When an explosive event shatters the lives of the X-Men and takes away their mentor, the beaten heroes walk away from it all. Wolverine, the most legendary of all X-Men, reunites them to prevent the world's destruction. While in the middle of a battle with his fellow X-Men, Cyclops sees Jean in the background. Or at least, he thinks he sees her and, distracted by his vision, he gets pummelled. He wakes up in the infirmary at the X-Mansion to learn that the enemy got away and his team members ended up in pretty bad shape as well. As long as he is still obsessing over Jean, he cannot be the team member they expect him to be. He is about to walk from his place on the team when Emma offers to help him. She will erase all memories of Jean from his brain so that he can focus on his future with the X-Men. Scott is unsure, but agrees to let Emma browse through his thoughts. She sees the tumultuous life Scott had as a young mutant, his beginning as an X-Man, his first encounters with the young Jean, and the blossoming of his love for her. She also discovers that Magneto was competing with Charles to have Jean on his side, and that Jean was intrigued by Logan when he first showed up at the Xavier Institute, which instigated a violently jealous reaction from Scott. But as Emma goes through their last moments together before the explosion, Scott notices something he did not see before. Emma replays the memory again slowly, and both are stunned to realize that it was Jean who caused the devastating explosion! They see the blinding light burst forth from her body as she rises into the sky in the form of a Phoenix!