Heroid

Many, many years ago, so long that no one remembers, an unknown author set about to write a play. In his play many foul and inhuman acts were committed. This, coupled with the fact that the perusal of the text often resulted in insanity for the reader, caused his play to become rather unpopular to societies over the centuries.

However, certain people -- the kind who pursue the study of arcane and blasphemous literature -- embraced this play, recognizing the inherent powers of such a work, so over the centuries the work has endured. Many copies of the various editions have been destroyed by vigilant clergy and other types of people who seek to protect society from the arcane and blasphemous. That only served to make almost any verifiable edition of the book become quite valuable. Around the time the Americans revolted against British rule, English and French translations became quite popular in certain circles throughout Europe.

In the first part of the 19th Century, in England, when a prominent (but financially unlucky) scholar was promised an exorbitant amount of gold in return for an English translation of the original text, he could not believe his luck. That was, at least, until he began the work.

The unfortunate man and his family began to suffer one bad turn after another. Their house in Oxford burned down which prompted the family to move to a country manor in Lambshead; a house leased to them by the contractor of the translation work. Then a short time later, the man's wife, the mother of his three daughters, became victim of a sudden to the consumption. The village doctor was adequate for the treatment of most ailments, but he suggested that the woman should be sent to London, to a specialist. The stipend the scholar received to ease him until the completion of the work was enough to send her, but not enough so that one of their daughters could accompany her. The poor woman lasted only a few pain-filled weeks before she passed.

The scholar was left with his three beautiful daughters, the joys of his life. The two older girls were twins, Elizabeth Rose and Bethany Rose whose beauty turned many heads in the town where they had lived, and if they had been from a more well-to-do family, they would have been considered extremely marriageable. As it was, they were only considered extremely desirable. The third sister, Hermione Rose -- over a year younger than the twins and so named by her mother and father so that she would feel that she was as cherished as you older siblings -- was pious to a fault.

Though he loved his daughters dearly, the scholar, in his grief, threw himself into the work so completely that Elizabeth Rose had to plead with him to pause long enough to eat a meager meal or to take a nap. He would hardly speak, and when he did, it was a frightening garble of nonsense. The three girls worried and fretted, but could not get him to relent: their doting father was now a slave to the text he on which he worked.

After eight months, the work nearly finished, a woman named Cassilda Deville came calling upon the family. She was traveling past the country house on her way home to Southampton when her coachman found a pothole in the road and busted a carriage wheel. The girls allowed her to stay overnight. For their trouble, they were horrified the next morning when they found their father, not locked away in his study slaving over the book, but in his bedchamber with Miss Deville.

Their horror was compounded three days later when their father took the woman to town to have her coach wheel repaired, then returned with her by his side, introducing her to his daughters as "your new mother".

The next day, children began to disappear from the village near by.

Gemini Park was quiet today. That was all right with Ben. What he had to do, he had to do alone.

The rock on which his mother used to sit was usually empty now. Sometimes he would find Uncle Brian, or Uncle Dayn, or Papa Smersh, or one of his adoptive siblings sitting there. Sometimes Miss Tess would come and sit there with him and not ask him to say anything, but just let him sit quietly.

Today, he had it to himself.

He sat there for a little while looking at his clover, trying to decide how best to go about this, and preparing himself just in case he was wrong about this. The clover was still alive for a reason. He had been wrong about the frog. He just hoped he wasn't wrong this time.

One more look around to make sure he was alone, then he scampered down off of the rock and knelt beside it. There was a small patch of clover here on the riverbank. He stuck his finger into the soft earth in the middle of the patch, planted the four-leaf clover with the tiny tendril of a root in it, then scooped up a handful of water from the river and dripped it gently on the clover.

There. Once again a piece of Ireland had planted its roots in Paragon City.

Ben stood and waited. After a while, he climbed back upon the rock and sat. The shadows were getting longer and he was losing heart when he said:

"Please, Mommy, if you can hear me, let him come."

The air shimmered above the clover patch, and a barely discernable shape moved like a man-shaped vapor. He could barely see it, but it was there. He was there.

"Hrerro, Bnn," Jack said.

Ben looked at the plate in front of him. Miss Tess had made it for him and set it in front of him in hopes that he would eat something. He didn't want to disappoint her, so he tried. He had a bite of turkey, and broke off a piece of his roll so that it kinda, sorta looked like he took a bite. But that was all he could muster. He wasn't hungry.

After a while Miss Tess told him if he didn't feel like sitting at the table, he could be excused. She frowned as she said this and he felt bad because he felt like he had let her down. But he left anyway.

He got to his room and looked around it. Models of the Starship Enterprise, in all of its incarnations, still hung from a ceiling painted to look like a starfield. On his dresser, his TV with the built-in dvd player sat, a stack of Jack's dvd's still sitting beside it. On the nightstand beside the bed was a four-leaf clover Mommy had picked for him in Ireland. She told him that because it was plucked from magical soil it would never wilt and would always bring him luck. He hadn't touched it since his mother's death. It was still green after all these weeks, but... luck?

It was stupid. It was all stupid.

Ben grabbed the stack of dvd's and dumped them into the trash can. Then he pulled all of the starships off of the ceiling and threw them in also. Lastly, he went to the nightstand and picked up the clover. All of the stupid kid things had to go. He picked it up and started toward the trash can.

Then he realized something. There was the smallest tendril of a root coming from the bottom of the clover. He hadn't noticed it before, but then, he hadn't really looked at the stem since the whole point of a four-leaf clover was the leaves on the top.

He had an idea. A glimmer of hope -- or in this case, perhaps it was a glamour of hope -- sprang to life in his spirit.

He got all of the things he had just thrown away back out of the trash can, then, without a word to anyone else, slipped out the window with the clover.

"Now, Ben... what happened?"

Ms. Uldi was the grown-up Ben found when he went to the place where the grown-ups hung out – Pocket D. She was, as always, patient with him and willing to listen.

“Um... I was fighting some Soo. And um... Jack wanted to get out and fight some, so I let him. And this one big guy in a ninja mask... he... he stepped on Jack!”

Ms. Uldi looked concerned as she said, “Oh, dear.”

Ben continued. “I made his friends beat him up.”

“It doesn't help as much as you thought, does it?"

Ben lowered his head. "No. Because it was my fault. I shouldn’t have let him out."

“Well, come here a bit, Ben, and I will tell you something.”

Ben sat down beside Ms. Uldi and leaned his head against her shoulder as she held Jack’s body in her hand.

Ms. Uldi’s friend Ms. Amber sat on the other side giving Ben sympathetic looks and nodding her head as Uldi spoke. A few weeks ago, before he had suddenly had to grow up a bit, Ben would have milked their sympathy shamelessly. Now, he just felt ashamed.

"Now, Ben,” Uldi began, “there is a lot about this. Many things. But I think you are grown up enough to handle this right. Do you think so too, Ben?"

Ben nodded.

“Good. The first thing is, yes, it is – some -- your fault that Jack is dead. You are right, and it is very grown-up of you to admit that. But...”

Ben sat quietly, and nodded between sobs.

“… Sometimes these things happen, and there is little to be done about them.” Ms. Uldi paused, frowning as she tried to find just the right way to make her point. “You can learn from this. Grow from it. Make Jack and your Mama proud.”

Ms. Amber spoke up, “We can't control everything Ben. And vengeance doesn't help either.”

“Vengeance is an empty cookie tin, Ben,” Ms. Uldi said. “From outside, it seems like it will be wonderful. But when you get it open, there is no reward.”

Ben nodded and said, “It didn't feel good when I saw that Soo get beat up by his friends.”

“What else did you learn from this, Ben?”

“Um… To take better care of my friends... And that it feels different when you fight bad guys because you’re mad from when you fight them to protect people.”

Ms. Uldi looked sadly at the dead frog sitting on her knee. Whether it was a frog, or the real Jack didn’t matter right now. What mattered was that Ben was full of hurt and guilt and needed closure. She said, “Jack was your friend. So you respect him. You find a place, a way to bury him -- or honor him -- that expresses that."

Ben knew what he had to do. “I need to take him back to where I found him and give him a hero's funeral.”

Ms. Uldi nodded. "That sounds like a very good idea, Ben. And afterwards?"

“I'll wrap him in a shroud and set him in the river. And then I'll go watch his favorite movie.”

So, alone, Ben returned to Gemini Park. He sat down on the rock where his mother used to sit and carefully wrapped his friend in a clean white handkerchief. Then he laid him gently upon the river current and watched him float away.

“Bye, Jack,” Ben said. “I don’t know where you’ll go, but I’ll miss you.”

Then he went back home to his room, closed the door, and watched the Maltese Falcon.

Later that night, when his pop came in to check on him, he had fallen asleep, tear stains upon his pillow. Roy wondered what had made him cry, but didn't disturb him to ask. After all, someone had tucked him in snuggly...

For weeks Jack had been Ben’s constant companion. Ben was happy to be reunited with his Mommy’s helper. Jack had been Ben’s baby-sitter on many nights, and he had shared with Ben his love of classic “tough-guy” movies. When Mommy had died, Ben had assumed Jack had too. After all, wasn’t he a product of Ireland Love’s magic?

But Ben had decided to search for Jack and found him in Galaxy Park, swimming in the river near the rock that bore his mother’s name. He had found him in the form of a frog.

How did he know the frog was Jack? Everybody else seemed to think it was just a frog even though they didn’t come right out and say so. But Ben knew. He knew. Jack was just weak right now, that was all. When he got stronger, he would get bigger again.

Sometimes, Ben would take Jack out of his pocket and let him run free and swim in Platinum Lake. Sometimes he would take him out in the middle of fights, just to see if he was strong enough yet to get a lick in.

That was a mistake. Now, because Ben had taken him out while fighting some Tsoo, Jack was dead, crushed beneath the heel of a masked ninja.

It wasn’t some big epic battle. It wasn’t some desperate gambit. Jack didn’t even give his life to save anyone else’s. He died because the Tsoo warrior didn’t see him hopping across the street.

Ben was invisible, using his magic to confuse, confound, and conquer his foes one by one. They didn’t even know he was there. He had them so confused, they were fighting each other. When the one stepped on Jack, Ben was so enraged that he made the others focus only on beating him. He made them beat Jack’s killer until his mask was a blood-soaked mess and the only movements he made were small twitches of his fingers and feet.

It didn’t make Ben feel better.

Still invisible, he scooped up Jack and went looking for a grown-up.

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((Sid is not Gail Simone. Someone else is. We all know that. Sid is Sid, and we love her. As for what I'm writing... well, not quite domestic, but it is short.))

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((So that means that Plas really is Kurt Busiek?

And as for what you wrote -- it might be short, but it surely is sweet, and I'm looking forward to what follows! ))

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((Heroid, I hate you. I think I write fairly well, and then you post these amazing stories and I think, "Damn, how can I compete with that?"))

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((Myeh. If it was a competition alot of you guys would have already put me out of the race. I mean... Everybody knows that Plasma Stream is really Kurt Busiek and Sid is Gail Simone.

And as far as that last story-post, Kid Leech actually wrote half of it, even is she didn't know it at the time. ))

((Sometimes, you rp a scene and you find yourself drawn into the characters and immerse yourself in the world you play in. At those times, it's almost more like a dream than a game. It's magic.

The dialogue in the following has hardly been touched. I only framed it a little. And to be honest, I think Kid Leech's emotes were better at indicating her mood than my exposition is. Kid Leech (Amelia), you are awesome!))



Ben had been ecstatic when he'd found Jack swimming near his mommy's rock in Gemini Park. Aunt Tess had been happy for him too, even if she had looked at Jack as if she didn't recognize him. Of course Jack wasn't his usual self. He was small and green and looked and acted just like a frog. But Ben was sure it was Jack.

Since coming back to Paragon City, Ben had learned a lot about his new abilities. Papa Smersh had helped him and watched over him. His big sister, Cassie, had taken him out to Perez Park so that he could test his powers on the lake monsters.

Pop had been spending more time with him than before, not only taking him out on patrols, but also just sitting around watching movies and playing games. Ben liked that.

He also liked coming to the park and sitting where his mommy used to sit. Sometimes he would cry, but sometimes he would think about good times with her and Billy and Flower, playing tag under the trees, running around the grownups to hide, and maybe fighting some bad guys every now and then. On days he felt like crying, he would usually sit invisible.

On the day he had found Jack, Amelia, the prettiest girl in the world, came to the park to see him.

"Ben," she said, "Could we talk a little bit?"

"Sure," he said, elated that she wanted to talk with him without "Jer" around.

"Shall I leave thee alone?" Aunt Tess asked. Then without waiting for an answer, she gave them a calm reassuring smile and said, "I should away home anyway. Blessed be, children."

Then she stood, hugged Ben goodbye and left them alone to speak.

"Um... is it all right if Jack hears?" He patted his pocket and the frog in it responded with a "ribbit".

Amelia shrugged. "Er, sure. Jack's fine."

"Um... what do you want to talk about?"

Amelia shuffled her feet for a moment as her thoughts flashed across her face. Finally she said, "You, er, don't really like Jericho much, do you?"

"Um... He's... all right,” Ben answered, as honestly as he could without hurting Amelia’s feelings.

"You can tell me if you don't."

"Well... he's not mean to me or anything."

"But, er…” Amelia began, then said to more to herself than to Ben, “Sheesh, I had this kinda worked out, and now I'm forgetting what I was going to say."

From his Ben’s pocket came a "ribbit".

Amelia shook her head. "I didn't mean that. Just it seems kinda tense when both of you are around."

"Oh,” Ben was starting to worry. “Um... does Jericho not like me?"

"No. He would tell me if he didn't."

"Um... do you not like me?"

Speechless, Amelia could only blink.

His worry became apparent on his face as he waited.

It wasn’t that she had to think about the answer. It was more that she had to think about the question.

"Why would you think that? Of course I like you."

"Um... I like you too."

Ben blushed and Amelia tried her best not to notice it.

"Um... I think you're pretty." He blushed even more.

"Erm..."

"I've seen fairy girls and pixies and I think you're prettier than all of them." Ben Kirby-Love really, really blushes...

From Ben’s pocket, "ribbit".

Amelia blushed nervously, "Er, thanks."

"Um... I..." he began, struggling for the resolve to say what he wanted to say.

"...Yeah?"

"I... want to marry you when I grow up. But..."

A subtle change crossed Ben's face like the first hints of autumn on the trees. Thoughts that had been swirling for weeks now coalesced and congealed into truths that he had never even considered before. He was going to live a long, long time, maybe a thousand years or more. His mommy was already gone. His friends – at least most of them – would go too, before him.

He was going to live a long, long time.

"...that won't be for a hundred years.”

Amelia looked as if she wanted to say something a couple times, but didn’t. Instead, she straightened her glasses.

"That won't work, will it?" Ben asked, and it was not so much a question, but an answer.

"Er, no, not really."

Ben frowned as he considered his options. He bit his lip, looked down at his feet for a moment, then looked up at her with a stoicism that belied his little boy face.

"Can I still be in love with you, even if I'm never old enough to marry you?"

Again, Amelia was speechless. All she could do was blink.

"Heroes always need somebody to be in love with,” he explained. “Bogey had Bacall. The Duke had Maureen O'Hara. Even Don Quixote had Dulcinea. Can I have you?"

Silence. Blinking.

"Nobody has to know."

Amelia wondered how the conversation got so far out of control so quickly. "I, er...I mean..."

"I'll always just be in love with you and you can grow up and marry Jericho if you like."

Really, she had just wanted to talk to him, to get him to see her as a big sister instead of a “crush”. Apparently, it was beyond a crush now.

"And if you're happy,” he continued, “I'll be happy and it will be like a sad movie."

She didn’t know what to say, so she said, as honestly as she could without hurting his feelings, "I can't really tell you who to love or not."

His ten-going-on-eleven- year-old face looked up to her with heartbreaking earnestness. "You don't have to do anything. You can pretend I'm not there."

Kid Leech shakes her head. "Why would I want to pretend that? That you’re not here."

Ben shrugged.

"Just because I love somebody else doesn't mean I don't like you."

Ben nodded. "Okay. I can love you and you can like me. And at the end of the movie, I can ride off like in Shane."

Amelia nodded back blankly.

"And you can stay with who you love, and I can go fight so the one you love don't get killed. That'll work!"

"Ribbit".

Amelia readjusted her glasses. "Er, yeah. I guess that does kinda work."

Ben pumped his fist, saying, "Yes! I have a not-girlfriend!" Then he paused. "Don't tell Jericho. I don't think he'll understand. He'll think I'm weird."

"Yeah. I don't think he'd get it.” Amelia sighed, and remembered what she originally wanted to talk to Ben about. “Er, really what I wanted to say was that you and Jericho both mean a lot to me, and I kinda wished you'd get along better."

"Um..." Ben looked for the right words, the exact sentiment that would communicate his answer. Then he remembered a movie about the kind and gentle Wesley, and his Princess Buttercup, and knew his answer.

He said, "As you wish."

Amelia canted her head and looked at him closely. No. This wasn’t the same little boy who had gone off to live in Ireland with his mother. It wasn’t even the broken-hearted child who had gone away just after Ireland Love’s death. This was someone just a little bit more grown up.

"Um... I'm gonna go watch movies with Jack now. Um... if you wanna come, you can."

Frog, "Ribbit".

"Er, sure...and I can try to figure out what just happened."

Ben Kirby-Love smiled. "Okay! Um... and you can invite Jericho to come too. But no kissing in my room!"

Amelia rolled her eyes. He might have changed, but he was still Ben.

Perez Park used to scare the hell out of him. He would never have admitted it, but that was the truth. Now, though he was wary of the danger, he also understood that fear must never be in control. Miss Eovyn had taught him that when she took him to one of the Dark Places that only the Fae folk knew of. Now Perez Park, though dangerous, was just another part of the city that needed someone to help reclaim it. It was a good place for him to practice his skills.

Ben, invisible, stood only a few feet from a mob of Hellions. He stretched his mind out, his young will, and sought out one among the them that he could influence easily. It surprised the entire group when their fellow gang-member began swinging at them with a wild fury. When guns were drawn, he caused a flashes of light to blind them, and when they started shooting wildly, he made them all think they were wounded and their will to fight diminished until they laid down, assuming they were going to soon bleed to death.

Ben laughed and tagged them for the Zig.

Before he could continue in his patrol, he sensed a familiar presence, and looked toward the security gate. There stood Amelia, the most beautiful girl in the world, and her boyfriend, Jericho. Amelia looked surprised when the invisible kid ran up and threw his arms around her.

"Hello, Ben." Jericho could see him. That "third-eye" thing.

Ben held on to Amelia, and fought back more tears (he would have to stop crying if he was going to stay in the city), as he said, "I missed you!" Then he realized Jericho had greeted him, and continued, "Um... both of you."

He became visible and waved his arms around saying, "Look!"

Amelia was still getting over the invisible hug, and with his flailing she failed to see what he was showing her.

"Okay," she said, "I'm looking."

"Loooooook." He continued waving his arms, now even more frantically.

Jericho had already realized what he was getting at. "His arms," he said, "They look normal."

Ben stopped waving his arms and held them still as he smiled.
Amelia blinked as she looked at pink skinny, little-boy arms where once there had been large, bulky titanium arms and hands.

"Er, it's not one of those costume-holograph type things, is it?" she asked.

"Nope," Ben replied, "A little science and technology and then some alchemy on the subatomic level. At least that's how Mr. O'Donnellon 'xplained it."

Then he went on to explain how Thomas O'Donnellon had used nano-bots to reconstruct synthetic arms and legs for him, then how he had been taken to England, to the ancestral home of one Burke Greely, the alchemist who changed the synthetic matter into organic matter...

None of it really made sense, but it worked and that was the main thing.

And he showed them one more thing: The "birthmark" that had not been there before, but which his mother had bestowed upon him in a dream -- the shape of her lips on his forehead where she kissed him one last time.

Then he continued his tale: "Miss Eovyn says I can walk in two realms. She says I got that from my Pop."

"Walk in...huh?"

"She took me to see... um... I'm not supposed to talk about that."

"The Faerie Realm?" Jericho guessed.

"Shhh! Don't say that! And um... no... not exactly. But I can't tell you exactly." He looked at Amelia with a grave seriousness and said, "No matter how much you ask. No matter how bad you want to know. I can never, ever tell you."

"Okay," Jericho shrugged.

Amelia nodded solemnly, stifling an urge to laugh.

"Even if we grow up and get married, I couldn't even tell you then."

"I'm not marrying you Ben," Jericho said straight faced.

Amelia could hold back no longer and burst out laughing.

Ben blushed deep red and said with a voice full of desperation, "I was talking to Ameeeelia!"

They laughed and talked a few more minutes, and Ben found that he really did miss even Jericho.

Then a stray thought began to tickle Ben's brain like a feather in his ear.

"Um... I have to go."

Amelia canted her head and looked at him, as if to say, "You're still you, but you're different."

What she said to him was simply, "Okay, but be careful."

He looked at her with all the solemnity his ten-going-on-eleven-year-old's face could muster and said, "I will. I have powers you can't begin to understand."

Pop and Peggy greeted Ben at the teleporter in Maggie's Rock-Paragon City. Pop wanted to spend Halloween with him, and he did. Ben was still uncomfortable around Peggy, not because he didn't like her, and in fact he loved her very much and shared with her a love for books that had somehow bypassed his father. No, he was uncomfortable around her because -- being Margaret Love from another dimension -- she looked exactly like his mommy.

He started crying as soon as he saw her. She started crying too. Neither knew what to do about this particular problem, so Peggy, despite her injured ribs, just sat on the floor, took him in her arms, and began singing:

“Oh my life is changing everyday
in every possible way
And oh my dreams
it's never quite as it seems
Never quite as it seems.
I know I felt like this before
But now I'm feeling it even more
Because it came from you.”

Her voice when she spoke did not sound at all like his mommy’s, but when she sang, she sounded very much like her, which made them both cry all the more.

"Geez, Peggy, yer' makin' 'im cry worse..."

Peggy stopped the song, looked up at her husband, and said, "He needs to cry." Then she began another verse.

Ben listened and wept, and didn't mind a bit that her tears were falling on his hair.

Georgia to Ireland. Ireland to Georgia. Science to magic. Magic to science.

Ben Kirby-Love was shuffled around the circle for weeks. From Thomas O'Donnellon's biotech/cybernetics lab in Tralee, to Granpa Frank's in Georgia for tests, to Miss Eovyn's study in Maggie's Rock-Ireland, to a remote castle in England where lived the World's Greatest Alchemist, Ben's life was changing fast. But the changes in his body were nothing compared to the one change that nobody -- except Miss Eovyn and Granma Kirby -- would talk to him about. He visited the grave every day.

But he still talked to Mommy. She was always there, since the night of the Dream. She had given him a destiny, and when somebody gives you a destiny, then they never really go away.

All the books he had read and the movies movies he had seen taught him that.

So he accepted everything that was done to him, because it was his destiny. He listened and learned all of the magic Miss Eovyn taught him, because it was his destiny.

"Ye've a lon', lon' life ahead o' ye, Ben. Yer gonna grow up t' be a great man, who does great thin's. An' I'll be watchin' ye each an' ever'day."

He would not disappoint her.

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(Yes, you read correctly. Flea has a pet kitten.)

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((Sounds more like the kitten has a pet Flea. ))

((A reminder:

This thread isn't just for me and my alts. It is for short pieces and continuing stories that focus on your characters' "off-duty" activities. Anyone's characters. Anyone's stories.

So, please, feel free to post! ))

((Go Jess! Go! ))

"Peggy!"

Roy had no time to think. The portal machine was collapsing and his wife was going to die if he didn't act now!

A leap landed him beside her as the first wheel was about to hit her. With one arm he knocked her down, with the other, he reached up and tried to catch the many tons of metal that was falling on them.

He staggered as the weight hit him and went down on one knee. Peggy was laying on her side clutching her stomach. He had too much at stake to fail now.

The other wheel came down. Roy braced himself for the impact. It landed on top of the other wheel, dispersing some of its momentum, but still far surpassing the capacity of his hydraulics. He was at the limits of his body's technology.

His right arm began to bend where it shouldn't. His legs began to spray fluid at the joints.

Peggy was in pain and couldn't get up.

Then he heard her voice.

"Ye'll always have a piece o' me, Roy. No one kin e'er take that from ye. I'll always be right here, inside ye."

Maybe...

Roy closed his eyes and pushed against the weight that was crushing him, and thought about being human. He thought about the embrace Maggie had given him that infused him with enough of her to make him magic. He thought about the taste of a cheeseburger, and how for over a year he had craved just one bite. He thought about the warmth of Peggy's skin against his, and the softness of her lips...

The robot was designed to take damage. The robot was designed to be strong. But the robot was a machine and machines have limits.

Roy opened his eyes. His hands were bleeding from the metal cutting into them. His elbows ached and his shoulders felt like they were popping out of the sockets. The tendons in his legs felt like they were going to snap. But the flesh and blood didn't bend, didn't break

And he held.

He held to his love for his wife. He held to his will to live. And, for once in his life, he held to his belief in himself.

He held against the limits of his body. He held against all laws of logic and physics. He held without understanding the magic.

He held because, whether he was a robot or a man, he was still a superhero called HEROID, and that meant something.

It was over in seconds. The portal operators risked their own lives by dashing in and pulling Peggy out of harm's way. Then Roy changed forms again and let the unyielding tonnage fall unmercifully upon him.

"Nooooo!"

The techs who were operating the machinery that would shut down the Hazardous Environment Rescue Operations Intuitive Drone looked up, startled.

He shouldn't be sentient anymore. He should be "empty".

"We did something wrong," one of them said and started checking gauges and readouts.

"Wait -- maybe not..." another one started.

None of them tried to stop the it as the eight feet tall, almost one-thousand pound machine stepped off of the platform and dashed out of the room.

They wished they had though. When he left the room, he had made his own door.

Peggy Kirby took one last look at the control room door. She hoped against hope that he would step through it, ask her not to go, tell her that he was not going to give up.

The truth was she loved him no matter what form he took. If he was trapped in a mechanical body, that would just be something they would have to deal with together. Together.

Apparently, he wasn't interested in together.

She looked through the portal. The world on the other side was raining. Puddles formed on the street she was about to step through onto. She didn't even have on a jacket.

Agents working for Portal Corp had made forays to this dimension for her. She had currency, and even a bank account set up. They had made reservations at some place called "the Super 8". She wished it didn't have "super" in the name.

Well, she thought, My third universe...

She put one foot forward.

Suddenly there was a violent shudder. Her first thought was that an earthquake had hit. She wavered between making the leap to her new world, and diving back into Roy's.

That choice was taken away as the wall to the right of the portal machine crumbled, knocking the machine from its moorings, and upsetting the electromagnetic fields that kept the wheels suspended.

The portal closed and that rainy world was gone.

Above her the wheel-within-a-wheel rocked back and forth until the balance was gone and they both tumbled over toward her. There was no time to run. There was no way she could get clear from them before they landed on her.

She closed her eyes and prepared to die.

((Beautiful.))

Two rooms. Rather large. In one, a research labratory with equipment so state of the art, that some of the equipment doesn't even have a name yet. In the other, a giant wheel within a wheel, both wheels spinning, pulling one reality to the border of another...

Two rooms. Rather self-contained. In one a desperate decison, born of grief. In the other, a decision reached after days of careful deliberation.

Roy Kirby didn't say goodbye to his wife. He had not the courage to do so. He loved her desperately, but could not ask her to stay with a cold machine. He didn't say goodbye to his son or his daughter or his parents or even his friends. He was, it seemed in the end, somewhat of a coward.

He nodded to the techs who plugged the wire into the USB port on his chest, and began typing commands for the shutdown proceedure...

In the other room, a portal tech assured Peggy Kirby that:

"It's a universe with very few superheroes. Maybe none. The United States of America is still pretty much a free society, even though they seem to constantly be in some state of crisis. Still, it's the safest and most stable universe we could find on short notice."

Peggy murmured a, "Thank you," and prepared to step through.

The night of the day after his mother's funeral, on the Kirby farm in Georgia, USA:

He sleeps fitfully, as he has each night since his mother's death. And he dreams...


He's back in Ireland, near Mommy's new house. He hears soft footsteps behind him, and turns. She's there, smiling, her arms open for a hug.

He runs and jumps into them, "Mommy! I knew they were wrong, Mommy! I knew you weren't dead!"

Gently, she puts him down and sits in the grass, then pulls him into her lap.

"Shh, Ben. Shh. I dunna've much time, my heart. I need ye t' lissen t' me now, my darlin'. I need ye t' rememmer.

"I'm here t' say g'bye, my Ben. My son. I need ye t' know how proud I am o' ye, each'n ever'day. I need ye t' know that ever'day I spent wi' ye was a joy. I need ye t' know I love ye. I always will, my heart.

"Ye'll ne'er be 'lone, my Ben. I'll always be here. I'll always be in yer heart. When ye miss me, jus' close yer eyes, an' there I'll be. Whene'er ye need a hug, jus' picture my arms 'round ye, an' ye'll feel it.

"Ye've a lon', lon' life ahead o' ye, Ben. Yer gonna grow up t' be a great man, who does great thin's. An' I'll be watchin' ye each an' ever'day.

"An' one day, after yer ol'n grey, an' ye've watched yer gran'babies grow, ye'll see me agin. I'll come, my heart, an' I'll take ye home. Until that day, my Ben dunna fergit."

She places a kiss to her son's temple....


And Ben wakes. And remembers everything.

The next morning, Grandma Kirby will spend hours trying to clean the mark from Ben's temple. It isn't until weeks later that they realize it's a birthmark. In the shape of a woman's lips.

Little Ben Love-Kirby will carry his mother's last kiss on his temple, forever.

((Cute! ))

Only days later...

Ben looked out the window at the clouds below. It looked like snow. He didn't like snow. It covered the green of the grass and the trees. He liked green. Mommy liked green.

He closed his eyes and pictured Mommy behind his eyelids. Her hair that curled around and tickled his nose when she hugged him. Her smile that made him smile. Her eyes with that look that let him know she would always love him.

She was gone. Just like that, she was gone.

In the seat beside him, Granma Kirby sat with a pack of tissues, just in case he needed one. So far she had used more than he had. He hadn't even used the first one she had handed him.

He wouldn't cry. Superheroes didn't cry.

He held Mommy behind his eyes until he was sure she wouldn't go away, then opened them again. The white was still outside the window. Granma was still beside him with red moist eyes.

"Ye're goin' home, Ben. An' I'll always be jus' a step through a portal away."

But that wasn't true. She wasn't just a step away. She was... gone. Dead.

And he, with his slowed aging, was going to live a long, long time. He closed his eyes and pictured Mommy behind his eyelids.

He wondered if he could hold her there a thousand years.

Thomas awoke to a gentle singing, sweet, like the Kerry Children's Choir at Christmas, except, sweeter, gentler. He opened his eyes slowly, afraid that he would see angels standing over him.

Indeed, the sight that greeted him when his vision cleared was indeed heavenly: A woman's face, pretty and freckled like a girl who has played in the sun her whole life, framed by scarlet curls that fell down her shoulders. Behind her, two women, one hardly more than a child sang in a language Thomas had heard only in his dreams. All three of the women seemed to have an inner glow that sparkled outwardly as if they were...

"Magic!" he shouted as he struggled to sit up despite the red-haired woman's hand on his chest.

"Shhh. Ye canna be gettin' excited," the red-head said. "Let Tessa an' Eovyn finish their song, then ye'll be good as new."

"But... magic..."

"Aye. 'Tis. An' ye'll be glad of it when they're done."

Thomas suddenly became aware that the pain in his back was gone. "Who are you?"

"Maggie Love. And ye'd be?"

"Thomas O'Donnellon."

From nearby, a young voice erupted. "No! No he's lyyyying! He's King Brian of Knocknasheega!"

Maggie cut the young kidnapper a look that shushed the boy. “An’ yer jus’ lucky I foll’d ye out t’ th’ shed when ye grabbed th’ cookie jar, youn’ man!”

Ben hung his head, crossed his arms, and stuck out his lip.

"I apologize fer me son's behavior. He's not usu’lly..." Maggie paused and the hint of a smile crossed her face. "Well, actu'ly he is usu’lly like this."

Thomas looked around at the women's angelic faces. His pain was gone, and his hours in captivity were well worth the trouble for this new experience.

"Think nothin' else o' th' matter, Maggie Love. He's youn’ an’ spirited."

"Aye," she said, then quieter added, "He really is a sweet boy. Mischievous, but good-hearted. An' ye can see he's been dealt some hard blows by life. We're tryin' t' raise 'im t' make th' best o' it."

"An' who did his cybernetics?"

"Dr. Frank Werner."

"Ah. That explains it."

"Dr. Werner is a fine man and a genius..."

"Aye, he is, but he is only half of a pair of unsurpassed geniuses who, a few years ago, set the world of techno biology on its ear. He was never the same after he lost his wife. Sweet woman. Beautiful. Sad she died so young."

"Er... aye. But are ye sayin' ye know o' a better... cyberneticist?... than Dr. Werner?"

Thomas smiled. "Aye. Yer lookin' at 'im."
----------------------------------------
Ben sat in the big chair outside the room where Aunt Tess, Mommy, and the new girl were working on the liar. He knew he was in trouble when they all suddenly looked his way and Mommy had said, "Ben, go sit outside in the hallway darlin'."

He could hear their muffled voices in there. He kept hearing his name. And the words, "fix him". He figured it was probably followed by the word, "good", as in, "Don't worry, we're gonna fix him good!"

He fought back the urge to cry. The trip to Ireland had been fun: Nights sitting in front of the fireplace with Mommy while she told him stories of when she was a little girl. Walks across the fields with their walls of rocks piled high. Visiting the old ruin with picture-words carved into the stone walls that Mommy said no one on Earth in the present time could understand.

Once she had let him play in the stream by the edge of a wood while she went in among the trees a bit. He had crept up on her and seen her talking to tiny glowing things that danced around her head and sang to her in voices like tiny bells. She had sung back in the sweet, lilting voice that sang to him at night. He crept as quietly as he could back to his spot by the stream, but later that night, she asked, "Did ye see 'em?" When he nodded, sure then, as now, that he was in trouble, she had smiled her beautiful, reassuring smile and said, "Then ye have a bit o' th' glamour in ye too."

He didn't know what that meant. He hoped whatever the "glamour" was, it would keep him from getting in trouble.

Ben knew he had to go back to America, to the other Rock soon. He didn't want his last memories of Ireland to be sad.

He turned as the door opened.

“Ben?” his Mommy said as she approached him, then squatted so her gaze was level with his, “How would ye like new arms an’ legs?”

“New… arms… and legs?”

“Aye. An’ as close to real as ye can get.”

Ben smiled a grin that took up almost his whole face.

"No ye canna have any whiskey! Go'n git a cookie! Sheesh!"

Ben didn't know what to do. If he didn't find some "whuskey" for King Brian, then the wrath of the Little Folk would be stirred against him. He could just let him go, but then what about the leprechaun gold? What to do, what to do...

Ben thought about the cookies. His mommy's cookies were very good. Probably better than "whuskey". He grabbed the cookie jar and ran outside.

Thomas opened his eyes. Or at least he thought he did. Things were still dark. He squinted hard. Things were still dark. Dark and warm, and the dark was surrounded by a tight wrap of sturdy fabric. He was in a sack of some sort.

"Hey!" he shouted, "Little boy!"

There was no answer.

"Hey! I was only givin' ye th' blarney, son!"

There still was no answer.

Thomas fumbled in his pockets until he found his house key and started using it to try to rip through the fabric. After a few minutes he succeeded in poking a hole in the sack large enough to provide a peephole. He looked out and saw nothing.

Good lad, he thought, t' knock me out an' then make yerself scarce. Now, Tommy, see if you can cut your way out of --

Something snatched the key from his hand. Cautiously, Thomas looked out through the peephole.

A hazel eye was looking back.

"You're trying to get out?" Ben asked.

Thomas thought fast. "Nay, laddie. I was merely tryin' t' make a hole t' see if ye've any whuskey out there."

Thomas had seen that movie too.

"Um... whiskey... um..."

"Aye, laddie. Ye can't tie th' king o' th' leprechauns up in yer gunny sack wi'out pourin' 'im a taste o' whuskey now an' 'gin -- 't wouldn't be proper. An inconsideration such as that could bring down th' dire wrath o' th' wee folk, don't ye know."

"Um... geez. I'm gonna have to ask my mom..."

"Ye do just that, laddie. Ask yer mum."

Ben nodded and scampered away.

Thomas listened to the thump thump of Ben's metal feet as they ran away; five steps on wood before they began pounding soft sod. He was in a storage shed or a barn of some sort. Maybe, just maybe...

He struggled to a standing position, keeping his peephole lined up with his eye, and moved until he could see the open door of the tool shed he was in. Then he slowly turned, taking an inventory of the tools, jugs, stools, wheelbarrows and other things that were in the shed. There were plenty of weapons, if he needed them, but he didn't see what he was looking for -- his briefcase.

In the briefcase was his Blackberry. With it he could call the authorities and have this little brute...

But it was a moot point, he didn't have his briefcase. And besides, he figured he was getting his just desserts for pulling the boy's leg. He wouldn't have had the heart to call the constable on the lad.

So, what to do?

Thomas turned back toward the open door and began hopping. If he couldn't escape the sack, at least he could escape the shed. The door loomed larger every time he looked. Hope began to grow within him.

Then he reached the end of the tether and was jerked in a most surprising manner down upon his back. The landing knocked the air out of his lungs and something popped along his spine and an incredible pain shot down his legs. If he had had enough breath, he would have screamed.

As soon as he could breathe again, he tried to move his feet. The left one... good. The right one... good. Now wiggle the toes... good. All right, now stand up...

He screamed as the pain struck him again.

Well, 'King Brian'. Foin puddle o' muck ye fell in this time.