The Blood Phoenix 4: An X-Men: Dark Phoenix Fanfiction

Chapter 6: Battle in New York

It was nighttime on Genosha. Erik, Hank and I were sitting around a fire. The fire crackled mesmerisingly, with the embers dancing up to the sky like little bees. I could strangely feel a connection to the fire. Stretching my hand out, I began to manipulate the fire lightly. It danced near my hands as I heard Hank and Erik talking to each other.

'Did Raven suffer?' Erik asked. I knew he always had loved his Raven. The death crushed me as well. I hadn't had enough time to process it though. Though Jean felt like my own daughter, I was enraged. Because of her inability to control her ever-increasing powers, let alone her mental health, Raven was dead. And there was nothing I could do about it. Who knows how Charles was feeling right now.

'Not for long,' Hank replied. 'I know we've had our differences in the past, but-'

'We both loved Raven.'

'Yes. Yes we did,' Hank replied. 'How's she?' he asked, gesturing to me.

'She - what are you doing?'

'A new mutation I discovered while the adults were talking.' I smiled at Hank and kept manipulating the fire around my fingers.

'A new mutation? But that's impossible.'

'She's coming into her full powers, Erik. But really, how is she?'

'She's training a lot, probably to stabilise her powers.'

'If you're going to kill Jean, Dad, I'm coming with you.'

'But you care about Jean. And so does Charles.'

'No. Not after she killed Raven.' I stood and kept playing with the fire around my fingers, walking off a safe distance from them. Shooting the fire into the night's sky, I exploded it into fiery stars and then into a snowflake of fire, or a fire-flake. I could live like this. Totally at peace, with freedom to explore my other mutations. And I didn't even know that I possessed the ability to control fire. The two smiled at me, watching me take on my mutation with ease.

Soon after our conversation with Hank, Erik and I went into his bedroom and opening a chest, he revealed the helmet that he had let me hold all those months ago when I had first arrived on Genosha, seeking his protection from my increasing powers. Opening another chest, there was my helmet. I had given him the helmet before he left for Genosha in '83. I wanted to forget the whole thing with Apocalypse and I felt that giving him the helmet to keep was fitting. I had personalised the helmet a little more before I had given it to Erik, placing the symbol of a phoenix on the forehead of the helmet. I was well known among the X-Men as the Blood Phoenix. Even though Jean had been called Phoenix, I still retained the name. Now I felt with my new fire controlling mutation that I had truly inherited the codename of Blood Phoenix. Erik and I suited up and we took Celene, a mutant known as Ariki and Hank with us to New York to kill Jean in revenge for Raven's death.

At the X-Mansion...

'We know where Jean is,' Charles announced to the remaining X-Men.

'I thought you said you couldn't track her.'

'It wasn't me who found her. It was Erik. Hank and Adelaide are with her. They're on their way to her and they're gonna kill her. And anyone who stands in their way. Kurt, I'd like you to take Scott and I there, but that's all. I want you to leave us there, then come home.'

'And me?' Storm asked.

'I'm not talking to you now as X-Men. Scott and I will go and fight for Jean without you. End of discussion. Storm, I have lost so many of the people I love. I'm not going to ask you to go.'

'Oh yeah,' Scott said. 'We need you. I need you.'

'I've got your back,' Kurt echoed.

'Look-' Charles tried to say, but was cut off by Storm.