four !
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When Rosa wakes up again, the world is dim and her mind is foggy. She pushes herself up, but there's barely enough room to move, let alone with wings, which ache from being slept on.

All the events come rushing back to her and she deflates, leaning back against rusted bars for support, hands pushing into her knotted hair.

She'd failed. She'd had one job and she'd failed and ended up as another mutant needing saving. In anger, she lashes out and kicks the bar with her boot again and again until an armed man comes over and tells her to stop or she'll be next up. Rosa spits in his face, but stops kicking, instead turning in on herself, cursing her actions.

Maybe she deserves to be here in this place where she might die at any moment. if she'd just stuck to the plan and followed the signals then maybe she wouldn't have been caught.

Slowly, her hands drop from her hair and curl into fists at her sides as her resilience catches up with her.

Maybe being here isn't such a death sentence. Maybe, from here, she can so some good. Be the inside man and be there, ready, for when they come to break mutants free. Be the helping hand who understands and waits for the day to come where she may be free once again. Until then, she will do everything she can to help and to stay alive.

She'll be no good to the cause if she's dead.

Rosa watches through the dark as another body is brought in and thrown to the side. The dead girl hits the wall and rolls, her corpse eyes staring unforgivingly straight into Rosa's soul, but she isn't one to be squeamish.

She can't afford to be anyway. Not as the guard on duty aggressively points to her cage. Three men emerge from the dark and drag her from the cage. One presses a gun to the back of her head.

"Make a move and I'll shoot you dead, got it?" The gun digs into her skull as she stiffly nods her head and can do nothing but let them lead her out into the arena to fight for her life.

They throw her into the ring as if she's made of paper and slam the chain-link door shut behind her, electrifying it immediately.

Rosa scrambles to her feet, flexing her huge wingspan out to its entirety as she assesses her opponent.

It's the same woman she'd watched kill last night.

Long, dark hair drawn back in a tight pony tail, messed up from the fight and slick with sweat. Piercing, icy eyes, blue and mighty as they stare her down, analysing her equally as the commentator announces the new contender. The woman would be nothing but sour faced if it wasn't for the set of claws she dons, sharp and ready to play.

Rosa wonders if she enjoys this, but pushes the thought away as the feline woman advances as quick as lightning and bowls her onto her back, wings spread beneath her.

But she's quick to recover as she gets her boots on the woman's stomach and pushes her back, sending her reeling, giving herself time to stand once more.

As her opponent picks herself back up, Rosa takes into the air, wings kicking up dust as she hovers and lands on the beam above the murderous mutant.

"What's wrong, Birdie? Scared of a set of claws?" She calls up, taunting shamelessly as she readies herself to jump up to the beam to her prey.

Rosa stands on the metal beam and grins wide, ready to bring justice to the arrogant woman who thinks she can better anyone who steps into this ring. She who had murdered so many.

"Oh, why don't you come up here and find out?" She says, calmly gesturing to the empty space beside her.

Her wish is granted as the woman makes her leap, pouncing up towards the beam just as Rosa had hoped she would. Just as the woman's feet are about to land, Rosa sweeps her giant wing and bludgeons her, pushing her into open air.

Before she can fall, Rosa follows and grabs a hold of her neck, the blood lust pushing her further and further from morality and into the call of the wild. She tears scratches and gashes along her arm as she fights for release, but Rosa has knocked the wind from her already.

Then, as the crowd watches, Rosa plummets, forcing the body of her opponent into the concrete with a sickening crack while she lands perfectly.

When she releases her death grip, the body doesn't move again.

Blood, her own and the woman's, soaks her hands as she rises and stretches out her wings, stepping up to the edge of the cage and scanning for the two men who'd brought her in here. She grins wildly at them, though her eyes swim with tears and her vision blurs.

She says no words but they hear her loud and clear.

As soon as she's out of this hell, they're next.

-

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That day, though her justice for all the innocent mutants before her had been served in the death of the clawed woman, Rosa is forced to kill three more times before her time in the ring is up and they bring in the males.

When she's locked in her cell once more, their faces stare at her through the dark. All four of them. The arrogance of the feline lady, the fear of the water bender with no water to bend, the terror of the woman with the blue skin, and the glassy eyes of the final woman who'd fallen to her that day.

And she'll just have to do it all again tomorrow.

She knows she needs to rest, but they won't let her as they torment her every time she closes her eyes. Stare silently whenever she's awake.

By the second kill, they'd begun calling her The Harbinger. Maybe it was a fitting name because it isn't a lie to say that everywhere she goes she brings death and decay with her. First the boy with the camera; now the four mutants who should never have even been here.

Just like that, the boy with the camera joins the posse of four and adds another layer of horror on top.

She's still awake and staring into the darkness back at them when they bring the male champion back in and lock him up in the cage right beside her. Exhausted, she rolls her head to look at him and is weakly surprised at the sight of his bloody, white wings glowing in the dark.

She pushes herself up for a better look, readjusting her own wings behind herself as she leans closer to the side of her cage. Now soaked in her own blood, not that of whoever had come before her.

He was bloody and scarred. His hair a mess of matted curls on top of his head. He slumps in his cage as they slam the door shut and lock him away to play with later.

His head rolls towards her, scowling through the almost-pitch-black as if he can sense her eyes watching him, analysing him, digging for secrets.

As soon as the guards all leave for the night, Rosa shuffles a little closer to the bars, face pressed against the cool metal, though her wings already ache beneath her.

"I've never seen another mutant with wings like mine before," She breathes, afraid to be too loud, afraid her voice would call ill will upon them like the strike of a god.

He doesn't reply, though she can see the glint of his eyes shining in the dim light as he looks between bars at her. A drop of blood runs a deep river of crimson down his cheek. He doesn't lift a hand to wipe it away.

"I love mine and yet these people would see me fight for my life because of them? Wouldn't they rather see me fly? Wouldn't they rather watch me prosper? What's so great about cage fighting that they pay money to see?" She rasps out a laugh, but her chest aches so badly she wheezes and slumps against the bar again, cheek smudging her own blood into her skin. "They dragged me from the air, drugged me, and now I'm their night time entertainment. What kind of sick fucks pay to watch us kill one another. I'd like to know so I can-"

"Stop," Her neighbour cuts in, his voice so hollow its a wonder it doesn't shatter in the press of the dark.

"I'm sorry," Rosa replies, curling fingers around the bar as she sits up, wings falling asleep beneath her fatigue-heavy body. "I just-"

"Stop," He repeats, more forcefully this time. Not so fragile and willing to break.

"Okay." Rosa turns over, her back to him and wings curling around herself to starve away the biting cold sinking into her bones, to shield her from the dead eyes staring at her through the dark.

Though no shield can do such a thing beneath the weight of those deaths on her shoulders, crushing her slowly but steadily, hanging around her neck when she's dragged from the cell the next day and forced to repeat the cycle once again.

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1592 words
22.2.19

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