BlueBattler

I actually play on all the servers, though I only have middle to high level toons on Triumph, Guardian, Infinity, Protector, and Virtue. I'm kind of a nomad.

To be honest, the idea about Flower Knight being an Agent of Ouroboros came to me because we see her there both in COV and COH.

I have an idea about how it came about. I may even write about it someday.

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Oh, MY GAHD !!!!

Which server, please?

Or is this permission for players to run their own versions?

D***!

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I have a version of Hope on Guardian and another on Virtue.

I was hoping that electric melee would get ported over to tanks, but it's not likely to happen in the near future.

I was hoping that maybe some people would help me run some task forces when I get her up to the proper level ... Hope definitely has to do Synapse as well as the RWZ one.

He struggles in the arms of the man called Mender Lazarus, but he might as well try to fight Time itself. Helplessly, he watches Hope disappear … and a part of him goes with her. He wants to cry. He wants to scream, but all he can do is glare at Mender Silos.

“You can release him now, Lazarus.” The smile fades away from Silos’ face. “I will resume my place in the tower if anyone needs me.”

“I am sorry for your pain, Brother, but it had to be this way.” Lazarus releases him, but watches his face for any sign of trouble.

“I am not your brother!” He rips the mask off his face. He rubs the blue eyes that Hope had never been able to forget, runs a hand through his close cropped blond hair. “It was so hard—God, it was hard.”

“Watching yourself die is disconcerting the first time,” Mender Tesseract. “But you get used to it, Colin.”

“It wasn’t that!” Colin snarls. “I knew I died in that future. I just didn’t know that I would have to see … this.”

“It had to be done to preserve the integrity of the Timeline,” Lazarus states. “Take comfort in the fact that your wife went into the void willingly.”

“She wasn’t my wife! At least not this Hope.” He rips the gloves off his hands. “She was so young. Even younger than my Hope had been when she … when she – Lazarus lied! He told me that I could be with my wife when she died!”

“Lazarus doesn’t lie,” the Kheldian called Twilight’s Son says—or perhaps sings-- in the curiously musical voice of his people. “He simply shades the truth to his benefit.”

“He always gets what he wants in the end,” Tesseract is smirking. “Did you see how powerful that the Clockwork King was in that Timeline?”

“He was indeed mighty,” Lazarus admits. “I have never seen him fight so bravely—with such skill. He had something to fight for. Hope’s mother. Hope herself. As long as he had his family, the Clockwork King was able to keep the madness at bay. A sane Clockwork King is a formidable being indeed. A mad one … well, a mad one is much less difficult to deal with.”

“Silos’ schemes should be considerably easier without such a potential roadblock,” Tesseract nods. “Do you think he might have unleashed the Horde itself on that Timeline?”

“I wouldn’t put it past him,” Twilight’s Son’s song is sad with acknowledgement.

“I’ll kill him!” Colin picks up his mace.

“As if you have a snowball’s chance in Hades,” Tess tells him snidely. “That weapon will probably blow up on you if you try. Or you’ll slip on the stairs. Or any of half a dozen other things might happen that will stop you. You can’t surprise a man who’s lived as long as Silos has … who’s conquered Time itself.”

“Excuse me,” a soft voice says in little more than a whisper.

“What is it, Flower Knight?” Lazarus asks kindly.

“I am being Called again.” She looks over at Colin. “And I think you should see who I am to meet.” She offers a shy half-smile. “Who will be rescuing me this time.”

“Perhaps we should,” Lazarus smiles encouragingly to Colin.

“I don’t really feel like watching a show right now, Flower.” Colin lets himself be led back over to the Pillar; he knows full well that Lazarus is more than capable of picking him up and carrying him there.

The Pillar flares to life on a familiar scene.

“Outbreak.” Tesseract is the first to name it, of course. She has more experience with that particular Time than any of them at all except Flower Knight.

“Officer Flint looks somewhat nervous,” Twilight’s Son hums.

“With all those Contaminated around, I’m not surprised,” Lazarus says.

“No!” Colin can’t control the excitement in his voice. “Look! In front of him!”

Bits and pieces of scrap metal float towards each other and begin to pulse with energy. More and more of the metal gathers together and begins to take on a humanoid shape.

A girl’s shape.

“Hope! She’s alive!” Colin hugs Flower Knight in his excitement. “She’s alive!”

“Impossible! Nothing that lives can survive the Pillar of Fire and Ice!” Tesseract’s eyes are wide with amazement and she unconsciously reaches for Lazarus’s hand and grips it.

The big man flashes a grin at her and squeezes her hand.

With a scowl, she lets it drop. “It’s impossible!”

“No, it’s Hope!” Colin can’t stop grinning. “She was stronger than the Pillar. Stronger than Time itself! She beat Silos!”

“Or perhaps she did exactly what Silos has hoped she would do,” Twilight’s Son chimes.

“What do you mean?” Tess glares at him.

“Perhaps Silos never intended for Hope to be destroyed at all.” The Kheldian’s tune is an intricate mixture of tones. “Perhaps the only way to prevent the Endless Horde from destroying the future is to have a Clockwork Princess at the height of her powers facing them when they are at their weakest. It may be the only way to save Hope’s future was to send her to our past.”

“Do you really believe that, Twilight?” Tess asks him skeptically.

The Kheldian simply hums in reply.

“I must go now,” Flower Knight tells them. She smiles warmly at Colin. “If I could, I would give her your love, Mender Colin.”

“Mender?”

“You belong to Ouroboros now,” Flower Knight kisses his cheek. “And someday—perhaps—you will meet your Clockwork Princess again. Time, after all, means little to a Mender.” She steps into the Portal and vanishes in a burst of golden light.

“Welcome to the fold, Brother Colin,” Lazarus said.

“Thank you, Lazarus.” Colin stares once more into the Pillar.

Flint stares at the Clockwork girl before him. “You’re not here to cause trouble are you?”

“Oh no.” The girl giggles. “I’m here to help. My name is Hope. I’m … well, I’m A Clockwork Princess. How can I help you?”

“A Clockwork Princess,” Flint scribbles the name down on his clipboard and looks over at her with a friendly smile. “We have a crisis going on here, and we need help desperately. Some thugs took an experimental drug thinking it was something else, and now they're trashing the area. We have to regain control to ensure the safety of the citizens…”

“I’ll do whatever I can!” Hope promises.

“It won’t be long, Hope,” Colin says with a soft smile. “We’ll see each other again. Someday …”

And above them all, atop his tower, Mender Silos waits … and plans.

“You are a mistake, Hope. Your mother gave up so much of her power to create you that she didn’t have the strength that she needed to fight alongside your father against the Endless Horde. Between them, they could have saved the world … but your mother bargained her strength away to give birth to you. You’re the reason that the world died, Hope.”

“No!” I didn’t want to believe it. “It’s not my fault!”

“It’s hard to accept the truth, I know.” On another man, the look he gave me might have indicated sympathy—on Silos it was nothing more than mockery. “But the fact remains that the only way to change time—the only way to save your family, your friends—the world itself—is if you cease to exist.”

“Even if what you say is true, how will my dying change anything?”

“I did not say you would die, Hope. I said you would cease to exist. All you have to do is walk into the Pillar of Fire and Ice, and it will be as though you had never been born.”

“I don’t understand.” I didn’t want to do it. Dying was one thing; but to never exist at all? How could I go through with that?

“It is hard to explain for a mind that’s so bound by Time,” Silos said with a smirk. “But think of the Pillar as a furnace. When it consumes you, it will not just devour your current self—it will take everything you are, everything you have ever been, outside of time. No trace of your existence will remain at all. Since you were never born, your mother will retain her full power, and she will be able to use it to oppose the Horde.”

“And this will save them? Mama will be alive? Daddy won’t go crazy?”

“Time will be altered. The Endless Horde will face an entirely different situation.”

“Uncle ‘Line? Auntie ‘Nette? Colin?” Why did the Arachnos Soldier flinch when I said Colin’s name? “They’ll all be alive?”

“They will have a chance at life. As it is, they have none. Your world has none. Can you really refuse?”

“No. I guess not.”

“You don’t have to do this, Hope,” the Arachnos Soldier interrupted suddenly. “This isn’t your fault. It’s not your responsibility. You don’t have to give up your existence.”

Mender Silos glared at him, but said nothing.

“I don’t want to die.” I squared my shoulders. “But I guess I never really should have been alive anyway. If this works, I can bring the people I love back to life.”

“And if it doesn’t work you’ll have sacrificed yourself for nothing.”

“I know. But it’s a chance.” I chuckled. “It’s a hope.”

“Hope—“

“Not that long ago, Mama told me that my father gave up his own humanity and a hope of having something like a normal life with her because it was the right thing to do. I saw him risk himself to save what was left of mankind when he could have remained safely hidden because it was the right thing to do. Sometimes you have to do the right thing even when it hurts.” I shrugged. “Besides, no one will miss me when I’m gone. No one will know I was ever here.”

“I’ll know,” the Arachnos Soldier whispered.

“Thank you for your concern, but I have to go now.” I turned and looked at Silos. I did not trust him, but I couldn’t refuse a chance—no matter how slight—to save the world. “Goodbye.”

“Just walk into the Pillar, Hope. Everything else will follow.”

I took one last look at the Citadel. A number of men and women in robes—and a Peacebringer?—had gathered near the Pillar. None of them said a word to me as I walked towards the Pillar.

I don’t normally feel heat or cold—not the way that people do—but as I neared the Pillar I felt simultaneously frozen and incinerated.

It hurt. It hurt a lot.

But I kept on walking.

“Hope!” the Arachnos Soldier cried, moving to run after me, but a powerfully built man wearing goggles grabbed him and held him tight. "Hope!"

I stepped into the Pillar.

The pain vanishes. Pain is part of existing, and I don’t … not any longer. I can see the brass and steel that makes up my body dissolving in the midst of the frozen fire. I feel nothing.

I feel everything.

Time is a river, and it’s drowning me, engulfing me, dissolving me.

The Arachnos Soldier is screaming my name over and over again. The Menders are watching me burn with rapt faces. Silos is watching with something like hunger on his face. His features are twisted into a horrible grimace.

I can’t believe it. Silos is crying for me?

No. He’s not crying. He’s laughing!

That laughter follows me into the void as the Pillar of Fire and Ice eats me alive …

Nurse Smurf looks smurftastic. ;-)

You're off to a great start.

Thank you!

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a) Yes, posting more than one thread on the same story creates a clutter. It's also con venient to store all related stories in one place for easy access.

b) No idea. Not my character. In my opinion, directly interacting/controlling the surviving eight is off-limits because nobody can truely know just what they'd do except their creators. That's just me though.

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This is an issue I thought long and hard about, especially when I decided to write Kat Scratched Fever. As I wrote, I began to have definite feelings about the relationship of Mynx and Synapse, but in the end I decided to keep as close to canon as much as possible.

That being said, I see nothing wrong with any author putting up their interpretation of how the Surviving Eight would react in a given situation, including a date or romance. As long as it's entertaining-- which this story is--then I say go for it!

I like this. Very well done!

There was a golden gleaming citadel floating in the middle of sky like none that I had ever seen before. Mender Silos watched me as I took in his creation. “Ouroboros is quite impressive, is it not?”

“This is outside Time?”

“I would say rather that it is beside Time, but you are probably not capable of understanding the difference.”

I did not like this man. But if he could save Mama and Daddy—if he could save the world—then I did not have to. I would pay whatever price he asked of me if it would bring back those I had lost. “You travel in time, though?”

“Indeed we do.”

“Then you stop the Horde! You can save the world! You know where they came from! You know how to stop them!”

“It’s not that easy, Hope.” The Arachnos Soldier had accompanied us through the gleaming portal. For some reason, that comforted me. I did not know why, but I trusted him. “If the Eternal Horde should learn the secret of traveling between universes—between time itself—then the entire multiverse could be destroyed.”

I turned and looked—not at him—but rather at Mender Silos. “You’re afraid of them!”

“I fear nothing!” Silos snapped angrily, drawing himself up to his full height. “You impudent automaton, I am the Master of Time itself! I am Lor—“ He stopped and took a deep breath. “Come with me, Princess of the Clockwork. Come with me and I will show you my power—I will show you the future of your world!”

Angrily, Silos grabbed my arm and pulled me inside the great hall of his citadel. “Gaze into the Pillar of Ice and Fire! Look and see what becomes of your world, daughter of the Clockwork King!”

The Arachnos Soldier laid a hand on my shoulder.

In the Pillar I see Daddy facing the final master of the Horde—another scorpion, this one with a body of white diamond. Its humanoid torso wears the star of Statesman and the head of --and spidery limbs--of Lord Recluse. It shatters the Clockwork with bolts of lightning and slashes from the spider’s limbs. It spits out an acid that melts the Clockwork, leaving nothing for Daddy to rebuild.

I can see Mama screaming Daddy’s name and struggling in the arms of my grandfather to run to my father’s aid.

Almost contemptuously, it destroys the great Clockwork-Ritki that had destroyed almost all of its companions. It races towards Daddy.

Daddy does not try to run. He can’t run. Even if he wanted to, he could not leave what’s left of humanity to face this monster alone.

A bolt of purest thought from Daddy stops the Hordeling Lord in its tracks. It twitches, writhes … and then it smiles. It raises its arm, and a bolt of lightning that smashes into my father.

Daddy falls.

The Hordeling Lord advances.

Mama breaks free from Grandpa and runs towards them, shouting, screaming, and hurling curses and bolts of psionic force at her husband’s tormentor.

The Hordeling Lord looks at her with the bemused face of Lord Recluse, and allows her to get close. Mama races to my father’s side and puts her arms protectively around the hulking metal body of my father. She shrieks a curse at the Hordeling Lord.

And it impales her on one of the spider legs that jut out of its back.

She turns to dust, and the head of Lord Recluse becomes that of my mother …

Daddy stares in horror at the thing that has just stolen his wife and struggles to his feet. The dome that holds his brain is cracked, and I can see liquid leaking out of it. Daddy looks at the thing that mockingly smiles at him with Mama’s face.

Daddy screams.

The Hordeling Lord is turned to dust in the force of that sheer psychic wail.

Daddy keeps on screaming.

Grandpa and the rest of the human survivors are vaporized next. Portal Corps itself is turned into rubble.

Daddy does not stop screaming.

The energy leaps forth from his brain, spreading, growing, changing, and becoming ever more powerful. It roars across the world like a hurricane.

What the Horde has not destroyed, it does.

When Daddy finally stops screaming, he’s the only thing left alive on the entire planet. His eyes are red with madness and grief in his half-drained jar, and he stumbles through the wreckage accompanied by nothing but his faithful Clockwork …

“No!” I fell to my knees. “Grandpa! Mama! Daddy!!! Noooo!”

The Arachnos Soldier kneels beside me and wraps his arms around my shoulders. “Shhh. It’s all right, Hope. It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay! Nothing will ever be okay again!” I looked at Silos. “How do we stop this? How do we change this future? I’ll do anything!”

Mender Silos smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. “It’s really quite simple, Hope. For your family—your world—to live, you must cease to exist!”

Heh.

The song "Sympathy for the Devil" popped into my head when I was writing those final lines ...

The Hordeling that killed Colin looked like a scorpion made of faceted white crystal. Lethal, but rather beautiful in its way. When it moved, it sounded like wind chimes.

Colin’s bullets had bounced off it. Fear was written plainly on that face that I adored; those wonderful blue eyes that I couldn’t stop thinking about were wide with fear. He knew that he had no chance.

But still he fought.

I was running towards him as fast as I could, shoving my way through the fleeing survivors. Everything seemed to be in slow motion. I screamed his name and reached out for him …

… just as the Hordeling pierced his chest with that deadly but gorgeous tail.

Someone screamed as Colin was lifted off his feet. To this day, I don’t know whether it was him or me.

His skeleton flashed beneath his bones and light bleed from his eyes like tears. He convulsed. Once. Twice. The third time, his body turned to dust.

The Hordeling shook the now-empty Longbow uniform off his tail and immediately began to convulse. The music of its body reached a crescendo … and it changed.

It grew a torso and a human head. Its arms lengthened, taking on human dimensions, but its claws grew even larger. It snapped them, and they made angry music.

And when it turned to look at me, it had the bluest eyes I had ever seen …

Colin’s eyes.

For an instant, I was frozen in shock.

And then the Colin-thing’s face sneered at me, and its scorpion tail lashed out to impale me on its stinger.

It bounced off my chest.

And I went crazy.

I leaped at the scorpion-thing and wrapped my legs around that slender human waist. My fists blazing with energy, I slammed them into that monster’s stolen face. The beast roared in surprise … and pain.

I hurt it!

Every blow caused it to wither. The faceted crystal lost its sheen, becoming dull and lifeless. The blue went out of its eyes. Half a dozen blows later, it fell to pieces.

“Colin …” I fell to my knees.

“Cry later, robot girl! Help now!”

I spat out an epithet that my mother would have cringed to hear me use, and turned to see that only one of the door’s defenders remained—an Arachnos Soldier … the one that my mother and I had spoken to earlier. He was confronted by a diamond scorpion with the torso of a Warwolf, a sapphire praying mantis with the head of a beautiful woman, and a ruby ant with the lower half of a Lesser Devoured.

He was dodging and weaving, taking advantage of his smaller size to slip between the Hordelings. He battered them with his mace. He didn’t have a prayer of beating them, but he had managed to live when everyone else had died. “If they get past me then all these people die, robot girl! You think your boyfriend would have wanted that?”

“He wasn’t my boyfriend!” I smashed the head of the praying mantis with one blow. “He was never going to be my boyfriend!” I punched my fist through the “chest” of the scorpion. “He was human! I’m just A Clockwork Princess!” I sheered the ant’s body in half with a glowing two fisted blow. “And I’m always going to be alone.”

“You did good, girl.” The Arachnos Soldier saluted me with his mace. “You did your Old Man proud.”

“Whatever. Don’t let any of the Horde through. If you need help, call me! I’m going to patrol the grounds and make sure that none of them break through Daddy’s defenses again.”

“All right. Hope?”

I turned and looked at him in surprise. It was the first time that he had ever said my name. I was surprised he had paid that much attention.

“It doesn’t help, I know, but I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.” I turned and ran from him. I didn’t want sympathy from an Arachnos Soldier. I didn’t want sympathy from anyone at all.

I wanted Colin.

And now more than ever, I knew that I would never have him.

“Hope, wait! There’s someone I want you to meet!” The Arachnos Soldier touched something on his wrist and a golden pillar of light appeared out of nowhere.

“It doesn’t have to be this way, Hope.” The voice was soft, accented, as smooth as silk, but somehow clipped and almost... metallic?

A tall man stepped out of the pillar of light, his hand open to me. “My name is Mender Silos. Together, we can change the past and reshape the future.

“If you’re willing to pay the price.”

Don't be too sure you know exactly what the Horde is...

The Horde skittered, scurried, slithered, and hopped towards the last remaining humans on Earth. Endless, voracious—they came to finish the job they had started.

They were stopped cold by a wall of bronze and brass.

The Horde had devastated our world. Where it passed, nothing living remained—plants, animals, people—only shattered marble, broken buildings, and lifeless metal remained in their wake. Even Statesman and Lord Recluse had finally fallen to their insatiable appetites.

The Horde made their prey’s strength their own. They drained the power—the life—of their victims. The greater their foe, the stronger they became. And the stronger they became, the stronger the prey they could take down …

But in the Clockwork Kingdom they found an enemy they could not devour.

The Clockwork were metal, but they were not lifeless. The Horde could batter them, they could shatter them—they could destroy them.

But they could not feed off them.

And Daddy and his Assemblers could rebuild new Clockwork from the rubble of the old as soon as they fell.

All through the day and into the night Daddy held the line while Tina MacIntyre ferried the last survivors of the Earth to new worlds. When the great generators of Portal Corps began to fail, Rick Davies cobbled together equipment that allowed the surviving electric blasters who had been too low to journey to the Rogue Islands to aid Statesman to power the Portals. Jonathan Smythe worked frantically at the controls to keep the Portals operating at above peak capacity to get as many people through as possible. Azuria cast spells to clear their minds of exhaustion so the operators of the Portal could keep on working long after they should have keeled over in exhaustion. Susan Davies walked among the survivors using sheer force of personality to quiet rebellion and prevent panic as they lined up to be sent through the Portals.

Grandpa Yin and I walked among the survivors outside, providing whatever first aid we could. Grandpa had a way of calming even the surliest people, and in spite of everyone’s fear, there were no fights—not even between the surviving Longbow and Arachnos soldiers.

Mama stood apart, watching the battle between the Clockwork and the Horde. Occasionally she would flinch when there was a flash of power indicating that Daddy had been forced to use his powers in his own defense. She hugged herself and watched and I could see the tears pour down her face.

“Mama, you have to eat something,” I said as I pressed a cup of coffee into her hands. “You have to take care of yourself.”

“He needs me, baby.” Mama squeezed my hand as she took the coffee from me. “I’m sharing my strength with him. It’s not much, but it helps.”

“How is he, Mama?”

Mama bit her lip. “No one knows what this is costing him, Hope. No one knows what this is doing to him.”

“Mama?” I could not hide the fear in my voice.

“He’s never used so much power so long, baby. He’s reaching deep into himself to find the strength to keep on going. It hurts him. It hurts him so much …” Again she cried …

“I should help him, Mama!” My hands took on the glow again.

“No! Hope, don’t you dare go out there! Your father is able to fight so hard because he knows we’re safe. If something happened to us, he might be distracted—and that could get him killed! Stay where you are!”

I wasn’t happy about it, but I stayed.

By dawn, more than seventy percent of the survivors were safely away.

“The one thing I don’t understand is how we’re going to keep them from following us,” I said to Mama and Grandpa Yin.

Grandpa and Mama exchanged looks. “Your father is going to destroy the Portal as soon as everyone is safely away.”

“But—if he destroys the Portal, how is he going to come with us?”

“He’s not, Hope.” Mama hugged me. “Your father intends to stay here on Earth and destroy the Horde so that no other worlds are ever threatened by them.”

“But if he does that, he’ll be all alone—just him and the Clockwork!”

“And he’ll never hear another human voice ever again …” Mama said, and she broke down in tears.

“No!” I cried. “I won’t let that happen! I’m not going to let Daddy do this! I can stay, Mama! The Horde won’t be able to kill me either! I know they won’t! I’ll destroy the Portal—you and Daddy can go away together!”

“No, Hope! Your father and I would both rather die than let you do that! You are our daughter and we will not let you sacrifice yourself for us!” Mama took my face into her hands. “We won’t give you up, baby!”

And then Jill came running screaming my name. “Hope! Hope! Colin! They’re killing Colin!”

“Colin?” I stared at the girl I hated more than anyone else in the world. “Where’s Colin?!”

“The Horde! Some of them have broken through! They’re trying to reach the Portal! Colin and the other Longbow are trying to stop them!”

I turned my chocked gaze from the battle and gasped in horror at what I saw:

Some of the Horde had managed to break through the line of Clockwork that opposed them. There weren’t very many of them—scarcely more than a dozen or so—but they were heading towards the Portals!

In the doorway, fighting them, were half a dozen Longbow—and Arachnos Soldiers. One of the Longbow wore the uniform of a trainee—and his mask was thrown back as he pounded at a Hordeling with the butt of an energy rifle.

It was Colin.

I was running before I even knew I was moving.

“Hope!” Mama cried.

“It’s Colin, Mama! It’s Colin!”

Hands blazing, I ran back towards the Portal Building, dodging and pushing my way through the fleeing survivors.

I got there just in time to see Colin die.

One week after Colin broke my heart I found myself standing at Portal Corps with all that was left of humanity as they prepared to leave Earth forever to The Endless Horde that had destroyed it.

The skies were a boiling mass of dark angry clouds. Mama and Grandpa were coughing constantly because the air wasn’t fit to breathe. Ash and smoke came down in a black snow. If the sun still shone, there was no way to tell.

Uncle ‘Line and Auntie ‘Nette weren’t with us. Vanguard had been the first force sent out to meet The Horde. They had been the first to fall.

Daddy wasn’t with us. No one had seen him since The Horde had first arrived. All Mama would say when I asked her about it was that he wasn’t dead.

But she cried when she thought I wasn’t looking, and I don’t think that all the tears were for Uncle ‘Line and Auntie ‘Nette.

“I can’t believe that Statesman is dead. I can’t believe that Statesman is dead.” An old woman kept repeating those words over and over again. She was holding onto the hand of a little girl, but didn’t seem to be aware of it—or anything, really—any longer. “I can’t believe Statesman is dead.”

“Well he is dead, you old hag,” one of the Rogue Island refugees said. He still wore the tattered remains of his Arachnos uniform, but all the fight had been taken out of him. “I was there. I saw it. I saw him and Recluse fighting side by side while the ferries took us away. I saw the Horde take him down. I saw the Horde take both of them down. They’re dead, and so are we.”

“While breath remains, hope remains,” Grandpa Yin said, squeezing the shoulder of the old woman and digging into his pockets to pull out a piece of candy to hand to the little girl.

“Hope? What kind of hope do we have left?” The former Arachnos soldier demanded. “Recluse and his Lieutenants are dead. The Freedom Phalanx is dead. The Rikti have fled this world, and so has the Circle of Thorns. How many heroes and villains have died just getting us to this point? Look at the sky! The air is probably going to kill us before The Horde does! We’re all going to die!” He turned and looked at me. “Well, all of us except your robot girl there.”

“I am not a robot!”

“You’re not human. You’re not freezing and you’re not coughing. When we’re all gone, you’ll be the only one left, robot girl.” The Arachnos stared at me spitefully.

Suddenly, I realized that he was right. I didn’t have to breathe. I didn’t need food. As long as I could find some source of power, I’d be able to stay alive …

I’d be alone, but I’d be alive.

On a frozen, dark, dead world.

The thought didn’t please me.

“We’re not going to die here,” a woman in a lab coat said as she walked up to us. “We’re going to leave. As soon as the Portal is powered up, we’re going to go away to another world. Another Earth. We’ll have to start over, but we’ll be safe. Hello, Penny. Mr. Yin. It’s good to see the two of you again. And this must be Hope. I just wish we could have met under more pleasant circumstances. My name is Tina MacIntyre.”

“There are still thousands of people here,” the Arachnos soldier snorted, gesturing at the crowded parking lot. “You really think you’re going to have the time to get everyone through the portal before the Horde gets us?”

“Yes, yes we are,” Mama said. “You see, my husband is going to buy us that time.”

“Your husband? The Horde killed the strongest heroes and villains of the world! Who’s going to have the power to save us now?”

As if in answer, the ground shook.

“I call him CK,” Mama said with a wicked smile. I could tell that she didn’t much like this Arachnos soldier. “Most people call him the Clockwork King.”

And then I saw them.

Clockwork. So many that I couldn’t count them. Little Oscillators. Large Princes. Dozens of Paladins and scores of Babbages.

And behind them, a Clockwork larger than any I had ever seen before. It was the reason that the ground shook. It was bigger by far than the Paladins, bigger than two or three Babbages standing on each other’s shoulders.

“The Rikti ship,” Tina MacIntyre whispered in awe. “He turned the Rikti ship into a Clockwork!”

And leading them, shambling, stumbling, shuffling awkwardly, came the bronze and brass figure of the Clockwork King.

My Daddy.

He halted in front of the crowd of people he had come to save. His weak eyes couldn’t see them very well, but he knew they were there.

Mama held her breath and grabbed my hand.

The crowd was silent.

“I have come to save you,” my father said in his emotionless electronic monotone. “I have come to save all of you.”

And the crowd cheered.

Near as I could deterimine, Penelope is Chinese.

And I doubt that I'm the first person in the game to conceive of Penny and CK having a child, so knock yourself out.

Yes. She grows. I have the mechanism in mind for how she does it, but it never came up in the story.

Nowhere near as good as Olantern's Kid Eros, this is one of my experiments with using Comic Book Creator.

Girlbot 3000

Okay. I think I have it set to show Hope's picture now.


Hope

Hmm...

I need to find a place to post this picture of her ... haven't messed with webpage posting for a long time...

Also, I have an e-comic I keep wanting to post to the RP section too... (not about Hope)

And has gears on her shoulders. Don't forget the gears!

I'm surprised that no one knows what she looks like.

When the story is over, I'll see if I can post a picture of her.

I locked myself in my room for three days.

Mama finally broke the door down with an ax she got from Grandpa Yin’s store. “Hope Shalice Yin-King! Your father and I have been worried sick—Hope! What have you done?!”

I was sitting on the floor. “Hello, Mama.”

Around me lay the ruins of my illusions. Torn clothing. Shattered perfume bottles. Pictures of Colin. Every bit and piece of the human life I had tried to lead.

All gone. All destroyed.

“Hope!”

“I’m not a robot, Mama. I’m made of metal and energy, but I have a heart. I wanted to be human. I wanted people to love me. I wanted Colin to love me. But he doesn’t. He can’t. I’m not human. He can’t kiss me. Or do anything else that humans do when they love each other. I just wanted him to love me.

“But I can’t have that. No one is ever going to love me, Mama. No one is ever going to want me. No one is ever going to see me as a girl, Mama. To everyone else, I’m always going to be nothing more than a Clockwork Princess. And I can’t even cry about it.

“I have to go now, Mama.”

“Go? Hope, what are you talking about?!”

“I have to go away, Mama. I don’t belong here in your world. I belong in Daddy’s. With the rest of his Clockwork.”

“No!” Mama hugged me tightly. “Baby, I know you’re hurting, but you can’t do this. I won’t let you do this!”

“Mama, your world hurts. It hurts me so much. It’s never going to stop hurting me. I can’t be here anymore. I can’t do this anymore. I have to let go.”

“Your father told me that once, Hope.” Mama’s eyes were filled with tears and she stroked my metal face. “He told me to let go.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Did you ever wonder how your father and I fell in love, Hope?”

“No.” And I hadn’t. Mama and Daddy loved each other. They had always loved each other. It had never occurred to me there could have been a time when that wasn’t so.

“Your father and I met when I wasn’t any older than you are now. At first, he was just a voice in my mind. Someone to talk to—someone who had obviously been through something horrible. I pitied him.

“But I didn’t love him.”

“Mama!”

“Your father was a sick man when I first met him, Hope. He did horrible things. Things that he’s never forgiven himself for. I pitied him, but I didn’t think of him as a man. How could I? He was just a brain in a bottle.”

I looked at her as though I had never seen her before.

“But I did want to help him. And I was the only one who could talk to him. The only one he wouldn’t attack outright. After I went to school, I started working with your father, trying to repair the damage. It wasn’t easy. But I was sure that I had the power to do it—after all, my power was even stronger than his. Everyone said so.”

“And then one day I read in his mind his deepest secret.”

“That he loved you?” I guessed.

“Oh no. I always knew that. Sometimes I even took advantage of that fact when I needed help.” She blinked away tears. “I was young and thoughtless, Hope. It took me a long time to forgive myself once I knew the truth …”

“The truth, Mama?”

“Years ago, a very evil man created a device that could alter time. He used that device to warp history, to change the past of your Uncle Faultline’s father. In one stroke Psi-Curse turned the great hero Faultline into a hated villain.”

“The Lost wanted that device. They kidnapped me to find it. They … they changed me into one of them.”

“I never heard this story before, Mama.”

“That’s because it never happened, Hope.”

“Mama--?”

“Your father, Hope. He saved me. He used the PCM to restore my humanity—and his own.” She dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “But it didn’t hold. The Lost kidnapped me in the new timeline too, and your father’s human self wasn’t strong enough to save me.

“So he gave it up. He fixed me. He fixed time. And he gave up his humanity to do it.” She stared down at her hands. “He used the PCM to restore the timeline. Later on, I destroyed it. CK wanted to be human—he wanted to be with me—but he couldn’t have both.

“To save me—to save history—he gave up humanity and sanity, Hope. He was the only one who knew. The only one who remembered what he had done. I saw it deep in his mind, and that’s when I knew that his body didn’t matter. He had the most human heart—the most human soul—of anyone I’d ever met.

“And I fell in love with him.”

“Because he saved you?”

“Because he did the right thing, Hope. No matter what it cost him, CK knew he had to do the right thing, and he gave up everything to do it.” She hugged me tightly. “Hope, baby, you are your father’s daughter—and mine. We both love you very much.

“And someday, you may find love where you never expect to find it.” She kissed my metal forehead. “Don’t give up on love, baby. Don’t give up on humanity.”

“It hurts, Mama. It hurts so bad that I can’t stand it. I just want the pain to be over.”

“I know, baby. I know.” She hugged me tightly to her. “It will be someday, Hope. I promise you that someday it won’t hurt quite so badly. And someday, it won’t hurt at all.”

I hugged my Mama back and wished again that I could cry. I wanted to believe her. I needed to believe her, but at that moment it felt like my entire world had died the moment that I saw Colin kissing Jill.

I was wrong.

The world didn’t end when Colin kissed Jill.

The world ended one week later.

[ QUOTE ]
I have two questions...

Have you made Hope in-game?

If you have, what powers does she wield?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes. I have versions of Hope on two different servers: Virtue and Guardian.

Right now, she's a willpower/energy melee tank.

I've been holding off on playing her too much because in an ideal world she'd be an electric melee/willpower tank ... or scrapper.

I don't think Electric Melee is going to make it Heroside in I13, though ...

Humans can forget.

That’s one thing I’ve never been able to do.

I can remember the first words ever spoken in my presence. I can recall every moment in my childhood, no matter how embarrassing. I can’t forget anything … no matter how much I want to.

I can remember the night that Colin broke my heart as though it were happening right now.

And it hurts as badly now as it did then.

It was graduation night. In the fall, I would be starting Paragon University. I didn’t know what I wanted to do for a career, but I knew that I wanted to tell Colin at last how I felt. He had enlisted in Longbow to pay for college and he would be starting basic training the following week. I wouldn’t see him again till the holiday break … the longest separation we had ever had.

Our senior year had been rough for Colin. His father had lost his business. His mother had been very sick. He had been forced to spend long hours working. We hadn’t seen nearly as much of each other as we used to.

I had never told Colin that I loved him. He was the only boy to ever hold my hand. He was the only one outside of my family to ever give me a hug. If it was something that I was capable of, he would have been my first kiss …

But I can’t kiss. Or … you know. I’m not built that way.

So I didn’t tell him. I didn’t object when he took other girls to dances. I didn’t say a word when he told me about his first kiss. I went home and locked my door and curled up into a little ball and wanted to die, but I didn’t say a word to him.

I wanted him to be happy.

But now … now I wanted to tell him. I didn’t know what would happen next, but at least he would know how I felt.

Graduation night had already been special for me; Daddy had come.

Even years later, the people of Paragon City still feared my father. He had withdrawn his Clocks from the rest of the city, leaving a presence only in Faultline to protect Mama and me. He had fought beside the Freedom Phalanx more than once when disaster threatened, but people still did not trust him and were not comfortable in his presence.

Because of this, Daddy kept away from the public as much as possible. He hadn’t said a word about showing up, and I didn’t expect him to.

But he did.

Mama, Grandpa, Uncle ‘Line and Auntie ‘Nette cheered and clapped when I walked up to get my diploma. I turned to wave at them, and saw someone wave to me from the balcony.

It was Daddy!

He couldn’t see me very well, of course. Daddy’s eyes aren’t very good. But he didn’t need them to know where I was.

Congratulations, Hope. You have done very well. Your mother and I are very proud of you.

I didn’t have Mama or Daddy’s powers. I couldn’t read minds or project my thoughts. As near as Mama or even Sister Psyche could tell, I had no more mental power than an ordinary human girl. Still, I knew that Daddy could read my mind.

Thank you, Daddy. I love you!

I love you too, Hope. Never doubt that your mother and I love you more than anything else in the entire world.

He wouldn’t be at Grandpa Yin’s when I went home, I knew. It had taken everything that Daddy had to just come to graduation. I couldn’t ask for more.

But it was definitely something I was going to tell Colin about when graduation was over. I took my place on stage and turned to look at him …

And saw that he was looking at Jill.

Why was he looking at Jill? Why was she looking back at him like that? It made me nervous. Jill still wasn’t my friend; she had just gotten more subtle in the ways that she tormented me.

I was going to have to ask Colin about it.

After graduation, Mama, Grandpa, Auntie ‘Nette, and Uncle ‘Line were waiting for me outside. They hugged me and took pictures and said they were proud of me. I hugged them back, but I kept on looking for Colin, hoping to get a chance to see him before he went home with his parents. For the first time in my life, I knew what people meant when they said they had butterflies in their stomach.

And then I saw him.

“I’ll be right back, Mama.” I hugged her one more time and ran after Colin. For some reason, I didn’t cal his name … the words seemed to stick in my throat. If I had a heart, it would have been pounding.

I was going to tell him! I was actually going to do it!

Colin turned the corner.

I stopped. Could I do this? Could I really tell him after all this time? Maybe it was better if I said nothing …

No. I had to see this through. I had promised myself.

I turned the corner. “Colin, can I talk to you?”

I stopped in my tracks.

Colin was kissing a girl.

A girl with the same golden blonde hair she had had as a child. A beautiful girl who was soft and warm and human and all the things I could never be. Jill.

“Colin …”

He broke the kiss and looked at me. “Hope …”

There was guilt in his eyes. Guilt, and maybe shame too. For a long moment, we looked into each other’s eyes.

And then he looked away.

“Hope.” Jill sounded nervous. “Hope …”

My hands were crackling with energy for only the second time. For the first time in my life, I felt powerful. Dangerous.

I could hurt her, I knew. I could hit her with my metal hands that blazed with power. I could hurt her like she had hurt me. I could take revenge for everything she had ever done to me, for everything she had ever stolen from me …

The energy faded from my hands.

No. I was still my Daddy’s daughter. I wouldn’t follow that path. I wouldn’t let her make me into a monster.

No matter what I looked like. No matter what people thought of me, I wouldn’t be a monster.

I turned to walk away.

“Hope!” Colin ran to me and grabbed my hand.

“Let go of me, Colin.”

“Hope, I wanted to tell you earlier … I just couldn’t. Believe me, I never wanted to hurt you—“

“Don’t touch me, Colin. Don’t touch me ever again. Stay away from me.” I looked over at Jill. She was hugging herself, and looking at me.

She had everything I wanted and could never have. Now she had Colin.

“Don’t break his heart, Jill.”

And I walked away from both of them.

I would never speak to Colin again. The next time I saw him … the next time I saw him …

The next time I saw him would be at the end of the world.