Storms and Shirts

Sapphire stopped for a brief second, looking as though her life started flashing before her eyes. Ulrich paused for a second, looking at Lainey, who was quickly running towards Sapphire. Sapphire fell to her knees, staring ahead at the ocean with a dead expression.

She started muttering something.

"Nad, Nad, Nad, Nad"

Lainey looked towards Ulrich, putting Sapphire's unmoving head upwards on her lap, looking down to make sure she was still breathing, before getting hit in the back of the head by some kind of current.

Ulrich stood up, before getting hit in his left leg by another current. Not as strong as Sapphire's usual, but still enough to make him fall over. He managed to cling to the side of the boat, only for the whole boat to shake, causing him to hit his head his head on the side of the boat, before getting hit by another current.

"What the hell is going on?"

Dominic looked at the still blue sky, noticing Sapphire seemingly having some kind of seizure, eyes glazed over, just yelling 'Nad' over and over.

"W-we don't know!" Lainey yelled. "She lost the necklace, and she started doing…whatever this is!"

"Well, where's the necklace?" Dominic asked, quickly glancing at the ocean.

Lainey pointed towards where the necklace was, and Dominic quickly took off his blue Demon Ball X shirt, handing it to Lainey. He dove into the blue ocean, and after about twenty seconds, he managed to find the teardrop shaped necklace, with a gold chain around it. Lainey carefully placed Sapphire down, threw a pinch of granola bar onto Dominic, causing her demon to come out, and just barely carry Dominic back onto the boat. She put it on while Dominic coughed up a small swimming pools worth of water. He handed Lainey the necklace, and she quickly put it on her after one last current decided to hit her in the face. Once the necklace was around Sapphire, her eyes went back to their normal hazel nature. She sat up, coughing like she just swallowed the contents of a hornet's nest.

"Holy…what was that just now?" Sapphire whispered to herself. She blinked a couple of times, looking at a shirtless Dominic, and then towards Lainey, which caused her to jump back slightly.

"Pink, y-your nose…" She got up, holding Lainey's face, inspecting it for anything.

"My nose?" Lainey asked, running her left hand under her nose. Sure enough, her nose was bleeding. Dominic quickly took his shirt out of her right hand, running into the interior of the boat.

"Jesus, what was that?" Ulrich asked, clutching his head.

"What, losing my necklace?" Sapphire asked. "Yeah, I just happened to have a few things pop into my mind, you know. All that goddamn sand…"

“What, like a beach?” Ulrich asked.

“Yeah.” Sapphire nodded. She was clutching her necklace in one hand, and her head in the other. “Not…not a lot of clothes, lot of weird men.”

"Excuse me, what?" Ulrich asked, horrified.

"Holy shit." Lainey whispered, horrified.

"Hm?" Sapphire looked at the two horrified teammates and caught herself.

"Relax, he didn't get that far. It was some chick I was hanging out with. Knocked him out so close to the water that he probably got washed out."

"Oh. Well, good for you, doing that." Lainey replied, blushing.

"Uh, yeah. Nice one." Ulrich gave a quick thumbs up.

"Anyway, I think training is done for today. Nobody died, and that's your training completed. Go grab a drink or something."

She went inside of the boat, with Dominic offering a high-five, which was ignored.

"So, guys, how'd we do?" He asked.

"Alright. Nice save, by the way." Ulrich said, snapping his fingers at him.

"Hey, I get it." Dominic replied. "If I lost this shirt, I'd probably have a similar reaction. Some shits just sentimental, you know?"

"So, what you doing just now?" Lainey sighed. Dominic didn't have any sort of snack with him, and he wasn't there long enough for a nap. And by the look on his face and general aura, he did…something.

"Not much." Dominic responded, giving a sly smile. "Checked her room, found her diary."

"Her…diary? Why were you looking at that, exactly?" Ulrich asked, slightly apprehensive at whatever he found.

"To see if I could find anything about her. Whole thing was written in Spanish, though. I didn't get far. Minus something about child molesters, I think."

"Excuse me, what?" Lainey screamed, grabbing him by his shoulders.

"I mean, the word 'molesto' was written a few times. So that would explain"

"Molesto is Spanish for annoying, idiot." Lainey interjected, sighing with relief and pulling out her electronic cigarette. "I'll…see if I can talk to her later about it."

"What, like you speak Spanish?" Dominic asked.

"My dad's Mexican, idiot." Lainey replied.

"Oh, nice. So, what now?" Dominic asked.

"Well, I was gonna start training under her, but it seems like some shits on her mind, so I guess I'll see how long I can hold fire for." Ulrich replied.

Lainey sat down on the boats table, casually taking her puffs from the devil's flash drive, while Ulrich held a small flame on the tips of his fingers, which Dominic recorded using his phone. After about a minute of pure fiery action, Ulrich's legs gave out, and Dominic barely caught him, and carefully set him down on one of the chairs, where Ulrich just sat in the sun, trying to heat himself up.

"You doin okay?" Lainey asked. Ulrich just weakly nodded.

"So, any plans on what you're gonna do to Sapphire?" Dominic asked. "Like, ask about any trauma or something?"

"Maybe." Lainey responded, flicking a strand of her hair out of her left eye. "Hopefully she'll be willing to cooperate."

"Yeah, I get you." Dominic replied. "Get her out of a downer before you go down, or something." His phrase started confident, but he seemed to realise how stupid he sounded about halfway through.

"Sure, we'll go with that." Lainey responded, rolling her eyes. She knew creeps who'd try to get her to make out with girls for their amusement, but something about Dominic seemed different. He seemed at least somewhat dedicated to helping her get a legitimate girlfriend.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Ulrich wheezed.

"Oh, did you not know?" Dominic asked. "I'm helping Lainey bang Sapphire, you want in?"

"Do I have to do anything?" Ulrich spluttered.

"Uh, don't bang Sapphire." Dominic replied.

“Got it.” Ulrich nodded.

"Actually, where did you come from again?"

"Florida."

"Hey, Lainey, isn't that one of the rednecky states? Like, the racist ones?"

"I think? I know Texas banned one of my shows for 'promoting indecency' but I haven't played in Florida yet."

"Right. Ulrich, you aren't racist, are you?" Dominic asked, whipping his axe out. "Or are we gonna have a problem?"

"I…I'm not racist? And I'm not against whatever plans you have to get Lainey and Sapphire to do whatever you're planning." Ulrich would fight back, but due to being almost dead from barely having body heat in his system, he couldn't.

"Yeah, you fucking maniac." Lainey replied, blowing vape smoke into his face, allowing her to pin his left arm behind him and take the axe.

"Lainey, he's in! I'm not gonna do anything to him, please let me go!" Dominic screamed, on the verge of crying. Lainey let him go and put her electronic cigarette in her jacket's lower left pocket.

"You guys think she's doing okay?" Lainey asked.

"No idea." Dominic replied, still trying to fix his back. "You checking in on her?"

"Yeah. Stay put, and make sure Ulrich doesn't die."

Both Ulrich and Dominic gave thumbs up as Lainey went inside the boat, past the boys room. Lainey looked inside, noticing a bit of burnt wood, which was presumably something Ulrich did fighting Dominic, alongside the entire board being loose. She went into Sapphire's room, where she was examining her bookshelf, holding her diary, a look of quiet fury on her face.