After a couple of teleportations, Jin was getting bored. The first few jumps had been interesting enough, mostly because there was something strangely satisfying about bending space and appearing somewhere completely different in the blink of an eye, but the novelty was beginning to wear off. Then, because Jin was Jin, boredom inevitably led to curiosity, and curiosity eventually led to an idea that was either scientifically brilliant or catastrophically stupid.
He sent a tiny amount of cursed energy into Jean.
It wasn't meant to hurt her, interfere with her powers, or even accomplish anything particularly useful. Jin was simply curious about what would happen if cursed energy came into contact with the strange, overwhelming force of nature that resided within Jean's mind and body. Unfortunately, whatever existed within Jean apparently didn't share his enthusiasm for scientific experimentation, because the moment the cursed energy made contact, something reacted with overwhelming force.
Jin's vision went black.
His consciousness was ripped away so violently that for a moment he couldn't tell which direction was up, whether he was falling, or if the concept of direction even existed where he had been dragged. There was no sensation of movement, no wind against his skin, and no familiar presence around him, only an endless darkness that seemed to stretch farther than his senses could comprehend.
Then Jean appeared.
Or rather, something wearing Jean's shape appeared.
The first thing Jin saw was a giant bird on fire, so enormous that its wings seemed to blot out the entire sky. Flames rolled endlessly across its feathers, burning without consuming them, while its immense silhouette hovered above him like a living constellation of fire and death. Jin stared upward for several seconds, his expression slowly shifting from confusion to fascination.
"I am not a bird on fire."
A voice sounded directly inside his head.
"I didn't say anything," Jin blurted out.
"You didn't need to say it when you thought it."
Jin paused.
His eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at the enormous creature above him, suddenly much more cautious than before. The fact that it could casually invade his thoughts without him noticing was already concerning enough, but the fact that it had immediately responded to a thought he hadn't spoken aloud made the situation considerably more interesting.
"Well, I was genuinely curious when I saw a giant bird in the sky."
"No, you didn't... You already know who I am or what I am."
The Phoenix squinted her eyes, or at least that was what it looked like to Jin. Her enormous flaming form began shrinking, the fire folding inward upon itself until the creature gradually took on a humanoid shape. A moment later, the cosmic being standing before him looked exactly like Jean.
"How would you know that?" Jin asked, his eyes full of caution at the first person who knew about his transmigration.
"We all do."
"Who do you mean by we?"
"Death, Eternity, Galactus. All of us."
Jin's expression became noticeably more serious. He had expected powerful beings to notice anomalies eventually, but hearing that something as absurdly powerful as the Phoenix knew about him made the situation feel considerably less amusing. Worse, the casual way she spoke about entities capable of existing on an entirely different scale from ordinary beings suggested that his transmigration wasn't some hidden secret at all, merely something that beings of sufficient power had been aware of from the beginning.
"So if you know all that, then you already know who sent me here and why."
"Don't worry yourself about that, child. You are just a little experiment of his. You are as useful as you are useless to him."
Jin's brows furrowed.
"What do you mean by that and who is he?"
Ignoring his first question, Phoenix answered him.
"The guy upstairs, as you earthlings put it."
" Morgan Freeman?"
Phoenix looked at Jin with as much annoyance and frustration as a gaze from a cosmic being could carry.
"You know who I mean. Stop acting dumb."
"Okay, okay. You just ignored my first question, so we're leaving it there."
Jin folded his arms, though the gesture did little to hide the fact that he was now considerably more alert. There was something deeply unsettling about the Phoenix's attitude toward whoever she was referring to, especially because she seemed completely unconcerned about the fact that Jin himself had no idea what game he had been dragged into.
"Do I have to worry about you coming to cause trouble for us again?"
"Oh no, of course not. I was just in a hurry to meet you."
The moment she spoke those words, Jin gave her a look.
"What's with that look? If you're worrying about the fact that it doesn't match the timeline, don't."
"The timeline is more malleable than you think, like a pile of dough."
"Don't say that," Jin groaned. "You're putting images in my head."
"Anyway, can you send me back? The professor is probably worrying about me and Jean."
Phoenix looked at him and waved her hand like she was shooing him away. Jin barely had enough time to process the gesture before the strange darkness around him began collapsing, his consciousness suddenly being dragged backward with the same overwhelming force that had brought him there in the first place.
"See you later, boy, and worry about your two unpaid tenants first."
"See you never and... wait, what?"
But before he could ask her what she meant, Jin was hurled out of the mental space.
His consciousness slammed back into his body.
The first thing he saw was the ground.
The second thing he felt was his face hitting it.
Slam.
"Ugh," Jin groaned as he turned around and pushed himself upright, one hand rubbing his face while his eyes adjusted to his surroundings. Jean was floating a meter above the ground beside him, completely surrounded by roaring cosmic fire, her body suspended effortlessly within the blazing aura as though gravity itself had decided it no longer applied to her.
Jin stared at her for several seconds.
Then he looked at the scorch mark his face had apparently introduced to the ground.
Then he looked back at Jean.
"How petty," he muttered.
Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters
The moment Jin appeared in the professor's office, he immediately noticed that the atmosphere was completely different from what he had expected. The room was unusually quiet, and Professor Xavier's posture carried a weight that made it obvious something serious had happened before Jin arrived. Jin already knew the reason for the mood, but after everything that had just happened, he couldn't resist making his presence known in the only way he knew how.
"Why so serious did someone die?" Jin asked casually, his tone completely at odds with the heavy atmosphere surrounding him.
Professor Xavier looked up from where he had been facing in his brooding solitude and turned toward Jin, his expression cycling through several emotions as he took in the unexpected arrival. Confusion appeared first, followed quickly by surprise and concern, before irritation eventually took the number one spot as his eyes moved past Jin and settled on the person he was still carrying over his shoulder.
Jean Grey was draped across Jin's shoulder like a sack of yams, completely unconscious and looking considerably less dignified than anyone would expect from someone who housed the Phoenix. Her hair was disheveled, her clothes were disturbed from the confrontation, and numerous cuts could be seen across her skin, though none appeared immediately life-threatening.
Jin noticed Xavier's attention settle on her and gave a small shrug, apparently seeing nothing particularly strange about the situation. "My petty revenge against the phoenix nothing too serious," he said, maintaining the same casual attitude as though carrying an unconscious Jean into the professor's office was an entirely ordinary occurrence.
Xavier continued looking at Jean for another moment, his concern remaining evident despite Jin's attempt to downplay what had happened. Jin, however, seemed unconcerned by the professor's reaction and simply moved farther into the room, shifting Jean's weight slightly over his shoulder before deciding she had been carried long enough.
"Oh she's okay," Jin said before walking forward and dropping her onto a couch, allowing the cushions to catch her as she landed in an awkward but otherwise harmless position. He gave her a brief glance to make sure she was still fine before turning back toward Xavier, seemingly satisfied that his petty revenge had not resulted in anything too serious.
Before either of them could continue, the door swung open and a clearly worried Scott hurried through it, his urgency immediately drawing Jin's attention. Scott's eyes first met Jin's, and for a brief moment neither of them said anything as Scott tried to understand why Jin was standing inside the professor's office while Jean was unconscious on the couch behind him.
Scott's gaze eventually moved past Jin and landed on Jean, and the concern on his face intensified when he noticed how disheveled she looked. Numerous cuts were visible across her skin, and although she appeared to be breathing normally, the sight was enough to make Scott's attention immediately focus on her.
Jin watched the lovestruck dude's reaction and couldn't help himself. The situation was simply too perfect, and after everything he had just gone through, causing Scott a little trouble seemed like a reasonable way to entertain himself.
"We ran into a big bad guy called apocalypse" I said "He was calling himself the first mutant and wanted to transfer his consciousness into Jean so we were...." Jin began, already building toward what was clearly going to be an unnecessarily dramatic explanation.
"Stop agitating him Jin," the professor cut him off before he could finish his epic tale, immediately recognizing that Jin was pulling Scott's leg rather than giving him an honest explanation of what had happened.
Jin's expression made it obvious that he had been caught, while Scott remained focused on Jean, still clearly worried about her condition. Xavier knew better than to let Jin continue spinning whatever ridiculous version of events he had begun constructing, especially with Scott already concerned enough without Jin adding fuel to the situation.
"Now tell us what really happened," Xavier said, bringing the room back to the matter that had actually brought Jin there in the first place.