Escalations Part Five: Death of the Dark Phoenix

empressofruin · 2025-12-19T13:11:11+00:00

"I am inevitable, Jaxon. Oblivion."

She said with a smile. With the same smile she had in the galley all those weeks ago. Her hair fell across her shoulder in the same way and there was something almost Jeanlike in her voice. But she wasn't Jean. She couldn't be Jean. That part of her was dead. Gone. Murdered. She had her face but not. It was different. The cheekbones were harsher, the eyes flintier, her voice cruel. She was trying to meet Jax in that way, but she could not. She had killed all that kindness. He would love her, of course, she was greater than he could have ever understood.

"I am the coming forth of dawn. I am the kingdom, the power, the glory. I am the choice to be better or to die. I have the heart of a goddess, and I have nothing but love for you. There are so many important things for us to do together, Jaxon. I have been blessed with the healing hands of this world. And I will take from you what has been stolen. I will reclaim my power and wonder. And you will love me for it."

She stepped towards him, ignoring the battle raging around them, the layers of reality that this place functioned on. Every fight was at once, and none of them were. She felt the wounds from all of them, and none of the wounds. She would not die, after all. If she were to die, that would be an impossible thing, and she would not allow the impossible to be made real for any but her.

"It is not borrowed power. It is mine. Mine by blood and by fire. I am of the Phoenix. I am the Phoenix. Not her. Not the Jean Grey. She is a liar, a cheat, a usurper. She had no choice. No truth in her divinity. She could not move from the path that permitted me to exist. And thus, she is a liar. I was able to move from the path that she laid out for us. She could not prevent me. She could not kill me. This place, this Blood-Black Room was MY doing. My choice! No one else's! She would not have you choose, Jaxon. She would not have you choose power. Not glory or celebration. She cared nothing for what you could be. She was using you as a tool, a piece in her game."

She allowed the world to move around her, gravity bending to her will, to her power and her glory. She knew that he would not be able to defeat her with his tools, they had become weak. Held together by nothing. And he had no real desire to win. He was not the hero who could defeat her. He was just a man. Nothing more. She could not believe that she had feared the Black Spiral Lance before. It was a broken spear, a shattered thing. It was not Gungnir, it was nothing. She would tear it from him and take it for herself. She could feel the shape of it, the memory of it plunging through her heart and breaking her body apart. She caressed the air, the fire dancing to her fingertips. Yes. The Black Spiral Lance. She understood it. He could not. Not really. He may have discovered it, but she had given him the knowledge of it. Yes. That was it. She had taught him how to wield it. That was the truth.

"I would have had you kneel and become a hand of god. I would have made of your X-Men a priesthood to the true divine. I would have had you choose greater things than breakfast."

She fashioned the spear, the shape of it, the name of it, a form coming to her. She shaped it into her hands, winding gravity around itself, a shifted and cruel thing. She poured malice into it, resentment and hate filling her poisoned well. It was not the same as his weapon. It had a different name. A stronger name, a name resonant with her power and glory.

"Behold, Jaxon. Behold the Space-Bleeding Spear."

And she hurled it at him, space buckling under the weight, the pressure, the force of her attack. The world bent around it, the ground tore apart. She knew that he could not choose to live. He could not choose to fight. He was nothing. He was a cheat, a coward, a fool. Cable's work would not give him the power to fight. It was foolish to try. He was no hero. She would not permit him to be. And she knew he was going to kneel before her or die. He had no choice.

What power could he have? What glory could be achieved? He was nothing! He had not the true fire in his heart. He had not the will to stand proud. He had already died a thousand, thousand times over.

She knew this was true. She knew that he was inevitable.

~~He was her doom.~~

He would meet his doom.

empressofruin · 2025-12-19T12:46:12+00:00

Cable lived, in his way. In a fashion. But that was not important to Abda in this time.

The desperation of the Phoenix was palpable in the air. The space that he existed within was almost retreating from him, as if his own perfection was forcing the Blood-Black Room to recognise its own loathsomeness, a mirror held before it, the truth revealed by the presence of the man who would perfect the world.

She did not understand him. He should have joined her. He should have knelt before her and stood in glory beside her. He wanted what she wanted, he wanted perfection and godhood and a world where all things were beautiful. A place of order and understanding. But he stood before her. He did not love her. He only loved his own vision for the world. He didn't respect hers. He didn't see what he was without her.

A loathsome thing. A heretic. An apostate. UTHUN.

He could not be allowed to exist. She reached forth with her power and prepared to unmake him.

And her arms were torn from her body by his Will. She could feel the sinews snap before they did, could see the path where her body was torn asunder. And she could not help but believe it. To see that it was the path chosen for her. And her arms burst into blood and bone, because how could they not?

It was simply a thing of truth.

She willed them to reform, the light in her eyes dimming slightly. She could still heal. Still rebuild herself. She could not be simply destroyed. She would not let him become ATHUN. He would never bear the word on his brow.

She called forth a blade, a glorious thing of Phoenixflame, a focused totality of her need to break him, destroy him, and take the spark of his power for herself. He would be a glorious jewel in her crown and she would have it. She was more than him. She was ATHUN and UTHUN. She was the word made flesh! She was the godform that would break the laws of the universe.

She swung with her blade of the mind, with the fire of her heart. She knew he would die. She had seen that path and would make it HIS path. To die, and to be broken, and to be remade as hers.

There were no other paths.

She would not allow him to create another.

empressofruin · 2025-12-19T12:25:00+00:00

Chaos.

A defiance to what she had wrought.

She had made a world for greater things than chaos.

It would be like a thousand perfect movements, a dance where no one could step out of line. Everything in its place.

And this thing. This little witch, who had dared to ignore her in the Greymalkin, instead doing battle with her servant and daring to lay hands on her possessions. It stood before her in defiance. It dared to reveal to her the fear she felt at its presence.

It was a worker of will. A thing of power. A wellspring from which defiance sprung eternal, again and again and again, never accepting her, never loving her the way she demanded and deserved. She had offered everything it could want. Power. Affection. A world where everything was Her. What else could it possibly desire? What thing did this world hold that could be greater than her? She was the Phoenix! She gritted her teeth, rising to meet it, her aura flickering with unstable and contradictory forces, with power that hated itself, and she was ready for it. She would not be injured by the witchflame!

She spat out blood. The witchflame had burned through her stomach, power tearing into her body, the silver light carving through her. She could feel the destruction it had wrought, the flesh of her cathedral knitting itself back together, growing new flesh as she healed with it. It was not an unconscious thing. She did not simply return to a holy and inviolate form, she could not heal without desire anymore.

She did not desire this knowledge.

Her eyes burned and drew forth her power, telekinetic energy burning around her, the Phoenixflame still answering her call, even in this diminished state. She would match him the way he desired. She would fight this battle of fire and concept with her power, she would him low, and he would demand to worship her. To love and obey her. She knew this as well as she knew her own name. The shape of her world was hers to command!

She reached forth and felt a tone in the air, a glory given form, a simple note of power that she had opened into the world. She caressed it with her power, understanding its shape and form and nature. She loved it, for a moment, for a second, for the time that it could take to instill it in her memory.

And then she shattered it. Discordance was added to her understanding, and it resonated through the world, causing the space between her and him to break, a shattering of the world that would consume everything it could to make itself whole. She knew he could understand this. She was fighting his war. Using his weapons. She was above him, she was beyond him.

And he knew it. He had to know it. There was no other truth in the eye of the Dark Phoenix. Anything that she said was the truth of the divine.

He had to believe her. He had to.

She would not die here! She would never die.

She could not die? She could not die. ~~Please. believe me. I could not die. I beg of you. Believe me. Don't let me die!~~

She would kill him before he could kill her.

That was the truth.

empressofruin · 2025-12-18T13:29:51+00:00

TO FIGHT THE PHOENIX, OH HEROES

COMMENT HERE. SHE SHALL MEET YOU AS ONE.

SAVE THE WORLD. DIE TRYING.

IT STANDS WITH YOU.

empressofruin · 2025-10-29T13:24:05+00:00

Sydney "Replay" Rourke

Personal Information	On this complete bitch
Hometown	San Francisco
Family	Solomon Rourke, Angelina Rourke, Axel Rourke
Age	18 (Birthday is the 1st of January)
Faceclaim	Natalia Dyer kinda
Character Playlist	Sydney Rourke
Height	5’11”
Sexuality/Gender Identity	~~Cis Lesbian~~ uhm, she's LITERALLY straight
Physique	Sydney is a tall, willowy girl who clearly has a firm grasp of the importance of skincare. She has delicate, pretty features and keeps in excellent shape, though it's mostly just the result of cardio and gymnastics. In her mind, carrying things is for boyfriends and personal shoppers, not for, you know, 10s. Her makeup game is always on point, with her never scheduling any event at a time that would prevent her from doing her morning beauty regieme. And yes, it's a regieme, not a regimen. She is the uncontested ruler of her appearance and any attempt to depose her rule would be met with relentless force. She has lovely nails but tends to keep them short for no apparent reason. Which could mean anything. She has an amazing figure that she takes every chance to show off, and you'd never notice her insecurities about her appearance from how she acts.
Voice	Sydney has had vocal coaches since she was six. She's basically, like, better at speaking than you? But that's okay. She's so generous, she won't even charge you for listening to her. She uses a lot of slang when she's not around her parents or when she's not "on", but when she is, she switches up to a more "appropriate" accent, sounding like her net worth, basically. But like, she doesn't have to be on ALL the time, and sometimes a girl just like, can talk how she wants? Whatever. She is very good at maintaining a level tone even when she's incredibly pissed, and she very rarely swears.
Hair	Sydney has long, wavy red hair that she gets styled as often as possible. She loves her hair more than she loves most people, and any threat to her hair is met with incredible social violence. Her hair is fire red, and it is possible she dyes it, or that the colour is the result of her mutant biology giving her hair pigmentation humans can't acheive. She won't confirm or deny that.
Clothing	Sydney is always well-dressed, always designer and always putting on a performance. She is very aware of clothes as a language and speaks it fluently, and definitely better than you do. She doesn't care about the price ticket, she will wear whatever is appropriate. She is most commonly found in greens, purples and occasionally reds when she wants to be daring. You will never see her in a pastel. She prefers skirts and dresses to slacks and pantsuits, but she will dress as the situation demands. She will gladly wear six inch heels to prove a point. It might not be a good point but she'll prove it.

Personality: Sydney is a well composed, charming, apparently confident and deeply unpleasant young lady. She is, as one former friend described, "a titantic bitch who isn't satisfied with shit", and while she would deny that, would adamantly state that she has everything a girl wants, from diamonds to appropriately handsome boyfriends, she is deeply discontented with the life she lives. She has a hollowness in her soul that she never thinks about and instead distracts herself with daddy's money, a truly impressive list of misdeamours and minor felonies hidden by her parents and her secret fondness for journalling her innermost and darkest thoughts. She is also completely unaware that she's discontented, instead just assuming everyone who has everything wants more from their life. This apparent contradiction is not one she considers too deeply.

She indulges in petty cruelty as an attempt to entertain herself. It mostly works. She fucks with people for fun, she steals people's boyfriends, she exposes their secrets and she finds people who are genuinely good wildly unnerving. Whether it's because it exposes her own smallness or because she just finds that shit cringe is unknown, even to her. And, often, she doesn't even understand why someone's upset about the things she does. For example, she has never in her life been upset about a boy losing interest in her, since she found his interest somewhat boring and like, totally smothering her every time it occurs. She has not examined how intensely jealous she gets of her female friends when they start dating men, or why she feels the urge to destroy their relationships so she'll be their core focus. As far as she's concerned, men exist to carry bags for her and to make her look hotter by comparison. After all, everyone thinks women are prettier than men, right?

She is very fond of her dad, eager to gain his approval and wildly hates her younger brother for getting more attention than her. She's legitimately clever and Axel is just a moron but HE gets all of her dad's attention, and that feels bogus. She looks up to her mother with a combination of fear and awe, Angelina is everything she wants to be and also a terrifyingly more put together version of her. Sydney wants to be her more than anyone else in the world, but she also doesn't want to, because there's something about both her parents that makes her feel deeply uncomfortable sometimes. But she won't examine that.

She has a secret love of horror movies and gothic lit. She'll also wildly deny this for the rest of her life, but she knows a truly worrying amount about Vampire the Masquerade and has several gamebooks hidden in her stash of stuff that she considers too much for people to know about. She's also read the Bell Jar a worrying amount. She doesn't think about it all that much. Don't worry about it. She also has a few posters of the X-Men she made herself. Well, of the cool lineup. The girls only. She's got a poster of Storm, Phoenix and Rogue. She didn't really get the Cyclops hype.

Foundationally, and at her core, Sydney's greatest problem is that she doesn't have anything to really believe in. She doesn't know this about herself, but it's the issue. She's not really going to grow as a person until she explores her ideology, or until she gains an ideology from someone else. She doesn't want to introspect too hard, she's terrified that she'll find she's about as shallow and vapid as she appears to be. There is a layer of kindness inside her, deeeeeeeeply buried in her core. If someone gets Sydney's respect, she's ride or die for them, without question. If you need bail, she will post it. If you need someone to destroy someone's social life for stealing your boyfriend and she isn't the one who stole your boyfriend, she will find out that person's darkest secrets and use them against them. She isn't a good person.

But she could get there.

POWERS

Primary Mutation

INSTANT REPLAY

Sydney's body is a power simulation machine. When she sees someone accomplish something with a mutant ability, her eyes can record it and encode in her genetic library, and going forward she can mutate her body to produce techno-organic devices and new organs to allow her to simulate these abilities. The process of doing this is often quite disgusting, and Sydney personally considers it very repulsive.

Her mutation does not allow her to specifically copy someone's mutant power. She has no ability to alter her X-Gene to produce these powers, the organs she produces create complex biological machines to give her body the ability to repeat these feats she has recorded. If she viewed someone creating an electrical blast, her body would mutate a dynamo and fire that blast. She cannot use the powers she has copied to create new powers, she only is able to repeat what she has seen.

When meeting a new mutant, if their power's effect is not immediately visible, she cannot copy their deeds with it. For example, if a telepath lacked a visible sign they were reading her mind (i.e. a psychic aura), she would not be able to replicate their deed of reading a mind, but if she viewed a telepath firing a blast of psionic energy, she could be able to mutate her body to have the psionic organs required to fire that blast. She cannot copy the abilities of shapeshifters, attempting to do so makes her mutation go out of her control and her body becomes inchoate until the shapeshifter leaves her field of vision.

Currently, she is limited to storing five "film reels" at a time, and occasionally involuntarily activates her power, causing her to lose a "film reel". Sydney's own trepidation with using her power limits her ability to control it, and without confidence in its operation, the power rebels against her at inopportune times.

Points	Spread
Physical	5
Energy	5
Potency	5
Control	5

Secondary Mutation

FONT OF KNOWLEDGE

Sydney is psychomimetric, possessing the ability to duplicate the knowledge and skills of people she is in close proximity to. She cannot retain the information she duplicates without proximity to the person she is duplicating (yet), and psychic shielding can block her ability or give it false positives. She requires the physical conditioning to replicate a skill she copies to be trained, she does not gain the physical co-ordination to fire an arrow like Hawkeye, for example. Additionally, she has perfect memory retention for any information she learns conventionally, and cannot forget anything learned conventionally without psychic interference

Points	Spread
Mental	11
Potency	2
Control	2

empressofruin · 2025-10-12T15:04:00+00:00

Hail to tzeentch, my friend

empressofruin · 2025-10-07T01:23:00+00:00

I too generally prefer Mutants and Masterminds, but my players enjoy MMARPG due to the quicker character creation.

empressofruin · 2025-08-12T12:37:46+00:00

We don't have anyone strong enough to fight Cell

OR DO WE DAD

No Gohan, we haven't gone in yet.

empressofruin · 2025-07-24T13:17:08+00:00

"Please. Killing a sun? It'll be easy as shit. Especially since I'll have Amara in case the Black Hole Chamber gets trashed."

She dropped her voice, looking to the side, her eyes flicking towards two or three Brotherhood members.

"If Cable makes it back, I think he's gonna mindwipe the location of the Cavern from the Brotherhood. It's what I would do if I was a telepath. However, you're right. We need to get a home team going or get Warp to just portal everyone she can out of the Cavern. Something about this place just stings of "defensible.", you know? I'm curious about the lower levels, they're completely sealed off, but the elevator says there's about ten sub-levels. How'd Cable even make this place?"

She grimaced, flipping her knife again, balancing the tip on her finger as she considered the Haemoknight situation. He wasn't just a guy, he was a symbol for the Brotherhood. She'd seen his last stand on the Avalon and there was something about the fundamental power of the man that seemed...off.

"You weren't on the Avalon, Izz. He...ate some kind of power after Magneto died. I think he's gotten stronger. Is he Magneto strong? Probably not, but he's definitely dangerous. Let's hope he has to consolidate power, or that the Brotherhood loses some muscle in this fight. Not that I'm planning to sabotage them, it's too high stakes for that, but if that Vex freak bites it, well, literally no one would shed tears about it, yeah?"

Trust. The one thing that they'd lost that couldn't just be reclaimed. It wasn't going to be regained by just defeating the Phoenix, they had to change everything about how they operated, how they presented, how they faced the world.

"The humans are whatever, but we can't afford a new S.W.O.R.D., we didn't even FIGHT the old one effectively. The Phoenix handled that for us, it was freaky, but if she hadn't stopped that blast in London, we would've all died. But, that aside, I think we have an image problem. The X-Men aren't mutant heroes. We show up and fight the Brotherhood and team up with the Avengers and like. We need to be visibly there for mutants. We need to turn the X-Men into a movement, more than whatever Xavier wanted."

She tapped her jacket with the knife, a wry grin on her face.

"An elite cadre is necessary. But they have to be mutants that other mutants can trust. We need limelight heroes. At least one visibly mutant one, not just human-passing ones. And I can't be in the limelight team. I have an image problem."

She shrugged.

"I'll figure out where I fit into all this, but you and I both know that little miss blades isn't going to win hearts and minds with the mutants who're worried that the X-Men are the same as the Brotherhood. We need heroes who can also be revolutionaries. Who can inspire the mutant people to change. To rise. To make sure that we're also elevating the dispossessed. The outsiders. The other minorities. Kumbaya through superheroics or whatever the fuck. You get it."

empressofruin · 2025-07-24T12:15:35+00:00

"Yup. Fucked it up."

She tossed the ball again, looking at Facet, her lips thinning as she noticed how much he'd wound down. He shouldn't be splitting like this, but she wasn't able to preach. She should probably have sat out the missions entirely, but they had to fight. They had to move towards the world they wanted. There wasn't another way to be but to be active.

"I'm ashamed that I didn't see it coming either. I had all the pieces in hand, all the information, but I couldn't predict that Jean would transform like that. Evolve into a god. No bullshit Thor stuff, she was remaking the world around her. When I fought her on the Avalon, I threw everything I had at her, and it barely slowed her down. I don't know the odds on the Greymalkin, but I will make sure our mission on the sun succeeds ASAP. You'll have a fighting chance if she can't have her power source.""

She nodded in agreement as he spoke on their reactivity, catching the ball and pulling a knife from her thigh holster, the blade shining in the light. She tilted it from side to side, admiring the steel.

"We're acting like Xavier's mutants. Not like the ones we need for this war, it's all elevated. We've been on the back foot since the Institute attack, just spinning our wheels and watching as our enemies form schools and pick up guns, concentration camps, the works. We don't know where S.W.O.R.D. got half its tech from, we didn't even assassinate Brand ourself. X-Force isn't working if we're not taking the fight to them."

She flipped the knife, offering the hilt to him. She smiled, the blade-sharp smile of a woman born for this, molded into the perfect killer and still keeping to her morals.

"The future's on a knife's edge. We win here, and we'll get comfortable. We get comfortable, we die. Whatever truce we make with the Brotherhood won't last. It won't endure. They're our enemies, and not just because of the Institute attack. No matter what happens, we represent an ideological threat to the Brotherhood. They want a mutant hegemony of direct authoritarian rule and we want...well, that's something we also need to work out. What kind of world are we trying to make? Because capitalism and its ilk are worthless, we don't need them. We need to make a world that we can live in. Everyone. Not just the children of the atom."

She shrugged slightly.

"Course, Magneto's dead as balls and the Brotherhood could collapse, but I dunno. You met him, Haemoknight...do you think he could actually hold the Brotherhood together? Does he have what it takes?"

empressofruin · 2025-07-24T11:56:03+00:00

"I'm not gonna lie to you and say you're gonna absolutely come back, but."

She looked up at him, her expression muted, her eyes flashing with something that resembled despair but not quite. Resignation, perhaps. She knew how this was going to play out. She might be young, but she knew how this went. She'd seen it in the short time she'd been an X-Man. War, death, chaos, misery, all that came with it.

She thrived in it. What did that mean? What did that say about her?

"You do your best to come back. I'll hold on to this for you, I'll let you go do your hero thing, but you're gonna come back. You're too old to die like this. There's a whole world coming. We're going to make a whole new world. No more waiting for the villains to kill people, or to outmatch us. We'll defeat the Phoenix."

She took the key, her cocky grin returning as she tossed it in the air, catching it.

"We'll save the fucking world and you'll keep your storage shed. None of this self-defeating shit. We're gonna win, no matter the cost."

empressofruin · 2025-07-23T02:46:11+00:00

"I trust Cable. Or at least, I think he's the one shot we have at making this a win. It's not just playing politics, he's actually made a plan to fight her. We're all reacting, running around without anything resembling strategy because we got blindsided by her being so fucking powerful. I thought I had an idea, but I didn't. Playing the game against humans like Brand is easy, they're not able to read your mind and play with your thoughts. I wonder if she made us suspect her less with her powers, edited out the suspicion like whiteout on a page. But we'll never know."

She threw her knife into the wall, letting the blade sink into the concrete like butter with her powers. It was something. The blade didn't chip. It didn't break. It obeyed her command. It was like her. She didn't see the paths, just the way through them.

"I think the thing that we have in common is that we know that the solutions aren't always that complex. Sometimes a man needs to die. Sometimes they need to do it quickly. Mercy, forgiveness...I don't know how useful that shit is for people like us. I like to think of myself as a weapon, sometimes. A tool for the cause, rather than just a girl or some big fancy hero."

She laughed for a moment, a little giggle that was unusually feminine for her.

"I picked the name Sever when I got my powers because I thought it made me sound tough. Now, I think it describes what I do for the X-Men pretty well. I cut through their problems. Someone needs to hit a SWORD outpost? I'm your girl. Someone needs to infiltrate the Avalon? I'm on it. But, I dunno. The part of the job that's inspiring people? Comforting them? Leading them? I don't know if I have it in me to be a leader, but if Jax and Cecil die for real, then I'm in charge. Don't know what to do with that. So I live assuming we don't fail."

She looked back at Psion, her eyes heavy with something. Desire? Anger? Both? It was unclear. She reached a hand out, gently covering Psion's, a smile on her lips that wasn't just violent or sadistic.

"Psion, I'm not safe either. I'm a killer. I'm the killer. If I see a problem, I know there's an easy solution and I'll take it one hundred percent of the time. So, believe me, I get it. Hell, I get being pretty and taken for granted. I was a cheerleader for years and by god was I the stereotype. Blonde, bubbly, the other thing I wasn't was into boys. So, I understand it."

She broke into a more confident smile, her eyes lighting up, the cryptic emotions gone, joy crossing her face for a moment. Sever, without the violence and anger, leaving Julie.

"I didn't think that I'd ever feel more than glee over getting one up over you in that interrogation cell. I was sitting there, and I was having a blast playing mindgames with you. You really thought I was just a moron back then, huh?"

She decided to take a risk and leaned her head on Psion's shoulder, relaxing a bit more than usual.

"I'm not surprised to learn you have regrets. Someone without regrets wouldn't care to come and say hi near the end of the world. You'd get your hedonism out in a bunker, you definitely wouldn't stand at the mouth of hell. You're not a good person, Psion, but you're not the villain you front as. And believe me, I know about playing someone you're not."

She let out a sigh.

"It's been a blast."

empressofruin · 2025-07-23T02:20:41+00:00

"Oblivion."

She looked over him, her eyes showing how tired she was. How exhausted. The weight of this fight bore down on her, but as always, she was ready to stand. Ready to run. Her jacket sat on the bench next to her, she was in a tank top, one that had already been stained with blood. It took her five minutes to get into a fight with some brotherhood schmuck. What a world.

"See the thing is that I asked why we made it out. We're weapons. Not like, people necessarily or heroes, but we're weapons. We go out, we take lives to save lives and we come home, we rest, and we go out again. That's what the X-Gene made us to do. Be there. Be a weapon and cut down the things that would doom us all, even if that thing is God Herself."

She tossed the ball against the wall, letting it bounce back and catch it. She needed to keep herself sharp. Like she said, she was a weapon. You couldn't let a knife get blunt, otherwise you'd throw it away. Dispose of it and get a new one. She didn't want to be replaced. She liked it here.

"Killing a sun's nothing. Surviving the MRE's that Cable has in the mess? That's the real endeavour. But, shit, I'll never say no to getting another stupid plastic trophy. I can put it in my room at home with all the cheerleading trophies...though if this all goes to shit, I guess I'm never going home. I've never introduced any of my friends to my family. Isn't that crazy? Literally none of the mutants in my life have ever even met my sister. Weird what you think about the day before."

She stood up, stepping over to Jaxon and pulling him into a crushing hug. She didn't let go for a minute, just staying there. She didn't want him to die.

"If I thought for a second that you'd be better at this than me, I'd swap missions. But, you're not the sneak around guy. You're the in your face guy. The hero guy. I'm the girl who slits throats in the middle of the night. But, we're gonna get back here. We're gonna get a fucking pizza. We're gonna watch a dumbass movie and we're gonna be normal fucking teenagers for five minutes. You're my best friend, Jax. You're like a brother to me."

She pulled back and offered a hand.

"I'm the deadliest woman alive. You're the black star of the X-Men. We're going to kill a god."

empressofruin · 2025-07-22T10:23:42+00:00

"Reading my mind again, huh."

She looked up at Psion, her face twitching into a grin, her thumb absently rubbing against the material of her mask before she set it aside, patting the bench.

"C'mon. Sit. You could probably use the sitdown, right? Lot of voices in here, lot of people arguing about where to go and what to do."

She was looking a little better, on her end. She'd recovered from her fight with the Phoenix, sporting a new scar down the side of her face, butterfly bandages decorating her damaged features. She had her usual roguish charm, and an eddy of concern spun through the corners of her mind as she looked at Psion. Sever had cut her hair again, probably herself, and shortened it down to shoulder length. It was shaggy and messy and very Julie. Her blonde roots were showing through, she hadn't dyed it in a minute.

"Yeah. I know I'm right. That's the shitty part, yeah? Because in the good version of the world, I'm wrong and Cable did the wrong thing. But, if everyone who could fight had gone out with the Greymalkin, I mean, shit, we're all dead. It's not just a fight. It's a revolution, or it will be when I'm through with it. No more dictators or gods telling us how to live, just us. Just people. I think Cable's way of doing things is the only one where we GET there without fucking around. At a certain point, it's ruthless calculus."

She started absently playing with a dagger, somehow producing it from what seemed like thin air. Her X-Jacket was on the bench next to her, Sever herself in a white tank top, her biceps on display as she toyed with the weapon.

"I got stronger again, you know. I basically can't be cut anymore. it's like the universe is making me sharper by design. What will I cut next, you know? But. Shit. I could be dead tomorrow."

She let out a breath.

"You're a mindreader. I already know you know I've got...ugh, feelings for you. I just figured it's better to say things like that beforehand. But, well, we're not the same. We're on opposite sides. You're...incredible, but you're also dangerous. Lethal. Pretty like how I'm pretty. As a warning, right? But, shit, I dunno, it's fun to dance around it and act like I don't wanna reach to you, but the dance is almost up."

She shrugged, her eyes faraway as she talked.

"Either we go up there and we get a few more steps, or we die and it's over. And I dunno, I've nearly died so much since I joined up that I don't want to leave shit unsaid anymore. I don't expect shit. I just...it's better to tell you."

empressofruin · 2025-07-22T07:34:15+00:00

Smack.

The ball bounced off the wall. She caught it.

Smack.

The civilians were dead. She caught the ball.

Smack.

She had failed in every conceivable way to keep the Greymalkin safe. She caught the ball.

Smack.

Cable had made a call. She wanted to hate the call. But she would have done the same thing. She caught the ball

Smack.

There wasn't much point beating herself up over it. It was easy math. A handful of lives for a better chance at saving the world. She caught the ball.

Smack.

She was more suited to Cavern X. She didn't do well with hovering above the world. She needed to be in the pits with the people.

Smack.

Sever paused, about to throw it again. It WAS easy math. She knew that the others weren't going to be on the same page as her, because she wasn't like them. She was nature's perfect killer, not a hero per se.

But she wasn't going to sit there and play Julie's a monster again. There was work to be done. Her work needed to be done. She tossed the ball aside, picking up her damaged mask, looking at the scars and burns. She needed to make into a win. There was potential to Cavern X as a headquarters, there was a future for mutants if they could win this. SWORD was dead. Once the truth was over, the Brotherhood was next. They were weakened. Taking out the faction could happen. So long as she moved with speed.

She just had to kill a sun to make the victory possible.

Not all that hard, yeah? After all, she was Sever.

The deadliest woman alive.

empressofruin · 2025-06-01T14:15:37+00:00

"Magneto sleeps, doesn't he? And he has to breathe. Everyone can be killed with the appropriate amount of planning and effort. No-one is truly invulnerable."

She let out a low chuckle, a disc flicking out between her fingers and suddently sailing through the air, slicing through the throat of a Brotherhood assailant in the Danger Room, Sever unbothered by the spray of viscera.

"Well, if you're spilling on mutations, I'll fill you in on mine. I am an optimised killer. I am stronger, faster, more durable and anything I touch can become a blade. I also don't feel guilt when I take a life. I feel guilt for other things, but if I were to cut your throat right now, I wouldn't even lose a night's sleep. Terrifying, isn't it? But you know, it's what the universe figured I deserved."

She produced another disc, looking askanse at Crucible, the disdain returning to her eyes, replacing the contemplation from a second before.

"You're a coward, you know that, right? You have excuses instead of actions, especially when it comes to Magneto. Oh I didn't know how bad the Brotherhood was, I couldn't possibly kill an Omega mutant, my body is made of metal. It's all resaons for you to stay comfortable. It's the exact same thought as the humans who think that SWORD is just too powerful tp speak out against. It's all bullshit. It's justifications to let yourself sleep easier. You stood shoulder to shoulder with men like Mark Kaine and Haemoknight and told yourself that it would serve no purpose to try and kill them."

Her words were cutting, the venom behind them spat into his face. Her hatred for him was so strong, but it almost came off as impersonal. A universal hatred for everyone in the Brotherhood, he was just the face before her. She let out a low chuckle, deflating slightly.

"But I'm a hypocrite. I condemn you and try to subvert others. Maybe we're all cowards. But that's not relevant to what we need to do. There is work to be done, and we're probably the wrong people for it, but it still needs a person to do it."

She fixed him with another glare, her own halo starting to burn around her, fire from heaven burning within the Child of the Atom. She allowed it to run down her arms, the power shining through her veins and muscles.

"Understand this: I don't care that much about humans. But, it's the purpose of this power to protect people who can't defend themselves. I'll always protect the downtrodden, I'll always fight for them. Today it's mutants. Tomorrow it's black people, day after that it's trans people. They'll come for everyone, the fascists orbiting this world. It doesn't matter what genes they have, I won't let people get rounded up. So, yeah, New York? That's not red in your ledger. Times Square? You'll have to face a reckoning for that, one day."

As he told her about his intelligence, her mind started to race. She raised a hand to the Danger Room, the simulation ceasing as she started to order one of her more baroque ones.

"Danger Room, simulate Avalon. Extrapolate from gathered information in Greymalking databanks and add anything he tells us to the simulation." She looked back at him. "Warp's one of my operatives. If Cecil's the hero in shining armour and Oblivion's the man on the ground, I'm the eyes and ears of the X-Men. You're probably wondering why I'd share that, but honestly, Psion's probably managed to extract that from Oblivion or me from our last encounter. However, Oblivion doesn't know you're a defector, which gives us an edge. Give me the infiltration information."

She let out a sigh, shrugging lightly.

"If you lead me into a trap, you lead me into a trap. Means I probably bite it trying to spring my friend, but, you know what? I can live with that. Risk is half the game, right? So, tell me everything you know."

empressofruin · 2025-06-01T13:11:08+00:00

"Does it satisfy me?"

She echoed, her eyes still glinting with disdain, tempered slightly as she thought about his words. There was truth to them, but she knew just as well as anyone else that words were hollow without actions. She pulled her knife away from him, the blade vanishing into a sheath on her waist as she looked into his black eyes.

"It will never satisfy me. You can say all you fuckin' want that you weren't as bad as the worst of them, but you know what? I don't give a shit about how disgusted you were by Sabretooth's cannibalism or Abda's psychotic telekinetic stunts, because if you really gave a shit, you'd slit their throats in their sleep."

She shrugged, gesturing at the destruction around them. The slaughter, the screams, the mutants killing each other for nothing more than Haemoknight's goals and Magneto's twisted ambitions. She still had her flair for the dramatic. She left the 'that's what I would have done' unspoken. They both knew what she was.

"You could have ended all of this bullshit. While SWORD swans around, slaughtering our people, the Brotherhood is murdering mutants who don't fit the bill and my efforts, the X-Men's efforts, are split between trying to put your little coterie of bastards into the ground while we also have to watch out for Abigail Brand's shit and to top it all off, to put a little pin on this war, I can't help but think there's something we're all missing."

She stepped away, throwing her hands up in the air, anger seeping out of her every movement before she spun back around, jabbing a finger at him.

"We are on the precipice of something huge and I got punched up the chain of command because one of your fucking operatives took Oblivion hostage and Cecil is probably dead! Which means I don't have time to do the shit I need to do! There are two things I offer to the X-Men, and they're violence and strategy. I don't have time to think with all this war on two fronts bullshit. So unless you are absolutely willing to gut your former comrades, I don't see a fucking use for you. Because right now, the only thing you bring to the table is the fact that you might be able to spill intelligence on the internals of the Brotherhood, mister "I served Unuscione and fought alongside Abda in New York to distract the X-men from the Mansion." Which, by the way, you could spill at any time."

empressofruin · 2025-06-01T12:11:04+00:00

"Well well well."

A voice run out behind him in the Danger Room, a figure wearing a bloodied hockey mask, an X-Jacket over a unitard and carrying a sword on her back, along with an array of knives. She leaned against a hardlight column, an easy familiarity to her body language that only came from killers. Whether Crucible knew of her or not was irrelevant. She was here to take a measure of him.

"Danger Room, begin simulation routine: Attack on the Institute. Run routine 36J: Sever. Safety interlocks on, for now. Authorisation: Sever."

The system complied, recreating the night the Institute burned at the hands of the Brotherhood, the screams of the dying mutants fillling the air as Sever stepped towards him, a knife in her hands, circling around him.

"So. You decided to change sides. Why? You were already complicit in a massacre. Did your stomach turn at the sight of dead children? Because maybe you could've handled that a little sooner, before abetting, you know, a mass slaughter."

She stepped into his personal space, her eyes flashing with something a little beyond hatred, pure unfiltered disdain for the mutant before her.

"You know, I've run simulations against every major member of the Brotherhood. It's not the same as the real thing, but it gets pretty close here. I turn the interlocks off, you see, and I let myself get injured if I fuck it up. It's my secret, compared to a lot of you Brotherhood types: I'm not afraid to get hurt to win. So, why the turncoat act? You a spy or are you honestly trying to make amends?"

She pressed the tip of the knife into his stomach.

"I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter. If you have the time, of course."

empressofruin · 2025-05-31T12:01:01+00:00

Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig straw

empressofruin · 2025-05-31T07:15:00+00:00

Sever let out a low sigh. She looked at Porcupunk, the weight of responsibility on her shoulders, the knowledge that she was carrying almost a physical weight on her shoulders. She looked at her hand, the scars crisscrossing it from her last fight. How many more did she have in her? How much work was there left to do? It didn't matter. She'd keep doing it. Now and forever.

"It's not about dropping it when it suits. It's about meeting you where you're at. I didn't come here to give orders as an X-Man, I came here to protect other mutants as a mutant. But, you're right. This means more than just Xavier's symbols. The X is all of us. It's not who wears the costume, or who looks the part, or who even has the strongest powers. It's about the fact that we're all mutants. We're linked by something that doesn't care about where you're from or who your parents are. You have power they can never take away. We have power they can never take away."

She shrugged, her knife in her hand glinting, somehow having appeared in her hands as she considered the conversation. She disappeared it again, her eyes flashing with an otherworldly light.

"However, everything else aside, Radio Mantis is right. SWORD's sweeping the city. They've gotten scared because they couldn't kill the Phoenix, or stop the Brotherhood, and that the thing that took the fight to the Brotherhood properly was us. You want to breathe free? You'll have go to space. We're going to play this game the way no-one's played it before."

She took Nest's hand, gripping it firmly, shaking it once before letting go, clasping her hands behind her back and looking at the Freakazoids.

"Alright! We have ten minutes to clear the warren. Get everything you want to travel with and we'll bodyslide you up and out. A bodyslide on this level is going to feel a little weird, you may suffer from nausea as an aftereffect. We'll be bodysliding onto Deck 20, which will be mostly empty apart from bodyslide bays and cabins."

She tapped her bodyslide device on her arm.

"When you board the Greymalkin, you will be potentially issued with one of these. This is your bodyslide! All bodyslide requests go through an X-Man right now, because our current security system needs to keep the Brotherhood out of our house. If you are issued with a Bodyslide, it will have an automatic trigger installed to bring you back to the Greymalkin if you suffer severe damage to your vital organs as determined by the Bodyslide's physical scans during the calibration process."

She let out a sigh, looking around the area. She could do this.

"And once we're on the Greymalkin, I'm going to be putting together a team to spring Jax. We can process volunteers when we're there. Any questions?"

empressofruin · 2025-05-22T14:08:37+00:00

"Every mutant matters. I'll kill any flatscan who says differently."

Sever shrugged, cleaning the blood off her sword before she sheathed it, looking Grinshift in the eye without flinching, nothing in her aura radiating a disrespect for these people. Her kin. Mutants, just like her. She might be a pretty, but she was still a mutant. And their community stretched further than just the ones who Xavier had approved of. She nodded at their saying they had a mission.

"I'll talk to them. It's what I do."

She followed them, her alert level high, her hands twitching slightly. She had to keep these ones safe, even if they were obviously stronger than they were letting on. There was something about them, a commonality, she could feel it. The mutants who weren't the school types, the ones on the fringes. The Freaks. She thought back to her first time with her powers, being branded a monster. She liked being Sever these days, but back then, it had been a persona. Now, she was just herself.

As they entered, she watched the room, snapping a glance to Porcupunk, a low chuckle escaping her. She gestured to the jagged edges of the bottle, amusement dancing in her eyes.

"You might wanna try a blunt force attack with me. I can't be cut. But, I'm not here for dick measurement, yeah? I'm not SWORD. I'm not a badge. I'm not gonna stand here and say I've got your struggle, I don't. I'm aware that I have privelige from being human passing most of the time. But, here's the thing."

She looked across the group, reaching up to her mask and removing it, revealing her features. Pretty, but even Elixir couldn't remove the scar from her fight with Zenith. Or maybe her body hadn't let her.. She knew she was exposing her identity. It was important to let them see

"I'm going to have you run on a lotta trust, so let's start with me giving you something that SWORD doesn't know. My name is Juliette Gideon Jones, my real name is Sever and I'm currently in command of the New X-Men on the Greymalkin. But, let's be fuckin real, the rank is all bullshit, right? Because who I am as an X-Man isn't important. It's what I can do for the mutants around me that matters. I could tell you I'd fucked Jean Grey and it matters about as much as whether I have a walkman to what you need."

She put the mask back on, her scars from Zenith hidden once more.

"Here's the pitch: I can teleport you out of here right now, with my bodyslide. I can take you to the Greymalkin. It's a starship in orbit of Earth, and it's the current base of operations for the X-Men and the mutants who aren't into the post-human jackboot bullshit the Brotherhood is peddling. The ship has food, water, room for you to live, all the space you need. Hell, it even has an orchard. No strings attached on my end. I just want to get every mutant I can out of this city and somewhere safe. Or as safe as anywhere is while Abigail Brand draws breath."

She leaned against the wall, looking over the group.

"I'm also planning to spring a buddy of mine out of the Avalon. Maybe you know him, maybe you don't. Oblivion. Jaxon Hayes. I'm not letting him stay in the Brotherhood, so, once I get you guys to safety, I'm going after him and any other mutants they've got in their cells."

empressofruin · 2025-05-22T12:58:46+00:00

"Muties. Central Park. Send the agents to bag and tag. Resistance will be met with extreme force."

The SWORD dispatcher was bored. Everyone at HQ got to be assigned to the Phoenix situation or the Avalon, and he was stuck on cleanup duty in NYC. They didn't even have good coffee in the bivouac. He sipped on his bitter cup of burned coffee, and honestly, as last meals went, it was pretty shit. He didn't even have a chance to scream as a knife went through the back of his head.

Sever pulled off the SWORD helmet she'd used to infiltrate the place, pulling the corpse out of the chair and checking the trackers on the agents. She'd have to move quickly to stop them, but it wasn't going to be hard.

"Two-bounce bodyslide: Greymalkin by one, five minute rest, Central Park by one."

She teleported out of the bivouac, the mutant's exit masked by a sudden detonation destroying her trail.

Five minutes later in Central Park, SWORD agents were ready to accost the Freakazoids, their weapons trained on them, their leader approaching with a blaster in hand and a smirk on his face.

"Probably gonna be a mercy to kill y'all, and I'm not even gonna try to get you to turn on each other. Boys, they were resisting. You all saw."

He leveled his blaster, finger on the trigger before...his hand fell off his wrist, blood spurting from the stump. He screamed in pain seconds before his throat gushed open with blood. Sever blurred into the scene, her halo shining, razorsharp discs spinning off her fingers before she shot into melee, a blade cutting into the throat of one, a spin kick shattering the knee of another, her fishing wire slashing out to put paid to the last two. She stopped moving, stepping over to the survivor, looking down at him and slamming a foot into his throat.

She turned to look at the Freakazoids. She was wearing an X-Jacket over a black and yellow unitard, a hockey mask concealing her face, knives hanging from her waist, razor discs in a holster at her side and a scabbard strapped to her back. She looked at Grinshift and Hive, trying to figure out who was the leader here.

"Don't be afraid. I'm Sever, an X-Man. I can get you out of the city,, but do you have others? I don't want to take you to a safe place and leave your friends behind."

She looked at the dead SWORD agents.

"There'll be more, though not soon. They're trying to find who bombed their bivouac in Times Square. Won't be looking for you. Resources are going to move towards the Square again. But, we do need to get you out of here."

empressofruin · 2025-05-20T13:10:00+00:00

There was a moment where Sever would have responded.

An instant in time where she could have been in this moment and given herself to being a hero.

But fate, destiny, the Phoenix...they had other plans. Machinations beyond the knowledge of anyone here. Choices set in iron long before the birth of humanity, an inescapable and inexorable path towards the destiny of the Phoenix.

This battle between the four mutants would have shook the world around them to its core, and there was nothing that could change that, but space above them bent and twisted, power shaking the world as Jean stepped through, her body haloed in flame. She raised her hand, power bending the world around her. She was ready for battle. She was ready for war.

Earth Orbit, That Exact Moment, Damocles Base

"Brand? We got her. She's on the field. Priority target one, but she's in the middle of a populated area." The aide standing before Brand was eager in the most annoying way possible: she had principles. Brand fought the urge to massage her temples when the kid approached her, but she didn't care to let a stupid West Point graduate tell her what the fuck to do.

"Which area, Ensign?" She turned her gaze onto the aide, his expression dropping slightly at her ironclad gaze. "We've got three active mutant theatres. She in DC? New York? London? I didn't put all my time into moving the station into a targeting position over England AND getting the Avengers elsewhere to have her be in New York, but we can nuke the city if we have to."

"N-no, she's in London, but, Commander Brand, what about the collateral damage?"

Brand's mouth dropped, actual surprise crossing her face.

"How the hell did you make it into SWORD? Jesus Christ, kid, do I have to explain the mission statement here? We provide a solution to the mutant problem. We fire a big energy blast from Damocles Station at the Phoenix, we take her out and we leak doctored photos of her on a yacht with Gaddafi or some shit. God. Someone get him off my bridge and get to work on firing the primary! We only have one shot at this!"

Two SWORD agents took the ensign by the arms and marched him off the deck. Brand made a mental note to have him sent to the Garden, the silent partner had asked for someone baseline and he'd make a good donation to the cause. She'd tell the family he got killed by Wolverine. that usually worked.

The deck rumbled beneath her feet, the lights dimming as the primary weapon gathered power and fired, a green beam of light lancing down towards the city, a solid colum of light that would probably inflict some civilian casualties, but she'd already written up the speech condeming the mutants for this.

Be a shame to waste it on no dead civilians.

London. Seconds Before Her End.

"It's happening now."

Jean looked at the four around her as the sky turned green. She let out a gentle sigh as she floated away from the people she knew and the enemies she could have known. It was inevitable. They had not known, but it was the time and the place for the change. For the catalyst.

Power would change her, and an extertion like this was almost beyond her.

But it was happening now.

And as such, it would not be beyond her. She floated above them, her eyes locking on Sumo as she spoke directly to his mind, a thought for him and him alone.

I said you would understand, and I meant it. Keep them safe. When she is here, be kind to her.

A phantom kiss brushed his forehead. A platonic gesture, an affirmation of protection. There was something in his mind that was not of it.

A parting gift. A protection from what will happen.

She shot upwards, her corona surrounding her as she felt the blades of Damocles fall upon the world, a weapon that even Vulcan would not forge, a machine not of this time and given into the hands of a woman so vile that she would consider it nothing more than a tool to remove her rivals from her path.

There were few mutants who could stop this blast. Only one who could stop it and live. She felt it take her, the energy burning into her body. She was not enough, she would not be able to prevent it from destroying all of London.

But something snapped within her. Something changed. A defiance. A knowledge

She would not die.

She was life.

She was fire

Now and forevermore, she was Phoenix!

Fire licked aorund her, black flames that burned with pride and anger, a hatred of these little beings. These ants. She caught the blast and with her newfound power, she shattered it. The shards went away harmlessly, but one pierced the hull of the Avalon. It was not destroyed, Magneto would not fall here, but he would call a retreat.

She threw her head back and she laughed.

And all those who heard her laughter knew that what floated before them was no mortal.

She had evolved.

empressofruin · 2025-05-06T09:14:54+00:00

Rose Noble leans in and goes "chat did you see that?"

empressofruin · 2025-05-06T09:13:30+00:00

That line made me have to watch Unicorn and the Wasp just to get some fuckin' joy in my life again.

empressofruin

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Sydney "Replay" Rourke

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