"Look at me! Rosen, seriously, look up! I'm doing it!"
The converted gym in their new Midtown mansion had thirty-foot ceilings, which was barely enough space for Jessica Jones right now. She was hovering near the rafters, wobbling slightly like a drone fighting a crosswind, but she was airborne.
"I see you," Rosen said, leaning against the padded wall, his arms crossed. "You're flying. It's... great."
His tone was a mix of genuine pride and a heavy, unavoidable dose of envy.
He watched her drift from the pull-up bars to the heavy bag, her movements defying gravity with a casual disregard for physics. The Warcraft Hero System gave Rosen the power to summon blizzards, turn invisible, and call down lightning. But flight? That was the one superpower that remained elusive. Even the mighty Archmage had to walk—or teleport. But there was no joy of flight, no wind in the hair.
"Come on, get up here!" Jessica laughed, doing a clumsy barrel roll that looked more like a tumble. She extended a hand downward. "Fly with me! I know you can do it. You taught me, after all."
She didn't know. In her mind, Rosen was the mysterious "Magician" who could do anything. She assumed his lack of flight was just a choice, a preference for teleportation.
"Pass," Rosen said, clearing his throat and looking away. "Now that you've mastered the basics, we need to focus on the debut. The city is waiting for its new symbol."
Jessica dropped down, landing with a soft thud in front of him. She grabbed his arm, whining playfully. " The city can wait five minutes. My flying is still jerky. Come on, pace me. Just a quick lap."
"You can practice solo," Rosen said, trying to pull away toward the kitchen. "I'm gonna make some pasta. You hungry?"
Jessica held on. She wasn't the slow, traumatized girl from the coffee shop anymore. Her instincts were sharp. She peered at him, her eyes narrowing as the realization hit.
"Wait a second," she said, a grin spreading across her face. "You... you can't do it, can you? You actually can't fly."
"It's unnecessary," Rosen sniffed, adjusting his cuffs with feigned dignity. "I have Blink. I have mass teleportation. Why would I want to flap around like a bird?"
"Oh my god," Jessica gasped, looking at him like she'd discovered Superman was afraid of heights. "Mr. All-Powerful Magician is grounded."
"I can turn invisible," Rosen countered defensively. "I can summon a literal pillar of hellfire."
"But you can't fly."
"I can summon a Water Elemental. I can summon a Grizzly Bear that tears tanks apart."
"You. Can't. Fly."
"I can build a nuclear reactor out of spare parts!"
"You still can't fly!"
"Okay, you asked for it!" Rosen growled. He lunged, tackling her onto the wrestling mats.
"Ah! Help! The pedestrian is attacking me!" Jessica shrieked through her laughter as they rolled across the floor.
The wrestling match quickly shifted in tone. The playful leverage turned into something else, the friction of the mats replaced by the heat of two super-powered bodies tangling together.
"You don't fly," Jessica whispered against his ear a moment later, her breath hot. "So I'll fly for both of us."
Late that night, the air over Hell's Kitchen was thick with humidity and the distant wail of sirens.
Perched on the edge of a tenement rooftop, two figures looked down into the grime of a trash-filled alleyway.
Jessica was transformed. She wore the blue, armored jumpsuit Rosen had fabricated. It was tight, tactical, and imposing, with a heavy cape that unfurled into the stars and stripes of the American flag. To hide her identity without masking her expressions, she wore a sleek, domino-style eye mask—reminiscent of Anne Hathaway's Catwoman. It didn't cover much, but in 2007, facial recognition software wasn't advanced enough to flag a jawline, and Rosen wanted her to be found—eventually.
"Two groups," Rosen whispered, the wind from his Gale Step muffling his voice. "Cartel buyers on the left, local suppliers on the right. Heavy weapons in the van."
"Got it," Jessica said. She rolled her shoulders, the golden eagle emblems catching the moonlight. "I don't need a lecture. I go in, I break them."
"Have fun," Rosen said.
Jessica didn't jump; she simply stepped off the ledge.
But she didn't float down gently this time. She rocketed downward.
Rosen had underestimated the Boots of Speed. In the game, they offered a flat movement speed increase. In reality, "movement" applied to any form of locomotion. The moment Jessica engaged her flight, the magical enchantment kicked in, accelerating her from a drift to a dive. She hit roughly 40 miles per hour instantly—not sonic speed, but fast enough to turn her into a human missile.
She slammed into the pavement between the two groups, the impact cracking the concrete.
"Hey boys," Jessica announced, standing tall as the dust settled around her cape. "It's past your bedtime."
Before the gangsters could process the woman wrapped in the American flag, Jessica moved.
She didn't speechify. Rosen had been clear: Speeches are for civilians. Criminals just need to be neutralized.
She lunged at the nearest enforcer. CRACK. His neck snapped before he could raise his Uzi. She spun, her cape whipping like a blade, and shattered the sternum of the second man.
They dropped instantly. No screaming, no drama. Just the brutal efficiency of a predator.
"Open fire!" someone screamed.
The alley lit up with muzzle flashes. Bullets sparked against Jessica's suit and bounced off her skin. She ignored them, sprinting forward. On the ground, the Boots of Speed made her a blur. She closed the distance to the van in a heartbeat, tearing the door off its hinges and hurling it at the cartel gunmen.
It was a massacre. Within two minutes, twelve men were down. Jessica stood amidst the carnage, her chest heaving slightly, not from exhaustion, but from the adrenaline. She had crossed a line—she had killed without hesitation—and she found that she didn't mind.
Rosen materialized from the shadows, his face hidden behind the terrifying, purple-glowing Death Mask. He moved silently among the bodies, the mask siphoning the fading bio-energy from the fallen.
"Weak," Rosen thought, disappointed. "Twelve men and I barely got a charge. Kilgrave was worth ten times this."
"First mission: Success!" Jessica beamed, trotting over with two heavy briefcases. One was filled with cash, the other with taped bricks of heroin.
"Good work," Rosen said, taking the cash. "But we have one last thing to do."
He kicked the box of drugs into the center of the pile of bodies.
"Burn it?" Jessica asked. "Won't that just... get the whole neighborhood high?"
"Not with my fire," Rosen said.
He raised his hand. Flame Strike.
A cylinder of roaring, magical fire erupted from the ground. It wasn't the chaotic orange of a gasoline fire; it was a blinding, focused column of destruction.
"Normal fire burns at about 600 to 800 degrees," Rosen explained over the roar of the blaze, sounding like a professor in a slaughterhouse. "That boils the chemicals and turns them into gas—smoke that gets people high. This? This is 2,000 degrees. At this temperature, the organic compounds in the heroin don't boil. They undergo total thermal decomposition instantly. No gas. No high. Just carbon and ash."
Jessica watched the white-hot pillar, her face illuminated by the glow. "You really have an answer for everything, don't you?"
"I try," Rosen said, checking his watch. "Police are three minutes out. Let's go home."
He grabbed her shoulder. Town Portal.
The alley emptied, leaving nothing but a scorch mark and a mystery that would dominate the morning news.