exsilium | [video]

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[video]

[On the screen is a blond woman, to all appearances human and doing a not-quite-perfect job hiding the kind of resigned annoyance only seen in those for whom getting hauled across space and time is just a bothersome day at the office. She's instantly recognizable to people from a wide number of related universes—it's Susan Richards, the Invisible Woman, visible for this conversation and wearing a black-and-white version of the Fantastic Four's classic blue uniform with the distinctive "4" logo on the chest. It's been almost two days and there's no sign of her teammates, so it's time to cast a wider net.]

Hello. My name is Susan Richards. I'm going to swallow my pride and assume that doesn't mean anything to most of you. [The necessity of doing so doesn't seem to bother her, even though the idea of not being known on sight is strange. Sue laughs a little, and lets go of her irritation. The only real problem here is that her family isn't, and that's always been a self-correcting state of affairs.]

If it does, however, do me a favor and check in? Avengers, X-Men, SHIELD—I'm not picky. [Sue's already run into two people from home. Maybe there are more. She'll even take villains, if only so she can keep an eye on them.]

Everyone else, nice to meet you. Lovely weather we're having, isn't it?

[OOC: Fourth-walling is okay as long as your character's not going to be a jerk about it. Canon fail post is thisaway.]

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[Sue's nice. It means she's going to try the friendly approach before she starts knocking holes in walls.]

I wouldn't mind having Charles around for this. Or even Emma, I suppose.

[The most grudging admission, there.]

I'm not sure I could handle facing either of them right now, honestly.

[There's undercurrents of grief and anger under the sheer tiredness in his voice]

If you want a psi around, though - I'm not as strong as I used to be, but I can get by.

Did something happen?

[She's been preoccupied with her time traveling future children and insane space gods lately.]

[There's a long, surprised pause. Because 'something' is a vast understatement, but he's used to Fate's horrible little coincidences]

I'm...going to guess you missed the Phoenix's return somehow. Or it hasn't happened for you yet.

Jean's back?

[THIS IS THE BEST NEWS EVER.

Go on, Nate, ruin Sue's day.]

[This isn't much easier on him to say, really]

No. Redd's still dead. Only the Phoenix Force returned.

[Does he sound a little miserable saying that? Yes he does.]

[Sue doesn't have a degree in Phoenixology, but she'd thought Jean and the Phoenix were the same thing.]

How is that possible?

[Sue did those words actually just come out of your mouth.]

It's... complicated. And probably easier to explain in person, preferably with drinks.

[Because this is a great big Summers family misery story.]

[mutant lyf]

I wouldn't mind a beer.

[She's not much of a drinker, but it's shaping up to be one of those weeks.]

There's a place that opened recently - more of a cafe, but they have drinks too. Called NORA. Meet you there in twenty?

Sure.

[Sue nods and disconnects. Her spatial sense is good, so once she finds the place on a map, she can follow the streets there easily enough, not resorting to her powers except to keep the rain off her head. She has a feeling that's going to become second nature.

When she arrives, Sue looks around for the large man everyone else is giving a wide berth.]

[Nate, typically, has staked out a corner table with good sight lines to the doors - and it's quiet enough at the moment that he doesn't have to 'suggest' the other patrons leave him alone. When he sees Sue come in, he gives her a wave and a small smile.

He's always looked a little ageless - being totally silver-haired before he was thirty did a lot for that - but it seems like time has finally decided to stake a claim. There are lines that didn't used to be there, and he looks far older than he should be, considering the lady time they spoke in their world. And that eyepatch is new.]

[Sue's curious about the eyepatch but too polite to lead with a question about it.]

Nathan. It's been a while.

[She smiles and offers a hand to shake. All comics women stop aging at 30, and Sue looks the same as she always has.]

[He returns the handshake]

Quite a while. You look as radiant as ever, though.

[Sue sits down, perfectly okay with having her back to the door. Partly, it's that she's just not that jumpy, but she knows she's also really hard to hit if she has even a split second of warning.

Plus, Cable's right there.]

Thank you. It's all the cosmic radiation. Does wonders for the skin.

[Wry smile, since cosmic radiation does nothing of the sort.]

[He makes an amused noise, because while he's not much of a spacefarer, he does know physics.

The usual serious Cable look returns after a moment, though.]

So... where to start with this whole mess.

You said the Phoenix came back, but Jean didn't. You must be from my future, because I haven't heard anything about that.

[Time travel is a pain. Sue is definitely scoping out the drinks list.]

And you would have heard - it was all over the news.

[He sighs, rubs his face, and then looks down at the drink he's already ordered - whiskey, which is not his usual poison, but he's pretty sure a beer isn't going to be enough]

How much do you know about the first post-M-Day mutant?

[Because really, this starts with Hope]

[Sue's not terribly adventurous, culinarily speaking, and orders a bottled lager. Those are hard to screw up.]

Hope? She came in for a checkup after that mess with the Nimrod Sentinels in San Francisco, but she didn't stay long once Reed gave her a clean bill of health. Franklin seemed to like her.

[That, thankfully, makes this story far less complicated]

Then you probably know she's my daughter, too - though for the record, she adopted me.

But - she's also a Phoenix host, like Jean and Maddie were, and my sister is.

If she's adopted, then how-- [Sue cuts herself off and shakes her head. It's not her area of expertise, and even the greatest minds barely understand cosmic forces like the Phoenix. Apparently the affinity isn't genetic, or not solely genetic.]

So the Phoenix is back. [That is almost never a good thing.] Is Hope all right?

[There's a lot of questions that could be raised about Hope's genetic background, really - green-eyed redheads aren't the most common, particularly in a place like Alaska. But he decided he was probably better of not digging too deeply into that hole, himself]

She's fine - though no thanks to a distressingly large number of people.

[A small, vindictive part of him wants to punch every single one of them personally. But it's a lot of people, and he does try to be the better man]

I got most of the story third-hand, but apparently this time it had a very specific task - reversing the spell Scarlet Witch cast on M-Day. It dispersed after that.

[Or... something. His sources weren't very clear on that]

Mutants are back? [Reed ~~is useless~~ had never cracked the problem, and then he'd gotten distracted by the Superhuman Registration Act...]

Scott must be overjoyed.

[Everything is clearly fine now yay for mutants!]

[No, Sue, being a mutant is suffering. And Nate is really trying to resist the urge to either down the rest of his glass in one go, or bury his face in his hands and laugh. Or cry. HIS LIFE.]

Bright Lady, if only it were that simple. We first realized Hope's connection to the Phoenix when she manifested its power to burn the T-O out of me before it killed me for good. I'm not sure how the Avengers found out the Phoenix Force was returning to Earth, but they did.

The Phoenix is.... the endless cycle of change. Destruction and creation, death and rebirth. And it's always seemed to have an affinity for mutants, for better or for worse.

[That explains the eyepatch, at least. Sue's first impulse is to cover Nate's hand with hers, but she catches herself in time and switches to wrapping it around her beer bottle instead.]

Reed says the Phoenix has a distinctive energy signature. Tony or Hank McCoy could have picked it up. Or maybe someone at the school noticed and Logan passed it on. Rachel and that difficult boy [Quentin] are psychics.

[She shakes her head.] After M-Day, Reed and some of the others were talking about how it wasn't a...I don't know, stable state. I couldn't follow the math, obviously, but their point was something had to give sooner or later.

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