Ruby

X-Men: Ascendancy

Jean let him go with a quick kiss to the side of his fuzzy cheek and chuckled as she turned back towards her room. Scott was still at the Treehouse; Jean had begun slipping through the Krakoan gate before what was typically dinner time. Schedules were hectic as ever, Logan and X-Force, she and the X-Men, and everyone else in the house with various endeavors: Rachel was off with the Red Queen's Marauders, the young Cable was either trying at whichever Cuckoo girl was nearest or doing something stupid and dangerous (but doing it well), while Scott's brothers...kept busy. Vulcan was a powerhouse, with no memory of his mad ascent to the Shi'ar. Havok was a different kind of situation.

And then there was the wild one: "Jamie!"

The blur was a child, dark-haired and sharp-featured, dressed in blue shorts and yellow tee, and orange shoes with the lights that blinked in the sole of the shoe. Thankfully the Treehouse in Manhattan got Amazon Prime deliveries. Enough that Jean knew their regular Amazon driver by name; and Gus was a very nice grouch of a man. Jean tried to stay firm, but laughter was infectious, her eyes a brighter kind of green when she laughed and looked back at Logan. "Your child. Yours. My baby, your child. Think he's excited to spend the day doing 'Wolverine' things around the island with Daddy? Can't tell." A long yawn caught her by surprise as her body leaned back into his, her eyes catching the horizon.

And the sun. "Why is the sun so bri--"

ENOUGH!

It all vaporized, the energy of it so sudden and absolute that even in cosmic terms there was nothing left. Just Logan, an infinite white expanse, and...the bird. A semi-sentient construct of flame and the omniverse. For once it met someone in an unusual state; though it need not it gently flapped wings of flame as it hovered there before the man, no bigger than a large crow. Its eyes were flame that flickered and flared, but the unmistakable feeling was present: there was something very much alive in those eyes. Something was definitely home. It had the voice of a collective, a harmony that peaked mid-speech but frayed towards the end, allowing more layers of an endless number and types of voices.

"She is happy. We are one. Life thrives across infinity, death consumes all that it must and none more. She is present at all. We cannot be, no others have ever been. The White Crown must stay. She is happy. We are one. Would you deny this? Would you see infinity a darker place?"

The claws came, and the Phoenix Force echoed itself: "She is happy." When Logan reached out, the very tip of his bladed claw went lightless black, and everything else followed as James 'Logan' Howlett began to die, and resurrect, and die so many times that time itself would become just another star in the lightless expanse to what remained of his mind. Memories would be sporadic, and more intense than anything ever induced by any of the countless narcotics that he had turned to over the years. A circle of glowing and flaring energy, surrounded by the haze and greed of black nothingness. In the middle? The real secret, but his mind had bent upon itself again, as he dies and lives again, die and live again, the same moments, the same bird.

Shink.

The claws were gone, the never-ending bright white returned, and the bird stared the same.

"We have summoned you. Go."

Flame feather tips began to melt like molten metal, the liquid fire that spilled just before his feet and slowly filled a line before him, before turning upwards in a steep curve, meeting at the top with another straight line across, marrying the two sides at the perfect center. The golden doorknob appeared, the door to the White Hot Room now waiting for him.

X-Men: Ascendancy

"Who is he talking to?"

The very moment the young blonde woman's eyes blinked shut, and her telepathic mind reached out of her body, the screaming was instantaneous. It took Bobby Drake and the human career spook to keep her body from lashing out violently, to keep her from hurting herself or others. In the end a well placed size 6 leather clad high-heeled boot sent the human off his feet, and her screaming became pitiful, pained, whimpering. "It's too much, it's too much, it's just too much, it's..." Her lips continued moving as her voice drifted too low, too soft, for the audible.

Theodore had finally felt enough was enough. If mutants and their powers would struggle, he would simply take the charge. He stood, he thought about his wife and his kids, and took the three steps to close the distance between where he had been next to the collapsed young woman, and the seemingly entranced, insane, mutant codenamed Wolverine. He tried to call out, but no indication the man even knew they were still there inspired Teddy's hand to come up to the entranced mutant's shoulder. The very second Theodore Bailey touched the man, his body became glowing hot ash upon the grass where once he stood, and nothing more.

Bobby Drake looked up just in time to see the light, his lips spreading in a small smile the moment the light came, and the white field around what had been the X-Mansion and its grounds suddenly grew to cover the security perimeter and field operations surrounding it, no one and nothing remaining, ash slowly drifting from the grey sky above like first snow of the season.

"Logan," she spoke, sadly, "you killed me."

He found himself in a void of black nothingness, until his body swayed until sound began to bleed through...the high-pitched mechanical whine of a supersonic turbo-prop engine powering back and powering on. The almost overwhelming glow from the lights of the controls, the techno-cavernous closeness of the metallic interior of the old X-Men's Blackbird. Most were seated as the craft landed, but while he was usually the first to get out of a seat at the end of a flight and crowd the door to get off, to escape the close quarters, this time he wasn't alone.

This time, the new X-Men returned from Krakoa with the old X-Men. And for the first time, Logan found himself standing next to Jean Grey, an older teenager, and original X-Man, dressed in the green dress, tall boots, and yellow mask of the Marvel Girl. "Thank you, Wolverine." Her words were sluggish, her voice the very sound of exhaustion, her body deflated in sleepiness. Krakoa had ended up feeding off the X-Men telepathically, and that had been hardest of all on the telepath of the team. That Xavier had assembled a new team of X-Men, that they had risked their lives and saved the original team...Jean was just thankful. She was always the first of the original team to the door during landing, and it made her smile when she got to the door and found she wasn't the first one there, anymore. She thanked him, she smiled a sleepy smile at him, and touched his arm as the hydraulics of the Blackbird lowered the ramp, and opened the rear hatch, allowing her to slip out first and go embrace her mentor and friend waiting for them.

Jean never did catch the look Xavier gave the shadow at the rear exit as Jean came down the ramp, at the way Xavier had looked at Logan in that moment. Not the first time she lived it, anyway.

X-Men: Ascendancy

"Marvel Girl?"

The Doctor's dark brows perked, some mixture of amusement and bemusement at the mention of the name, "Recently she had gone by other names."

"This is about the Phoenix?" Captain Rogers' square jaw and blue eyes were serious in ways they weren't just heartbeats before Strange finished.

"With Jean Grey," Strange sighed, "it's always about the Phoenix...or rather with the Phoenix, it's always about Jean Grey."

"There are other hosts of the Phoenix, Doc."

Strange allowed Stark's obvious point, "Yes, and across the multiverse. Perhaps beyond. The Phoenix Force, not unlike other cosmic entities, has sentience and purpose. For whatever reasons, it believes this one version of this one human from Earth to be its most seamless, and thus most capable, host. The White Phoenix of the Crown."

Rogers and Stark shared a glance as Strange worked through the physical, and the magical locks with little more than quick motions and glowing waves. "Does it matter? Say this is her, say she's back, say she's this Crown. How close do you think the X-Men are going to let us get before it devolves into full-out violence? Is this worth that?"

The room beyond was all starlight and impenetrable darkness. Somehow, someway, their booted feet found purchase on where a floor would have been, once, before the Sorcerer Supreme and his sorcery. While they spoke, the Solar System illuminated and swirled into existence before them from a glittering swirl of smoke and dust and starlight. When it did, the brightest colors in the room were the figures near the edges of their galaxy. Large, a multitude of colors and appearance, despite the same basic design and structure that was so old, few knew its real age range.

Stark didn't sound happy to see the sight. "Celestials? Are you serious?"

"Over the last few days, I have slowly come to the suspicion that...they're curious."

"The big bald one is next, right? That's when things always get good."

Captain Rogers stared a hole through the vaunted armor of the Iron-Man, only after a long pause even bothering, "When you say good, you mean--"

"--I mean it SUCKS, Cap. Hard, big, and hairy."

Roger's blue eyes widened, ever-so-slightly, before bouncing between the two men standing around the visual representation before them. "Where's Wolverine?"

"Hey, F.R.I.D.A.Y.?"

"Stark, your A.I. is unlikely to work at these levels of the San--"

"The N.S.A. took him to New York. Or, if crappy video feeds can be believed, Krakoans took the N.S.A. and Wolverine to New York." The illuminated "eyes" of the Iron-Man armor fixated on Strange, and his head tilted to the side--just a touch of attitude to go with the stare. "I'm sorry, what about my A.I.?" It was brief, and Strange just blinked at the Iron-Man, before appearing to smile just at the corners of his mouth. Stark's head righted itself as the other question came to him, or at least, finally came to the forefront: "Richards has some experience here. Have you reached out to him?"

"He's working on an answer using science, and logic. Franklin might be helpful--"

Captain Rogers cut him off at the mention of the boy, "Doctor, Franklin is a child."

"And when you start talking about the White Phoenix of the Crown, Captain Rogers, you start at 'reality-warping.' That's the floor of its power. Do you know many such beings likely to be willing to assist?"

"Kid's de-powered. Been that way for a while."

"I was not aware."

"Turns out Reed Richards is good at protecting his family's privacy, Doc. We'll have to try the X-Men."

Rogers shifted his weight, his attention drifting to the red orb not far from the blue one representing their planet. "What are the ones on Mars?"

"Mutants, off-shoots of Apocalypse more than modern mutants, but the two sides seem to be working together," Strange's response to Rogers' confusion came even as he kept his gaze instead on Stark in his armor. Stark was moving his head, from the sun to Earth, to Mars, back to the sun, to the giant Orchis forge, the space station near the sun using the star to help power its continuous construction of an immense Sentinel program. "Does Ultron make you view the Orchis and their Sentinel program differently, Stark?"

"Mutants and humans, more and more people saying war is inevitable...because Krakoa exists, or because Orchi exists. I'm wondering, Doc, what happens when the White Karen of the Phoenix gets involved in that? Are we prepared if that goes sideways for humans? For the planet and everything on it?"

X-Men: Ascendancy

Getting down to the valley and the nearest town was no fun for Theodore. For one, he kinda slipped leaving the cabin and stepping down off its porch. Not enough for people to notice, just enough to silently smash his shin bone. Then there was the awkward silence of the Canadian, and his two operators just stared indifferently. Blessedly while it was a bumpy ride, the weight of Wolverine kept them from bouncing too much. For not being all that tall, the man sure was heavy. Exotic metals had a way of doing that, he found himself thinking as they transferred from the one vehicle to the outskirts of town, and a few different vehicles. The vehicle on the way up and down was the Canadian's, whereas they had borrowed an unmarked black car and a black SUV from the FBI's Toronto office.

Standing next to their vehicles were people he didn't recognize; two blondes, man and young woman. The man was dressed in cargo shorts and a dark blue dress shirt with top and bottom buttons were casually undone, and Theodore knew he knew the face. The young woman was well dressed, designer white dress slacks with a cashmere sweater on top. There was no time for introductions because they didn't appear to need them:

"Hey Logan. We were asked to offer a ride."

Theodore stared with some level of confusion as the man spoke in a familiar and friendly tone to the mutant Theodore had gone up a mountain to retrieve. Before Theodore could say a word, the young blonde spoke, though Theodore's mind snapped to the man's identity in that moment: the young woman sounded as cold as ice, but the man was literally cold as ice--he was the Ice-Man, Bobby Drake. "Deputy Director, we are here on behalf of the nation of Krakoa."

"Okay," was all Theodore heard himself say, as his mind was no longer a step ahead of his words, "then why aren't I hearing about this from my State Department? Are you credentialed with the United States State Department as a representative of your government? Not for nothing, but, if you want people to take you seriously you might try to follow at least one or two rules of being a sovereign state."

The young woman's eyes were crystal blue, and in that moment they smoldered like angry coals. Theodore felt pressure at the corners of his eyes, and it didn't stop until Drake spoke up, cheerily, clearly interrupting, "Yeah, things happened a little fast but! We got a Gateway." Drake moved aside and motioned behind them, to a short, square, dark skinned man that looked Aborigenese, thick white hair with a thick white beard. An old face that looked to Theodore like it had seen more than easily imagined, and said little about it. Theodore looked back up to Drake as the short man gave a silently raised palm in greeting at the site of Logan. Drake immediately knew what Theodore was missing, "Gateway makes portals. Faster than rentals and government planes?"

He could get home possibly days faster without travel time? Theodore nodded, "Yeah, of course. Why didn't you just say so?"

Logan was an unstoppable force of death, Bobby Drake was an Omega level mutant. The girl was a telepath, something he was trained to recognize. What exactly was he going to do? Tell them all to go away? The portal itself was a standard portal, as far as Theodore knew. It was bright enough to not see past it, and circular in shape. The two Krakoans went through first, while his men declined, and the Mountie seemed to wish he could. Logan walked through matter-of-factly. A portal, so what? Old news. Theodore stared, poked, and finally, with the sound of the old man chuckling, went through.

The perimeter camp outside Salem Center, New York, was National Guard metahuman response units and the FBI, though it was the S.H.I.E.L.D. vehicles at a nearby cluster of parked vehicles outsides several mobile labs that caught his eye. The Operations Center was where they were supposed to go, Drake and the young blonde just fell in line. Logan did not. In fact, even after Bobby Drake called out twice Logan didn't look to budge an inch. His body faced towards the town, eyes glazed like he could actually see a thousand miles away if he just focused hard enough. Nevermind the only thing visible was highway and old farming homesteads and trees and trees.

All Theodore remembered after calling out to Logan was the flash of light, and scream that followed.

X-Men: Ascendancy

Theodore Bailey put his hands up, palms out, surprise plain on his face. He was nervous, so he spoke fast. He wasn't trying to hide his anxiety, he wasn't trying to mask or bluff the fear of the threat Logan presented. "Whoa-whoa-whoa. If I knew you had a phone, or the number to it, do you think I really bother coming up here all this way before at least trying to call first? You hurting me would represent a serious diplomatic shitstorm between the US and Krakoa, and I'm being as honest with you as I can be."

That Logan put the phone down instead of turning it off...made the wheels in Theodore's head spin at reckless speeds. Was someone trying to mess with him? Was someone trying to mess with Logan? Was it the Shi'ar? That person was a telepath, why would they need to use a phone? By the time he realized it, Theodore had already backed up nearly five feet, far closer to the door than he was to the kitchen now. His responses did seem to fly in the face of what Theodore had been told by analysts. Mutants and the Avengers weren't on the best of terms, with Cyclops on record as stating when the Avengers and the Earth need the back-up, the mutants are there. When the roles are reversed, when 60 million mutants are slaughtered, where are the Avengers?

Then again, Theodore considered, he might be talking to one of the few mutants still more friendly than not to the Avengers, and humanity. He was told there was typically friction between Wolverine and Cyclops. "I don't know about the phone. We're in the N.S.A., if you want I can track it? Otherwise all I know is what I was telling you. Shi'ar representative comes down, demands 'dangerous criminal' Jean Grey be released to their custody. Cops say sorry, lady, Jean Grey is dead. Shi'ar representative says, 'Look again. I'll wait.' That's it. So let's be clear: I don't know your past, it's a very classified record. Even to me. I don't know much about Jean Grey, she's somehow more classified. Jubilation Lee we know basics, but much of the juicy stuff is, you guessed it, classified by S.H.I.E.L.D...did Jubilee know what's happening in New York? Do you? Is it tied to Jean Grey? I've sent as many robots and drones into this situation as I can, I'm asking you to walk into where no one as walked out of because it used to be your home, and it might be because of someone you're connected to?"

Theodore gave a tiny sigh, before forcing himself to continue, "I know it's a crappy ask. I know it's a crappy plan. I'm not S.H.I.E.L.D., or S.W.O.R.D. I'm just a former cop and lawyer that's been promoted too many times. I try to be a good man, I try to do the right thing. Washington politics wants to love Krakoa, or burn it down, but I'm telling you I'm just trying to find answers for why people are disappearing and why reality stops working safely around your old school. That's it. I'm not from your world, I don't want to be."

He liked that his biggest dilemma was whether he could make his son's baseball games on Saturday, not a world ending threat or the lines between life and death blurring. The suits and their handlers and hangers-on could have all of that, he was just a normal guy. And he liked it that way.

X-Men: Ascendancy

Theodore held his breath as the door opened, hands tense and stuffed into the pockets of his designer jacket, only relaxing when one of his operatives gave him the nod. That alone felt like a lucky break. None of them had the equipment or firepower to take the mutant out, let alone even give them an opening to escape. So much of the man's file was classified even beyond his eyes, but what was there made it very clear that trying to extract from the man in the wilderness was about as likely to work as trying to beat him in a fist fight. There was no middle ground.

He was the last one to the door, but the only one to actually go inside the cabin. The other three hung back, outside, where they vastly preferred to be. The cabin was simple, small. Theodore considered asking Logan if he built it himself, but in the end Theodore's mind just became too busy catching little details that probably meant nothing and would never be of any real importance. But he liked detective novels, and you never knew what little detail mattered. The phone was one that seemed important. Not just that it was there, though Theodore supposed no one who had ever been an Avenger would ever suddenly stop being contacted by authorities, or more likely, by friends in need.

Theodore paused as he shut the door behind him, studying Logan's body language as he put the phone up to his ear. It was a strange conversation, if it was a conversation at all. "Theodore Bailey, Deputy Director of the United States' National Security Agency. I mainly oversee field operations, except weirdest thing happened...I get a call from the F.B.I. They're afraid something too big for them is going on, after getting a call from New York State Police saying they're afraid something is too big for them."

He moved in closer, away from the door, away from the immediate chill and closer to the warmth of the kitchen. Just not too close. As easily as Theodore got comfortable in any kind of setting, strange a skill as it was, the man seated for a meal that Theodore was interrupting was a super-powered mutant that could dispatch him with the blink of an eye, and likely never see the inside of a courtroom, let alone a jail cell, for the crime. Especially now that every mutant in the world was claimed by Krakoa, and subject to Krakoan justice, not the host nation's justice. That bugged him.

"Turns out it's Xavier's old mansion and the school there. What's left of it, after the attack that closed it down, an attack you were Headmaster of the school for, if the records are accurate." His tone was somber, his voice spoken slow, respectful. Theodore was well aware 60 million mutants had died, and not just on Genosha. Wolverine had made it so most of the student body escaped. Yet another superheroic feat from a man even his own friends admitted, 'probably wasn't that good of a guy.'

"About half a mile away from the grounds in any direction. Birds fly in, they never fly out. People go in, they never come out. It's been that way for three weeks. We've determined it's not another government, it's not a Hydra, or A.I.M. Krakoa has not been told, that didn't stop a mutant from finding out and getting past the National Guard security perimeter we set up. You know them as 'Jubilee', I believe. She has yet to come out, as well. We don't know if it's a death field, if it's supernatural. Weirder a Shi'ar Empire representative arrived a few days ago near the site, demanding the release of the dangerous crimina--"

Theodore stopped talking as the phone cut through, interrupting. Theodore met eyes with the mutant, and waited. "Don't let me interrupt what you already had going on, please."

X-Men: Ascendancy

The flight had not been kind. Flights, more accurately, Theodore noted to himself. Canadian permission had been not as kind as he had expected, but apparently, the man named Logan, and nothing else, was a bit of a sore spot for the Canadian government. He'd spent hours on the phone with various analysts, and even a few civilians. Mutants had become a different kind of issue since the emergence of Krakoa. Krakoa had become not unlike Atlantis, or even Wakanda, the analysts had noted; key difference being Atlantis stayed very hidden and isolated, and Wakanda was famously isolated from the wider world community of nations.

Krakoa was geographically isolated, certainly, the closest landmass to it being the Wake Islands in the Pacific. But as a government, it was more active and available. The biggest difference seemed to Theodore to be that unlike Wakanda and Atlantis, their citizens wouldn't just appear in your backyard come puberty and become potential international incidents with a superpowered nation. After one flight in a jetstream, one flight in a bush plane, and one flight in a helicopter by way of the Royal Canadian Mounties, Theodore had the time to process the information.

Jean Grey made less sense in this, but Maria Hill thinking she was central after the Shi'ar demand meant, way he saw it, Grey was connected to New York. Wolverine was scary enough, but Jean Grey had a higher threat designator. The same one given to other beings that could reportedly end the world with a snap of their fingers. Telekinesis was bad enough, but telepathy? Her designator for telepathy was Omega. In the Jeeps on the way up into the arctic forest valley, not too far past the last remnant of civilization in a logger's camp, Theodore hoped he'd see his children again after today. That he wouldn't have his mind twisted into believing he was a dog, barking at the moon, for the rest of his days.

Just getting to the cabin took parking the Jeeps and hiking much of the rest of the way. In the past day, two more people had slipped past the New York National Guard security perimeter. The number of people who were lost past the boundry was now up to sixteen. Time was waning. The uniformed mountie led the way, two N.S.A. operators flanked him on either side of the cabin door, while Theodore found himself distracted by the smell of cooking. It was later than they thought it would be when they arrived, clearly catching the mutant at a meal. And a call, judging by the sound of a ringing phone coming from the cabin interior. The exterior sound was nothing but wind and the random cracks and creaks and rustle of a forest nearby.

The firm, brief, knock of the uniformed Mountie at the door of the cabin snapped Theodore out of it. "Mr. Logan, this is Officer Longmire of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, I have with me agents of the U.S. government who would very much like a word with you regarding an important situation."

Theodore thought the Mountie hid it very well: the terror and fear of knocking on that door, knowing how powerless any of them were should this mutant rampage, or simply take violent exception to their presence. Theodore had seen metahumans 'teach' officers of the law lessons before. Official funerals were always the worst ways to say goodbye to old colleagues. The sound was nothing; no immediate reply. The smell of dinner seemed to get stronger, but the only noise was that of wind and forest around.

Until that phone started ringing again.

Was someone trying to warn him?

After a few minutes, the Mountie looked back at Theodore. He shrugged at the man, and made the knocking motion. After a long stare, the Mountie slowly turned around, and gathered his courage to knock again.

X-Men: Ascendancy

"We won't get far, flying circles inside a jar..."

Having survived Civil Wars, World War Hulk, Secret Invasion, the near extinction of mutants, the destruction of everywhere they have called home in the past, and prolonged conflict with S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers what's left of the world's mutant population have found a new home on the island of Krakoa under the guidance of a murdered and resurrected Charles Xavier, Magneto, and every major leader in the remaining mutant population with few exceptions.

Human fear and anger are at an all-time high, while mutant fear and anger are at an all-time high.

Former X-Men and Former Avenger Wolverine does not seem to care, passing his time brooding and drinking and wandering the Canadian arctic forests and the sparse civilization that eeks out a living where the civilized world meets wilderness.

The Shi'ar Empire has sent Xandra, future Empress, to Earth to deliver demand for the release of intergalactic criminal Jean Grey into the custody of the Shi'ar Empire. Unfortunately, the young and inexperienced Xandra made this demand to a New York State Trooper and her partner. The two officers, by way of a Google search, inform Xandra that Jean Grey is dead.

Xandra informs the officers, and Google, to "look again."

Set after Hickman's Avengers and Fantastic Four titles, and more or less right after Swords of X.

X-Men: Ascendancy

"No, no sir. Let us be exceedinly clear in this fact: S.W.O.R.D. is a sister agency, an equal."

Theodore had never liked lawyers, however many he knew, he had in his family, or how helpful they could be. His only visible reaction was a pause in the motion of silently fidgeting the pen in his left hand, and a long stare at the young woman apparently having her very own 'you go girl' moment at his expense. Not that it mattered to him, anyway, but he was too polite to point that out in the moment. "...right. Okay. So I can talk to S.W.O.R.D., but not to S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

The young lawyer with the Inspector General's Office pursed her lips, and shrugged. "Depends."

The laughter that sounded from his mouth was anything but amused in that moment. Yes, he hated lawyers, the fact made him drop his pen from his hand and run fingers from both his hands through his dark brown hair that was a good three weeks overdue for a cut. The stress of constantly changing rules and landscapes. "On what, Eileen? Damn, I'm not trying to step into this. I'm not trying to use this for any inter-agency agendas. I want no stress-tests. Tell me who to pass it to, and I'll happily dump it on their ass."

Eileen looked uncomfortable. "Without knowing more, and I can't know more, all I can do is tell you where to go. After the alien Skrull compromise of S.H.I.E.L.D., Osborne turned it all into H.A.M.M.E.R. Turning it back into S.H.I.E.L.D. took time, less time with Director Hill, but during restructuring Congress did the rare bi-partisan thing and severed S.W.O.R.D. from S.H.I.E.L.D. because it never had those security issues. Circling back to the original question--"

"--yeah that'd be nice," Theodore perked higher in his cozy office chair.

"--no, Maria Hill, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. has no legal authority or basis to interject on a matter between your office, N.S.A. Deputy Director, and anyone in S.W.O.R.D. Maria Hill would, it is reasonably supposed, have security clearance levels for discussion, though 'need to know' criteria issues would clearly exist." The counsel from the Inspector General's Office paused, before throwing in: "However, you can't tell N.A.S.A."

Theodore blinked, his tone deeping with the intrigue in the random legal fact he couldn't tell N.A.S.A. about an extra-solar issue. "I can't tell N.A.S.A.? Not that I was considering it, but why the hell not?"

"N.A.S.A. has a higher approval rating than any intellience or defense oriented agency. The desire is to keep them out of any potential scandal or conflict."

"The Switzerland of the US Intelligence-Defense industry? Fair enough." A sigh cascaded through him; from feet to face, the weight of it all finally disagreeing with his body in ways few things in his career had. "You have to leave now, counsel, I have a secure call to make and I can't wait."

The call went about as feared. Abigail Brand was the Director of S.W.O.R.D. She wasn't all human, was Theodore's initial thought as he stared at her image on the projected 8k screen on the empty office wall, a signal encrypted between his office in the Pentagon and the space station S.W.O.R.D. head-quarted itself out of. Mutant, maybe? Alien?" A strange thought, trusting the safety of Americans when it came to extraterrestrial threats to an alien. Like when their agencies turned to Muslim members of their agencies post-9/11. Or to S.H.I.E.L.D. after New York City. Or to H.A.M.M.E.R. after Stamford, Connecticut.

He couldn't help but wonder just where Krakoa, Xavier, and Lensherr would drive them. Something he liked to ignore as much as he ignored the presence of dormant super-volancos or rogue asteroids that could, theorhetically at least, smash into them any day and kill them all assuming the capes couldn't do enough to stop it. Superheroes were real enough, but none of them were Superman of the comic books. He had met a few during his career, shaken hands with Steve Rogers a few times. There were good ones. Rare as it seemed to be.

Even someone like Charles Xavier had gone from 'living together in peace' to 'stay in your corner, we'll stay in ours, no problems.' Lensherr could wear all the white and silver he wanted, it wouldn't make Theodore feel any better about the man. Brand proved unhelpful, pointing him to Maria Hill and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Special Threat Assessment for Known Extranormalities division regarding New York. It made him laugh, because of course there was another division of S.H.I.E.L.D. And of course it had a similarly ridiculous name. Theodore was starting to feel inadequate with short and simple National Security Agency. It's like they WANT people knowing what they do.

As for the angry and super-powered representative of the Shi'ar Empire? That, much to his great relief, Brand had agreed to deal with. She also tossed him a name of someone who might work with them, if they got desperate. He didn't recognize the name, and plugging it into the N.S.A. classified database got him...God dammit. It was the height of irritation that drove him to the phone on his desk. It took a call to their dispatch, who would reach out to their dispatch, who would authenticate and relay.

It took twenty minutes to go through. They were clearly in the middle of some fire fight, although from the sound of it maybe lasers were being fired as well? Who-the-fuck knew. Theodore felt like a child envious of the adults at the adult table during Thanksgiving. He had wanted to avoid this for many reasons; the sheer pain of dealing with S.H.I.E.L.D. as a 'regular' agency of the government had to be what cops felt like when they dealt with superheroes on the streets. Thanks. We exist, too, and yeah, we have a job to do too. Oh. Thanks. We'll just...clean it all up. Cool.

"Who?"

Theodore wasn't offended. Maria Hill was, well, Maria Hill. He had started in the F.B.I., been plucked by the C.I.A. for field work and analyst duties before accepting Operations Chief for a joint C.I.A./N.S.A. terrorism task force. Pivoting from that to computer crimes, and especially large ransom ware cases, had given him bonafides in the N.S.A. world. Now he was having to cold call a woman who had probably seen more extinction events narrowly avoided in her life than amount of times he had fired his sidearm in real action.

"Theodore Bailey, Deputy Director at the N.S.A. for--"

"--Teddy Bailey? Heard about you. Aliens getting under your skin, Deputy Director?"

She didn't seem at all phased by the shootout she was in, and he spent too much of his attention trying to figure out what her sidearm was. Didn't look like something he had seen. "Abigail Brand was very helpful on that front, Director Hill. Nevermind I had no idea what they were talking about, or that you already knew about it."

He could, literally, hear the amusement in her voice as she returned fire. "We are S.H.I.E.L.D., Deputy Director."

Argh... His eyes didn't roll, despite the desire. "Director Brand offered a name that might agree to help. Turns out she recommended Wolverine. S.H.I.E.L.D. restricts access to that file, Director...why do I feel like everyone knows something I don't, Director Hill?"

He watched her on the 8k projection, slide down into cover and stare into the camera. "What exactly did the Shi'ar representative say?"

"You'll have to officially request the transcript, Director...but the gist of it was something about a flaming bird and a very large intense grievance and not in over four hundred years, but not our years, their years and...New York. I know New York's significance."

"Teddy Bailey, get every scrap of information on Jean Grey you can get, and go prepared to meet Wolverine. You're the N.S.A., you can find him. Then hope all you need is one Avenger, and not all of them. If I don't hear from you in...twenty-four hours I'll find you."

Theodore didn't want to betray his poker face. So instead of raising a single eyebrow in curiosity, he kept it all closer to the vest. "Your concern is appreciated, Director."

"This isn't concern."

"Really? I just had legal counsel telling me S.H.I.E.L.D. did not, could not, take such stances any longer."

"Twenty-four hours. Enjoy backwoods Canada this time of year, Deputy Director."

Cyberpunk 2077: The Dragon Rises

I shall be in, choomba.