fourteen !
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They breach right into the place Rosa has always refused to call home and there her past is waiting for her when they emerge.

For the first time since her disappearance, she comes face to face with a bewildered, panicking Hank, a passed out Charles, and a furious looking Alex whose face softens only slightly at the sight of her alongside those who had come to destroy.

It's as if he's looking at an entirely different woman.

This is not the Rosa he knows. Far from that bundle or wit and grit determination to do whatever the hell she wants, with a grin on her face to match.

With slicked back hair, brand new scars, a sleek, streamlined catsuit, and those scorning eyes that had once adored him, this is not Rosa who stares at him with not a trace of emotion on her face.

She'd learnt quickly how to conceal them and that training isn't betraying her now.

"Erik?" The blonde woman questions, snapping the attention of the ghost away from him to the mission ahead.

As calculative as ever, she watches the scene. Notes the silent exchange between those who think they still know one another.

Their reunion is short lived when Erik lifts a hand and effortlessly yanks Charles away from his companions by the metal of his wheelchair. He's as good as dead upon it, powerless to stop his own abduction.

A tragic scene to bear witness to as those who care for him scramble for his salvation.

"Charles!" Raven cries, but Alex is the first to move.

Even as the portal opens, he runs at them, ready to turn them to nothing but a scorch mark upon the metal.

"Hey!" He shouts, that burning fury building up inside of his chest, ready to be unleashed. "Hey, asshole!"

Rosa's mouth quirks into a softly sad smile as she glances over her shoulder at him, eyes brimming with tears as she understands his intentions and knows it's futile.

Yet another pawn in the game about to be swept off the table.

"Oh, Alex," is all she whispers as she lifts a hand and infests his mind with sticky, black tar. He's caught and halts in his run immediately, his mind betraying his body's will to defend.

He thrashes against her invasion as if it's worth the energy, as if she's not trying to stop him from running head first into his undoing. She barely has to strain to contain him. To bind him inside himself as she forces him to stand and watch as they step into the portal, though she is too late to wind him back in when the red heat explodes from his chest towards their retreating figures.

Though she scrambles inside his brain to cancel the expulsion of power, she finds that it's too late and can do nothing but stare wide-eyed as the red beam comes for them.

Warren grabs her by the wrist and pulls her back into the breach with him, whisking her away and snapping her from his mind when they emerge out of the other side, safely away from the havoc that will surely ensue from that power.

Rosa glances to Warren and he releases her arm under the weight of her stare.

"You went inside his mind?" He questions as the others move on with the still-unconscious Charles hanging limp in his wheelchair.

"Yes," She replies, though by now she is looking through him as she winds in on herself to dissect the recent happening. To understand why all that happened did. To wonder of the repercussions.

Though her wonder is not gleeful or rampant. It's chaotic and wild. Drawing her to conclusions that make her sick to her stomach.

That beam of energy was unstoppable after point of release and if the intended target was no longer there, what did that beam hit?

"And what did you see?"

"He knew I was there. Inside his mind. He knew, like always." She draws in a shaky breath as she refocuses on Warren, blinding herself from the conclusions with his gaze of endless depths. "He felt that I had betrayed him and I suppose he's hit the nail on the head, hasn't he?"

"No, Rosa, you're doing what's right for all of us," Warren protests, reaching out to grasp her hand in his own as the sun beats down upon them, as vicious as a smiting god.

"What good is it for Alex now?" She bites back, though her fingers thread through his as if she's binding herself to him to remind herself to remain centred on the path ahead.

He's the only future she's got left.

"He's a mutant too," Warren says with a shrug of his broad shoulders. "He'll benefit just as we all will."

"An apocalypse will not benefit the dead," She grits out, her voice low and rocky like a ship who has beached herself on the shores of a foreign, hostile coast.

-

-

When Charles finally awoke, Rosa had watched his attempts to reach out to an old friend fall flat against walls of rage and pain forged from iron and steel.

Even with all the odds stacked against him, he still remains in belief that all of this can be put to an end. Rosa finds that admirable when she lowers herself to sit on the rock opposite him as the blue sky shines above them in this desolate part of the world, oblivious to the horrors about to ensue.

He watches her with a guarded expression, but, even behind those shields, she can see the hurt and the betrayal as plain as day.

He gives nothing away as Rosa reaches out to him with her mind and he opens the door for her, letting her inside without a word.

"Charles," She breathes out shakily and, in an instant, he sees that terrified little girl stood in the halls of his school once more.

A girl in way over her head with more blood on her hands than she'd ever thought she'd see. But a girl with a furious heart, fighting with every beat of her heart, even if it kills her. Kicking to keep her head above the water even as the current tries its damned hardest to pull her under.

A sinking ship with more holes than hands to plug them.

"I don't know what to do, Charles," She admits, her voice inside his head wavering as she blinks away the tears that brim in dulled eyes. "I don't want this. I'm tired of it all. Tired of the fighting and the fear. Tired of watching people die" Her wings ruffle absently. "And yet here I am as harbinger of his new age."

"You're scared," He concludes easily, reading between her lines, and she feels his mind relax into sympathy where there had once been hurt.

"Yes," She replies, careful to keep the blocks up in all the right places. If Apocalypse discovered what she's doing, he'd rip out her wings and toss her off the cliff edge to perform one last death drop. "I'm terrified of losing the little I have left."

Leaving little for Charles to piece together, she glances to where Warren stands, staring out into the horizon, clearly deep in his own mind.

"You care for him?" Charles questions, his own curiosity getting the better of him as he attempts to understand why Rosa has made the decisions she has. Why she stands by and watches while the world ticks down to its death day.

"We've been through a lot together," She says, not glancing away when he turns around and meets her eyes.

It's like he knows.

Knows exactly what treason she's in the process of committing. Warren's jaw clenches tight as he begins to walk towards her, his metal wings flexing and folding behind him.

"I will not abandon him," Rosa tells Charles firmly, but her voice softens as she adds, "but nor will I abandon you. I promise you that."

She snaps her mind from his just as Warren draws close and rises to her feet, leaving the professor with many more questions that will have to go unanswered until she finds another opportunity to converse.

"Why don't we go for a walk?" Warren suggests through grit teeth.

Rosa stiffly nods her head. It rocks wooden on her spine.

"Sure," She replies, falling into step beside him as he barely pauses to speak to her.

As they walk, she ensures the mental barriers are up and are as strong as they can possibly be because, unsurprisingly, she's quite fond of her ability to fly.

When they're far enough away, Warren halts and spins towards her, a hand dragging through his hair as his eyes round on her and almost knock her off her feet.

"Please tell me you weren't doing what I think you were doing," He says raggedly, the words peeling off his tongue as if he's reluctant to even hear her answer.

"Warren, I-"

He sucks in a breath, glancing away from her as he rubs his forehead.

"You're being reckless. Are you trying to get yourself killed after all we've finally gotten our freedom?" He questions, stabbing her with his words.

"Is this freedom?" She dares to counter despite all she's promised to this revolt.

And he looks at her as if she's speaking a foreign language.

"Do you feel free, Warren?" She wets her lips as everything she's been holding in begins to spill out of her. "Because I sure as hell don't. We are bound to this duty by the hand that feeds. We are his pawns in his vision for the future. A means to an end. We are not free. This is not freedom."

He swallows, his throat bobbing visibly, and his wings flexing irritably as her words turn over and over in his mind.

"We will be free in this new age," He replies, just like he's been taught to say by the brainwashing of a mutant who thinks he's a god. "We can't be free as long as there are humans who hate us. As long as there are humans who pay to see us fight and kill one another. Don't you even remember what it was like? To fight for your life multiple times a night? To lie in that darkness inside that tiny little cage and not know whether you were going to make it through another day?"

"Don't be ridiculous. Of course I remember," She breathes out, eyes on fire. "I have enough scars to remember each and every life I took."

"Then why are you changing your mind when we're so close?" He hisses his question and her wings flare involuntarily, the coal black of her feathers catching the sunlight in their depths and swallowing it whole.

"Because I'm not sure I can live with causing all that death across the world just because a select group in East Berlin decided to be immoral," She says lowly and, then, she quirks a brow. "But can you?"

He doesn't have an answer for her.

For a moment, Warren stands there in silence across from her just watching her. Just looking at her and she can see his eyes flickering all across her face.

"Does that mean you're leaving?" He chances to ask, though he fears the answer.

"Well," Rosa smiles thinly as the tears of turmoil bubble in her eyes once again, "I never said that, did I?"

A tear breaches the dam and slides down her cheek. She smears it away, but its remnants remain to glisten atop her skin.

"I told you I will always be with you and that won't change just because the world is ending," She chokes out, accepting his hand as it slips into hers and holds her tight. "There's nothing I can do to stop Apocalypse alone. I might as well spend the final days at your side."

"You're not going to die, Rosa," He protests but she presses her lips together and shakes her head.

"He'll kill me the moment he realises I'm fighting for the opposition, not against them."

At her words, Warren pulls her close and his hands to cup her jaw, brushing away those rolling tears with his thumbs as he brings her to meet his eyes as he says, "I won't fight you."

"Then don't," She whispers, desperate at this point, her hands clasping over his. "You don't have to."

Rosa can see him being pulled apart behind those eyes that bore into her with wishes of a simpler life. If only they'd met when they were still young and unbroken.

Maybe then they could've had a happier life. A life of little fear and plenty of joy. A life where they would fall in love and walk life side by side, hand in hand. A life where they would have their children and love them dearly without terror that they would be branded freaks for their heritage.

But that happier life is not their life.

Their life is one of grief and pain and decisions no one should ever have to make.

And yet they do.

"I can't," He says at last and her hands drop from his, the defeat apparent on her features as she pulls herself from his touch. "Rosa, I'm sorry, but I believe in this new age. It'll be an age where the both of us can live without fear."

"If that age comes to be, then I'm afraid you'll be entering it alone." Her wings flare out as she takes a step back, intending to ascend.

"Rosa-"

She cuts him off with a wall of flame, taking another step back from him, "I will not be his Harbinger."

With that, she hops into the air and ascends intending to circle until her mind is clear of fire and fury.

And, although he can follow, he doesn't even try.

She's made her decision and so has he. They come down on either side of the line and maybe that's just the way it was always going to be, but it doesn't make the ache any more bearable as he watches her soar amongst the clouds, out of reach.

-

2410 words
8.3.19

im sad

note: sorry this took so much longer than anticipated but i've been a bit busier lately with a lot of deadlines coming up so this might be the last update for a little while. but in two weeks i have a month break from uni so i'll be doing plenty of writing then, that's for sure! thanks for the patients and i love you all x