Chapter 53: White Winged Angel

Blaring sirens of a fire truck racing towards the enflamed apartment building cuts through the cold, snowy night. Through the chaotic shouts of families looking for one another, a woman's voice rings out loudly as she fights the firefighters and pro heroes to let her re-enter the building.

"Let me go!" she screams, trying to wiggle loose from the firefighters' grasp on her arms. "Let me save her, please! Mother!!"

Angel, from the sky, hears the young lady's bellowing. He flies alongside the blazing building until he locates the woman he presumed to be the young lady's mother, passed out in a wheelchair. Angel shoots into the fire-filled room, retrieving the lady just before the fire engulfs the entire room.

Placing the lady on a park bench, Angel waits patiently as the lady regains consciousness.

The woman opens her eyes, gently smiling back at Angel in gratitude. Her daughter's shouts pull her away from the moment.

"Jamie! Honey, here I'm over here." Angel flies away.

"Mom?!" Jamie cries as she sees her mom and runs to her. "How?"

"An angel saved me. A real one, with wings."

.*.*.*.

Shuddering, Hawks lands on the front porch of the mansion. The snow hasn't let up much, so snowflakes cling to his wings, hair, and clothes. "God, I need to preen." He sighs as he steps inside the warm mansion. Immediately, a phone is shoved in his face with a new article reading Is that an angel or are we getting a new pro Hero for the holidays?

"What's the big idea, Hawks?! You said you weren't going to do hero work last night." Scott says, pointing the silhouetted an angel flying from the apartment fire.

"Uh, that's not me, Scott. The wing shape is off and, though I'm flattered that you think I'm as tall as that 'angel,' I'm 5'8" on a good day."

Hawks takes off his coat and shakes the snow from his wings. "But since you're checking my every move, I was asleep with Jean last night, then dropped Chickadee, Kit Kat, Furry, and Sun Spot off at the airport."

Scott's brow twitches. "You two-"

"Slept! Geez, calm down." Hawks defends, rolling his eyes at Scott as Hawks continues shaking the snow off his wings, in turn covering Scott's socks with snow.

Scott scoffs as Hawks walks past him.

"Keigo is right. We need to look into this 'angel.'" Professor Xavier says, joining the two at the door with Rouge and Hank following after him.

Hawks groans at the thought of having to be in the cold again. His body just started feeling like it was thawing from the cold flight to get here.

"I'll have to go change my socks before we leave. They're a little wet." Scott huffs, nudging Hawks in the arm.

.*.*.*.

"Ah yes~ man, this hits the spot." Hawks chirps, happily sipping his hot

"Your weren't joking about your hatred for the cold." Scott says. The bell on the door of the store chimes as they leave.

"Yeah, hallow bones. I have to keep moving in the cold; my body temperature drops really quickly. Just a beautiful side effect of having an animal mutation." Hawks smirks.

"Do ya think this person we are looking for is the same as ya?" Rouge asks.

"It's possible. The degree of animal mutation varies by the person's quirk. But, given what he was able to do, especially so discretely. I imagine he has great vision, similar to yours truly. What really interests me, though, is how he got that close to so many people and almost got away unnoticed. Im curious if he hides them? Or are they white, so did the blend in with the snow? My wings can be seen from miles away in the sky just from my shadow's size alone.

The sudden ring of police sirens jolts Hawks from his thoughts. Instinctually, Hawks' wings flare out to fly after the sirens. "Come on, guys!" He orders and heads off.

"Does he know we don't fly?" Scott asks.

"Speak for ya-self." Rogue chuckles as she activates Jean's quirk and grabs Scott's hand to race after the winged hero.

.*.*.*.

The red, white and blue sirens light up the the dark night, making it easy to spot their landing place. Hawks sees crowds of people and a car being towed back up the bridge. Swiftly he closes the distance.

"There he is!" A lady in a yellow coat shouts, pointing to Hawks. "He caused all this and knocked that poor girl into the icy cold water."

"Huh?" Hawks says as a local pro hero and an officer approach him. "I think she's mistaking me for someone else. I just got here." He rubs his neck as he scans the scene.

"Let us ask the questions, sir." The officer replies, stopping in front of Hawks.

"By all means, but I know nothing. I'm visiting from Japan right now. Here." He shows his hero ID and passport. "My name is Hawks and I'm looking that other winged man as well."

"No way, that's him!" Squeals a lady behind the officer.

"He's even more handsome in person!" shouts another.

"Our friend is going flip shit that we got see him without her!" Exclaims another. People begin flocking around Hawks.

Hawks continues, used to attention from his fan base at home. He puts his identification away and continues speaking with the officer patiently.

"So… what happened?" Hawks asks the officer.

"There was a car accident on this bridge. One of the cars was about to fall into the water, and the same flying figure that pulled the older lady out of the apartment fire last night was able to pull all the people inside the vehicle out of it milliseconds before the car fell into the water."

"So… that sounds like a good thing. Why does that Karen sound like she wants to rip my wings off?"

"So… after saving the family, the winged person allegedly knocked the youngest girl of the family he had just saved back off the bridge, only to dive down and save her again. The people here are starting to believe this figure is intentionally causing catastrophes only to save others to build a name for himself."

"That's a pretty horrible accusation. As a fellow avian, I can say that nothing beats a birds' eye view. We can see for miles from the sky, so we quickly react when something goes haywire. But I also understand your concern, and if that accusation is true, we need to stop him."

"Either way, it's illegal to do hero work without a license. We need to catch this person before someone gets hurt again." says the tall, silver haired Pro Hero named Freeze Blast.

"Yes, vigilante work is illegal in Japan, too. We won't stay long, but we need to see if we can find anyone who can give us a description." Hawks responds.

"The family that was pulled out to the car is your best bet. They're heading to Central Hospital right now." The office says.

"Then that's where we'll go." Scott says.

.*.*.*

"Room 34, third floor. You just missed her parents, though. They took off about 10 minutes ago." The nurse at the desk tells Hawks, Rouge, and Scott.

"I see. Can you let them know once they get back we want to have word with them about what happened?" Scott asked.

"Of course, sir."

"Well, that was bust. Either we wait here or try to find the family, because we're not going to bother the little girl with questions." Hawks sighs leaving the front desk. "I vote we try to find them; I don't want to stay in this hospital any longer than necessary."

"Come on, Hawks, I'm sure you're had to wait to speak to victims before. Waiting a little bit won't kill you." Scott says. Hawks rolls his eyes at Scott.

Before Hawks could make a snarky response, Rouge cuts in. "That's him!" She points to man making his way down a hall.

Hawks' gaze follows Rogue's finger, then darts after the blonde man, who began running away from them when he heard Rogue's exclamation. A white feather floats out of the man's trench coat. While distracted by the single feather, the blonde man's trench coat comes off as he jump through the window, unveiling his enormous white wings. "I'll get him!" Hawks says chasing the man out the window.

The cold night air hits his face as Hawks chases after the other winged man. All the descriptions he and the team had gathered over the last 18 hours are in line with the figure's stature and wingspan. The winged man acrobats rapidly, trying to lose Hawks. He thinks he can outfly me! Ha! As if.

Hawks stays on the creature's tail. "Hey man care to stop and chat? Me and the others just want a word with you." Hawks calls out to him. Earning no reply, the white-winged man takes a sharp turn to the right. You can't escape me that easily… "or you can." He looks, trying to figure out what building the white-winged man went into.

"Hawks!"

"I lost him." He turned to face Scott and Rouge.

"Use fierce wings and find him." Scott says.

"Hey, I was gonna do that, you guys just called my name so I thought you actually had something useful. You have amazing timing, Scott." Hawks sasses as he closes his eyes. Find him fierce wings

.*.*.*.

Angel relaxes a moment as he enters the church, thankful to have lost the man tailing him. It has been a long time- or maybe he has never- had someone able to keep up with him like that. Below him, Angel sees the family of the girl he saved sitting together in prayer. He goes to approach them wanting have a word with distraught parents.

"You're one hard person to find." Magneto says, appearing from the dark sky. A magnetic force hits Angel's back, knocking him down.

"Agh! What- who are?" Angel demands, spinning around to face the floating knight-armored man behind him. A magnetic force cracks around Angel's figure.

"Don't you recognize me, Warren?" Magneto tries to bend metal to tie up Angel, but Angel flies away in the knock of time. "I know you weren't at Charles' long, but..."

"Wait you're… Agh! Let me go!" A chandelier engulfs Angel.

This time, commotion from the family in the church sent the family screaming. Angel struggle's to get free until a beam of a red laser zips by him freeing a wing.

"Hold on!" Scott shouts as Hawks zips past cuts away more at the chain.

"Don't interfere!"

"Agh!" a magnetic force hit Hawks knocking into the wall while trying to avoid an incoming pipe at the same time.

"Hawks!" Scott and Rouge cry as she runs over to check on him while Scott frees Angel.

"Where did he go?" Rouge ask looking around the place not seeing anyone as she got a dazed Hawks to his feet as he rubs his head.

"Damn did I hit a truck? Who was that guy?" Hawks asks.

"Magento, and Professor don't get along. Looks he fled the scene. Guess he didn't want take us all on." Scott says.

"I appreciate you guys\help. It's good to see again Scott." Angel shakes his hand.

"Likewise. How about we head back to the hospital and chat?" Scott offers.

.*.*.*.

"I should have recognized you sooner, Scott. No else has laser like eyes like you. I didn't expect you to grow so tall." Angel says.

The second floor of the hospital is relatively silent as Hawks, Scott, and Rogue all sit on a couch across from Angel after returning from police station to speak with the Chief of Police. The anxiety of waiting to see if the young lady returns feels agonizing.

"Man, Angel, you've still got it, e specially for an old man! What are you, 30 years old now? Scott chimes in, teasing Angel slightly.

"Twenty seven, and who are the newbies seems Professor Xavier taken in more people over these last eight years."

"He has this is Rouge and Hawks." He gestures to his companion as he introduces them.

"Pleasure to meet you both I'm Warren Worthington III." Angel says he shakes their hands one at a time. "I do owe you guys a thanks."

"No sweat and that's a mouthful, what come from high end family or something?" Hawks says

"Or something, yes." Angel chuckles, "my dad is very high end business man and he and my mother travel to different countries a lot. By the way how is Jean and the others doing? I bet she's turn out to be beautiful."

"They're all good, and Jean has yes she dating right now as well. You know you should come by and say hi." Scott says

"I'll pass I'm not looking to rejoin any of you right now. Plus…" Angel looks to young girls parents and a doctor talking.

"Relax man, she's going to be fine. After all you saved her life." Hawks leans back on the couch glances at the doctor and worried parents both smiles as relief washes over them.

"She's fine don't worry ma'am, she just woke up."'the doctor says to the girl's parents.

Angel gets up, "I'm going to go see her." He declares, heading towards the room.

"By the way, Hawks, how did ya mange to get the officers and heroes to give him a slap on the wrist?"

"Easy, it's the holidays, and this time year is busy, and he did nothing really wrong and the people he helped, returned to favor. Everyone's going to be home in time for Christmas thanks to Angel and his actions this year." Hawks grins.

.*.*.*.

Looking out at falling snow Jean sits in the back with her sister, Sara, and Sarah's long-term boyfriend, Paul, as they all drive to the local place to pick up a Christmas tree.

"I can't believe your boyfriend didn't want to come visit. We'd love to meet him." Her mother says looked back at Jean.

"He wanted some time with his dad before going back to Japan. He doesn't get many break even though we don't see a lot of each other we got time together before I came home."

"Sounds like a busy man. Hope he's treating you well Jeanie," John says. "If cause you any trouble-"

"Daddd, Kei wouldn't do that, you don't need to threaten him. Maybe next time I'll bring him." She says plus he'd die having to be stuck in a car. It's cramped in here already, too.

Once the car parks the Grey family gets out heading over to the pine trees to start their search. The conversation being set aside she smiles as they look. Hope you have great Christmas, Keigo. I'll be back soon.