Part 5

A few minutes later, I awoke to see Rose’s worried face above me. “Nate,” she asked, “are you okay?” “I guess so,” was all I could say as I slowly sat up. Rose threw her arms around me and began crying. “Nate, don’t ever scare me like that! I thought you were hurt, or worse.” I gently put my arms around her and whispered, “Rose, please...don’t cry. I’m fine, really.” At this point, I looked around to see the smiling faces of my parents, Prof. Xavier, and all his students. My father reached out and tousled my hair. “You had us worried, kiddo. Good to see you’re okay.” All I could do was smile up at him, since Rose hadn’t released her grip on me yet. I think everyone had a new respect for me that day, especially Prof. Xavier. My actions that day had proven that despite my age, I had some partial idea of how to use my powers in an emergency.

Afterwards, Prof. Xavier took me aside and explained Rose’s power to me. He suspected earlier that her power was to simply decrease the mass of an object. This is what caused the glass to shatter. This power could even be focused inward, so that Rose became capable of flight. However, he also said that day’s incident confirmed another theory: Rose also had the power to increase the mass of an object, and herself, to the point where it became immovable.

Prof. Xavier made sure that I was a major part of Rose’s training. I was in every one of her sessions, and I was even trusted enough to supervise her alone in the Danger Room. As her training progressed, Rose became a stronger, more focused individual. As she slowly became comfortable with her powers, her style improved greatly. In this way, we grew up together, the closest of friends. Out of all the students at the school, I was the only one that Rose ever trusted completely. It seemed to me that I was living in paradise, until a most unfortunate event brought me back down to earth.

Rose and I had assumed that we would stay at the school until our training was completed, and then we would become X-Men. However, that plan was shattered when Rose revealed to me that she would leave the school on her twelfth birthday. According to her father, she would travel back to the homeland of her ancestors to learn more about her family and to become “fully aware” of the extent of her powers. Apparently, this wasn’t the first time someone in her family had been a mutant. In fact, the same thing had happened to her older sister, Angel.

Aside from a slight difference in age and height, Angel & Rose were exact twins. Unlike Rose, Angel had shown signs of her mutant power as an infant. Her parents were greatly relieved when they realized she could teleport short distances; they had thought she ran away from home constantly. To ensure that she learned to correctly use her power, her parents sent her to live with a large number of relatives that remained in their ancestral homeland, which was deep in the jungles of South America.

The same fate had been planned for Rose. She would remain there for at least ten years, and then her training would be complete. According to custom, she would be given a new name, one that once belonged to one of her ancestors. She would then be free to live her life as she saw fit, but it was mandatory that she return to her homeland at specially appointed times in her life.