Obligatory Disclaimer : I do not own anything (except maybe OC characters) all characters, places, worlds, universes…etc mentioned here belong to their respective owners and/or companies.

This is purely a work of fiction. Not meant to offend or incite, but to entertain and (maybe) inspire.

GODS AND ROSES

I realize something now. It was quite the revelation, so much so that it shocked me awake from my stupor of sorrow and edginess. I am drunk on self pity. No, I have drowned myself in that shit and it has made me soft, uncalculating, illogical and slow. Combined with all these teenage hormones and a changing brain chemistry, I have let some things go unaddressed for far too long, even by my standards. Especially by my standards.

I don’t do love. That’s number one. that’s why me and Cruz never truly got into it. She was right when she said I don’t even love myself. If I did, I wouldn’t have got as far as I did, heck I wouldn’t have died in the first place.

I bare the responsibility for the lives I have taken, but I don’t let the guilt and remorse act as cement shoes that tug me deeper into the sea of depression… I can live with all the things I have done. And I can live well. That’s number two.

Three, the most important of all; Is to always act swiftly and extremely efficiently.

This fire burning my soul has indeed purified me. Wow, you don’t realize all the cobwebs occupying your room until you clean it. You don’t realize the baggage holding you back until you burn it. I feel so alive even while still in much pain. But very much alive. I have been born again through blood, ice and fire.

Thank you phoenix, your flames are those of true rebirth.

“Goodbye Mindee” I whispered, staring at her back as she walked off into the sunset. It was sadly romantic, but I have seen this more than I can count. The girl runs off with the out cast badboy, they fall in love, have a great time and then she dies from a real bad villain to show how powerful and serious he/she is, or from a stray bullet out of nowhere or even from a convoluted plan which uses her as bait to get to the badboy, and then the badboy under his immense grief awakens a strength he never realized he had, to defeat whatever odds there were against him, then he comes out of it all a better person.

This is a comic book world, I am certain of what I’m saying. Plus she’s young and has a bright future ahead of her, one that shouldn’t have me in it. I’m a bonafide killer, an insufferable asshole, a real bastard – someone she could do well without.

If I let this girl get too close to me, she’s going to become a target. She’s going to become my heart and that’s where anyone who wants to take me down will aim – it’s where I would aim if I were going after me.

It’s time to move on.

Once the gates of the mansion closed I ignited the engine and hit the accelerator, I don’t think my heart has ever felt this heavy before. The red Porsche blazed through the streets of Salem center. Money is good. But money really can’t buy you joy, I should know. I let my happiness go.

So a run down of the events that had occurred a few weeks after out return to Earth. We got medals, real secret military medals, this isn’t my first time working with the government but it was the first time I got a medal this … valued. I’m not allowed to tell other unrelated parties about it, but if I ever wanted to call in a favor I very much could.

We all got a lot richer with the monetary rewards as well. Man does fighting aliens pay, I see now why a lot of agents are willing to risk their lives doing this – not questioning their patriotism of course, but that pay is something to look forward to. Mindee even more so I know she’ll be fine, adding to that Frost fortune.

God, I really don’t want to do this without her. But I have to.

I parked the car in the lot. Turning the head lights off, I sat within enjoying the silence.

“You should come out now” I felt him – man that sounds wrong – ever since the phoenix fire touched me, I seemed to have obtained a more fine tuned spiritual sense, and I could sense the guy in my car. Like I sensed him back on Break-World when I ended it.

I cast a side glance at the grinning bastard in green. “I’ve been meaning to meet you for whil–”

“Save the long words Loki, just get on with it.” That definitely stumped him, it might have been a bit impulsive and stupid of me, but I wanted a win, even a pyrrhic one in the end.

“Straight to the point, yet another talent of yours. I have an offer still”

Sometimes when you’re silent people tell you more, especially people who love to hear the sound of their voice.

“I can quench the phoenix fire on your soul – how you have managed to still stand eludes me. But it matters not, you will in turn owe me a favor” He smiled.

“Fuck off” He did the impossible, making his grin even wider. But before that, it was a micro twitch just a little thing that meant nothing, but it did. He didn’t expect me to reject.

“So young, yet so decisive. You’ll need me after suffering for some more time” He disappeared with those words.

I bet the bastard gave the Powerlord the phoenix shard in the first place.

I leaned my head on the steering wheel, exhaling a deep sigh. When did I go from fighting aliens to messing with gods? I just wanted to learn and interact with the X-men, maybe go on some real dumb adventures and do much needed good with my powers. Heh what was I expecting? A walk in the park? I signed up for this shit. And I’ll be damned if I run from the consequences.

Heck, I don’t need a magician to solve my problems, nothing’s stopping me from doing just that. I could feel my soul burn, I could feel my powers, I could feel whatever mystical shit I was seeped in. if I could feel it… I could also interact with it! I could influence it! Why the fuck not?!

My powers had grown, I don’t know the limits of what I am capable of. I am not all knowing. But there are things I feel I should be able to do. And one of them doesn’t make sense. This is a comic book world – what truly does? Science is flexible here, the rules to reality aren’t rigid. Things can be changed, miracles occur on a daily basis, the impossible is constantly being done – the word itself is on the verge of being obsolete.

I call the cold, not outside of me, but deep inside. I call and it answers eagerly, like it always has. There is a certain buzz, a type of vibration around me. The kind I heard when the phoenix reached through my flesh to touch my soul. The cold follows this buzz, it is slow and tedious, but I keep at it.

The buzz is a marble in a dark room, I fumble for it and it goes rolling around the room. I can’t find it. So I do the impossible, I tilt the room. My stomach empties out its contents, I can feel the hot sludge and fluids wet my thighs. Something trails down my eyes, it’s the same thing trailing down my nose, it isn’t tears or mucus, it’s blood. But the marble is cornered, I reach for it and grab hold. I right the room and the oppressive atmosphere leaves me. The sickness fades like it was never there.

The cold tags the buzz now, it is a doorway to where the cinders slowly burn my soul. A raging fire would have been difficult to put out, but these are just cinders, stubborn heat already on the verge of burning out. The cold washes over my soul – it wants to stay here, I feel a chill so intense, so impossibly cold it nearly consumes the fire of my vitality, I am scared of what I will become should I let it. I speak to it and it obeys, it has long quenched the cinders, it just want’s to play but my soul isn’t a play ground I tell it. It leaves through the buzz and goes back to resting – waiting for when next I would call on it, I catch a glimpse of a part of its faint visage, something like a dark mass – like the hole I fell through.

I open my eyes, shivering, teeth clattering and taking labored breaths. My hair is ice white, on the verge of being crystalline… I am not in my organic ice form. What am I truly involved in?