Summary: Destruction. Rebirth. The cycle continues...

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The D'Bari people have lived peacefully for generations. Underneath the warmth of their only sun, farmers cultivate heirloom crops. Inter-galactic merchants unload wares at bustling space ports. The cities, vast landscapes of metal and glass and greenery, stand as shining testimonies to the harmonious chord struck between natural and man-made. In sprawling libraries, D'Bari's greatest academics imbibe the knowledge of forgotten centuries, chartering a course of enlightenment for the planet's future. Empathy, they have decided upon, and not ignorance, will be the guiding principle by which they live. A cavalcade of Shi'ar ships land on D'bari's shores, depositing royalty who excitedly hope to witness the once-in-lifetime blossoming of the In'zari - an indigenous plant to D'bari's jungles, said to exhibit the life cycle of the star. Beholders of the blooming claim there's nothing like it elsewhere in the universe.

While life continues on, no one pays mind to the shadow skirting in front of D'Bari's sun. It is no more than a speck, and there for only a second, before dipping behind a crop of clouds lazily drifting in the sky. When it becomes visible again, this time bigger, they take notice. Farmers lay to rest the tools of their trade. The greatest of D'bari's minds, set down their books, and cast their gazes beyond the crystalline windows, toward the sun, hands shielding their eyes. Trade in the space ports slows as thoughts of riches recede and curiosity overwhelms. The Shi'ar visitors, stop in their tracks and watch on beneath the dense foliage and swooping vines of the jungle; even the In'zari pause, their stems straighten skyward, and their blooms, so ready to blossom, snap shut.

In the sky, the entity that has captured the attentions of a planet grows larger. It casts field and city alike in darkness, the shadows it creates spreading across the ground like the sharpened talons of a bird of prey. Nervousness swells in D'Bari stomachs, perspiration slicks brows. Shi'ar grow restless as the familiarity of this sight sinks in. Libraries are emptied; the academics take to the streets to catch a better view. Whatever is happening, they wish to experience it to the fullest extent, to better catalogue the events later. Only the In'zari recognizes what is occurring, what fate this visitor from the stars brings them. Its blooms curl and die on the vine, its leaves brown and wither, its stems fall back to the ground, blackened and lifeless.

Overhead, the creature unfurls its massive, red wings, eclipsing D'Bari's sun, and a primordial screech ruptures from its depths. The world trembles. Farmers scatter. They take cover in cellars and underneath farm equipment. Academics and common-folk fall to their knees and through tears, share in prayers for salvation. Strangers huddle together, on the streets, in basements, underneath trees; there is strength in numbers. Mothers hug their children; merchants seek to escape the calamity on their ships. The Shi'ar run deeper into the forest; they'd rather die, limp and mangled in the mouth of one of the jungle's ferocious beasts, then face what comes next while their hearts still beat.

The end.

It takes only seconds to occur. D'Bari full of life one moment; D'bari a blackened, silenced wasteland the next. Cities leveled. Forests turned to ash. Its people reduced to a footnote history is destined to overlook. The sun sapped of its energy, transformed into a rock, harmless, hard, cool. It explodes and silent shockwaves roll into the vastness of space.

A centuries-long hunger has been sated and all it took was the lives of 2.1 billion; sacrificed on an altar of purpose, reaped from the universe so that others may sow.

The harbinger of this destruction floats deftly through D'Bari's remains. It does not mourn, nor feel guilt. It has done what was necessary, fulfilling a part of the cycle all life subscribes to. Creation and destruction. Life and death. Only in one, can the other be found.

With another flap of its enormous wings, it takes off, headed to another star system, on the hunt for its next meal. For its hunger never stays sated for long.

***

Darkness. Absolute. Unfettered. Pitiless. A final stroke of a keyboard. The period punctuating one's life sentence. The last dance with Lady Death. 

That's it.

That was supposed to be it.

But the numbness, the nothingness, the silence, is ripped apart all at once. It reverberates on the atomic level, separated cruelly by an unseen force. And in it's vacancy, in a chasm where a heart once resided, an inferno ignites. What has rotted from disuse and returned to the soil, is slowly cobbled back together. Muscle and sinew fuse together. Hardened sap turns molten and courses through limbs. Shriveled organs plump as carbon dioxide reignite their purpose. Limbs snap back into place and though he is being put together, with each crack he feels as though he is shattering. Everything burns; his body, his world. The old him reduced to ash, sluices off him in blackened, smoking splinters. The new him raw and agitated and exposed. It is an indescribable agony; and so he prays for death. Again and again, until the words are seared on his tongue and coat his every scream, and impress upon his soul.

There is no salvation from his pain. He drifts in and out of conscious. Pieces of his past swim to the forefront. A flash of a grove, a glimpse of a red-canopied She-Tree. A feeling of bliss, fleeting, but wondrous.

The memories become clearer, fiercer. More, nearer the end. A thicket of Trees burning, a city fallen, tears, not his, staining his branch-fingers; he slashes at them, trying to thin their numbers, trying to focus. The She-Tree with the red leaves appears again. Her screaming, him standing, watching on, waiting to, but being unable to... to.. die with her.

He had sacrificed - everything. Given - everything. For a world that never asked for his help. For a peace that was never to occur between his kind and them. For an equality that existed solely in the minds of the delusional.

And in return, for all of it, he'd been dealt death. First, of those he loved. His brother eaten alive from the inside out by a parasitic alien race of voles. He remembers the slop that had erupted from his brother's trunk when the parasites had made it to the heart; how he'd believed it to be sap at first, and how, to his horror, he realized it was all of his brother leaking out and staining the grassy floor - his wood, his bark, guts and organs, all turned to mush.

Then it was his She-tree, riddled with the virus, and the slow transformation of hope to hopelessness when no progress to discover a cure had been made. Her limbs stopped working, one after another, next, her organs. Her brain had been the last to be petrified, but by that time, she'd been intubated, and placed in a medically-induced dormant state, and there hadn't been much left of the She-Tree he'd loved.

The Tree in the wheelbarrow made them martyrs, each of them, their deaths, tools he used to embolden those left, those still willing to fight. An endless cycle of death, perpetrated by him, so devoted to furthering his own cause, he cared not the means used to achieve it.

He starts, gasping for breath, his sap boiling with rage. The darkness abates. Pain rattles through his body. His heart is near bursting with its frantic beating. Branch-fingers twitch with the ache to rip the thudding organ from his chest. He wants to squeeze it until it ruptures, until sap flows down his fingers, and the world returns to the quiet nothingness it's been. He longs for how it used to be; a sentiment he'd often expressed while alive. Regret. So much of how he'd lived had been determined by what he'd lost.

His body grows, too fast, new bark knitting over old wounds. Each caress of air is like a death sentence, passed without the impending release.

His throat turns raw from his screaming, his voice a cracked phantom of what it used to be. It's full of despair though, and he twists at the knowledge some things never change.

He sees. White light as far as the horizon. It is white-hot, and blinding. His bark begins to peel back, unravel. In the distance, something sways. It is large, imposing, familiar. It blazes, and when it spreads its branches, they take the form of wings, each leaf like a bird's feather. At once, he is no longer dead, he is alive, and he is ablaze, the sensation so terrifying he fears, he fears, self-immolation.

The warmth spreading throughout his body quells his trepidation. It reassures him he is not the one that is meant to burn.

But damn, he feels like he is.

Fires dance along his limbs, skip down his bole. We are yours to wield, the voice crackles as flames fan out to encompass his canopy, power for you to harness.

With a shaky breath, he murmurs, "Why me?"

Because, it says, we remember you, Scott.

And in that moment, he remembers it. An ancient galactic force, believed to have been created to carry out Yggdrasil's will; the power of life and death, to create and destroy. He can't stop an image of the red-headed She-Tree from popping into his mind. This power was once hers, he recalls, and it nearly razed her.

You will not burn, a hundred separate voices invade his mind, and all thoughts of the She-Tree, of------ fade away. We have picked you. Ordained you. You will be the one to do the burning.

"Hmm--"

The next voice to speak is new. It comes not from inside Scott's mind, but outside it. Beyond. In the white. Scott blinks, hoping to focus his eyes. It's been so long since he's had use of them, he's rusty. But after awhile, things start to come into focus. A figure looming over him takes shape. Bone-white bark. Calculating black eyes. A smile as sharp and deadly as a sickle glues his lips in place. "Now," this Tree leans toward Scott, and the putrid stench of disinfectant wafts off him, making Scott recoil. "This is interesting."

Fire reflects in this Tree's gaze. Scott's fire. The power of the Phoenix Force, his to wield.

"You of all Trees." The Tree strokes a patch of blackened moss clinging off his chin. "Chosen," he muses. The bark at the base of Scott's neck splinters. "Who would have thought that our little universe had such an ironic sense of humor?" A cackle oozes from his mouth and despite the fire raging on Scott's surface, this sound, one of unhinged madness and genuine glee, chills him to his core. "Well, this promises to be quite fun."

Suddenly, something heavy falls on Scott's face. It cups his mouth and nose. He breathes deep, and thick, lemon-scented air coats his senses. There's something more to it too, something acrid. Chemical. He squirms, but is met with resistance; there's something thick binding his wrists and roots, securing him in place. He continues breathing deep, his lungs filling with the scent. It tingles and burns. His head grows heavy, his mind tires, his heart begins to slumber.

Finally, his trunk and canopy relent to the sleeping gas.

Mister Sinister deftly retrieves a trowel from a tray he'd had wheeled in to the operating room earlier. His smile glints much like the delicate blade balanced in his palm. In one stroke, he buries it deep, impaling Scott's trunk where his heart ought to be. Excitement marches around inside Sinister's head like an army of soldier ants.

He knew resurrecting Scott Sapp, former leader of the X-Trees, would be fun. But now that Scott's been given the power of the Phoenix Force, things will be even better than he'd envisioned.

Indeed. What a grand homecoming it will be.