Morning light filtered through Esdeath's bedroom window, casting long shadows across the floor. She sat on the windowsill, one leg dangling over the edge, a chipped mug of black coffee warming her hands. Steam curled upward, dissipating into nothing—much like her thoughts.
Her phone lay beside her, screen occasionally lighting up with notification reminders. Two messages remained unopened since last night. One from Jean Grey: "Hope you're okay. Yesterday was intense." The other from Magik: "Still alive, Ice Queen?"
Esdeath took another sip of coffee, eyes fixed on the Brooklyn skyline rather than the blinking device. The messages were simple enough—casual check-ins that normal people exchanged all the time. So why did they feel so... heavy?
She picked up the phone, thumb hovering over the notifications before locking the screen again. "Ridiculous," she muttered, setting it face-down.
In her previous life as Mark, friendships had been straightforward—built around shared interests, gaming sessions, anime debates. Now everything carried layers of complexity. Jean's telepathic abilities and Magik's demonic history made simple text messages feel like chess moves in games she didn't fully understand.
What was stranger still was that they'd reached out at all. People didn't usually check on Esdeath Sanchez. They feared her, respected her, or wanted something from her. They didn't send morning-after texts asking if she was okay.
The coffee turned bitter on her tongue.
"Enough," she said to the empty room, setting down the mug with more force than necessary. "Got better things to do."
The city buzzed with midday activity as Esdeath wove through crowds, hands jammed in her jacket pockets, one wrapped around her silent phone. She'd spent the morning checking crime reports online, mapping gang territories, and tracking mutant sightings—her usual routine. But her focus kept slipping.
A street vendor hawked hot dogs. Tourists photographed mundane buildings. A child dropped ice cream and wailed. Normal life continued all around her while her mind circled back to those unread messages like a moth to flame.
She paused at a crosswalk, pulling out her phone. The notifications still waited, patient and accusatory. With a frustrated sigh, she pocketed it again.
"This is stupid," she muttered, earning a concerned glance from an elderly woman beside her. Esdeath flashed a cold smile that sent the woman scurrying across the street the moment the light changed.
Her pocket felt heavy, as if the phone had gained weight with each passing hour.
By late afternoon, Esdeath had claimed a quiet rooftop overlooking a small park. She sat cross-legged on the edge, a container of cheap noodles balanced on her knee. The plastic fork paused halfway to her mouth as she finally unlocked her phone.
The messages expanded on her screen, no longer just notification previews but full conversations waiting to begin.
Her thumb hovered over Jean's message first. The redhead's earnest concern felt genuine, which made it all the more disarming. Esdeath typed, deleted, typed again, and finally settled on:
"Yeah, I'm fine. You?"
Simple. Neutral. Safe.
She switched to Magik's message next, a smirk tugging at her lips despite herself. The blonde sorceress had a way of cutting through bullshit that Esdeath reluctantly appreciated.
"Barely. You still teleport like a show-off?"
Her finger hesitated over the send button for both messages. Opening these doors meant allowing connections—connections meant vulnerability—vulnerability meant...
"Fuck it," she whispered, hitting send on both.
The noodles had gone cold, but she ate them anyway, watching pigeons scatter in the park below as her phone remained silent in her lap.
Then it buzzed. Twice.
Esdeath's phone buzzed in her palm almost immediately. Jean's reply appeared first:
"I'm good! Was worried when you left so quickly yesterday. Xavier keeps asking about you—in that 'not asking but totally asking' way he does. Did you think more about visiting the school? No pressure :)"
Esdeath snorted. The excessive punctuation and smiley face were so perfectly Jean that she could practically hear the redhead's voice.
Before she could respond, Magik's text arrived:
"Someone has to make an entrance worth remembering. Not all of us can just stomp around making ice cubes, princess."
A reluctant smile tugged at Esdeath's lips. She typed back to Magik:
"Better ice cubes than your discount Harry Potter routine."
To Jean, she sent:
"Xavier gives me the creeps. No offense. Too much 'I know what's best for you' energy."
The replies came faster than expected. Soon, Esdeath found herself juggling two conversations, her thumbs moving with surprising ease. Jean sent a photo of the mansion grounds with students playing—"It's not all serious business"—while Magik responded with a demonic emoji and a challenge about whose powers were more versatile.
Hours slipped by. The sun arced across the sky as Esdeath remained perched on the rooftop, her cold noodles long forgotten. Jean shared memes about telepaths that were actually funny. Magik sent a photo of a ridiculous ice sculpture with the caption "Your self-portrait?"
Somewhere between Jean's stories about life at the mansion and Magik's sardonic commentary on demon dimensions, Esdeath realized she was... enjoying herself. The realization felt dangerous, like stepping onto thin ice.
Near sunset, Jean's text shifted tone:
"Can I ask you something? Why is it so hard for you to trust people? I'm not using telepathy, promise. Just curious."
Esdeath's fingers froze above the screen. The question hit too close to a truth she couldn't share—that she wasn't even truly Esdeath Sanchez, that her soul belonged to someone else entirely.
"Trust gets you killed in my neighborhood. Or worse—makes you look stupid."
She sent it with forced casualness, then added:
"Plus, mind readers asking why I have trust issues? Little ironic, Grey."
Jean responded with a laughing emoji, but added: "Fair point. But not everyone's trying to get something from you."
Esdeath stared at those words, then glanced at her reflection in a nearby window. The face that looked back—sharp features, piercing eyes—belonged to someone else. Someone who had learned that lesson the hard way.
"You have no idea," she whispered to the glass.
Night descended on Brooklyn, streetlights flickering to life one by one. Esdeath shrugged into her long coat, its familiar weight settling across her shoulders as she slipped into an abandoned park overgrown with weeds and forgotten dreams.
The conversations with Jean and Magik lingered in her mind, creating an unusual calm. Normally, she approached training with tightly coiled tension—tonight, her movements flowed with unexpected ease.
Ice formed at her fingertips—not the jagged, crude shards of her earlier attempts, but elegant, crystalline structures. She crafted a dagger, watching as it took shape with perfect symmetry, its edge razor-thin and translucent. With a flick of her wrist, it transformed into a short sword, then a whip of frozen links.
"Well, that's new," she murmured, watching the ice respond to her thoughts almost before she fully formed them.
She extended both hands, concentrating. Twin sais materialized, their three-pronged design intricate and flawless. Each movement produced weapons more refined than before—a morning star with perfectly formed spikes, throwing stars with edges that caught moonlight like diamonds.
The ice no longer fought her will—it anticipated it. Each creation required less effort but achieved greater complexity. What had once been crude frozen water was becoming art.
Esdeath twirled an ice katana, its surface so smooth it reflected the stars above. For the first time since awakening her powers, she felt something beyond control or strength.
She felt possibility.
Esdeath dismissed the ice katana, watching it dissipate into shimmering particles. She closed her eyes, focusing on the sensation flowing through her veins. It wasn't the usual sharp rush of power that came during combat—this was different. Smoother. More controlled.
"It's not just about intensity," she whispered, understanding dawning like the first light breaking through storm clouds.
The Lust energy that fueled her abilities had always responded to her aggression, her need for dominance, her battle instincts. But tonight it hummed through her with harmonic precision rather than chaotic strength.
She formed another weapon—a trident with impossibly delicate tines—and examined it in the moonlight. The ice was clear as diamond, without the usual cloudy imperfections. She could see straight through it, like looking through perfect glass.
"Emotional alignment," she murmured, testing the words. "Not just power... harmony."
The conversations with Jean and Magik had settled something in her—created a momentary peace she rarely experienced. That comfort, that brief trust, had translated directly into her abilities.
Esdeath leapt from the ground to a nearby fire escape, landing silently on the metal grating. She pulled out her phone, staring at the screen for a long moment before typing a message to both Jean and Magik:
"We should spar sometime. You too, teleport girl."
Her thumb hovered over the send button. Something was missing. With an internal eye-roll at her own sentimentality, she added:
"Thanks... for checking in."
She hit send before she could second-guess herself, then tucked the phone away. Leaning back against the brick wall, she gazed up at the night sky. Brooklyn's light pollution obscured most stars, but a few persistent ones peeked through the haze.
A small smirk tugged at her lips. "Maybe having people isn't so bad."
The admission felt dangerous—a crack in her carefully constructed armor. But as she summoned a small ice crystal to her palm, watching it form with effortless precision, she couldn't deny the evidence. Connection didn't just make her feel better—it made her stronger.
And strength, after all, was the point.
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