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"Forgetting is like a wound. The wound may heal, but it has already left a scar."

– Monkey D. Luffy,  [One Piece]

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<(Ororo pov)>

I wanted to buy some time for my friends. No, I needed to buy enough time either for the others to figure out a way to defeat the dark phoenix-possessed Jean or in the hopes that Rudeus would be able to come in time to help us all.

Deciding my course of action, I flew up to confront the phoenix avatar.

"Jean, why are you doing this? Don't you understand that we are your friends, your family? Why do you want to hurt us when all we want is to try and help you?" I tried to desperately connect to her humanity.

"Ah, Ororo, my dear 'friend'. What? No words of congratulations that I am still alive. You all are truly selfish, aren't you? I just came back and all you guys could think was how to protect yourself from me, how to convince me to leave again. But guess what, I ain't leaving this time, at least not without doing what I came here to do." Jean said slowly, each of her words laced with venomous anger.

"So, you are not here to cause destruction? You are not here to fight?" I stupidly ask with slight hope in my voice.

"Oh no, my dear friend, I am here to cause destruction. I am here to kill the man who took me away from my parents, the fraud who tried to bend my mind according to his wishes and to destroy this cursed prison of constant brainwashing which he calls a school. I am here to end it all and then build my own perfect heaven on the ashes of this rotten and corrupted world, for me and... my beloved." Jean said while displaying a sickening amount of obsession at the last word in her sentence.

"You are not going to succeed Jean. I won't let you. I'll stop you, no matter what." I said as thunderclouds began to gather in the sky around us under the influence of my powers.

"Oh really? You and what army?" Jean said as her eyes darkened as black veins began to become apparent on her beautiful smooth skin.

"My own army," I said as I sensed many of the X-men began to gather behind me in their combat gear to show their support for me.

"I see. So taking my boyfriend was not the end for you was it? You had to take away my friends as well. It's alright I guess. Today I will purge them all and make myself free from all these backstabbing bastards that you call friends." Jean said as she gave an evil-looking smile.

I did not wait anymore and rained down multiple streams of lightning on the redhead. I did not want to hurt her but I needed to protect the school and its students. Rudeus trusted me to protect this school as part of his legacy and I swear I won't disappoint him.

However contrasting to my expectation, not even a single hair on Jean's head seemed burnt. Some sort of spherical hazy forcefield was protecting her from all sides from my attack.

"I picked up a few tricks. However, you, the powers of atmokinesis and all you can do is shoot lightning. How do you even call yourself a metahuman teacher my dear Ororo?" She said with a single gesture of hers, chunks of earth and rocks began to float up from the ground and sped towards me like missiles.

I immediately used my powers and manipulated the wind I was riding on to quickly move me out of the trajectory of the rocks.

Piotr, aka, Colossus took this opportunity and... threw Logan towards Jean to attack her but she stopped Wolverine mid-way with her telekinesis and threw him away miles away.

Multiple rocks and pieces of earth and broken wood began to float around Jean, ready to stop and attack anyone from coming too close to her. Jean was weak in the physical department and she knew it. That's why, she was focusing on her defense while using her immense raw telekinetic power to attack us.

Just as I was thinking of my next move, I suddenly saw a flash of silver rushing towards Jean, however the very next moment the silvery haze who I now recognized as Pietro came crashing beneath me with his feet bent in a weird position, probably fractured.

"God! Should have gotten that feet insurance from my agent." Pietro muttered in pain.

Jean directed the broken trees and rocks and launched them toward Colossus and Beast forcing them out of the battlefield by knocking them out instantly.

"And here I expected some sort of fight. Truly you all are just pathetic. I'll be doing this planet a favor by resetting it after I take my revenge." Jean snorted.

"No, you are not going to hurt my friends. I'll make sure of it." Bobby said as he went into his ice-form similar to Pyro who too 'flamed up'. Both of them flew at high speeds towards Jean, snow, and fire being left in their respective trails.

Bobby, aka, Iceman fired his freezing ice blasts at her from one direction while Pyro released fire at her like a living flame thrower. Seeing a chance, I too released multiple lightning bolts from the sky towards her, while making sure to thin the air around her as much as possible to choke while boosting up both Iceman's and Pyro's attack by concentrating nitrogen and oxygen in their respective attacks.

Even Jean with her phoenix force powers had difficulty keeping up her forcefield under our relentless attack as her face visibly contorted with the lack of breathable oxygen around her.

Just when I thought that we were going to break through her defense with the combined might of our powers, she released a pulse of telekinetic blast around her and pushed us all back. Bobby and I were able to protect ourselves from the pulse without superior control of our abilities but Pyro who had neither enough control nor enough raw power was thrown back by the force and instantly knocked out as he landed on the artificial fountain of the mansion.

She then directed a stream of fire from Pyro towards Bobby blasting him with enough heat to immediately knock him out while also throwing a massive tree towards me and pinning me to the ground under its weight.

But it was not over, we still had one hope left. Our newest recruit was still in the field.

A blue burst of mist was suddenly seen behind Jean as Kurt, aka Nightcrawler teleported behind her ready to attack her with his sharp pointed tail but sadly the moment he tried to wrap his tail around Jean's neck, he was thrown back by an invisible force into the ground.

But that was not the end of Nightcrawler's plan, a certain brunette had teleported behind Jean who had managed to barely touch the redhead.

"Ahhhh... What the fuu..." Jean screamed as she sensed her energy and powers being constantly being siphoned away by the girl that managed to touch her by surprise. She felt her very life force being absorbed slowly into the teenage girl.

"Feels sickening doesn't it sugar? Don't worry though, I'll only absorb it till you lose consciousness. I don't kill crazy redheads with sad backstories." Anna Marie, aka, Rogue said as she continued to hold onto floating Jean with both of her hands.

"You want... my power. Let's see if you have it then." Jean said as she began to channel her Phoenix force energies into Rogue as well. The southern girl seemed like she was in a world of pain as her eyes mirrored raw fear and pain as strands of her hair turned white.

Finally, she could no longer hold on to Jean as she lost consciousness and fell down but was luckily caught by Wanda with her own red telekinesis.

"You know, they all used to tell me that my powers are quite similar to yours and that we even look similar with our identical red hair. But I think we are quite different. I will never go crazy like you because of my own powers and I definitely will never attack my own friends." Wanda said as she threw her red hexes at Jean while floating towards her.

"So, they already got a replacement this soon. I guess you do look like a cheaper version of me. Although it seems like you are quite powerful as well, even my inner birdie senses seem to... react to you for some reason but guess what, I am much much stronger." Jean smiled as she caught one of her hexes with a telekinetic hold and directed it toward her. But fortunately, Wanda dodged it and began to use her own telekinesis to bring Jean down.

Jean too began to do the same against her. It seemed like both were in a match of telekinesis and both Jean's invisible force and Wanda's scarlet energy were evenly matched for a time but Jean quickly overpowered Wanda with her huge telekinetic force due to the phoenix force inside her as Wanda was thrown back into the ground.

"This is enough. All of you are weak, a disappointment. You have no hope of defeating me. Even the professor with his cerebro is not able to stop my mind's powers alone. The only reason I haven't forced him into a coma and destroyed all of your minds is because of the other cerebro fighting me on different fronts as well. But that won't be for long.

I will destroy this place and burn it to the ground. I will make this Earth a better place by destroying this corrupted little planet first. And not a single one of you can stop me. Because I AM THE PHOENIX." Jean screamed like a maniac as her eyes turned completely black, thick black veins decorating her entire body, thin marks of energy cracking up from underneath her skin. Her whole body was surrounded by the dark red and golden fire taking the twisted shape of a worn down diseased looking phoenix behind her.

She was absolutely right. None of us were powerful enough to stop her. There were many here strong enough to battle Jean Grey but none to defeat the Phoenix. She was a cosmic entity outside of our expectations. We would always come short against someone like that. We had no hope. This was a hopeless battle from the very beginning.

'I am sorry Rudeus. I wasn't able to protect your legacy. I wasn't even able to help my friend. So much time to practice my powers and all I can do is float and fire lightning. I truly am a failure.' Ororo thought as Jean's flames began to grow larger and larger in size ready to devour everything in its path and raze all surroundings to ash and dust.

"You should all know whom to blame when the sky falls down on you. Now, BURN." Jean yelled as she directed all the fire toward us from the sky. She wasn't just going to destroy the school, she was going to burn the entire city, maybe even destroy the world after that.

"I love you Rudeus, please remember me, always," Ororo whispered in what she assumed to be her last breath.

*BOOOOOOM*

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(A/N: And that's a wrap-up with a proper cliffhanger guys, I hope 😁. I know, I am EVIL. MUHAHAHAHAHAHA. MUHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHHAHAHA)

{A big shout-out to my new pátron 'Muscab Mumin' for joining the Divine Eminence tier on my Pátreon. Thanks for the support. ≧◠ᴥ◠≦✊}

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