Sapphire

Sapphire is a former mutant superhero and member of the Champions.

## Biography

Corazon "Corrie" Valenzuela was a teenage starlet whose career was on an unstoppable rise. She was admired for her message of positivity, harmony, and equality, and held up as a role-model, particularly for young people of color. An accomplished singer and skilled guitarist even at her young age, Corrie and her band were on tour when a crazed fan attempted to take her hostage shortly after a performance. When she struggled to escape, the man attacked her with a knife. Corrie's injuries were minor, but the pain and fear caused her mutant gene to activate and she reflexively blasted her attacker with a bolt of sizzling blue energy.

The realization that the young singer was a mutant rocked the entertainment world, but Corrie refused to let herself be branded and pushed aside as a freak. She took the name Sapphire for her ability to create brilliant blue energy on command, and not only continued her career, but expanded her nascent message of activism to include mutant rights as well.

As a Chicago native, she spent a good amount of time in the city when not on tour, and was a reluctant participant in a large-scale conflict between VIPER and UNTIL operatives that rocked the city in 2013. She saved a great many lives when the villain Geos attempted to collapse a CTA station on a group of UNTIL agents and the terrified civilians trapped on the train. Although Geos was almost completely immune to her powers, Sapphire distracted the villain until the Champions could arrive to capture him, and they were impressed by her heroism. After the dust settled, they talked about recruitment, and after discussing the matter with her family (and her agent) she agreed to join the Champions.

Sapphire has been an integral part of the team's roster for years, though she spends more time away from Chicago than any other member. She maintains a public profile and still gives performances and interviews, and argues passionately for mutant rights on TV every chance she gets.

In 2020, while providing assistance to the Contenders during a pitched battle with members of the Midnight Crew, she was knocked unconscious by Hellion and then possessed by a ghostly villain called the Spectre. As the ghost was in control of Sapphire's actions, her allies had no choice but to subdue her and take her back to Champions HQ. Witchcraft attempted to exorcise the spirit for days, but was not able to remove it with her limited necromancy. The team instead turned to the Atlantean, who at the time had much stronger command of the dead, and he agreed to help.

When Sapphire awakened, however, the Spectre would not leave. It was no longer an invasive presence, but rather had merged with Sapphire into a single being. After spending a long time wrestling with the ghost, Sapphire's empathic nature caused her to communicate, reason, and commiserate with the miserable Spectre until the two came to an understanding. While the details of this days-long conversation are known only to the participants, when she emerged from her coma, Sapphire had no interest in expelling the Spectre from her body and in fact welcomed their mutual transformation.

No longer concerned with mortal affairs, the hybrid Sapphire/Spectre entity briefly assisted the Champions and Contenders with an ongoing battle before departing, claiming to have "a far greater conflict" that required her attention.

It was later reported by Old Mentat that he encountered the Spectre in the afterlife. She informed him that the people of his world were slain when the Time Wizard destroyed the temporal shard they resided in, and as a result there were billions of lost souls unable to find their place in the afterlife. She offered to lead the souls to their appropriate final resting places if Old Mentat would turn against his former master, and he readily agreed.

## Personality

Sapphire is a young idealist with strong convictions and the ability to see the good in anyone. Her desire to do good in the world is not only the reason for her super heroism but also her role as an activist and positive role-model. Of all the Champions, she is the most likely to try and reform villains. Though this is usually a wasted effort, this dialogue can prove effective in building a rapport with her enemies, and several villains who hate the Champions as a whole nurse a soft spot for Sapphire.

Sapphire doesn't enjoy violence and tries to resolve conflicts through communication whenever possible. Although she is a very powerful energy projector, she always exercises restraint, even when there is no real risk of collateral damage or property destruction.

After her merger with the Spectre, Sapphire's attitude cooled significantly, and she seems to have become a true merger between the bubbly do-gooder and the callous super-villain, falling somewhere in the middle. She was perfectly willing to turn her back on the Earth and its troubles, showing no remorse for the Champions or the many causes she was leaving behind.

## Powers

Sapphire can conjure a mysterious blue energy field with a variety of applications. This field changes power, form, and intensity to conform to her desires, making it a versatile weapon that can injure, stun, or dazzle opponents. It also allows her to fly and provides her with protection from bodily harm (though it is not a true force-field). The nature of her power is unknown, and any attempts to analyze her aura have only shown that the energy field is unique and unknown elsewhere to science.

After merging with the Spectre, Sapphire's powers changed significantly. Her signature energy aura is now a ghastly green color, and seems chilling, rather than "hot" as it once was. Her attacks are now tinged with necromantic energy and prove significantly harmful to the undead, as well as bypassing most mundane types of armor. She has also demonstrated new powers that clearly derive from the Spectre, such as the ability to turn invisible, pass through walls, sense the presence of the dead, and command restless spirits. The total extent of these powers is unknown, though the Atlantean remarked that the merged entity's command of necromancy rivaled his own as the Herald of Hades.

## Weaknesses

Sapphire has a vulnerability to light-based attacks, which can cause her aura to "overload" and backfire, inflicting nonlethal but painful injuries and temporarily draining her strength. This may have worsened after her merger with the Spectre, who had a different but significant vulnerability to the same type of attack.

It is unknown whether Sapphire has inherited the Spectre's weaknesses, but if so, she would be vulnerable to magic and averse to the presence of holy symbols, which the Spectre refused to approach.