New to Town
Clouds covered a normally calm blue sky; it didn’t give the day the normal dreary feeling one would assume whenever it was overcast. It made everyone feel calm, lulled into a lazy state that made everyone want to take a nap. Bayville was quiet that day, aside the sound of an occasional car that made its way through a neighborhood. The residents of the Brotherhood house sat lazily around the TV in their living room except for the three new girls who had moved in upstairs.
Rosemarie was not an easy person to irritate or anger but her new roommates were quickly making that statement false. She tried to put her flowers on the ledge of her second story bedroom window but with the house shaking violently her babies almost fell to the ground. Her best friend Analada was shaken from her meditative state; the blue, pink, and purple misty lights that had been flowing around her quickly dissipating as she glared at the door. She unfolded her legs as she stood up from the floor completely and utterly ready to go knock some heads. But Lena, the youngest member of their group was already speaking from her place on her bed.
"Lana, we don't need to get kicked out our first week of living here because we can't keep our tempers."
Analada looked at the door with a seething glare before she came to reason and sat back down trying to get back into her meditative state, the cool colors coming up around her in a calming circle. Rosie turned her head to the bed where Lena was reading her book and mouthed a silent,
"Thank you, Lena."
She received a smile as the fourteen-year-old went back to her book. With order restored to their room Rosie looked back to her babies on the ledge of the window, with a turn of her hand a sparkle of green mist came from her hands. It twisted and turned until it came to reach the plants helping them grow a bit, a flower bloomed from one of her cacti. She was surprised that her plants could even thrive with how cold it was here; Rosie pulled her fluffy forest green cardigan tighter around her instead of closing the window. Analada liked it cold when she meditated, so Rosie would keep the window open until she was done. Rosie started towards the door when an especially hard tremor hit the house knocking her off her feet not even having time to brace herself as she hit the floor. Rosemarie decided that she’d just about had enough and stood, walking over to slam the door open and started her stomping pace towards the downstairs living room. Her two friends following her quickly to make sure a murder didn’t take place. Rosemarie stomped down the stairs her tattoos beginning to glow a bright pastel pink to match her eyes. As she was about to round the corner, she heard the voice of Todd Tolanski say,
"Oh, crap man I think you pissed one of them off."
This being followed by the voice of Lance Alvers in a smug tone saying,
"I ain't afraid of no girls, I bet I just rocked their world."
With that Rosie turned into the living room and a complete and utter silence met her as her eyes and tattoos glowed threateningly. She stalked menacingly towards Lance who tried to back off fervently until he fell onto one of the chairs in the room. Rosemarie was not tall by any means, she stood at a menacing 5’6 and even though Lance was 6’2 she had brough him to beneath her with a look. She towered over him saying through gritted teeth,
"Lance, I swear to whatever deity you pray to, if you continue with the tremors, I will kill you and use your dead body as a pot for my roses. Do you understand me?"
Wild red curls framed the deadly expression that resided on her face as she glared down at him, Lance was unmoving for a moment before he was finally able to snap out of his stupor nodding fervently. Rosie then turned like a snap, her ombre red hair gliding behind her as she started towards the stairs. She looked at her friends with a look of ‘see, it’s all taken care of’ but as she was about to leave the room she heard,
"Crazy bit-",
The words were suddenly cut off as a vine glowing pink came flying through the floor to wrap around Lance's neck and brought him up from the chair. It held him unmoving in the air for a moment before the vine threw him onto the floor in front of Rosemarie, as Lance gasped for breath, she squatted down to his level saying in a menacing tone,
"Lance would you care to repeat that statement to me?"
He looked up at her and saw the underlying threat in her eyes, he glared at her still coughing and trying to catch his breath. Before looking away and grunting out a,
"I'm sorry okay?"
Rosemarie gathered herself fixing her clothes and fluffing her hair then turning to see Mystique, Analada, and Lena in the doorway of the living room. The vine retreated through the floor and Rosie's tattoos began to quickly lose their glow, Rosie looked away bashfully when Mystique said,
"My dear that was absolutely incredible!"
Rosie looked to Mystique with incredulous eyes as the girls standing behind Mystique who shrugged as Rosie let out a hesitant,
"Thank you?"
Meanwhile Mystique looked like she had received a puppy on Christmas morning, she spoke saying,
"Pay no mind to the damage my dear, that's exactly what I wanted to see. Your ability is so unique I’ve never seen anything like it before, the ability to manipulate all plant life surrounding you."
The girls all looked at each other before Analada pipped up,
"Uh Ms. Mystique?"
Mystique then turned to the sixteen-year-old saying,
"Yes?"
Lana looked up to her to say,
"Would it be alright if we left the house for a bit? I think Rosemarie needs to calm down a bit."
Rosie immediately knew that something was up, Lana never called Rosie by her full name unless there was something the three of them needed to talk about. Mystique nodded asking the girls to pick up some groceries and handing them money and a list. As the three girls walked out of the house, she called after them reminding them to be home by eleven o' clock because their first day of school was tomorrow. The three nodded as they went to pile in the Rosie's little green Volkswagen Bug, Rosie thankfully took her purse and keys from Lena and she started up the engine.
Mystique watched the girls pull away from the house as she waved from the porch earning waves from three hands back. She waited until they'd turned the street before grinning and going back inside. As she walked back in Lance was on the floor griping about how much the vine hurt his neck, Pietro spoke from the couch,
"Well Lance we had to figure out exactly what her powers were somehow, and you drew the short straw to piss her off to get her to show."
Lance glared back at him before thinking about how to make things right with Rosemarie so living at the house wouldn't be hell. Pietro looked up at Mystique saying,
"So, when do you think we'll bring them in on the secret?"
Mystique pondered for a moment before saying,
"Soon, but we still need to learn more about their abilities and if they’d be useful to us in the fight for our cause. We still have no idea what little Lena does, and we have a very shady notion of what Analada does, observe them but maybe you idiots should take a different approach then trying to make them angry."
Mystique finished her statement with a threatening glace to all present in the living room, with that she turned from the boys and walked out the door slamming it behind her. Fred nodded from the couch, certainly not wanting what happened to Lance to happen to him.
"It’s a bit odd that Lance seemed to be trying to get you to lose your temper Rosie, he seemed very nice to all of us when we moved in a few days ago. In fact, they’ve all been very nice to us, this just seems very out of character. I think it may be possible that Mystique is trying to use them to figure out what our mutant abilities are because we wouldn’t tell her.”
Lana spoke in a hushed tone as the three walked out of a store in the mall, bags in hand with new clothes for school.
"Okay so maybe she was but honestly I’m thinking that maybe we should tell her, we are staying in her home so she has a right to know. Since we wouldn’t tell her we may have forced her hand but I don’t see the reason for her absolutely needing to know what our abilities are.”
Rosie was trying to give Mystique the benefit of the doubt, but it was hard to when riling her up earlier seemed like it was intentional.
"Rosie what reason would she have for doing that? Unless she's just finding out what we can do to maybe use it at a later time?”
Lena looked to the two girls she was walking in between, Lana nodded before saying,
"Maybe, but I don't know. She's giving me really weird vibes in how she's acting around us, she's a lot nicer to us than she is to the boys that's for sure. Yeah, they’re guys and they can be a bit messy and loud but that’s no reason to treat them with so much disrespect."
Rosie nodded to her friends agreeing with that statement, Lance had been so nice to her. She really thought that the two of them were hitting it off and going to become really good friends and maybe even more than that. The group had known it would take Mystique a few days to get the girls in the system at Bayville High, so they’d stayed home for their first week living in Bayville. They done some serious cleaning and house repair even on their first day, since the group had been on the run for a while, they learned a lot picking up odd jobs. When the boys had come home after their first day at school, they were astonished at all the girls had gotten done. All of the cupboards were fixed, and the house was nearly spotless, the girls had really come in and turned their world upside down. Most nights the girls went exploring Bayville and ate out at different places, they had plenty of money saved up from being smart with their spending habits and not paying for anywhere to live.
This leading her train of thought away from where she was walking, she had given her bags to Lana while she went to throw something away. Rosie looked up just in time to see herself trip towards the huge fountain in the middle of the mall, she closed her eyes shut preparing for a splash that never came. She felt herself being swung around as two arms were wrapped securely around her waist, she opened her pastel pink eyes looking around to see that she had been pulled away from the fountain. As she looked up to see who her savior was her eyes met rich dark brown ones, a young man with dark skin and blonde hair said,
"I think I just fell for you, wait no it's I think you just fell for me, dammit Daniels wait to be smooth."
This causing Rosie to start giggling as he moved to right her onto her feet, as she brushed her hair out of her face she looked at him through her lashes before saying,
"Well you're not wrong, thank you for not letting me fall into the fountain. My name's Rosemarie, what's yours?"
He looked at her before trying to regain his composure and confidently saying,
"Well Evan I'm Rosem- I'm so sorry can we start this over again?"
This prompting another giggle from Rosie who nodded her head, Evan turned away from her for a moment before turning back saying,
"Hi there, my name is Evan Daniels, are you new to Bayville? I've never seen you around here before."
Rosie brushed some of her wild red hair out of her face before saying,
"Yes, actually I just moved here a week or so ago with my two friends Lena and Analada."
She gestured to the two girls who had been standing a little bit away watching the whole ordeal. Lana's bright blue shawl billowing around her, she had the whole boho look about her as she was mystical. Lena's lilac hair complimenting her tan and pale skin as her vitiligo crossed her face beautifully, her tan skin overlaying as her pale skin lead a river from the bottom of her face in the right over her nose and left eye continuing into her hairline whilst pale spots were scattered on her chest and body. Her green and gold eyes shone brightly as she waved at them. Evan waved back as he turned to face Rosie again,
"Are you going to Bayville High?"
Rosie smiled gently before replying,
"Yes, the three of us start tomorrow. Lena is a sophomore while Lana and I are juniors, and yes Lena did skip her freshman year."
Evan looked over to her and said,
"Damn she's really smart then!"
Rosie smiled and nodded before a pale boy with blue hair seemed to pop up out of nowhere next to Evan shouting his name. This made Evan about jump out of his skin, the same with Rosie and she swore she saw something poke the surface of his skin, she thought to herself,
'It's probably just the way he turned.'
Evan menacingly glared at the boy before saying sharply,
"Kurt! I’m trying to have a conversation here man!"
The guy named Kurt, Rosie recently having learned acknowledged Rosie with a polite smile and a wave which Rosemarie returned, he then looked back to Evan and began speaking.
"Ja I've noticed but Scott told me to tell you to hurry dude, he'z ready to leave without you."
He motioned over to a group of teens standing on the other side of the fountain, they were an odd-looking bunch that was to say the least. A pale goth looking girl stood talking to a preppy girl with a brown ponytail who looked like she walked out of an episode of Gossip Girl, a stunning young woman with long red hair stood next to a tall dark-haired boy with ruby sunglasses who motioned them to hurry up. Rosie turned to Evan and said,
"I'm sorry to have kept you, I’m starting at Bayville tomorrow so I guess I’ll be seeing you around Evan."
Evan turned to her as she walked away, red hair flowing behind her as she walked back over to her friends grabbing her bags from them. Evan called out to her saying,
"Yeah Rosemarie I'll see you tomorrow!"
Rosie turned to him one last time before saying,
"Call me Rosie, all my friends call me that."
Evan felt himself warm at the response, Rosemarie was so sweet and she was absolutely gorgeous. He got a fluttery look about him before saying,
"Bye Rosie."
Not loud enough for her to hear him but enough for Evan to hear her name on his lips. He stood there for a second watching her walk away and laugh with her friends before Kurt started smirking at him saying,
"Ooohhh somebody has a crush!"
Unfortunately that was loud enough for the team to hear it and look over at him grinning, Evan’s cheeks heated up and he glared before saying,
"No, I don't shut up Kurt!"
With that he stomped over to the team and past them towards the door, the rest of them in tow giggling and laughing. The group walked through the parking lot of the mall and put their bags in the trunk. As they all piled into Scott's car, Evan saw Rosie set her and her friend's bags in the backseat of a green Volkswagen. In his head he thought,
'Damn even her car’s cute'
Not realizing that he had said it aloud set a throng of laughing through the car as Evan realized that his friends had heard what he was thinking. They drove off as Evan yelled,
"SHUT UP YOU GUYS!"
Meanwhile going unnoticed by the two groups, Lance and Pietro sat in Lance's Jeep while giving each other a look and starting a quicker route to take them home.