⚜️ Saga 0: The Ash Years
🗓Location: Xavier Institute, Northern Westchester, New York |Year: 2006
Characters:Jean Grey, Charles Xavier, Raven (Mystique)
Theme:Damaged awakening, psychic hunting, obsession kindling
Jean Grey awoke in the isolation wing of the Xavier Institute, but her eyes saw only fire.
Not the soft, warm blaze of comfort or renewal — but the scalding inferno of a soul consuming itself.
Her breaths were ragged, shallow, as remnants of the psychic breakdown lingered like embers smoldering beneath her skin.
The room around her felt unreal — walls melting into shadow and streaks of crimson light, whispers bleeding from corners no one else could see.
She sat up, fingers trembling as psionic energy flickered around her hands—wild, unpredictable, as though her will and the Phoenix within wrestled endlessly for control.
A voice broke the silence—the calm, velvety tone of Professor Xavier, filtered through telepathic waves.
"Jean… you made it through again. Barely."
She closed her eyes, remembering the vision: Dante — calm, unyielding, a shadow standing beside her in cataclysm. The dream where he held her.
"Why is he here?" Jean whispered, her voice a brittle echo.
Xavier's reply was measured but tinged with concern.
"He is connected to you now, more than either of you realize. The Phoenix sense has awakened something between you — a bond, faint but growing. It's… unprecedented."
Jean's eyes snapped open, flames igniting in their depths.
"No. He can't be real. he canot not be here."
But as she to spoke herself, her mind raced — hunting, seeking signs of the man who haunted her dreams.
She pushed herself up, ignoring the meditation restraints designed to calm her powers.
Raven approached, her gaze sharp beneath hooded eyes.
"You're breaking again," she said bluntly. "And this time it's something new. Not just the Phoenix—it's him. That man. The one your mind claws for in sleep."
Jean's throat tightened.
"He's the only reason I'm not lost in the fire."
Raven's lips twitched. "And the reason you might burn us all down."
With a slow, deliberate movement, Jean rose, the Phoenix fire coiling like a serpent around her form.
She stepped toward the Institute's telepathic scanners—interfaces designed to monitor mutants, long refined to detect precursors to psychic shifts.
"I'm going out," she declared, voice steady despite the raging chaos below surface.
Xavier's telepathic voice filled her head—a desperate plea.
"Jean, please. Your mind isn't stable. If you leave, the fire…"
"I'll control it," she snapped. "I have to find him. The real Dante. He's lost somewhere out there, and behind all this fire… is where I'll find myself again."
With a burst of raw power, she shattered the restraints, flames swirling in hypnotic fury.
The corridors blurred around her as she took to the skies—an emberhawk burning bright against the dark.
In the back of her mind, the Phoenix purred like a goddess pleased with the hunt's beginning.
Her obsession was no longer a dream.
It was a chase.
And nothing—not even Xavier's warnings—would stop her.
> [System Alert: Psychic Anchor Unstable]
> Status: Hunting Mode Activated
> Emotional State: Obsession Rising | Focused | Singular
> Next Objective: Locate Dante — Hostile Engagement Permissible
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