Dark Phoenix

Solar Flare

Sarah woke up in a spell of pain.
  "Ow!" She flinched as Hank poked a needle into her arm, drawing more blood. Her vision went from blurred to clear in a few seconds, taking in where she was.
"Hank," she whispered, "what's going on? Why am I here?"
"The solar flare," Hank, who had changed into his human form, examined the blood in the needle without looking at her, "You were struck by it after it hit the plane. Your blood has parts of the flare in it. Along with your face." He looked down at her during the latter sentence.
"What?" Sarah reaches up to feel her face and touched a bump.
"Want a mirror?"
She nodded, taking the mirror from Hank after he picked it up. Gasping, Sarah gawked at her face. "What happened to me?" She whispered, close to tears.
On her cheeks and forehead were what looked like tunnels or cracks in her skin of orange light. Her eyes were slowly changing from piercing blue to yellowish-orange. Her hair was down and wavy from her braid she had in before the mission.
"Those are the side effects," Hank said drawing, with his finger, along the tunnels on Sarah's cheeks. "That blast hit you pretty hard."
"Hank," Sarah let out a tear, "am I going to die?"
"I don't think so but, Sarah, the solar energy is flowing through your veins at this very moment. It will start to take control of you soon."
"But I feel fine," Sarah stared him down.
"For now. We got to figure out a way to get this out of you, and fast."
"Sarah!" Charles rolled into the room wearing a worried expression. "My God, are you alright?"
  Sarah nodded. "I think." But Hank shook his head.
  "It's spreading, Professor," Hank warned him.
  "Well we must keep this quiet," Charles said, mostly to himself.
  "You're enjoying this, aren't you?" Mystique announced herself into the lab. She strolled up to Charles. "All the publicity, you like it. Charles, your ego is bigger than this problem."
  "Actually, Mystique," Hank stared at her disapprovingly, "this is a huge problem. Keeping it from the public for now is good. Sarah will get torn apart mentally and physically by our society if they find out, you know that."
  Mystique glared at him. "Fine."
  "Sarah, stay strong," Charles took her hand in his. "We're here for you. Always have been."
  "I need to take a walk," Sarah jumped off the table.
  "No I don't think—"
  "Hank, please!"
  Hank held up his hands in a I'm-not-going-to-stop-you way and let her walk out of the lab. "Professor, she's dangerous."
  "Thank you, Hank, you think I don't know that?"
  "What are we going to do? Something bad is gonna happen, we all know that much!" At this point Hank was over-exasperated.
  "Keep her here, down here in your lab for more blood samples. She'll sleep here until we figure out how to get that stuff out of her."

***
  Outside, the pavement felt good on Sarah's bare feet. She had changed from her X-Men suit to a dark gray t-shirt with a gray sweater over it and ripped jeans. Her red hair blew behind her in the wind.
Fear, anger, confusion, pain all consumed her at once. Questions ran through her mind one by one. Why did this happen? What was inside her? But the question of survival was the strongest in her mind.
She continued to walk towards the lake that resided on campus attempting to clear her head.
  Once she reached the lake, she gazed down into the water at her reflection. She couldn't even recognize her own face. The thought of her dad popped into her head. "Miss you, Dad," she whispered into the water.
She really wished he was here. He always knew what was best for Sarah, regardless whether or not anyone else liked it.
"Hey," a voice from behind Sarah spoke up.
She turned around to see Peter walking up to her. "How are you holding up?" he asked her.
"Wonderfully," her sarcastic response made him laugh.
"Things have changed, Sar," Peter pointed out while gazing at the water in front of him.
"Yeah," she said. "After the whole fight with Thanos, I thought we were done fighting for a while, a long while, but it turns out we weren't. No matter who's in trouble, we always help out or fight who's causing that trouble. I just—I just want a normal life. Be able to go to college and settle down afterwards. Hang out with you. But then there is always those people who need help. I've been fighting my whole life and it's never stopped. Now that this has happened, that chance of a normal life has been erased."
  "No one's normal," Peter responded immediately. "I mean, what's the definition?"
  Sarah shrugged, while turning towards the house and walked away.