Of Monsters and Men

Trial and Error

NOTE: Sang's thoughts will appear as bold, and her co-pilot's will appear as italics, and shared thoughts will appear as both italics and as bold.

"He felt like home."

March, 2019

Sang

Dr. Marianne Roberts smiled down at her adoptive daughter and Sang offered a sincere smile back, leaning back against who she now thought of as her one and only mother. Her mother held a comic book in her hands and was reading to Sang. Sang had protested, of course, saying at the old and mature age of twelve years old that she was perfectly capable of reading by herself, but she has eventually given in when she saw the sparkle in her mother's eyes. Soon, she was captivated by the story that was being read, an X-Men one titled the Phoenix Saga, and was listening to every word her mom said.

"'Hear me, X-Men, no longer am I the woman you once knew! I am fire, and life incarnate! Now, and forever, I am Phoenix!'" her mom read dramatically, revealing the beautiful splash page, the main character, Jean Grey, erupting out of the ocean in a new green superhero suit.

"Wow," Sang whispered, her green eyes going as wide as a Jaeger's. "What happened next?" she asked, trying to grab the book from her mom's hands to read on her own.

Marianne snatched it just in time, putting a bookmark in and snapping it shut. "Nope, no ore for tonight," she declared, slipping out from Sang's bed and standing up.

"No!" Sang pouted. "Come on, just a little bit more, please Mom?"

She shook her head, her hair as red as Jean's. "It's already waaaay past your bedtime, Sang, and you got school tomorrow," she reminded gently.

Sang sighed, but knew defeat when she heard it. "Okay, Mom. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Sang, love you," her mom replied, moving towards the door.

Sang suddenly thought of something, something that made her anxiety wake up and her hands sweaty, and knew she just had to ask her mom. "Wait, Mom!" she said quickly, and her mom turned towards her, a concerned look on her face. "Do you think I'll become a hero like Jean? Or like Bruce and Trev and the rest of the pilots?"

For a moment, her mother was stunned into silence, and it felt like a hand had reached into her chest and was squeezing it into ash and dust. She suddenly had a vision of the future, of her daughter in one of the machines that were destined for death and destruction she had built, wearing a victor's  smile that matched those in the Hunger Games who thought they had a chance to win but never did, the son of her colleague Herc that was even younger than her Sang dying in a Jaeger, her creation damning generations to die between metal and fire.

But, of course, her daughter didn't know that, and would never know her fears. Marianne quickly covered her grief with a soft smile. "Of course, my darling," she said quietly, afraid if she spoke any louder her voice would crack. "You will be all fire and life incarnate just like Jean, and as much as a hero and a pilot like Bruce and Trev and the rest." The grin Sang gave her made her mother's heartbreak. Little did her daughter know that Jean's story would end in tragedy, in death and destruction. But she didn't know and Marianne would be damned if she broke her daughter's fairy tale.

And Sang went to sleep that night, dreaming of superhero suits and Jaegers, unknowing her mother was crying in the next room.

~~~

Sang woke up in a gasp, her alarm whistling next to her. She shut it off with bleary eyes and ran a hand through her hair. Fire and life incarnate, she thought to herself, the words from her dream imprinting themselves on her brain. Those words drove her to become a pilot, imagining herself being made out of metal and wires, a force made to protect life. She smiled slightly to herself, remembering how her younger self would write those words with sharpies on her forearm every week, the words never growing gray.