The stars tore past in blinding streaks of light, stretching and warping as Jean and Maxim moved through the golden corridor of space Maxim had ripped into reality. They were strong enough that even through this spatial travel, they remained calm, no nausea or anything of the sort.
The rift behind them sealed with a whisper, leaving Earth far behind, no longer the battlefield, no longer the shield.
Now the two of them hurtled forward through layered cosmic realms, deeper into the unknown than most mortals would dare to gaze, much less step.
This was Maxim's first time traveling through space. Needless to say he hadn't done it in his past life, so he savored the environment, looking around, spotting the various cosmic debris all around.
He could see the occasional ship or planet and was amazed at how magnificent space looked, reminding himself to visit more once he had accomplished all of his goals.
Beside him, Jean was hovering, the flames of the Phoenix Force crackling off of her in quiet waves, not as wild or chaotic as they were when she initially awakened but controlled, tamed not by suppression, but by acceptance.
It pulsed in rhythm with her thoughts, her will. She no longer fought the voice within her; she had merged with it. The Phoenix wasn't separate from Jean Grey anymore.
It was her.
Maxim, by contrast, was a still point amid the blur of movement. Cloaked in threads of dark violet and flickering starlight, he moved through the warp-tunnel like a sovereign walking a familiar hall.
Space twisted around his boots, gravity itself folding neatly with every stride. His mind, always racing, always watching, was focused now on a single destination, a planet he had only glimpsed through stolen memories and reconstructed visions from the Death Commando he'd marked.
The Shi'ar throneworld of Chandilar.
"I feel them," Jean said suddenly, her voice vibrating through the psionic veil around them.
Maxim glanced over, "The Death Commandos?"
Jean shook her head. "No. The others. Hundreds of lives clustered into armadas. And the minds guiding them are focused like blades. D'ken's already deployed the front lines. They're headed toward Earth."
Maxim's brow lowered, "You're sure?" He asked, even with his astral powers at full force, he wasn't sensing anything.
She nodded, "They're masking their energy signatures, and they're too far away from us right now, but they're not masking their intent. The Phoenix feels them the way fire feels oxygen."
He extended his hand forward, tearing open another spatial seam with a thought. Outside, the warp corridor thinned, and then they emerged into the stars fully, into open space beyond Earth's solar system.
A swirling nebula lit the edge of their vision, violet and blue against the black. And just beyond it, flickers of silver motion.
Warships.
Dozens of them.
No, hundreds.
Each one sleek and curved like predatory birds, Shi'ar symbols engraved in shimmering script along their hulls. Fighters, dreadnoughts, assault carriers, weapons arrays, all hurtling silently across the void.
And above them, towering at the center of the formation like a floating crown, was a dreadnought more immense than any human-made vessel.
The Majestor's Talon — D'ken's personal flagship.
"There," Maxim said, "Center formation. He's not hiding."
"Why would he?" Jean said, her eyes glowing brighter now, "He thinks he's already won."
She floated forward until she stood at the edge of the dimensional breach, only void between her and the fleet. Her power surged outward, her silhouette blurred in golden fire.
The Phoenix raptor flared behind her, wings outspread, eyes burning like twin stars, and for a moment, even Maxim felt the heat of it brush his skin.
It wasn't just power. Every soldier aboard every Shi'ar ship would feel it now. The Phoenix was here.
And she was looking back.
"They've seen us," Maxim said, his voice quiet, "Some are charging weapons."
Jean's voice echoed with conviction. "Let them."
Suddenly, Maxim opened his hands wide. Runes shimmered around his fingers as gravitational sigils lit his palms. He twisted his wrists, and six sub-space windows burst open around them, each offering visions into the tactical data gathered from the Commando's mind: Shi'ar communication codes, energy weapon specs, ship schematics, command deck layouts, even psionic dampener locations.
"I can teleport us straight to D'ken," Maxim said.
Jean turned to him, her eyes twin infernos, "We're not leaving until it's over."
He gave a small nod.
Then she turned back to the fleet, raising her hand toward the nearest dreadnought. Her fingers curled slightly, and the space around it ignited. Not in flame, but in pressure.
The ship's shields buckled, hull bending like it had been caught in a gravitational vice. No blast. No sound. Just force. Cosmic force.
It collapsed inward with a silent scream. Alarms would be blaring across the fleet now. But none of that would stop the wave coming for them.
"They'll scramble the Death Commandos," Maxim said. "They'll want to separate us."
"They can try."
He turned toward her, golden energy spiraling down his arms, his expression grim. "This may get ugly."
Jean's power flared again, "Good. I'm done being polite."
Maxim nodded and the runes spiraling around his arms suddenly ignited in full, cascading golden light across his shoulders like war-born armor.
His body vibrated as power surged through him, not just raw energy, but evolutionary force, the relentless growth of something that could never truly die.
Doomsday.
It wasn't just a name anymore. It was a promise. Every battle scar Maxim had ever endured had made him stronger, sharper, faster. And this moment, standing on the edge of a galactic war, would be no different.
With a flick of his wrist, he expanded one of the subspace windows and ripped it wide open, forming a jagged golden rift across the void between them and the nearest cluster of Shi'ar assault carriers.
Then, he and Jean moved.
They didn't fly so much as flash, faster than light, faster than thought. Maxim vanished in a burst of golden vectors and appeared inside the nearest assault ship's command deck.
The Shi'ar guards turned too slowly. The moment they raised their rifles, he waved a hand,
and the air around them bent into blades.
Screams echoed through the bridge as Maxim strode forward, his cloak fluttering in the sudden burst of atmosphere rushing out from the sundered hull. His eyes locked onto the main power core readings, and with a twist of his palm, he summoned a miniature black hole inside the reactor.
The ship imploded, crushing into itself in a silent blossom of energy that never had the chance to scream.
Jean, meanwhile, became a second sun in the void. She soared through the battlefield like a comet, each movement leaving trails of burning psionic fire across space.
When a wing of Shi'ar fighters launched toward her in attack formation, she extended both hands, and crushed their minds before they could fire.
Their ships spun in disarray, crashing into each other like flailing limbs of a dying beast. She moved onward, a queen of flame, untouchable, unrelenting.
Maxim reappeared beside her, eyes bright with exhilaration. "Four ships down."
"Make it nine," Jean said, pointing,"I lit up their sensors. The dreadnoughts just fired blind into their own lines."
Below them, the battlefield boiled with chaos. Shi'ar ships turned and twisted, desperate to regroup. Command relays flared with orders, but Jean's presence, amplified by the Phoenix, jammed more than sensors.
She overwhelmed intention, flooding the fleet with existential dread, with awe, with the crushing truth of what she was.
"Here comes their backup," Maxim muttered. A sharp, cold sensation flickered in his chest, the unmistakable feel of psionic targeting.
The Death Commandos.
Seven beams of crimson energy seared toward them from different vectors in space, cutting through the void like lances of wrath.
Maxim raised his hand, and his body shifted.
His skin darkened, turned to onyx for a heartbeat. The blasts hit, and they hurt, but then his body rippled and adjusted. The next time they struck, his cellular structure had already adapted.
Maxim grinned savagely and hurled a spear of condensed dark matter through space, laced with time distortion. It tore across the battlefield and skewered one of the assassins mid-teleport.
She didn't even scream before she was ripped across four dimensions and gone.
Jean responded in kind. Her wings of fire expanded outward, engulfing two other Death Commandos who'd tried to flank her. They tried to phase out, but she caught them in her psionic field, freezing them in their own timeline.
"I see you," she whispered.
And with a gesture, she unmade them, burning them into pure particles, erasing not just their bodies but the very imprint of their consciousness from the astral plane.
Maxim teleported again, reappearing on top of a Shi'ar war cruiser. Dozens of turrets spun toward him, he raised both arms, and the space around the ship froze.
Literally.
Maxim clenched his fists. The molecular bonds in the ship's hull shattered, crumbling it into glittering fragments that drifted like snow through vacuum.
Jean joined him, hovering above the debris. She wasn't breathing hard, but her power swelled dangerously, her body now more flame than flesh. The Phoenix was full, fed, and furious.
Maxim glanced toward the largest ship, the Majestor's Talon.
"They're panicking," he said, "We've already destabilized the vanguard. Another few minutes and Earth won't even be a target anymore."
Jean narrowed her eyes, "Good. But I'm not stopping until D'ken is ash."
From the command ship, a new energy burst out, immense, singular, sharp as a blade.
D'ken had felt her.
And he was calling her.