The day of his departure had a texture of its own, distinctively different from days that marked the beginning of an uncertain period.
His farewell from Raven was brief. They were in the kitchen, before anyone else rose for the day, the early summer light shining through the window in the way it shone through only in July, and she squeezed his hand in the gentle grip of affection she reserved for the people she decided to love unconditionally. And that was the goodbye and it was finished.
Jean met him at the library door, already active and already wherever her morning had carried her, and she told him: when he came back into telepathic reach after landing, she would let him know if anything unusual had happened while he was gone with a signal unique enough that he would recognize it right away. And he told her this was characteristic of her and he meant it; she looked slightly pleased and slightly as if she might try to refute his statement that her comment had flattered her, and then she left him to go back to the library.
Rogue was in the grounds.
She looked at him when he came out and she said to him, matter-of-factly: one week, as agreed. No need for anything else — all the rest was said, there were no other words to say. And he told her he would be back, and she told him that she knew, which was no dismissal, no denial but merely an affirmation of certainty.
Ilyana just nodded at him in the minimum of a greeting she was willing to give. He told her to do what she thought was necessary with the incoming stranger, and she said that was what she always did and went back to whatever it was that had called her attention.
He went up.
The journey to the sun lasted several minutes.
---
The sun greeted him as it always greeted him, without ceremony and without the characteristic flavor of arrival that characterized Earth-bound destinations — simply as a transition from being in space to not being in it anymore. The interior of the sun was not definable in familiar terms, and he had stopped trying to define it. He settled in.
The process of absorption started at full power.
Even in the moments preceding the trance state, he was aware of the calculations he had made regarding the timing. Something was moving in the direction of the Earth at a speed high enough to make it register in his hearing over a period of several days. The timeline had it coming while he was submerged. His girls would deal with it.
He was not worried about it. He had done the calculations in advance and the calculations showed that, without him, his household contained Jean with the Phoenix host fully established, Raven with six decades of experience and emerging magical talent, Rogue with the permanent powers she had acquired from Apocalypse, Ilyana who ruled a demonic plane, and Amora who was an accomplished sorceress of Asgard with several centuries of experience behind her.
Whatever was approaching had little idea what it was dealing with.
The trance fell over him and the absorption started to work. He was in the sun and growing stronger and unreachable, and the chapter leaves him in this state and picks him up again only at its end.
---
It was while she was in the grounds that Jean sensed it.
It was the second part of the morning, and she had gone out after breakfast to sit under the eastern side of the roof in the shade with a book she was not reading, letting her awareness expand in its usual fashion when left undirected and unrestricted — in the planetary scope it had gained thanks to the Phoenix bond. She was always aware of Earth's population in the form of its seven billion minds — a constant presence in her perception, like the hum of traffic, something that had to be tuned out of awareness. Occasionally, individual minds would surface for whatever reason, either because they carried something distinctive or because they came close enough to notice, or because they were connected to her somehow.
This one did not fit any of these descriptions and was surfacing anyway.
Because it was not coming close — it was not here yet, it was somewhere above the atmosphere. Because it was not human — it was not. It had a unique density of consciousness, one belonging to something certain of itself to the point where the confidence had developed a structure of its own and become the foundation of the mind. He — or perhaps she? — was unreadable in its deeper layers, but he or she was readable at the surface, and this told her that the approaching person was aware of where they were going and why.
She put the book down and set off to look for the others.
The discussion in the kitchen was businesslike in a way this household was used to when unusual information was shared — they had dealt with enough strange events to react calmly and analyze the situation without panicking.
Jean explained her perceptions. Amora's expression changed when she heard her.
"Shi'ar," Amora said.
Everyone looked at her.
"The density you mentioned — the specific quality of certain consciousness structure rather than state of certainty — is specific to the top ranks of the Shi'ar Imperial Guard. They have been monitoring the location of the active Phoenix hosts since forever — it's always been their policy. This bond fully established would have registered in their system and they would send a representative to assess the situation."
Rogue set her cup down.
"How dangerous," she asked.
Amora was silent for a minute, contemplating the news she was bringing them.
"The praetor of the Shi'ar Imperial Guard is among the most powerful creatures I've ever met in most scenarios. But not in this one — you see, this particular guard member is briefed to deal with a Phoenix host on a minor Earth planet, not with this household. So I would say he or she isn't as confident in their abilities as usual."
Rogue accepted this analysis. Practical, matter-of-fact, as usual when faced with a threat assessment, partial data available, adjust accordingly.
Ilyana was already in the doorway to the kitchen.
"We should get outside," she said.
---
Kallark approached the atmosphere and entered it as effortlessly as he always had — entering the atmosphere never posed a problem for him.
It seemed that he had chosen a rather large property — grounds, wooded area, and a house, a mansion, rather unusually large for an Earth planet. However, once he had reached low orbit, his instruments found the signature of the fully bonded Phoenix host. He could now see it directly and knew precisely that it was in those grounds below him. He would land, introduce himself, assess the situation and take action accordingly, and then return to the Empire with the findings. This was a mission. He had performed missions like that — easier and harder — many times, and this one was not difficult.
He landed in the grounds.
He found five people waiting for him there.
It became apparent straightaway that they knew he was coming — the Phoenix host's awareness had extended far beyond normal. The rest interested him. He analyzed all five of them during the short gap between landing and silence.
A blue-skinned woman, recognizable by name and reputation — Mystique Darkhölme, a well-known figure, with all her known capabilities. A tall redhead with the density of presence that could not be classified either as mutant or as enhanced — some combination of powers from several sources, permanently integrated into her consciousness. A young woman who did not stand on the grounds like ordinary people did — her relation to the space around her was somehow altered as if she herself were the focus point and the surrounding physical reality responded accordingly. Amora, an Asgardian sorceress — recognizable by her aura of magic as much as anything else. Again, not classified as an Earth inhabitant, and not explaining her presence.
And the Phoenix host.
She was looking at him with no performance of any kind — no anxiety, no submission, no hint of anything the briefing had prepared him for. The briefing had said: a mutant woman, newly bonded with the Phoenix Force, capable but uncertain of the bond. What he was seeing was a woman who was confident of herself — not aggressively, but completely.
At the border of the grounds, near the house, sat the big black animal that was definitely not a dog. He looked at him with interest.
"Very strong," Thori said to nobody in particular. "Not as strong as Ethan."
And then he sat quietly and waited.
Kallark took all of this into consideration.
---
He introduced himself, stated his purpose — this was routine, he had done this plenty of times — named himself and his position, outlined the task assigned to him. He said to the group: Praetor Kallark, Shi'ar Imperial Guard. The Empire had detected the Phoenix Force fully bonded to a host on this planet and wanted to evaluate this from the security perspective. And he addressed himself to Jean.
Jean looked back at him.
"I'm aware of my connection with the Phoenix," she said. "I'm not under any control from the entity itself. And I don't represent any danger for the Shi'ar Empire. Unless it chooses to threaten me or anyone I care for. In which case I will have to change my calculation."
She said this calmly and matter-of-factly. She had assessed him, and he was comprehensible.
Kallark quickly did the comparative analysis — his automatic reaction, instinctive as breathing — and it was not going as planned. He re-assessed, getting the same result. He changed his posture, but not visibly.
"It is your power level," he stated. "The briefing mentioned a mutant. What I am sensing—" "The briefing was incomplete," Jean explained.
He looked at her.
She left him alone with the gap between the information he was supposed to have and his actual experience. She did not try to bridge the gap with assurances and clarifications. Instead, she left it to stand there as the gap that it was and let him sort out what to make of it.
Amora stepped forward.
"The situation on this planet is not reflected accurately in current Shi'ar intelligence," she declared. She identified herself — not as an introduction, as information that he should have. Kallark recognized the Enchantress. He was familiar with her as a figure in documentation but had not met her personally. An Asgardian sorceress, possessing considerable power, not ordinarily residing on Earth. Her presence here was outside the parameters of the mission set up for him during his briefing. He recorded this with the detachment that comes when one must file an observation that does not yet fit into any framework but will eventually need one.
Rogue studied Kallark as she considered him.
"What does the Shi'ar Empire really do when it decides it needs to neutralize a Phoenix host?" she asked. "Not the diplomatic version. The real one."
Kallark looked at her.
"The empire has its protocols," he said. "The previous interventions related to Phoenix hosts have followed said protocols."
This was not clarification. It was unnecessary.
Jean stated calmly, as she had stated everything else: "I would not recommend trying that here."
She was not threatening him. She was conveying information — that specific kind of statement which precedes a decision that cannot be undone. Kallark recognized the difference. He used it himself sometimes.
The numbers he was calculating — the ongoing evaluation of power differentials in relation to his personal capabilities based upon his unassailable certainty of himself — were coming up short. He was the most powerful man he knew. No one had ever given him reason to doubt that, and the woman sitting across from him was studying him without fear and with perfect confidence, and his personal calculation of the power involved was showing him why.
The first flicker of true uncertainty began in him.
He did not display it.
But he felt it.
---
He asked if there was a place where they could talk further.
It was the first concession in the way he spoke; the authority with which he had arrived here had softened slightly. Jean registered this but made no comment.
"I suppose you may step inside," she allowed.
She glanced at Raven quickly — that brief glance of two people communicating nonverbally and effortlessly as friends who had known each other too long for inefficient dialogue. Raven nodded, signaling her agreement. The three of them turned and moved towards the house.
Kallark stepped through the doorway.
Thori was resting on the couch. He watched Kallark's approach with the keen focus of one who has assessed a threat and filed it and is now merely observing. Beyond the glass doors at the other end of the room, one could see the grounds — and within the grounds, walking its regular early morning path, the Indominus Rex. The adolescent dinosaur paused and turned its gaze towards the glass, but after a moment returned to its regular route around the grounds.
Kallark looked at the dinosaur.
He observed the guardian lion who stood watch near Raven, having settled himself into his customary chair near the window as though he owned the place.
He observed the two creatures from Belasco's chamber, the sensory array of one focusing on him intently, the other carefully surveying their surroundings from the doorway.
Kallark was the greatest warrior in the Shi'ar Imperial Guard. He had crossed the thresholds of advanced civilizations and orchestrated interventions in matters of galactic importance. All of these actions came from the solid certainty of who he was and the extent of his power.
Now he stood inside this house in Westchester, New York, surrounded by a hellhound, an Indominus Rex, a guardian lion carrying what he could perceive to be the condensed energy of a dragon, and two creatures he could not identify.
His certainty was starting to do something rare.
It was wavering.
---
Rogue poured tea.
She prepared it with the direct efficiency of someone busy doing a chore and thinking about something else. The tea she made was good. She made good tea, which was not something she would have boasted about prior to moving into this household and learning how to make it that way.
She served it without even asking anyone if they wanted a certain flavor of tea because she had been paying enough attention to know what they liked, and she sat down in her own designated chair to listen to the rest of the conversation.
The discussion inside the house was not confrontational like the confrontation in the grounds had been. Kallark was listening actively and thoughtfully. Not compromising or ceding his authority in the slightest, not in the least bit uncertain or uncomfortable, but posing questions that showed his intention of actually following up and thinking about the answers seriously.
Jean explained the Phoenix bond with the precision of someone who had spent months studying a complex concept in-depth. Not just a synopsis — the explanation of the actual phenomenon in its full development, what Jean had learned about it and what it meant to her capability, as the entity itself as part of Jean and not separate from her. She spoke using the language of understanding.
Kallark's questions began to change as the discussion progressed. The ones he initially asked were the mission questions that his briefing had suggested — the mission protocol, the evaluation model. Those that followed were different: they were interested less in classification than in mechanics, in Jean and her capabilities rather than whether she presented as a threat.
This was not dismissal. Kallark was updating his model based on new information.
At one point, Amora said: "The interventions conducted by the Shi'ar Empire regarding the Phoenix host in previous cases have been undertaken in the case of beings who were not consciously integrated with the entity. Overwhelmed by it or controlled or frightened by it." She held Kallark's gaze for a few moments before continuing. "This situation is different and the previous protocols cannot apply to it."
Kallark was silent for a moment.
He disagreed. He did not agree. This was the type of information that had to be processed and understood properly before being responded to, and that required time. More time than Kallark had gotten thus far.
He took another sip of tea.
He was still powerful — the certainty of himself which was the basis of his power had not been shaken or altered, only complicated with a hint of genuine uncertainty on its edges. But those edges were present, and he was conscious of them, and that experience was a rarity for him.
He told Jean that he needed to contact the empire first. That his analysis was not yet complete.
Jean confirmed. And also said, again with the same calm precision she had used all along: "The strategies and protocols that the Shi'ar Empire has used in such a case in the past would not be effective here. I suggest a different conversation."
Kallark understood this suggestion. And said that he was beginning to.
The tea was gone. Afternoon sunlight streamed through the windows. Nothing had been solved, no decisions had been reached, no protocols changed or put into effect. But as he got ready to leave, Kallark now had a picture of what he had seen here that was much closer to the truth of the matter than the incomplete briefing.
And as a result, this certainty of himself — the power of this man who knew exactly what he was and what he was capable of — experienced something truly unusual.
He did not know what to do with his discovery.
Kallark had not doubted in a very long time.
---
Inside the sun — mid-session:
Trance was deep. Absorption proceeded. Sound did not exist inside the sun. The conditions created by a star at work, including plasma and magnetism and the internal pressures of stellar activity, were not structured in any recognizable way to produce any form of information for human-derived senses, and Ethan's human senses had stopped functioning in them years ago.
There was only the act of absorption and the state it created in him — neither sleep nor wakefulness, but the unique third state induced by full solar immersion.
He did not know about Kallark.
He did not know about the conversation outside or the tea or the uncertainly that was doing something highly unusual to the Shi'ar Imperial Guard's praetor in the living room of his house. He did not know that Thori had given the most accurate comparative capability evaluation of the entire day in two sentences and then had resumed his position on the couch.
He did not know about any of that. It had been taken care of by his girls, and taken care of in a manner not requiring him. The record of this chapter marks this as fact.
Thinking about it later — when Jean had sent the mental marker signaling his return and he was back with all information about the encounter — he would not be surprised. He would be glad.
His girls were formidable. This was something that he had always known. The afternoon in Westchester had simply served as yet another confirmation of this fact.
He was inside the sun.
He was becoming stronger.
That was all that mattered.