Work Text:
somewhere in intergalactic space
ORORO
***
Ororo Munroe had never learnt what it meant to lose. She has always been the most powerful being in a room, even when she did not have powers. They only complimented the being underneath. Even when humbled to walk as people do, she was still descendent of some of the first sorcerers to ever utter spellcraft on the Earth. Power was her destiny. Yet now, as the Void leaked into reality and claimed spacetime for itself…Oblivion was winning. For every piece of the universe that evaporated into his realm, Ororo felt a part of herself become lost. She had always been tapped into the Universe, but now she was the Universe. She drifted in her realm aimlessly. Falling and falling and falling through a gravity well not quite her own doing.
She watched stars fade around her as their home galaxies dimmed. One by one he claimed them.
Ororo found herself trying to remember things that seemed most important to her as her memories faded with the starlight.
My mother’s name was N’Dara, my father’s name was David. I was born in Harlem. My favourite colour is purple. I was a thief as a child, a goddess as a teenager, and an X-Man as a woman. Now I am the Eternal Universe.
But was the Universe eternal still?
Oblivion had beaten them, her and Eternity. She should not have let her pride get in the way and yet she had. In her hubris she allowed herself to gloat in his perceived loss, not seeing the trap in the great serpent’s cunning. The Living Tribunal deemed it a fair defeat, but to her it was cowardice.
He was nothing. He was fading…now I’m the one fading.
Ororo brought her hands in front of her and could see that Eternity’s light which had usually emanated off of her body and armour was dimmer than it was before. Her eyes continued to glow white as she was tapped into the Universe, as did the markings upon the forehead, cheeks, nose and chin.
He is taking it all from me. Goddess damn him-
A pain shot through her body and an entire galaxy dissolved in front of her. The hole in reality it left behind also left a gap in Ororo’s memory, deeper and more sudden than before.
"My mother’s name was N’Dara!" She screamed in defiance, holding on to what memories she could. “My father’s name was Daniel! I was born in Harlem! My favourite …no, that’s not right…his name was David. His eyes were...” She couldn’t remember her own father’s face. She felt herself weep and she screamed out to the Void for what he was taking from her. Spacetime itself shuddered and churned with her emotions.
I’m dying. Will I join my parents in the afterlife or will I become nothing with the Universe?
Dying did not frighten the Cloudwalker. It was losing herself that she feared. To not remember who she was as she departed this life.
I was an X-Man. I was a goddess. My brother was Scott Winters…no, it was Summers. Wrong season.
Ororo could not help but laugh in madness if for no other reason. How could the weather witch confuse her seasons?
Because I tried to freeze him to death and I don't even remember why, the memory of Scott's half frozen body haunted her even now.
"Do not take credit from my own hand, " Eternity's voice boomed from within.
"Release my body and perhaps I will find absolution of this sin," Ororo replied to him
"You were losing then, and you are losing now."
"No. We are losing," She blocked out his voice using her own indomitable will. No mind, not even Eternity's, were privy to her thoughts or ears should Ororo deny them.
Scott Summers the Cyclops. There was…a Wolverine. An ex Professor. I had a best friend.
Their name was on the tip of her tongue.
Red hair. Warm, always warm.
This friend was important, Ororo knew. But why?
We were as close as sisters…we were almost…no that never happened. Did it?
This memory was that of love. Was it romantic or just familial? Everything was becoming blurred. So many pieces of Ororo was missing.
Hot, always hot…white hot.
The Universe screamed as purifying fire combusted around Ororo. She felt a force embrace her, stopping her fall. Pink energy caressed her body and shifted into a bright orange and yellow flame.
Jean Grey.
In a flash of blinding light she appeared in front of Ororo, floating and burning.
“You look different,” Ororo said to Jean, trying to smile.
She was right, Jean did look different. She wore space and starlight, her body blended perfectly with the cosmos, a black shape filled with stars that seemed to move as she did. Had she not been surrounded by flame, Ororo may not have been able to find where her body started and space began. She wore liquid gold for elbow-long gloves and knee-high boots. The Phoenix emblem armoured her chest in the same texture, as did the plating on her shoulders, at her hips and on her forehead. Her crimson hair blended into the blaze.
“As do you, my friend,” Jean replied, matching her smile.
Jean was as right as Ororo was. She had never seen the Eternal Storm’s white and gold attire, nor the white markings on her face that signified hope, light and purity. Ororo wanted to know if Jean’s new form had meaning also, and to share with Jean her own.
“We have much to catch up on.”
“All of that can wait now. What has he done to you, ‘Ro?” The Phoenix asked.
“I…lost, Jean.” Ororo was ashamed to admit it.
“You do not lose. You never have and you never will.” Jean floated towards her, her fires surrounded Ororo and she placed a warm hand upon Ororo’s cheek. Ororo grabbed her wrist and accepted the tenderness.
“I am dying, Jean. Look at me. I am fading into Oblivion and I cannot stop it. The Living Tribunal himself has consented to this universe’s death. Oblivion is consuming me.”
“You are the Eternal Storm. You are the Universe. You are everything that is, was and will be. How can you die if you choose not to?”
“I am bound by the Living Tribunal’s decision. You know this.”
“I am the Phoenix. I am the Universe’s…” Jean’s voice trailed off. Then she laughed and with her heaves and chuckles reality seemed to reverabate with her. “I am your spirit. I am your cycle, your ebb and flow. I only know of the balance.”
Another galaxy vanished in the cosmic background and Ororo let out a scream and collapsed into Jean. The Phoenix watched in horror as Creation became unravelled.
“You are letting this happen, sister.” Jean grabbed hold of her tightly, seeing that Ororo's time was running out. “Fight it! Do not let him win.”
"How can you say that? I am bound.”
“You have never been bound to anything. The Earth has been your playground since you were a little girl. You controlled the weather, it never controlled you. Now your playground is the Universe and the direction of control has not changed. The Living Tribunal speaks with The One Above All’s voice, true. But he is not Him. You are Ororo Munroe. You have pulled yourself from death’s embrace before as a mortal. Now you are the everything. Do not tell me you must abide by anything but your own will.”
There was truth in Jean’s words. Ororo was allowing the cosmic court’s decision power over her in her shame for allowing Oblivion to best her in trickery and deception.
No longer.
“How?” Ororo quivered, gripping Jean harder as she felt more of herself become lost to Oblivion.
“Give me your hand.”
Ororo did as she was asked and in the instant that their fingertips touched, the universe burned away to a place she felt was outside of space and time. A void of pristine white nothing in every direction. All of her pain melted away here, replaced with a feeling of safety and warmth. Jean seemed to have vanished and yet Ororo could feel her surrounding her. Like some force. As if Jean was the very realm that Ororo was visiting.
“Where did you go?”
“ I’m///ri//ght//here.” Jean’s voice made itself known in every direction, but there was something different in the way she spoke. Different to her usual ‘Phoenix Voice’ as the X-Men had nicknamed it.
“Is this-”
“White///Hot///Ro//om///Hospital.”
This is the Phoenix’s realm…Jean’s heart and Jean herself. This is where all of Creation comes from. Perhaps who I speak to is a little more than the Jean I know.
“Why did you take me here, Jean.” Ororo said to the white void, not sure of where Jean’s consciousness may lay or whether Ororo stood within it.
“Badly woun///ded Universe///Eternity///Ororo.//// Must He///al. Phoe///nix///work”.
“We are outside of all that aren’t we? How can you heal the Universe from here?”
“Must///heal////Uni////verse///in///Hospital.//// Whi///te////Hot.//// I////bro////ught///Uni///verse////you///here.” The voice was becoming harder to understand.
“But-” A mirror burned into existence for Ororo, showing her a reflection she did not recognise. Her flesh was gone, replaced with living spacetime, the very cosmos itself. Ororo was Eternity. Even his cape and collar sprouted from behind her. Her eyes were two bright white neutron stars. In her body she could see the dimming galaxies, though their death seemed to be on pause while she was in here in the White Hot Room.
A small spark of fire appeared in the reflection behind Ororo, before it transformed into flesh, clothes and red hair. Jean appeared in a white and gold Phoenix suit, one Ororo recognised but had no idea what it meant. Jean hugged Ororo from behind and leaned her head onto Ororo’s shoulder.
“This is the smallest part of myself,” Jean said. “Trying to communicate as the rest was getting annoying even for me.”
Ororo was silent. Still observing her new form’s reflection.
“I should have come to you sooner. Given you the help and guidance I wish I had when I first became the Phoenix.”
“Why didn’t you?” Ororo asked.
“I,” Jean seemed to choke on her own guilt and hesitated before continuing. Her voice took on a more human tone. “I didn’t realise how deep it had gotten for you just yet. You were a goddess long before I was. I thought maybe you were fine.”
“I’m not fine,” Ororo felt tears in her eyes well up. “When Eternity first claimed me for his host it took everything for me to fight for control, to keep him from killing an unarmed man. Even if it was Victor. Feeling him control my body like that…I hadn’t felt that sort of violation since Forge took my powers or when Emma had stolen my body. I’m used to channeling the elemental forces, I’ve been doing it since I was a child, but this is so different. It's as if…it’s as if I’m the one being channeled. That I’m the weather and Eternity the witch. I’m so tired and it's barely been a month, yet somehow you’ve done this for a decade. No, apparently you always have been the Phoenix. I’m still confused by that,” they both laughed. “How do you do this? Let something beyond you control you?”
“At first it can feel that way,” Jean sighed, recalling some of her darker memories. “But I learnt very quickly that we tap into only what we are born to, what we were meant to. We aren’t like the other X-Men, ‘Ro. We never have been. They’re so…finite. Laser beams and metal claws, diamond skin and exploding playing cards. Even as mutants we weren’t just mutants. We were Omega . I could send the moon hurtling at the Earth, or control every mind on the planet. You could burn the Earth in a solar storm or block out the sun until we all froze to death. Our powers and our spirits…it taps us into greater forces. Mine is the Creation Force, yours is the Eternal Universe. But just like our powers…they are our powers. We command them, they do not command us.”
“Then why is it so easy to become lost in it? If we control them, how do they sway us so?”
“Because the boys tell us they will. They make us think our powers are actively working against us. When a man punches another, we do not say he lost control of his fist and that his hands took over his body. I learnt that double standard from even before the Phoenix. I couldn’t so much as throw a rock at a bigot without Charles or Scott swearing that I was unstable and that my powers controlled me. Yet Scott would unleash the full force of his beams over a disagreement with Logan and somehow still gets to an All American Boy Next Door.”
“That's not entirely fair on them. I can’t recall much, but I do remember I would shoot lightning in the middle of New York City and was never scalded the way you were.”
“Well now that you mention it,” Jean lightly knocked Ororo’s head with her own and they both giggled. “I couldn’t go a day without hearing ‘don’t let your powers control you, Jeannie’. But I guess you're right, I'm not being fair. I pretended to be a damsel for so long that when I finally had enough they thought I wouldn't be capable. I know I walk the line that separates light and dark perhaps a little closer than the rest of you, it's just in my nature, but they never trusted me the way you did.”
“Perhaps because you trusted me in a way that they couldn't. You trusted me to be a person. My flaws and all. To the X-Men I was a benevolent god, they expected divine judgement and answered prayers. But for you..." There was a memory missing that Ororo could not recall. The mental image was fuzzy, but there was a dark cave and Jean held Ororo's hand at the entrance of it. "I don't remember, but I know it was different for us. You let me be a human being and all the emotional paradoxes that came with it. I knew that always…but not truly until I was Rogue Storm,” Ororo continued, turning away from the mirror to face Jean. She was half surprised that out of all of her faded memories that she remembered this awful moment in her history that she would rather have forgotten. With anyone else she may not share these memories so freely, but this was Jean, and she intended to do so with eyes meeting. “I was in control. I wasn’t of my emotions, but my powers were entirely in my command. They made me feel good, allowed me to forget my pain and hurt. I lashed out at the X-Men and it felt exhilarating. I know you felt the same as Dark Phoenix.” There was a pause between the two of them. “I missed you so much that day. I needed to talk to you but you were gone. You would have told me I was still good, that I wasn’t a monster. I would have believed it from no one else but you. The others tried to offer me comfort, to tell me I was still their divine goddess. No! I wanted you to tell me that I was simply still me! Oh, Bright Lady, I'm losing it. I’m mourning your death and you’re alive!” Jean burst out laughing and in turn so did Ororo, cutting through her tears. “I must admit to you, and I hate myself for even feeling this way. I know it's irrational and I know it’s not your fault… but a part of me was angry that you died and left me there. So much responsibility fell to me and I accepted it but…It would have been good for you to be there. I just missed you so much.”
A tear almost fell from Jean’s eye had it not become steam the moment it touched her cheek.
“Dying has become so easy for me that I forgot how traumatising it was the first time,” Jean said. “For myself and for everyone else. It won’t happen again, ‘Ro. The dying, I can’t promise you. I am the Phoenix after all, I have a quota to resurrect a certain amount of times a century. But staying away for as long as I did, even after I came back to life. Never again.” The two embraced tightly for what would have passed for a few minutes in the Universe, but in the White Hot Room it was harder to determine. “So tell me, you faced your own Dark Phoenix. How is Eternity any scarier than you in a bad mood?”
“Because it's not just me anymore. Eternity is not just a power, he’s not even just the Universe. He’s a he, and he thinks, Jean. He is sentient, an entity. He has his own will.”
“So did the Earth,” Jean countered. “In a way, the biosphere that you were connected to had its own sentience. This is the same just on a much bigger scale. You have told me that the weather is always shifting, always in a constant state of flow. You aren’t just making things happen, you’re changing things that are already happening. That is changing a will, even if it isn’t sentient. Use that on Eternity”
“You’re saying that I have the power to change the will of the literal Universe?”
“‘Ro, you are the Universe! Eternity is the personification of the Universe, but now you are that personification. He has chosen you because only you can tap into all that he is. If you can guide him, become a lens to channel him as you do the weather and the other fundamental forces, you can control the very fabric of spacetime.”
“Is that how it is with the Phoenix Force?"
“Once we may have been at odds, myself and my other self. Like that time I had to tear it out of Emma. Or when the bird chose Scott of all people and he threw his own tantrum.”
“I knew that was you! Stupid fool thinking he could control all of it without you intervening.”
“He even tried to get in here. Might have too had I not shut and locked the door on him. Like I said, even when I’m dead I’m never gone. Anyway, I guide the Phoenix Force as much as it guides me. It is of me, you see. But Eternity and you aren’t there yet. No. You’re at that early stage of bonding where you both think the flow of control is a one way street. It's never that easy, but I will admit, ‘Ro, you will have it even harder. I made the Phoenix Force so all I really had to do was accept myself,” Ororo looked at her confused and decided to let it go for another conversation. How Jean and the Phoenix Force operated confused anyone who dared listen to her. “You are bonding with an entity that predates you…but that does not mean you will not control it, or at the very least, become one with it. The very nature of your power is to manipulate the cosmos. Eternity is that cosmos”
It was all starting to make sense to Ororo yet she still hesitated to believe it.
I still haven't told her, there was something Ororo wished she could forget. She needed to confess it to the wife of the man she harmed.
"What's wrong?" Jean asked.
"It wasn't just Victor he tried to kill. Scott and I had a fight, I cannot remember why, but...Eternity took over my body and tried to kill Scott."
"Is that all? I already know."
"He told you?"
"Yes."
"And you're not even slightly angry at me? Or concerned for Scott."
"Why would I be mad at you? I've told him a million times that if he disagrees with you then he's probably in the wrong. As for me being concerned for Scott, of course I am! I am concerned that he believes any mutant deserves to be put in that place. Even if it is Charles."
"He almost died, Jean."
"My god 'Ro, I've almost killed Scott."
"This isn't funny. He's your husband but he's also my brother. If Eternity can make me do that to someone I love..."
"But Eternity didn't make you kill him because you stopped it! How can I be mad at you for that? That wasn't Dark Phoenix or Rogue Storm, that was Eternity and you changed the will of the Universe to save Scott."
"It...it can't happen again."
"It won't if you don't let it."
Ororo bit her lip. Could it be true?
"Of course it is."
"What are you doing in my mind?"
"This is the White Hot Room. You are in mine. Every thought and imagination in this place is bare for me to see and make real," Jean gave her a warm smile. "I trust you more than anyone, and its the same for you of me. If I can believe in you, and you believe in me, then it must me true."
Ororo threw her head back and laughed. “This is why I needed you sooner. In one conversation you have made me understand my role and how to defy the Living Tribunal. In one conversation you have melted away my anxiety and made me see clearly.”
“You could have called,” Jean smirked. “The gaze of the Phoenix burns away lies and self deceptions. I only offer you the truth that you knew deep down. It's just hard when there’s so many pieces of you missing and there’s so much chaos around you. It was the same for me...And another thing. Never think for a second that I would hate you for losing control. I am the last person in the world who could ever condemn someone for that."
"Thank you," Ororo replied softly. "I needed to hear that from you."
"Anytime. Do you think you’re ready to go back?”
“Must we? It's so peaceful here,” Ororo grabbed Jean’s hands, not wanting to let her go. Afraid she might not see Jean for another while.
“It is. I can’t lie, the peace I find in the White Hot Room might be why I’ve become so used to being dead. Its the only place I truly feel calm and unburdened. Where I can truly think clearly. But this is heaven for me, not you. For you it is a hospital and you are dying. The Phoenix cannot allow that, and neither can Eternity .”
“You’re right, I can’t allow that. Not when Oblivion must pay for what he has done.”
“I will need your help in this. The infection is/////severe even for///The///White///Phoe///nix of the///Crown.” Jean’s voice was becoming unsynced from the movements of her lips. She was becoming the more again.
“How do I help? What is it you need from me?”
“You are Eternity.////I am the Phoen///ix.////You are the body.////I am the soul.///// Accept my fires,////accept my love.////Accept it all for what we have shared with one another.////For what////we//// should//// have////shared.”
“I accept it. Now and Forever.”
Jean kissed her. A kiss they should have shared a decade ago. A kiss they had longed for, had fantastised over, but were too frightened to ever make real. Jean’s lips were soft and warm upon Ororo’s. She felt so much of Jean’s own need for their connection as much as her own. Two halves finally joining to become one as they always should have been. The Eternal Universe and the Spirit of Creation.
As Jean parted her mouth, cleansing fire entered Ororo and began to burn away the corruption of the Void. Gently at first, but the disinfection became aggressive as Ororo felt her inside become healed and reborn with the very fires of Creation.
Ororo embraced it all. Jean’s fire inside of her excited her as much as it healed her. It was intoxicating. She remembered all too well how addictive the fundamental universal powers were when they flowed through her body when she was Rogue Storm. This time, the memory did not frighten her.
“More! I need more!” She called Jean in her mind, and Jean obeyed.
Ororo felt like she was going to scream as flames hotter than hot coursed its way through her. Eyes widened as she felt herself melt down and be reshaped. The very spark of the Big Bang ignited within her and expanded infinitely outward. If she was anyone else, the experience would have killed her in a gory explosion of cosmic energy. But Ororo was not anyone else. She was the Universe. This power was for her to contain and grow from. To be remade by.
Eternity’s mind opened to her, memories from the very beginning of Creation became accessible to Ororo. Their minds bound into one single consciousness.
Hot, white hot. This is how I was when I first came into being. At the very start of existence.
Ororo closed her eyes again and became lost in Jean and in their kiss. Lost in the addictive nature of the Phoenix. Lost in the power to create and destroy. Just as Jean had said before, she was the Spirit of Creation, and now she was deep inside Ororo’s very own being. As if Jean’s very fingertips moved inside of her, driving her, healing her, making her come back to life. Jean’s own memories permeated within her as well. She saw Jean’s long life and many deaths. She saw visions of the beyond she could not comprehend, even with Eternity's wisdom now accessible to her. All of it leading to the point they were at now. Ororo could see, no, feel that Jean was feeling exactly as she was.
Finally Ororo’s memories came pouring back. She saw her father’s face in her mind’s eye, tears of joy streamed down her cheeks. She remembered she loved the colour purple, and she remembered the X-Men. She saw Logan, she saw Charles. She saw Collosus and Magik, Rogue and Gambit. She saw Kate who she loved as her own daughter. She saw many faces she could now recognise and put names to. She even remembered that she was an Avenger.
A memory flew by and Ororo clung to it.
The dark cave...it was the New York subway. Jean was terrified to go in incase her telepathy became unbearable and she'd lash out. I couldn't go in without feeling suffocated without the freedom of the sky above me. Yet she took my hand and said '"You can beat it if you want. We both can," and we went into the darkness together. Not as the divine Storm or the precious Marvel Girl, but as Ororo and Jean.
It was the first time she had ever felt truly connected to another person. An equal. In remembering this, all of their ‘almosts’ came rushing back. The times their friend-dates were never quite just friendly. When Jean would place a hand on her thigh, or when Ororo would grab her hand when they were alone. The unspoken distance that suddenly appeared whenever Scott was in the room. The way that they suddenly would stop touching each other if he were around. As if the touching meant something more. That it was wrong.
“It's always been us, ‘Ro. Always .” Jean’s voice made itself known in Ororo’s mind. The only person she would ever let in there.
“When everyone we know eventually passes we will only have each other.” Ororo replied via their psychic rapport.
“I would not want it any other way. You are my world, ‘Ro, My Eternal Storm. I will always be here to catch you. I swear it.”
Jean released Ororo from the kiss and they opened their eyes at the same time, their hands still connected. Around them the white void of the White Hot Room was gone. They were back in the universe in the exact spot they had left. Jean was back in her cosmic attire from before their journey, and Ororo was back in her white gold armour. Her connection to the Universe felt greater this time. She was home.
Stars began to reappear across the universe. Galaxies reformed as gravity found center mass. Spacetime began to expand as the tears in reality were healed by Cosmic Fire.
Reality shook with Oblivion’s screams. He called for the Living Tribunal for justice, but he was met with silence. Today, Eternity and Creation had spoken.
Ororo was also deaf to Oblivion. All there was for her, in this moment, was the song of the Universe and Jean’s fire in her soul.
Their peace was not long lived.
“ETERNITY!” the voice echoed through the entire cosmos. Every living being in existence would have heard it.
Oblivion manifested in front of them. The giant serpent of before time, gnawing his teeth and spitting acid. His length from head to tail was unimaginable, but coiled around he was at least as large as a planet, if not larger.
“You dare defy me?!” Oblivion growed at the Eternal Storm.
“I defy more than you today, brother,” Ororo pulled herself from Jean’s embrace, their hands were the last to let go. Eternity's and Ororo's voices had become perfectly blended, spacetime oscillated with each syllable she spoke sending gravitational waves out in all directions. Jean backed away to let their rematch unfold. This was not the Phoenix’s place to speak or act. This was Ororo’s Universe. Her kingdom, her realm. Now the Queen was healed and she was ready to continue her reign.
“The very powers of rule condemned you to extinction. Who are you to disobey the Living Tribunal, who speaks with the voice of The One Above All?”
“I am the Eternal Storm. Not a single power commands me but me.” Ororo called upon the elements and the sparse electrons in the vacuum of space to her. Lightning cracked around her and spacetime began to warp.
“Coward! Running to the Phoenix instead of accepting your fate, as I have accepted mine since that hell bird first blinded me with sickening existence!”
The fool should not have said that...
Jean’s body became the very flame that surrounded her. The Phoenix Raptor began to take shape as Jean blended into it, taking some terrible hybrid form where Jean’s hands became talons and the Raptor’s head sprouted from the fires above Jean’s own. She kept growing and burning until she towered over even Oblivion. Galaxies trillions of light years away would see a new star in their skies.
The Eternal Storm felt the space around the Phoenix burn, blister and heal, Ororo did everything to hide her excitement as heat emenated within her. The serpent reered away, coiling his body to shield his eyes from from the cosmic horror Ororo considered to be her best friend.
Perhaps now she's more to me than that, Ororo thought, watching her soul tie ascend in her defense. Oblivion has reason to fear her as much as I have reason to love her. She's beautiful.
“Speak not of me, Oblivion.” Jean’s voice was a thousand thousand supernovas exploding. The judgement day and the salvation that came after. “It is you who will not accept their fate. That you are not just the nothing, you are nothing. Neither you////The //Tri////bunal//// have the right to snuff out a universe before her time. The Tribunal may speak with the One Above All’s voice, but I am His hands. You////Tribunal//// will not undo His///my work. Remember that, Obli///vion, or I will bring forth a million more uni///verses///Eter////nities//// should you need to be remin///ded. You will be but a speck in the vastness of exist///ence,” The Phoenix’s two heads turned back to Ororo. “I’ll see you soon, Eternity///’Ro.”
Ororo nodded and the Phoenix imploded to an elsewhere that was not within this universe, perhaps back to the White Hot Room. Ororo would have felt her had she simply traversed within her Universe. She smiled. Jean respected the boundary of her realm as she had the boundaries of her mind. Even with Jean gone, there was an echo, or perhaps a presence of that lingered within the Eternal Storm.
The Spirit of Creation, of Eterntiy.
The Phoenix had done her part. The rest was up to the Eternal Storm.
“You have no right to be here.” The Eternal Storm turned her attention back to Oblivion.
“I have all the right!” he hissed. “I was here long before you and will be here long after you.”
“No. This is my realm. This is my body. You will be purged!”
Oblivion coiled back before whipping towards her, fangs bared. The Eternal Storm reached out into herself, the Universe, and summoned the cosmic lightning, the cosmic energies of the universe. Spacetime bent, warped and cracked around her. With a gesture, she threw her hands forward and released the power outward, which manifested as spears of pure cosmos. Light bent around them as singularities formed and unformed, releasing power unparalleled since the Big Bang. It collided with Oblivion head first, ripping into the part of him that existed here on this plane.
He screamed as his physical form began to become unmade, yet he clung with comporal claws to stay in this reality.
“You will not banish me, witch!” he swore at her. Around him reality dissolved like it did before as he tried to reclaim territory.
“You have no power here, Oblivion!” She was relentless in her attacks, generating temporal storms that had kept him stunned in place. “You will be exorcised!”
The Eternal Storm, again, channeled the Universe through her. This time she focused on the space around Oblivion.
“You will not get away with this. There will be a retrial.” His screams became panicked as he felt spacetime churn around him as the singularity began to form. “I demand it! I know you can hear me Tribunal! Give me my justice!”
There was no reply from the Living Tribunal.
The Eternal Storm smiled.
“You have your answer. Begone, serpent.”
The Eternal Storm opened the singularity, tearing a hole in the Universe, in herself, and into the Void. Oblivion screamed the entire time, clinging to the reality he did not belong in. But this was never his place, never his home. There was only so much power he could exert. Once his form was gone, she closed the fissure and expanded herself to fill in the gap.
No longer would Ororo, The Eternal Storm, play the game of thrones with Oblivion. This was her realm, her kingdom. Here, her word was final. Not the Tribunal’s, her’s . No one would not take it from her. This was the will of the Universe. This was the will of the Eternal Storm.