AvX (Spoilers in comments, possibly)

[kingofallmutants]

I know this wasn't what you were hoping for. Believe me, it isn't what I was hoping for. I kept praying that things wouldn't go from bad to worse, but they somehow continued to find a way to hit an all new low. I don't think they can get any lower than this, but there's still one more issue left to screw things up even more.

Either way, after this, its going to be one hell of an uphill climb for me.

Comments

[myownbestfriend]

I can't claim to be thrilled, either.

[kingofallmutants]

Yeah...

I'm sorry about what happened.

[myownbestfriend]

It...wasn't entirely your fault. The Phoenix burns everything it touches.

[At least a couple of her Good Person lessons seem to be sticking.

Which doesn't mean she's not mad.]

[kingofallmutants]

[She has every right to be mad.]

So does Bendis

Perhaps. But it still leaves me with a huge mess to clean up.

[myownbestfriend]

[Scott, I think we should see other people.]

You're assuming any of us are going to live long enough to worry about cleanup.

[Bendis is on two of my three favorite titles after this mess is over, sob.]

[kingofallmutants]

[According to the latest issue of Uncanny, you've already gotten a head start on that.]

Death would be too easy.

[myownbestfriend]

[I offered to share, gosh.]

Oh, aren't you charming today. You realize that sounds like a threat?

[kingofallmutants]

[I'm not interested in knowing what Namor's skin feels like.]

Considering what happened, I think I'm entitled to be a little macabre.

[myownbestfriend]

[Yet you were basically okay with the human blood marinade. Excellent priorities, darling.]

You're the Phoenix. You get to be whatever your little heart desires.

God help the rest of us.

[kingofallmutants]

[If that were true, then...]

Then maybe I still get to be a hero.

[myownbestfriend]

[Stop making her feel for you. She's trying to stay mad at you.]

If you can control it. But you're angry. We five were so terribly angry. That's all the Phoenix needs to burn you up.

[idiggiantrobots]

Yeah, well what do you expect when your guys decide to be complete jerks?

[Yeah, he's still mad at Emma]

[kingofallmutants]

Being complete jerks wasn't just limited to my guys.

[idiggiantrobots]

Are you seriously using that as an excuse?

[kingofallmutants]

No, I'm merely pointing out facts, though I hear that those never really don't matter to you.

[idiggiantrobots]

You want facts? Frost tried to destroy my friend. If it hadn't been for Quicksilver...

[kingofallmutants]

[Yeah, Scott has no sympathy. Go cry to Wolverine.]

You mean the Sentinel of yours that's specifically designed to hunt down and kill mutants, for no other reason that they are mutants? Which, despite your tinkering with it, is still programmed to kill mutants?

The machine that doesn't stay with you because it likes you (it doesn't), or cares about you (it doesn't) or wants to (it doesn't), but because you added a few lines of shell coding over its original programming to keep it tethered to you?

Or did you manage to become friends with an actual person?

[idiggiantrobots]

He switched the priorities his own directives to protect me. I think that's enough to make a case for a forming sentience.

Like I told Laura, most've those complaints apply to her, and you let her on your flying island. (And, even better, used her as an attack dog).

And, funnily enough, I do have actual, human friends. So you can stop making baseless accusations about my social life, thanks.

[kingofallmutants]

Except Laura isn't a machine that can be written over anytime someone else wants it. She has her own wants, needs, and desires. She worked for me because of her own choice, and she left also by her own free will. She's her own person, even if she's not sure who she is or wants to be.

Even Danger, though she is a machine, still has her own free will.

Your Sentinel doesn't have any of that going for it. Be grateful Emma only dismantled it, rather than melt it down to scrap metal like she did the rest of the sentinel fleet.

[idiggiantrobots]

And a Sentinel can't develop free will? Cuz' like I said, he did swap the priority of his directives.

And even if it wasn't sentient, that still doesn't excuse it. She didn't just try to destroy him, she drew it out as long as possible, with no concern for what it was doing to me to have to see that.

[messiahed]

It's not over yet. [ trying to be an optimist here. ]

[kingofallmutants]

That's what I'm afraid of.

[messiahed]

We'll survive. We're mutants. It's what we do.

[kingofallmutants]

Surviving is what we've been doing, and barely at that, ever since M-Day. That's not enough.

[nobodysbishie]

[Yes, Bishop hates your blogname enough to want to shoot you in the face for it. How fucking pretentious can you get, Slim?

But even if he has to set that aside, he still wants to blame Bendis for being an idiot have his say.] All new low, huh? Cause from where I'm standing, there might as well be a club with its own jackets.

[kingofallmutants]

[You'd be surprised, Bishie.]

What about a secret handshake?

[canucklehead]

[WELP. 'Hate to say I told you so' hardly seems sufficient right now, but he's feeling petty so...]

I told you so.

[kingofallmutants]

...uh huh.

And out of curiosity, what's your big plan to put a stop to the Phoenix?

[canucklehead]

Because you've been so quick to give a damn about what anyone else's had to say lately.

[kingofallmutants]

[Try harder, Logan.]

Let me guess, its to get the Phoenix out of me and into Hope.

[canucklehead]

We had options, Slim. We had Rachel. We had Wanda. We had Emma and Betsy and Doc Strange and Thor and we had Chuck.

Do the freaking math. We could've contained it.

You want to hear it? Fine. Some poor kid's probably gonna be stuck holding the grenade because all the swinging dicks around her were more interested in being right than doing their jobs.

Make things right, Scott. Put your goddamn martyr complex down and make things right or one of us is gonna have to die too. Wouldn't bet in my favour, personally, but I was never a good gambler anyway.

[kingofallmutants]

I did do the math!

The Phoenix Force isn't Thanos, or Apocalypse, or some problem that can be solved by punching it repeatedly. Its not something that can be stopped or contained or fought or broken. It's a force of nature. You can't stop it anymore than you can stop the Earth from spinning.

The Phoenix could've blown up the earth a thousand times over if it wanted to. God knows its been here enough times to do that if it felt like it. It hasn't. Its here for a reason. It keeps coming back to us for a reason. It wants Hope for a reason. When Stack tried to blow it up like a god-dammed idiot, it chose the X-men as hosts, not the Avengers, for a reason.

There's something it needs to do, but it keeps getting lost in petty human struggles. You want to keep fighting? Fine. But what has that gotten anyone so far?

It got the Phoenix into five people who never should have had it in the first place, it got the nation of Wakanda flooded, it got K'un-Lun flattened, it got Charles killed, and it leaves me out of control as the Dark Phoenix.

[Slow, sardonic applause] Great job Avenging things so far.

You want to save the earth? Stop playing hero, or pretending to be a school teacher, and start being an X-Man again. Its the only chance any of us have left.

[canucklehead]

Damn straight it's a force of nature. And you still think you can control it! Worse, you think it's ok that you can get a kid to control it for you. What's next, huh? We gonna invite Galactus over for a tea party with Franklin Richards?

The Phoenix Force ain't ever done anything for Mutantkind, bub. It ain't our savior, it ain't our future. Right now it's doing a bang up job of making us look like maniacs.

Naw, I'm done with sides. I built the school because I was done with sides. Sides just got a good man killed. It's gonna kill you too, and goddamn if you ain't giving me plenty of reasons but I don't want that yet.

Maybe I'll only ever get to pretend to be a school teacher, but it sure as hell beats pretending to be a prophet and a king on your little hunk of rock. It beats us pretending like you even know what being an X-Man means anymore, Scott. Which of us d'you think Jeanie'd be more ashamed of if she could see us now, huh?

[kingofallmutants]

If you could stop being a passive-aggressive little shit for five minutes-- or just finally get over the fact that Jean always has and always will love me more than she ever could you --you'd realize that I'm trying to help you.

Yell and be petty later. Right now, I need you to use your brain for once.

What happens next isn't up to me, because I never planned on having the Phoenix. I was never supposed to have it, and I damn sure never wanted it! And I wouldn't be stuck with it if you hadn't brought the Avengers into the middle of it.

The Force was coming for Hope. And I wouldn't wish that on her. But there were only two options: There's your way, I shove her in a hole, and tell her to cover her ears and go "lalalalala" while the Phoenix tears up the rest of us on its path to her. Or I could do everything I could to prepare her, then stand with her, and do all I can to guide her through this while we figure out what the hell the Phoenix wanted her for to begin with.

All of that is moot now, though. She got shoved out of the way, I got stuck with it now. I'm trying to control it with every ounce of repression I've got, but its beyond me. I was barely holding on when I had a fifth of the power, now I'm lost somewhere underneath it all. The only advantage you have is the fact that I'm still on a mission, only now there's no limits on who or what I'll sacrifice for it.

The Avengers only stop things from getting worse, the X-Men fight to make the world better. You can yell "Phoenix am bad" at me until you're blue in the face, that's not going to help a damn thing. If you want to see a tomorrow, don't try to stop me, convince me that the next step forward is letting go of this damn thing, and we might all have a shot of making it to tomorrow.

[canucklehead]

[grumbles. He could easily wade back into Jeanie territory here. Logan has no illusions about what she thought of him, but that doesn't mean Scott gets to talk like he's got any claim to her anymore.

But this isn't about that, even if it is exactly how they've always been.]

A whole heap of good everybody gathering 'round and holding hands for a better world is gonna do against the Dark Phoenix now, Slim. We're at getting worse already and every X-Man in the world that don't got a Phoenix in them can see it.

If you ain't gonna listen to Chuck - or Mags, even Rogers - what makes you so sure you're gonna listen to me?

[kingofallmutants]

Because none of them have been in the trenches we me every day since M-Day. You were.

[canucklehead]

Shit, Scott. [He never should have left Utopia.] You didn't listen to me on a whole lot of those days either.

[kingofallmutants]

You'd be surprised.

[He wishes Logan had stayed. But there was this schism between them.]

[canucklehead]

[That was the last time he ever let Cyke top...]

Yeah, guess I would.

Sorry ta pop up in de middle this just had to be said

[remy_le_beau]

[Mumbling to the gambler comment]

Ain't da the truth...

remy get out they are having a moment :|

[canucklehead]

Can it, cajun. I know about those spare aces you got stashed up your sleeve.

Its a shame

[remy_le_beau]

Ya didn't seem to be keepin it ta-gether mon ami non of ya'll phoenix force did. In fact my mun had been surportin de Avengers all dis time an' I don't blame him. Ya saw what dat crazy voodoo bird did ta Jean an' now ya let it happen to you.

[doctor_stephen_strange]

I can't help but feel that I could have stopped more of this if I was still sorcerer supreme.

You have made more problems than you have solved though this whole ordeal. You will learn the hard way just as I did that such power has powerful consequences.