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xp_logs2015-01-21 12:04 am
x-gambit.livejournal.com) wrote in xp_logs2015-01-21 12:04 am
The Dark Phoenix - Log 19
They attempt to use the suppressor against the Dark Phoenix
The mansion had been cracked like an egg. The Professor had fallen, the assaults on the Dark Phoenix had failed, and looking at the sky, they could only imagine that even surviving her assault seemed not to matter in the face of the collapsing reality.
All light seemed to be swallowed by the bird of flame that hung over the mansion like a newly born star. Even the sun seemed pale and weak, as if the presence of the psychic anomaly somehow made everything around it a little less substantial.
The woman at its center paid the effect no attention; to her, it was only the latest stage for the same tired play. For an instant she had appeared preoccupied, but it had not been enough to distract her from the aggressors. Now her expression was slowly turning from concentration to triumph.
As they watched, the shell of flame around her moved to strike deep into the heart of the mansion, the vague semblance of a beak tearing through steel and concrete as a bird of prey would tear through a corpse. Through the whirl of fire and red hair her lips began to curve in a satisfied, almost eager smile.
Jean stared up at herself, the flurry of emotions she had originally felt at the sight of her having burned away into a sense of determination. She had to be stopped, for the sake of her friends, her loved ones, her children. If they didn't all would be lost. This she knew. But it would only take teamwork.
Her attention flickered toward Adrienne, who was closest to the suppressor that the Dark Phoenix had discarded like a broken toy.
"Adrienne!" she said, then nodded to the device. It was time to try a new tactic.
By this point Adrienne was actively driving away any thoughts or emotions in her head about what she was seeing, refusing to process anything lest it all cause her to just curl up in a ball, whimpering. She blinked at Jean with a confused look on her face, as if seeing her friend for the first time. Obediently she followed Jean's nod and stared at the kinky dog collar just a few feet away from her, then moved towards it and picked it up like a puppy retrieving a stick.
She had to spur herself to think, to switch back on enough to try and interpret what Jean wanted her to do rather than just standing there actively trying to block it all out. Did Jean want her to try and put the suppressor back on the Dark Phoenix? That was pretty much suicide. She generously figured Jean didn't want her to do that, because Jean would know there was no way in hell that she would do that.
Maybe Jean wanted her to use her powers on it? But she'd already done that, what felt like so long ago. Back when they'd broken Jean out of India, when she'd tried to learn how to disable it. Still, the future Readings she'd gotten off it back then might have changed with all the subsequent events. Maybe she should Read it again. Maybe this time if she looked into its future it would show her how they would defeat the Dark Phoenix. Although, most likely it would show them all dying horribly. Maybe it wasn't a good idea to Read it. Living her last moments in blissful ignorance might be nice.
Except she was with Jean and Scott, two of the most heroic people she knew, and if she did nothing and let them down she was probably going to feel bad about it. Damn. Even Marie-Ange did heroic shit all the time and might be judgy if Adrienne did nothing. Shit. "Okay, fine," she muttered aloud, rolling her eyes a little. She turned to Marie-Ange with the dog collar in her hand, hoping maybe the precog would have advice on which of the possible futures they should try and make happen.
The expression on Marie-Ange's face under the blood and dirt was disbelief. Resigned, exhausted, complete disbelief. This was possibly the most unlikely last-ditch ridiculous effort, and they were all going to definitely die. She shook her head, shoulders and head slumped in defeat.
Her hand reaching out to close around Adrienne's said exactly how much of her posture was a lie - or perhaps how desperate she was to rely on what had to be hope.
Adrienne wiped some of the blood and dirt from her own face with her forearm, succeeding merely in smearing more grime around on it. She covered Marie-Ange's hand with her other hand, hoping the touch would help her focus. She wanted to link with Marie-Ange on the astral plane so their powers could work together to try and find a better result off the kinky dog collar than she anticipated. Or maybe it was just because she didn't want to be the one responsible for doing this alone. That way, if it failed, which it surely would, it wasn't entirely her fault.
Finding the redhead's avatar, Adrienne tried to get their powers to work together, but getting them to connect, to operate on the same system, as it were, didn't seem to make any sense. It was like trying to read instructions on how to build a Swedish liquor cabinet when there was no English. Trying to tie them together, so they could work together, was far beyond her skill level.
Jean could sense the issues Adrienne was having and, now that her powers were back, knew she would be able to help. She and Adrienne had did something similar when she witnessed some of Adrienne's viewings while in the other woman's mind.
Her telepathy latched out to Adrienne and Marie Ange, serving as a bridge between the two of them, a translation filter of sorts that allowed the two of them to view the other's respective visions. The thing about connections is, however, that once opened, it sometimes linked to existing ones. In this case, the psychic link between Jean and Scott.
Whatever Jean had done, it hurt. Marie-Ange choked back a sob and her fingers dug into Adrienne's wrist.
Astral reality shimmered like waves of hot air off pavement. Beams of sun streamed towards the women from a piercingly bright point in the sky, and then bent and slowed, warping around a man sized raven that curled its wings around the both of them. The bird landed, talons pinning Adrienne and Marie-Ange to the ground and from its wings feathers drifted slowly to the ground. As they fell, they became ghosts, transparent memories of the dead.
Moira MacTaggert curled around a young boy protectively.
Susan Storm, only half visible and face masked with pain.
Pete Wisdom, bleeding from uncountable wounds.
David Haller, body torn limb from limb.
Angelo Espinosa, crucified on a fence post.
Jean Grey, body still burning even in death
Erik Lehnsherr crushed by his own helmet.
The jet black bird flapped its bare wings, screamed and took off, becoming a black shadow against the burning firelight that was Jean, and the Astral world was cast in shadow until the bird was burned away, and ash fell to the ground.
"Holy buggering fucking shit!" Adrienne shouted at Marie-Ange, panicked. "What the bloody fuck was that?! That was a fucking bird! A bird with fucking ghost feathers! What the shit?! Why?! Why the fuck did that happen?! That was not supposed to happen!" She reflexively rubbed at her sides where the astral bird had pinned her with its talons. "I was supposed to be showing you the timeline I saw so you could help me choose which possible future we should try to bring about! You were supposed to be my consultant! I just didn't want to decide on my own! And now there's fucking ghost birds with people feathers?!" she asked Marie-Ange incredulously. "What the hell?!"
Marie-Ange shook her head silently, and stared at the ghostly dead, like she was trying to will them to go. away.
They remained, and her frustration was obvious. "What I see never quite makes sense at first. Ever. It is why I have a dozen boxes of filled up notebooks and sketchpads in my closet." She knelt down to touch the ground, and picked up some of the ash between her fingers. "It is all symbolic. Every single time, what I do see means something. Usually the big raven is trying to protect me from something."
She sat down, in the middle of the piles of ash and drew with her finger, a circle and a crescent inside it. "So if it was protecting us from death, and fire... maybe, did any of your possible futures show anything like that that stood out? Something that blocked out light? Or made light?"
"I saw Scott shooting eyebeams at the Dark Phoenix," Adrienne relayed, "does that count? Do you think that's what we should tell him to try?" She was frowning, still trying to figure out how she could show Marie-Ange all the different futures she had seen in the Reading, so she would know everything Adrienne did. Even if she was sitting in the dirt like she'd totally lost her marbles. It was still better than Adrienne having to decide what to do alone.
The Reading was filed in a shoebox in her mind's Repository, but even when she pulled it out and held the box out to Marie-Ange, she didn't know how to make Marie-Ange see the Reading and not just a shoe. "This is the Reading I took of the suppressor's future," she explained. "If you touch it, maybe you'll see all the different futures I saw?"
"Well if not I do not think we will have wasted much effort." Marie-Ange reached for the box, placed it in her lap and opened it. Whatever had been there before, now it was a pile of polaroid photos of the suppressor collar. She picked one at random, glanced at it, and then handed it to Adrienne, only to pick up another and another and another, until Adrienne had a pile of photos in her hands, and Marie-Ange had one remaining. "This is the only one that hurts to touch."
Like all the others, it showed the suppressor around Jean's throat, but not the Jean they knew - this Jean's face was twisted by rage and anger, and there were flames all around her, except where a shadow covered half her face. Marie-Ange pinched the edge of the photo and the fingers of her astral form glowed ruby red. "I do not know if any of this makes sense. I think if you saw Scott, and I am seeing red light, that must count. It is too coincidental to not be important."
Scott slowly lifted his head from where he had been cradling it in his hands. Somehow he could see Adrienne and Marie-Ange as clearly as if they had been Jean. The two way connection was suddenly a 4 way crossroads, the sheer input of pictures and emotions flowing along the temporary, at least he hoped it was temporary. Scott didn't think he could handle the torrent of psychic information for very long otherwise. One thing that was coming through very clearly was the image of him blasting the alternate-Jean, nothing else they'd tried had worked, but if Marie-Ange had seen something then it was worth a shot.
"Here we go," he muttered hoping someone could hear him over the radio as he rolled clear of rock he had taken cover behind.
"Get clear."
A red force blast flew across the empty space between the X-man and the manifestation, blasting through the flames before slamming into the Dark Phoenix's shields. The blast held as Scott poured on the power the alternate Jean rotated to face him, his blast sliding across her shields until a crack formed. Scott barely had a chance to register the crack appearing in the near impenetrable barrier, his forcebeams catching a small overlooked imperfection, before the crack snaked out across the carrier. The shields shattered in a wave of energy that exploded out like a tidal wave, catching Scott and anything else in its path like just so much flotsam throwing everything back across the ruins of the mansion as the Dark Phoenix let out a shriek of shock and rage.
In a perfectly timed moment, the distraction enacted by Scott allowed Jean to come behind the Dark Phoenix and telekinetically lock the suppressor collar around the other woman's neck. The result was like blowing out a match as the Dark Phoenix's fire went out and the woman hit the ground as her mind was overwhelmed by the suppressor's electronic impulses against her brain.
Then the foul smell of burning plastic and metal began to fill the air.
The collar began to melt around the Dark Phoenix's neck, dripping down her chest and back. She staggered to her feet, dazed at first but steadying rapidly. Until now their efforts had been amusing at best. The attempt to suppress her, however, had only served to make her angry.
"Did you think... this toy... would be enough to stop me? Me?"
Hair swirling with fire, flame racing down her body, she raised her arms high above her head.
The barely-contained power exploded outward in a massive shockwave of psionic energy. The deluge flattened the burning trees, all that remained of the mansion's foundations -- and the remaining defenders.
The Dark Phoenix lowered her arms, what remained of the collar still glowing red-hot around her neck. She surveyed the ruined landscape for a moment, then smiled in satisfaction. Without a second glance she turned back to her nearly-complete excavations. Cerebro awaited.
"And I think to myself... what a wonderful world..."
The mansion had been cracked like an egg. The Professor had fallen, the assaults on the Dark Phoenix had failed, and looking at the sky, they could only imagine that even surviving her assault seemed not to matter in the face of the collapsing reality.
All light seemed to be swallowed by the bird of flame that hung over the mansion like a newly born star. Even the sun seemed pale and weak, as if the presence of the psychic anomaly somehow made everything around it a little less substantial.
The woman at its center paid the effect no attention; to her, it was only the latest stage for the same tired play. For an instant she had appeared preoccupied, but it had not been enough to distract her from the aggressors. Now her expression was slowly turning from concentration to triumph.
As they watched, the shell of flame around her moved to strike deep into the heart of the mansion, the vague semblance of a beak tearing through steel and concrete as a bird of prey would tear through a corpse. Through the whirl of fire and red hair her lips began to curve in a satisfied, almost eager smile.
Jean stared up at herself, the flurry of emotions she had originally felt at the sight of her having burned away into a sense of determination. She had to be stopped, for the sake of her friends, her loved ones, her children. If they didn't all would be lost. This she knew. But it would only take teamwork.
Her attention flickered toward Adrienne, who was closest to the suppressor that the Dark Phoenix had discarded like a broken toy.
"Adrienne!" she said, then nodded to the device. It was time to try a new tactic.
By this point Adrienne was actively driving away any thoughts or emotions in her head about what she was seeing, refusing to process anything lest it all cause her to just curl up in a ball, whimpering. She blinked at Jean with a confused look on her face, as if seeing her friend for the first time. Obediently she followed Jean's nod and stared at the kinky dog collar just a few feet away from her, then moved towards it and picked it up like a puppy retrieving a stick.
She had to spur herself to think, to switch back on enough to try and interpret what Jean wanted her to do rather than just standing there actively trying to block it all out. Did Jean want her to try and put the suppressor back on the Dark Phoenix? That was pretty much suicide. She generously figured Jean didn't want her to do that, because Jean would know there was no way in hell that she would do that.
Maybe Jean wanted her to use her powers on it? But she'd already done that, what felt like so long ago. Back when they'd broken Jean out of India, when she'd tried to learn how to disable it. Still, the future Readings she'd gotten off it back then might have changed with all the subsequent events. Maybe she should Read it again. Maybe this time if she looked into its future it would show her how they would defeat the Dark Phoenix. Although, most likely it would show them all dying horribly. Maybe it wasn't a good idea to Read it. Living her last moments in blissful ignorance might be nice.
Except she was with Jean and Scott, two of the most heroic people she knew, and if she did nothing and let them down she was probably going to feel bad about it. Damn. Even Marie-Ange did heroic shit all the time and might be judgy if Adrienne did nothing. Shit. "Okay, fine," she muttered aloud, rolling her eyes a little. She turned to Marie-Ange with the dog collar in her hand, hoping maybe the precog would have advice on which of the possible futures they should try and make happen.
The expression on Marie-Ange's face under the blood and dirt was disbelief. Resigned, exhausted, complete disbelief. This was possibly the most unlikely last-ditch ridiculous effort, and they were all going to definitely die. She shook her head, shoulders and head slumped in defeat.
Her hand reaching out to close around Adrienne's said exactly how much of her posture was a lie - or perhaps how desperate she was to rely on what had to be hope.
Adrienne wiped some of the blood and dirt from her own face with her forearm, succeeding merely in smearing more grime around on it. She covered Marie-Ange's hand with her other hand, hoping the touch would help her focus. She wanted to link with Marie-Ange on the astral plane so their powers could work together to try and find a better result off the kinky dog collar than she anticipated. Or maybe it was just because she didn't want to be the one responsible for doing this alone. That way, if it failed, which it surely would, it wasn't entirely her fault.
Finding the redhead's avatar, Adrienne tried to get their powers to work together, but getting them to connect, to operate on the same system, as it were, didn't seem to make any sense. It was like trying to read instructions on how to build a Swedish liquor cabinet when there was no English. Trying to tie them together, so they could work together, was far beyond her skill level.
Jean could sense the issues Adrienne was having and, now that her powers were back, knew she would be able to help. She and Adrienne had did something similar when she witnessed some of Adrienne's viewings while in the other woman's mind.
Her telepathy latched out to Adrienne and Marie Ange, serving as a bridge between the two of them, a translation filter of sorts that allowed the two of them to view the other's respective visions. The thing about connections is, however, that once opened, it sometimes linked to existing ones. In this case, the psychic link between Jean and Scott.
Whatever Jean had done, it hurt. Marie-Ange choked back a sob and her fingers dug into Adrienne's wrist.
Astral reality shimmered like waves of hot air off pavement. Beams of sun streamed towards the women from a piercingly bright point in the sky, and then bent and slowed, warping around a man sized raven that curled its wings around the both of them. The bird landed, talons pinning Adrienne and Marie-Ange to the ground and from its wings feathers drifted slowly to the ground. As they fell, they became ghosts, transparent memories of the dead.
Moira MacTaggert curled around a young boy protectively.
Susan Storm, only half visible and face masked with pain.
Pete Wisdom, bleeding from uncountable wounds.
David Haller, body torn limb from limb.
Angelo Espinosa, crucified on a fence post.
Jean Grey, body still burning even in death
Erik Lehnsherr crushed by his own helmet.
The jet black bird flapped its bare wings, screamed and took off, becoming a black shadow against the burning firelight that was Jean, and the Astral world was cast in shadow until the bird was burned away, and ash fell to the ground.
"Holy buggering fucking shit!" Adrienne shouted at Marie-Ange, panicked. "What the bloody fuck was that?! That was a fucking bird! A bird with fucking ghost feathers! What the shit?! Why?! Why the fuck did that happen?! That was not supposed to happen!" She reflexively rubbed at her sides where the astral bird had pinned her with its talons. "I was supposed to be showing you the timeline I saw so you could help me choose which possible future we should try to bring about! You were supposed to be my consultant! I just didn't want to decide on my own! And now there's fucking ghost birds with people feathers?!" she asked Marie-Ange incredulously. "What the hell?!"
Marie-Ange shook her head silently, and stared at the ghostly dead, like she was trying to will them to go. away.
They remained, and her frustration was obvious. "What I see never quite makes sense at first. Ever. It is why I have a dozen boxes of filled up notebooks and sketchpads in my closet." She knelt down to touch the ground, and picked up some of the ash between her fingers. "It is all symbolic. Every single time, what I do see means something. Usually the big raven is trying to protect me from something."
She sat down, in the middle of the piles of ash and drew with her finger, a circle and a crescent inside it. "So if it was protecting us from death, and fire... maybe, did any of your possible futures show anything like that that stood out? Something that blocked out light? Or made light?"
"I saw Scott shooting eyebeams at the Dark Phoenix," Adrienne relayed, "does that count? Do you think that's what we should tell him to try?" She was frowning, still trying to figure out how she could show Marie-Ange all the different futures she had seen in the Reading, so she would know everything Adrienne did. Even if she was sitting in the dirt like she'd totally lost her marbles. It was still better than Adrienne having to decide what to do alone.
The Reading was filed in a shoebox in her mind's Repository, but even when she pulled it out and held the box out to Marie-Ange, she didn't know how to make Marie-Ange see the Reading and not just a shoe. "This is the Reading I took of the suppressor's future," she explained. "If you touch it, maybe you'll see all the different futures I saw?"
"Well if not I do not think we will have wasted much effort." Marie-Ange reached for the box, placed it in her lap and opened it. Whatever had been there before, now it was a pile of polaroid photos of the suppressor collar. She picked one at random, glanced at it, and then handed it to Adrienne, only to pick up another and another and another, until Adrienne had a pile of photos in her hands, and Marie-Ange had one remaining. "This is the only one that hurts to touch."
Like all the others, it showed the suppressor around Jean's throat, but not the Jean they knew - this Jean's face was twisted by rage and anger, and there were flames all around her, except where a shadow covered half her face. Marie-Ange pinched the edge of the photo and the fingers of her astral form glowed ruby red. "I do not know if any of this makes sense. I think if you saw Scott, and I am seeing red light, that must count. It is too coincidental to not be important."
Scott slowly lifted his head from where he had been cradling it in his hands. Somehow he could see Adrienne and Marie-Ange as clearly as if they had been Jean. The two way connection was suddenly a 4 way crossroads, the sheer input of pictures and emotions flowing along the temporary, at least he hoped it was temporary. Scott didn't think he could handle the torrent of psychic information for very long otherwise. One thing that was coming through very clearly was the image of him blasting the alternate-Jean, nothing else they'd tried had worked, but if Marie-Ange had seen something then it was worth a shot.
"Here we go," he muttered hoping someone could hear him over the radio as he rolled clear of rock he had taken cover behind.
"Get clear."
A red force blast flew across the empty space between the X-man and the manifestation, blasting through the flames before slamming into the Dark Phoenix's shields. The blast held as Scott poured on the power the alternate Jean rotated to face him, his blast sliding across her shields until a crack formed. Scott barely had a chance to register the crack appearing in the near impenetrable barrier, his forcebeams catching a small overlooked imperfection, before the crack snaked out across the carrier. The shields shattered in a wave of energy that exploded out like a tidal wave, catching Scott and anything else in its path like just so much flotsam throwing everything back across the ruins of the mansion as the Dark Phoenix let out a shriek of shock and rage.
In a perfectly timed moment, the distraction enacted by Scott allowed Jean to come behind the Dark Phoenix and telekinetically lock the suppressor collar around the other woman's neck. The result was like blowing out a match as the Dark Phoenix's fire went out and the woman hit the ground as her mind was overwhelmed by the suppressor's electronic impulses against her brain.
Then the foul smell of burning plastic and metal began to fill the air.
The collar began to melt around the Dark Phoenix's neck, dripping down her chest and back. She staggered to her feet, dazed at first but steadying rapidly. Until now their efforts had been amusing at best. The attempt to suppress her, however, had only served to make her angry.
"Did you think... this toy... would be enough to stop me? Me?"
Hair swirling with fire, flame racing down her body, she raised her arms high above her head.
The barely-contained power exploded outward in a massive shockwave of psionic energy. The deluge flattened the burning trees, all that remained of the mansion's foundations -- and the remaining defenders.
The Dark Phoenix lowered her arms, what remained of the collar still glowing red-hot around her neck. She surveyed the ruined landscape for a moment, then smiled in satisfaction. Without a second glance she turned back to her nearly-complete excavations. Cerebro awaited.
"And I think to myself... what a wonderful world..."