Interference from Beyond

Jean had been young when her parents died. She’d waited at her house after school. She’d known at any moment she’d hear her mother’s voice chattering enthusiastically about what she was planning on making for dinner. Then her father’s voice would say that he couldn’t wait to see what she was cooking up. They would joke and kiss and laugh and greet Jean like she was the center of their universe.

Being a telepath just beginning to come into her own, she could feel their genuine love for her, and it had been wrapped around her like a blanket throughout her childhood, keeping her warm and making her smile.

Her parents hadn’t returned that night. She’d been in a quiet house as the sun slowly set, turning the once-bright sky into an oily abyss.

A family friend had shown up and told her that her parents had died in a car crash. She hadn’t believed her at first, even though her ability told her that the woman wasn’t lying. It was impossible. Her parents had always been there and would always be there for her. That was how things worked in Jean’s world. She would come home after school and then her parents would arrive from work. That was how things had always worked in Jean’s mind.

Hours later, police officers had shown up to inform her of her parents’ deaths. The nice lady her mother and father had been friends with hadn’t told her the grim details of the accident, but she’d found out. The sights she’d pulled from the minds of those police officers had destroyed something inside her.

The blanket her parents had wrapped her in was suddenly gone and she was alone in a cold, uncaring world that hated her kind. Mutants.

“We never did recover from that fully, did we?” another woman mused, in her voice. She looked up and beheld a woman who looked just like her. She gazed at herself as the two of them hovered over an ocean that teemed with images and sounds from her memories. The endless pool flickered with everything she’d ever thought and experienced.

Her doppelganger’s crimson hair was longer than hers and more refined, giving her an almost regal bearing. Her piercing emerald eyes stared at her knowingly. She was clad in a microbikini and had a collar tight around her neck. It looked uncomfortable, and it certainly wasn’t something she would ever consider wearing, but for the woman they seemed to be extensions of who she was. It also seemed familiar to her, somehow. This was a woman who knew who she was and was proud of it.

It was then that she noticed that she was clad in her skintight yellow and blue Marvel Girl outfit.

“When did I put this on?” she wondered aloud. It had been over half a decade since she’d worn that getup, back when the X-Men wore their own individual costumes instead of uniforms like the Fantastic Four.

She’d eventually found others like her at Charles Xavier’s School for the Gifted. Ororo and Hank and the others had become close friends and colleagues of hers. She had often saved their lives and they hers. But she’d never loved any of them.

Then Scott Summers had asked her out. She’d known he was interested in her. As much as she tried not to intrude upon the private thoughts of the people around her, such a strong desire was impossible to ignore. The only man who had similarly intense feelings that went beyond mere infatuation had been Logan, but he’d never made a move. His feelings for her had been tainted by doubt and self-loathing that stewed beneath the man’s oceans of confident savagery.

She’d given Scott a chance, even though she knew it would drive him and Logan apart. They’d never been good friends, but any chance of that improving had gone out the window when she’d started dating Scott. Their eventual marriage had sealed the deal.

“We knew dating Scott would drive him and Logan apart, but we did it anyway.”

Her own voice jolted her out her thoughts. She glared at her doppelganger. There was something off about her smile and the way she looked at her. She seemed almost disdainful.

“Not exactly the word I would use, but it’ll do,” her doppelganger smirked at her. “If it weren’t for your stubborn persistence, we wouldn’t be here right now. We could be serving at the feet of our master and true husband, preparing for the time when that abomination from the stars would arrive. Instead, we’re here in limbo in our own mind, because you could never do the right thing and just let go of everything holding us back.”

Jean frowned.

“What do you mean? What’s happening?”

Her doppelganger laughed. The movement caused her barely-clothed breasts to jiggle.

“Oh come on. You know exactly what I’m talking about. You can’t seriously think we’re still in Mark Williams’ living room, waiting for him to shake our hand?”

Jean thought back to the moment in question. Ororo had called her and asked for her help in recruiting a potentially highly valuable mutant to the Institute. She’d felt his desire for her right away, but prevented herself from peering further. She knew she was an attractive woman and so wasn’t surprised that a teenage boy liked what he saw.

Their hands had touched and everything changed. Her mind felt muddled, her entire conception of reality torn asunder. What were the new thoughts and beliefs that now propagated in her mind like a virus?

Memories, both images and sounds slammed into her like a freight train. She saw herself stripping for Mark while Ororo watched with glee. She saw herself sucking Mark’s cock and sharing his delicious cum with Ororo. She felt herself being fucked by Mark, who made her feel better than anyone of his age and experience had any right to.

She saw so much more, the memories tearing across her skin like debris in a sandstorm.

She screamed and sunk to her knees. Her clone watched her, a knowing glint in her eyes.

“No!” she sobbed. “Oh god, what have I done?”

Her doppelganger smirked.

“Whatever our master wanted.”

Jean clenched her fists.

“No. I-I didn’t do this! Mark made me!” she hated the words even as she spoke them. She was one of the most powerful psychics in the world. She should have been able to resist Mark’s commands, or at least should have sensed what he had planned for her.

The other Jean gripped her with her telekinesis and lifted her to her feet.

“Stop that. You and I both know this is all your fault,” she sneered at her. “You were weak. You married a weak man who couldn’t protect us and became part of a team that could never save you. I had to be strong for the both of us. I fought for what we needed. What we wanted deep down inside, past the goody two-shoes façade you apply to yourself every morning like makeup. And look at us now. We’re the queen of the most advanced nation on the planet. Our new husband loves us more than Scott ever did and is growing more powerful by the day. He wouldn’t allow anything bad to happen to us. What more could we possibly want?”

Jean grit her teeth. She felt a wave of revulsion over her when she remembered just how many times her mouth had been wrapped around Mark’s cock. She wanted to spit and puke to rid herself of him, but couldn’t. Mark had invaded her far more deeply than that.

“I don’t want this!” she screamed. “I never did. I…”

“What was the point of any choice you made if it could be snatched away in an instant?” her other self chastised her as if she were still a child.

She swallowed her saliva. Mark’s cum had gone down her throat more times than she could count. Certainly more times than Scott’s had.

Do I hate her because she’s treating me this way or because a part of me agrees with her?

“I honestly don’t care what you think of me. I made better choices. I’m the one who deserves to control our body. Not you.”

Jean stared at her clone for a long moment. Understanding dawned on her.

“The Phoenix. It split us apart. Gave me a fighting chance,” she muttered.

“I really hate that thing,” her doppelganger said. “The sooner we destroy it, the better. Relinquish control and I’ll get rid of it forever.”

For the first time in what felt like months, the real Jean who had long been buried and supplanted by the personality Mark had unknowingly created within her mind felt hope.

“No,” she smiled. “I don’t think I will.”

She built up a churning nexus of psionic energy before flinging it at her clone.

The other woman slapped the glowing ball of energy away with her hand. She glared at her and responded with a telekinetic wave that flung Jean across the lake of her memories. The water splashed around her, and she could see individual memories flickering in the droplets.

Her doppelganger shoved her into the water until she was submerged up to her neck. She flailed about for a few moments before steeling herself. She wasn’t going to lose here. She couldn’t.

“You’re pathetic. It’s clear why Mark took control over us so easily. We’re lucky it was a man as amazing as him and not someone who wouldn’t care about us at all. Now why don’t you do us both a favor and just die.”

With a wave of her hand, Jean was sent tumbling down through the ocean of her memories until she slammed into the rocky bottom. Her telekinetic barriers flickered and dissipated.

Her memories sang to her. It was as if her entire life’s worth of experiences had been assembled into a choir and sang underwater. The tone was beautiful and somber. It sang of a life forged in pain that had never reached its true potential.

Jean stared out at the boundless ocean. She wasn’t one for self-pity. She’d never confided in anyone except Mark. Her own husband was genuinely clueless as to her inner thoughts.

It disgusted her that she’d had to have been **** to tell another soul what she was truly feeling, and could never confide in the ones she genuinely loved. She’d known everything about them. She’d been in their minds, after all. But they’d never known her.

The only person Jean had ever hated was herself. Sitting at the bottom of the ocean of her memories, trapped deep within the confines of her mind, she’d never hated herself more.

A golden light flickered in the distance.

Jean stared out through the abyss. The light grew closer and closer over the next few moments until finally, she glimpsed a form.

It was a woman. She looked almost exactly like her. It wasn’t her doppelganger, however, but something else. She’d felt its presence before.

It reached a hand out and placed it on her shoulder. Raw psionic energy filled her. Being split off from a part of her own mind had weakened her severely, and her mental clone had had months to gather her strength unopposed.

She knew the energy the Phoenix was giving her came from afar, but it would have a price when it finally arrived on Earth.

Whatever it is, I’ll pay it gladly.

Jean clenched her fists and pushed off the ocean floor. Her memories gave way to her, as if cheering her on.

She couldn’t lose. She wouldn’t.

Jean emerged from the ocean so quickly that her doppelganger only managed a look of surprise before she hit her with the most powerful telekinetic attack she’d ever delivered, flinging the perversion of her own soul deep into the ocean, past the rocky floor. She reinforced the crater she’d made down there with several tons of rock, sealing her there.

The Phoenix emerged from the glowing waters. It stared at her, as if waiting for something.

“Thank you,” Jean said.

The entity nodded. A thought entered her mind. Thanks weren't needed. There would be a price to be paid for the Phoenix's aid, and it fully intended to collect.

Jean sighed. It seemed no matter what she did, she’d always be serving a more powerful master.

“You’ll regret sealing me down here. Mark is a much more considerate master than that monster could ever be. It’ll use you until you wither away. It’s not too late to go back to Mark.”

A voice, dark and seductive, whispered in her mind.

Jean shook it off. Her doppelganger was imprisoned, but not destroyed. She would have to be on guard against its influence in the future.

She looked up.

The sky was black and starless. She would be incredibly weak from her ordeal when she woke, but she had to do what she could to make things right.

On the floor of the Wakandan Royal Palace, Jean Grey’s eyes opened. She took her first gasp of free air in months.

“Jean, are you okay?” Scott’s worried face dominated her vision.

She smiled at her husband. She began probing his mind, isolating the changes Mark had made to it before preparing to eliminate them.

“Yeah. I think everything’s going to be fine.”