Sapphyra [Adult Superhero Progression]

Cyran City

Highway

The day I was born.

I watched my mother’s water break. 

Young and successful, but she didn’t take anybody's shit. Michelle Pharr, she gave birth to me on the side of the highway on the hottest day of the year. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the city had a major traffic jam because of an oil truck spilling over. Mom was a police sergeant but she’d known what to do.

She just hated to do it alone.

My father, Bayani, at the time was a detective at a different precinct. He couldn’t get there in time without calling in a favor from his buddy at the weather station. One weather helicopter ride later, he was there. 

But he made it too late.

“‘Chelle?” He knew something was off the second he saw her. She’d crawled out the car to deliver, and draped her emergency blanket from the trunk around me. 

“I’m here, Bee…I’m here.”  She wiped the tears from her face and just rocked me in her arms. Bayani squatted down and moved the blanket back, beaming at the thought of holding me. But when he saw how pale my skin was, how still I was? He recoiled like he’d touched lava.

“Michelle…oh god, no. Baby,“ he whimpered, “my precious baby.” 

My mother didn’t stop rocking me, even when my father pulled us into his arms. He prayed over us. 

“Excuse me.” A soft voice called out to them. Bayani still grieved, but my mother looked up at someone—presumably a woman—draped in a tattered dark hooded cloak. Her feet were dark and dirty, like she’d been walking for ages. She quietly coughed, wiping red hands on her cloak.

“Can’t you see we’re grieving?! Go beg for food somewhere else!” He roared at her, but the woman did not move. And her eyes were only on my mother. 

“What do you want?” My mother asked softly.

“I want to give you the chance that I never got. A second chance with your child.”

Her eyes widened; she gasped as my father reached for his gun.

“Get the hell out of here!” He hissed, drawing his weapon on her. Yet she would not be deterred.

“How?” A simple question. He couldn’t believe she was entertaining this.

“I fled here to start a new life with my own baby, but…she won’t make it either. The environment here is not welcoming to our kind.”

“Your kind?” My mother asked.

The woman pulled her hood down and revealed a head of soft brown curls. Her mahogany skin was stretched taunt over her thin face. She had white horns with black tips poking out of her head. The cloak she wore unstretched into a pair of terrifyingly leather wings. They blocked out the sun.

“I—” before Bayani could say another word, the woman tapped his temple, knocking him out. His body slumped to the ground.

“I’m sorry, I had to do that. We only have so much time left.”

“...are you a demon or devil?” Mom whispered.

“No. I am a dragon.” I could tell that just gave mom more questions than answers.

“And if I let you, will you turn our baby into a dragon too?” She adjusted her shoulder, holding me closer to her chest.

“Yes…but also no.” The woman smiled at me. “She is beautiful. With my power, she will be more than just a dragon—” she coughed again, this time with red on her hands.

“You’re dying.” 

“I am.” She nodded. “That was long before I arrived here. I thought I could hold it off longer than this, maybe watch her take flight the first time.” The woman’s voice broke, tears shed fast.

“Okay.” Mom watched her, kissed my forehead and nodded.

“You—”

“Save my daughter. Whatever you have to do…because I can’t—I’m not strong enough to say goodbye to her. Even if he is.” She glanced at Bayani and wiped her wet face.

“Thank you. Between the two of us—” pink light poured into me from the woman, “we’ll have one daughter who gets to live. And she will be magnificent, I assure you.” She smiled one last time as the last of her energy poured into me.

Then she fell over and her body disintegrated, turning into a pile of black scales and dust.

At first there was silence but soon my color returned and my mouth opened. I screamed and squirmed just like any other healthy baby. Mom…her tears turned joyful and she gently patted my butt.

“We’re gonna be alright baby girl. We’re gonna be just fine thanks to—I didn’t even get her name!”

Underneath the dust and the cloak was a single word burned into the dirt.

Sapphyra.

One day later, Mom was at home, happily watching me grow. But Bayani was anything but happy. He was careful and quiet at first, but the rage was there. 

“Michelle. We have to get rid of that thing.” He announced one night at dinner a few weeks later. Mom held a bottle of milk to my lips.

“No.” she smiled at me, brushing strands of pink curls away from my face.

“It's either it or our marriage, ‘Chelle. I love you, and I loved Sarah, but—”

My mother's head snapped up, she gave him a dark glare.

“This is Sarah. Our marriage means a lot…but not more than our baby.”

He fanned ‌his hand over me. Tiny nubs had formed on the top of my head.

“Look at it! That's not our baby, it's not even human!”

“I don't care. She's mine. And if you can't deal with that then there's the door. But I will not have you spewing hate about my child any longer.”

He leaned back in his seat, shocked and saddened by my mother's declaration. Bayani left that same night, a bag packed with only the essentials.

The divorce papers came within 30 days, and he moved back to the Philippines with his mother after that. Mom raised me on her own until she met Allen, an EMT with a dorky smile and a heart of gold. 

Well, he and his two sons and a daughter. We had a family all our own after that but sometimes I'd catch mom just…staring into the sky.

She'd wave me off, but I knew. She made her choice, but mom still missed Bayani.

The room was quiet after that. I glanced at Mnemosyne, but she had one hell of a poker face.

“I never knew.” Wyatt admitted softly.

“Sarah, huh? I like it,” Guy tried to chime in.

I didn’t. I hate that name.

“There's more though…isn't there, goddess.” I nodded to Noa.

“Mnemosyne, what was the point of that? Why start with me as a baby?”

“That is why.” She inclined her head at Themis; the basketball stone had shrunk noticeably.

“Wh…what?!” I was confused.

“Your accused crimes are great, yes, but we are not judging your actions alone, Sapphyra. We are judging your soul. For that, we need a complete picture of who you are.”

That made me feel slightly better…and worse.

“To know the depths of one's soul, we must see them at their lowest and most vulnerable first.”

“Oh no.” I whispered. Wyatt blew out a shaky breath. No matter what we saw next, it would take something from me, I just know it.

“Sapphyra, it's time to see you reunite with your father. And watch you take the most important step of your life.”

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