2013.10.21 - White Hot Dawn

White Hot Room

A blazing font of energy. All energy, and potential- an isolated pocket of reality where anything and everything is possible, all at once.

After all the sound and fury on Genosha, there is peace. Or, at least, there is silence. Silence and, against the impossible whiteness of the expansive potential of this place, a breath of movement.

Or, rather, materialization.

In this place, a mere heartbeat has passed since the events on Genosha. And, at the same time, centuries have past. Civilizations have fallen, risen, fallen again and risen once more from the ashes of all that came before. It is the nature of things, the nature of life.

The nature of this place.

Two human forms slowly, ever so slowly, coalesce in fetal positions on the ground, near to one another but not touching. It has been scant nanoseconds and eternal ages since either of them drew breath.

They are fortunate, however. There is no pain in this place. No physical pain, at any rate. Anguish, is another story. But, physical pain is for the mortal world. And they are neither of them in the mortal world any longer. Physical pain will not return to either of them until they are made manifest in the mortal world once more. (Then, however, it'll probably hurt like a sonuvabitch for several days.)

The red-haired woman, curled a loose ball, slowly regains consciousness, breath slowly filling her lungs and expanding her ribs. She opens dark green eyes and, slowly, raises her head, blinking against the light, and looking around.

A young man in slacks and a button-down shirt stands (inasmuch as a person can stand here) a few feet from the redhead. He's handsome, in a way Earth women regard as 'brooding'- dark hair slicked back into a haircut that hasn't been popular since the Beatles were big, with sinewy arms and broad shoulders.

"I suppose I'm dead, then?" he says. Or thinks. He doesn't look particularly surprised or concerned, looking around the infinite nothingness that is the White Hot Room. On one level, it sounds like he's speaking accented English- on another level, he's communicating in flawless Polish. "This isn't quite what I expected Heaven to be. Or that I should go there at all. Purgatory?"

Because there is no walking, and movement is really just a matter of perspective, the young man is abruptly near the redhead, offering her a polite hand up. "May I help you, young lady? Are you a figment of my imagination, or are you dead, too?" His tone is quite polite, all things considered. He seems a bit bemused by the whole situation.

The young woman, her appearance not so changed from what it was in the mortal world -- at least in terms of age -- wears a simple dress with stylish boots and a fashionable shawl in a look that is very contemporary. She smiles as the man offers to help her up. "I... don't know," she replies, a little bewildered, at first. "Thank you."

Her hands touch his and a tingle passes between them, an inadvertent connection. A flash of memory distracts her. Faces. Light. Yet other faces.

She shakes her head lightly to clear it and looks around at the empty space. "This doesn't look like Purgatory to me." But nor is it Heaven, she's fairly certain.

He blinks once. "I am sorry, have we met?" he asks abruptly. Apparently, he's affected just as Jean is. His hand lingers for a moment, then abruptly he checks himself, withdrawing his hand. "Ah, my apologies for being familiar. My name is Max," he says by way of introduction. He offers a short bow to the woman.

"I wonder where we are, then," he says, looking around the area. His fingers curl and he gathers a few wisps of floating energy to him, cradling the raw potential of The White Hot Room gently. "Such a remarkable place. I do not have the words to describe it," he says with a light-toned candor. "And I was- I was a physicist, I think," he says, looking vaguely amused. "I am having a hard time remembering. But this is something more than light or gravity. I wish I knew how to describe it to you. Like life, made into a rainbow." He offers Jean a smile that eases his brooding features, a nest of crow's feet appearing around his robin's egg blue eyes and making him look boyishly youthful.

"It's quite alright," Jean replies, a still faintly bewildered smile on her lips. Her head cants as she straightens and brushes off her skirt. "I... I feel like I know you. Max." A beat. "Jean," she says. "My name is Jean."

She, too, looks around, reaches out to touch the tendrils of energy. To her, it feels not only familiar, but right. "It feels like... being alive," she says after a long moment's thought. Her fingertips ripple through the font at the center of the room, and she recoils just slightly as more faces skitter across her memories.

She frowns faintly. "I... think I was a doctor, too," she says eventually. "A... geneticist."

Code of life stuff.

"Genetics. The advent of homo novus was heralded by a deviation in the human genome, resulting in a radical form of the 24th chromosomal pair. During the course of early human development the 24th chromosome began to activate latent psychokinetic features of the human brain. Manifestations of this evolutionary paradigm included telepathy and psychokinetic talents, manifesting as an ability to interact with primal reactionals and energy sources such as light, thermal transfer, and gravity."

Max doesn't seem to even be aware he's speaking out loud. He's doing something with the floating wisps of light, gathering them singly and doubly into his hands as Jean plays with the font. He quirks his mouth sideways, then makes a little knot-tying motion. The energy wisps resolve into an image of an attractive dark-haired woman with green eyes and a mischevious smile. The image of the woman floats in front of Max for a long moment, then she smiles and turns away, disappearing back into the nebulous energy of the room.

Max appears next to Jean, looking at the font. "What a pretty fountain," he says, hands neatly clasped behind his back. "I wonder who put it here. I wonder where 'here' is. I am having a hard time remembering how I got here," he says, brow furrowing minutely. "I am quite sure this is not a place I am supposed to be, but I have this sense that there is nowhere else I could go. Is that odd?" he asks the redhead next to him.

Homo Novus.

Jean's eyes close as Max recites the scientific facts. She knows they're right. She also knows they're important. But she's not sure why. "Homo novus," she says softly. "Homo sapiens."

She frowns. Her hands pass through the fountain again and figures appear -- a brown haired man with deep red glasses and a serious expression, red-haired young women that aren't Jean, white-and-brown haired young men... They each turn into flames and join together to create a bright white bird that flies up out of the flames and disappears into the white expanse beyond them both.

"Yes," she agrees, presently. "It's odd. But... this place feels right to me. Like I am supposed to be here." A beat. "Or, rather, part of me is."

Her nose wrinkles. She looks up where the bird disappeared. "Max." She looks at him, now. "What do you remember before here?"

"My wife." Max smiles. It's a warm smile, with none of the tightness that an older man known as 'Erik Lehnsherr' would sport. Sincere. "And my daughter, Anya. We were playing in the woods. Anya is five," Max says, smiling at the woman. "She is very precocious, you know. I have been teaching her math. She can already do multiplication!" The proud papa laughs merrily. "So clever. I think she will be a scientist one day. I will have to have her teach at the Academy."

A shadow passes over Max's face. "Wait, that is not right. I do not have an Academy," he frowns. "I teach science at the local school. I am a teacher, not a professor." He rubs the palm of one hand into his eye. "But... I distinctly remember lecturing a large group of students in... a college. Cambridge. But that is in England."

Max looks at Jean. "What is the last thing you remember before coming here? Do we know one another? You seem familiar to me... but I cannot place you in my memory, for some reason."

"Faces," Jean replies to the reciprocal question. "Faces that were important to me." She smiles at his recollections, though there's still a faint crease to her brows. "My... family." She nods. "I'm sure."

She studies his eyes, now, his face. The crow's feet are familiar to her. "The Academy," she says. "I remember an Academy." A beat. "No. But, a school. An institute of some sort, I think."

She turns away from him, now, and retreats a few paces, trying to recall more. Her hands brush through further strands of energy. They seem to flock to her like children, wanting to touch her and cling to her. She turns back, studying him again. "Are you sure your name is Max?"

"No, my name is Magnus," he chuckles. In that moment he ages a bit. Five years- making him thirty, maybe- a bit of silver at his temples, a few lines growing in his features. "No one has called me Max in years. I was... oh. A boy when I was still 'Max'," Magnus says with a rueful laugh. "I don't think even Magda calls me Max anymore. That was a different man, a different life." He straightens his sport coat, looking every inch a successful and prosperous business man, with a bit of a teacher's mien about him still.

"Are you one of my students, Jean?" Magnus asks the girl, giving her a curious look. "What are you doing here?" He looks askance at the font, then without any hesitation, plunges his hand into it.

The entire room surges wild with energy as he does so- his presence here is a new thing, something unexpected. He withdraws his hand, looking at it curiously- liquid gold covers it, energy limning the digits of his hand. His head tilts the other way, and the energy coalesces into a crystal, all ordered and shiny-sided. "How remarkable," he breathes, as the crystal reforms into something resembling a snowflake, perfectly symmetrical and intricate beyond measure. "This is... raw. Pure potential. Responding to thought and will, to become... anything."

"Magnus," Jean echoes. A wry smile touches her lips. She slowly returns toward the fountain, watching the energy play over his hands. "No. You... You look like an Erik, to me."

Her hands touch the energy. "I think I knew a man named Erik, once. Erik. And Charles. They... were important to me."

Charles' face dances through the energy stream. Erik's, however, isn't seen. Only the back of his head as the figure walks away.

She cups the energy in her hands and it falls like liquid, small flames flickering up where it lands on the ground about her. They flicker for a moment or two and are then reabsorbed into ground like water wicking away into thirsty soil.

"Charles. I know Charles."

The font flickers with more than just a single face- a lifetime of faces soars through the font, responding to Magnus' will, his intense focus. Anger creases his brow for a moment, and the font responds. Anger, compassion, friendship, loyalty, betrayal, compassion, forgiveness-

The two of them are abruptly standing in a courtyard. It's a lovely place, well maintained, with blooming flowers and vines everywhere. A classic Victorian style New England mansion looms behind them, bright stones and fresh paint giving it a new, clean look despite being nearly a century old.

Erik looks over his shoulder, then smiles, rolling his shoulders under a neatly fitted suit jacket. "Oh, hello Jean," Erik says. He pats Jean's head- the woman somehow a girl and a woman at the same time. "I'm glad to see you're doing well! I am sorry, I did not bring any candy with me this time," he apologizes, patting his pockets. "I am just here to help Charles with Cerebro." He walks along with Jean, hands in his pockets. "Are you studying hard?"

For the moment, he seems tied up in the memory, ignoring the blazing font of energy in the sky that he percieves as the sun.

Jean, the little girl and the woman, smiles. "Of course, Uncle Erik," she says -- taking liberties with his name that she never really did with Charles. Different men. The first her friend, the second her teacher. Both important. But different.

The world changes before Jean's eyes. Her emotions shift through hurt, disappointment, surprise, anger. There are softer emotions, too, but the big ones, the dark ones, those have always been the ones the girl was most sensitive to -- ever since the accident, since Annie's death awakened her powers.

Charles spent much time limiting Jean. Erik spent much time encouraging her. Very, very different men.

But, there's an argument she recalls... and the sight of Erik walking out the front gate toward a waiting taxi, never to return.

"You left."

"Charles drove me away."

Erik and Jean sit at a coffeeshop. Jean has sprouted a bit. Erik's hair is longer, silvering out now- the sleeked back look gone, his hair hanging to his shoulders. A steaming cup of coffee sits between his hands, a cup of tea in front of Jean. His expression is harder now, stern- but not unsympathetic.

"Jean, I respect Charles immensely, but he... he is an idealist," Erik says, his tone frank. He had never spoken down to Jean- he had always treated her as an equal, as a peer, even while a student. "I do not want to tell you to do something you do not believe in. Charles believes that humans will eventually treat us with respect. After that debacle in Louisiana, I cannot believe that will be the case." He sips the coffee, ignoring the blazing font of energy in Jean's tea mug.

Jean sips at her coffee, unconsciously absorbing more of the energy that shimmers around them as she does. "His ideals aren't wrong," she says with the optimism -- and stubbornness -- of youth. "Louisiana was... was bad, but..." She shakes her head.

More years gone. "This isn't the way!" Another confrontation. Blue and yellow. Purple and magenta. More misunderstandings. More heartbreak on both sides.

The world changes again. Blue and yellow becomes green and yellow. Even that changes, from flirty and playful to something richer and infinitely greater.

The young woman sinks to her knees, feeling death all around her -- radiation poisoning. It will kill her. And, yet?

She's still alive.

"It's not his ideals you dispute," she says, raising her eyes to the older man, now. "It was never the ideals. Only the methods."

"I know, Jean." Magneto kneels, brushing matted hair back from her forehead. With a gesture and a wave, he plucks the radiation from Jean's body, cradling a miniscule fountain of power in his palm. With a wave, he wards off the radiation that's trying to kill her.

Gently, he cradles the woman with a hug, resting his chin on her head. He sets his helmet aside, his silver hair spilling to his shoulders. "I wish Charles was right. Could be right. I would give anything for a world without war." He chucks her chin gently, turning her face up to his sorrowful, lined features. "I would spare you what I endured as a child- the camps, the stink of prisons, the knowledge that you may die today just because you... you are so different. And you are great, Jean, so great," he whispers, patting her cheek. Tears rim his eyes. "You deserve a world where you can flourish."

Light circles around Jean, settling on her shoulders like a mantle. The green of her uniform changes to white -- at least in this place. She accepts the hug from the old man. They were close once. Very close. Family, after a fashion.

The radiation fades, and with it memories of being trapped at the bottom of a bay, healing over the course of months while the Phoenix Entity took her place on the surface among her friends.

She leans her head against him, but her lips press together firmly. "But, that's just it, Erik: We all do. Human and Mutant alike. We all deserve a world where we can each flourish. The camps... How is what Sinister did to my friends -- family -- any different than what Mengele did to the Jews in the war?" She pulls back now, meeting his gaze, her memories clear. "He stole one of my students from the Institute grounds, Erik." A wry smile touches her lips. "You, of all people, know how formidable our defenses are. He took her and no one was the wiser. And he's done something to her... I saw it in her mind. He's breaking her, Erik. Please. That can't be what you want."

Her green eyes are bright, earnest, and hurt. "That's not the man I knew."

Not that she's the woman she knew, any more, either. She carries almost as much darkness in her own soul.

Magneto turns away from Jean, shame lining his face. Here, there can be no lies. Not in the White Hot Room. Pretense burns away under the fire of the Phoenix, leaving only bare emotion to be shown.

"Maybe you are right." Max sits with his arms loosely draped around his knees, looking at the blazing font that is The Phoenix Force. Back in his shirtsleeves and slacks, hair dark and cut short again. Before Magda died, before he met Charles. "Sinister was... a mistake. I see that now." Magneto shakes his silvered head, a laurel crowning his brow for a moment, fading to his guise as 'Erik Lehnsherr, Mutant Champion'. "I thought that it was better to keep the devil in my pocket than let him run free. I think now, Sinister was using me. My ambition. I let him whisper in my ears and convinced myself that it was acceptable to let him work. I have lost mutants before. Sacrificed them. Terrible, regrettable," he says, face composed, calm. "Necessary. I thought this was necessary too. Now I may have unleashed a monster worse than man on the world."

Magneto stands on a balcony overlooking Bastion, wearing his Imperator's robes. He holds a palm out to the sky and plucks down the sun, cradling the Phoenix Force in his palm.

"What a remarkable thing," he tells Jean softly. He plays with the font of power, smiling warmly, de-aging in a moment back to a dark-haired young professor, first exploring the world. "You know, I can count dimensions up to sixteen in number? I can draw a picture freehand of the collision and decay of a gamma particle striking a hydrogen atom. And I cannot find words to describe this thing," he chuckles, turning a mischevious smile on Jean. "A poor teacher I am, no? I keep trying to tell you what this is, and I keep hearing a song in my head, the same song I hear when I listen to the universe speaking to me. What does it say to you?" he asks, tickling the font and watching it grow into a gorgeous, infinite fractal, nestled happily in his palm, somehow limited and limitless at the same time.

Jean rises, standing beside him, looking out into a white expanse, rather than Bastion, now. "It speaks of Life, to me," she admits. The capitalization can be heard in the way she says the word. "It is immortal. Indestructible. But, infinitely mutable." She gazes at the font, and it seems to fill her eyes. "I don't think I can describe it, either," she admits. "I just know that it feels right to me."

Her expression falls some, tightens. "And that it can bring great darkness as easily as it brings great light."

She sighs softly, now, turning to face him. "We should never have confronted each other like that. You..." A wry but honest smile touches her lips. "You are important, Erik. To all of us. Charles is the idealist. We need his ideals. We need his dream. But, we need you, too. You are a catalyst and a crucible."

Again, she turns to gaze into the distant white. "I see that now."

Cable was right. She doesn't say that to Magneto, but she knows it for herself. Cable was, indeed, right.

She extends her hand to him, now. "Help us, Erik. We have to stop Sinister and his Horsemen. Or there won't be a world for any of us in the future." Sadness touches her eyes. "We all have mistakes we need to redeem, I think."

Magneto smiles warmly at Jean. "How can I say no to my favorite pupil? Dead or not, it seems the least I can do," he chuckles. He takes a deep breath (a largely redundant gesture here), holds it, then lets it out with a short exhalation. "Fortunately, I am fairly sure I know where he is," Magneto says. He archs an eyebrow, the expression disingenuous on the elder statesman. "And with your help- and perhaps, some spiritual insight," he adds, looking at the bloom of energy cascading around them, "we can run him to ground." The universe- such as it is- flickers. It seems to agree with him. Magneto grins delightedly, reaching up and strumming his fingers across the strands of energy, playing them as if it were a universe-sized harp. "I think I should like to return here sometime," he says, softly.

Magneto turns back to Jean, assuming a stern and focused air. Armor and cape swirl around him, his helmet settling into place. Fierce determination colors his eyes, and he tosses a grin- bold and confident- at the girl.

"I presume you have a plan for bringing me back from the dead?"

Phoenix laughs dryly now, suffused with the energy of this place. "I am Life Incarnate here, Erik," she says, the harmonics beginning to fill her voice once more. There is a strange look on her face -- a sort of psychic doubling where Jean Grey, the human woman, and the Phoenix Entity coexist for a span of heartbeats in the same time and place. The woman is at once disconcerted and uncertain. The Entity, however, is supreme joy and cosmic certainty. "Life, Death, and Rebirth are all one, to me."

To the Phoenix Entity, yes. To Jean Grey? It's a little overwhelming. She reaches out for Erik's hand, much as she did as a young girl.

When their hands touch, however, light swirls about them. Brilliant white light gives way to deeper shades of night, pinpricks of stars, and the white glow of a moon. That, in turn, gives way to rich purples and warming reds of sunrise, the steady glow of morning light, noonday sun, and afternoon's waning light. A night. A day. A second night.

And as the sun rises over the glassy crater hardly 36 hours after the destruction of the Imperator's stronghold, two human souls begin to coalesce in the shimmering dawn. Atom by atom, molecule by molecule, the forces of the universe conspire to return to them their beleaguered bodies and mortal coils.

And, yet, they are neither of them the same as when they left. Horsemen may ride, but Light and Ambition have risen like phoenixes from the ashes the Horsemen left behind.

A new day dawns.