Sunset Rains | |
Portrayed By | Nikka Costa |
---|---|
Gender/Species | Female/Human |
Date of Birth | February 20, 1951 |
Age | 29 |
Aliases | Sunny, Beatnik |
Place of Birth | California, USA |
Current Location | New York City, NY, USA |
Occupation | Florist |
Known Relatives | Susan Rains (Mother, deceased), Thomas Rains (Father, deceased), John Anderson (Former husband, deceased), Matthew Rains (Son, estranged), Julia Rains (Daughter) Elizabeth (Granddaughter), Oz Delaney (Surrogate younger brother), Angelika Bennett (Surrogate younger sister) |
Significant Other | Warren Worthington the Third |
Livejournal | Link |
History
Originally born on February 20th, 1951, in a small town a few hours south of San Francisco, Sunset Rains was originally named Jane. It was immediate from the start that Jane was not like the other kids. Where most girls wanted to play house or with dolls, she instead preferred to watch the news to learn about what was going on in the world and trying to throw all the meat in the refrigerator away. While her parents thought this was just a phase she would grow out of as she got older, Jane soon proved them wrong.
Having watched her mother be the usual, and sometimes stereotypical housewife while her father went off to work each day, Jane became more and more resentful of the lifestyle that her mother led. It was obvious she hated it - Why else would someone cry while vacuuming the living room? - yet she did nothing to break out of the mold she had been forced into. Around age eleven, Jane vowed to never become like her mother. She would never let society control her in any way.
Soon after this, a noticeable movement was starting with the youth of America. They rejected established institutions, criticized middle class values, opposed nuclear weapons and the Vietnam War, embraced aspects of Eastern philosophy, were often vegetarian and eco-friendly and created intentional communities or communes. These people were labeled hippies, and Jane was not only a full supporter, but fully caught up in the movement.
This one movement in this period of time could be fully blamed for making Jane the person she is today. Throwing out all of the skirts, dresses, and blouses she had been sometimes forced to wear before, she switched to jeans, shorts, and t-shirts. Soon after, she quit answering to the name Jane, instead going by Sunset, a name she had picked up thanks to the vibrant red color of her hair.
As much as her parents hated the transformation she had gone through, nothing they did stopped her rebellion. She continued to dress, as her mother said, 'like a no good criminal', and continued to take as much part in the hippie movement as she could from her small town.
Her first large rebellion, the first of many, was to hitchhike with a group of friends to Berkeley, California, to witness what would eventually be known as "The Red Dog Experience". With acts such as Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company… The group had no way of knowing that they were witnessing what could be considered history being made, nor no way of knowing that the punch served at the hall the concert was taking place in was laced with LSD.
Her first experience with drugs, Sunset had no qualms about taking it again and again after the concert. Through the next few years, she became immersed in the free love culture, along with immersed in the drug culture that went with it, even more so after she was kicked from her house at the age of sixteen, moving to the streets of San Francisco. Experimenting with LSD, marijuana, ecstasy, and a few others, these drugs slowly became more and more obsolete and the redhead began taking heroin, something that would eventually lead to an addiction that would take a life changing event for her to fully quit.
As the Vietnam War raged overseas, Sunset and the group she had started to slum with in an abandoned building, attended more and more protest rallies, very few of them ending peacefully. Ending up in jail more than a few times, the girl never gave her name, only waiting until they finally got tired of her and let her go.
Eventually, when Sunset was seventeen, the war even reached the small group of anarchists. What males there were in the group received letters telling them to report to Uncle Sam once they turned old enough, something none of them would let happen. Doing the only thing they knew to, the group packed up what little they had, and moved to Baja California, where one of the group members had family that ran a commune much like the ones that the group had heard of back home.
It was here that Sunset met the man who eventually help her turn her life around. His name was Austin, and one of the first things Sunset thought when she met him was that his eyes were the same color as the ocean the commune fished in.
It was Austin who taught her to fish, to clean what she caught, and whatever tasks the commune leaders assigned her. On the side, he taught her how to speak Spanish.
It didn't take long for Sunset to fall in love with him.
However, when she admitted this to him, things did not go as planned. The nearly overwhelming joy she felt when he admitted that he returned her feelings was soon dispersed as Austin told her that he could never be with her. Not while she took heroin.
This, of course, led to an argument. A rather large argument. However, Sunset later realized that the choice between heroin and Austin was not a hard one. The love she held for the man couldn't compare to the love she had for her drug of choice.
The withdrawal, as far as withdrawals go, was normal. For Sunset however, it was hell, a hell that could not end soon enough. The pain, the nausea, the fever, the chills, the cold sweats… It was a long two weeks with only the thought of Austin to keep her from going back to the drug. Sunset is still amazed that she was able to do it.
It was a slow process to recover from the withdrawal, but Sunset did her best to try not to let it affect her, stubbornness and pride keeping her from resting when others told her to, instead diving back into her communal tasks… And her relationship with Austin. It was the happiest Sunset had ever been.
She should have known it wouldn't have lasted.
Having now lived at the commune for a little over a year and a half, Sunset rarely thought of the fact that she had not only illegally crossed the border, but had been living as an illegal immigrant as well. Even though she knew she had been breaking the law, it still came as a very large shock when the whole commune was raided, and broken up. Sunset was sent back to California, while Austin, having been born in Mexico, was forced to stay.
Life turned upside down, and with nowhere to go and barely anyone to turn to, Sunset quickly returned to her old ways, shooting up, and gaining a few new ones as well. The group no longer together, and no longer able to work together to steal what they needed, the redhead had no source of income, and no possible way of getting a respectable job, so she turned to the only thing she knew to do to survive. Sell herself and her body for money.
It was a job she loathed, but there was no denying the fact that she was good at it, sometimes bringing in around six or seven hundred dollars a night. And looking back, there was also no denying the fact that if it weren't for her job, there was no way she would have met Rose.
At first, Sunset thought she was just some crazy old lady who was lonely. She dressed like she couldn't decide whether she wanted to be a hippie or a school teacher and just decided on both, she wore too many necklaces with weird symbols, and for some damn reason she wanted to buy Sunset lunch every Saturday.
The reasons for why soon became obvious. According to Rose, Sunset had potential. A lot of potential, to be very powerful. The only question was, did she want to pursue it?
Brushing the woman off as insane - after all, she was 19, addicted to smack for the second time, and a prostitute. There was no way she could be powerful - Sunset basically told her no thanks and goodbye.
However, soon after, Rose would be the only person she would have to turn to.
In her line of work, many things are expected. One thing you aren't going to be able to stop about being a sex worker is the fact that you have to have sex to do it. However, other things can usually be prevented. Usually.
This is probably why Sunset felt so incredibly stupid when she ended up pregnant. With no one to turn for guidance or advice - Did she keep it, did she get rid of it, what the hell was she going to do? - she went to the only person she could.
Rose took her in, gave her food and a place to live without charge. She only asked for Sunset to let her teach her the ways of Wicca in return, to help Sunset harness the potential she had. She convinced Sunset to keep the baby, and helped her kick her habit for the second time. She also convinced Sunset to tell the father of the child, who was eventually tracked down through Sunset's old appointment book.
His name was John Anderson. He worked for the San Francisco Police Department. When Sunset told him about the baby - their baby - he was angry. She had expected him to be. However, she didn't expect what happened next. Anderson threatened her with an ultimatum. Either marry him, or she would be brought to court for custody of the child. Apparently, having a child out of wedlock would not do wonders for Anderson's reputation.
Knowing that there was no way that she would win a custody battle - After all, she had been a junkie, a street rat, and a criminal. She had no job to speak of, and she wasn't even 20 yet. - against Rose's wishes, and even though after all this time she still loved and thought of Austin, Sunset married Anderson.
She soon began to hate herself for not calling his bluff.
Anderson turned out to be quite an angry person, especially when drunk. Sunset quickly found out that he was only sober on the job. While never did anything that would cause her to lose the baby, he still found many ways to abuse her. The worst he did to her in those first seven months was slam her face into the kitchen counter, breaking her nose and giving her a concussion. Sunset told the nurse at the hospital that she had slipped and fell when getting out of the bathtub.
While Sunset hated John, she hated herself more. She had sworn when she was younger to not end up like her mother - like this - and here she was. In a marriage she hated, in a lifestyle she hated, and too scared to try and leave it. The only goods thing she had were her weekly lessons with Rose, from which she hid the abuse as much as she could with glamors and what not, and eventually her son, Matthew.
However, after Matthew was born, and Sunset had healed from the labor, the abuse only got worse, and yet she hid it and told nobody, though she was sure that Rose knew. However, after nearly two years, things changed. Some would say for the better, yet Sunset denies that to this day.
There were times when Sunset needed a break. Needed to get away from it all, and maybe forget for just a little while that she was stuck in this hell. She would drop Matthew off with Rose, and go back to her old haunts in San Francisco. The building where her group from the streets had lived, the Chinese buffet that would let them eat after closing depending on what night manager was working at the time… No matter where she went, there was always the one place she would go before returning home. The Santa Cruz Boardwalk was somewhere that her and Austin had always talked about going to see when she was still in Baja Mexico. Even though she never went on any of the rides or played any of the games, Sunset still walked around, looking, and imagining what Austin would be saying to her.
She still considers it a miracle what happened that day. At first, she thought it was a dream, a hallucination of some kind. But he was there, somehow, and he was real, and he still had eyes as blue as the ocean that the boardwalk stretched out to. Austin.
It was no surprise that Austin found out about the abuse. It's hard to hide scars and bruises when there is a lack of clothing, after all. It was also no surprise that he was angry about what had been happening to Sunset. What did surprise her however, is what he said he had come to San Francisco for.
Originally, it was to ask her to marry him, now that he finally had a legal way into the country. However, now that he knew that she was married, and in an inescapable one at that, the plan changed.
He would leave for a bit, to get a house set up for himself, Sunset, and Matthew. When he got everything ready, including fake papers that said Sunset was his wife and Matthew was his son, he would return, and they would run away, back to Baja California.
There was no reason for her to disagree with the plan. It was a way out of her life and back into the one she missed. Austin soon left with a promise to return in two months time.
Two months later, Austin was dead, and Sunset was pregnant for the second time. It seemed that Anderson kept more tabs on Sunset that she thought he did. He had heard about the plan, and made sure that people were waiting at the border for Austin. The papers said that it was a mugging gone wrong, but Anderson had no problem letting Sunset know the truth. It was the last straw for the redhead.
Rose had not been lying to Sunset when she said she had potential to become powerful. What power she already had fueled by years of held in anger and hatred and very recent despair at everything that had gone wrong, Sunset snapped. Locking herself in the bathroom, she did a very quick and very messy spell, that had very bad consequences. Anderson was found dead in his police car that night. The coroner's report said it was a heart attack. Both sunset and Rose knew better, though Rose didn't have the heart in her to scold and punish her student for what she had done.
Selling the house that had been given to her after Anderson's death, if only because there was no one else to give it to, Sunset and Matthew moved in Rose. Half a year later, Sunset's second child, Julia was born. Her eyes were as blue as her father's.
Over the next five years years, things went on normally for the household. Sunset had Matthew's last name changed to Rains. The two children grew up with a healthy brother and sister rivalry, and never questioned why they didn't have a father. Sunset is sure that things would have gone on happily until she died at a ripe old age if she hadn't tried to mess with the order of things.
Having always been a helpful person, Sunset always tried to help people around her as much as she could, whether it be by physical or metaphysical means. Healing spells seemed to be her specialty, and eventually she decided to try and create a healing spell that would be powerful enough to heal the worst of diseases.
Sunset had been taught that everyone had the power to make a spell happen in them. And that power was all connected, from one person to the next. Maybe, just maybe, there was a way to draw from other people's power around her and have the connecting links slowly grow more and more outward, fueling more and more power towards one spell. It's only logic, of course. The more powerful a healing spell is, the worse of an injury or sickness it can heal.
She never thought that this would have been the thing to kill her.
She's still not sure who exactly it was that let it leak out. A coven member? Someone who had overheard her telling Rose about her ideas? Whoever it was, they ended up telling the wrong person. For every white magic user, there is a black magic user as well. Such is the balance of things.
They showed up at the house one day while Julia and Matthew were at school. Rose was grocery shopping. What they wanted was simple. Hand over her work, or they would kill her children. Sunset's decision about what to do, however, was not as easily decided. She knew she couldn't let them kill Julia or Matthew. However, giving the spell was out of the question as well.
Eventually, she did the only thing she could think of to do. The papers she had on the matter were burned. She suggested Rose take Julia and Matthew to a movie. Sunset then wrote a letter out to Rose telling her what had happened, and why she was doing this, along with letters for Matthew and Julia to read when they were older. Then, with only a slight hesitance, she retrieved a knife from the kitchen, and took a hike to the cliffs nearby.
Her body was found, washed up on shore two days later, wrists slit from the edge of her hand near to her elbow.
Sunset has no idea what death is like. She remembers nothing from when she stepped off the edge of the cliff, to when she seemed to wake up from a very long sleep, finding herself in the head, and body, of a young girl named Angelika in Sacramento.
The therapists said that Angelika had been diagnosed with Multiple Personality Disorder. Sunset and another, a man named Oz, weren't real. They were other personalities her subconscious had created. Well, both Sunset and Oz knew that was a bunch of crap, considering they had their own memories and knew about things that Angelika couldn't possibly have. It took a bit, but they were finally able to convince Angelika that they were not figments of her subconscious. They were real, and though they didn't know why they were there, they were there to stay.
They eventually found a rhythm in which to live. It wasn't always harmonious, but they were able to make it work. Both Sunset and Oz helped shape Angie as she grew, all three of them learning to deal with the powers that had been divided in between them. Eventually, the trio found themselves in New York City, where trouble began a few years after the move.
It was no secret to say that out of the three, it was Oz who was the most uncomfortable about the entire situation. After all, he was a 24 year old male who had been in the mind and body of a female for the past 10 years of her life. So, it was no surprise to Sunset when he took up the first offer he received for a chance to be himself again. It was no surprise, but that didn't mean she wasn't going to be angry about the fact that Oz had just willingly become a minion of Dr. Otto Octavius.
The anger, of course, faded quickly when she realized that he would need her help in this. Otto could build him a body, but Otto could not take Oz's soul from Angelika's body and place it into the empty shell. Not wanting Oz to lose this chance, she reluctantly agrees to help transfer his soul to the empty body.
A few weeks after this, Sunset meets someone who she will eventually just calls Ghost. She has no idea who he is or what he wants, all she knows is that he somehow knew about her and Angelika and he placed a tracking spell on them that she can't break.
The reason the tracking spell was placed is revealed a few weeks later, Ghost showing up at her apartment, with a proposal for her. Sunset steals a book, he helps with that pesky body problem, and there's no lifetime servitude involved. How could she say no?
After weeks of planning, Sunset finally receives an address, of where the book is, along with the blueprints of the house. Even though she's not the best burglar, no one is home, and it all goes well. The book is stolen, given to Ghost, and Sunset has a body.
After bouncing around from apartment to apartment while trying to settle into her new life, she eventually finds herself in the Morlock Tunnels, where she discovers she's pregnant. Knowing that the tunnels aren't a place for a pregnant woman, or a baby, she soon moves out into her own apartment.
And that, as they say, is that.
Timeline
- February 20, 1951 - Born.
- March 14, 1962 - Swears to never become what society wants her to be.
- August 7, 1964 - Joins the hippie movement.
- May 28, 1966 - Is kicked out of her house. Moves to the streets of San Francisco.
- November 2, 1968 - Moves to Baja California. (Illegally.)
- March 12, 1969 - Kicks her heroin addiction to start a relationship with a boy named Austin.
- April 8, 1970 - Is transported back to America.
- January 20, 1971 - Discovers she's pregnant.
- March 17, 1971 - Marries John Anderson.
- September 29, 1971 - Matthew Apollo Rains is born.
- May 9, 1973 - Runs into Austin at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. They get fully reacquainted at a nearby hotel.
- June 27, 1973 - Discovers she's pregnant for the second time. there's no question that the child is Austin's.
- July 15, 1973 - Austin is found beaten to death near a bar close to the Mexico/California border.
- July 17, 1973 - John Anderson is found in his squad car, dead of a supposed heart attack.
- March 29, 1974 - Julia Artemis Rains is born.
- May 15, 1979 - Bad people show up at Sunset's house with a simple request. Give them the spell she had been working on, or they kill her children.
- May 17, 1979 - A body washes up onto Ocean Beach, with slit wrists. The body is later identified as Sunset Rains.
- October 2, 1996 - Wakes up in the mind and body of an eleven year old girl named Angelika Bennett in Sacramento, California.
- December 14, 1996 - Discovers that when she is in control of Angelika's body, her eyesight is much better than it should be. Angelika's other dormant powers appear soon after this.
- June 5, 2003 - The trio moves to New York City so Angelika can start college.
- February 11, 2007 - Meets Lieutenant Edward Pratchett. The two soon begin a relationship of sorts.
- February 17, 2007 - Meets Rich Malone. Tells his information about his past like as Mike Hannigan.
- March 21, 2007 - narrow down the area to search for Canvas after she was kidnapped by Venom.
- April 17, 2007 - Makes Rich a special kind of tea to replace the pills he had been taking to help control his powers.
- April 23, 2007 - Gives Rich information on a former bandmate named Frank.
- May 23, 2007 - Arranges a mental conference between Mike and Rich.
- July 29, 2007 - Meets Timothy in Central Park.
- August 20, 2007 - Makes a deal with Timothy. She'll steal him a book, he'll get her a body.
- Spetember 2, 2007 - Bridget agrees to make Sunset papers that proves she exists to the government.
- September 7, 2007 - Successfully steals the book Timothy wanted. She wastes no time in becoming herself again.
- September 8, 2007 - Becomes engaged to Edward.
- September 28, 2007 - Edward ends their engagement after finding out Sunset's full history.
- October 1, 2007 - Moves into the Morlock Tunnels. Also starts working for Rene.
- October 29, 2007 - Discovers she's pregnant.
- November 16, 2007 - Moves out he of the Tunnels after Zachery bodysnatches Oz.
- November 19, 2007 - Starts an affair with Damian, Zachery's twin brother
- January 17, 2008 - Starts teaching Sabrielle how to control her powers.
- January 24, 2008 - Meets Warren and agrees to go out with him. Her affair with Damian is soon ended afterwards.
- January 26, 2008 - Goes on a date with Warren, and discovers that he's Warren Worthing the Third. They plan on causing a media sensation.
- January 28, 2008 - Discovers Warren is a mutant.
- February 8, 2008 - Attacked by Magneto at a charity ball.
- February 21, 2008 - Tells Julien about her past - Her actual past. - in hopes that he'll let her help him beat his heroin addiction.
- March 18, 2008 - Evacuates the city thanks to invading aliens.
- March 21, 2008 - Tells Warren about her past.
- April 3, 2008 - Takes revenge on Zachery for stabbing Oz.
- April 8, 2008 - Returns hom to San Francisco to find her past, and brings Julien along. She is reunited with her daughter, Julia, and granddaughter Lizzie. All four of them return to New York.
- April 24, 2008 - Helps Warren and Kaji track down a kidnapped Cole. Rescuing follows.
- May 7, 2008 - Dies after being hit by a car.
Quotes
- "We are all connected. No matter if we don't realize it, everyone is connected. As my daughter once put it, it's like everyone is standing all together in a Red Rover chain. They just don't realize that they're holding hands, tying to keep the chain together and keep the world strong."
Trivia
- Though she'll never admit it, Sunset has always had a thing for blue eyes.
- While she's tried quite a few times to eat vegetarian, there's something about about chicken that just keeps calling her back.
- One of Sunset's dreams in life is to start a home for runaway mutants. It'll be a halfway point between the Morlock Tunnels and Xavier's.
- She also wants to start her own commune, like the one she was once in, somewhere in upstate New York.