PART II

"Sub Rosa Sister"

No….

She felt the claws tighten around her throat, those merciless yellow eyes boring down on her.

It's too strong… It's taking me!

She felt her body lifted off the ground, helpless to contest the power that held her.

Help me! Where are you?

She called for someone to save her as she was carried higher and higher, her sense of terror rising.

I thought it was dead. I thought I killed it.

Then there came a moment of stillness, when the ride came to stop and she simply hung, held aloft only by the strength of her enemy.

Then came release.

No!

Curled up in a blanket on the end of a sofa, Jean Grey twisted in her sleep under the blanket, her face a mask of pain.

"No…" She mumbled painfully, reaching an arm out for something to hold onto, finding only the yellow eyes of the red killer watching as she fell away.

"No!" Jean cried aloud, legs kicking and heart ready to lunge out of her breast.

Then came blackness, and out of the void emerged a great fire, and from the fire emerged the devil. Red armor, massive wings stretching out from its bulk, a horn that cleaved through flesh and bone. It stood among the flames unharmed, this thing that would not die, the horrible killer.

"Jean!"

Jean Grey awoke in a frightened thrash, gasping as the falling sensation was suddenly banished. She looked and found herself surrounded by the worried faces of Professor Xavier and Nightcrawler, their hands outstretched and ready to hold her. For a moment they all hesitated before Charles reached out and laid a hand on hers from where he sat on the other end of the couch.

"I could hear you having a nightmare from downstairs," Xavier said with care, searching her face for any further sign of trouble. "I didn't want to intrude unless it was necessary."

Kurt remained where he was, wringing his hands, "I brought him up here quick as I could."

"Thank you, Kurt," Jean sighed, laying back on the cushion. "I don't know where that came from… it just, it felt different."

"May I?" Xavier asked.

Jean leaned forward and allowed him to place his hands on her temples, both closing their eyes. As they had done many times before, a bridge opened between their minds, allowing Xavier to explore parts of her psyche. He had plenty of practice finding her dreams, traversing the familiar pathways to her subconscious to find the most recent manifestations.

The image came as a flash, unstable. There was blood, smoke, pain, more than the vivid creation of a dream, these were the attributes of a memory. Another flash, and a horrible creature was lunging down, and he felt his chest being ripped into.

The sensation purged them both from the vision, Jean and Charles both recoiling where they sat, staring shocked at one another.

"Professor, I don't think that was a dream," Muttered Jean.

"No…" Looking away, Xavier tried to rationalize what these visions could possibly mean. But his thought process was interrupted, his head lifting and turning to the window. "We have a new problem."

A puff of sulphuric smoke on the back lawn of the mansion birthed the three of them in place, Xavier returned to his chair, Jean barefoot in the jeans and t-shirt she had fallen asleep in.

"Oh my god!" Grey gasped with a hand over her mouth, the three of them witness to the impending doom of the FBI agent about to be made into plant food. The Biollante rose in the center of the pond held the man aloft with a tendril, precariously poised above an open maw of dagger-like teeth.

Nightcrawler was in place only an instant before he disappeared again, needing no instruction to make a rescue attempt on the constricted man. He manifested clinging to the vine, looking for a good enough spot to lay hands on him among the dripping coils as it continued to lower. "Heiling kuh."

Xavier pivoted his chair, facing it out and putting both hands on either side of his head. "Jean, we've got to keep this from becoming a disaster. I can veil us from the other agents, but I need you to contact the others for help."

"Of course," She nodded.

Fortunately, most of the other agents had retreated to their worktents for the night, having done most of the work while they had daylight. Such it was that very few remained out and about, making it easier for Charles to mask the events in the area. For the time being at least.

Jean closed her eyes and opened her mind, reaching into the mansion for the other X-Men. "Dani, Kitty, Bobby, Henry, we need you near the pond!"

Just as Kurt Wagner was getting a grip on the bundle, a shiver went up the length of the tendril, forcing him to leap from his perch and latch bodily onto the coil. "Something is happening!"

A rumble spread through the ground, and the water around the flower began to roil, a piercing wail emanating from the open maw in the center.

"Ooaaaawwwwwwoooo…!"

Jean Grey collapsed where she stood, falling to her knees with her mouth stretched open in a silent scream and hands trembling.

Even Xavier was rocked, the breath literally knocked out of him as the impact on his psyche coursed through his body like a coronary. A series of images flashed through his mind in an instant, some clear, some confused. Memories of two lives overlapping and merging in a kaleidoscope that rushed past him like a gale wind.

Turning back to face the pond, Jean felt the wave of anguish crushing into her, moreso, the sheer power of a consciousness she could only compare to one other being. But there was something more beyond the tantrum, an intent, a focus to the pain.

She then saw the ripple of soil heading for her, like something moving just below the surface of water, lacking only a tell-tale fin. She threw herself to the side just as the ground at her feet erupted, a spear-like tendril of twisted root lashed out like a crocodile at the river's edge. Peddling backwards on hands and feet, she gaped at the feeler thrashing around to locate its intended target.

Nightcrawler pulled and yanked at the vines, trying to find some access to the man in between the bizarrely vascular ropes.

"Ooaaaawwwwwwoooo-ruuuuuunnnggh!"

Slowly glancing over his shoulder, Kurt watched the rose lift out of the water atop a mountainous body of the same muscle-like plant matter. "Vater unser im Himmel, geheiligt werde dein Name…" he muttered. Abandoning precaution, he expanded the scope of his power and teleported away with the man, vine coil and all.

Xavier leaned back in his chair, reeling from the psychic impact, trying to decipher what he'd seen. it was when he heard shouting that he realized that his veil had been disrupted, allowing the various agents to hear some of the commotion. Several men and women scrambled out of the tents, shocked and stunned to see the mammoth flower now towering above the pond. "Shit…"

He quickly put a hand to his temple, "Please, allow us to handle this, don't put yourselves in danger."

They stopped where they stood, startled to hear the voice amplified directly into their minds.

"Establish a perimeter," Charles continued once he had their attention. "Make sure no one else comes with reach of the thing."

A man who had been at the forefront, hand already on his sidearm, extended his arms to halt a woman who was right behind him. He paused a few seconds, then began signaling to the others to spread out.

Thank god they sent some reasonable people. Xavier thought to himself. Or at least with a healthy sense of self-preservation.

Nightcrawler reappeared on the ground, the coils slackening enough for him to unwind them. But as soon as they did, the damage done to the victim's body left little to doubt of the need for immediate care. As the vines came loose, his arms fell aside and his chest expanded with a grisly gasp of air.

"Professor, I have to evacuate him, jetzt sofort!" He shouted aloud.

"Do what you have to do," Answered a voice in his head, before Kurt took the man again and vanished in a puff of smoke.

Jean was just then rising to her feet when she felt the arms of Beast wrap around her, and through the crook of his elbow, saw the others only a few paces behind. McCoy let her collapse against him as he stared with horrified astonishment at the thing sprouting from the water.

"Biollante…" He whispered, swallowing a lump, hugging Jean a bit tighter.

"Whoa, what is THAT!" Bobby exclaimed, he, Kitty, and Moonstar coming to a halt to take in the breadth of the transformed flora.

"It's the professor's rose," Kitty marveled, trying to understand what she was seeing. She looked over to where Beast was cradling Grey, observing his flabbergasted reaction. "Or whatever the hell he was growing in that pot."

Dani pointed past them, "Whatever it is, it's getting curious."

The tendril that had struck for Jean slithered along the grass, steadily, wavering like a worm searching for its objective. McCoy clenched his teeth, shifting to put himself between it and Jean. Drake prepared to hit it with an ice blast, but a raised hand from Xavier stopped him. "Henry," Professor X told him. "Be careful."

Swaying back and forth, the vine only came to a sudden stop when it seemed to pinpoint on Beast, the length of it relaxing while the tip remained in place. McCoy felt something in the moment, something that coaxed him to extend his right arm. Slowly, the tendril reached onward, encountering the clawed fingers and gently curling itself around to the palm and down the forearm.

A soft call came from the towering rose, a series of oscillating lulls that eased the tension of the situation. Beast let his mouth hang open as the vine continued to wind its way over his arm until it came to settle on his chest, hugging him with a tender pressure. "huh…" He gasped.

Jean separated herself from Beast as she watched the vine course over him like a writhing vein, trying to understand why it reacted to him so differently.

"Professor?" Dani began, "Are you sure you want that thing crawling all over you?"

"I think it knows me," Henry said with an astonished chuckle. "I have been nurturing it for all of its existence."

"Then why does it hate me?" All eyes turned to Jean, who, sitting a few feet away with her knees cradled in her arms, glared at the suddenly gentle vine with suspicion. "I could feel it, like it sees me as an enemy."

The spell of Beast's mild euphoria was broken, struck by the injury in her voice. He glanced down at the tendril; face pinched in confusion. "I don't understand how that could be, you haven't had any negative interactions with her."

Kitty balked, "Her? How close did you examine that thing?"

"It's just a… manner of speaking," He defended. The vine had now curled around his torso and over his shoulder.

Biollante loosed another short wail, prompting Xavier to gaze out to the lake. "Jean, I want you to try and reign your psychic aura back as best you can. Intentional or not, we need to avoid provoking this thing until we can understand more about it. I'm fairly certain Henry's never bestowed sentience upon a plant before, so this is precarious ground."

The last remark was directed sidelong at Beast, not in snide way, but with just enough firmness to make it known that a very serious conversation was in their future.

Drake and Moonstar knelt down beside the vine where it erupted from the earth, reaching out to touch it like a hot stovetop.

"I don't know if I'd go touching that without gloves." Kitty advised.

"It's weird," Dani marveled. "It looks like a root, but flexes like muscle tissue."

"Very observant, Danielle," Beast commended, doing much the same to the tip of the vine as it came back around to his palm. "The average root is multipurpose as both a sensory extremity and feeding organ. Some forest root systems even act like a massive neural network, connecting trees for miles in a vast community."

Bobby raised an eyebrow, "Whoa."

"Whoa indeed." McCoy, his scientific instinct retuning, slowly rose to his feet wearing the tendril like a shawl. "Biollante clearly possesses a greater capacity for interaction with her environment than the average rosoideae."

"I noticed." Jean muttered, getting back to her feet but never shifting her attention. "It tried to interact right through me."

"Now I don't think we quite know that for sure," Beast defended. "Now, what I would like to do is-"

The vine yanked, forcing a stunned McCoy to step towards the pond with such suddenness he was almost taken off his feet, the breath forced out of his lungs by the crushing grip.

Xavier instinctively lurched in his chair, reaching for his friend, "Henry!"

Though the others were startled, Jean however did not hesitate, casting her own telekinetic grip on the vine to counteract its strength. "Cut it off Bobby!"

"Right!" Drake answered, blasting the length of the tendril with ice before walloping it with a kick to shatter the frozen section. A second later Kitty grabbed the vine constricted on Beast, phased it through his body and tossed it aside. She and Dani caught him as he fell back with a gasp.

Charles felt the trembling before the others did, like a thunderhead rolling in from afar. Biollante loosed a new call and the severed tendril retracted under the soil, something closer to a guttural bark, a warning, a threat. Then the ground shook in earnest, rising and breaking in the way roots upend a sidewalk with terrifying speed.

"Everybody get back," Professor X told them, bringing his hand to his temple.

In an inverted replay of the mortar attack earlier, multiple detonations of dirt and stones went off all around the X-Men, this time from a force underneath. Several more tendrils emerged, more than a few of them headed by a bifurcated bulb that opened to reveal maws packed with narrow fangs. A pale green mucus was flung recklessly as they cast about for their prey, burning through the grass where it landed with a hiss. Biollante's inhuman wail now became a disconcordant chorus as each mouth sung its own part, the snapping and writhing extensions of its will.

Kitty grabbed Bobby by the wrist, "I have an idea!" she said, leading him towards the pond.

"Hey!" Dani cried, watching them take off in direct contradiction to what the Professor had told them to do.

Alerted by the motion, one of the maws struck out like a viper, but found nothing in its teeth as Kitty phased them both in stride. Both teens yelped in surprise but kept going.

Jean sensed it a fraction of a second before it happened, a tendril bursting from the ground at Dani's feet, knocking the girl on her ass and separating her from Beast. The vine curled back, preparing to smash itself down onto the junior X-Man. Dani threw her arms up in instinctive defense, only to peek through her hands and see the vine not more than two feet above her, shaking in place.

"Dani, move!" Grey cried, reaching out with both hands, fighting to keep the limb at bay.

A scrambling Moonstar was helped by Beast scooping her up in an arm. "I'm sorry," he apologized, his eyes watery with remorse. "I'm so sorry."

With her friends removed from harm, Jean allowed the vine to finally slam into the ground. No sooner had she done so, than it the vine from before lashed itself around her leg, yanking her down to a knee.

"Gah! Professor!" She looked over to see Xavier, hands on his temples, glaring intently at Biollante.

"I'm trying to calm it," Charles grunted. "But its mind is chaotic, difficult to penetrate. I can't find an avenue to get in."

Aaaaaooooowwwa!

The errant call gave Jean the warning needed to turn in time and intercept a shower of acidic spray with a telekinetic shield. The spit was followed by the mouth opening wide and clamping onto the barrier like a snake eating an egg.

Having to fend off the attacks caused something else in Jean to well-up, a frustration, an indignation, an anger. With a roar of her own, blinding purple light blazed from her hands, incinerating the tendrils below and before her in a flash. Air molecules vibrated to combustion at her psychic command, leaving smoking stumps flailing with the acrid stench of cauterized tissue.

Sweat dripped down Xavier's forehead, and though his eyes were open his vision was somewhere else entirely. His psyche projected, in the mindscape he was soaring through a cosmic tempest of shifting memories. Emotions like lightning cracked across the nebulae of consciousness: desperation, anger, want, fear.

Nothing is coherent. Charles thought to himself. As if it was patched together at random.

"Ice the pond, Bobby!" Kitty pointed as she and Drake reached the edge of the water. "I'll keep you covered." She hooked an arm around his waist and readied herself to protect him as long as needed.

"Time to put this bad seed into deep freeze!" Plunging both hands in the water, Bobby sent his chilling touch as deep as he could. Ice radiated out from the point of contact in a crystalline pattern, an exponential fractal. "This is gonna take a minute!" He warned.

Beast flung himself back to avoid the grasp of another vine, panting, searching the situation for the rhyme and reason. What does it want? Why is it lashing out?"

"Dani, get to the mansion and make sure none of the other students get in harm's way." He called out. "Let us handle this."

"You guys get to have all the fun.' She complained with faux resentment, but turned and left nonetheless.

Unbeknownst to her, a tendril rose up in Moonstar's wake aiming to snatch her by the back leg. It was stopped suddenly however by an invisible hold that gripped onto it with such force, the liquids were crushed out of it like an orange press.

Jean waved her hand and the pulverized vine was cast aside, a snarl on her lips. She didn't know why this creature was attacking them, or why it had a problem with her, but she was through taking the considerate approach. A violent urge forced its way to the front, a hostile takeover of instinct that pinched her face and put a dark gleam in her eye. When a salivating bud advanced on her, she reached out with fingers curved into claws, and tore the screaming mandibles apart with her unseen hooks.

The mental ripple coming off Jean was subtle, but it still caused Xavier's eyes to shift sideways.

"Ooaaaawwwwwwoooo…" Biollante's call was weaker this time, one of her vines rising up from the pond only to be trapped a moment later in the expanding ice sheet. The weight of it in motion served enough to shatter the section of it breaching the water, the limp tendril collapsing on the frozen surface.

"Almost there!" Grunted Drake, frost covering his arms, a chilling up-draft rising from his work.

"Just keep it going, Bobby." Kitty encouraged, the words escaping on a white mist and a slight chatter of her teeth. Still she guarded against attacks that might arise, but when she felt the ground beneath her start to quake, she realized it was already too late.

A sinkhole opened under their feet, dropping them both into dust and darkness. "Whaa!" they cried in unison, Drake throwing his arms out to try and catch the sides of the pit, managing only to hold on with one hand.

"Bobby!" Clinging to his waist, Pryde stared down at the vine tip worming its way around, searching for her but passing imperceptibly through her phased legs. Unfortunately, it was only a few moments away from finding her friend.

Drake felt the soil in his hand begin to crumble, but just as he feared it would desert him, a startlingly strong grip latched onto Iceman's arm from above. He gasped at first, thinking it could be another extremity of the monster. Instead he looked up to see the familiar blue-furred arm of his mentor slung down to catch him.

With a single heave, Beast brought them up and over the edge, collecting both in his chest. Pulling his students from a peril of his making horrified Henry McCoy, but regret was transforming into resolve.

"Kids I'm sorry, I should never have abused science like this."

Kitty gave him a reassuring smile. "We've handled worse than this, Professor. We just have to-LOOK OUT!"

All three became translucent just in time for a streaking projectile to hit the body of Biollante and explode in a storm of fire, ice, and monster tissue. They weathered the blast radius until the barrage was spent, engulfed in a wave of smoke and cinders.

Ahead of Xavier was something that resembled a molten core, in the eye of the tempest residing deep in the consciousness of Biollante. Crude borders of radiant orange partitioned the different sections of the sphere, its surface a shifting patchwork of primary colors dedicated to the mingling minds. Within the mixture he saw glimpses of essential memories splay themselves across the curvature, and his eyes opened wide with understanding.

Then he was blown backwards, a force expelling him from the mindscape with the energy of a cannon.

Xavier hit the back of his chair so hard he nearly toppled out, the breath crushed out of his lungs and sucked back in just as fast. Holding a hand to his throbbing chest, he glanced back and forth and found the source of the interruption.

A wisp of smoke still trailed from the wide bore of the shoulder-mounted weapon as it was lowered from its firing position and handed off. The man who had fired it was in his early 30's, white with short dark hair, his immaculate suit bereft of insignia paradoxically giving him away as a SHIELD agent. Several other agents were in his tow, a few of them in tactical gear flanking out on either side.

"Charles Xavier," He called out, reaching into his breast pocket to produce a wallet-badge. "My name is Grant Ward, I'm a special agent with S.H.I.E.L.D., and unfortunately your flora has assaulted a federal agent."

Still somewhat in shock from the psychic backlash, Professor X said nothing as Ward put his badge way, only to shift his attention elsewhere as he slowly began to draw his sidearm. "Though we may have more pressing concerns."

Following the agent's gaze, Xavier saw what had drawn his attention. There standing among the decimated tendrils, Jean Grey glowered, breathing raggedly, hair afloat. But what concerned Charles the most was the burning radiance surrounding her eyes.

RHODE ISLAND

Morning

SNIFF SNIFF "Yeah, they were here alright."

Kneeling over the worn-out asphalt, Wolverine bared his extended canines, thinking of all the things he wanted to do once he could get his hands on those who attacked the Institute. "Looks like they scrapped the evidence."

Logan pointed onward to the melted heap of slag spilling out from one of the parking spots.

Standing beside, Cyclops crossed his arms, "Which means they could have a safehouse nearby or a contact hub."

"Someone to squeeze," Logan growled.

Moving back out to the sidewalk, Scott surveyed the neighborhood. The area was largely empty and defunct; abandoned businesses, ill-maintained streets, little to no reason for anybody to be around unless they too were involved in highly-discretionary activities. "No cameras on the street to speak of, sparse chance for witnesses."

"Come on, I got at least one of 'em." Logan led with his nose, sweeping it left and right before settling in a direction. "Less than 12 hours ago. Reekin' of sweat and cordite."

The men returned to their bikes, satisfied to be one step closer to their quarry. "At least we have a lead," Cyclops noted. "I hope Betsy can find something useful on her end."

ELSEWHERE IN RHODE ISLAND…

The doors to the Al Sawt mosque were open on the pleasant morning, those arriving for the Dhuhr prayer were greeted at the entrance by the imam with a smile and a few words. A new couple making their way in lowered their heads and gave the religious leader a friendly "As-Salam-u-Alaikum"

"Wa ʿalaykumu s-salām," He bid them in return as they passed. He wore a traditional two-piece grey serwal, and she a simple black tunic with a dark purple hijab pulled over to cover all but her eyes.

After stowing their shoes, the pair came to the partition of the sections for male and female. It was here that they diverged without word, the man taking a few steps into the room before stopping. He shook his head for a moment, then looked back the way he came with a degree of confusion before dismissing it as a friendly wave from a fellow worshipper beckoned him to join.

The woman however bypassed the entrance to the woman's prayer chamber. She came to a T-intersection in the hall, glancing around the corner on her right to see a largely built man standing in front of a doorway near the end. His clothes were appropriate for being in a place of worship, but his demeanor was anything but pious. Swollen arms crossed over his chest, dark sunglasses to shield his eyes from the sunlight beaming in through the window on the dead-end wall.

Her violet eyes narrowed, analyzing the situation.

The burly guard huffed and scratched at his thick beard as he stretched his neck. Then his posture softened, brow pinching. He turned and opened the door behind him, where he looked to the older man sitting behind an ornate wooden desk.

"Yes?" The elder asked in Arabic, pausing his work to glance up at his guard.

The sentry hesitated a moment, tilting his head to get a better view inside. "I thought I heard something, Amil. Is everything alright in here?"

Confused, the older man instinctively checked the rest of his otherwise empty office with a quick scan, seeing nothing of more concern than the books and décor of the room. He turned to his guard with a frown and a dismissive shake of the head. "As far as I can tell." Cautiously satisfied, the guard nodded and closed the door, leaving his elder to wonder a moment before continuing his paperwork.

The woman in the purple hijab stood in the center of the room, examining her surroundings. Slowly she approached the man at his desk, leaning forward, inspecting him with a keen scrutiny.

Amil put a hand to the nape of his neck, feeling a slight sensation raise the hairs. Once more he cast his eyes about the chamber, worrying that perhaps his guard had been more perceptive than he was. But again, he saw nothing of note, he was alone.

A faint murmur of voices sounded from the other side of a wall, from a direction where there should not have been a room. The noise drew Amil's attention off to his right, putting his pen down to listen. The woman likewise shifted, following the path of his gaze to the space on the wall between the bookcase and a glass cabinet containing a number of ornamental cultural items. The voices traveled closer, to the point where the words were intelligible from where she stood.

Suddenly the section of wall began to slide, opening from a point behind the bookcase and disappearing behind the cabinet. A middle eastern man in street clothes emerged from a dimly lit compartment after the section was moved, stepping up from a tight stairwell the ran parallel to the wall itself. Behind him another man in normal clothes could be seen rising up from whatever lower space existed at the other end.

Amil regarded them warily, saying nothing as they passed him by with a similar degree of coolness. The second man felt a wisp of air go by his face and for a moment he paused, surprised by the unexpected brush. He looked back as the spring mechanism in the door gently slid the panel shut, thinking it must have been a stray draft from below.

The door panel slid shut, and the woman in purple found herself standing in the narrow wooden stairway, seemingly crafted from the excess crawl space of the wall. A single bulb dangled down from a cable to illuminate the steps, emanating with dim yellow light. She descended the planks with catlike grace into the darkness, listening for any evidence of further occupants.

At the base of the steps the light was at its end, so she lifted her hand, and from it sprang a two-foot long bade of violet radiance, giving off enough light to help avoid obstacles. Spreading her beacon, she revealed the contents of a typical stash house; a few cots, mini fridge, bookshelf of tomes with Arabic titles, a toilet that needed to be cleaned.

Her light came to a stop when she settled on a wall covered with sheets of papers, schematics and floor plans, street routs and timing schedules. And there, taped up in the middle of everything like the center of a solar system, was the property layout of the Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.

She tore the part of her hijab covering her mouth away, "Son of a bitch." She snarled.

The moveable wall section slid aside quickly, startling Amil at his desk. Psylocke strode into the room with purpose, relieved of her disguise and still wielding the sword formed of her own psychic energy.

Amil gasped as he spun around to face the furious woman, but his mouth was frozen in place as Elizabeth Braddock reach out with her free hand and clenched her fist, paralyzing him before he could do anything else that might alert others.

Her eyes alight with burning violet energy, she seized him by the chin and bore her gaze into his. She wound find whatever information he held regarding those men and what business was being done out of the concealed room. Even if she had to tear his mind apart to find it.

WESTCHESTER

"Are you sure she'll be okay like this?"

Charles Xavier and Agent Grant Ward peered down at the sleeping Jean Grey as she lay on the medical bed, a cranial harness affixed to her head.

Below the mansion, in the network of halls and rooms that contained the various clandestine facilities at the X-Men's disposal, was a medical examination room. On the middle of three beds, Jean rested under a white sheet, her hair pulled back and face serene. The room itself was a trove of biomedical equipment and associated paraphernalia of custom design, some of it as advanced or moreso as any found in the world.

A three-foot wide electronic ring rotated slowly around the head portion of the bed, small lights flickering on and off as the band passed.

Reading the metrics on the bedside monitor, Xavier exhaled slowly. "She's had worse episodes, and I think the physical distance between herself and… Biollante should give her some room for respite."

Referring to the creature that had arisen in the pond by a name gave Charles an uncomfortable churning in his gut. But there was no denying the real presence of a mind beyond that of a mere animal, a conscious identity that while raw and feral, was far from unthinking.

"Speaking of your new garden attraction," Ward began, looking down at the screen of his phone. "I'll probably be able to keep most of the heat off you for the injuries done to that FBI agent, but I'd bet on having some price to pay."

"Of course." Charles nodded. "Please let us know what we can do to help that man and his family."

"I'm sure you'll be hearing about it." Stowing his phone, Grant crossed his arms. "So, I don't particularly mind you guys running your own op-team to find these Purifier-F*****s, but the X-men aren't the only ones interested in getting a hold on 'em."

"I understand, and we're prepared to cooperate with the authorities. We'll share any information we gain about the Purifiers."

Ward smiled. "'Preciate it."

Xavier turned his attention back to Jean as the agent made his exit, desiring to focus his immediate concern on his student. His thoughts returned to the night before.

…The Previous Night

The agonizing wails of Biollante echoed out into the air as it burned like a pyre, petals falling from the bud, fire crawling up from the wound blown into its side. A gaping hollow bled with green ichor forcing the behemoth to coil a few vines around itself even as it bent over.

At the water's edge, Beast, Kitty and Bobby Drake found themselves cowering in the presence of the living conflagration; McCoy's heightened sense of hearing inundated by the pained cries.

With the devastation as backdrop, Jean Grey stood with hands curled into claws, hair adrift on a phantom wind, a crimson stain coursing over her sclera.

"Agent Ward, tell your men to keep their distance if they value their lives," Xavier warned with equal parts severity and terror.

Taking the Professor's advice, Ward signaled to his men to hold off, creeping sidelong closer to Charles. "Professor, am I gonna need to make some calls here, or can you guys get her under control?"

Xavier raised a defensive hand, "No matter who you call, they wouldn't get here in time. Leave her to me."

Moving himself forward, Charles bent all his mind and will on Jean, preparing to traverse familiar paths into her psyche.

"Focus on me, Jean."

Grey's head turned in his direction, a head tilt of curiosity.

"Let me help you get this under control."

Delving into Jean's mind at a time like this could be precarious, depending on how much of the Phoenix Force was manifesting, and how much it wanted to stay.

"The danger has passed, you are safe. Just breath."

Her posture softened, jaw unclenching, lips relaxing tension.

"Just listen to my voice and follow me back."

In the mindscape, Charles could see Jean's silhouette drifting in a haze of orange and red, like the globules of a lava lamp, the influence of the Phoenix.

"Take my hand Jean, let me guide you."

He was close, almost within reach. Then he felt something move in the mindscape, a ghost in the peripheral vision, a shark stalking just out of view.

Something else is here.

But just as soon as he realized the lurking presence, he felt a grip on his hand, and the world around him turned to white.

When Charles opened his eyes, he found Jean before him, her hand laid on his, the manifestations of the cosmic entity retreating as they stared at one another. Tears running down from her anguished eyes.

"I can feel her, Professor," She lamented. "I can feel her dying."

Biollante loosed one final cry that degenerated into a sputtering grunt as the flames consumed her flower, the last of her petals falling away. Though as her body burned and the embers ascended, the light particles did not diminish. Indeed, the innumerable points flowed as if carried by an invisible current up into the sky to create a mesmerizing spectacle.

The exhaustion at last overcame Jean and she fainted into Xavier's lap with a groan where he held on to her protectively.

In The Morning…

Then as now, Charles Xavier looked down to his poor student. As powerful as her full capacity could be, there was simply only so much her mortal frame could withstand. And after having witnessed the tormented mixture of psyches agitating each other within Biollante, he had a clue into why the two seemed so inherently opposed to one another. But, questions did remain.

"Recovered specimen shows no sign of the regenerative capability of its progenitor, Godzilla."

Tapping the pause button on the voice recording program, Beast minimized the application window, removed his glasses, and began massaging the bridge of his nose with a sigh. "Thus strangely are our souls constructed," He began aloud. "and by such slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity or ruin."

Having not slept at all in the hours since Biollante's incineration, trying to understand what went so horribly wrong was all he could do to keep his mind from going to places he'd rather not dwell in. "Mary Shelley seems unfortunately appropriate today." Deciding to busy himself with examining the remains of the creature, he slumped over his lab's desk, the monitor connected to his microscope displaying the inert cells of the specimen.

He propped both elbows up on the tabletop, pressing both palms against his eyes. "What a fool I was. To cultivate a sentient life and in the same breath curse it with its own malformed existence."

Dragging his hands down his face with a drawn-out groan, McCoy stared hard at the magnified cellular structure. At first, he had been interested in determining whether or not Biollante had inherited Godzilla's healing factor, which in his estimation surpassed even Wolverine's. But it seemed the gene was either inactive or corrupted to the point of ineffective when separated from the main body. There appeared to be no danger of a dozen Biollante's sprouting from the dispersed tissue fragments.

"There's got to be something more I'm not seeing." Thinking to look for more answers under the microscope, he began going deeper, bringing up the genetic analysis. The left half of his screen displayed his previous results for comparison, when Biollante was still just a rose. Techniques like DNA sequencing, Cytogenetics, PCR, Karyotyping, and microarrays were typically an involved and methodical process, which Henry McCoy was otherwise well-capable of performing. An advantage he possessed however came from the incorporation of Shi'ar technology into his repertoire, which made such laborious procedures far easier.

On the screen the images of the cells froze, with one in particular being digitally isolated and separated from the others as a base model. It would be amazing to most scientists to witness the absurd hybrid of a plant and animal cell, the fusion made possible by the incredible mutagenic properties of Godzilla's genes. To McCoy, the image in the screen wasn't far from what he expected; a greenish cytoplasm, a large nucleus competing with an equally large central vacuole, all the various components of either type jam-packed within the walls of a single cell.

"There's barely any space left in there…" He remarked, squinting at the screen. "No wonder your growth was so proliferous."

Reams of data began to appear in smaller boxes in the empty spaces around the image, bio-chemical formulas that would make sense to most any biologist, except these were extended with components the likes of which Henry had previously only seen as features of a mutant genome.

But something suddenly struck his attention. "No, wait, wait… what's that?"

Entering a few commands into the computer, he isolated a section of the genome and brought it to the fore. "I can't be seeing what I think I'm seeing." He balked. "I'll have to run a comparison analysis."

"I can already tell you what you'll find, Henry."

Beast spun around to see Charles pausing in the doorway, wearing a similar fatigue on his face.

"I don't understand," Looking back and forth between the Professor and his computer, Beast tried to grasp what his friend could intend.

"I don't either." Xavier said as he powered his chair forward. "At least not fully." Moving himself into place beside McCoy, he examined the work on the screen. "But I believe your analysis is going to confirm something I saw in Biollante's mind. Henry if you would; run the DNA against your database."

Beast was taken aback by the implication, slowly turning to the computer with accumulating dread. His fingers hovered above the keys a moment before they began scattering across the display to access the archive of known DNA samples, searching for a partial match.

The query was answered in two seconds with a positive match.

Henry McCoy nearly tumbled out his chair as he stared aghast at the results, "Oh my stars and garters…"

RHODE ISLAND

In a run-down neighborhood, in a house most people avoided, the shouts of men could be heard echoing through an empty hallway of yellowed wallpaper and disrepair.

A section of wall exploded into the hall from the other side, and amidst the dust and rubble, was a man in dark clothing clutching a Kalashnikov rifle in his hand. A red beam driving into his chest tapered out of sight, leaving the crater of burned flesh as he crashed into the opposite side.

"Nothing yet, Wolverine." A shadow grew over the unmoving man as Cyclops made his way through the hole in the wall. "At least nobody that wants to talk first." Kicking the weapon out of the man's possible reach, Summers knelt down and started to rifle through his clothes. Finding nothing but a phone, some pocket cash, and beat-up copy of a Purifiers propaganda pamphlet, he stowed the cell and put two fingers to the man's carotid artery, detecting nothing.

Scott touched a left-hand finger to his earpiece, "How's by you?"

The desperate man, sweating and terrified swung around the corner with the tactical knife in his hand, stabbing it deep into the burly shoulder of his attacker. Momentarily elated at his success, his guard dropped for one unfortunate instant.

"Just peachy. SNAAAAR!" Wolverine drove the adamantium claws of his left hand through the man's arm at the elbow, then trust away to take the forearm off in a single stroke.

"AHHHH-HAAAAAAA-HAAAAA!" Shrieked the Purifier soldier as he collapsed, beholding his severed stump of a limb as the arteries spewed crimson. Logan reached down and clamped the wound in an iron grip, creating an impromptu tourniquet.

"Your boys who attacked the Xavier mansion, where are they?" Wolverine snarled, hauling the man off the floor. "You got a lot more body parts to lose, bub. So start squawking!"

"I-I-I-I- Don't know!" The Purifier sputtered, color draining from his cheeks.

Wolverine dragged his face across the man's clothes, taking a long hard whiff. "The men who bombed us… got one of their sssstink on you! Musta been awful close, smells like he wiped his ass on ya'."

Logan balled his right hand into a fist and pressed the knuckles into his captive's gut. "Last chance before I shred you like a f****** newspaper."

The man stammered insensibly, trying as he might to speak, but coherent words never managed to form.

"He can't answer you, Logan," Psylocke said in her polished British accent as she came from the opposite side and palmed the back of the man's head. "He's going into shock.". Their eyes illuminated simultaneously with violet energy. "But that won't stop me."

Mouthing silent words barely above a whisper, the man gave up his secrets to the mind-probe of Elizabeth Braddock. Speaking until his jaw fell slack a few moments later, the light in his eyes went dark and the support in his legs gave out.

"He's part of a cell," She began, letting his body flop to the floor. "The men we're looking for were part of a different one, they only shared enough knowledge of each other to provide a temporary safehouse before moving on."

Psylocke glanced up to Wolverine, nodding towards his shoulder.

As if he had forgotten the knife still embedded in his boulder of a joint, Logan reached up and yanked the blade out with a slight grunt. "Nice knife." He admired.

"I think we're done here," Cyclops announced as he entered the room. "Get anything useful out of him?" He asked.

Braddock grimaced, producing a handkerchief. "Not much I didn't expect." She said, wiping her hands. "The only one who knows how to contact the network is the cell leader, who's not here, and not sure when he's coming back."

An irritated Wolverine snorted and spat. "Well I ain't keen to just hang around and wait for him to show up."

"Neither am I." Scott agreed, pulling out the phone he'd lifted, displaying it to Psylocke. "Got anything to help pull data off this?"

"What do you take me for, Scott?" She asked with mock offense. "I'm not a Colonel of *S.T.R.I.K.E. for my good looks." (*Special Tactical Reserve for International Key Emergencies)

"I'm sure it didn't hurt." Logan teased.

Betsy shot him a wry smirk and a wink as she plucked a palm-sized electronic device from her component belt. It resembled any other third-party attachment that plugged into the USB port of a phone, though it was made of more advanced material. She selected the appropriate male counterpart from the multiple types sticking out and fixed them together. Both phone and device came to life, the screen displaying its security lock function, the STRIKE gadget illuminating with blue and white intermittent lights.

Cyclops noticed Logan looking over the knife he'd acquired, "What? You need more knives?"

"I enjoy the workmanship." Wolverine quipped angrily.

With a soft chime the phone was unlocked, populating with the various apps installed. "Time was a whole team of tech-specialists had to spend hours trying to crack these things." Psylocke hummed as she began exploring the phone. "Now, all I need to do is plug in this little gem and it does all the work."

"Wonders of technology." Scott confirmed.

"Here we are," She said with a bit of glee. "The GPS data gives us a few hotspots we can investigate."

"Then let's get going," Logan growled as he shouldered past them. "The longer we take to find them, the longer they have to set off another attack."

"Agreed, the nearest spot isn't far." Stowing the phone as they began walking, Psylocke elbow-bumped Summers to get his attention. "Everybody at the school okay?"

"Aside from having the bajeezus scared out of 'em, nobody was injured." He said. "But not for lack of trying."

"Small favors."

Returning to their respective motorcycles, Scott took a shot at small talk. "I hear Brian's doing well for himself."

ELSEWHERE…

It was late afternoon, and thusly time for the 'Asr, or the third daily prayer. Humbly dressed in white cotton clothes and a plain kufi, the man knelt face-down on the small carpet. He was positioned in front of a wall-spanning window that looked out over the eastern horizon of the city, somewhere far off on the other side of the world the Kaaba Stone the object of his reverence. The room around him was sparse at best, containing only a work desk with a closed computer, and a few tabletop office accessories.

As he continued to go through the ritual with subtle poise and stoicism, another man in a casual suit stood in the doorway behind, waiting patiently for the right time to enter. With a swarthy complexion in his mid-thirties, he wore a grim face under close-cropped hair.

It was another minute before the devout man stood, having completed the sacraments. He stood there another few moments in contemplative genuflection before acknowledging his company.

"You were not in prayer, shaqiq?" He said without turning.

"I was occupied, mudaris." The man answered deferentially. "It appears the X-Men have been attacking some of our cell locations in Rhode Island. From what we can tell, they're hunting the men who attacked the Xavier Institute."

The one referred to as 'teacher' thought a second, clasping his hands behind his back. "And, are they near to finding them?"

"Not anymore." The subordinate shook his head. "They've already been moved to a more secure safehouse."

"Do we know which of the mutants are hunting them?" Mudaris asked.

"Cyclops and Wolverine, that much we've ascertained from what they left behind. We also think they have a telepath with them, but we're not sure which."

"A telepath?" A pregnant pause followed. "Interesting…."

"But there's been nothing to hinder our plans otherwise, Mudaris. The next phase remains on track."

"Good to hear, shaqiq, it is important that everything continue apace, and these obstacles be removed."

"Of course." The subordinate nodded. "If you'll excuse me, Al-Rahim, there are things I must prepare for."

"Go and make yourself ready," Rahim said with a raised hand. "You are a soldier of God, and InshAllah, you will be successful."

The man bowed, saying: "As-salamu alaikum wa rah matullahi."

"As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh" Returned Rahim.

For a few minutes he continued to gaze out over the city, pondering silently. Then after a bit he closed his eyes and spoke in his mother tongue: "We are preparing the way for you, Al-Raisi. Your children will be ready."

WESTCHESTER

As she lay there, eyes open but unable to move, there was only the crackle of the roaring fires in the night to keep her company. There then came a sound, like the rumble of thunder in the distance, the very earth shaking as the beats came closer and closer. He had come, she realized, calling out to her, searching. But she was unable to answer, jaw hanging slack, no breath in her lungs to call back.

Jean's hand twitched in the restraint, the electroencephalogram at her bedside spiking a moment with neural activity. The inside of her breathing mask fogging with the moisture of a sudden exhalation as her chest swelled once more. Her dream just as real to her as any memory.

She could feel the heat radiating from him, warm and nourishing. But the darkness on the borders of her vision was growing, and the clarity of the vision before her was fading. She heard him breath, and then felt something flow into her lungs to fill her breast with a fleeting sensation of fire.

Jean surged on the bed, her chest heaving upwards to the noises of the equipment monitoring her vitals, remaining in the bridged position.

"What's going on?"

"I don't know, she was fine a second ago!"

Beast put a paw on Jean's stomach to hold her down, fearing she might begin to seize. "Her activity just spiked, but it is stabilizing."

Under his palm, Jean's body relaxed until it was supine, the steady beeps of her vitals returning to a neutral pace.

"Should I get the Professor?" Nightcrawler asked, standing at bedside and anxiously clutching his Rosary beads.

"Please do." McCoy nodded as Kurt disappeared in puff before turning back to the data populating the screen in front of him. "There's doesn't seem to be anything wrong with you physiologically."

A few commands entered, and the real-time display of her neural activity mapped over a pair of brain diagrams appeared. Like the temperature map of a weather forecast, a significant degree of activity was occurring in the mid-brain area, indicating a powerful dream was occurring.

She's experiencing something traumatic. Beast deduced with an educated guess. But what could it be to elicit such a dramatic psychosomatic response?

It wasn't long before Nightcrawler returned with Xavier, bags under his eyes from exhaustion, but more concerned with the matter at hand nonetheless.

"I could feel it from downstairs," Said Charles as he moved himself next to the bed, placing his hands on her temples. "Whatever she's experiencing, I don't think it's fear-based. But it is potent, like reliving a crucial memory."

"Like what?" Nightcrawler asked.

Xavier shook his head. "Could be anything, I'll have to go in to find out." The Professor closed his eyes and the world around him fell away into the mindscape.

What's troubling you, Jean?

Passing through ethereal realm, Charles searched for any sign of disturbances, which could appear as a dark cloud hovering over a memory, or the shade of a creature if something more malign was at the root. He thought of the presence he had detected earlier, still unsure what it could have been.

Going farther in, there appeared a glow off to his right, a faded neon blue that pulsed with the rhythm of a heartbeat.

Well that doesn't belong here…

Charles moved towards the strange specter, swimming through a firmament where each star-like point of light contained a thought or memory, synapses sparking between. One in particular caught his attention as he passed by, a spot of red that stood out among the grey and yellow blurs. He paused, moved by curiosity and touched his hand to the orb.

Xavier was immediately pulled into the perspective of Jean, seeing through her eyes as she walked the halls of the mansion. Watching as though in audience at a movie, he saw a door open to a familiar laboratory. After sweeping back and forth the vision settled on the dormant bud of a red rose sitting across the room, the perspective advanced towards the flower. In the next instant the rose was in her hand, a thumb caressing the petals. But then there was a spike of pain, blood on the finger, the fall of a single drop.

That's how it happened… Even if Henry had been imprudent with the Godzilla tissue, the addition of Jean's DNA was an accident of fate. Hardly something to blame anybody for. Hardly something to hold against his friend.

'Then why does it hate me?'… Charles recalled hearing her say last night. Though he now understood a part of the relationship between them, it still didn't explain why Biollante would be so hostile.

The pulsating glow once more drew his notice, and retracting himself from the memory, continued towards it. As Xavier got closer the presence began to take on a shape, that of an iceberg complete with a reflective lower half as if it were adrift on water.

"Looks like a Cerenkov Light…"

Another memory sphere orbited the berg in a lazy arc like the sun over the horizon.

"Memories that are connected often stay close by…" But whatever was in the iceberg wasn't a memory, at least not one of Jean's.

Just as the satellite memory was passing, he reached out and plunged a hand into it. Suddenly he found himself staring up into the indomitable face of the atomic titan himself.

"This is when she encountered Godzilla." Charles realized to his astonishment. Of course, he hadn't been present during the battle of Tokyo Bay, but he knew Jean had attempted contact with the monster. He also knew that sometimes making a connection with a powerful enough mind ran the risk of leaving residual… influence.

"Is that what you are?" Looking now to the iceberg below him, Xavier began to get a grasp on the nature of the beast he was dealing with. The blue glow of the construct bathing him with each pulse.

"I'll have to purge this intrusive memory from her subconscious, but to get all of it, I'll have to explore it fully."

Lowering himself to the broadside of the berg, he gestured with both palms forward, feeling the ambient aura. As he did so, a shape moved on the other side of the opaque barrier.

"Ready or not…"

Charles Xavier propelled himself forward, into the foreign fragment, his vision enveloped by a flash of white before dissolving into darkness.

For a few moments there were no visuals, only a dull roar that seemed to come from the borders of his perception. Then before him the dancing outline of fire began to appear, crawling its way to form a ring in a semi-circle.

"Fire as a metaphor can take many fo-"

Suddenly he felt his airway clamped shut, too fast and too strong to fight against, something bulky and armored wrapped around his throat. Clutching at the phantom force, Charles could then see a pair of eyes coalescing from the ether, yellow and malevolent boring down at him. Surrounding these spectral lamps grew a crimson miasma that quickly took the form of a jagged frame, expanding to the sides.

What was once a dull roar surged to a crashing cacophony, a windstorm howling through a canyon. And above the eyes, blazing into existence like a match set to gasoline, was a towering horn. He understood then, this memory was death.

Author's note: Thank you all for your patience with this chapter, it fought me kicking and biting, but I got it. I'll be taking a short break from the Godzilla/Marvel stuff to work on the beginning of the sequel to "Path of the Unforgiven", then I'll circle back around for the 2nd issues of Fantastic Four and Spider-Man.