WANTED U | ANGEL | X-MEN APOCALYPSE

ten

ten !
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Rosa lies on her stomach atop the beam, cheek pressed to its metal and all of her limps hanging towards the impending concrete. Her dark wings hang like curtains ushering from her back, limp and yet hard to ignore as she tries to sleep off her drunken haze.

Warren is still drinking. He'd clearly lied when he told her he'd only bought one bottle, but, at this point, she's beyond caring about such trivial matters.

Though the heavy music he'd taken to playing after finding the speaker further up in the warehouse's rafters and tapping the liquor bottle along to its pulse was beginning to grind on her gears.

Just as she's about to shout up to him to be quiet before she comes up there and makes him, a glow of purple shines and a group of three strangers step out from its depths, trespassing in their new found sanctuary.

"Faire pisse!" Warren yells down at them, pissed in more way than one. "Or should I say, "Piss off"?"

Rosa pushes herself up and sobers immediately. Warning signs flash inside her mind and yet her curiosity is hungry.

Warren hurls a glass bottle down to the strangers. It smashes at their feet, but they're hardly deterred. He jumps and soars down onto her beam just as she manages to stand and keep her balance.

"This is the guy?" The youthful girl with the white hair questions, clearly unimpressed by the drunkard. "And who is that?"

"He used to be," The other woman replies, something unwritten lying within her dark eyes. "I didn't know his wings were... Let's get out of here. His fighting days are done. As for her, I don't know who she is."

"No, they're not," The mysterious blue man says, clearly the leader. He watches them just as they watch back.

When Warren jumps from the beam and manages to land without toppling, steadying himself with his wings, Rosa follows and lands beside him, determined to walk with him into whatever this is.

"What the hell is this?" Warren grits out, still clutching the liquor.

Unsettled, Rosa's wings flex and shift behind her as she stands at his side, already whittling her way into the most vulnerable one's mind. The young one. The one with the white hair and the storm at her beck and call. She likes to be called that. Storm. It's a part of her no one can touch without consequence.

"I want to give you something," The mutant, which Rosa quickly identifies through invasion of Storm's mind as Apocalypse, tells him. "You too, Harbinger."

Her jaw locks tight at the name on his tongue.

"There is nothing you can give me that I want," Warren replies dismissively, already turning away from their unexpected visitors.

Curiosity grips her tighter. What could he possibly have to offer? What talents did he possess that make him so confident in himself? She wants to see, but his mind is closed to her no matter how hard her fingers pry on his edges.