After War

The dark phoenix

The question that nagged Jean's mind though was why Thanos did all of this, as it must be clear that the soul stone was no longer functional. It seemed, if Jean was correct in her observation while searching through the woman Carol's mind, that she had destroyed the stone.

The only possible theory Jean could think of at the moment was revenge, but that would not make that much sense. Maybe he didn't have a reason, and he didn't know what he was getting into when he attacked. She could try to read his mind real quick, but she noticed when he first appeared that she couldn't get into his head.

"And?!?!" Pietro yelled from beneath her, and Jean had been so caught up in the moment that she'd completely forgotten he was there. She looked down and the poor boy was still holding onto the tree for dear life.

Jean shakes her head slightly and looks back on the meeting stones, now almost blinded by the bright light that radiated "They don't have enough power to defeat him!!"

"Are you kidding?! They have five stones!!" Pietro's voice was a bit high pitched and hoarse in contrast from its usually flirty tone, which probably came from all the yelling.

"He's got five ones as well you idiot!" Jean wasn't usually the one to yell, nor insult someone. When she'd been taken in by the Professor at nine, he'd made sure that she was polite to people around her, and she'd always been.

But for the moment she was too stressed with the near destruction of the world and the phoenix roaring in her ears, demanding to be let out.

That though was not an option. She had tried so hard to control it, to make sure no destruction was made when she let it free, but after the few attempts she and the professor had made, Jean had made the decision of isolating it completely.

And to let it out now...sure, it might help for now, but who knows what she might accidentally do. Make it worse was high on her list of possibilities.

"It won't matter" The Phoenix whispered in her ear, her own voice sounding so much raspier and hoarse when coming from it "The planet will be destroyed nonetheless, so just do it."

The Phoenix attempts to make her give in was interrupted by another power surge that made even more people around her loose their balance, including Pietro. Jean screamed after him with tears streaming down her face, as he landed in a way that would get any human killed. Thankfully, he wasn't human, and she could already see his fast healing starting to take form.

The Phoenix grew louder, hoe it managed that was a question, and Jean grew more frustrated. The ground around the place where the two power beams met had started to crack, and by now it was mostly a matter of minutes

"Do it!" The Phoenix roared, and against all odds and her own morals, she set it free.

Then all became extremely hot, and then black.

—-

It was silent, but still not. Jean could hear people scream, among other things, but in her head it was silent. Weird.

It took her barely five seconds to realize the reason behind this, and when she did she sat up before even opening her eyes.

The Phoenix was silent.

Panic rose in her mind and she felt how it got harder to breathe, as she feared the worst. That it had escaped.

But to her surprise, a voice once again whispered in her ear

"You're welcome,"

"Jean!" A voice called out, and she looked in its direction, though her vision was still blurry. She could faintly make out something yellow and pink before two arms were wrapped around her, and a pair of plump lips connected with her own.

"Thank god you're alright!" Jubilee exclaimed, breaking their kiss but still holding onto her tightly. Next thing she knew Ororo was beside her grabbing her jaw and forcing their eyes to meet. The Egyptian seemed to examine her face with a worried expression, before releasing her and started stroking her shoulder softly.

"What happened?" She grumbled, and first then did Jean notice how weak her voice sounded. God she was tired.

"You...exploded, like how you did when Apocalypse attacked," Ororo replied, glancing around warily "Everything just started burning."

Jean felt the panic return and she looked around frantically, expecting to see burning corpses but the night was calm. Or, as calm as it could be.

The five Stone Wielders were all looking at her with shocked expressions, and some other soldiers or "Avengers" did the same, but most seemed to try to treat their wounded. From what Jean could see, not one from their side had been injured, while every one of the invading forces had burned. The only trail of them being the vague smell of burnt flesh and some familiar ash floating around.

"Ironic" Jean thought.

//And yeah that's it, After War is finished! 

I will of course continue with this Universe, as there are a lot of loose threads I want to resolve and I want to force my ships onto y'all.

Sorry for this being half a year late (Jesus), I've just been in a very bad place for the last couple of months

Hope you liked this, because I really enjoyed writing it!

See ya soon I hope

-Meteor