The world was silent in its ruin. The sky over New York burned a sickly shade of orange, like a dying ember refusing to go out. Skyscrapers stood like broken teeth.
Their glass windows shattered, steel frames bent inward. The streets were devoid of life, inhabited only by the whisper of ash drifting endlessly with the wind.
It wasn't just the city that suffered this fate; its people endured worse.
Their constant neglect of kindness, their repeated errors… this was the end they brought upon themselves.
The world suffered the same fate, and few survived… but she knew there was no escape from the end.
Even if the cleverest minds attempted to flee to other dimensions, they found the doors closed, as if cut off from the entire universe.
She had heard of a "great network" that connected the multiverse, and with its center gone, his homeworld… their world… had become severed from the rest of existence, especially since he carried resentment toward their realm.
Simply put, there was no escape—only acceptance of the imminent end. But one had to taste torment first. Since that catastrophe, the veil and distances between worlds had vanished. Everything had come closer; some Asgardian beasts roamed the Earth like it was their garden, and the shattered planet circled the globe.
Those who survived what is now called the First Collapse… Emma Frost was one of them.
She walked alone through a city she had once known.
A broken hand.
A half-scarred face.
No superhuman body.
No extraordinary mind.
A body that possessed nothing.
A shattered soul, carrying only whispers of her former pride.
The White Queen.
Her white coat was torn, her boots clicking over scattered glass. Her reflection flickered for a moment in the shards at her feet—a ghost of the queen she had once been.
She stopped before the remains of what had once been Charles Xavier's school. The gates were twisted and scorched by fire.
The silence here was heavier than anywhere else… at least for her.
It was as if the earth itself remembered what had happened. She closed her eyes, and for a fleeting moment, the memory surged. Jean's sharp, desperate voice, ordering her to run. The sudden eruption of light, a blazing fire that consumed everything. Her own screams tore through her throat while Jean's body arched forward, her hair aflame, her eyes two suns. And then—silence.
Just silence, and the impossible warmth flowing through Emma as Jean fell. She had never spoken of it, never admitted even to herself that the moment Jean Grey died during the First Collapse had carried a fragment of the Phoenix into her.
Emma opened her eyes. Even now, sparks of that impossible power glimmered at the edges of her mind, like a fire barely held in check.
Perhaps a curse, perhaps salvation—but it didn't matter in the years that followed, as the world burned anyway.
But she still had one chance.
She descended into the ruins of what had once been Cerebro. The machine was destroyed, wires dangling, yet she had spent years rebuilding and reprogramming it, twisting its purpose into something Charles would have despised.
Perhaps she was not the smartest, but years of risking herself to invade the minds of others—whether for good or ill—had enabled her to accomplish this, even though she had lost all her mutant X powers.
And she succeeded. She had created a portal—not across worlds, which had proven futile—but across time, in the same world, at another moment.
The data she had gathered—fragments of news reports, hidden archives, even whispers among people once close to him—pointed to one moment.
The disappearance of Peter Parker. At first, it seemed absurd that the fate of the world could hinge on a boy who lived more in shadows than in the light. But the pattern was undeniable. The day Spider-Man vanished was the day alliances fell apart, wars ignited, and the first domino that led to this ruin toppled.
She touched the cold metal of the machine. Her hands trembled—not from fear, but from exhaustion. She whispered into the silence, "You were always the heart, weren't you? Not Charles, not Scott, not even Jean. You, Peter Parker."
Emma looked around; no one was there. She let out a weary sigh. "Who am I speaking to?"
When solitude becomes routine, one begins talking to no one… a human instinct.
She glanced at the small core meant to absorb the Phoenix force transferred to her at Jean's death. She placed her hand on the glass casing. It began drawing the power that would drive the machine, and with a feeling of unbearable tension, Emma endured the pain until the force was fully drawn.
Of course, she knew this wasn't the full Phoenix power—just a spark she had absorbed. But even a spark was enough to illuminate an entire world.
Feeling some exhaustion, she lifted the lever with her only intact hand, which began to channel the Phoenix energy, activating its function.
The portal ignited in a blood-red glow. Emma did not hesitate; she leapt inside, oblivious to the tremendous explosion behind her that consumed her previous location.
But as she entered, the pain surged through her body and mind together, like an endless detonation. Every particle of her shattered and reformed as if time itself tore her into shards and stitched her back.
It wasn't just physical agony; it burned deeper than any wound, harsher than losing an arm, worse than her scarred face, crueller than the moment her mind was forcibly stripped of power. She felt herself fracturing on thousands of levels—body and soul alike.
Then suddenly—pain ceased.
As if everything had stopped in an instant.
She opened her eyes slowly, astonished to find no ground beneath her, no sky above. Just an infinite white space, silent to the point of terror. She tried to breathe, but felt no air, yet did not suffocate.
Then she saw something before her.
A man stood a few steps away, tall, but featureless. No eyes, no mouth, no details… just a blank fleshless mask. Yet his presence was heavy, as if he knew everything about her—a knowledge she did not like.
The man raised his hand slowly, and his voice emerged from the void without moving lips:
"Hi … I'm Bryce Wilcox."
Emma simply stared at Bryce with wide eyes. He seemed to understand her suffering.
He looked away, as if avoiding eye contact, though he had no eyes. "Sorry, that's the writer's fault. He doesn't know my face and didn't ask."
Emma did nothing, frozen in place. This made Bryce frown; he seemed to be staring, and if he had a face, it would have shown a wide smile as he said, "She's hot."
Emma looked at him in surprise. "Excuse me?"
Bryce waved his arm. "I didn't like your reaction, so no special treatment, even if you are hot."
Emma frowned. "I don't understand anything."
Bryce shrugged. "And you never will… Anyway, you will be returned to the past. I made this easier for you, woman of fate. I spared you much pain, avoiding temporal conflicts between the two of you. Though I prefer explaining DC's time nonsense—it's more scientific than Marvel's—but in short, your soul will inhabit your younger self for the journey."
Bryce clapped his hands, and Emma vanished from the spot, overwhelmed by a torrent of information she could not process in an instant.
Bryce also shook his head in exasperation with a sigh. "Women."
.
.
End of Chapter
It was hard to create a past for Emma with Peter so I will make it more personal in the future instead of having all the characters from the future thinking about Peter it is better to create there own suffering and try to prevent it from happening again
I also promised you, Bryce, in the last chapter.
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