two !
-

Rosa tugs on her huge denim jacket, complete with slits to accommodate her wings sliced down its back, and folds up the necessary papers and notes to take with her.

Everything she'd found out over the past few months condensed and scrawled out in her barely legible handwriting. Contacts, names, prices. All of it on two sheets of paper, which she folds up small and conceals.

For her eyes only. The only pair she can trust without question. The only mind she can defend and know that those defences will hold true against almost all attacks thrown its way.

Like a medieval castle built to stand against a siege, she too will hold strong. Would rather starve and die than give up the ghost.

She cracks open her bay window, its sill cleared of her various plants and books to make room for her late night take off, and steps up onto the desk, which creaks under her weight. She flexes her wings out to her full wingspan, ruffling her black feathers. They glint in shimmers of royal blues, emeralds and amethyst.

A controversial work of art. Considered demonic by most. Creations of a dark art form, brutal and packed with lean muscle ready to send her into flight speeds most mutants can't run at. The perfect vessel for a mind ready to tear her opponents to shreds the moment her physicality isn't enough to defend her.

Her fingers crunch into fists as that powerful mind of hers locks onto the idea of becoming someone with more to her name than a pair of wings and the ability to flay a mind without blinking.

As she's checking her boots are tied tight enough again, her door creaks open and Alex enters her room, more subdued than he'd been earlier that day. She observes him as he closes the door behind himself, perhaps more out of concealment than out of politeness.

"If you're here to persuade me not to go, then you're wasting both of our time," Rosa tells him, her voice cold through the hum of the evening.

She's never been a particularly warm person. Even before her mutation made itself known. But since whatever had been happening between her and Alex had ended, she's been an extra degree below freezing.

"Whatever it is you're so desperate to go out there and achieve, I just," his jaw clenches as he glances away and softens by the time he looks back to her, "I hope it's worth leaving all this behind for."

Rosa scowls at him, a flicker of anger sending her feathers into their signature flare. "I'm not leaving anything behind. I'm coming back eventually."

"Why can't you just stay?" He asks so softly that even her irate wings deflate.

If this was how he is going to try to make her stay, he's too late.

"You want me to stay?" She questions, dropping down from the desk.

Her throat bobs as she swallows down all the venom she wants to spit in his face when he can only manage a wooden nod in response.

"Do you remember what happened when I asked you to stay with me?" Rosa sends the question right into him like a flaming arrow. His chest ignites with ache and remembrance.

"I told you I couldn't," He replies, watching her carefully, watching her slip between his fingers.

"Exactly," She says, her wings beating and lifting her back onto the desk.

She glowers down at him, embers burning in her eyes with a determination he's never seen in her before.

"Auf Wiedersehen, Summers," is all she remarks before she turns and jumps out of her window, catching the wind and soaring straight into cloud cover.

Alex rushes to the window, jaw clenched as he watches her disappear into the distance like a shooting star, gone before he can even make his wish.

-

-

Though she was required to rest along the way, Rosa makes it to East Berlin in good time.

For the first leg of her flight, she'd flown angry. Sharp and choppy, slight and fast. Wanting to put as much distance between herself and Alex as she could so she didn't turn around and beat him into a pulp for even having the gall to ask her to stay.

After everything, she can barely tolerate his presence, let alone be willing to give up on her self-given mission for him.

She rested for a while in the branches of a tall tree, nestled between leaves, and, when she awoke, she forced him from her mind and replaced him with thoughts of her mission. Her new desires and dreams.

By the time she made it to Berlin, he was all but gone from her mind.

In the dead of night, she soars searching for the abandoned church her contact promised he'd meet her in. The church with the cracked spire stands out like a sore thumb and Rosa descends upon the crumbling building, folding her wings behind her as she lands on its front steps and pushes open the large wooden doors, weathered and rotting.

"Hello?" She calls out, glancing from a decapitated statue to a torn painting and wondering why this place was betrayed by its followers. "Ezra?"

"Keep your voice down," He snaps as he emerges from the darkness, unconsciously avoiding the pooling moonlight. "Do you want the whole neighbourhood to know you're here or just me?"

"Relax, they're probably all sleeping," Rosa retorts, folding her arms across herself and rolling her eyes at the uptight man.

"Or so we hope." He crosses the room towards her and drags his gaze over her body. "Hm, I suppose you're one of the first who's looked the part, at least."

"What's that supposed to mean?" She hisses, curling her jacket tighter around herself, keeping her wings close.

Ezra shrugs his bulky shoulders. "It means you won't snap on the first hit."

"Look, I'm just here to help, not be gawked at."

"Don't flatter yourself, darling. I want soldiers, not bed warmers." His dark eyes flare with a furious determination to match her own.

She can see herself in them. Small and childish before him as she pouts at his words. Snapping out of it, she straightens up.

"When do we start?" She asks, determined not to fall at the first hurdle. To let her anger spike and ruin her chances to be a part of something great.

He flicks a coin into the air, letting it spin before snatching it out of the air. "Tomorrow, if you're still in once you hear the plan." His rough hand grabs her wrist and turns her palm up. He presses the little silver coin into her palm. "If anyone here questions you, just show them this and they won't bother you again."

"I don't need a coin to stop people from bothering me," She snaps before she can reign in her tongue and just be grateful for once.

"No," Ezra says, eyes flickering past her to the wings which twitch at her every spike in emotion, "I'm sure you don't." He wonders what she's really capable of. Whether she knows how to use them or if they're just for show. "Follow me. You've got a lot to learn in the next few hours."

Ezra strides off and Rosa follows, unsure where he can possibly be going when all that is in front of them is the altar, missing its decorations of faith, probably long stolen and sold for less than it's worth.

But, when they reach the altar, he simply pushes on it and lifts it from the ground, revealing a drop and a ladder.

Ezra glances at her, but she conceals her surprise well.

"After you," He says, gesturing to the dark hole with a thin smile on his peachy mouth.

Rosa doesn't hesitate before she descends, relieved when she hears him follow and close the hole above them, and dropping the final few feet and steadying herself with her wings.

"Was that really necessary?" He asks as he comes to the bottom of the ladder and jogs to her side.

"Shut up," She shoots back, already interested elsewhere as she takes in the sight of more mutants than she'd imagined she'd see here. "Are all of them here to help too?"

"Some of them," Ezra says, "but some of them were victims."

Sure enough, a bandaged up mutant stands among them as they hunch over the table, scanning through the plans again. Was he missing an arm? Rosa swallows and glances to Ezra for what comes next.

"Come on." He beckons her forwards, drawing her into their group.

She stands beside him, chin high and shoulders back, though her wings bump into him and whoever was next to her. She doesn't dare mutter an apology.

"This is Rosa Lacuna. She's come all the way from Xavier's School to help us," Ezra announces, pulling the attention of everyone to her in a crashing wave of heat.

"Hi," She manages to say, but no words follow.

She can feel their eyes crawling over her skin, analysing her for strengths and for weaknesses, wondering what she can do, wondering what help she's going to be.

"What's she going to bring to the table? A pretty face and a few feathers?" An older woman asks, hostility foaming at her mouth.

Rosa's gaze locks onto the woman as she snaps out of her overwhelmed stupor. The fires of her furnace burning bright and running her irises molten bronze.

"Would you like a demonstration?" She asks calmly, though her blood bubbles.

"What? Are you gonna fly around in a circle or somethin'? Because that's not gonna help us, sweetie, now go back to your school," The woman questions, digging the shovel right beneath her skin.

"I'll take that as a yes."

"Rosa," Ezra warns from beside her, but it's too late for she's already barrelled into the woman's mind.

Shatters through the paper-thin shields and entering the mind as if it were child's play.

"Wow, you've got a lot of secrets in here," Rosa says, voice like ice. "And so little defence. Wouldn't it be a shame if I just..." She clenches her fist and the first slick line of blood begins to run from the woman's nose as she loses control of her own mind, becoming the audience of her own demise.

As quickly as it began, Rosa releases and withdraws.

"Now, personally, I think I'll be a lot of help, don't you?"

The woman can only nod as she wipes away her blood and begin to explain the plans to the devious newcomer.

-

1787 words
21.2.19