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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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.

[He nods a little]

Nature prefers entropy to stasis. And mutants - we're genetic entropy.

[He takes another sip of his drink]

And it wasn't Rachel - she'd have told me. She wasn't sure how the Avengers found out.

Not that it matters, anyway - they decided to play Big Brother and showed up at Utopia to take her into 'protective custody'. [His tone alone conveys his disgust and disappointment, there.] Scott did right by her, though, and stood his ground.

[Sue chuckles.] My genes aren't all that staid anymore, either.

[The further news wipes the smile off her face.] Good lord. Don't tell me there was a fight.

[She will put everyone in time out. Everyone.]

[Normally he'd be interested in a conversation about genetics and evolution and mankind's future, but right now, it's just... not something he has the energy for]

They had the helicarrier full of Avengers cloaked over Utopia, Sue.

[He just sounds tired and disappointed. Because Steve Rogers is a man he respects the hell out of, and that he'd do something like that is hard for Nate to swallow]

Hope did the best thing she could do in the situation and bolted.

[What the hell? Sue feels a headache coming on.]

And somehow talking wasn't an option? No matter what they think of Utopia, Steve and Tony and the rest had to know showing up in force wouldn't go anywhere good. Scott's Extinction Team is a match for practically anything on the planet.

[Sue's aware she's not telling Nate anything he doesn't already know, but she's perceptive, and he wouldn't be this exhausted if it had just been a tense faceoff followed by a skirmish. Things must have gotten worse, and she doesn't want to believe it.]

Apparently they were going to Logan for Phoenix advice.

[Which doesn't excuse them, but at the same time, it does explain some of the insanity about the whole situation]

Hope decided to face it head-on herself. Grabbed Logan, stole an AIM shuttle, and headed for the Moon. [Is that a Proud Dad smile there? Yes it is. Best daughter. It fades quickly though, because he hasn't even gotten to the horrible parts of this]

Logan called the Avengers, though, so by the time they landed the whole Blue Area was crawling with Avengers and X-Men. Stark tried to build some sort of.... Phoenix-killing gun, and tried it out. Shattered it - but that meant it went into five other mutants instead of it's intended host. Scott, Emma, Namor, and Piotr and Illyana Rasputin, codenames Colossus and Magik.

[Sue can shield her mind with a force field, but it would never occur to her to do so against a friend, so Nate can pick up the babel that is her reaction to the news--why did everyone have to make things worse, why would Tony do that, what if it had affected the whole universe, what if it had hurt Jean, or Hope, or any of the Phoenix hosts, how would the new hosts react, how could they even manage something it took Jean so long to learn to control--but the thought that makes it out is:]

Namor?

[Like his temper wasn't hair-trigger before.]

[He's getting that general impression off her]

I know.

[And that's answer to everything spoken and unspoken. There's more he could go on about, but there's more of the main story to be told]

Things were fine for a while - the 'Phoenix Five' were using their powers to change the world for the better. I woke up a few times during that, though it's kind of fuzzy.

[He sighs]

Avengers couldn't leave well enough alone, though, and... well, they weren't meant to hold the Phoenix's powers. It started to corrupt them - Magik and Colossus turned on each other first. Namor decided to declare war on Wakanda by himself.

My God. [Sue takes a much bigger swig of her beer than would be considered strictly ladylike.]

I--how bad was it? [The Phoenix alone is a horrible destructive power, and Namor can call on the armies of Atlantis, while Wakanda itself is far from defenseless.] We were just going to see T'Challa and Ororo next week.

Pretty bad, from what I heard. Though that isn't much - Wakanda's pretty much a no-go for any mutant. Wouldn't even let Storm help repair the damage, and it was pretty clear Namor was acting on his own.

[Sue's utterly shocked. T'Challa has always been one of the most level-headed, ethical people she knows. And it sounds like he and Ororo have separated.

She just looks down at her beer.]

This isn't nearly strong enough.

[The expression on his face is probably best described as an amused grimace. There's a reason he's drinking something stronger than usual]

I'd get it now - this story only becomes more of a mess.

[Sue's hard-pressed to think how it could get worse than having two of her oldest friends at each other's throats, but she knows perfectly well it's possible, and she signals for a server.]

If Utopia sank, I don't want to hear about it.

[Nate's expression actually manages to look a little more grim at that, but he waits until Sue's drink arrives before he says any more.]

The Avengers and the X-Men who'd joined them confronted Scott and Emma at Utopia. They brought Charles with them, and he tried to stop them. Tried to Scott.

[Nate pauses to take another sip of his drink]

Scott, he - he took Emma's half of the Phoenix force. And he lashed out at Charles. And killed him.

[His voice cracks a little there. He's been trying very hard not to think about that, and saying it out loud is even harder]

And that - snapped him. He became the Dark Phoenix.

[Sue's mind is a horrified blank.]

...Charles? Oh God, no.

[And Nate is blocking that out almost instinctively, because his own grief is almost more than he can handle.]

I know.

You--you said the Phoenix...dispersed. What happened? Who stopped Scott?

[She's terrified the answer will be "Franklin."]

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