Template:Featured Articles/18-2020

Moment of Awesome - Jean Grey/Marvel Girl: Halloween fun gives way to personal terrors, and Jean's are particularly nasty. Well. She was falling again, down down down into a dark pool of water. This was becoming a yearly tradition. She hit the surface, the water sharp and icy cold. She wanted to focus on being annoyed but there was still a rising note of panic that shot through her. She had no idea why there was water here. Opening her eyes, she tried to swim upward but she kept sinking, like her body was weighed down with rocks. There was some sort of light at the surface but didn't help much to see how big the body of water was. Everything around her seemed murky and dark. In the distance, however, she did catch a glimpse of something dark. A shadow, in the shape of a man. ~Cold down here, isn't it, Jean. It's where you belong.~ The dry voice was like physical violence with the impact that it hit her. ~Alone, flailing, freezing; the opposite of the womb of life. This is where death starts. Which you can't stop. Poor little Jean, still helpless. Still worthless.~ ... ~We stopped you. You're trapped. You can't be here!~ Jean thought. Could he have gotten free somehow? Was that why this was happening? Were they all somehow on the Astral plane now? Was she dreaming? But this felt so real. ~And yet, I am. Failure cuts deep, doesn't it? When all you sacrificed for turns out to be for naught. When you fight and strive and fail.~ A laugh curled around her spine. ~You weren't good enough, Jean, You were never good enough to defeat me.~ The words would have cut deep but there was something hollow behind it. The Shadow King's presence had been seared into her mind after everything. She didn't sense that. Nothing here felt like the Astral Plane... It felt so real because this was real. But he had no power over reality unless he was using a puppet to do it. She was really in the water. The vague shimmers of the consciousness she felt was different than that. More alien. It almost gave her a headache. ~You're a pretender.~ She began to swim toward the surface, using her telekinesis to give herself a boost. She could see the light growing stronger. Her hand broke through the water.