Gawain decided it was time he paid a visit to his older sister.

This was kind of the matter with the Lupins: they came as a package, once you were adopted, and while Ruby was adorable and Emerald was awesome, all the things he knew about Sapphire were less than flattering. He had seen her hurt Emmy too, which didn't make the young knight more fond of her.
But right now, he needed the support of his new family. For their own sake. And he knew whom to ask for help.

It took him some time to find out information about the oldest Lupin sister (since he couldn't ask Emerald), and find a pathway across mirrors to her apartment in New York. When he finally found it, he stood in the mirror for a while, staring at the weird paintings, trying to come up with an explanation of some kind. After a few minutes he sighed, and knocked on the glass.

"I hope ya're decent, Sapphire, cuz I'm comin' in."

Since the attack on her younger sibling, Sapphire had taken up drinking earlier in the afternoon, so when she heard some sort of knocking, the oldest lupin thought it was because she had drank too much. Crystal clear blue eyes stared at her bottle for a moment, then placed it in the recycling bin, figuring that was the only explanation for the knocking. The silken robe clad woman then heard a voice and she couldn't help but cringe a little at it, it sounded like it was coming from her bedroom, where she had a full length mirror near her art supplies.

Sapphire rose from her bar stool and strode, elegantly towards her bedroom planning on just blaming the voice on someone upstairs or something like that. This wasn't the first time she had heard voices so it wouldn't surprise her if it was just a figment of her imagination. Once reaching the mirror she found that the voice came from a person.

There was a child in her mirror, last time she checked she hadn't placed a child in a mirror. She stared at the boy, eyes contemplating his reasoning for knowing who she was. Perhaps this was the boy that Emerald viewed as a little brother at the mansion, because he certainly didn't look like that Ilari boy that she was often with. Ruby had mentioned a boy who could go into mirrors named Gawain so perhaps boy and the boy Emerald viewed as a brother was one an the same. It definitely seemed that way.

"Hello Mirror child, What are you doing in my apartment?" Sapphire asked in that calm, elegant tone. It should be noted that as Sapphire brought her hand to her face, the robes arm fell down a little showing an extremely long scratch down her arm, looking very similar to the claw marks that were on her younger siblings face. "If you are looking for Emerald, young Gawain you will not find her here, she doesn't visit me very often in my humble abode."

Humble wasn't a good word for Sapphires apartment, it was elegantly furnished with the most expensive pieces of furniture, all kept in goo condition. It seemed that the woman made good money, but in doing what was unknown.

Gawain couldn't help but give the girl a good once over when she appeared in the bedroom.

(Bedroom. Why did he aways end up in the bedroom or the bathroom? Why couldn't people keep mirrors in more convenient places? In places where they were usually more decent?...
And since when did Gawain care?!...)

She had style, he had to give her that. She had very little in her that would have reminded him of Emerald; it was kind of strange to know she came with the other two-thirds of the Lupin pack, and as such, she was kind of his sister. What do you know.

>>"If you are looking for Emerald, young Gawain you will not find her here, she doesn't visit me very often in my humble abode."

"Well, maybe that's because ya stick needles into her to make her hurt." he shrugged as he walked out of the mirror, holding her gaze. She knew his name. Either Emerald or Ruby had been talking about him, then, or maybe Sapphire was stalking him. He didn't like that thought.

Gawain held out his hand to her. "Didn' get a chance to intorduce myself last time, I was too busy carryin' Ems to the Infirmary. But yeah, name's Gawain Morris. Your sisters adopted me."

Let's see what ya've got to say to that.

The ever proper, ever elegant Sapphire Lupin let out a light chuckle at the mention of carrying Emerald to the infermary. Did she find it funny that her baby sister was hurt because of her? No, she just found it humerous that Gawain was the one who carried her younger sibling to the infermary. He didnt look like he could drag her younger sister to the infermary.

"Ah, I can imagine you would be upset by that if my sisters did indeed adopt you as part of the family." Sapphire paused, taking his hand in her pale delicate one, it was the hand with the scratch on it, so similar to Emerald's. Her handshake was firm, not unlike the handshake of her younger sisters. " I assure you it wasnt for the purpose of malice, it was a test, I have been testing Emerald for years, making sure I did the right thing by allowing her to become part of the inner circle."

The mistress of Darkness sat down on her easel stool, gazing at the newest painting she had been working on before she had partook in a shower. The canvas showed what it looked to be a man, a large man with broad soulders and red eyes, glaring out menacingly at the viewer. It was the same man who Emerald saw during the events at the haunted house who scared her so badly, the same one who damaged her once again. The look on his face was a hungry one and in one hand he held a dog collar, similar to what Emerald usually wore around her neck and in the other what it seemed to be some sort of beanie cap, something similar to what ruby was seen wearing.

Sapphire shuddered a little as she gazed at the painting, briefly breaking her normal cool demanor. "If you are as close to my sisters as you say, then you learned of Emeralds strife over the past month." Sapphire stated, her voice, for a brief moment hitching with a strong emotion. The emotion was anger and when it came from Sapphires mouth it sounded absolutely terrifying.

>>"I assure you it wasnt for the purpose of malice, it was a test, I have been testing Emerald for years, making sure I did the right thing by allowing her to become part of the inner circle."

"Yeah, well, that's a weird way of showin' support within the family." Gawain folded his arms once the handshake was over. Sapphire didn't look too upset that he called her out on the incident with Emerald.
Great, my big sis is a complete creep. Yay.

Gawain looked at the painting. What do you know. He also noticed the scar.

>>"If you are as close to my sisters as you say, then you learned of Emeralds strife over the past month."

Straight to the point. Good. At least Gawain didn't have to make small talk with this one.

"Yes, she told me." he nodded, looking down at her "I did everything I can to help her deal with it."

Not enough.

"I came here to ask you your take on the story. Cuz I don't know about you, but as for me, I'd like that bastard's hide pinned to the wall." he looked into Sapphire's eyes "If you care about her at all, that is."

Also...

"That, and I wanted to meet you in person. One doesn't choose his family, after all..."

Caring less about what the boy said about the incident before, Sapphire continued to stare at the painting, her eyes cool and calculating. When he mentioned Emerald telling him everything however, Sapphire couldn't help but be a bit surprised. She had figured Emerald had told him bits and pieces, but not everything. It would seem Emerald had gained some sort of trust for this boy, which was saying something because her younger sister didn’t trust many people. Neither did she.

For a long time, Sapphire had made herself a niche in New York City, becoming a fairly well known artist, though she was not a household name, she was known by many art fanatics especially those who enjoyed the dark. Her experiences from the lab had taught her to delve deeper into herself and draw out the darkness within, which helped her create her masterpieces. Sometimes though, there were some parts of the darkness even Sapphire herself, hated to explore.

Holding up her injured hand, it was clear to see it was stitched, as if someone tore into it with surgical like precision before it was sewn up. "Shift wasn't the one who Saved Emerald this time, I did." Sapphire paused staring at her hand. "When I got there Bloodfang was mauling her to "Wake up the puppy", I managed to knock him away and keep him away from Emerald. He did this to my hand in the process." Sapphire pointed to the wound on her arm. But there was something she was hesitating to tell, something rather big.

The Mistress of Darkness was far better at hiding things than Emerald or Ruby were. Her voice was often calm and her face didn’t show any signs of absolute rage like Emeralds did. Well...it didn’t most of the time. Sapphire took in a harsh breath, getting up from her stool, her voice drastically changed at her face contorted into a snarl, similar to her younger siblings except with the noble and elegant face of the oldest Lupin.

"Emerald wasn’t the only one he damaged, He used to torture Ruby as well, and he killed recklessly, nearly ruining everything I worked for, for so long!" Sapphire snarled, a darkness tendril erupting from he hand, at first wispy with no particular form but then turning solid and shooting out at the canvas penetrating the canvas as several others came from sapphires wounded arm, becoming solid and throwing the canvas across the room.

For a brief moment Sapphire's face stayed enraged before she regained that cool composure, but a flash of something appeared on her face, Sadness? Yes It was deffinatly sadness and as she sat down onto the stool again, she hissed at the face her wound on her injured hand was bleeding, darkness also leaking out of her body in small whisps of black air.

"I protect my family, no matter what, but hes hurting them, First Emmy, Then Ruby, Then Emerald again and now my young one, he doesnt deserve to walk on this earth." Sapphire glanced at Gawain Her voice calm and collected. "If you are my sibling now, I suppose I will have to put you under the same protection. But if you wish to help me destroy that monster, you will have to help me and know a little more than you do about the Monster known as Bloodfang. First, my first aide kit from the bathroom and help me bandage this wound."

This is it, I'm makin a deal with the devil.

Gawain was usually quick at reading people; one of the traits he picked up even before he started living on the streets and in the mirrors. Sapphire had made a first impression that was hard to make right.
That, and she was creepy too.

Still, the way she talked about her family, and the things that had happened to them, Gawain understood the anger and the darkness. He felt the same way sometimes when he thought about Mom and what could have happened to her. Naturally, one of the three siblings had to look out for the other two. Even when it was not pretty.

Her young one?
Oh sh*t.

>>"If you are my sibling now, I suppose I will have to put you under the same protection. But if you wish to help me destroy that monster, you will have to help me and know a little more than you do about the Monster known as Bloodfang. First, my first aide kit from the bathroom and help me bandage this wound."

Gawain nodded, and went to fetch the first aid kit. Over the past few years, he got quite good at bandaging wounds. He returned, and sat down next to Sapphire, looking at the gash on her arm. She was leaking the same dark stuff that she manipulated with her powers. A very fitting ability for a girl like Sapphire.
Gawain cleaned the wound, and bandaged her arm, careful not to cause too much pain.

"Ya're a strange one, aren't you." he muttered, shaking his head with a smirk as he finally looked up at her. "Let's get something straight here first, Saph: I am not here to help you, or to ask you to help me. I'm here cuz Ems and Ruby like you, in a way, and they need you too. So even though we kinda got off on the wrong foot, an' I still don' trust you, I'm givin' you a second chance, for them. So ya'll need to earn my trust just like I need to earn yours."

He paused, thinking about it for a moment, and letting Sapphire think about it too.

"So, tell me about yourself first."

While her wounds were being bandaged, Sapphire couldn't help but notice how careful the boy was being with handling her hand. Even though he clearly didnt trust her and even said so in his little speech, he was being rather nice to her. Maybe it was just in his character to be nice to women he didnt know, or maybe he believed that she was actually trying to protect her family. Which was the only thing she tried to to do.

"Understandable, I personally do not trust males who come peeping through mirrors in order to find me so you have your work cut out for you Sir Gawain." Sapphire told him in response to him wanting to learn to trust her. "I am the oldest of the Lupins, I love rum, I can paint very well and I cut off my Dingo tail when i was fourteen because if I did not I would not have been able to complete my assignment." Sapphire explained, staring at the wound on her hand.

Gawain finished bandaging her arm, and was now sitting next to her, listening. It seemed like they were on the same page with the trust issue. That was definitely a start. She also pointed out it was not nice for him to just walk in through the mirror. Duly noted. Gawain tended to forget about that lately.

He chuckled at the short self-description. Rum that he could smell, when he leaned closer to her. He personally preferred beer, but oh well.

Dingo, huh.

Gawain nodded with a smirk - Sapphire summed herself up in one neat sentence. She seemed like the girl who speaks what's on her mind, in a way that everyone can understand. That was not necessarily a problem.

"Well. I don't have any siblings that I know of, I like beer, I dance very well, an' I turn into a girl every other day." he grinned at her "The mirrorwalkin's constant, I'm afraid."

An ammused Smirk crept across the darkness manipulators face as Gawain mentioned being able to turn into a girl every other day. Now that was a power, Sapphire was glad she did not have, it would be terribly akward and she didnt beleive she would look good as a male. If anything Sapphire would look like some transalvanian count or maybe some sort of immortal person if she was a male, not that she didnt look like one already. Sapphire gave off an air of mysterious beauty that often drew others to her only for them to be cut in half or told "politely" to go away if she didnt find them worthy of her pressence. She wondered inwardly if she would be able to pull that off if she was a male.

"That would be an intresting ability for someone to have, would make my job a great deal harder though, considering most of my clients are male." Sapphire pondered aloud, drumming her fingers on her knees in thought. The darkness manipulator glanced at her hand to see how it was holding up, noticing the amount of darkness that was seeping out was lessening considerable as the boy bandaged it. It was good she wasnt going to bleed to death today.

>>"That would be an intresting ability for someone to have, would make my job a great deal harder though, considering most of my clients are male."

Gawain smirked.

"It's more like a condition than an ability, really." he admitted "Would be hell of a lot more useful if I could shift at will. Not like I mind, though, I got used to it a long time ago..."

More or less.
Gawain looked at the bandages to make sure they were in place. It was not a bad wound, but he could imagine how it would hurt. Even though, judging by the scent of alcohol, Sapphire had been dealing with the pain too.

"What job? I'm guessin' ya're not talking about the paintings."

Let's hope it's not what it sounds like...

It took Sapphire but a mere moment to realize how her wording could have been viewed as something entirely different than what she was thinking. A light laugh escaped the Mistress Of Darkness's lips, looking highly amused. To think she would degrade herself in such an act of selling her precious body for money is laughable at best. What sort of fool would ever do something as silly that?

"Oh you silly boy, you must think I am some sort of prostitute or a lady of the night by the way I worded that last sentence," Sapphire smiled a little, not a full blown Lupin smile but more of a smirk. She rose up from her seat deciding to go over to the discarded painting, retrieving it from the floor and carrying it back over to the easel."Have no worries, I am no hidden mistress of a man, I'm just a killer for hire thats all. Oh and if you tell anyone that I will hire someone to put you in a coma and wipe your mind. Just for safety precautions, I assure you." Sapphire explained, brushing it off as if putting someone in a coma was a day to day occurrence for her.

Sapphire grabbed her paint brush from the easel and thought that she may have frightened the boy by her statement. The Mistress of darkness gave him a disarming smile, only one that a pretty woman could give a man to make him to what she wanted. "Its a family practice, I wont hurt you, you are family after all."

>>"I'm just a killer for hire thats all. Oh and if you tell anyone that I will hire someone to put you in a coma and wipe your mind. Just for safety precautions, I assure you."

Gawain winced. Sapphire's profile just kept getting better and better (with a huge 'sarcasm' sign over those adjective). Killer for hire. Suuure. Wipe his mind. Like. Hell. Despite the not-so-good past four years, Gawain had loads of very good memories that he didn't want to lose. Fair deal, he wouldn't tell. Not like anyone would believe, or like he could come out of it right. 'My new sister is an assassin'. Yeah, it had a ring to it.

>>"Its a family practice, I wont hurt you, you are family after all."

"Yea, lucky me." Gawain smirked, looking at the picture again, shaking his head to clear his thoughts "I bet it can come in handy from time to time." he sighed "So. What can you tell me 'bout that bastard?"

Telling the story of Bloodfang was a far easier task for Sapphire than it would ever be for her younger siblings. As the assistant of the man known as Fusionist, Sapphire had come to known many of the origins of the members of the inner circle of Fusionist's top assassins. Most stories had to do with the mad doctor himself taking innocent souls from there once pleasant lives, before being turned into a a living hell by the madman. Bloodfang's however was different, far different than the rest of theirs.

"Bloodfang killed his family when his mutation manifested, somehow the wolven instincts driving him o do so. His Real name is Jason and he was around 13 when he came to the labs, he was already living on the streets for quite some time when we found him. He is truly a monster, he took a man who had the ability to secrete a type of toxin that could paralyze you from the neck down but heighten your senses if ingested and drained all the blood from his body and stored it for the right occasion." Sapphire swallowed hard, pointing up to the collar that was in his hand clearly Emerald's. To see Sapphire this shaken by someone was bad news, this guy obviously meant business.

"How else would he have made Emerald scream so loudly?" Sapphire once again looked shaken by this thought, clearly disturbed by what he had done to her sister. Which was saying something because Sapphire had done terrible things in her past but nothing compared to what Bloodfang did to his victims. She cleared the thoughts of the incident from her mind. "He doesnt like his victims having hope of escape or being able to get away from him easily. Vile smells make him ill, loud noises hurt his ears and if he doenst eat human flesh or normal food he will be weaker." Sapphire relayed the horrible weakness for the dark, vile creature known as Bloodfang before a small smirk crept across her lips. "Another codename we had for him was lust."

>>"He doesnt like his victims having hope of escape or being able to get away from him easily. Vile smells make him ill, loud noises hurt his ears and if he doenst eat human flesh or normal food he will be weaker."

Gawain's eyes naroowed as he listened. It was still disturbing, no matter how many details he'd heard from the sisters; to know that such a monser existed somewhere, hunting down innocent people made his skin crawl. He'd had doubts about doing anything about him before, from fear that he would make things worse... but if no one did anything, that defeated the X spirit and everything they stood for.

For a moment Gawain wondered what Mom would say.
Well, that's easy. Mom would say if I dare to get into any kind of trouble she would have me grounded for the rest of my life.
Then she would go and hunt the SOB down.

>>"Another codename we had for him was lust."

Gawain winced. "Yea, that's cute." he murmured with a frown "All right, so we know what he doesn't like." he summarized "That's a start. I can work with that. Do you know how to find him?"