CHAPTER 92 – NIGHTMARES OF THE HEART
The golden sphere pulsed, its light bleeding through the cracks like veins of fire. Around it the X-Men writhed, each caught in its psychic snare. The air thrummed with screams, though none of their mouths opened.
Jean staggered to her feet, fire flickering around her. She was free. Somehow.
'I've already died once,' she thought, fists trembling. 'Whatever this thing is showing them, it can't break me. I've seen the other side.'
She looked around the square.
Storm was curled on the ground, face wet with tears, her hands clawing at invisible stone. She muttered between sobs: "The rubble… the darkness… I cannot breathe—" Her nightmare of being buried alive in Cairo still had her by the throat.
Nightcrawler was on his knees, whispering prayers in German, begging forgiveness. His yellow eyes stared into a phantom crowd that spat and cursed, pitchforks raised against his "demon" face.
Colossus thrashed in silence, his hands dripping red in his mind, unable to save his sister Illyana from shadows that pulled her down.
Banshee reached for a phantom Maeve, his lost love, only for her to vanish again and again with every grasp, his voice broken to a whisper.
Thunderbird roared, swinging at air, reliving a thousand defeats, every strike reminding him he'd never match his warrior ancestors.
Sunfire screamed as fire consumed Tokyo, his nightmare of failing to protect his homeland made flesh.
Even the Starjammers weren't spared. Hepzibah fought shadows that stole her freedom. Raza screamed as machines disassembled him piece by piece. Ch'od wailed in an empty ocean, his people gone.
And Corsair—Corsair saw a cockpit aflame, two boys screaming in the back. His hands were on the controls, powerless to save them.
Jean's breath caught. She could see it, as though the Phoenix had peeled back the veil. A plane. Two children. One of them a boy with brown hair, a strange energy sparking in his eyes.
"Scott…" she whispered.
Her eyes went wide. Corsair was the father. Cyclops was his son. The Phoenix had shown her the truth.
But no time for shock.
Cyclops himself was the worst. His visor cracked under the strain of the nightmare, optic beams erupting without aim, tearing the white-and-black city apart. He screamed, unconscious, lost in visions of failure and helplessness.
The beams carved a fresh crack across the sphere. Golden light spilled out. The city shook.
Jean's instincts screamed: if the orb shattered, it wasn't just the city—it was EVERYTHING.
She wrapped her mind around Scott, pinning his mind into sleep, cutting off the blasts. He slumped to the stone. The air went still, but the sphere groaned like a wounded god.
Jean turned to it, fire blazing in her eyes. "If this thing breaks, it's the end."
The Phoenix flared around her, wings blazing across the empty city. She rose into the air, pulled by instinct, by destiny.
"I have to go inside."
Her teammates writhed, still bound in nightmares. She saw their pain, their loss, their scars laid bare. And in that moment, she knew them all deeper than ever before.
She clenched her fists, fire searing. "Hold on, all of you. I'll finish this."
She flung herself into the crack.
The sphere swallowed her.
Darkness.
Total.
No color, no sound, no air. Only the pulse of something immense, something too big for thought. The Phoenix fire flared brighter, guiding her through.
'This is it,' Jean thought, drifting in void. 'The heart of the Crystal. The neutron galaxy. If it ruptures… the pull will drag in every star, every planet, until the universe collapses into one final explosion.'
And ahead of her, she saw it: the lattice.
A web of crystalline light, strands stretching across infinity, cracked and broken, holding back the swirling core of the neutron galaxy. Energy pulsed against it, straining for release.
Jean reached for it, Phoenix fire wrapping her arms. She touched the lattice—and screamed. The cracks burned through her, the pain of a universe trying to tear itself apart.
She forced her power into it, mending, weaving, repairing strand by strand. But the gaps were too vast. Her fire flickered.
"It's not enough…" she whispered. "I can't do this alone."
Behind her, she felt a hand.
"Then don't."
Storm was there, her hand trembling on Jean's shoulder. Her eyes glowed white. "Take my strength. Take my life, if need be. The world must endure."
Jean felt the transfer. Storm's very life force, flowing into her. It nearly broke her heart.
"No," Jean gasped. "If I drain you, you'll die."
But Storm only smiled through the pain. "Then let me die for the sky I love."
Jean shook her head. She could feel it. This couldn't be one person's burden. It had to be all of them.
She turned, her voice booming across the void. "X-MEN! STARJAMMERS! LEND ME YOUR STRENGTH!"
One by one, they appeared in the darkness, pulled from their nightmares by her will. Their hands reached, their power flowed.
And Corsair, clutching the unconscious Scott, stumbled forward. His eyes burned as Jean's voice rang in his mind.
"Take care of him. He is your son."
Corsair froze. His heart cracked wide open. "What—? Scott…? MY SCOTT?!"
But Jean was already gone, diving deeper, blazing like a sun.
Phoenix fire swallowed her, and she plunged into the heart of the lattice.