Amid the Sovereign Golden Sanctuary, where fires crackled and flared everywhere, High Priestess Ayesha stood beneath the throne that had once belonged to her, glaring with dark golden eyes.
She instinctively clenched her teeth, only for the pain from her badly swollen cheek to bring tears to her eyes.
"Something that can't die and has claws on its hands? How could I possibly—"
Thud!
Scott Summers kicked Ayesha behind the knee. The tall, slender golden priestess fell to her knees—for the first time in her life, and indeed, for the first time in the history of Sovereign civilization.
She frantically tried to rise, baring her teeth and claws as though she wanted to throw herself at Cyclops and fight him to the death.
But when she saw ruby-red light glowing behind his strange silver-white visor, Ayesha instantly broke out in goosebumps like flecks of gold and actually... knelt back down.
She could not forget how Sovereign flesh and blood, weapons, even warships and spacecraft, had all been blasted into scraps by the beams shooting from that man's eyes.
"Watch your mouth. If I hear that kind of disrespect again, I'll cut out that golden tongue of yours first."
Scott had disliked this High Priestess for a long time. The woman was simply too tall, a full half-head taller than him.
Jean Grey reclined against the golden throne, lightly resting her hands on either side. With the bearing of an empress ruling the world, she said in a cool, magnetic voice, "High Priestess of Sovereign, you'd better know something. It might leave a few sparks alive for your species. Hmm—no, that's not right. You reproduce through mechanical embryos anyway. It doesn't matter if every last one of you dies."
Nightcrawler and Archangel teleported or descended onto either side of the throne.