Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 23:57:52 -0400 From: Dash Jarrod Subject: Force of One 19 Disclaimer: The characters of the X-men belong to Marvel comics. I do not know the sexual preferences of any of the characters herein except for those I made up. This story is complete fiction; any resemblance to real life is sheer coincidence. I do not know any celebrity that may be included in this story may or may not be gay. I also do not personally know any of the celebrities. If you are under 18, please don't read any further. I thank my friends Dustin and Alex for allowing me to make them into characters. Also thanks to all of you who have written me about my story. I have enjoyed writing it; I just hope that you have enjoyed reading it as much. Who is to say what attracted the being known as the phoenix to me. All I know is that it is now coexisting inside of me. I don't know if I like having it inside me yet. I will have to wait and see whether or not it is a good thing. Every one of these thoughts was going through my head as I slept. When I woke up from that deep and restful sleep, I telepathically contacted Professor Xavier. I said, "Good morning professor, I hope everything at the school is going well. I have some news, both good and undecided." "Everything is well here. Thanks for asking. What is this news you are talking about?" "I'll let you know the good news first. My friend Eugene agreed to come with us back to the school. At first he didn't believe that there was even such a thing as mutants, but after we showed him our powers he believed us. The news that I haven't decided whether it's god or bad is that the phoenix has now inherited my body. "I think both sets of news you have given me are good. I'm glad to hear that your friend from back home is willing to join us here at the school. The phoenix should stabilize your powers so that your pyrokinesis won't kill you. Your powers will probably continue to evolve but they won't threaten your life. Do you have any idea as to what attracted the phoenix to you?" "I have an idea but I don't know if it is right or not. I think it became aware of me when I did that psychic beam while in Japan. It probably wanted to wait until I wasn't on school property and using my powers to enter my body." "I would have to concur with your thoughts on that. I, myself, was wondering what would come of your psychic beam. I had not ever seen anything like that in all my years. I also didn't think that such a feat was possible." With our conversation over, I woke up my sleeping beauty. Once we were both up and dressed, we spent the rest of the morning with my parents. When lunch was over, Bobby and I went and picked up Eugene. On the way back to the institute, I wasn't necessarily paying attention to my driving. It's not to say that I was busy talking, not even telepathically, or doing anything else for that matter. I was just completely relying on my senses to navigate. At one point in time during the trip, I accidentally took both of my hands off of the wheel. It was then that my telekinesis took over and gripped the wheel for me. As soon as I realized this, I went to put my hands back, but thought better of it. I would be able to see if I could drive it completely with my powers now. So, I then took my foot off of the gas pedal. Once this was completed, we started to slow down until I had everything under my control. Now, Bobby and Eugene were getting to know each other during this whole scene, but they were brought back to awareness when the car slowed down and then quickly sped back up. Bobby was the first to notice that I wasn't using my hands to steer. This did not unduly worry him though because he knew how strong and dependable my telekinesis was. Then he saw my feet weren't on either pedal. When he saw this, he also noticed the blinking warning lights. It was when he started talking and then yelling at me that I was brought back to reality. As soon as I realized what he was saying, I retook manual control of the car. Both he and Eugene let out a sigh of relief at seeing this. When I heard their sigh, I apologized to both of them telepathically. By the time we got back to the mansion, it was time for dinner. Because of this, all I had to do was tell Professor Xavier that we were home. When we got into the dining room, the rest of our team came up to us to welcome us back. Even though we were only gone for the weekend, they still missed us. It seems that without us there, they didn't have anyone to sit and talk with at meals. That night, all four of us met in mine and Bobby's bedroom. During that time, I more personally introduced Eugene to Jake and Aaron. All of us got along amazingly well. While sleeping that night, I had yet another dream. I dreamt about the entire earth. As I watched, the earth was surrounded by a visible field of some sort of energy. I think it was psychic, but I couldn't be sure. It didn't just appear there either. It seemed almost as if a psychic hand reached up and grabbed the earth, then it started to spread out until it completely covered the planet. As soon as the earth was completely surrounded, I woke up. When I woke up, I was very confused as to the meaning of this dream. I do believe that this one actually has a meaning too. This one can't be one of my fears visualized. I just guess I will have to talk to Professor X. about it. I'm sure he'll want to discuss the phoenix with me more thoroughly anyway. Once I was able to extricate myself from Bobby's embrace, I contacted the professor. I softly asked, "Are you awake professor?" "Yes, Matthew, I am." "Ok. I had another dream this morning that I want to discuss with you. This one has to have a meaning because as far as I know, it is not about any of my fears." "All right, we can meet up in my office after lunch. There are things I need to tell you anyway." During lunch, I couldn't help but be a little apprehensive about what I was going to learn. Everything I learn about the phoenix is probably going to be very good. Knowing more about what is inside of me is definitely a good thing. Once I got to the Professor's office, I sat down and waited expectantly. As I sat there, he took a few moments to gather his thoughts. All this did was to make me more nervous. Finally, he began with, "Matthew, what do you already know about the phoenix?" "I only know a very little. I know that in mythology, the phoenix is a bird comprised out of living fire. Also, the phoenix has to burn itself and then rise from the ashes." "That's a good beginning. Not everyone knows even that much. The phoenix we are talking about though is older than time itself. It's also powerful enough to wipe out the entire universe in the blink of an eye if it wanted to. She will naturally increase your powers exponentially. In your case, that should prove to be beyond imagination. After you are used to this increase in powers, I will want a demonstration. Also, the phoenix was the protector of something called the M'kron crystal. She was originally attracted to Jean because Jean would be able to help protect it. But that is a story I will let Jean tell you when she is ready to do so." "Of course, Professor. Why did you refer to the phoenix as a she?" "That's how it always appears. If you ever have a conversation with her, her voice will be female. She will seem like a beautiful red-headed woman. Although, her hair won't actually be hair. It will, in fact, be fire." "When would I see her physical appearance or hear her voice?" "You will hear her voice and see her appearance when you start to train in how to tap into her power. Jean will help you with that starting tomorrow." "Thanks for the information Professor. I'm sure it will be very useful." "Now, Matthew, you mentioned a dream when you contacted me." "Yes, I did." With that, I told him, with as much detail as I could, about my dream. To say that the dream was weird, would be putting it lightly. "Matthew, you were right when you said this dream wasn't about one of your fears being visualized. Unfortunately, I really can't help you with the meaning of it because I don't fully understand it myself." "Thanks for your help professor. I guess the meaning of the dream will come to one of us at a later date." "Yes, I'm sure it will. Although, there is one more option we could do to figure out the meaning." "And what would that be?" "You should ask the phoenix what her interpretation of the dream is." "Ok. I will do that tomorrow while training with Jean." "Thanks for coming by to discuss these things with me, I will see you later." "Bye, Professor" For the rest of the afternoon, I went and meditated. I figured tapping into the phoenix, I would need as much energy as I could get. If anyone happened to stop and watch me while I was doing this, they would have noticed something was different. What they would have noticed is that there was a barely visible fiery phoenix form surrounding me. They would have also seen the psychic energy flowing between my hand and head in a triangle wasn't the same either, it was in fact now my psychic energy twisted with the phoenix flames. During dinner, Professor Xavier told me that my training session with Jean about the phoenix was pushed back to Monday. They did this because Jean was busy tomorrow and to let me have a couple more days to let my body become completely used to having the phoenix in it. That Monday, I met with Jean right after lunch. The first thing she wanted to teach me was how to let out the phoenix. But, before I could even pull that of, I had to get in touch with my phoenix. In order to do that, I had to enter my mind and search for the phoenix. That wasn't the hard part. The hard part was seeing our astral forms. I had never gone into someone's head to chat before, only to see what they were doing or search for information. When I went into my mind to search for my phoenix, it didn't take me long to find her. She looked even more amazing than I thought she would. She had startling green eyes and very fair skin. She reminded me a lot of Jean. When I found her, I was hesitant to approach her because I knew what she was. But she said, "Do not be afraid to come right up to me young Matthew, I mean you no harm." I slowly approached as I said, "That's good to know. I have so many questions to ask you." "That's understandable. It's also ok because you know time doesn't matter here." "True. I guess the most important question to me would be, why did you come to me?" "There is no simple answer to that question. It is true that I first took notice of you during your time in Japan. Your psychic beam wasn't the first thing I noticed though. Whether you realize it or not, even locking your powers away from anyone that might be able to see them takes a lot of mental energy to do. Your professor and Jean have the capabilities, but not many others. That psychic beam of yours just confirmed you to me. " "I kind of figured that was when you first saw me from afar." "You are very perceptive for someone so young Matthew." "Thanks." Now that I was blushing so bad, I had to think of what to ask next. I knew I should ask about the dream, but for some reason I was hesitant to ask. This is, of course, because sometimes we don't want to learn the answer to something that could be beyond us. We all have the thirst for knowledge, but whether we take the steps to get it is another story. I finally decided to suck it up and asked, "Could you tell me the meaning of a dream I had last night?" "I will try and give you the meaning of the dream but I will not promise you will understand the explanation." "Well, thanks for trying to give me what information I seek. If I don't understand, it isn't your fault." With that I told her the same thing that I told the professor the other day. Of course, I gave as much detail as I could since it had been a couple of days since I actually had the dream. When I was finished with my description, she stopped moving and talking for a couple of minutes. Although, the couple of minutes was nothing to Jean, who was looking on from the room while I was inside my own mind. Finally the phoenix decided to give me the explanation. And this is what she said, "Your psionic powers let you have something called premonitions. Premonitions are a rare power to get indeed. Although, your powers are so rare as they are this doesn't surprise me. Premonitions are the foreseeing of future events before they happen. Most of the time they are given to you because you can then do something about them, but other times they are given to warn you of something that will happen or just to inform. I know that I probably shouldn't be the person to let you know about a power that you have since you already have so many, but I'm surprised your professor didn't realize you had this specific gift. Anyway, as to what your dream means, that is harder to explain. This dream has to do with your future, but because of this I can't give you too much information otherwise it might change things for you and other people. All I can tell you is that it is something that will happen in your future, but when and where and how I cannot tell you." "This may come as a surprise to you, but that explanation of the dream is actually a good one. Even though it doesn't give me many details, I at least understand why I had it. I had it to show me a bit of my future. It didn't show me enough of it to let me change anything but just to inform me of what was to come. Was I right in my guess that the hand and energy field were psychic?" "Yes, Matthew, you were right in your guess of that. I am surprised you didn't mention my telling you of your power of premonition. Your understanding of my explanation doesn't surprise me in the least since you are one of the most intelligent people I have come across." "As to your informing me of another aspect of my powers, this doesn't surprise me anymore. Especially since my powers are constantly changing and growing or mutating to make new or more powerful versions of what I already had. I guess I should get back to Jean to let her know what I found out and that I actually found you. I'm sure I'll be back to talk to you later since you seem to know what's happening more than most people I know." "Yes, I am well aware of what is happening. This is because of my powers are combining with yours. I will see you later young Matthew." "Bye Phoenix"