Freedom(?)

Jean Grey sighed as she exited her husband’s mind. Delving into his psyche and removing the commands and triggers she and Mark Williams had placed there had been far more exhausting than she’d anticipated. Idly, she tested her power and probed at Scott’s mind again. Before, entering his mind had been as trivial as passing a hand through water. Now, it felt like that water was more solidified, almost like glue. She could sense his surface thoughts and emotions, but probing deeper took far more effort than she was used to. Her head throbbed painfully and she quickly exited his mind.

She let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.

I’m so tired. I feel like I ran a marathon and then some. Even with the Phoenix’s help, my fight with... whatever Mark created in my head must have taken a lot more out of me than I thought.

The beautiful, big-breasted redhead frowned pensively.

It’ll be coming for me now, and I doubt it’ll be willing to part with me again. That other version of myself was right. The Phoenix is a powerful, prideful entity. It’ll demand a lot from me in exchange for my freedom.

Scott stared at her from behind his visor.

I don't have much time left with you, Scott. I’m so sorry.

“Jesus Christ,” he ground out his first free words in a matter of months, clenching his teeth together. “Jean, is this real? Please tell me this is some kind of nightmare and I’m going to wake up back at the Institute,” his lips quivered slightly, and Jean didn’t need her telepathy to sense his confusion and anguish.

Her heart nearly broke.

“You’re not dreaming, Scott.” Oh, how she wished the words weren’t true.

Scott nodded stiffly.

“I remember everything. What he made us think, the things he made us do for him,” he clenched his fists. “I want to kill him. I want to kill him so much.”

Jean nodded, instinctively lowering her eyes down her body. Mark had used her repeatedly over the last several months, fucking her and touching her wherever and whenever he wanted. She remembered every instance of it, but what nauseated her the most was that she could recall herself loving his touch, his smile, his attention on her body. She wanted to throw up when she thought about how much he’d made her love cheating on Scott with him. He’d made a complete mockery of their love and marriage. She hated Mark Williams more than anyone she’d ever met. She wanted him to pay for what he’d done to her.

Her eyes burned.

I want him to pay for destroying my life!

Pain lanced through her head, her heart roaring in her ears. A voice so much like hers began whispering.

“Did he really destroy your life, or is this more a case of you paying the price for your arrogance? Mark isn’t a telepath. He has no way of concealing his intentions from you. If you’d scanned even the boy’s surface thoughts before we shook his hand all those months ago, all of this could have been avoided. And the worst is yet to come: you’ve invited the Phoenix back to Earth. Can you imagine how many people it’ll kill this time? Are all of those lives worth sacrificing for your freedom?”

She grimaced.

I… I won’t let it hurt anyone this time. We’ll leave Earth forever and never come back.

A snort.

“Good luck convincing it to do anything while you’re stuck in the passenger seat. While it’s wearing you like a meatsuit. You’ll be lucky if it even leaves your mind intact this time so you can see all the devastation it wreaks upon this planet. Actually, maybe you would be luckier if it killed you.”

Jean’s stomach quivered as she remembered the last time the Phoenix had possessed her. The cosmic entity was more akin to a **** of nature than a person. Loath as she was to admit it, she couldn’t discount the possibility that the Phoenix could kill thousands of humans as punishment for rejecting it.

I got it to leave once. It… it cares for me. I don’t know why, but when it found out I was enslaved, it got angry.

“Of course it was pissed! It saw someone else playing with its toy!"

She heard her own voice laugh.

“Shut up!” she put her hands on her ears.

“Jean, what’s wrong?” That was Scott’s voice. She looked at her husband, but saw a pale shade of the man she loved, his soul twisted and frayed by months of Mark’s mental domination. All of it, her fault.

No. No, that’s not true!

A soft chuckle and a whisper answered her.

“Denial. It’s the epitome of irresponsibility. It’s always the first resort of weak minds that can’t come to terms with the mistakes they’ve made. You’re powerful, and like many who are powerful, you allowed yourself to grow complacent. Arrogant. You assumed that your mind was so well-protected you didn’t even bother to see if the new mutant Ororo just happened to need your help dealing with was everything Ororo said he was. Go back to that moment. Revisit it, and try telling yourself that all of this is still somehow not your fault.”

Images flashed before her mind and in an instant she was back at Mark Williams’ house, staring into the eyes of the young mutant who would enslave her and so many others. His eyes roved up and down her body, stopping to leer at her breasts. She knew she was an attractive woman; with her telepathy it was practically impossible to not know how the various men at the Institute felt about her. And Ororo was adamant that Mark Williams would make an amazing student at the Institute and had brought her over to be a friendly face. Well, if Mark liked what he saw and it happened to help sway his decision to attend the Institute, there was really no harm in him looking. She could always reprimand him later if got too forward. So, she put on a warm smile and extended her hand.

“No… no, don’t do it,” she whimpered.

Mark’s eyes glimmered evilly, and as his hand touched hers, she sensed an overwhelming feeling of triumph without even reaching for his mind. And then everything changed.

She stripped for him. Humiliated her husband for him. She sucked his cock and let Ororo suck his thick, pungent semen off her breasts.

“Stop!” she nearly screamed.

She giggled happily and begged him to fuck her. Begged! And she’d loved it. Mark’s cock was so big. It put her husband’s comparatively average cock to shame. Her pussy tingled and she felt it grow wet with arousal.

“Enough!”

A nearby flower pot shattered, spilling soil onto its table.

The vision fell from her mind, and she felt strong arms holding her shoulders.

“Jean! Jean, are you okay?” she latched onto the sound of her husband’s voice like a drowning woman to a life raft.

“Y-yeah…” she embraced him, hugging Scott for dear life.

“What was that?” he asked.

She didn’t know how to answer him. She didn’t know how to tell him that everything, all of this, all of his misery had been her fault.

“We need to get out of here,” he said. “Much as I’d like to kill that son of a bitch for what he did to us and free Ororo and the others, it doesn’t look like either of us is in a position to fight all of Wakanda to get to him.”

“We can’t just leave Ororo behind. She’d risk everything to save us if our positions were reversed,” she said.

Scott nodded severely.

“She would. Then she’d be captured and brainwashed to serve Mark again. Not even Ororo at full power could take on all of Mar-Wakanda and win. We can’t take that risk. The world… The whole world needs to learn what’s going on here before it’s too late. We need to escape and get the word out. Emma’s probably feeding the Institute bogus information about what’s going on in Wakanda, but we can set the record straight. We’ll gather every superhero team that’s worth a damn. X-Men, the Fantastic Four, the Avengers. Everyone.”

More people for Mark to enslave. More people for me to fail.

“We’ll come back for her. I promise,” he said softly, and put a hand on her arm. She hated hearing the words, even if she could understand the logic within them. If Jean were cornered now, in her weakened state, she doubted she’d be able to defend herself effectively. Mark would enslave her again, and everything she’d suffered and endured would be for nothing.

“He doesn’t know we’re free,” Jean thought out loud. “Not yet. We could… we could…”

Fix my mistake. It’s all my fault. All of it…

Darkness pricked at the edges of her vision.

“Jean. Jean! Stay with me!”

She opened her eyes and found herself being held, entirely supported by Scott’s arms.

She gave him a weak smile.

“Guess I wouldn’t do much good being this exhausted, would I?”

Her husband snorted, smiling despite the misery rolling off of him in waves.

She felt a hand under her chin lift her head up to look him in the eyes.

“Come on. I know you’ve suffered a lot. We both have. But this isn’t the time to dwell on it. Emma and Betsy are still on Mark’s side. If they even suspect that we’re free, you don’t look like you’re in any condition to fight either of them,” he lifted her onto her feet and started walking. He was still holding her, so she was **** to stumble with him. “Now get those legs moving. We have a job to do.”

She nodded and obeyed, doing her best to maintain a steady gait. She nearly froze up when a dark-skinned, voluptuous woman naked as the day she was born entered the hallway from an open door. Jean half-expected the woman to call for the Dora Milaje, but instead hurriedly bowed. Remembering the hierarchy she’d helped Mark instill within the minds of the enslaved Wakandan people, Jean nodded and lifted her hand, dismissing her.

The woman grinned happily and went on her way.

Another person who’s a **** because of my stupidity. Will the Phoenix kill her, too?

“How are we going to escape?” Jean asked Scott, trying to ignore the turmoil of her mind.

Scott grunted.

“I’ve still got all my memories of my time here. Most of it I’d rather do without, but some of it’s actually useful. For example, I know the best routes around the Palace if you don’t want to run into any patrols and I know how to pilot a Wakandan stealth transport.”

Jean nodded, but for the life of her she couldn’t allow herself to hope.

“Yeah, that makes sense. We’ll make our way to the hangar bay. How will we prevent the Wakandans from giving chase? I don’t think I’m strong enough to make them ignore us if they send enough people,” she said.

They rounded a corner and continued down another hallway. Gone were the decorations that had once represented Wakanda and its goddess Bast. In their stead portraits of Mark Williams and his favored servants lined the walls.

He didn’t even order them to do that. They’d done it once he’d made them worship them. It hadn’t made sense to them to keep reminders of a past they no longer wanted anything to deal with. Thousands of years of history, culture, and an entire way of life discarded in the trash just like that. Wakandans used to pride themselves on their freedom and independence. Now, subservience has been ingrained into their very identity. And I helped make it all happen.

“That’s the easy part,” her husband replied, oblivious to her inner thoughts.

“He’s a fool to not ask how you ‘freed’ yourself. He’s so **** to believe in you. No wonder he was so easy for Mark to enslave.”

She clenched her teeth.

Stop it. Scott just spent the last few months under someone else’s control. He’s been through things that would have broken most people. He’s stronger than you give him credit for!

“Oh, please. You can still sense his emotions and his stray surface thoughts. He’s not even remotely curious why, after all this time, you were finally able to throw off Mark’s shackles. He still thinks you’re perfect, that you can do no wrong. What will he think when he realizes you made a deal with the Phoenix to save yourself from a miserable mess that you created?”

Jean tried to focus on the sound of Scott’s voice and ignore the treacherous speech inside her head, but as he spoke, she couldn’t help but skim his mind. He was in a great deal of mental and emotional pain, a similar flavor to what she had experienced ever since the Phoenix wrestled her mind from Mark’s control. There was a cold focus there, too. A determination to not let that pain lead him or her into slavery again. She also saw a flicker of hope. It was small, but somehow significant, like a last morsel of food possessed by a starving man. It was like a pillar holding up his mind, only just preventing it from tumbling down.

Jean dared concentrate, her head flaring with pain as she peered further, at Scott’s mental pillar, and realized it wasn’t a pillar at all, but a person. A woman, with red hair and green eyes. It was like looking in a mirror.

No.

She abruptly tore herself from his mind.

Scott kept talking. She envied his obliviousness, even if it made her irrationally sad and angry.

“-kandan stealth craft come and go all the time. They’ve been constantly patrolling the border since Magneto **** Mark. Some of them come back here to refuel. If I board one of those craft and commandeer it, no one will question it. I know a lot of the crews. They’ll think I’m out running another mission for the boy-king himself.”

Jean gave him a sidelong glance.

“Won’t they start wondering what’s going on when they see me with you? I’m practically a queen in their eyes, so they’re certain to talk,” she argued.

Scott shook his head.

“Yeah, you’re their queen. All you have to do is tell them not to mention your presence and they should leave you alone. Tell them it’s for the safety of the king or something,” he said. “You have to remember that these people are mind-controlled. They’re steadfastly loyal to the people who hold their leash. As their 'queen,' you’re one of those people.”

“That’s right. Here, you have power that you never had before Mark enslaved you. An entire nation at your beck and call. Admit it, you enjoyed having that sort of power. It made you feel important and special. You’re really no better than Mark at the end of the day.”

“No, I’m not,” she hissed before she could stop herself.

I’m not like Mark! I’m not the person he wants me to be anymore! I hate him and everything he did to me!

Yet she couldn’t explain why the image of herself sitting in the Wakandan throne room at Mark’s side, hundreds of his subjects bowing before them made her heart quicken with excitement.

It’s… it’s his corruption. The Phoenix didn’t get rid of all of it.

The other voice was conspicuously silent, but she had the vague sense of someone raising her eyebrow skeptically.

Her husband shot her a worried glance.

“Sorry,” she said. It felt wholly inadequate to describe how she felt. “It’s… it’s a good plan. I guess as soon as we’re aboard the stealth ship, you have a way of stopping the Wakandans from tracking us?"

Scott nodded slowly. She could sense an unsaid question on his lips.

Are you okay?

The question infuriated her.

No, Scott. I’m not. You should hate me! You shouldn’t even be asking me that question!

She wanted to lash out with her powers. To destroy something.

“Anything to distract yourself from your own failures and make yourself feel better. How incredibly childish of you.”

The thought stung, but she couldn’t shake the notion that they were right.

“Jean, if we happen to run into anyone we know, do you think you have it in you to free them before we go?” he asked, clamping his mouth shut almost as soon as the words left his mouth. Jean wasn’t surprised. She knew her husband well enough to know that despite his focus on completing whatever mission was at hand, he cared deeply for his friends and teammates.

She shook her head “no,” and it felt like the most painful thing she had ever done.

“Pathetic.” Useless. “Arrogant.” Stupid. “Your fault.” It's all my fault.

Her own laugh taunted her.

Scott swallowed and nodded.

“We’re here,” he said.

The door to the hangar bay was flanked by two royal guardsmen. Clad in silverish vibranium armor that covered them from head to toe, they held futuristic energy rifles across their chests.

As Jean and Scott approached, the soldiers hastened to bow. Jean wondered if Scott was going to address them, but he kept his head held high and walked past them, the entryway door to the hangar opening with a swish.

Heat and the metallic rumbling of engines assaulted her senses as she entered the large, well-lit space. If she were not in a hurry, she would have marveled at how high up the ceiling was. It had to be at least three-hundred feet. Endless rows of Wakandan transports, warplanes, and stealth ships lined the walls on multiple levels.

Soldiers and mechanics hurried throughout the complex, attending to and boarding vehicles. A few of them turned their heads to gaze at them, but at a glance from someone whose ornate uniform denoted him as their superior, they quickly resumed their duties.

Above, two ships hovered, a rippling haze in the air the only evidence of the engines keeping them aloft.

“This way, Jean.”

She blinked and realized with a start that she’d almost wandered off. She fell into step with Scott again, walking with him until he stopped in front of a silver-plated craft nestled in a far corner of the room. It had virtually no wingspan and seemed well over one hundred feet long.

“That’s a stealth ship?”

It looked almost exactly like the one Aneka had arrived in to whisk them over to Wakanda.

“A stealth troop transport, to be more accurate,” Scott said. He walked towards the craft and pressed a button on his armor’s wrist.

Something whirred within the craft and within moments a portion of the lower hull opened and a ramp extended from the ship’s bowels.

“Come on. We don’t have much time,” Scott said, walking towards the ramp.

Suddenly, a slightly-accented, bemused feminine voice spoke up from behind them.

“Jean? Scott? What are you two doing here?”

Jean whipped her head around and gasped.

Standing in front of her, clad in a revealing ceremonial Wakandan garb that showed off her toned dark stomach, wide hips, and large soft breasts, was Ororo Munroe.

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