The Phoenix is life, and death, and all of the chaotic potential of the span between. Spawned in the elemental pressure-cooker at the heart of time, mere microseconds after the Big Bang, the Phoenix is a creature of raw spacetime. Constructed of the same vibrating, ephemeral math as gravity and atomic force, it wields control over the bonds that hold base matter together, letting it discorporate entire planets at will - or resurrect them.

Coalesced into the cloned mortal frame of the powerful psionic Jean Grey, it experiences life as it is known to the lesser creatures of the universe for the first time. Locked into a paradigm in which the tyranny of cause and effect holds sway, it struggles to assimilate what it sees through the perspective of its host body. It is Jean through and through, for it has recreated not just her body, but her whole mind and soul as well, but it is also still the Phoenix.

Moving through daily life in the body of a mortal woman it thinks and acts as she would, laughing, loving and fighting for her friends with all the power at its disposal. And yet the ordered flow of four-dimensional time weighs heavily on it. Despite its desire to do right, day by day, it can feel its control slipping away, slowly but surely.