The Butterfly Girl: A Star is Born

Ascend

[Sophia]

Apollo and the Twins finally came around when Teri and I were practicing with each other. They had walked in on us as we were taking turns punching, evading, and blocking. My turn-your turn sort of thing.

"Sophie, what are you doing?" Apollo asked.

I turned my head. "Oh, hey! We're training!"

"Training?" the Twins asked as they observed us from afar. Teri and I stopped and turned towards them.

"I asked Sophie to train me to fight."

"But why?" the Twins asked.

"When we were attacked, I realized I wasn't really doing anything to help you guys. We probably might've died down there if it wasn't for the both of you defending us."

"Teri..." Apollo stepped forward.

"That's why I asked Sophie to train me. If whatever's out there comes back to hurt us, then I want to be ready to fight back. If it comes for us, or if it finds my kingdom I want to be able to protect my people."

There was a long, dramatic pause as everyone stared at Teri.

"Then we'll fight with you too."

"What?" I stammered.

"If Teri's gonna learn to fight then we want to help you too." the Twins suddenly stepped up to me. "Sophie, can we train with you too?"

Once again, I was left speechless and I looked at Apollo. He chuckled and stepped forward.

"I think I might be able to teach you some things."

From that day forward, we began training together. Apollo and I were basically the instructors and we taught Teri and the Twins all that we know from our previous experience. They listened intently and followed our instructions carefully. We taught them the obvious basic moves from attacking and defending and maybe some useful tips that could improve their skills. And if we all got exhausted, we'd ask if anyone wanted to take a break and then we'd relax and chill for a while before getting back to the basics.

For a couple weeks, we'd wake up every morning and get ready for a morning's worth of training and somewhere around noon we'd take a break, maybe grab a few snacks and just hang out until we were ready to get back up again, unless we needed a while longer to recover. I'll admit, there were some days when we'd take a break and then we'd get distracted and we'd forget to go back to training until it was too late and we'd have to head back home.

And of course, we'd take the weekends off to rest and recover our sore muscles and relax as much as we wanted.

Usually, in the morning Apollo would be slapping me awake with my own pillows until I finally slipped out of my bed like a dumb slug and followed her downstairs for breakfast.

I like sleeping, okay, shut up. I value my sleep schedule.

I'm not sure how to explain how it felt during those few weeks. All I remember is that the weather got warmer, as it usually does during the beginning of Autumn here. And everyday I'd remind myself that it would get cold soon as Winter approaches. And sometimes I'd often carry a light jacket with me just in case, but sometimes I'd never end up needing it because of how humid it was and because of how hard we trained.

Near the end of October we decided to celebrate our hard work, so Apollo and I went out on a Friday to pick up some food and brought it back with us and spent the whole day hanging out and eating until we all got tired and decided to call it a day.

Soon the last week of the month rolled around, a hard weeks worth of training over and the weekend was left for us. Sunday was the laziest day for us and we were all hanging out at the tree house, just enjoying the warm weather and relaxing. I was up in the tree house, by myself, sketching something and then turning to my laptop and typing something and then turning back to my drawing. Apollo was with the Twins as they marveled at his wings and asked him about them and Apollo tried to fill them in with as much details as she could and every now and then they'd go off on a tangent. Sometimes I could overhear them, but I didn't really mind and I just sort of lost them a couple times.

I don't intentionally listen in to other people's conversations, I just have really good hearing and they happen to be within earshot.

Teri was off lounging in the little pools of water, flicking her tail back and forth as she lay in the warmth of the sun. I observed from afar from time to time whenever I spaced out from my drawing. The last time I looked up at her I saw her raising her hand in the air and little blobs of water floated up above her and she waved them around in the air and the blobs began jumping in and out of the water pools until they came back to her and splashed on her head.

Later in the evening, we gathered around as a conversation between three people became one with five people instead.

"Okay, well I have been thinking about something." Apollo spoke first.

"What is it?" Teri asked.

"Well, we've been training a lot and I just had this random idea that, what if we all try to fight each other? You know, to test our skills against each other?"

We all looked at each other in confusion and anxiousness.

"Why would we fight each other?" the Twins asked.

"Well, because we would be testing each other and our strength. You know, to see how far we've come." I said from up in the tree.

"Yeah, we wouldn't actually be trying to kill each other or anything. We'd just fight as if we were, that way we can see how well we're good at our skills."

"Yeah, that sounds great," Fleetfoot agreed.

"Yeah, I'm up for that," Flyboy echoed.

"Well, as long as we're not actually going to seriously hurt each other. Then I think that sounds like a good idea." Teri beamed.

And so it was decided. We all agreed that we'd spend the next month training and learning new skills until the end of the month came and we'd all face each other off to see how far we've come with our wits, stamina and strength. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to see how well we're doing.

And I'll be honest, after we dropped out of school, and even before we met Teri and the Twins, I haven't found anything to look forward to in a long time. I've never been this excited about anything since then. And honestly, it felt kinda strange to feel like this. To feel this good about something.

I was hopeful about it, and I told myself I should look for some exercises for us to try and push ourselves harder so we can all bring out the best of our abilities when the time came.