Vixen
Author's Note- Hey! I thought i'd do the prequel to Xavier's Rose first lol. Enjoy!!!
Chapter One- Lost
"Charles…" Erik put the newspaper crossword he was completing down and looked at his friend, "what is the region around a magnetised planet that traps solar wind?"
Charles Xavier raised his head from the dark oak desk he was sat at and looked at his lifelong friend he had met at the age of seventeen, "the magnetosphere why?"
"Magneto…hmm…oh I wanted to finish this crossword…" he told him as he penned in the missing word and completed the puzzle page of the newspaper.
"You should find more productive things to do with your time," Charles told him and looked back down at the lesson plans for the next week. He signed to say that he approved and placed them on the end of the desk so that his teachers could retrieve them in the next meeting.
"Like what?" Erik laughed, "Run a school for mutants and send letters out to new students?"
Charles couldn't help but laugh and he looked at the date; 1990. The school had been running for ten years now and his first students, Scott, Jean and Ororo were now teachers and members of his special operations team that the students had affectionately called the X-men. He still continued to mentor them but they were adults now, they could look after themselves, he felt slightly sad at that thought.
Erik looked as though he was going to further the conversation when a student called Gilly ran into the room and said, "Professors…there's someone at the door…"
Charles was taken away from his memories and looked at Gilly; she was fourteen years old and she had platinum blonde hair with light grey eyes, she was able to levitate but she had no other powers much to her own dislike.
He looked at her kindly, "tell them we will be right there Gilly…"
The girl nodded and ran back out of the room.
"I wonder who that can be…" Erik said with a smirk.
Charles shook his head and he stood up from his seat and left the office, Erik followed after him and they talked along the way.
"What are we going to do about the proposed bill of mutant rights going through congress? Or should I say lack of rights?" Erik asked as they passed various students in the lobby.
"Erik…" Charles warned, "Remember there are students around, children and we are doing our best"
"I know, I know it's just…I feel like we aren't getting very far" His old friend told him.
Charles understood how Erik felt, he had been feeling the same of late, he desperately wished for mutants to be able to come out of hiding and live normal lives like everyone else on the planet. He knew it wasn't going to happen anytime soon but maybe when the students were his age…maybe they won't feel scared to be themselves anymore.
The pair came to the door where a figure was waiting outside, she was in the shadows and looking out over the lawns over to the left side of the mansion. She was wearing a cream summer hat with a large brim that kept her face in the shade and deep red hair escaped from underneath and fell down her back. She also wore a cream and floral printed dress that was sleeveless and extended to her knees. She was facing the other way so nothing more could be known.
Erik cleared his throat and the woman turned around to see the two professors looking at her.
"What can we do for you?" Charles asked kindly.
"Oh…" a Russian sounding accent answered, "I am looking for Erik Lensherr"
Erik stepped forward suspiciously, "I'm Erik Lensherr, who are you?"
The woman smiled removing her hat to show kind brown eyes and a perfectly sculpted face with a straight nose and full lips almost as red as her hair, her skin was a cool ivory, "It's me…Rosalina…"
Charles's old friend when stiff beside him and said, "You had better come in…"
The two men stood aside to allow the woman into the mansion and she was stood in the lobby seeming quite unsure about what to do with herself. Charles saw Jean coming down the stairs talking quietly to Scott.
"Jean? Could you show Rosalina into my office please?" he asked.
"Yes, of course…follow me" Jean said and she led the woman off to his office.
Charles then turned to Erik who was staring into space obviously thinking about something, "What's wrong?"
Erik moved his head to face him, "Rosalina…she's dead…she died when my parents died…and that woman in there is trying to tell me that she is my deceased sister."
"and you think she must be lying?" his friend asked him.
Erik nodded, "Did you have to look to see that?"
Charles chuckled, "No…I think we should at least talk to her…"
"And say what?" he argued.
"Well…we find out her story and then…we take her downstairs and we see if she is telling the truth." He told him.
"Always so diplomatic" Erik commented.
"It's the only way forward…besides wouldn't Rosalina be the same age as you if she had survived?" Charles wondered.
"Yes…but there was no way she could have survived that…" Erik's eyes went like steel as he spoke.
Charles sighed and did something that would give him a better picture of what happened to his sister, he entered his memories and went to one of his earliest and most traumatic experiences.
Erik, Rosalina and there parents had been working on their farm in eastern Poland close to the border with Russia when German troops came in army trucks and Charles saw them park near the family of four. A few men got out of the back of the truck and ran into the house. Erik at this time must have been no more than nine and his sister was roughly four years old.
Erik's father approached the men while his mother beckoned the children to her side, "What do you want?"
"Are you Jews?" the thick German accent of the commanding officer asked.
"No! Of course not…" the father answered busily looking towards the house and to his family stood behind him.
The commanding officer was about to speak until a soldier charged out of the house holding something in his gloved hand, he shouted something in German to the officer and then guns were brought out.
"You lied…" he told them as more soldiers got out of the truck and surrounded the family, "You're being taken to a concentration camp…"
--------
The family was moved into the truck and the little girl started to cry, her mother held her tight to her chest and her ruby coloured hair escaped from her bun. As they drove to the camp one man yelled at the girl to stop it and another told him to shut up.
He talked to the girl trying to calm her down, "shush shush…you don't have to cry…you're only going to stay there so you don't get in the way when the fighting starts…"
The girl lifted her large and soft brown eyes up to the twenty something year old man, "Really?"
"Yes…because all the brave soldiers are going to fight to save the Russian citizens from communism," he told her with a wink.
Rosalina smiled and said, "So you're helping us?"
The man nodded smiling himself.
-----
A few hours later they arrived at the camp and joined a line of Jewish families and they entered the camp. Both children were holding their mothers hand as they shuffled down the line, but they were getting split up at the end and when it came to their turn the father did it while the mother said goodbye to her children. They cried for her and Charles saw the young Erik run for his parents and he had to be held back by five guards and the metal gates separating the adults from the parents was mangled by his power. Rosalina stayed in the line getting shuffled along by older children because she couldn't see through her tear filled eyes.
----
Over the next month Charles saw the young Erik and Rosalina live in the camp and the same soldier who had taken such an interest in her had doted on her constantly, while she accepted his kindness with great affection her brother was naturally suspicious of him. At one point the soldier was singing a polish lullaby to her, his cheerful yet solum voice carried over the yard to where he was sitting,
"A little spark twinkles from the hearth
to little Adalbert:
- Come, I'll tell you a story,
it will be very long.
There was once a princess,
She fell in love with a busker!
The king arranged a great wedding
And...it's the end of the story.
Once there was a witch,
she had a little hut made of litter;
And in this hut,
there were only strange things!
Pssst! The spark went down.
Adalbert looks and muses,
His eyes filled up with tears:
- Why did you fool me so? I'll remember that!
I won't ever believe you! You little spark!
You shine for a moment, then you go down!
And that's it - the whole story."
At the end of the month Rosalina was taken from Erik and dragged across the yard along with a few girls the same age. They were taken into a wooden building and the soldier that had been so kind of Rosalina entered along with some of this comrades. His face was one of disgust and guilt. Erik ran towards the building just as the door was slammed shut. A few moments later blood curling screams were heard and then five rounds of lead bullets were fired. Erik was in shock. An hour later the bodies were taken out to be buried in a mass grave…the memory ended.
"We had better go see her then…" Charles said to his friend who was none the wiser about his little expedition into his memories.
The two left the warm sunshine of the summer and entered into the lobby, they walked towards the office and the woman claiming to be Rosalina Lensherr.
