The X-Project

Jim initiated a brief switch to carry himself down to join the others around the cocoon, providing Clarice with a slightly unnecessary lift. He alighted next to the gathered group to inspect their findings.

Exposed to air the cocoon was almost pearl-like. It shimmered softly, almost serenely, a translucent bubble protecting a solid core. Jean hung suspended in the center, hair floating around her face as if she were still submerged. She looked as if she were asleep.

Emma saw the cocoon as she ascended the staircase that brought her above decks. She flicked out a quick, shallow probe, skimming round the edge of the cocoon to confirm that there was no trace of Jean's telepathic signature outside of it. Jean had totally closed herself down inside it. "The crew are under control," Emma reported. "And safely tucked away in their beds. Which is considerably safer than we're about to be," she observed, almost to herself.

Pixie stared, transfixed, her all-black eyes reflecting a faint glow. She flew up and hovered to get a closer look, then slowly sank back down to the deck of the freighter. "Is she... okay? Is that thing magic? Is it hurting her?"

"Doubt it," Rachel said shortly, eyeing the cacoon, spinning a similar but blue tinted bubble around her right hand to illustrate her ping. She had bounced around in them as a child all the time. Drove people absolutely insane. "It's a Telekinetic shield. Probably Jean trying to protect herself."

Rogue had held back, and not said much, more because she didn't trust herself. The last time she'd seen Jean, well...things hadn't gone too well. knowing that, she couldn't help herself. "Let's poke it," she said, trying to sound cheerful. "It's like a pinata, only we get an unstable telepath."

Looking around, the joke was obviously lost on everyone. "Well don't y'all laugh at once," she grumbled. "Lorna, think ya could fashion some sorta poking stick? Something long so if she wakes up madder than a bear in winter, we got some reaction time?". A pause. "And jus' so we're clear, I know mah place - invulnerable girl will do the pokin'."

"Poke it?" Lorna gave Rogue a look of a 'Do you really want to poke something'. "Last time I poked something it tried to eat one of my teammates." However, metal started to melt off her wet suit into a long metal pole shape that was almost a good ten feet long. "Here. Try and not poke her too hard, Okay?" Handing Rogue the pole.

With a nod, Rogue took the pole and motioned to everyone to back up. Wrapping both her hands around the pole, she carefully put the tip on the edge of the cocoon. She pushed slightly, and was surprised to ?see it change colour. Encouraged by this, Rogue poked a bit harder and the orange colour intensified.

And then the fires started. Every time she poked, it was as if a Flare was being sent up with sparks shooting everywhere. Giving it one last poke, actual flames shot up, causing Rogue to jump and drop.the pole. "That didn't work too well, did it?". Biting on her bottom lip, she turned to Emma and Haller.

"One of you wanna try?"

Emma had already weighed the possibilities in her head. She inclined her head at Jim. "You know I have to ask. I'm the only fully functional telepath left and I can go diamond to protect myself, if there's an earth-shattering kaboom. We are going to need to keep one of us intact or we'll lose control of the crew and this situation is complicated enough already."

Jim hesitated. They didn't have many options. They couldn't leave her on the ship. He briefly considered loading the cocoon onto the Blackbird before noticing the metal immediately beneath the construct had begun to warp. "Everyone back up," he said at last. "I'll do it. Rachel, Lorna, be ready to shield in case this goes bad. Julian, stand by with the suppressor, please."

The telepath dropped into a seated position a few yards from Jean, briefly noting Namor alighting on the deck to join the others. This was dangerous, and not just because of the cocoon's reaction to stimuli. He was about to put his mind up against someone who had destroyed an entire city. There was no telling what would happen - to him, to her, or to anyone.

Yet no matter what she had done or might have done this was still Jean, and Charles and Scott were still waiting for her. He owed them. All of them.

That was really all there was to it. One breath, another, and Jim reached out.

~Jean? Jean, can you hear me?~

Her world wasn't dreamless. She wished it was. There was never a moment where she could just be left alone. The memories tormented her, mixtures of good ones that turned bad. Of death, of destruction. Nathan, Moira, Sharon, Yvette. Sam. Matt. Others. Erik. She had killed Erik and the Brotherhood. It was so easy. It didn't take much for a body to burn. They'd learned about it in medical school. She'd killed them with just a thought. It had never been that easy, yet...it was just like lighting a match. And it felt good. She felt vindicated, and powerful, and all knowing. Those were the thoughts that horrified her.

When the memories grew tired of replaying over and over in her mind they soon turned into dreams. Dreams of another world, of multiple worlds, the same but different. Worlds where she reigned supreme, bringing fire and chaos to where ever she touched. Worlds where her name was spoken in a hushed whisper, as if saying it might bring her forth. But there was no need to whisper. Her mere presence signaled destruction. Nothing was safe. I am become death, destroyer of worlds.

It was like standing on the edge of what could be, with her back to the sun and darkness down below.

Someone was knocking. All she wanted was to stay in control. For that she needed to be alone. But she could never be left alone. Why?

The cocoon started to crack like an egg, and then something exploded from it: a phoenix, it's wings the width of the entire freighter as they spread throughout the sky and the boat itself. In the center was Jean, her arms outstretched, eyes closed as she floated into standing from her once fetal position. The explosion brought with it a show of telekinetic force, violently shoving backward anything in its path. The phoenix let out a scream of warning that seemed to echo not just in one's ears, but their minds as well.

Jean's eyes snapped open, flames pouring out of her eyes and mouth.

Rachel's reaction was swift and instinctive, a solid barrier of telekinetic energy snapping up and around them in a millisecond. It was assaulted immediately, a torrent of Jean's telekinesis battering relentlessly at her shield. Wave upon wave of searing hot energy crashed down upon her powers, forcing Rachel to keep up or let all of them die young.

The younger redhead gritted her teeth and pushed back with a whine at the back of her throat, physically bracing her booted feet against the floor as she minimised her barrier to pull the team in around her and thickened it exponentially.

Outside of her bubble of blue, the metal surfaces of the ship started to melt away from the destructive nature of Jean's powers, shipping containers buckling and caving as Rachel tried and failed to gather enough energy to return the blast to Jean.

There was too much and it burned.

"Jim," she gasped through tightly grief teeth, desperate and with far more emotion than anyone had seen since Muir had gone under. "Hurry up. I can't--."

Jim caught only a glimpse of the inner turmoil before the connection broke, forcibly disabled by an instinctive shift to telekinesis. His shields snapped into place almost instantly, but when he opened his eyes he discovered a sheet of deck had peeled off to act as a barrier: Lorna had his back.

"Scion!" Jack barked, bolstering Rachel's shields with his own - the pressure was incredible. "Suppressor!"

He'd been pushed to the sidelines when the chaos broke out on the deck of the freighter, but now he followed the directions he'd been given at the mansion to the letter, turning on the collar like device and opening the latch with a quick sequence of coded buttons. Julian resisted the temptation to shout out that he had this, Jean would already know he was there, and the fact that she hadn't shredded his mind at their leader's command spoke favorably to his chances of success.

Moving himself forward from behind one of the bulky shipping containers, he spotted Jean in the maelstrom of energy she was putting out. Letting himself shut his eyes, he used his training to reach out and feel a way through the various barriers and tendrils of force she was twisting to serve her. The suppressor hung in the air for a moment, waiting what seemed like an eternity before he found the opening he needed. It zipped forward, dodging debris and counter force, which grew increasingly more difficult as it got closer to her. Finally, it seemed to disappear all together, flying straight up in the air and out of sight.

With a final push, Julian brought the collar back down, through the eye of the maelstrom, settling it in just behind his former teacher's slender neck. With a final push he sent it forward and let the machine do the rest, letting go as he felt the lock click into place.

Voices rang out from all around, familiar ones. But it was an assault on the senses..people screaming (was it real or just a memory?), and thoughts and emotions, and pain. She could barely see anything but light. It was like waking from a nightmare and she hadn't had time to even try to return to reality when she felt something close around her throat.

Jean cried out with a choked breath and the phoenix disappeared, an inferno extinguished. She hit the deck unmercifully, curling up into a ball as she began to shake uncontrollably, though it was hard to tell if it was from the suppressor or Jean herself. Maybe it was both. The voices were gone, and in their place a haze that spread from her mind to the rest of her body. She felt numb, but it didn't bring her peace. Something was happening. Something beyond her. Beyond this.

"Help me," she whispered to no one, as tears welled up and started to stream down her face. No one could help her now.

"Jean!" Lorna cried out as she came around from hiding and protecting Haller. She ran over to Jean on the deck and knelt beside her, afraid to touch her. "Jean, we are here. We are going to take you home. Okay?" She didn't know what she could do for her friend but just help her back to the Blackbird.

At Jean's words, Rogue's heart broke. This was her mentor, her older sister, and she was in pain. Zipping over to her discarded clothing, Rogue picked up her sweater before rushing back to Jean's side. Carefully, she placed the sweater on Jean's shoulders. "It'll be okay, Jean," Rogue said, her voice wavering slightly from emotion. With her hands slightly cold from the wetsuit's gloves, she brushed away the hair from Jean's face, tucking it behind her ears. "We're all here, and we're gonna help ya. Jus' like Lorna said, we're gonna go home, and we're gonna figure this all out, like the team we are. Y'all jus' wait and see."

Namor, for his part, hadn't moved far from where he had originally landed on deck. This was an X-Men matter, and despite all previous team work and training he had never been part of that group. Jean, now a dangerous wildcard, and he had spent a year and a half spent moving in different circles. There were no personal stakes here for the Attilani - his own interests were squarely with Attilan and the larger picture.

His square-shouldered, serious demeanor reflected this as he kept his eyes to the sea despite the psychic lightshow that played off the scattered metal shipping containers on deck and the disturbing bouts of fire that were only held off by Rachel's shields. This situation was violate and dangerous, and Namor's stance reflected this opinion instead of an overwhelming need to help their beloved fugitive.

It was for this reason that Namor was the first to notice the dots quickly approaching on the horizon. Too large for birds and too small for aircraft, their silhouettes reminded the young man of - "Incoming!"

The seven figures came in formation, and in the distance, the outline of a V-22 Osprey could be seen following the same flight path. As they got closer, the green, white and saffron of their uniforms could be seen, marking them as members of India's Imperial Guard. They had tangled with them before, stopping D.Ken Nerumani's attempt to conquer Pakistan and purge India of dissidents. The man at the front was Dacoit, who outdistanced his teammates and came to a stop in the air above the ship.

"X-Men. The government of India demands that you surrender Jean Grey."

Jim stepped forward, arms spread. "I'm sorry, but we can't," he replied. "We understand your concerns, but there's something else going on -- some kind of dimensional distortion, something global. We don't know how, but we have reason to believe it's tied to Jean." He gestured to where Jean knelt, dazed and shivering on the deck. "Professor Xavier is familiar with her capabilities, and we have specialists at the mansion capable of analyzing and suppressing her powers. The technology works, you can see that for yourself. We're the only ones equipped to get to the bottom of all this, and if we let you take her now we may have more than the fate of one city on our hands."

"No. Even if your words were the complete truth, X-Man, over two million Indians were killed in that blast and in the coming months, another million might be added to that total. We have her image on a hundred cameras. There is no doubt she was involved. If she is indeed innocent, that will come from a trial. But we will be the ones to conduct it." Behind, the rest of the Guard was forming up. Dacoit's expression actually softened for a moment.

"She is your teammate, X-Man. I know that. But the dead are ours, and that must be answered to our satisfaction first."

Jim wished Charles were here. The professor was the diplomat: he would have known what to say, what to do. At the very least he should have let the iron-willed, corporate-savvy Emma take the lead. Instead he had been the one to open his mouth, trying to explain the potential ramifications of something he himself didn't fully comprehend.

"You're risking more if you take her back without full understanding of the situation," Jim pointed out, trying one last time to appeal to reason. The Guard was now fully massed behind Dacoit, an intimidating wall of hard-eyed combatants. "Give us time to find out what's happening and stop it if we can. After that . . . after that, we can deal with the rest."

"No." Lorna said standing up looking at the new arrivals. "I am in charge of this mission of bring her back to back. She obviously needs medical attention and is not fit to stand trail for anything - at least not at the moment. Look at her. Does she look capable of standing trail? She needs medical attention and we can give that to her."

"I am not asking you, X-Men. We will take Ms Grey, with or without your cooperation. We do not wish to hurt you, but if you try and stop us, we are willing to use any means necessary."

"Oh, enough!," called out Rogue. The emotion was starting to take over, and her voice was raised. "Really? Really? Y'all are gonna go all crazy on us then?" She stood up, eyes narrowed, hands on hips. "We are tryin' to explain things to you, that this here ain't somethin' that y'all can even begin to understand. No one is in a better position to get answers than us. You use our team name, so you know who we are. You know what we're capable of. You know, that if you try to force our hand here, we can't jus' let y'all take her. If you're sayin' you're gonna use any means necessary, well, that jus' means to me that you're already at that place. Them's harsh words to be throwin' out in a regular conversation."

"Guardmen, take her." Dacoit said, motioning at Jean. The X-Men were forced to scatter as various energy beams smashed down, providing covering fire as he landed on the deck.

"Not on my watch," Clarice stepped in front of Jean, a portal already opening so all they had to do was step back into it. She could slide it under them if she had to, but she would rather not risk the integrity of the ship on accident. "She stays with us."

The sonic attack drove Blink to her knees, convinced that her eardrums were burst. Waves of sonic and flame attacks swept over the deck as the Guardsmen landed. The portal disappeared like an early dew, as Clarice rolled on the ground covering her ears from the sound attack.

Gritting her teeth against the sounds, Rogue started to fly towards the guards when it suddenly felt like there was a vise grip on her neck. She couldn't move forward, and it was getting harder and harder to breathe.

Kicking her legs furiously while simultaneously trying to claw at her throat, she wasn't succeeding at breaking free.

The hair on the back of Jim's neck rose as he watched one of their strongest fighters writhing helplessly; a frantic search for her attacker drew his attention to a blue-skinned woman with a face locked in concentration. Telekinesis.

Jack burst to the fore with a wave of his own telekinesis sudden enough to break Kala-mu-l-la-h's concentration; Rogue was released only moments from total asphyxia. Without even faltering the psionic turned her attention to the attacker, meeting Haller's assault with one of her own. The X-Man staggered, driven back by a sleet of telekinetic energy against his shields.

Yet that wasn't the last of it. The Guard's telekinetic assault against Haller was quickly joined a stream of blazing plasma that bounced dangerously, spluttering and gnawing holes in the deck floor. This was differed, however, as a chunk of sharp metal hit Dhu-m-ketu, Starbolt, in the right shoulder. The man - presumably, as this Imperial Guard member was currently cloaked in flames with only the grinning semblance of a human skull exposed in the flame torrent that would be his hair - flared in anger, attention diverted to the shirtless mutant now yelling on deck as the Guard began to disperse in order to deal with individual targets.

"I, Namor, Marques de McKenzie, Heir Apparent to the Dukedom of Thakkor, of the Royal Line of Agon, demand as the Ranking Member of the Attilan Royal Family that you stand down immediately."

This got Namor, who was hovering near the ship's edge, to draw another blast of fire. He dodged.
"This is already an international incident and we do," he lugged another dislodged piece of metal to keep Starbolt's attention, "Not need to encourage," and another dodge matched with the haughtiest of smirks, "Further shows of force. After all, the Khusrawi Agoriya were never a match for Attilan."

The bait worked. Starbolt's yellow flames were now pulsing, and he moved away from the deck to chase the Attlani noble over the open water. They flew, Namor swooping to trade with a long piece of metal recovered from Lorna's handiwork, as Starbolt fired blast after blast that fizzled in the ocean spray. The mist created a cover that both hid and assisted Namor as he ducked under the water to avoid the bolts of flaming plasma that were more on point.

On the deck of the ship, Julian leaned against one of the shipping containers, winded from the exertion with Jean and the inhibitor. His hair began to raise on end, the taste of ozone preceded the first jolt of electricity that tossed Julian into the next nearest container. His head ringing, the ex-scion slowly stood and noticed the man standing at the other end of the aisle of containers. Blue tendrils of electrical energy arced from container to container in front of him, hovering there, controlled by the uniformed man. "Shit," Julian muttered, as the web of energy pulsed towards him.

The first jolt caught his shields, which promptly dropped, allowing the second one to blast into him and knocking him to the ground. The guardsman walked forward casually, another web of energy threading together. This time, Julian was ready- a shipping container came down before him, dissipating the blast. He tried to bring it down on the guardsman, but his foe was exerting some form of control over the metal. To make matters worse, the container was now arcing energy down around them onto the deck of the metal ship, and he could feel the bursts of electricity bouncing against his telekinetic hold on large crate. "Shit!" he swore again, going to a knee and trying to keep his focus.

Lorna counter Electron's attack on Julian by a well placed Magnetic Blast. Lifting one of the containers she threw one towards Electron but never left her post besides Jean.

Pixie darted into the air as all hells broke loose on deck. A tingle of negative energy caused her to dodge a bolt of darkforce by the thickness of her wings. She looked over her shoulder to see another and another being fired from the Guard's hands. She dove and changed directions, trying to make herself a difficult target for the flier. She summoned her dust to the surface of her skin and wings, although it seemed unlikely she'd be able to dust him - and she wasn't sure whom she'd be dusting in the chaos below. Did the Guard know her and what her powers were? She wasn't sure but she hoped not. "Will O' Wisp," she whispered into the wind, summoning her were-light. The little ball of green light grew into a flaming ball. Hopefully it looked more powerful than it was as it flew off towards the enemy flier. He wouldn't be able to fire upon her as easily if he was concerned with return fire.

A lance of black energy stabbed through the flaming ball, forcing Pixie to dodge awkwardly as it popped her blast like a soap bubble. A second one nearly took off her leg at the knee, and suddenly Pixie found herself hemmed in, an easy target for a final and fatal blast.

Rachel lunged forward and through the chaos from where she had been guarding Jean with a fierce scowl and a heavy frown. She grabbed and pulled a rush of telekinesis tight towards her with a one second charge before shoving, snapping the power forward in a wide arc towards Pixie's attacker and simultaneously yanking him towards the crippling force of her attack to maximize the impact and throw off his attack on the winged mutant.

The psion succeeded, but only partially, and she cursed sharply ("Fuck!") as Black Light's follow up attack on Pixie flew wide, inky black energy missing her head but clipping her in the middle of her delicate right wing.

Rachel levered herself up and over the Guard, throwing up a shield around herself as the asshole shoved off her telekinetic blast and retaliated with a sharp hit that reverberated across the opaque blue shield.

The redhead growled, dropped the shield and dropped a heavy force onto the Guard, fully intent on crushing him to the grimy deck of the ship.

Pixie shrieked and nearly fell when her wing was hit. She spiraled downward, her left wing buzzing furiously. She grabbed a radio antenna and swung to land on top of the bridge only to be greeted with crossfire from Starbolt's and Namor's game of tag over the sea. They had circled closer to the ship, and Starbolt's wildfire was made even more chaotic by his inability to land a shot.

That is until he noticed a much easier, much more prone target.

The flaming Guard member pivoted in mid air and aimed at Pixie, his devil's smirk only enhanced by the hungry lick of flames from his flight form. As he fired, the howl of his blast was lost under the angry roar of the dark torpedo that moved to intercept the bolt of plasma.

"Imperius Re-"

Namor's yell quickly dissolved to painful yowls as the plasma hit, burning and peeling the young man's skin as it covered and ruined more of him. Soon there was no sound at all as his body, tiny wings on his ankles eaten away by the flames, fell lifelessly to the ship's deck.

"Namor!" Pixie shouted hysterically. She caught a glimpse of the immolated body below and turned, fleeing the Guard on foot. He'd killed Namor with a blast intended for her. She ran, choking on tears, her torn wing dragging. There was nowhere to run to on the freighter, but she had to keep moving.

Below her the Imperial Guardsman Oracle saw an opportunity. In an instant Kala-mu-l-la-h switched tactics and abandoned her telekinetic assault, instead turning her attention to the agony of Namor's last moments. The pain of blackening flesh and boiling organs, the finality of a life snuffed out, the utter powerlessness of an inescapable fate: all these she gathered to herself, honing them, amplifying them, and blasting the results at the telekinetics like a shotgun.

There was no warning. With no defense against the sudden deluge of physical pain and dying memories, Haller and Rachel fell screaming.

Rogue had been laying on the ground, gasping for air, when all this was going on around her. It wasn't until she saw Namor die trying to save Pixie that she found the strength to leap to her feet. Pixie was obviously struggling, and right at her heels was an Imperial Guard, looking ready to strike again.

Frantically looking around, she saw a shattered piece of a shipping container. That would have to do. Picking it up, she threw it right at Starbolt, the impact pushing him right into the water. From the corner of her eye, she saw the blue-skinned woman rushing to pull him out, but Rogue didn't care. Getting to Pixie, she stretched out her arms. "It's okay, I got ya, girl."

Namor didn't die in vain.

Lorna went to throw a nearby shipping container at the attackers but was headed off by Gladiator. She only had a moment to throw up a metal shield to block his attack - or so she thought. He had punched a hole right through the metal and in that moment Lorna hesitated. It seemed that he had sensed that too as another punch sent her flying back, hitting the deck with such force that her leg hit at an awkward angle, breaking the bone on impact.

In that moment Jean had been glad for once she had the suppressor on. But it didn't stop her from seeing. Namor was dead, sparking to life images of her own past deed with Magneto and his followers as the flames burned while he lay lifeless. Those that still lived were falling. They were fighting, and dying, for her.

"No, no, no no..."

Emma had taken no part in the battle, huddled down in the space between containers near Jean, staying flesh as she soothed the dreams of the crewmen, stopping them from waking and panicking and making this whole thing worse than it already was and keeping herself as safe as she could so that she could, if necessary, report back to Charles that their mission had failed. But Jean's moans rose even over the shouts and screams that were erupting around her.

"Oh shut up," she snapped at the redhead, not even caring if Jean heard her or if it just gave her a small vent for her own feelings. "Just shut the fuck up. They're dying to save you, though the gods only know why. The least you can do is not be an ungrateful bitch about it and just Shut. The Fuck. Up."

Shaking her head, Jean's reaction was a mixture of sorrow and anger as she helplessly listened and watched the battle rage on. The woman's words were already seared on her heart, words she didn't need verbalized. "I know," she said. She never asked for this, never wanted it.

"Time to end this. Oracle?" Dacoit said, looking over to his second in command. The blue hued woman nodded and closed her eyes. The nature of psionic shields was to keep a telepath at a distance, like an old fortification. But it didn't work as well when the telepath wasn't in search mode. In this case, Oracle's remarkable powers were focused on broadcasting, and suddenly each X-Man was drowned in the dying thoughts and feelings of Namor as the plasma crisped away his skin and burned his breath from his lungs. It was exponentially greater than what the young man felt, furiously struggling for life, and it drove them to their knees.

With the last of the X-Men injured or writhing under the psychic attack, the air beside Jean suddenly shifted with a popping sound as a Guardsman appeared beside her. Musafir reached down and grabbed Jean roughly by the back of the hair.

"You can come with us now, or we can execute every X-Man here before doing you too. Take your pick." His English was rough but the deadliness of his intent was clear.

Jean didn't struggle, barely making a sound. She knew the Guardsman would make good on his word if she showed any sign of defiance. There was already one dead already at their hands. She would rather not add anymore to her conscience.

"I'll go," she said calmly. "Just don't hurt them anymore. Please." She still didn't know what they thought she had done, but from the sound of it it was nothing good.

A moment they were there and the next, the deck of the ship was bare. Jean Grey was gone to whatever fate the Guard had planned for her.