Recovery requires 10 steps

Slowly opening her eyes and looking up at the ceiling of a hospital room, Jean Grey sat up and instantly regretted it as vertigo overtook her. But just as she was about to slump back down, she was caught in the arms of someone sitting nearby.

“Whoa, whoa… Easy Jean. You’re safe.”

Looking up again with her vision clearing, Jean found the smiling face of Scott looking down at her and gently guiding her back to lay in bed. His face, his body, it was all restored to normal. Looking down at herself in bed, she was relieved to find she too was back to her old self.

“How long was I…?”

“You were out for several days Jean, I’ve been staying with you to keep an eye on you, well, by that I mean stay with you to let you know what happened.”

“What happened?” She asked, looking out over to the doorway where she found Beast and Forge enter the room with charts in hand and smiled the moment they spotted that Jean was awake.

“Ah good, how are you feeling Jean?” Asked Dr. McCoy, checking the woman’s vitals as he placed the chart at the foot of her bed. “Any memories coming back at all?”

Sitting up again and finding more strength to do so, Jean raised her hands to the sides of her head and looked within with her telepathy. Her memories were clouded in some spots, the prospect of that making her purse her lips in frustration when she stopped and looked to Scott. “No, what happened?”

“It would seem that the Dark Phoenix had wormed her way free of your mind and caused a bit of havoc on Krakoa.” Explained Forge, sitting on the opposite side of the bed with a chart still in hand. “But we managed to stop her and do the necessary repairs to both the island and to you and all your friends.”

“Why? What did she do?”

Both Beast and Forge traded looks and winced a bit from that question, with Forge visibly pulling on the collar of his shirt nervously before someone new entered the hospital room.

“The Dark Phoenix had made finger puppets of your husband and your friends Jean.” Explained Charles Xavier, the man walking in with a smile as Rogue, Storm and Dazzler came in to join them all. “I knew you had awoken and took the initiative to let your friends know.”

“Jean!” Anne Marie smiled, standing at the foot of the bed completely human again and combing the white streak from her hair over her ear. “You look as sleepy as a pillow at a bed store, how you feeling girl?”

“Still woozy…”

“We had been taking turns watching over you to make sure you had recovered after we had awoken in the hospital ourselves.” Explained Ororo, standing at the other side of the bed with her hands folded in front of her. “Scott has never left your side though.”

“Yeah… Enough to make a girl feel jealous.” Smirked Allison.

Looking over to Cyclops, the man smiled sheepishly down at Jean, but that lead to a series of questions left brewing in the woman. “What happened to the Dark Phoenix? Where is she now?”

“You do not need to worry about the Dark Phoenix anymore Jean. It took some work, but she will never harm you or anyone else ever again. For now, recover, enjoy yourselves… and welcome back.”

“Thank you professor.” Jean and Scott said together, just as the man left for them all to get some privacy and get answers from their friends.

Making his way out of the hospital, Xavier had a cylinder in his hand as he walked down the steps and brought a hand to his temple to speak out telepathically.

“Erik, hear my thoughts.” He said internally, navigating his way down the street while trying to commune with his friend.

“I can hear you Charles.” Magneto responded. “Has Jean Grey awoken, does she or the others remember this… Embarrasement?”

“They do not. My efforts have been methodical and careful. No one remembers any of the circumstances of the Dark Phoenix’s damage to them or the island. I have implanted a mental blanket as it were over those events to patch up any holes. As far as they know or understand, the Phoenix took control of them, and from then on their minds were not their own… That will suffice for their own sanity.”

“And what shall we do with their progeny?” Asked Erik, looking over a large pasture outside the city limits of the Krakoan nation where several dozen winged beasts grazed and kept close to one another like cattle. All of the collective children of Scott and the women ensnared in the Dark Phoenix’s machinations were kept a careful watch by the master of magnetism ever since they had taken back control of Krakoa. Without the Phoenix’s will driving them, the creatures were empty minded and placated.

“From your reports, they are relatively harmless, I have already planted the idea in the minds of our people on mass that the… Native species were always here. They will be well cared for and none no wiser of their origins. We could even make them a national animal. France has Swans, America has the Bald Eagle, there’s something apropos of Krakoa’s national animal being a wyvern of all things, VERY regal.”

“Unless someone asks why each one has the gestalt genes of 12 different mutants…” Magneto interjected.

“No one will know unless they ask, and no one will ask unless curiosity gets the better of them. And even if they did, as you said, their biology is so mingled with so many genetic sources, no one would know where to start.”

“Well, they seem peaceful at the very least.” Erik capitulated, watching one of them sneeze and give off a column of optic blasts that burned a hole in the ground in front of it. “At a distance… And what of the Dark Phoenix?”

“Do not worry my friend, I am handling her now.”

***

Opening a door that led down to a steep set of stairs to an unknown room below, Charles Xavier made his way down with a jar in his hands. The place so ominously quite, his foot steps could be heard echoing over the wooden creak of the staircase as he made his way down deeper into the dark chamber.

Wherever he was… No one had ever been here or knew of its existence. When he made his way to the bottom step, the man made his way through the dark to the far end of the large and open space. There was nothing in the dark and empty room, not even furniture save for one tiny detail; a row of shelves mounted on the far wall with what looked like a collection of what appeared to be pickle jars. Hoisting the jar he had in his hands up, Charles Xavier added the jar he had to the collection in front of him and took a step back to admire the lot.

“AND there! You won’t be a problem for anyone in the future.” The telepath smiled, brushing his hands clean and taking a step back to admire the collection of jars in front of him. “Now where is that… Ah! Here we are.”

Finding the pull string to the overhead lamp for the room, Xavier clicked the light on, illuminating the space to finally show where he was. The room was a cellar of some type underneath Xavier’s home on Krakoa. The shelves in front of him contained not actual jars but extraordinarily complex psychic containers housing the mental essence of ‘Disruptive Influences’ he had gathered and collected.

“Do you think THIS will contain me?” Fumed the disembodied voice of the Dark Phoenix from the jar Charles had placed on the shelf, the essence within looking like a furious little red firefly buzzing around the space of the jar’s interior. “That air-headed bimbo could not contain me, nor shall this!”

“Oh yes it will.” Snorted Xavier, crossing his arms triumphantly back at the psychic entity he had contained. “You’ve been a naughty little pile of emotional baggage to Jean… And to the rest of us. So I snipped you out of her psyche and placed you here where you can never harm another living soul again.”

“You’ve tried to contain me in the past, you have ALWAYS failed. Mark my words, I will be free, and this world will be burned to cinders!” The tiny glowing dot exclaimed. “I… AM… PHOENIX!”

“And I am late for a silent council meeting later on this morning, we’re discussing the possible marketing options of the tampered water you created in the rejuvenation pools. Seems there’s a rather large clientele of people whom puberty was never kind to. Imagine what they’ll pay for a miracle drink that turns you into Andre the Giant with one sip! We might actually get enough funds to have an embassy in Latveria, wouldn’t THAT be fun.”

Checking himself over one last time to make sure he was presentable, Charles swiftly turned at the heel and made his exit back up the staircase.

“DO YOU THINK YOU CAN KEEP ME HERE ALL ALONE? UNGUARDED?”

Looking over his shoulder, Charles gave the tiny red fleck a dirty look followed by a snort. “Alone? What are you talking about, you have plenty of company down here.”

“You DARE leave me contained next to this harlot?!” Barked another disembodied voice from a jar on the shelf, one after another more lights flickered inside containers next to the Dark Phoenix. “You could not defeat the awesome power of Onslaught; you could only detain me. Bottle me up. But I refuse to tolerate my incarceration next to this sexual deviant!”

“Rich coming from the depraved psychic lovechild of Charles and Erik…” Hissed a blue speck of light in another container next to his. “I am the archangel of ****! When I am free, all life shall be scoured, this world will be a dead world. All in the name of Apocalypse!”

“Pining for the big man who tossed you to the curb?” Scoffed the Dark Phoenix. “I’d say that’s rich, but didn’t you blow your entire fortune to get your wings back? By blowing HIM?”

“Keep talking you big red rat with wings, once I am free, YOU will know what true **** tastes like!”

“You DO know he retired and became an Oxford professor right? Maybe if your grades are high enough you might be able to get into his secret ‘book’ club for a bite of his apple.”

“SILENCE! None of you can compare to the Brilliance of the Dark Beast. The master of machinations. The connoisseur of creativity. I was once the greatest mind in all of mutant kind, life and ****, flesh and metal were all mine to play with, and I will be free once again!”

“Your so-called brilliance is but a frail nimbus to my powers! I Blood Storm shall be a hurricane of destruction once I am freed of this pathetic prison. The skies will turn black and rain blood once more when I am free.”

“Butt out Blood Storm. Higher beings are talking.”

“BITCH! I will come over there and knock you off this shelf!” buzzed the bright green light flickering around in her containment jar like an angry bee.

“I’d like to see you try it Ororo. You’ve been full of hot air ever since you got here.”

“SCREW YOU!”

“I’d like to see you try. Might be the best experience of your life!”

“You ALL pale before the flames of the Dark Phoenix. Mark my words Charles, I shall be free!”

Ignoring the chorus of villain monologues going off downstairs, Xavier turned off the light at the top of the stairs and closed the door behind him.

The end.