#phoenix can heal the flesh but cannot revive the dead

[mistress-light]

Well, maybe I am now convinced that Clive did survive.

[muthur9000]

By Sylvain Billet – Picture of Sacro Catino (Cattedrale di San Lorenzo, Italia), GFDL

The Green Stone in the Head Room

I have multiple theories for the Green Stone, one of them ties to an ancient flood myth passed down by oral tradition through the Aboriginal people of Australia. This myth starts off in a pretty similar way, a meteorite plunged into the earth over 14.8 million years ago, vapourising the terrestrial rock. These gases condensed and solidified as it fell back down into the crater and these formed aerodynamic pieces of green glass. This green glass is also called moldavite and since it’s discovery some 25,000 years ago by ancient peoples it has become a symbol of fertility, immortality, rebirth and even has ties to biblical legends such as the Emerald of Lucifer and the Covenant used at the Last Supper. These are a collection of these myths which have been told for many years, since the days of early man. The shared themes between all of these are:

Miraculous properties:  heal and revive the dead and give immortality.

Association with creation or fertility

Association with a entity believed to help mankind or bestow knowledge and gifts

This entity also refused subjugation and because of that was cast out of ‘Heaven’ or ‘Paradise’

These myths all sound familiar to the story of Prometheus and how he brought knowledge to mankind and also guided them, and for that was punished one way or another.

The Sacro Catino, kept in Genoa Cathedral, is a hexagonal dish of the Roman era made of green Egyptian glass,  would later become identified as the Holy Grail. The first explicit claim to this effect is found in the Chronicon by Jacobus de Voragine, written in the 1290s. Pedro Tafur, who visited Genoa in 1436, reported that the Holy Grail, “made of a single emerald” is kept in Genoa Cathedral. The bowl was seized and taken to Paris by Napoleon in 1805, and it was damaged when it was returned to Genoa in 1816.

This legend had been debunked as the vessel was not Emerald but some form of green glass, though many believed this to be the covenant used in the last supper it’s thought to be falsified grandure as Christ would have not been able to afford such a expensive looking piece.

Lapis ex Caelis – The Emerald Of Lucifer & The Holy Grail

The word “grail” is thought to originate from the Persian word “Ghr” which means “Pearl” or “Stone”. The Persian word for “engraved stone” is “ghr’al” which looks and sounds like the english word “grail”.

Some theorise that the grail was symbolic of Christs bloodline which ties back to the fertility Goddess, Venus of Willendorf.

In the Arthurian Grail epic Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach, it is clearly stated that the Holy Grail is a stone which reflects qualities of the philosopher’s stone, which can heal and revive the dead and give immortality among many other things.

“If you do not know it, it shall here be named to you. It is called lapis excillis. By the power of that stone the phoenix burns to ashes, but the ashes give him life again. Thus does the phoenix mount and change its plumage, which afterwards is bright and shining and as lovely as before There never was a human so ill but that, if he one day sees the stone, he cannot die within the weeks that follows. And in looks he will not fade. His appearance will stay the same, be it maid or man, as on the day he saw the stone, the same as when the best years of his life began, and though he should see the stone for two hundred years, it will never change, save that his hair might perhaps turn grey. Such power does the stone give a man that flesh and bones are at once made young again. The stone is also called the Grail.”– Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival

There’s a story of how Archangel Michael had fought Lucifer, as Lucifer was cast out Michael swung his sword hitting his crown and dislodged an Emerald which then fell to Earth. This emerald was said to have caused the fall of humanity, afterwards another angel had retrieved the stone and fashioned it into the grail which was then used at The Last Supper.

“The stone that fell to earth was an emerald that adorned Lucifer’s forehead. It was cut into the shape of a bowl by a faithful angel, and thus the Grail was born. It was given to Adam before he was expelled from the Garden of Eden. Seth, Adam’s son, having temporarily returned to the earthly paradise, took the Grail along with him. Other people transported the Grail to Montsegur, a fortress in the Pyrenees, which Lucifer’s armies besieged in order to get the Grail back and put it into their leader’s crown, out of which it had fallen; but the Grail was allegedly saved by knights who hid it within a mountain.”– Julius Evola

Supposedly once when the grail was discovered it was given to Napoleon who was disappointed it was just a chunk of green glass, not what he expected the holy grail to be.

The Holy Grail By Sylvain Billet - Picture of Sacro Catino (Cattedrale di San Lorenzo, Italia), GFDL The Green Stone in the Head Room…

[resurrectionofdawn]

The Czarina

This explains the reason why Bloodhunter is on Earth. Luskin/Lukin can be changed. I don't know who was in charge before Pierce but this is before that. Bucky doesn't remember this.  This would be a short sequel to Clint's story.  I need a title for both of them. Any suggestions?

He walked down the stairs at a quick pace, slapping his gloves together to shake the snow off before pocketing them. “What can you tell me?” He demanded to the closest of the white-coated men scurrying about the large room. Luskin's gaze was drawn to an operating theater where almost a dozen people worked frantically over a feebly-twitching dark-haired man on a table.  Blood practically streamed from him, painting the floor crimson before falling down the drain. A shriek of metal and abruptly the patient's metal arm flashed into view, striking one of the men surrounding him. He fell to the floor with a grunt before three armed men pinned down the flailing limb.  A nurse jabbed a needle into the man's neck, forcing him into a drugged stupor.

“It's dying,” the tech muttered. “It is difficult enough to sedate it but the injuries it has sustained are too numerous for it's healing factor to seal them before it bleeds out.”

“How long?”

The nameless technician shrugged “Thirty minutes perhaps. Not enough time to get it into cryofreeze before it expires.”

Luskin growled, slamming his hand on a nearby table. “We knew it could sustain significant injury. The Czarina, is she here?”

“They are bringing her now. She should be here within the next few minutes.”

The current leader of Hydra made a hmm and turned to face a blue-striped door near the furthest corner of the room.  Just in time as two soldiers took up a guard position on either side of it, guns at the ready. Luskin watched as the door opened with two more soldiers nearly dragging a ragged young woman between them. Her head was down, her matted hair an indeterminate shade of gray from the grime she was covered in. Her hands hung limp beside her face, the nails little better than claws. She was thin, nearly skeletal but still strong enough to stagger the men holding her. Once they were close enough to the operating table, they released her once the surgeons moved out of range.

“I have never seen her in the flesh,” Luskin commented to no one. “Her name suggests a thing of beauty and power, not this filthy scrap of a creature.”

“In all the time Hydra has had her, nothing we've done has been able to make her compliant.” The technician turned back to his monitor, calling up her file. It was a conglomerate of scanned, handwritten documents going back to before the 1800's. A crude drawing of what looked like a scared young girl stared back at him. “We have tried without fail to discover the secret to her longevity and abilities but we cannot. We had long believed that she is a mutant like the one known as Wolverine, but her DNA shows her to be other than human.”

“Did we recover anything else from her, a ship, weapons perhaps?” the commander asked absently, watching the girl approach the dying Asset.  Contrary to the rest of her, the palms of her hands were pristine and white. She stroked the Winter Soldier's hair like a mother soothing a sick child. That she was capable of such empathy even after so long imprisoned astounded Luskin.  

“She literally appeared in a flash of light in the palace of Peter the Great of Russia. Why is something she was never able to say.”

The Czarina bares her sharp teeth, gesturing savagely above the Soldier, causing all the instruments around her to fly away from them. Curiously, none of the people still in the operating room were struck. She placed one hand on the Asset's opened chest and one on his head. The dying man stiffened then relaxed, metal arm hanging limp next to her. Almost colorless gray eyes stared softly into drug-glazed blue. Her expression was tender and sad as she took a deep breath and violet light ignited around her hands.

Luskin watched in fascination at what he was seeing. The Asset's wounds were literally reversing like a video being watched backwards. He heard the wet noises of organs shifting and the dull crunch of bone falling back into place. Soldier choked then gasped as the Czarina pulled the blood from his lungs, absorbing it back into his body.  Within fifteen minutes, what had been a dying weapon was now in the glow of perfect health. Czarina moved her hands to either side of the Asset's head, the light shifting from purple to blue.

The tech swore and slammed his hand down on a button. “Shit! She's trying to heal it's mind, stop her!” The armed men exploded into action, violently pulling the girl away as she tried just as hard to keep going.  “Incomplete, it's incomplete!” she cried, her voice harsh from disuse. “Я не сделано до сих пор не завершена. Позвольте мне перейти!

No esha sunzes ba'eo reyes!” (Both languages repeats her cries of I am not done, it is incomplete. Let me go)

Luskin arched one brow “Her native language?”  “She speaks it mostly when severely distressed.” They both watched as the girl struggled briefly then sank to the floor. It seemed she had used all her strength on the Asset.

This would be a sort of second chapter.

There was no pain when he awoke. Taking stock of his surroundings without opening his eyes, the Winter Soldier sensed he was in a cell on a bare mattress. He did not understand. He had been dying, he knew it to be so. They had been trying to save their weapon but he knew with a stark acceptance that it was futile. A relief actually. There would be no more pain, no more chair, no more death.  And now he was alive again. He didn't know if it was blessing or curse.

“You wake,” the thin voice came from a grated slat on the side of the wall near his head.  Soldier opened his eyes, considering. This was most unusual, he had never been in this cell before. What were they hoping to accomplish?

“Are you still in pain?”

The Asset took stock of himself. Sat up in surprise. There was a hazy memory of the operating room and something touching him in other than hurt. Hands stroking his hair, warmth then darkness. Asset would do much for that warmth again. It had felt...good? Was that the word?

“I am sorry.” Looking through the grate he could see a pair of pale chapped lips. “Why?”

“They would not let me finish, I failed you.”

He did not know how to react; no one had ever said that to him. An apology to a weapon, that made no sense!  “What was unfinished?” he asked, facing the grate.  A quick glance showed that the rooms were being watched. Ah, they wanted him to communicate with the prisoner, create a rapport. “I know they monitor us, hoping that I will reveal what I have not in over three hundred years. You cannot reveal what is not known, and I don't know what they want of me. I never have.”

Soldier blinked surely he had misheard. Three hundred years? How?  

“Why have you lived so long?” he managed through his shock. “Have they held you all this time?”

Noise from the grate and he was looking at a pair of eyes so blue they were nearly violet framed by filthy matted hair surrounding an equally dirty face. “There is a room that can contain me, I don't know how, only that it does. I leave it only when they have someone they want to save. They hope to gain the secret of immortality. I'm not immortal, but they don't believe me.”

“You saved me, didn't you?”

“I have never been able to deny those who need my help. That they would stop me from finishing tells me much.” He was intrigued “What does it tell you?”

Too-thin fingers poke into his side of the wall, there are only three. “It says that they do not want you to remember who you are supposed to be. They tear your mind apart so that it is easier to control you.” The fingers curl, a groan of abused metal before she withdraws; the spaces are wider, enough to nearly reach her hand through. “You should stop, they will punish you.” Soldier warns.

“My name is Wintermoon, do you have a name?” He can see her eyes again, brilliant and haunted behind the grate. Winter pauses, did he have a name? “They call me Asset or Winter Soldier, I do not know any others.” Wintermoon hums, brushing hair off her face. Green light flickers on her fingers and the matted gray mess that was her hair transforms into a wealth of silver strands. “An illusion?” he asks, startled. Wintermoon smiles and it is like a break in the clouds. “No, before now I have never been out of my cell long enough to even attempt to Restore myself.  I truly am this wasted shadow. My hair costs almost nothing to restore and I just wanted part of myself to be clean.”

The Soldier was not supposed to be curious but he was “How did you come to be here?” He was not prepared for her reaction. His cellmate hissed like a big cat, her eyes flashing orange shouting to the cameras “I have told you and told you. Why do you not listen, why do you not hear?”

“We were in class, the ninth-years were having instruction on instantaneous transmission. A Phoenix ignited himself for the first time. There was light and then I was in that castle.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “I could not understand them, they hurt me. They would not stop; they never stopped!” The Asset was uncertain of what was happening but there were barely-visible flickers of colored energy floating from the grate. Wintermoon could bee seen rocking slightly on the bed, arms wrapped around herself tightly. “Order only comes through pain. Compliance will be rewarded. Comply and the pain will stop.” Green energy so dark as to be black could be seen wreathing Wintermoon's hands. “It does not stop, it never ends. I can do no more than what I have. I know nothing of portals, of immortality. I cannot revive the dead or summon them to my bidding. I can't make someone my puppet, or transform them into a super-being.” While the grate afforded very little sight, the Asset watched in awe as Wintermoon's body began to rapidly gain weight and take on a healthy cast. The filth fell away to lily-pale flesh clad in a heavy white robe. She sobbed falling into a ball on her bed. “It's not within my power. I can't do what they want; I can't. ”