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The War of Titans-15
🕑 Added 2022-02-05 17:08:16 +0000 UTCThe War of Titans-15
Within an eyeblink, Jean was flo-standing in a completely different place than the airspace above the Xavier Mansion. But the change in scenery didn’t register with the telepath, because the first thing she did upon her sudden emergence from apparition was…vomit her guts out. Standing besides her, Harry just sighed and vanished the mess she was making, as well as the rising bile from inside her body. Hitting the teary eyed and coughing tlepeath with a couple of cheering, cleaning as well as breath-freshening charms, Harry waited for her to collect herself while he turned to regard his creation, the island he had raised from the Atlantic, Iremía.
“Wh-What the fuck Harry?” Jean groaned as she straightened up, making him glance back at her, his eyes momentarily straying to her ass before he turned back, a small blush making its way on his face even as he used Occlumency to bury his admiration and the beginnings of arousal deep inside his brain.
“Where are we?” she asked, breaking him from his thoughts as he came to a stop beside him, her eyes staring in wonder at the grey and black terrain along with the sparse vegetation.
“This,” Harry spread his arms out, removing the cloaking spell from the structure in front of him, making the redhead gasp as she saw a beautiful, two-story house appear out of thin air, “is Iremía Island, owned by yours truly.”
“There is no Island named as Iremía” Jean frowned, racking her brain for ever hearing of such an island.
“There wasn’t until I raised it from the sea” he shrugged and walked onwards to the house, leaving Jean gaping behind him as she struggled with the enormity of the casual remark that Harry Potter, her cru-instructor and friend, could raise Islands.
“You can raise islands?!” Jean half-screamed as she ran forwards, realising that her companion had already halfway to the house. Reaching him, she grabbed his shoulder and turned him around, her ire rising at the raised eyebrow he was giving her and she sarcastically asked, “What else are you hiding Mr. Potter? Any other godlike powers we can expect?”
“I destroyed Berlin completely in one hit, so I guess that is pretty godlike,” He answered back, humming slightly as he nodded in her direction, “and then you have my necromancy, which could also fall under the category of divine level powers if you want to be technical about it, since I once raised more than a million bodies.” Before Jean could even grasp the words properly, Harry blinked as if he realised something and continued, “of course, there is that time when I beat the shit out of Loki, who is an actual god. Though I admit if it weren’t for his own overconfidence and my sudden powerup, he would have won for sure.”
Harry blinked in confusion when Jean didn’t say anything in response, and when he lowered his eyes back to hers, he found her giving him the blankest state he had ever received. It was the kind of stare Daphne used to give Altaria and him wherever they did something stupid, which according to the blond had been all the time. “What?” Harry asked guardedly, feeling like the stupid husband all over again as Jean continued to stare at him.
“That was a rhetorical question,” Jean deadpanned, before she sighed and walked past him, “I really didn’t need a reminder that under that sweet and sometimes strict persona, you are a war machine even more efficient and deadly than Logan.”
‘She thinks I am…sweet? Fuck, here I am thinking about avoiding her and somehow ending things between us before they even begin, and then there she goes saying things like that!’
“You done staring at my ass?” came Jean’s voice, making him jolt and raise his eyes towards the telepath's amused eyes, before he blushed once again and walked past her, refusing to even look at the redhead as she giggled beside him. Opening the door to the house, Harry moved inside and touched a glowing glyph engraved in the wall at his right before he made way for Jean to enter after him.
She watched with astonishment as a golden pulse traveled along the walls from the glyph he had touched, softly glowing balls of light popping into existence above them, illuminating the interior of the…much bigger home than the outside dimensions would suggest? Now that everything was properly visible, Jean blinked and gaped in astonishment as she saw the ‘Expansion Charms’ Harry had told her about in action for the first time. Instead of the 3 by 8 walkway she had expected after crossing the main door, what she was standing in instead turned out to be a full-fledged, decorated corridor!
Touching the walls beside her, Jean watched every inch of the house with rapture as she moved inside, her eyes flicking this way and that as she tried to take in as much of the magical wonder she could. “This way,” Harry said all of a sudden, breaking her out of her thoughts, “Considering Charles’ words and with the way your own telekinesis and emotion have been wildly fluctuating and growing stronger at the same time, we will perform the unbinding in the cellar.”
“Why not here?” Jean asked, suddenly a lot chipper as she skipped in front of him.
“Because, the cellar is already warded so that I can practice freely down there” he responded, grabbing her hand pulling her back as a hidden doorway revealed itself, making Jean gasp as he walked down into the darkness with her, “Whatever power is connected to you, It is definitely going to come out with a bang if my intuition is right, and I’d rather not have your destroy my house.”
“But I wouldn’t do that” she pouted, “You are mean Harry, calling me a homewrecker. Do you really think so of me?”
“Wh-What?!” Harry asked, confusion on his face as he turned back towards Jean, his brow furrowed as he looked at the pouting redhead, “How does that even factor into the situation here? And I didn’t really call you a homewrecker, or at least not in the sense you are probably taking it.”
“But then why are you so uptight around me sometimes?” Jean asked, an impish smile forming on her face as she walked forwards towards him, her sudden smile and that voice making him stop in his tracks as he stared at her, “I can feel it you know, whenever you look at me…I can feel your appreciation for me, just beyond the edges of your barriers, before it is all gone.”
“Jean?” he croaked out, stumbling back instead of turning around and walking away like he wanted to do, her fiery jade eyes and that coy smile of hers making his heart beat as it had once upon a time. But, even though Jean was right, even though he wanted to explore something new within the depths of his heart, he couldn’t. He deserved no rest, no respite, no life until Hermione Granger and every person who had ever harmed a magical being was turned to ashes. And yet, he couldn’t move a single muscle as Jean rested her index finger on his chest and pushed him back until his back touched the wall, and her hands came to rest besides his head, trapping him between her arms.
“Why are you so stubborn Harry?” she asked in a whisper, her eyes searching his face for something as she continued, “You have shown your interest in me several times, you have been the best friend for me in our mental sessions as well as the sparring we do. You sit by me under that tree while I rant about classes and movies and students. You have helped each of us in some way or the other. Fucking hell! We almost kissed when you woke up in the infirmary, and yet, you shut yourself out each time I feel even a smidgen of affection and desire rise within you. It almost feels like you don’t want to do anything other than fight, like you are acting every time you have a normal, carefree interaction with anyone. Have you been acting all this time Harry? Creating a mirage for each of us, for me?”
The hurt in Jean’s was easily audible, and both of them stared at each other, one in hope, the other in a blank gaze devoid of any of his thoughts. When she finally thought that she might have gotten through him, he tried to push past her, only for her to block his way and push him back. She glared at him, the silence between them rising to uncomfortable levels as Jean’s eye pleaded with him to say something.
“This conversation is over,” Harry said after a few seconds, his face appearing to be carved from stone for all the emotions he showed, “I am not someone who you want as a romantic partner Jean. I am six years older than you, a twice-widower and a very bad man. I have torn and killed whole cities along with my friends, and I don’t feel any remorse for it. You are young, beautiful, and devilishly smart. You can have someone much better than me out there, so let go of whatever this is and we can proceed as before.”
“I don’t give a fuck about that!” Jean screamed, her hand suddenly lashing out and slapping him, leaving him with an angry red mark on his cheek. “You have torn apart cities, so what? You think I don’t understand it? Mutants face the same shit everyday on this planet! Do you know how painful it was for me when I connected with the Cerebro for the first time as a practice session? I felt no less than 32 mutants die, screaming and begging for help as they were killed! But you don’t understand that, right?” she shouted and pushed him back, a golden aura beginning to form over her body as she pointed at him, “‘Ohhh, look I am Harry Potter, a big bad wizard who has killed because my whole race was threatened’. Newsflash idiot, that thing is called survival, because the whole fucking planet was against you and your people. Did you ever personally kill a child or a woman, deliberately and knowingly harm an innocent muggle?”
Harry just shook his head mutely, too surprised and shocked by her rant to speak anything, the forced calmness he had induced within himself evaporating instantly. Every time he had fought openly or in cities, the muggles usually themselves got out of the action zone due to Granger’s wizards and witches creating giant portkeys to transport the civilians. And despite how much they had hated the muggles, each member of the army knew not to harm a single defenseless woman or child. Sure, if they came with a weapon at you, then they were fair game, but harming a non-armed civilian was not allowed at any cost.
Even when he had destroyed Berlin to the last house, the city had already been evacuated months earlier, the location having been turned into an experimental facility on magical creatures. And his rampage on New York had been provoked by the public burnings and executions which had happened, especially the blast done at the Ilvermorny Institute, the scavenged shrapnel, and casings belonging to Stark and enhanced by Granger’s personal style of rune crafting. And even in a case of fury like none other, he and the detachment of witches and wizards under him hadn’t killed a single civilian deliberately—at least until he was in his universe, if anything happened after that then he wasn’t really responsible for it.
She must have seen the answer on his face, because the expectant expression on her face turned into one of sadness as she turned around and walked deeper into the cellar. Standing in solitude for a few moments, Harry just stared at the place where she had stood, before with a muttered curse, he shook his head and moved in after her, snuffing out the storm of emotions and thoughts inside his head. Currently, dealing with Jean was his main priority, especially because despite not being a psionic energy user himself, even he could feel the pressure she was starting to exude. The sudden change between coy, sad and then angry that she displayed was also worrisome, and he had a small doubt that the recent maelstrom she had undergone since her visit to Charles, must have eroded the barriers even more, making her experience such emotions for the first time in forever.
Arriving into the cellar, Harry spotted Jean at the center of the floor, her hands on her knees while she sat on her calves. Thankfully, her eyes were closed, and she didn't seem to emanate anger or even that excessive psionic energy anymore. Coming to stop right in front of her, Harry sat down in the same position as her, the redhead opening her eyes at the sound.
“Do you want me to come inside?” he asked hesitantly.
“No”
“Oh,” Harry said softly, before he stood up and waved his hands once, creating a violet shield around her, “Well, you can get on with it I guess, I will just stand outside in case anything physically happens.”
Not giving a response other than a blank stare, Jean closed her eyes and delved into her own mind. However, before he could even sigh at the answer he had received, Harry felt a tug in his mind. Feeling the urgency of the tug due to some unexplainable reason, he created one more shield around Jean before he adopted the same pose as her. He had barely even closed his eyes before he felt himself appear in a very familiar place, the grounds of the Potter Manor.
“Hello Husband” two voices chorused, and Harry felt his heart stop.
—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When she once again arrived at the mental block, for a moment she could just blink in a stupor at the swirling storm of red and orange present inside her. Feeling the anger and rage within the storm from where she stood, Jean slowly moved forwards, her mind reeling in shock as she beheld the emotions bottled and chained within her.
‘I have been bottling and feeling all this…No wonder I and my life, both are messed up’
Exercising her control on her emotions with the assistance of the practices the Professor and Harry both had given her, Jean felt some semblance of calmness descend upon her. The raging emotions in front of her dispersed into the surroundings, breaking the barrier beneath, or what remained of it. It had not even been thirty minutes since she had first seen it, but even in that time, almost a quarter of the barrier was completely gone, its edges getting shaved off in a vaguely circular form.
Slowly approaching the bindings, Jean felt a strange feeling spread across her form. She felt anger, hatred, care, love, desire, sadness, shame and a dozen other emotions surge up inside her, the loosening bindings making her head swim as years of memories automatically got associated with the emotion she should have been feeling. Taking a deep breath, Jean steeled her resolve and gathered her power and the astral plane around her mind started to thrum with power. With a cry of rage and frustration born of the day’s events, she shaped all that energy into a hammer, and smashed Charles’ barrier to bits.
Dissolving into small sparkles of psionic energy, the barrier vanished from her mind, leaving the last vestiges of her blocked emotions freed and open. And if the brilliant yellow and orange flames flaring out of the dark hole meant anything, then her connection to the being which was bonded to her was also open.
‘Jump inside, Jean’ A soft voice whispered, the flames flaring in time with the words, ‘I have been waiting to meet you for a long time, my host’
“Well, time to see what made a nest in my mind” Jean muttered and took a single step forwards. However, instead of the darkness that she had expected, she instantly found herself standing amidst the brightest fire she would have imagined. While she couldn’t physically experience it due to lacking her eyes in the astral plane, Jean knew instinctively that even the biggest and the whitest of stars would pale in comparison to the flames she was standing in.
‘I am glad you think so’
Jean jumped at the sudden voice which seemed to come from all directions, the feminine voice sounding like a dozen were speaking at once. “Who are you?” she asked, looking around at her ablaze surroundings, trying to find the source of the voice in the arching flames as they licked and whipped about in a beautiful display of red, yellow and every color in between.
‘I am the Phoenix Force, the one who gives life to those who haven’t yet been born, and the one who creates as well as destroys.’
“So you are a god?” Jean hedged carefully, “Like that Cyttorak guy?”
The flames around her surged upwards at that, and so did the psionic energy emanating from the fire as she felt a presence form behind her. Turning around to look at whoever it was, Jean was shocked as she laid eyes upon herself, only the other her was entirely composed of fire. Crimson, wavering flames made the hair, while the rest of the body was made of what seemed to be solid fire.
‘As if’, the Phoenix scoffed, crossing it-her arms over her chest, ‘I am so far above the likes of Cyttorak and his ilk that they cannot hope to match my power even in their dreams. That god was defeated by her avatar, and that too in his own realm! It would take but a mere flick of my wings before Cyttorak would cease to exist.’
“So, I have a super-powerful, cosmic level being bonded to me,” Jean commented softly, and she felt as if the Phoenix was pleased by her words, the fire construct in front of her coking its head to the side as it regarded her with those unblinking white eyes.
‘You have questions’
“I do,” she answered, “Why did you bond with me? And why did the mental blocks only start to disappear in the last few months? And you said ‘her avatar’...Harry is also bonded to one of you cosmic beings?”
‘When your friend’s soul crossed into Death’s realm, you awakened your telepathic powers and latched onto her departing mind instinctively. However, once her ties to the mortal realm were cut, there was no way you would have been able to bring her back, and due to the connection between you two, you were also going to die. However, as the ultimate force of creation and destruction both, I am always aware of every death and birth in the Universe, and in that instant, I felt your mind almost die when it wasn’t your turn to, and when I felt you properly…your soul and mind both resonated with me, marking you as a potential host for my powers, for a sliver of my being itself.’
“And then you bonded with me.”
‘And then I bonded with you,’ came the reply, the construct in front of her bobbing its head, ‘When I severed the connection between your friend and you, I left a portion of me inside you, which would in time grown and strengthened you until I would have been able to communicate with you. However, the telepath who combed through your mind a few months later surprised me, and he saw a flicker of me due to the psionic energies in your mind. After that I felt a barrier form over our connection, and while I could have easily removed it, it would have left you as a…vegetable I think the term is.’
“Thank you for the consideration?” Jean answered, not quite sure what to make of the situation, “Are you going to make me destroy and kill or do something equally bad?”
‘No,’ the Phoenix said, taking a single step forwards so that they were face to face, ‘I bond with sentient creatures so that I don’t become disconnected from the Universe. As the supreme force of creation as well as destruction, I need to understand emotions and thoughts, otherwise with my power and abilities, I will become so detached from the whole life in the Universe that I would start destroying or creating without abandon, though the first would be a lot more frequent. At any given time, I have only one host in the entire Universe at any time. My fire increases their own inherent abilities, and at the same time, I feel the emotions they feel, see what they see, hear and live what they experience.’
“So my fluctuating and shifting emotions have something to do with you?” Jean asked, wondering if the emotional bridge worked as a two-way lane. It would be quite…difficult to deal with the intensity of the Phoenix’s emotions if it turned out to be true.
‘No,’ she shook her head in response before continuing, ‘I require hosts to understand life, to understand the emotions which give meaning to it, and therefore, I first connect with the emotional part of any host. Baser emotions like anger, love, lust, and such are the things I first resonate with. However, when that telepath buried our connection, he unknowingly subdued or outright blocked the most basic of emotions inside you along with it. That is why you have never felt the proper amount of anger you should have felt, or why you were never as comfortable with the concept of ‘friends’ as your acquaintances are. And it is the same thing which prevented you from feeling as aroused as the other girls see-’
“Anyways!”Jean coughed, her whole body feeling hot as she was almost able to see herself turn completely red in mortification. How much else did the Phoenix know about her? Considering that it had ‘destroy-the-Universe-in-a-snap’ level power and was bonded to her at the same time, probably everything. Hell, she might know more about her and Jean herself ever did! Forcing down some of her embarrassment, she asked, “Why did the barrier start weakening now, after the Battle of New York? Is it because of something Harry or someone else did? He has a cosmic being bonded to him too right?”
‘When you were fighting against those worms, you accessed every bit of power inside you,’ came the answer as the fiery entity walked a little forward and laid her hands upon Jean’s shoulders. A feeling of warmth, safety, care enveloped her, and yet, at the same time she could feel the destructive side of the Phoenix too, the anger, the burning hatred, the desire to burn licking at the edges of her mind like the little black sparks she could now see in the Phoenix’s flames. However, before she could think more about it, the Phoenix continued, ‘when you felt that burning hatred and anger for the Chitauri, and the desire to protect the humans around you, the potent mix of the emotional stimulus was enough to shake the bindings, and a small bit of my power reached into you, strengthening you far beyond what you would have been capable of normally. After that, due to the constant usage of your telekinetic abilities infused with my psionic signature, the shackles upon our bond broke bit by bit each passing day. And then, you started feeling things for the first time in your life. Your irritation at that Summers turned into anger when you were finally capable of understanding as well as feeling the said emotion. Similarly, you were finally capable of feeling amusement, jealousy, and even vindictiveness as more and more of the block dissolved under my efforts and your own work. I must say, watching you flounder about trying to explain to Ororo why you suddenly wanted a, what is it called? A lace bra?—Jean choked on the non-existent air at that, the sudden change in the topic and the subsequent emergence of the memory she so wanted to forget causing another wave of embarrassment to pass over her. Seriously, was the Phoenix intent on making her face burn as hot as its flames?…and as the immortal, and probably omnipotent power cocked its to the side as its white eyes seemed to shine brighter, Jean knew the answer was affirmative. ‘Yes, that’s it. Why you wanted a lace bra, or the time when you tried to seduce that male you find pleasing was quite amusing.’
“Great,” Jean groaned and threw her hands up in the air, “That is what was left in my life, my days turning into a live drama for a firebird that flies in space.”
‘I am more than a ‘firebird’,’ came the quite affronted response, ‘I am the source of psionic energy, something which you use for your telepathy as well as telekinesis. With my power slowly dripping and merging within your reserves, you will become several times more powerful than you would have been normally. Increased longevity and healing powers strong enough that you will be functionally immortal, until either you yourself leave the mortal plane to become one with me or someone strong enough to overpower you comes along.’
“So you won’t turn me into a homicidal maniac, and you won’t harm me or those around me anyway or form,” Jean said, continuing on when the Phoenix didn’t say or do anything, “and neither are you demanding anything from me other than a seat in my brain as I go about my day, so that you can experience all that I experience while I get a powerup or two and a potentially long life.”
‘Not at all, you are my host. Endangering you goes against my very purpose of having hosts for my powers in the first place. However,’ The Phoenix paused for a moment after the last word, the foreboding feeling and the sudden flare of black flames that emanated from the fire causing Jean to stand straighter as she awaited the bad news, ‘I am creation AND destruction both, and as much as I will feel your positive emotions, my fire will feed and roar brighter at your anger, hate, jealousy and other such emotions too. Therefore, you will need to have a tight grip on your mind, and if you feel that your thoughts are getting negatively enhanced by me in any way or form, you better stop right then and there.’
“Because you will kill me?” she asked, afraid of the answer and yet undeniably curious at the same time.
‘Not at all, as I said, I will never endanger a host of mine’ she shook her head, and continued once Jean raised an eyebrow at her, ‘But if you come to your senses after that, then you will wish I had done so. As much as your instructor was hasty in sealing my bond with you…he was correct in his assumption that you are going to be exponentially dangerous with my power backing yours.’
And then quite suddenly, a series of images flashed through her mind, each of them too fast to be seen or even remembered by her. However, it was the last one that stood out amongst the rest, adn the one which was able to be seen by her before it vanished.
Jean blanched in horror at what she saw, color draining away from her face as her hands flew to her mouth as she fell to her knees. She didn’t even notice the Phoenix’s flames surging and conforming around her in a cocoon as if the cosmic firebird meant to hug her, her mind reeling from shock at what she saw.
Wings made of the darkest fire imaginable extending from her back, her hair drifting and wavering like fire in a wind, and her usually jade eyes glowing an ominous green as she stared down at the pieces of rocks drifting away in a backdrop of black. If it weren't for the fact that she was able to see a white, spherical shape at the edge of the vision, then Jean wouldn’t have even recognized the scene for what it was.
It was Earth’s destruction, and everyone’s death…by her hands.
