| Phoenix |
 |
| Name: | Rachel Grey |
| Gender: | Female |
| Place of Birth: | USA, Earth-811 |
| Age: | Early 20s |
| Aliases: | Phoenix, Marvel Girl, Starchilde |
| Origin: | Mutant |
| Origin Earth: | 811 |
| Present Location: | New York City |
| Occupation: | Temporal anomaly |
| Team: | X-Men |
| Alignment: | Good |
| Significant Other(s): | None |
| Powers and Abilities: | Telepathy and telekinesis |
| Portrayed by: | n/a |
Rachel Grey, Hound turned Phoenix
Temper
Rachel has a stereotypical red-headed temper. When something makes her angry, she reacts immediately and fiercely, and given the scope of her mutant powers, her outbursts can be spectacular. She doesn’t tend to stay angry very long, but picking up the pieces afterwards often takes longer than she’d like.
Haunted
Rachel is haunted by her memories of the world she came from, what was done to her and, worst of all, what she did to innocent mutants during her time as a Hound. She will never truly be free of the guilt and the shame she feels for her actions in her own reality.
Vengeful
Rachel lost her whole family in her own reality. She will never forgive the Shi’ar for attacking her family in this reality, too. The death mark on her back is, comparatively, an annoyance. She has difficulty holding on to her temper in the presence of the Shi’ar, particularly where the Death Commandoes are concerned.
Stubborn
Rachel is a stubborn individual. She’s the type of person who, after it’s been explained to her why a certain course of action is a bad idea, will probably try it anyway. Getting her to change her mind when it’s made up is difficult, and arguing with her just tends to make her dig her heels in.
Impulsive
Rachel can be impulsive and even reckless. When she has an idea, she tends to act on it at once, either not taking advice from those around her or, if it is given anyway, ignoring it. She’d much rather provoke a reaction than observe quietly, and trusts that her skills and mutant abilities will be enough to get her through any trouble that she causes along the way.
Bold Rachel is not the shy and retiring type. Despite everything that she’s experienced, she knows who she is, what she is, and is confident that she can handle whatever life throws at her next. She dresses how she likes, she spends her time how she wants, and she’s not one to hang back from a new experience.
Loyal
Because Rachel has lost so many people in her life, she’s fiercely dedicated to the friends and family she’s found in this world. She would do anything for the people who matter to her and it’s not an exaggeration to say that she would die to protect them. Anyone who threatens the people Rachel cares about will find they’ve made an implacable enemy in her.
Motivation
Rachel did terrible things as a Hound, including killing for her masters. Sometimes the victims were people that she knew, even members of her family. That she had been brainwashed and tortured into compliance with her masters’ demands simply doesn’t matter to Rachel. She should have been strong enough to resist the conditioning altogether, or else found the strength to rebel earlier, before so many people had died. She feels she has a lot to atone for, before she can even think about living up to the legacy of her parents. That’s what keeps her fighting for Xavier’s dream, however unattainable it may seem at times.
Goals
Rachel’s goal is a simple one. She wants to stop this world following the same path as the one she came from. She couldn’t save that world, but she feels that she’s been given a second chance to save this one. She’ll take any action to prevent a race war between humans and mutants that no-one can win, and she’ll make any sacrifice to prevent the rise of the Sentinels in this world too.
Telekinesis
Rachel is one of the most powerful telekinetic mutants on the planet. In raw power and potential she's a match for her mother, Jean Grey, but she lacks all her years of experience.
Rachel is able to use her telekinesis for what she sees as mundane tasks - lifting and carrying objects, including objects that are far larger, heavier, bulkier or just more awkward than she would be able to handle physically. She can also manipulate objects with her telekinesis as deftly as she could with her fingers, with the added bonus that she can manipulate several more items at once (such as keypads, levers, dials, and so on) than she could with just her two hands. She can also achieve these feats at a significant distance from herself. She is most skilled in using her telekinesis on objects that she can see, but she is also entirely capable of using her telekinesis as an extended sense of touch, to map her surroundings and allow her to 'see' things that aren't within her line of sight.
Offensive Telekinesis: Rachel is well schooled in the art of using her telekinesis as a weapon. She is capable of throwing force bolts that, depending on how much mental effort she puts behind them, can do anything from knocking a man off his feet, right through to punching holes in armour plate. She can rip things apart, and crush them together - compressing a car into a cube of scrap metal is no real challenge to her, for example. She's also capable of picking items up and propelling them through the air as crude but effective missiles - and even better, she can 'steer' her projectiles in flight.
Defensive Telekinesis: Rachel is capable of erecting telekinetic shields, either as walls or bubbles of force around her or others. These shields are easily able to stand up to physical blows and small arms fire. Assuming Rachel is able to focus on her shielding, and she's not trying to throw a large shield over a number of people at the same time, she's able to increase the level of protection sufficiently to cope with tank shells and explosive projectiles. She can also use her telekinetic shielding to enclose her immediate environment in a bubble, protecting her from extremes of heat and cold, as well as gasses and other toxins. She can even survive underwater or even in space - as long as the air supply in the bubble lasts.
Flight: Rachel is able to use her telekinesis to levitate herself, and others should she so wish. She is capable of high speed, aerobatic flight across significant distances if she's alone, although her speed, manoeuvrability and endurance all decline sharply when she's carrying passengers, or when she needs to use her other abilities simultaneously.
Molecular Control:
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Rachel's telekinetic talents is her control over matter at the molecular level, although she generally only uses this power to rearrange the molecules of her clothing when she feels like an instant outfit change.
Telepathy
Rachel is a powerful and skilled telepath and is able to employ her mental powers in a variety of ways.
Mental Communication: Rachel is able to communicate mind to mind with other telepaths over very great distances and with non-telepaths over shorter, but still considerable distances.
Astral Projection: Rachel is able to project her consciousness onto the Astral Plane, though her physical body is vulnerable when she does so. While on the Astral Plane she can use the power of her thoughts to shape her surroundings to her will.
Telepathic Tracking: Rachel is able to scan for and locate specific minds. This is harder if the mind in question is unfamiliar, or is in a heavily populated area, but this aspect of her powers is something that Rachel has a special affinity for. Once she has the feel of her target's mind she can even pick up the telepathic imprint of their presence from inanimate objects that they have been in contact with.
Mind Alteration: Rachel is capable of altering perceptions and memories. For a long time she hid her facial tattoos using a permanent mental illusion, so appearing as something she's not, or hiding herself from another's perceptions entirely, is generally not a challenge for her. Permanently altering an individual's memories is far harder and works best on weak-willed non-telepaths.
Mental Combat: Rachel is able to strike out with bolts of mental force, which may swamp an opponent's mind in phantom pain, or, if they are particularly susceptible to mental attack, may close down their mind completely and render them unconscious. Rachel is also capable of engaging in mental duels with other telepaths, although she tends to rely on the strength of her powers in preference to finesse.
Mental Shielding: Rachel's mind is protected by formidable mental shielding, backed by her potent will and her utter determination not to be dominated again. It would take a powerful and skilled telepath to enter her mind without her consent.
Phoenix Force
Rachel is not presently the host of the Phoenix Force, nor is she its preferred host in any case - that dubious honour belongs to Jean Grey. As far as Rachel is aware, the Phoenix has passed on from her. However, there does remain the most tenuous of connections between the cosmic entity and her. (OOC NOTE: Rachel's connection to the Phoenix Force has been included for completeness and will not be explored outside approved plots)
X-Men
As a current member of the X-Men and Rachel can call on the resources of the Xavier Institute if she needs to. As a result, she's never likely to be without a roof over her head, food to eat, clothes to wear, or enough money to live on. Plus, although strictly speaking they aren't HER X-Men, when it comes right down to it they'd fight for her, and she'd fight for them, without hesitation.
Future Knowledge
Rachel's from the future. It's not the future of this world, granted, and things did happen differently there, but it's close. Sometimes close enough that she'll see, or hear about events here that matched her timeline, and she'll have an idea what's coming next. She's not always right, sometimes things unfold in unexpected ways, but it can be helpful at times.
British Intelligence
As a member of Excalibur, Rachel frequently helped Britain's Weird Happenings Organisation deal with, well, weird happenings that threatened the United Kingdom. Although The W.H.O. were disbanded and replaced by Black Air and ultimately MI:13, Rachel still knows a number of individuals (such as Doctor Alistaire Stuart) who operate within the British intelligence and superhero communities.
Starjammers
Rachel's grandfather, Christopher Summers, is Corsair, captain of the Starjammer, and she's fought alongside his crew in the past. If she happened to be in Shi'ar space again and needed the Starjammers' help, they'd be likely to come to her aid.
Hunting
Rachel was trained, intensively and painfully, to be a superb hunter. She can use her telepathic powers to pick out the merest mental whisper from her target from the centre of a crowd, and employ her telekinetic talents at such a fine level as to detect the merest hint of motion from an otherwise concealed quarry. And once she's located them, she's been well-schooled in numerous ways to bring them down.
Survival
Staying alive in a post-apocalyptic America was hard enough, but when you're the very thing that the ruling Sentinels most want to destroy, it's especially difficult. Much as she might not enjoy it, if she has to Rachel can and has survived in situations where you eat what you can, however barely edible it might be, and you do it when you can, because you don't know where the next meal is coming from.
Combat
Rachel wasn't always able to rely on her mutant powers in the world she came from, and she had no choice but to learn to fight with her fists if she wanted to stay alive. Training with the X-Men has improved her skills in this area, but she's not been above cheating with her mental talents when she can get away with it. She's far from the best hand to hand fighter in the world.
Driving/Riding/Flying
With her powers, Rachel can travel at very high speeds with minimal effort, and go wherever it is she wants to go without having to worry about such minor things as roads or flight plans. But since that would often draw more attention than she really wants, she's picked up the necessary skills to drive a car, ride a motorbike, fly a plane - and she's even served on the crew of the Starjammer.
Fashion
Given her past (and her brands) it might be expected that Rachel would have very little interest in personal appearances. But that's by far not the case. She didn't make any kind of effort to become interested in fashion, it just happened, and given the nature of her powers she's able to try out any number of outfits in one day. She's also given to occasional telekinetic makeovers of her friends and team-mates, which doesn't always go over well.
PTSD
Rachel lived through absolute hell. Enslaved, tortured, brainwashed, scarred and forced to hunt and kill those she cared about, Rachel's sanity has already fractured once, when she snapped and attacked Ahab. Sometimes the memories of her time as a Hound still get their claws into her, and nightmares are common.
Branded
Rachel's face was branded to mark her as a Hound. The tattoo can never be removed. She is capable of masking it telepathically, so her features appear flawless, but she always knows it's there.
Missing Life Experience
Rachel never got to finish school, get a job, have a social life, or any of the other normal things she should have experienced growing up. And since she came to this world, she's spent most of her time with illegal mutant superhero groups. She really doesn't have a particularly balanced view of what's normal.
Doesn't Exist
Legally, Rachel doesn't exist. She was never born. She has no social security number, no passport, no driver's license, nothing. Occasionally she's used fakes, more often she's "convinced" people that she has the necessary documents for whatever she needs to do, but she couldn't easily get a job or live a normal life.
Telepathic Noise
As a telepath, Rachel is a natural receiver for the mental static formed by the conscious and unconscious thoughts of those around her. Given the formidable range and sensitivity of her talents, that's a lot of people even if she's in a remote area. Unshielded, she would run the risk of being overwhelmed by the thoughts of others, so she has to keep mental shielding in place at all times - even when she's asleep.
Power Signature
Although Rachel can use her powers at low levels without any visual sign that she is doing so, the more power she uses the more obvious her power signature becomes. Her eyes go blank and white hot, and her whole body is outlined in telekinetic flames. When she pushes her powers to their limits, she is surrounded by a raptor effect, a holdover from when she was the host of the Phoenix Force.
Death Mark
The Shi'ar placed a death mark on Rachel's back, in the shape of a tattoo of a stylised Phoenix. It marks her as a host of the Phoenix Force and allows the Shi'ar to track her.
Rachel was born on an alternate Earth (Earth 811) in the not too distant future. Her father is Scott Summers, and her mother is Jean Grey – a Jean Grey who was bonded to the Phoenix Force. In a sense, she is also the daughter of the Phoenix Force itself.
Rachel’s early life was pleasant. She grew up in the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters, cared for by her parents and the army of honorary aunts and uncles that made up the X-Men of her world. When she was old enough, she joined the New Mutants.
Rachel’s life would soon take a dark and unpleasant turn. Following the assassination of Senator Robert Kelly, America turned decisively against mutants. In response to the anti-mutant sentiment in the nation, the American government turned to the Sentinels to deal with mutantkind. The Sentinels proceeded to take total control of the United States.
When Rachel was fourteen years old, the Xavier School was levelled by the US Army. Rachel saw Professor Xavier himself killed in front of her, and she was one of very few pulled alive from the rubble of the school.
Rachel’s telepathic powers made her a useful asset to the Sentinels. She was tortured and brainwashed to ensure her obedience and used as a Hound to track down and eliminate mutant fugitives. Ahab also branded her face with the marks she wears to this day.
Rachel excelled as a Hound, and became Ahab’s favourite. She was responsible for many mutant deaths during this period, either by leading the authorities to them, or by her own hand.
Rachel was eventually able to break her conditioning and turn on her master. She was interned in the South Bronx Mutant Containment Facility, where she encountered the remaining X-Men and Franklin Richards, who would become the greatest love of her life.
Rachel was instrumental in the X-Men’s attempt to change history by preventing the assassination of Senator Kelly, by projecting one of her team-mates’ minds into what the X-Men believed was their own reality’s past. What Rachel did not realise at the time was that she had actually accessed an alternate reality. The attempt to alter the history of their world failed.
Rachel attempted to send her own consciousness into the past and encountered the Phoenix Force. Unbeknownst to her, the Phoenix Force followed her back to her own reality and encountered Kate Pryde. Once again without Rachel’s knowledge, Kate was able to strike a deal with the Phoenix Force to transport Rachel physically across time.
Rachel and Kate, the only surviving X-Men, undertook a suicidal attack on Project Nimrod, attempting to prevent the creation of an advanced breed of Sentinel. Cornered, Kate called upon the Phoenix Force and Rachel was ripped out of her own timeline and deposited on Earth 616.
Traumatised by her experiences and realising that she’d arrived in a parallel world, Rachel lived on the streets for a time, but came to the attention of this world’s X-Men when she was hunted by a psionic vampire.
Rachel joined the X-Men and adopted the name Phoenix, serving as a host to the cosmic entity’s power. She faced many threats with the team, including the Beyonder. Rachel’s time with the X-Men ended when she was seriously injured by one of her own team-mates to prevent her taking the life of the psionic vampire who had hunted her when she first arrived in this reality.
Rachel’s life was saved by Spiral, who took her into the Body Shoppe to heal her – and give her a makeover – so that she could star in a hit TV show for her master, Mojo in the alternate dimension of the Mojoverse.%r%rRachel would eventually escape from the Mojoverse and find herself in London, where she became a founder member of Excalibur, a team made up of former X-Men and UK-based heroes.
After one of her Excalibur team-mates became lost in the timestream, Rachel exchanged places with them in order to bring them back home. The Phoenix Force separated from Rachel at this time.
Returning to the present, Rachel rejoined the X-Men and became part of the X-Treme Sanctions Executive, a United Nations backed body tasked with keeping the peace between mutants and humans.
The Shi’ar, wary of the destructive potential of the Phoenix Force and seeking to eliminate the possibility of future human hosts, attacked a Grey family reunion that Rachel was attending, causing many casualties. Rachel herself was branded with a death mark – a tattoo of the Phoenix on her back - that would allow the Shi’ar to track her.
Rachel joined a team of X-Men that travelled to Shi’ar space in an attempt to prevent one of their own from assaulting the empire. An assassin wielding a blade imbued with a fragment of the Phoenix Force was sent to kill her, but Rachel absorbed a portion of the Phoenix fragment and was able to free her would-be assassin from his Shi’ar masters.
Once again empowered by a fragment of the Phoenix Force, Rachel took an active part in the Shi’ar civil war, and spent time as a member of the Starjammers.
The fragment of the Phoenix Force eventually left Rachel, and she returned to Earth and the X-Men once more.
What's known about Rachel Grey? Well, it depends who you ask…
For those within the X-Men's sphere of influence, it's common knowledge that Rachel is the daughter of Scott Summers and Jean Grey from the future of an alternate timeline. Most probably don't realise quite how hellish her home reality was and that she spent a good chunk of her early years hunting down her fellow mutants for her Sentinel overlords.
Outside the X-Men, in the USA Rachel will be known to Government agencies from her brief service with the X.S.E. She might also be recognised as "Marvel Girl" by die-hard mutant superhero spotters for the same reason.
In the UK, Rachel was active as "Phoenix" with Excalibur, which from time to time worked openly with British Government agencies and law enforcement. Anti-mutant prejudice in the UK not being so prevalent as in the US, "Phoenix" was probably viewed relatively positively in the UK.
In more cosmic circles, Rachel is known as a former host of the Phoenix Force - when you've faced off against the Beyonder and Galactus, word tends to get around. For those with the appropriate technology, the Shi'ar deathmark on Rachel's back marks her as a Phoenix host, and allows her to be tracked.
For those with contacts within the Shi'ar, information on Rachel is likely to be available. While some Shi'ar look favourably on her actions during their civil war, to the Shi'ar as a whole the Phoenix represents "The End Of All That Is", so it's a good bet that most Shi'ar who've heard of her would prefer her dead.
Digging up more than basic information on "Marvel Girl", "Phoenix" and even "Rachel Grey" is difficult. As Rachel is a refugee from another timeline and never had a counterpart on Earth 616, officially she was never born. She doesn't have a birth certificate, passport, social security number or anything similar.
IC Events
Logs tagged as including Phoenix are added automatically below.
09 Sep 2016 12:47 (2016-08-12) Pool Day
30 Aug 2016 23:51 (2016-08-30) Pool and Sodas at Harry's
04 Aug 2016 22:59 (2016-08-04) Busking and Dining in Mutant Town
14 Jul 2016 22:27 (2016-07-13) Ever Considered Space Piracy?
09 Jul 2016 23:25 (2016-07-08) A Taste of The Mundane
24 Jun 2016 15:52 (2016-06-24) Return, Rebirth and Reconnections
23 Jun 2016 12:24 (2016-06-23) You're Not From Around Here
Gallery
 |
 |