Beauty within the Beast
"Can I ask you one question?" Wind questioned as they began to shoot towards the clouds.
"What?" Rose Waters questioned as she pressed a button to let them go up a little more steathily. Rose Waters still had plenty of time before her mission needed to be completed, she could... entertain Wind for a few more minutes longer than required.
"What's your real name?" At the words, Rose Waters pinched her lips together as Wind continued. "I mean, I'm not stupid, it's obviously not Waters... unless, of course, it is, which you know, in that case, it's totally fine, but..."
"You're rambling." Rose Waters interuptted as she turned her him. "And Waters is my real name... the only name that I've ever really known, I suppose."
"Oh... I'm... I'm sorry." Wind replied as Rose Waters simply shrugged, a small smile on my lips.
"I don't really mind, actually." Rose Waters continued as she pressed a few buttons on the control panel. "I love this life, and I wouldn't trade it for the world."
"Really?" Wind questioned as Rose Waters nodded truthfully as a moment of realization fell upon his face. "Oh, yes, you've never been on Earth... I forgot... To you, this is normal."
"No, I've never thought my life was normal, actually." Rose Waters admitted as she glanced up at the Mothership that sinked closer and closer towards them. She had spent all of last night memorizing the outside layout, looking for some sort of flaw, and half an hour before her mission began, she found it, the pod bay doors. All she had to do was come in, kill a couple dozen people, and be on her merry way. "But it's my life, isn't it? And, while many people do indeed think on the contrary, I believe what I'm doing is for the greater good."
A moment of silence passed by the two as Wind scratched the back of his neck and spoke. "You know, you're pretty wise for a bad-ass."
At his words, half a grin appeared on Rose Waters' face. "Did you ever doubt it?"
Another moment of silence, this one tingling in the air for a little longer until Wind spoke once more.
"My name's not actually Wind." He admitted and bit the bottom of his lip in worry. "Well, it kind of is, but well, not really... sorry, I'm rambling... My real name is Kevin. Kevin Windack."
"What a strange name." Rose Waters replied as Kevin laughed.
"Actually, it's much more normal on Earth than, well, than Waters." He quietly nudged her with his elbow. "Maybe we should think of a new name for you once we get to Earth... something more human-like."
"Yeah." Rose Waters whispered back and nodded her head. "Yeah, maybe we should."
Another moment of silence as the two began to close in the landing bay doors before Rose Waters broke the silence.
"What about Rose?"
And for a second, Rose Waters wanted to slap herself. There it was, her secret identity... and now she had to kill him. Only an idiot wouldn't be able to put the pieces together.
But, apparently, Earthlings tended to be a bit on the dimmer side.
"Yeah, Rose." Wind nodded his head at her words and smiled. "Rose... That's a very beautiful and human-like name-"
"-For the most unhuman human in the galaxy." Rose Waters replied, a sly grin on her face as she finished the words like how Thanos would've. In her mind, she almost felt as if she had made him proud... if that was even possible of course.
Wind laughed, this stupid little laugh that took up the sound waves in the ship and almost sounded a little like a pig.
But the sound made something twist in Rose's stomach and a little peek of a true smile land on her face, happiness for a brief moment filling her lungs and soul before she let out a laugh herself. When was the last time she had laughed like that?... with Loki perhaps... And the Lord knew that it's been all to long she had seen him.
"You're funny, Rose." Wind stated as Rose Waters simply smiled before crashing the ship into the landing bay.
"He's here." Nebula whispered as she caught faint sight of his ship behind the clouds before she turned over to the men and women still focused on Rose Waters. "Thanos is back... and this time, I don't think he's leaving without Gamora and the Time Stone."
"And he won't be getting it." Strange replied as everyone's attention immediately shifted to the true matter at hand.
"You, alert everyone else. Make sure every civilian is safe." Tony shouted at someone random, who immediately followed his directions as Doctor Strange turned around and floated over to Rose Waters via his cape.
"The Tesseract will be safer with me, Miss. Waters." Doctor Strange whispered as Rose Waters face only tightened into a harsh smile.
"Wrong." She replied as she casually began to walk away. "Now, if you don't mind, I plan on leaving this planet alive."
"We need you though!" Peter shouted as Rose Waters simply twirled around, an eyebrow casually raised.
"Should've said that before you all tried to attack me." Rose Waters snapped as Iron Man sent out a warning missile a few meters away from Rose Waters, to which she turned around and held her sword out as Tony Stark simply stared at the girl.
"I don't think so. Last time you said you were on our side, you ended up hitting that guy and running off with the purple dude." Tony Stark reminded the young girl. "Right now, I don't think we need any more enemies on our side, so please, either come with us to the palace and don't do a thing, so we'll drag you there by force."
Rose Waters stared at Iron Man, her mind whirling through calculations. Then, almost as if it was a spur of a moment kind of thing, she casually twirled her sword back to it's hiding place and held her arms into the air.
"Okay fine. Arrest me."
"You sure you know what you're doing?" Wind questioned as Rose Waters casually began to snap the neck of yet another guard.
"Yup, I told you, trust me." She replied as she let out a flurry of kicks at numerous soldiers before the two hid behind a spaceship. "All these ships aren't loaded with fuel and we won't even make it out of the system using them." She casually took a dead man's gun and shot three times at the guards who were firing at her, all three shots hitting them dead. "The best ships are on the other side of the ship, inside a guarded room. With those, even if they didn't have boom tubes, we'd still make it back to Earth without a pit stop."
Rose Waters wasn't lying, the ships in their current pod bay were all typically run down or confiscated from criminals, after all, what kind of Empire puts their best weapons up front practically begging to be stolen?
"So you're telling me that we have to go through this entire Mothership to actually get to a ship?" Wind questioned and for a moment, Rose Waters thought he was going to throw a tantrum. However, he only smiled and reloaded his gun. "This is going to be fun."
"Yes, indeed." Rose Waters replied with a sly grin as she shot once more before gesturing to him to run, where they both began to sprint towards the nearest door, to which Rose Waters managed to pry open and slip through, Wind on her tail.
"Strong. What kind of drugs are in you?" He questioned as Rose Waters only smiled.
"All natural." She replied when the truth was too many to count. She was already an... enhanced human due to her teleporting capabilities, which enhanced her overall muscle strength and speed already, but Thanos wouldn't due with some... some mediocre soldier. He needed, wanted, the best for his elite soldiers. One of Rose Waters' earliest memories were of Thanos hooking her onto a machine, his large, rough hands patting down her brilliant blond hair as he whispered into her ear.
You're going to be great.
He wasn't lying.
"Come on, this way." Rose Waters whispered as she dove through the hallways, navigating the best she could to the location of the ship's reactor core. Her hands pressed against the wall, searching for the hum of power as Wind obediently followed behind her.
"You sure know your way around." He muttered as an alarm suddenly got sounded, everyone now on alert of the invaders of the Mother ship.
"Yeah, I know ships." Rose Waters replied simply as she found where the humming seemed to be getting louder and louder, her hands continuing to press against the walls as a large group of guards appeared, to which Wind, being the gentleman he was, offered to take down as Rose Waters continued down the hallway, where the humming increased so much that she could feel it just by standing on the ground.
And it was then when a soldier appeared from practically out of nowhere, gun in hand.
At the sight, Rose's base instincts took over and she blinked.
And to her great surprise, she appeared behind the man and her animal instincts kicked in, making her stab her elbow into his spine, crippling any chance of him walking again.
Rose Waters took in a sharp breath and widened her eyes. Her powers were back... not entirely of course, but enough. Enough that she possibly didn't need Wind anymore, she could do the rest of this on her own...
"Easy as pie." Wind stated, suddenly coming into the new hallway, a half-grin on his face as Rose Waters only smiled back. No, she needed him, of course she did, and even if she didn't, well, it didn't hurt to have a little backup.
"Rose Waters is on the ship. Send-" A hoarse voice spoke as Rose Waters looked down at the guard who had his bloody hand pressed against his ear. Alive. Of course he was, that was her luck after all. With a sharp kick at his neck, the man stopped talking, possibly forever, and Rose Waters smiled back at Wind.
"Yeah, I think the ships might be in here." She replied as she kicked open the nearby door, her hands suddenly alive with power as they entered the reactor room, where nuclear fusion seemed to happen... the energy that powered the ship.
Along with dozens of guards of course.
"I'll take the ones on the left." Rose Waters stated rather quickly as she jumped down from the steps and easily began to take down the guards on the left as Wind widened his eyes.
"But... we don't need-" He started when someone attempted to shoot at him. At the shot, Wind rolled his eyes. "What the heck." He then proceeded to shoot people on the right.
In exactly half a minute, Rose Waters managed to take down everyone on the left hand side and went to the control panel, where she easily managed to reroute the power to the one main engine of the ship. Within two minutes, the power would become too much for the ship to handle and that engine would break down... which meant that there was no other place for the power go to but inside, where it would self destruct.
She kicked a lever, jamming it in place and gave herself a self satisfied grin as she began to march away towards Wind when she heard a vague, dying voice.
"You're not going to get away with this, Waters..." It spoke as Rose Waters calmly turned her head to the dying man. "The Nova Corps are coming and hundreds of men are going to stop-" Before he could finish, Rose Waters shot him and casually moved on with her life as she quickly found Wind and began to drag him away.
"Come on, we need to leave. Now." She informed him as he stumbled to catch up.
"What?"
"Well, you know, only that hundreds of guards are going to be attacking us right at this moment." She responded right as she began to hear footsteps bang on the ground.
"Well, then we take them out. Waters' style." he replied rather playfully, as if the two were invincible as Rose Waters bit her lip. She didn't exactly think this part through, the plan was always that she would just teleport back to Thanos' ship now that her plan was done... but she didn't even know if she could do that with her powers still on the fritz... and Wind...
"Yeah, well, we're kind of running out of time." She commented as the footstep pounds turned louder and louder as Rose Waters fought the urge to clap her hands over her ears. She just wanted some freakin' silence, was that too much to ask?
"What do you mean?" Wind questioned back as Rose Waters continued to walk over, where she spotted a window. Her mind spun with so many calculations that it became rather dizzy as the footsteps turned louder and louder that it almost felt as if they were walking on her skull.
Thirty seconds before the engine would below up. Twenty until the guards came.
She needed a miracle to get out of this.
And, to her great surprise, a miracle did come through the window...
In the form of a Nova Corps ship.
At the sight, Rose Waters grinned and she didn't think. She only did.
She spotted a room within the ship's window, and before she knew it, she was grabbing onto Wind's arm, a smile on her face.
And then they were gone only to be landed on a Nova Corps ship, where Rose Waters immediately killed everyone in the room before running over to the pilot seat, killing him, and turning the ship around to get as far away from the mothership as possible, a smile on her face. The universe really was looking out for her. It knew just what good Rose Waters was doing and it was rewarding her with her life and the life of Wind! Everything was going to be beautiful.
That is, until Rose Waters felt the pain of a laser beaming through her shoulder as she collapsed on the controls, her eyes looking for her attacker only to spot the eyes of no other than Kevin Windack.
Thanks for reading this far!
~Emily