear me,” she said. “All of you. As you should.”

  She lifted her arm, projecting the Phoenix energy toward a hanging fern. She paused, savoring the tension in the room. Then, with a telekinetic twitch, she transformed the plant into glass.

  John Grey stepped forward, facing her directly. Rage and pride warred with fear in him. She could feel it in the air, see it written on his face.

  “Who are you?” he asked. “What are you?”

  “I am what I am.” His anger echoed in her mind, feeding her own. “I was your daughter.”

  “Not anymore,” he replied. “Leave. Leave this place.”

  “Watch your tone, old man.”

  “What’s going on out there?” Elaine Grey asked.

  The Phoenix whirled around. Jean’s mother and sister stood at the back window, staring out at the dark sky—

  —except it wasn’t dark anymore. A thick white fog had gathered, illuminated by a single floodlight in the backyard. Nothing else could be seen.

  “That fog,” Sara said. “Where did it come from?”

  The Phoenix clenched her fists and flared bright.

  “I know,” she said.

  She took one last look at these people, whom she’d once known so well. The selfish young woman, the scared older one, and the primate-ape who saw himself as his family’s defender. They were nothing now, to a being who had traveled the cosmos. Nothing.

  She rose up into the air. With barely a thought she opened the window and flew outside. Instantly the fog enveloped her, closing in tight.

  I was right, she thought. This is not natural. Time of year, coordinates—all wrong for this type of weather phenomenon. Which leaves only one answer.

  Storm.

  The Phoenix soared upward over the yard, the fog bank following her every move. She could feel the X-Men nearby, their thoughts buzzing like gnats in the air. Cowering in the shadows, she thought. Terrified to confront me. Just like—

  “Surprise, liebchen.” Nightcrawler appeared in a puff of brimstone. Before the Phoenix could react, he landed on her back and clamped a metal band over her forehead. “Sorry about this…”

  She twisted in midair and flung him off her back. He tumbled through the fog, vanishing again with a barely audible BAMF.

  Most likely teleported down to the ground, she thought, but she couldn’t see the ground through the dense fog. She dropped low, searching. A few trees came into view… the neat lines of her mother’s garden. Metal lawn table, surrounded by chairs…

  She remembered the metallic device just a moment too late. A surge of current pierced her skull, stabbing through her brain. She screamed, flailing in the air. She scrabbled at the device, but— impossibly—it remained firmly fixed to her head.

  I am Dark Phoenix, she thought. I’ve consumed stars. How… She reeled, losing her train of thought. Mind on fire—can’t focus. Can’t use the power!

  Steel fingers clamped around her ankle, wrenching her down toward the ground.

  “Do not fight us, Jean,” Colossus said. He stood on top of the metal table, reaching up for her.

  Once more the current shot through her. She screamed again.

  “The mnemonic scrambler.” Nightcrawler’s voice, from below. “It’s hurting her!”

  Colossus maintained his grip. “The harder you struggle, the worse the pain will become,” he said.

  “Pain?” she snarled. “I will teach you pain, little boy.”

  She surged upward, gritting her teeth. Colossus kept his grip on her leg, and she lifted him up off the table, into the air. She bent her knee with an effort and kicked out into the air, snapping her leg straight. Colossus lost his grip, tumbled free, and vanished.

  That damn fog, she thought. It clung to her, limiting her visibility. The weather witch, still hiding from my wrath.

  The Phoenix reached out, struggling through the pain. Concentrated on one particular thought pattern, a cluster of electrical impulses that no weather disturbance could conceal. She arrowed through the air, relentless, until a tall, regal figure took shape in the mist. Storm hovered in midair, arms spread. Eyes fierce, teeth gritted, the power of the elements at her fingertips.

  “You will not yield,” Storm said, turning blank white eyes to face her. “No more than I would, were our positions reversed.”

  “You were closer to me than my own sister, Ororo,” the Phoenix said. “Yet I struck you down once. I will do it again.”

  “I don’t want this, Jean.” Storm lifted her arms, calling forth a gale-force wind. “None of us does.”

  The Phoenix cried out again. She flinched from the wind, clawing at the scrambler. It held tight to her forehead, fastened by some unknown combination of magnetism and adhesive bonding. Then a single spark rose up from it.

  I’m burning it out, she realized. A few more minutes…

  “In the name of the love we shared,” Storm said, “let us help you.”

  No, the Phoenix thought. No more. No more of this!

  She fired off a mental blast, sending the weather-wielding mutant spinning in the air. Storm fell, flailing, summoning just enough of a wind to cushion her fall. She touched down, dazed, in a bed of crushed tulips.

  The fog began to clear, the yard spotlight piercing the predawn darkness. The Phoenix spun low, hovering a few feet above the ground. Three minds left conscious, hiding like rats in the shadows around the garden. The rest of the X-Men…

  …wait. Was there another? So
me lurking presence, concealing its thoughts?

  The blasted scrambler, she thought. Have to concentrate—pierce the veil. Who are you? Who’s out there?

  Wolverine slammed into her, knocking her off-balance. He grabbed her by the shoulders and hurled her to the ground. She struck the mud, crying out as his hand clamped down on her throat.

  “Everyone else,” he growled, “they’re all holdin’ back.” His fingers were like steel cables on her neck. “They think you’re still Jean—they’re tryin’ to catch you. Put you in a cage, so they can help you.”

  He pulled back his other hand, unleashed deadly claws.

  “That won’t work,” he said. “Not anymore.”

  She could feel his pain, like a swarm of bees in the air. He’s trying to convince himself, she realized. Steeling himself to do what he must.

  “I gotta end this,” he said. “Forgive me, darlin’.”

  My god, she thought, what have I done to him? On board the shuttle, when I insisted that he let me die. What burden did I lay on this man’s shoulders?

  Logan’s grip held her firm; her head jackhammered with pain. A terrible weariness washed over her. The power—the Phoenix Force—seemed to slip away, retreating from the shore of her consciousness.

  “Do it,” she gasped.

  He stared at her, eyes wide.

  “You’re the only one who—who understands,” she said. “You always…”

  Still he hesitated. Claws suspended in midair, caught between life and death.

  Too late, the Phoenix said, screaming inside her. Too late now. Too late for everything.

  The mnemonic scrambler sparked and caught fire. The Phoenix reached out and blasted Wolverine, projecting a bolt of psionic energy that fried his nerve impulses in an instant. He lost his grip and flew up into the air.

  With barely a thought, she crushed the scrambler to dust. She flung the remains away, metallic shards tumbling to land in the ruins of her mother’s garden. Rage coursed through her. Enough. Enough of this!

  She sensed Nightcrawler creeping toward her in the shadows. Before he could teleport closer, she put him to sleep with a single thought.

  Only one enemy remained. Standing at the far end of the yard, near a wooden fence. Staring at her through a glowing crimson eyepiece.

  “Jean,” Cyclops said. “I need you to stop this.”

  Wait. She paused, cocked her head. Was there someone else? She could still sense another presence… somewhere nearby…

  Incredibly, Cyclops stepped toward her. Is he suicidal? “You could take me out at any time,” he acknowledged. “But hear me out.”

  “Hear you out? No, Scott. It’s time to finish this.”

  “Then kill me.” He gestured at the bodies of Storm and Wolverine, lying still on the ground. “I can’t stop you… I won’t even try. Kill me, Phoenix. If you can.”

  She hesitated. His thoughts were an open book, and he meant every word he said. This was his last gambit—and in a very real sense, it was no gambit at all.

  “But if you can’t…” He took another step toward her. “… then ask yourself why. You’ve proven that no force in the universe can stand against you. The X-Men have fought you, defied you, caused you pain—yet still we live. Why?”

  “You’re…” She looked away. “You’re beneath my notice.”

  “No. I think there’s another answer.” He spread his arms. “You are the Dark Phoenix, whatever that means—but whatever you’ve become, you’re also Jean Grey. No matter how hard you try, you cannot exorcise that part of yourself.”

  “No,” she said.

  “You can’t kill us because you love us. And we love you.”

  Again, the weariness. No, she thought. Not now. Not now! I’m so close… so close to freeing myself from all this…

  “The Phoenix knows nothing of love,” she said.

  Cyclops smiled.

  “Nothing of love?” He stepped even closer. “For love of the X-Men, you sacrificed yourself on the shuttle. You nearly died again, when you battled Magneto. You’ve brought yourself back from the brink time and time again—why is that?”

  Not for love, she thought. No, never. Never that!

  “Nothing of love?” He reached out and touched her face. “Jean, you are love.”

  She felt the tears rising. Touched his hand, pressed it to her cheek. “Don’t deny it. Don’t deny all that you are… the life that you’ve made for yourself.”

  She pulled away, unable to bear the emotion.

  “I hunger, Scott.” Her voice was low, dark. “For a joy, a rapture beyond human comprehension. That need… it’s a part of me, too.”

  “I know,” he replied, his voice quavering. “I—I didn’t understand that before. And honestly, I’m not sure how to deal with it.” He laughed, a quick nervous laugh. “But I want to try.”

  “It consumes me,” she whispered.

  “It doesn’t have to.” He grasped both her hands, turned her to face him. “Let me help.”

  The rage—the hunger—abated. She felt spent, exhausted. Washed up, like a corpse, on some distant shore.

  “I’d like tha—”

  Pain blasted through her. There was no warning, no time, no defense against the attack. It was powerful, relentless, an assault on every cell of her body.

  No, she thought dimly, not on my body.

  My mind.

  She swooned, felt Scott’s arms grab hold of her. Through a haze of agony, she saw a man in a wheelchair rolling toward them at a rapid clip, leaving a trail of crushed flowers in his wake. His thoughts were hidden, shielded from her power. The only emotions that reached her, as she struggled to remain conscious, were Scott Summers’s shock and dismay.

  “Professor Xavier?” he said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CYCLOPS WAS so stunned, he almost lost his grip on Jean. Professor Xavier rolled closer, relentless and unstoppable, his eyes dark and intense.

  “Professor,” Cyclops repeated. “What have you done?”

  “What I must,” Xavier said.

  His tone, Scott thought, it’s so cold. What’s happened to him? All those months in space… Has something changed him?

  Xavier rolled to a stop less than a meter away from Cyclops. They stared at each other in silence, there in the shadow of the Grey family house. The air was chilly, and only the Greys’ backyard floodlight pierced the darkness, casting shadows on the crushed stems beneath his feet.

  “Nothing has changed,” Xavier said. Cyclops had forgotten how infuriating it could be when the Professor read his thoughts. “Not with me.”

  Jean hung limp in Cyclops’s arms. “Tell me what you’ve done!” he demanded.

  “A simple mind-blast,” Xavier replied, “while she was distracted.”

  “I wasn’t distracting her. I was reaching her.”

  “Not possible.”

  Cyclops’s mind was spinning. Moira MacTaggert had implied that she’d been in touch with the Professor, but…

  “When did you arrive on Earth?”

  “Only moments ago. There was no time to warn you.” Xavier studied Jean. “Stand aside.”

  “No!”

  Cyclops looked around, seeking help. Storm lay closest to him, unmoving on the ground. He could just make out Colossus and Wolverine, lying in a tangle of patio furniture. There was no sign of Nightcrawler. He glanced back at the house. In a second-story window, Jean’s relatives watched fearfully.

  “You have no idea of the forces at work here, Scott.” Xavier glared at Jean. “Only another telepath has the slightest chance against her.”

  “I don’t want to be against her.”

  “Scott! We may have only moments.” Xavier raised his index fingers to his temples and leaned forward. “I do not wish you to be hurt.”

  “Too late.”

  Jean pulled free, raising both arms. The mental blast seared through Cyclops, knocking him off his feet. He tumbled and fell, striking his head. He cried out, felt himself s
tart to lose consciousness.

  When his vision cleared, Jean was advancing on Xavier. The older man held his ground, made no attempt to retreat.

  “Meddling old fool,” Jean said. “You have signed your death warrant.” Her mind flash struck Xavier head-on, shattering his wheelchair and sending his body flying. He dropped to the ground, sprawling, helpless.

  Slowly, with great effort, Xavier struggled to rise. He propped himself up on his elbows.

  “Perhaps, Phoenix…” he growled.

  No, Professor, Scott thought. Don’t do it. She’s going to kill you!

  “Perhaps I will die today.” Xavier coughed dirt and blood. “But if it costs me my life, I will put this right.”

  “Why, Professor. You sound almost guilty.”

  She began to glow. The Phoenix flame burned all around her, lighting up the yard. Raging, ravenous. Unstoppable.

  “As you should be,” she continued. “ You taught me to use my latent telepathic ability, years ago. You set in motion the chain of events that created first Phoenix, then the Black Queen, and now—finally—Dark Phoenix.”

  Cyclops rose to his knees. A wave of dizziness washed over him, and he fell back again.

  “Behold your creation, Charles Xavier.” Jean shone blinding white now, the Phoenix avatar shrieking to the heavens above. “I am the Dark Angel, the Chaos-Bringer. I am ancient and new— the fundamental force of the universe funneled through the rage of a single young woman. I am pure power.”

  “Power without restraint.” Xavier raised his hands to his forehead. “Knowledge without wisdom. Age without maturity…”

  Jean was barely visible within the blazing form of the Phoenix. Cyclops shielded his eyes with his hand, watching in dread as her power swelled in all directions. The forward edge of the flame crept closer to the Professor, who lay on the ground. He was helpless—

  —or so it seemed.

  …passion without love.

  Cyclops glanced at Xavier, startled. The Professor hadn’t spoken those words aloud. Scott had heard them in his mind.

  No more. No more talk of love!

  Jean’s “voice,” replying in kind.

  Their psi-war… Scott realized. It’s taking place everywhere, on a thousand planes of existence at once. They’re blasting telepathic energy all around, like speakers turned up to full volume. I can only “hear” a fraction of it.