CHAPTER 111 – SHADOWS OF RETURN
The rotor blades beat the night as the helicopter touched down on the Xavier mansion lawn. Snow still clung to Hank's fur, the Antarctic chill buried in his bones. He stepped out first, gently carrying Jean in his arms. Her hair, once flame-bright, lay limp against her pale face.
The doors of the mansion burst open. Xavier wheeled out in a rush, Lilandra close behind him. Her alien robes shimmered in the dim light, strange and regal against the familiar grounds.
Hank's voice cracked as he spoke. "Charles… she saved me, but it nearly killed her. She hasn't woken since."
Jean stirred faintly, a moan escaping her lips. Charles reached forward, trembling hands brushing her temple. His eyes closed.
For a moment, silence. Then tears welled and fell freely. "Jean… my child. I thought I had lost you. I thought I had lost all of them."
Her lashes fluttered, barely open. "Professor… I tried… I couldn't…" Her voice broke, and before she could continue, Charles leaned down, pressing his forehead to hers.
"Shhh," he whispered. "No more guilt. You are here. That is enough." His body shook with quiet sobs, rare cracks in a man usually carved from iron resolve.
Hank glanced sideways. His keen mind took in Lilandra—the way she knelt beside Xavier, her touch on his shoulder, grounding him. Hank had heard whispers from the others, but seeing it now—the bond between the alien empress and the professor—was something else entirely. Not scandal, not weakness. Something pure, fragile, and desperately human.
Hank lowered Jean gently onto the couch in the study. "Charles, she's hanging by threads. Her power kept us alive, but… if she doesn't rest—"
"I will not let her burn herself out," Xavier said firmly, though his tear-streaked face betrayed how much he feared that very outcome.
Jean's eyes fluttered closed again, and for the first time since Antarctica, she looked almost peaceful.
The fire crackled in the hearth. Outside, the helicopter lifted off, vanishing into the cold night sky.
Inside the mansion, the survivors held one another, surrounded by warmth—but haunted by the shadows of those who hadn't come home.
The Savage Land sun hung fat and golden over the village. It had been a week since they'd clawed their way out of the volcano's deathtrap. A week of uneasy peace, of healing wounds with strange herbs and roasted beasts that didn't exist anywhere else on Earth.
But grief was a stubborn guest. It sat with them at every fire, whispered at every silent moment.
At the edge of a lake, Scott Summers knelt, his reflection trembling in the ripples. He had whittled a crude razor from jungle wood, its edge sharp enough thanks to careful, obsessive hours. He dragged it slowly across his jaw, scraping away the thick beard that had grown wild in the chaos.
The water threw back his image, but something in the reflection startled him. The lines of his face. The slope of his chin. A memory tugged—hazy, jagged.
'I look like him… Corsair.'
The name echoed in his mind, raw and half-buried. He squeezed his eyes shut. He saw fire. Metal. His younger brother Alex clutched in his arms. A helicopter. A woman screaming. A man—tall, strong, desperate. And then the memory ripped apart, gone as quickly as it came. He cursed under his breath, the water rippling again.
He thought of Hank. His absence gnawed. And Jean… why didn't her absence cut the same way? Perhaps because she had changed. The Phoenix had changed her. And deep down, Scott feared he was losing her to something far greater than him.
Not far away, Logan sat with his back against a tree. A cigarette burned down between his fingers, untouched. In his other hand was a small, battered photo. Jean, laughing. Before the firebird, before the battles that tore the sky open.
"She was my first love," he muttered under his breath, voice gravel-rough. "The first one who made me think I could be more than claws and rage."
He looked at the sky, eyes burning in the corners. "And I let her die. Useless."
The photo crumpled slightly as he closed his hand around it, but he didn't let go. Couldn't.
At the river, Ororo swam through the crystal waters, her body moving with a grace born of freedom. She rose from the river like a goddess of storms, droplets glittering on her skin. She inhaled deeply, the jungle air filling her lungs.
'This… this is what life should feel like. The clean breath of the world, not the poisoned air of New York. Here, I am myself.'
She stepped onto the riverbank, closing her eyes, arms lifted to the sky as though embracing her true home.
That's when the shadow fell across her.
A shriek split the air, sharp and alien. Talons clamped around her shoulders. Fangs glistened, and leathery wings beat the sky.
Sauron.
He sank his teeth in, draining her life-force with greedy abandon. Ororo screamed as her energy bled out, her body trembling under his grip.
But something was wrong. Sauron's eyes went wide—he couldn't stop. The power surged too fast, too much. His own body convulsed, wings thrashing wildly.
"NO… CAN'T… CONTROL IT!" he roared, his voice twisted with pain.
Storm and Sauron screamed together, agony tearing from both throats. Their pain lit the heavens.
A bolt of lightning split the clouds, white and furious, exploding down into the jungle.
The other X-Men snapped their heads toward the sky.
Cyclops dropped his razor. Logan crushed the photo in his fist. The ground trembled as the storm screamed overhead.
Something terrible had begun.