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Chapter 90 – The Phoenix Rises
🕑 Added 2025-05-15 14:03:47 +0000 UTCThe Daily Bugle livestream had gone dark for the moment, but its presence loomed like a sledgehammer in the digital age. In an era of polished press releases, algorithm-chasing thumbnails, and neutered media narratives, J. Jonah Jameson had become… relevant again. His blunt, often furious rants—once relegated to the tabloids—were now trending. Half a million subscribers in under two months. The channel had cracked YouTube’s Top 100.
And Jameson. Still angry. Still unsatisfied. “Trash,” he grumbled, hurling a freshly cut video onto the table. The title card read: "Jack Hou – Hero or Havoc?"
His editor, a jittery man with two thermoses of coffee and a forehead full of sweat, flinched. “Sir, I think it’s solid—really strong content. We've got one video highlighting Jack’s actions in building the utopia ‘Golden Peach’ and another raising ethical questions about that peach tree black mail attack. The metrics show both sides are watching—if we feed both narratives, we trick the algorithm into pushing us even further—”
SLAM. The table groaned under the weight of Jameson's palm. His mic toppled over with a loud clang. “You dumb fuck,” Jameson snarled, his voice a firestorm. “Tarnishing the essence of journalism.” He stood now, arms tense, jaw grinding. “If someone says it's raining and another says it's dry, it's not your fucking job to quote them both. Your job is to look out the fucking window and find out which is true! Now get out of my office before I use your head as a paperweight!”
The editor scuttled away, mumbling something about data analytics and viewership drop-off curves.
Jameson exhaled slowly, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He looked at the wall of monitors surrounding his desk—some tracking social media storms, others streaming international news, and one tuned to BBC live feed. He muttered to himself. “Should I fly to London? Get in front of that damn tree Jack planted at Westminster? No… it’s already a goddamn circus.”
Then—BANG. The door burst open. His assistant sprinted while holding a tablet. “Sir! Breaking news! Possible mutant attack—Upper Manhattan! Unconfirmed reports say it's tied with Jack Hou.”
Jameson shot upright. “Sweet mother of Roosevelt’s ghost—what?”
“It’s all over Twitter feeds. There's some sort of battle near Westchester County. There’s a rumor that a sudden barrier was erected. People say it’s Jean Grey. Some say it’s Jack Hou. Others—”
Jameson didn’t let her finish. He was already grabbing his coat and fixing his tie. “Screw London. THIS is the story. THIS is the broadcast.”
The assistant blinked. “You mean… we’re going to cover it?”
“No, sweetheart. We’re going to own it.”
“Get the van, get the drones, get Robbie—hell, get the interns if we have to. This one’s going out LIVE.”
“Live, sir?”
“LIVE.” Jameson shouted as he kicked the studio door open. “Fuck it. We’re doing it LIVE!”
…
The sky darkened, an unnatural gloom swallowing the pale light of morning. A cosmic shudder pulsed across the land—the kind of pressure that made birds scatter, dogs whimper, and metal groan in its fittings.
From the shattered roof of the X-Mansion, the figure that wore Jean Grey’s form stood aloft. Cracks spiderwebbed across her flaming silhouette like glass over fire. The Phoenix Force pulsed through her—furious, raw, and ancient. The world tilted under its gaze.
But below, the storm had already answered. “Oh? Trying to dim the sun to scare us?” The voice echoed not from one, but from dozens. All at once, hundreds of Jack Hou clones stood shoulder to shoulder—on tree branches, on the roof’s broken edges, hovering midair atop clouds and wind, staffs in hand, eyes glowing gold. To the Phoenix, it was like a forest of predators staring down a lone beast.
The main Jack stood at the front of them all, one hand gripping the Ruyi Jingu Bang now sized like a javelin. His hair flowed freely in the storm wind, eyes wild with mirth and defiance. “GO!” he barked. And chaos answered.
A cyclone bloomed from above as peach blossoms spun into a spiraling storm. Dozens of Jacks twirled through the winds, using the petals as both cover and conduit, launching surprise attacks with growing staffs—a blur of bludgeoning strikes, diversions, and taunts.
The Phoenix snarled. Her form still wore Jean’s face, but now it was cracking—her skin fracturing into veins of gold fire with every psychic outburst. CRACK—CRASH!
She lashed out with a wave of pure telekinetic force, hurling Jacks into each other like swatted flies. A group of clones slammed into the lawn, then popped into hair strands before even hitting the ground. But the tide didn’t stop. BOOM!
One clone got through. The Ruyi Jingu Bang caught the Phoenix square in the jaw with the force of a meteor strike. A shockwave rippled outward, blowing the mansion’s windows into a glittering storm of glass. “Kekekekekekekeke!”
The struck clone erupted into laughter as he burst into strands—laughing even in death, as if the idea of dying was a cosmic joke only monkeys understood. Above, the Phoenix’s wings exploded with heat. She shrieked—“ENOUGH!”
She opened her palms and cast out a solar flare. The sky caught fire. Clouds turned molten, wind boiled, and the very atmosphere ruptured in a spiraling sunburst that seared the air.
A hundred Jack Hou clones vaporized at once—disintegrating into strands of black hair that spiraled back toward the main body. But still… The laughter echoed. And through the haze, from atop a collapsing gust of scorched air, Jack surfed the molten wind on his golden staff, the ash haloing his figure like a crown.
He grinned. “Ohhh my—look at you,” Jack called out, voice amplified across the mansion ruins. “The big cosmic entity, throwing a tantrum over some monkeys with sticks. You think your daddy would be proud of you, fire-chicken?”
The Phoenix screamed—voice a thousandfold. “Shut up! You are beneath me! How dare you insult me! I am eternal!”
Jack twirled the staff with one hand, grinning through the smoke. “Beneath you? Oh no, birdie. I’m not beneath. I’m a man of the people… Not above—equal. Equal to the Heavens.”
Behind him, his clones multiplied again—splitting strands of hair into even more Jacks, each one ready to fight, to mock, to die laughing. “Kekekekekekekekekeke—”
The Phoenix hovered, seething, surrounded by fire. The war of wills had only begun. The sky cracked with heat. Avatar of cosmic judgment, unleashed her wrath like a wounded storm. And yet—“Now!” Jack Hou shouted. “Unleash everything!”
Dozens of Jack clones responded. They launched into action with deadly coordination—each clone a blur of robes and wild laughter. The storm above them churned peach blossom petals like a divine hurricane. But this time, it wasn’t for show. The petals cut sideways through the air—razor-thin, whirling in a storm-shaped cage, trying to contain the flaming fury of the Phoenix. From the flanks, three clones hurled their staffs with unnatural precision. CRACK!
One Ruyi Jingu Bang slammed into the Phoenix’s shoulder, cracking the shell of Jean’s flaming form. She hissed in rage, winging around with a retaliatory flare that incinerated two clones mid-air. But she didn’t expect the weight. “Now, Ruyi,” Jack whispered with a grin. “Show them your true weight.”
From above, a golden comet plummeted. The real Ruyi Jingu Bang, gleaming with a faint red haze, shimmered into its true form—a mountain forged into a staff. It moved like judgment itself. The Phoenix didn’t have time to react. BOOOOOOM!!!
The staff crushed her into the lawn, carving a crater through the earth. The mansion trembled. Dust and flame blasted outward. Several of Jack’s clones staggered from the shockwave but kept fighting.
The Phoenix screamed, not in pain—but in frustration. She clawed up from the crater, trailing veins of molten gold, cracks spiderwebbing her form. Her telekinetic pulse hurled four clones into the trees, vaporizing them on contact.
Above, Jack leapt again. “Kekekekeke! What now, birdie? Running out of solar tantrums?”
The Phoenix snarled, “If only… I had my true form!”
Jack twisted mid-air and smirked. “Kekekekeke… All I hear is a loser’s excuses.”
From behind the Phoenix, more clones rushed in—a swarm of golden doppelgängers wielding spinning staffs, throwing binding charms, weaving elemental hexes—but nothing truly stopped her. Fire burned through every spell. Even the petals of the blossom storm began to curl and blacken, disintegrating under her sheer heat.
Jack landed with a roll, staff spinning behind him. “Alright then,” he muttered. “Guess we’re going raw...”
He gripped the Ruyi Jingu Bang. It pulsed in his hands, heavier now, almost humming. “Sorry, old friend,” he said to the staff. “This one’s gonna be hot.” Jack raised it overhead, summoning every drop of divine power into the core. The gold gleamed like it had swallowed a sun. Wind howled. The clones scattered, giving space. The Phoenix looked up—“THIS. IS. YOUR—”
“Please…” A voice. So soft it sliced through the violence like a whisper through thunder. “Stop me…”
The staff halted mid-swing. It hung in the air like a judgment deferred. Jack’s eyes widened. The voice was unmistakable. It wasn’t the Phoenix. It was Jean Grey.
In that frozen second, the Phoenix’s head twitched, as if yanked by surprise. The burning cracks flickered—Jean’s face, half-visible inside, eyes full of pain. “...Please…” she whispered again.
Jack’s staff wavered. And that… was enough. The Phoenix regained her footing. With a scream that tore clouds apart, she lashed out with an explosion of energy. BOOOOM—Several clones were reduced to ashes. The Ruyi Jingu Bang was deflected. The staff ricocheted into the forest behind the mansion, carving trees down like matchsticks.
Jack slammed into the dirt, coughing, skidding backward. “Heh… got soft for half a second… That one’s on me.”
Above him, the Phoenix hovered, flickering, Jean’s face screaming silently beneath the flames. The battle was far from over. All around them, the last handful of Jack clones stood, their golden robes smudged, their staves cracked, peach blossom petals long since incinerated. “Dissipate,” Jack said quietly.
One clone, battered but grinning, spoke through bloodied lips, “We should distract the press. Get the cameras on us.”
Jack blinked. “What press?”
The clone pointed past the flickering barrier. Through the warping air, beyond the barrier, a hovering news drone could be seen zooming in. On the side of the drone was a glowing logo. The Daily Bugle – LIVE. “...You’re kidding me.” Jack groaned. “Alright. One of you handle that. The rest... you know the drill.”
The other clones gave one final grin. Then they dissolved into hair strands, like smoke caught in a backdraft—leaving behind only the real Jack Hou, barefoot in red-and-green hanfu, his golden eyes burning against the cosmic inferno.
Before him, the Phoenix descended. No longer merely in Jean Grey’s shape, but something more jagged—half-formed wings of plasma, crackling with power. Her skin was splitting in places, as if the vessel inside was burning through itself. “Back to basics,” Jack muttered. “Just you… and me.”
Jack shot forward—not with spell, not with incantation—but with teeth bared and staff whirling.
The Phoenix shrieked. Her telekinesis lashed out—chairs exploded, windows shattered—but Jack dodged through the wreckage like a blur of fire and shadow. He twisted under a wave of solar flame and drove the butt of his Ruyi Jingu Bang into her ribs. CRACK!
A chunk of Jean’s fiery form shattered like molten glass, raining sparks. “Come on, Jean,” Jack growled. “You’re still in there!”
The Phoenix retaliated—wings flared, talons formed from her fire, slashing through the ground like a god tearing parchment. But Jack met it head on. He leapt, flipped, and came down with a howling hammer strike.
The weight of his staff warped the ground. Each hit wasn’t magical—it was feral. Muscle, momentum, will. CRACK. Another fissure bloomed across Jean’s flaming form. “That’s it,” Jack said. “Keep fighting, Red.”
She blasted him point blank—solar wind flung him into the second floor wall, bones rattling, bricks collapsing. But Jack stood, coughing blood, staggering. “You think I care about fire?” he spat. “I was born in it.”
The Phoenix shrieked in frustration and threw herself at him in a fiery dive. Jack charged forward. They collided—one a celestial flame, the other a grinning, golden-eyed maniac swinging a staff like it was an extension of his soul. BOOM!!
Fire and wind erupted. Jack’s clothes caught alight but held—Aska’s charm glowing faintly on the fabric. His staff spun with brutal, animal grace, each strike targeting a crack in Jean’s flickering form. “Jean! Wake up!” THWACK. “You’re stronger than this thing!” BAM.
Each blow didn’t just tear into the Phoenix. It resonated—like a heartbeat. Jean’s voice echoed, warped and distant. "...Jack…?"
Jack grinned, even as his left shoulder burned red. “There you are.”
He flipped the staff one final time, and with a roar. “WAKE UP!”
The Ruyi Jingu Bang slammed into her chest. The moment it landed— The Phoenix cracked all at once. A web of golden fractures erupted across her body. And then—light. A pillar of brilliance erupted into the sky, blinding, molten-gold and white. The clouds parted in concentric rings, as if heaven itself blinked open.
The shockwave blew away the remaining flames. It tore through the ruined halls of the mansion, flaring out beyond its shattered gates. Even the news drone flickered with static before stabilizing again. And then… Silence.
Jack Hou opened one eye, laughing as he always did—until he saw it. Not Jean. Not her fractured echo. But the cosmic flame itself. Floating in the air, no longer needing a vessel, was the Phoenix Force in full bloom.
It was enormous. Wings like solar flares, a face ever-shifting between avian elegance and monstrous intensity, eyes that were stars collapsing inward. The sky warped around it like a mirage, the ground melted in silent rebellion beneath its feet.
“You... fucking chicken,” Jack hissed, smile widening in defiance. “You twisted my words to Jean, didn’t you?”
The Phoenix tilted its head. A voice, thunderous and smooth, echoed across the ruin. “It was good, wasn’t it? That mortal Charles Xavier taught me well. I would never have considered manipulating Jean’s perception so artfully... if he hadn’t opened the jar first.”
Jack tilted his head back and cackled. “Kekekekekeke! That bald bastard... playing checkers with a god.” His fingers clenched around the Ruyi Jingu Bang. It shimmered, sensing its master’s intent. “Just defeat, huh? That’s all this is. And you know what? I chose this. I’m not a martyr. I’m not a hero. I’m just an asshole with a stick, a laugh, and a dream.”
He whispered to the staff. “One last ride, buddy.” The weapon glowed in answer.
Jack didn’t look back, didn’t wait for the others to stop him. “Sorry, Zeph. I guess I won’t see the end of this Christmas after all.” And with a wicked grin, he bolted forward—toward the cosmic blaze.
The Phoenix did not hesitate. She met Jack mid-charge with a flare of her wing—a million degrees in celestial fury. Jack hit her like a comet, staff in both hands, eyes glowing gold.
But it wasn’t enough. With the flick of a thought, she caught him mid-air. Flame tendrils wrapped around his limbs, his waist, his throat. She began to burn him—methodically.
Solar fire scorched his skin. Cosmic radiation shredded his cells. One by one, layers of magic, flesh, and divine resilience were stripped away. But Jack’s body kept regenerating. Because he hadn’t let go yet.
…
Jack sat in lotus position—mindscape.
It was Mount Huaguo, where it all began. The trees whispered, the air carried the scent of wild peaches and cloud mist. The Fifth Temple, once silent, now pulsed with golden light. “The hell is this?” Jack muttered.
He ran. The stone gate to the temple stood open. He entered. Inside, a modest interior lined with seventy-two empty scrolls, hung like promises waiting to be made. In the center, a well. “A well? In a temple? That’s not architecturally accurate,” Jack muttered.
He peered inside. The water shimmered. It didn’t reflect his face—it reflected the real world. He saw himself, outside, being consumed alive by the Phoenix. Flesh peeled from bone. Divine skin melted like wax. “Shit,” Jack exhaled. “I’m really gonna die this time…”
Next to the well sat a low writing table, with brush and ink. “Well… better write my will before I croak.” He dipped the brush, leaned forward—then paused. Instead of writing… He drew, like a child.
The ink came alive under his hands. He sketched the Phoenix. Not just her form—but her rage, her hunger, her twisted imitation of purpose. The way she burned everything in her path out of need to feel, to matter. “You’re kind of beautiful, in a ‘devour the multiverse’ kind of way,” he muttered.
When he finished, he hung the scroll back onto the wall. Just one. But as the parchment met the wall, something shifted in the air. A resonance. Something clicked. Like a gear in a great celestial machine suddenly spinning into place.
…
The Phoenix stumbled. For the first time in this entire clash, her expression changed—not fury, not triumph—Confusion.
She paused in mid-air. “What... is this feeling...?” She felt it. Inside Jack. Something ancient. A law not written in stone, but in narrative. “Impossible,” she whispered.
Comments
KuraiSomnium
3 chapters??? Truly the Christmas spirit
edu rodeiro
Omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg good very good very nice very awesome 👍😎
