Sapphire and Sunshine
Sapphire went to see about going to look for Sunshine. The kid was amusing in her mind, but she could see some similarities between her and Sunshine, now would she ever admit that out loud? Never, but that didn't mean it wasn't true.
"Hey Sunshine? Want to learn something that might also involve injuring Havok potentially in some way?" Sapphire asked her when she eventually found her.
Sunshine had been in the training room of sorts, throwing knives. She always hit her target, thankfully, due to her mutant powers. She glanced up from her amusement and raised an eyebrow at Sapphire.
"Did you used to date him or something?" she asked. Sapphire seemed to really enjoy hurting Havok, and she figured it was the most likely explanation for it.
"You seem to really hate him and want him dead." "Hell no, just he gets on my nerves and it's fun to torment him in retaliation. And I would never want anyone dead Sunshine, no matter what. Even the ever annoying Havok. So, you up for it? Or should I just walk away now and probably torment him on my own out of boredom?" The young mutant narrowed her eyes slightly. She may not have been the most educated person around, but she had street smarts and a general sense for people and relationships.
"So you want to date him then," she concluded, pulling her hair into a ponytail. She then tucked her ponytail out through the back of her Yankee's Cap, looking a little bit like the image of Annabeth Chase from the Percy Jackson series.
"But alright, what do you want me to do? And will there be pretzels? I want a pretzel." "No way!" she said, shaking her head at Sunshine.
"And we have bags of pretzels or whatever that you can munch on afterwards okay? Right now we're going to see about teaching you actual fighting that doesn't rely on your powers, okay? Since there is a chance that you might come across a situation where your powers won't help you. I hate to admit it, but it can happen more often then you think. So we're going to see what we can do to help you out with that." "...I can hit anything as long as I throw hard enough, I think I'm fine," Sunshine pointed out, raising an eyebrow.
"And if they get near me, I just give them the plague. Easy." "But what if you end up in a situation where your powers don't work? Where your powers are surpressed? There are easy ways to do it, there are collars that can be used, or just hit with a dart that has a power inhibitor, boom, instant powers gone. Relying on your powers all the time will probably end up getting killed. I used to rely on my powers a lot when I first got into this sort of life style of playing hero, someone I knew years ago once told me about using my powers "They can be a handicap if you rely on them too much". She knew a lot more than I did about combat despite being younger then me, and despite what she might have thought at the time, I did actually pay attention to her words. Relying too much on your powers will likely get you killed... And I don't want that sort of thing to happen, okay? Plus it gives you an excuse to punch someone, so what's wrong with that?" Sunshine let out an irritated sigh. She really wanted to protest that she never would get in a situation like that, but Sapphire had promised her pretzels. And she didn't want to listen to more of a lecture, which she had the feeling she would end up getting if she continued to argue against learning to fight without her powers.
"Okay, but you do realize even in normal fights and all, I can't turn off my perfect aim," she pointed out.
"I can't be bad like everyone else - like you and Havok - at aiming even if I tried." "You'd be surprised, perfect aim, and being able to hit your target every time are two different things. What I mean by that is someone could still block your fists whether you believe that or not. Say you try to punch me in the face, and I instantly lift my arm up to block you, meaning you hit my arm as opposed to my face. Big difference, anyway, let's find Havok. Come on Sunshine, let's go," she said, before she started heading off to see about finding Havok for some sparring.
"Fiiiine...." Sunshine huffed, following off after Sapphire. She had to notice that no one else was being forced into a training session, but at least it wasn't one of Colossus'. His were always pretty weird. He had made her do the one with the rope line with a few others and it had been painful
and annoying. She'd much rather train with Magik anyways.
"Let's go find your not boyfriend." It wasn't particularly hard or challenging. Havok was pacing the hallway on the second story, talking to someone on the phone.
"I'm not mad at you, babe - I was just worried sick... Yes, of course I know," Havok was saying softly.
"I'll be there, I promise. You're my magnet girl... I love you too... Be safe... Bye." Sapphire couldn't stop herself from snickering at Havok when he got off the phone.
"Magnet girl? You two are sooooo nauseating sometimes! Guessing that was Polaris you were talking to?" she asked him.
"GueSsINg thAT wAs PolARiS YoU wERe TaLKinG tO?" Havok mocked, curling his lips back to expose his teeth as he talked, with both of his hands on his hips. While the Mutant Underground didn't have much, Havok had a phone. He wasted his free time like anyone else on the planet - looking at memes.
"Yes, I was talking to Lorna - she's fine, we're going on a date at Olive Garden with the money Scott gave me." "Okay, now that was flat our rude Havok!" she instantly snapped at him, before she swung her fist and hit him in the head, before pulling her fist back.
"Wonder how Lorna will feel about you suddenly having a bruise on your face," she said with an eye roll before turning to look at Sunshine.
"If you ever do need to punch someone just make sure you do it properly since otherwise you could hurt your hand and that would not be good." Sunshine rolled her eyes, contemplating just leaving Sapphire and Havok alone to do whatever this was.
"Right, got it, hurt other people when punching..." she mumbled.
"Seems advanced." Her stomach growled and her mind was instantly flooded with thoughts of pretzels again. She had giggled a little bit when Sapphire punched Havok though - it was slightly amusing.
"I was rude?" Havok protested.
"You're the one that came up laughing at me because of my relationship, I think that was rude!" "Yeah, you were rude, and you always will be in my mind. And why can't I make fun of you being in a relationship? I find it amusing," Sapphire commented with an eye roll. Though, to be fair she had never
actually been in a relationship with anyone before. She had left home at 14, and didn't really interact with too many people until she joined X-Factor, and after that the Underground, but not like it really mattered to her at all.
"Anyway, come on, I need help teaching Sunshine basic hand to hand combat since she seems to think just using her powers all the time would result in her never losing a fight." He threw his hands up into the air.
"I can't win," Havok said with a sigh.
"And why me? Can't you get Colossus? He likes training people." "Because... It's more fun? I mean seriously, Colossus is okay, but he can sometimes get on my nerves more then you do." "I'll help you, but I'm not going to be a punching bag." "Who said anything about you being a punching bag?" Sunshine huffed slightly, looking really disappointed.
"If he's not going to be a punching bag, then what's the point of asking him?" she asked Sapphire point blank. She had come to understand that these little sessions of Sapphire were mostly in order to torment Havok. She didn't like the idea of changing the game. No one in the Underground deserved to be beat on repeatedly
except for Havok. He had ruffled her hair and called her a kid once, meaning the only logical option was to hold a grudge.
"Eh good point, kind of would be implied I guess wouldn't it? Come on Havok, let's go," Sapphire said, laughing slightly at Sunshine's words.
Havok sighed.
"Seriously? Why am I supposed to agree to this again?" "Because Sunshine could actually use help in the combat department and if you don't I'll start calling you a wuss or a chicken for not doing it?" "Oh, right, your charming personality and the magic of friendship has convinced me," Havok quipped, rolling his eyes before he headed down the staircase and into the training room.
Sapphire laughed slightly, before glancing over at Sunshine, and then turning to follow him downstairs.
"This is going to be soooooo much fun. It's been a little bit since I've gotten a chance to beat up Havok anyway..." Sunshine followed the two downstairs and into the training room, a bit annoyed since that had been where she was practicing her throwing knives beforehand. She knew that Sapphire seemed to have a strong opinion about her hand to hand combat skills, but from what she could tell, it was just an excuse to spend time with Havok and inflict physical pain on him. That was fine with her, she just wished that Sapphire would admit it.
"Ready to go Sunshine?" Sapphire asked, turning to look at her when they entered the training room. She wondered how exactly she'd do with this whole thing. Since all she had seen Sunshine do was use her powers, she never really saw her try her hand at fist fighting, and that was somewhat concerning in her mind.
She shrugged.
"I guess so?" "Alright then, let's get started... We're going to keep things somewhat simple to see how well you are at fighting before we do anything else... So go see about punching Havok. And no Havok, I'm not saying you can't defend yourself. Afterall how would Polaris react if she saw you with a few black eyes? You can block her attempts to hit you if you want to. Or not. It doesn't matter to me." "I'm pretty sure Lorna wouldn't care if I had a few black eyes - she'd mostly be concerned if I had more than two," Havok quipped. Sunshine walked up to him and threw a punch, which Havok then promptly blocked. She threw another punch, which he blocked and Havok then started to yawn.
Sapphire rolled her eyes slightly at Havok's response, before she just watched what unfolded, letting out a bit of a sigh. Clearly Havok was getting a little bored with Sunshine's attempts at hitting him, and in her mind it was somewhat sad.
"Alright, going to be blunt, you need to swing a bit harder then that. Actually, it doesn't matter how hard you hit if you can't even land a punch okay? So why not try something a little different to try and swing at him in an unexpected way. To be perfectly honest, shouldn't be too difficult to outsmart Havok." "I REALLY take offense to that!" Havok protested. Sunshine ducked down and tried to punch him in the nuts, only for Havok to block in the nick of time.
"And that's just rude - and cheating!" "What? It's true. And actually I wouldn't consider that cheating, especially since we never actually set any rules, so how is what she did cheating Havok?" Sapphire said with a bit of a laugh as she looked over at Sunshine.
"For the record, tactics that cause your opponent to get distracted so you can retaliate against them I personally encourage, since sometimes pissing your opponent off will cause them to slip up in someway allowing you to actually hit them." A wicked smile then came across Sunshine's face.
"We haven't set any rules," she echoed, a devious idea coming to mind. Being so young, she didn't properly weigh the consequences of her actions, instead just thinking about the immediate satisfaction and payoff. There was no rule that said
who she had to punch. Sapphire just wanted her to learn how to punch.
"Sneak attack!" Sunshine shouted, before swinging a punch at Sapphire's face.
Sapphire had been at the least somewhat expecting
someone to take a swing at her. Though to be honest she had more of expected it to be Havok as opposed to Sunshine, but when she heard Sunshine's words, she instantly brought her arm up, blocking the attack.
"Word of advice? Don't yell out what you intend to be doing, this isn't a D&D campaign where the rogue has to tell the person controlling the monsters what they are doing. You do that, as was just shown, you let your opponent know what you were doing." She wrinkled her nose slightly, looking at her in confusion. While she knew most things in pop culture, she didn't know a lot of nerdy, geek culture. That hadn't been a high priority for discussion in juvi or on the streets.
"What's D&D? Is that a sex thing?" "It's a board game, it stands for Dungeons and Dragons," she said with an eye roll towards Sunshine. Yup, this girl clearly knew absolutely nothing. Sure, Sapphire technically didn't even have a high school diploma, but it was kind of hard to avoid Dungeons and Dragons since it was kind of a big game of sorts.
"Maybe I'll teach it to you later." Seeing Sapphire's eye roll instantly put Sunshine on the defensive. She crossed her arms, her eyes narrowing slightly.
"I have to go. I told the Pandabutt that I'd help him clean his office," she lied, before she walked briskly out of the training room and headed for the exit to emerge aboveground.
"Yup, going to call BS on that one," she commented, before she raced after Sunshine.
"Hey Sunshine wait up!" she called after her. Once she caught up to her, she spoke again,
"Okay... What's wrong?" "The Hufflepuff ate too many doughnuts and puked them everywhere all over his files, he needs my help to clean them up," Sunshine fibbed, not looking Sapphire in the eye as she continued to walk.
"Can you go away? Doesn't someone need to go torment Havok?" "...As someone who typically tends to not talk to many people when something bugs me? I can tell that you are lying... So how about you actually tell me what's wrong." She rolled her eyes.
"I have no idea what you're talking about, Elsa." "Don't push your luck kid, tell me, since trust me when I tell you, it may seem like the world is always out to get you, but sometimes there are people who just want to help you out... Here, how about we play a little game, we take turns telling something about ourselves to the other, deal? You can tell me what's up with I'll even start... I'm from Hawaii, which given my power set seems a bit weird when you think about it. But I never cared much for the heat down south for obvious reasons." Sunshine raised an eyebrow suspiciously. She had been made to play these sort of games in juvi with the counselor in group sessions. She never particularly cared for them. But at the same time, she didn't want to deal with Sapphire lecturing her and hoped to just get rid of her as quickly as possible.
"I'm from New York." "No need to give me that sort of look, I've given that look to more then a few people!" Sapphire said with a slight laugh.
"In order to go through college despite never finishing school I ended up working for a corporate superhero team known as X-Factor. The friend I quoted earlier during our little training session? Her name's Belladonna and worked with me on the team." "Sounds great for you, you got to be a superhero," Sunshine muttered dryly.
"My mother abandoned me when I was just five or six years old." "...I'd have rather been abandoned then what my parents did to me. They didn't really abandon me... They tried to have me killed. I was scared, wanted nothing more then to forget what... Happened..." she said, her voice sort of trailing off as she got sort of lost in what would be evident by her facial expression as a painful memory. She had been scared of her powers, and wanted nothing more then for her parents to understand what she could do, or to comfort her for what she had done by accident. But no, they locked her up and tried to have her killed.
"My father was a Purifier sympathizer, same with my mother, they locked me up and tried to turn me over to the Purifiers." Sunshine's expression hardened even more. She didn't need to hear that her life could have been worse, that someone else saw what she had gone through as easy.
"Αφήστε μόνο μου την κόλαση μόνο!" she cursed, before taking off at a run, hoping the ice witch didn't follow her.
Sapphire let out a bit of a sigh, before she took off after Sunshine. The kid
definitely reminded her of herself, which meant that things probably weren't going to end well if she was left alone like that.
"Sunshine wait!" Sapphire called after her, racing to catch up with her.
"Πηγαίνετε στο Tartarus!" Sunshine screamed. She instinctively started to form a ball of deadly disease, but only managed to conjure up the common cold. She then threw it back at Sapphire, hitting the other mutant in the shin - though it could have been far worse, since the only real symptoms Sapphire would experience would be a sore throat and some sniffles.
"Sunshine wait, I'm sorry if I said something to upset you... I'm not exactly a people person, and am really horrible with how I word things, literally ask anyone in the Underground, I'm horrible with words since I'm like you and don't trust a lot of people, they have to earn my trust which is not something you can easily get without really trying to not get on my nerves. So how about, we start over okay?" Sunshine hesitated.
"...Fine," she told Sapphire warily.
"The last thing I said to you came out wrong... I didn't mean that what happened to you wasn't bad... Actually, being abandoned at 6 years old... That sort of thing shouldn't happen to anyone, no matter what... Hell I was 14 when my parents tried to kill me, but at least I wasn't that young... I'm sorry if it sounded like I thought it was better then what happened to me, since honestly, for most kids being abandoned at that age would probably be a death sentence... You're a survivor, which is how you're still here, and honestly that is an amazing thing." She shifted uncomfortably, not really accustomed to being praised. In fact, Sunshine couldn't recall ever being praised in her life.
"Whatever..." "You also had it right, that I had it somewhat easy, was kind of lucky getting a chance to be a superhero, because what happened for me, doesn't happen for everyone, and I know that... If the CEO of Serval Industries hadn't found me on the boat I was working on, I'd probably still be there doing emergency repairs on the hull if the boat got a hole in it... And let me tell you, life never gets easier... You just have to roll with the punches, or do the best that you can... Actually ever heard of an organization called OMEN? Up until a few months ago they were still a thing, before being disbanded, and a lot of them ended up joining the Purifiers. Not too many people paid much attention to what that organization was doing... And damn so glad at least that organization kind of imploded and disappeared, even if some members of the group are now Purifiers..." Her eyes narrowed again at the mention of the Purifiers. She hated them. They had taken so much from her, though in that moment, something started to bother her, to nag away at her. That night in the Morlock Tunnels, Erg sacrificed himself against the Sentinel - but there had been Purifiers there too. She knew that Shaw and Sinister had been responsible for the Sentinel. But were they controlling the Purifiers too? It troubled her and just raised more questions, as well as painting a more sinister light on Max, since he had run off to join them. Max must have not cared that Erg died.
"Okay..." "It's okay not to trust people. But you seriously need to learn that not everyone is out to get you... Yeah, a lot of people in the place we live in right now probably are, but that's something that will never go away. There are people who want to help you, it just sometimes is hard to tell who wants to help you, and who doesn't. But over time, you'll be able to tell the difference. Look, I know that you probably don't trust me, but whether you trust me or not is irrelevant, since I trust you. Actually I have told you more about me then I've told most people here... Actually Veil is the only one I have told a lot about me." Sunshine stared at Sapphire in silence for a few minutes, weighing her options.
"When I look at words on paper, the letters move around," she finally said.
"Well, you don't have to learn to read if you don't want to... But believe it or not there are a lot of people in the world who have that sort of problem, it's more common then you think." "English is really hard to read," Sunshine told her quietly.
"That's okay too. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that." "And I know that I don't know a lot of stuff, okay? The only time I really went to school was in juvi and the teachers hated me, mostly because I'm a mutie." "School is boring anyway! They don't teach you anything important most of the time anyway! How about this, I'll teach you things that you actually should probably know, and some of the stuff is things they probably don't teach you in school. Okay? And I'm sorry if I made you feel bad about not knowing a lot..." She shrugged her arms.
"It's whatever. You were too busy making googlie eyes at Havok anyways." "No I wasn't! How many times do I have to tell you, I don't have a thing for Havok."
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