Rachel Anne Summers is lost again (the_phoenix) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2014-06-19 23:38:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, clarice ferguson (blink), kitty pryde (shadowcat), ororo munroe (storm), rachel grey, scott summers (cyclops) |
Who: Rachel, Kitty, Scott, Ororo, and Clarice.
What: The Phoenix's Arrival.
When: Tonight, around 1am.
Where: The Summers/etc Residence.
Rating/Warnings: R, TW: Violence, Blood, Medical Stuff.
Status: Complete!
The galaxy was a wide open place, and too much of it was empty. Too empty for the cosmic entity known to most as The Phoenix. There were plenty of Phoenixes, of course, one or more for every galaxy and every universe ever created, but that only made her feel more lonely. There were more empty spaces in all of time and space than there were filled ones, and The Phoenix could see the vastness of it all.
In this corner of spacetime, there were no familiar voices to be heard, no allies she might play host to. Not, at least, until she heard the soft echo of a friend. The mental signature was as familiar to this Phoenix as it was to all Phoenixes, and the entity rejoiced. It began its journey then, to find her friend.
It had been a longer journey than the entity had planned. Backwards and forwards through time, and The Phoenix got a little lost along the way. But now she was plummeting towards Earth at break-neck speed. Finally. Finally! She wouldn't be alone anymore.
----
Rachel's dreams had only gotten worse and more troubled over time, a fact that she largely didn't bother to discuss with anyone. But the latest series of dreams were the most troubling she'd dreamt in weeks.
Her friends had turned away from her, no one trusted her, and she still couldn't come to terms with the fact that her father didn't know she existed. Her encounter with The Beyonder had only made things worse. Even Kitty had become harsher with her than usual, and her friend's words stung the worst. The guilt over what she’d done and her constant inability to make amends for her mistakes had caused her to drag Logan into her nightmares. A string of which she’d just dreamed, each one worse than the last. All of them involved Logan ramming his claws into her chest.
And maybe she deserved to die. The more she dreamt it, the more she believed it. She deserved to die, or she deserved the misery she was in, at least. It turned her away from the X-men and down a dark path. One that lead back to where it had all started for her - with Selene.
Now Rachel dreamed that she had the woman in her clutches. Selene was an evil mutant, the kind that cared nothing at all for human life unless it was her own, and she murdered innocent people just to feed off of them. She’d taken the life of the first man who’d ever been kind to Rachel on this version of earth, and Rachel had never been able to forget that. The man’s name had long since been forgotten, burned away by her hatred of Selene and her anger over what she’d done to him.
But there was Logan. Walking onto the scene, right as Rachel’d been about to deliver her death blow. Was he real? Was she dreaming, now? Was this just another nightmare? Rachel didn’t care. Logan tried to reason with her. He told her what she was about to do was nothing but murder. That the X-men were heroes, and heroes had to hold themselves to some kind of code.
But Rachel couldn’t hear it. ‘The only way to stop me, Logan, is to kill me.’
And he had. He’d popped his claws and shoved them right into her chest.
It wasn’t a dream, not for that Rachel, and not for the one in real life. Pain ripped into her chest, ripped through her heart and her lungs, and sucked the scream out of Rachel’s throat before it had barely begun. She was awake, she was awake and dying, and while the dream Rachel had been able to hold her wounds together with telekinesis, this Rachel wasn’t nearly as powerful. She didn’t have The Phoenix to back her up, she didn’t even have the training or power levels she was used to.
One of the hardest things Kitty had ever done in her dreams had been to leave the X-men. Leave Storm and Logan, and especially Rachel, but she hadn't really had a choice. The past X-men were under her care, and now she understood that they deserved to have a choice in what happened to them. Everyone deserved that choice, didn't they?
And nearly as important, Logan and Ororo didn't trust her. And that hurt. She couldn't help but wish that Rachel got her mental distress. She was so sorry, but she had to do this.
Kitty woke with tears on her cheek, but her own sadness washed away at the feeling of slick warmth in the bed. Warm blood, and the sight of Rachel drowning in her own blood. Rachel didn't need to be able to scream, Kitty did it for her, even as she tried to pack the wound with a pillow. "No no no no oh my god no!."
When the Phoenix hit the house, she got confused. The mental shock hit Scott like a freight train, his optic blasts tearing a hole in the roof as the fires of the Phoenix started to consume him. With the benefit of hindsight (and not a little fear of himself) he rejected her.
The Phoenix didn't really want him anyway. She shot from his body and into Rachel's with a shriek that shattered every window in the house.
A firebird erupted in the sky, so bright that most of the county looked like daylight. Flaming wings stretched out, north and south, the mountains like a backdrop as her cry heralded her arrival.
Kitty was blasted away from Rachel, tumbling into the wall. She picked herself up, and shouted into the hallway. "KIDS! Evacuation plan gamma! NOT A DRILL!" Because of course she had evacuation plans for them.
Scott appeared in the doorway a moment later, still tugging on his boxers. Kitty was covered in blood and Rachel was floating over the bed. The light outside was slowly dimming.
Ororo wasn’t far behind, in t-shirt and underwear, heart in her throat. She was doing her best to be calm and having limited success, willing her powers not to act up now. “What can I do!” Everyone in her sight needed help, and it was all happening so fast.
Scott was still reeling from his own dreams, and the things he'd done. Admittedly not entirely under his control, but he could tell himself that a thousand times and he'd never believe it. But that wasn't here or now.
He looked between Kitty and Rachel and Ororo and did his level best to remain calm. The twins were outside and safe, but really, how safe were you from the Phoenix? "I don't know yet. That wholly depends on what happens next."
Kitty was rubbing her right wrist, and edging closer towards the bed. "She's all clawed up. It's really, really bad, but I think the Phoenix is holding her together."
"From when she tried to kill Selene and Logan stopped her," Scott said, darkly.
"Shoulda let her," Kitty muttered.
An aura of flame wrapped around the edges of Rachel's floating form, billowing up slightly in the shape of a bird's head. It was almost as if the flame was cradling Rachel, and then, it spoke, "There is a great deal of anguish within her, and the damage is great. But she is not beyond repair. I have tapped into her power and it will hold her, until one of your healers can assist."
Before they could question The Phoenix about anything else, the flame disappeared. The room was in complete disarray at that point, the bed scorched with flame, and there was an acrid smell on the air. Something, somewhere, was still on fire.
Scott exhaled, then started giving orders. “Storm, I don’t know if you can but see if you can call up some rain to deal with the fires. Kitty, call Clarice, I’ll call Moira and wake her up. We’ll get Rachel stabilized.”
“And then we can all have a nervous breakdown right?” Kitty asked.
“Yeah. That sounds good.”
Ororo hadn’t experimented with rain yet, but damn if she wouldn’t try. Without a word she nodded, turning toward the doorway and the source of the smell. She tried to focus, tried to think clearly about the weather. Rain was harsh and sharp and unforgiving, but it could also be soothing. Healing. Like Rachel needed.
It took a few tries, but eventually, at long last, after she’d run down onto the stairs to position herself between floors, a slow, steady rain began outside. It seemed to be leaking - a mist came in through the holes in the roof, and Ororo choked back a sob as she headed back into Rachel’s room.
Clarice blinked as Ororo returned. She hadn't changed her clothing since just after saving Booker, so she hadn't needed to waste time by dressing. "Christ we could see the Phoenix from the ranch!" She flicked her wrist, sending Rachel to Moira. "You coming too?"
Kitty nodded her head. "Yeah, the twins are outside though. Can you take them to Jubilee? I'd rather they not be too close to the Phoenix until we know Rachel is in control." She'd never known Rachel to not control it, but she was injured and not at full power to begin with.
"I'm coming too," Scott said. He put an arm around Ororo and kissed the side of her face. “So should you.” He didn’t want her staying here alone right now.
"Get some pants on while I get the twins settled." Clarice and Kitty blinked away.
Ororo squeezed Scott’s hand briefly. “You’ll have to fill me in later,” she murmured, before running to dress. She threw on anything within reach, knowing that losing her head wasn’t optimal right now. She’d dreamed of losing Jean to the Phoenix - if she’d heard the pink woman correctly, this was the same thing - but she hadn’t known how it worked, what it was. Still, she could wait for information until everyone was safer.
Scott nodded, pulling on pants and a shirt, and just grabbing socks and some shoes to put on later. He was trying to wrap his mind around how to explain it to Storm, while wrapping his mind around a dozen other things.
Clarice popped in a moment later and nodded at them. "Moira's already working on her."
"Thank you," Scott said, just as Clarice blipped them out to the ranch.