A response to NCsoft

[Tubbius]

That's a wonderfully touching video, Ms. Lackey.  Its creator certainly did you, your characters, and City of Heroes justice.

[Victoria Victrix]

Did you write the story VV? Is there a direct link to it?

I wrote the script.  I'm writing the story that mirrors the script tomorrow.

http://www.cccpgroup.us/storyarc.php?ID=123  This is the story arc that partly explains Bella and Zach; the same site has a lot of Bella and Zach story arcs, but this is the post pertinent

[Perfidus]

Oops! Sorry Mercedes. Didn't mean to misplace credit.

[johnrobey]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_128380&feature=iv&src_vid=T8S0GMdpK-U&v=FXv7Da0ueso

Please watch this in HD if you can.  There are little bits you will miss otherwise, mostly on the television screens.

I've been a fan of Samuraiko's videos ever since the first time I happened to surf into her "Avatar - CoH Style" on youtube.  Your collaboration video makes this extra special.  Thank you and Samuraiko for sharing this with us.

[Victoria Victrix]

Here's the story.  It'll go up on my page when I have more of a brain.

            SAFE WITHIN YOU


   King's Row was empty.  The CCCP HQ was emptier still; there was literally no one there but Bella, who sat at her laptop in her office, typing.  Typing, and shivering.

   There was no one left, not since the world had learned that...pretty soon, there would be no world.  December first.  It would all end the first second of December first.  In three months, the world would end.  Not with a titanic battle, like she had fought before, but in nothingness.  There would be no survivors.  There would not even be a universe.  Even Mendor Silos, that ultimate plotter Lord Nemesis, was taken by surprise.

     The revelation hit every hero, villain and Praetorian at the same moment.  And there was no discounting it.  Every oracle, every mystic Bella had consulted had said the same thing.  This is the end.  They'd had three months of warning, and people had all reacted differently, depending on who they were.  Some lived in denial, or in hope of a sudden reprieve.  Her Russians, her CCCP though...mostly gone.  Back to Russia for some of them, but she suspected, given to bleak despair as Russians were, they'd ended themselves on their own terms rather than wait for an ending.  Going somewhere the hospital teleporters didn't reach, drinking themselves to death, or going out as Zach had gone, in a battle against stupid odds.  Because there were plenty of those, as bad people took advantage of the situation, or reacted to it with a despair as deep as any Russian's. 

   So far as she knew, the only people left in CCCP HQ were the Murdocks, Vickie, and the 'bots.  Even Thea and Berkut had vanished somewhere.  Even Chug, dear, faithful Chug...had gone off to the park, curled up under his favorite tree...and just...stopped.  Now he looked like any other huge boulder, of which there were so very many.

     "...I've been writing to you every night since you've been gone, Zach.  I suppose some people would think it's insane, but there are times when I'm certain you are somehow reading these things.  I'm scared, baby.  I'm scared.  And so alone..."

    The sound of her typing on the keyboard was the only thing in the office.  Too soft a sound to obscure the memories that engulfed her.

    The first time she'd ever seen Zach, holding open the door of the most beat-to-death panel van she'd ever seen.  That grin...those eyes, behind his little domino mask...that cute little soul-patch on his chin...it might not have been love at first sight, but it had certainly been infatuation.  Then she'd found out he had a girl, he was living with a girl, and she thought she had successfully crushed all those feelings down into a box and locked the top on it.

    But she hadn't.  And as he cheerfully took on the job of being her mentor in CCCP, she couldn't help but notice that when he was with Bestla he always looked anxious and a little unhappy.  But when he was with her, they were always laughing, no matter how dire the situation was.

    I remember every minute with you as if it was yesterday.

    Making jokes about the Carnival of Shadows; catcalling Nemesis soldiers...then he decided she was good enough—her!—to take with him on Portal missions to other worlds, where she stuck to him like glue, healing him with a fierce protectiveness that startled him, guarding him as best she could, so he could concentrate on the fighting he did so well. 

   And then they'd come out of the Portal mission accomplished.  And they'd stood there, talking and laughing, oblivious to the Portal techs...and then he'd leaned in...said something she hadn't caught, because she'd been so breathless, looking deeply into his eyes.  And then as if he couldn't help himself, he kissed her.

   And they had promptly been caught in mid-clinch by Bestla's best friend, emerging from the same Portal.  Like a bad sit-com, or a worse romantic drama.

    But that was when she had known there was no way she could lock those feelings down again, and that it wasn't infatuation after all.

    I know when we both realized we were perfect together.  It was because we could make each other laugh.

    It had worked out.  Through a lot of tears, and doubt, grief, and even tragedy...it had worked out. 

    Through her almost dying, it had worked out.  The first thing she had seen when she swam back up into consciousness had been him, looking as if he had been at her side, never leaving it, for a week.  It turned out that he had....

    After that, they were inseparable.  When CCCP ran out of cash, and she got modeling gigs to make ends meet, he'd volunteered and became as much in demand as she was—not that she was surprised.  When Red Saviour retired and Untermensch disappeared on some secret project or other, they'd both been promoted to Commissar.  They each kept their own apartments—in the same building—but it was rare that either of them was alone in their own spaces.  They made love, and fought evil, and went to movies, and saved the world—together, always together.  Her family took him to their hearts as if he had always belonged there; in her family he found the home he'd never had.

   He was her star.  She was his babycakes.

    Things got...complicated.  Not for them—but because of things that happened with other heroes.  Legal things.  There were some nasty trials, and people started talking about laws to restrict powers.  It was obvious someone was going to have to go to Washington to represent them.

    And the heroes of Paragon City asked Zach.

    He hadn't wanted to leave her, but she could tell he was excited.  Too often, people just saw how he could fight, how he could level just about any foe, and thought of him as a kind of dumb jock.  This would be his chance to use his charm and his mind, and how could she have held him back from that?  She couldn't, of course.  So off he went.

    You were so proud of being sent to Washington.  If I'd known...I would never have held you back.  But I would have gone with you.

   She didn't want those memories...she didn't...but she couldn't hold them back, and her heart cried out with the same anguish it had back then—worse, because now she knew what was coming...

    "Commissar! Come quickly!" The shout from multiple throats jarred Bella out of her paperwork-trance. The tone was urgent...alarmed...

    She vaulted over the desk and sprinted for the rec room. A cluster of comrades either back from, or not yet gone out on patrol were clustered around the television monitor. Scrolling across the bottom were the words Breaking News: Carnage in the Capitol.

    Accustomed now to taking in battle scenes at a glance, she read it all. The bodies first, the camera kept going back to them. The location--a second headline screamer read CCCP Heroes at Pentagon. Zach and Gremlin...she knew both of them so well she could pick them out at just about any distance.

    The opponents--the odds didn't bother her so much as seeing that Zach looked to be evenly matched. She couldn't recall the last time that had happened...Tyrant, maybe? But that was an alternate timeline, not here. This could get very ugly for "collateral damage"...

    But Zach would know that. He was such an experienced fighter...he would be thinking of ways to take the fight to an emptier location.

     Someone made room for her and she sat down on the edge of the sofa, eyes glued to the set, hands clasped hard, her heart in her mouth.

    The TV coverage had gone to split-screen; Gremlin in the Potomac, beating down copies of the one that the TV people were calling "Mr. Xerox," Zach at the airport hammering Weaponized. The group in the lounge was remarkably silent; maybe others were cheering as if this was some kind of gladiatorial bout, but the comrades recognized this for the grim fight that it was. There were grunts and exclamations at particularly vicious dirty tricks or hard blows, but that was it.

     Bella's gut was clenched, and her nails cutting into her palms. This was agonizing. She wanted to be there, healing Zach, disorienting his opponent, maybe even getting in a radiation-stun so Zach could knock him out. You never knew what kinds of surprises these guys had. They always seemed to have one more dirty trick in reserve.
The orbiting cameras caught every bit of dialogue too. Petrograd hissed when Weaponized called her a bitch and leered about what he was going to do to her; it didn't really register with her. What Weaponized said about her was of no consequence, and Zach was smart enough not to let things like that goad him into being stupid.

   Then she saw it, at the same time that the others did. Zach got him. She knew it the instant before the microphones picked up the snap of a broken arm. Now there were cheers—

    Until she heard what Weaponized snarled in the next moment. "If I'm goin', you're comin' along--"

    Her heart stopped even as the cheering built. Involuntarily she reached out to the screen.

    Which whited out in a blinding flash of light.

    "---absolutely horrifying events here in D.C. today, Karen. Two unidentified metas, signified as Weaponized and 'Mr. Xerox' attacked Pentagon personnel. Two heroes arrived on the scene to control the situation, Coalition of Communist Crusaders for the Proletariat's Commissar Bestial Boy and Kremlin Gremlin. After engaging the rogue metahumans, Kremlin Gremlin was able to subdue his opponent. Tragically, Commissar Zachary "Bestial Boy" Marlowe was killed in the final confrontation between himself and the meta 'Weaponized', when a terrible blast rocked the runways at Washington Dulles International Airport. Longbow liaisons within the capitol have lent their best Psychometricists to determine the cause of the blast; initially, reports are coming in that the blast originated from a plasma bomb of some sort implanted within the last rogue meta. The concussive force combined with the overwhelming heat of the blast was enough to vitrify the crater left after the detonation.  Only the most resilient of metahumans could have had a hope to survive such a blast. Today is a day of mourning for our entire nation---"

                                                                        #
    Life had gone on.  No matter how much she wanted to die, she had to live.  CCCP needed her.  Paragon needed her.  There were too many demands on her, and she had stumbled through the first year, faltered through the second, made it through the third, the fourth, the fifth...somehow.  She went to sleep at night cuddled up against one of his old shirts.  She cried a lot, but never where anyone could see her.  Somehow with a heart so shattered she wondered how it could still function, she made it through, tended her comrades, healed the wounds of heart, body and mind...somehow. 

        But she had never really laughed again.

   And now...this.

   You could see it now, the Void, hanging like a great whirlpool in the sky, day and night, growing nearer all the time. 

   The Void is coming for us all.  Somehow the warning made it worse.

   Early on, people began disappearing, taking matters into their own hands rather than waiting to be swallowed up.  The closer the Void got, the emptier Paragon became.  The emptier the base—all the bases—became.  Really, the only one still functioning in the CCCP's alliance network was the CCCP base and the attached coffeehouse.  All the rest were dark, dead, power cut off.

   Besides the Void hanging overhead, there was another phenomena.  Shooting stars, the biggest and brightest she'd ever seen.  Only...they weren't.  Meteors, that is.

   Montague says that what I thought are shooting stars are the souls of people trying to leave.

   Now watching their frantic flight made her cold and sick.
 
   At least this time of night, the Void was hanging over some other part of the world.  The souls weren't flying frantically past, or if they were, you couldn't see them.  She could go out on the roof and pretend for a moment that—

   No.  She couldn't.  But her terror wouldn't let her sit here anymore, surrounded by the reminders of just how alone she was.

   She fled to the roof and sat there, empty night sky overhead, empty street below her.  Not even clockroaches scuttling around.  Even the Clockwork King's little toys had vanished.

   She gave in, and cried.  There was no one to see her, after all.  There was no one anywhere; friends, enemies, all gone.  And I've never been so afraid, and so alone.

   Tears burned down her cheeks, and she sobbed helplessly.

   And then...a whisper into the silence.  "Don't cry, babycakes.  You aren't alone.  You've never really been alone."

   Her sobs choked off as she leapt to her feet and whirled, heedless of the fact that she was three stories above the ground on a ledge.  Because only one person had ever, ever called her "babycakes"...

   "Zach?" she called, unable to believe it.  "Zach!"

   And it was.  He was there.  Faded, transparent...but still Zach.  Smiling at her, that goofy, toothy grin.

   "You were right.  I never left you." He held out his hand to her as she stood, frozen with shock. "Now it's time."

   "Time?"  She was still in shock.  And she didn't understand him.  "Time for what?"

   His grin softened to the most loving expression she had ever seen on his face. "Time for you to come with me.  Forever."

   And now her feet unfroze from the ledge, and she ran, ran into his open arms, feeling them solidify around her, and hold her, as she put her arms around him.

   "I'm safe with you, babycakes, and you're safe with me," he whispered into her hair.  "Always loved you.. Always will."

   His arms tightened around her, and a great white light grew up around them, and filled her, and all the world went white.

   And the roof was empty beneath the stars.

[Atlantea]

I got a touch misty-eyed at the videos, but for some reason - as excellent as they were - I didn't cry.

This made me cry.

[Globetrotter]

The full story behind the video made it even more emotional. 

Found out I still had tears to shed  :'(

[Blitzwing]

Amazing story and video, too!

...it's been late 2009 since I played, but I'm pretty certain that the CCCP was a Pinnacle SG...I'm working on a story of my own featuring my own Scrapper(an anime-inspired OC I've written about in other mediums since 1997) set in Pinnacle during the final day; it's going to be a very light-hearted affair, as my way of celebrating the joy and love of CoH's run....

CapeMike(the above-mentioned Scrapper) has figured a way to sync his own vibrational frequency(ala DC's Flash) with a Portal Corps portal set up in Pocket D...and anyone who wants to escape to CM's original home of OtakuWorld(think every anime cliche/meme rolled into one and given physical form) is given the chance to..either permanently or until, by some miracle, the link to Paragon Earth can be restored.
------

Basically it means rthat anyone who wanted to could allow their characters' adventures to continue, even if it's just 'off-panel', until when(not if) we ger CoH back!  :]

Would anyone want to make an appearance, even if it's just a cameo?  :]

Finally, I'd be -thrilled- if you'd be willing to brainstorm ideas with me, Mercedes...send a message!

[corvus1970]

Found out I still had tears to shed  :'(

Amen.

[Samuraiko]

Glad to see that people enjoyed it, and that I was sufficiently faithful to VV's intent and script. :)

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

[DrakeGrimm]

* DrakeGrimm sobs pathetically after reading the story and watching the video

[gypsyav]

I didn't think I had any tears left. I was wrong.

[Merana]

You two made me cry.  :'(
And i always liked VNV Nation.

[DrakeGrimm]

That is the saddest song VNV Nation has ever done. And Posty played it on his show, during the shut down. T.T

[Victoria Victrix]

I know it's hard to tell how mixed up you feel
Hoping what you need is behind every door
Each time you get hurt, I don't want you to change
Because everyone has hopes, you're human after all

The feeling sometimes wishing you were someone else
Feeling as though you never belong
This feeling is not sadness, this feeling is not joy
I truly understand, please don't cry now

Please don't go, I want you to stay
I'm begging you, please, please don't leave here
I don't want you to hate for all the hurt that you feel
The world is just illusion trying to change you

Being like you are, well, this is something else
Who would comprehend? But some that do lay claim
Divine purpose blesses them, that's not what I believe
And it doesn't matter anyway

A part of your soul ties you to the next world
Or maybe to the last but I'm still not sure
But what I do know is to us the world is different
As we are to the world, I guess you would know that

Please don't go, I want you to stay
I'm begging you, please, please don't leave here
I don't want you to hate for all the hurt that you feel
The world is just illusion trying to change you

[corvus1970]

That is the saddest song VNV Nation has ever done. And Posty played it on his show, during the shut down. T.T

I'd never heard of them until that vid, and now the song won't leave my head. I even purchased the MP3.

Part of it revolves around being far from my wife and daughter and being alone. I can't seem to separate my own personal circumstances from it.

[Victoria Victrix]

I'd never heard of them until that vid, and now the song won't leave my head. I even purchased the MP3.

Part of it revolves around being far from my wife and daughter and being alone. I can't seem to separate my own personal circumstances from it.

VnV Nation is...magical.  I love their songs, and a scary number of them seem to resonate or foreshadow the Secret World Chronicle plot.  I do believe Ronan is the equivalent of this generation's Dylan Thomas.

[corvus1970]

I'll definitely add them to my Pandora. I don't think I could avoid doing so at this point.

Its going to have to wait a little while though... I get choked-up a little too easily at the moment.

[Atlantea]

I've never heard of VNV Nation before either. But I'm looking up their stuff now.

Thank you Misty and Michelle for that as well.

[Twisted Toon]

I'd never heard of them until that vid, and now the song won't leave my head. I even purchased the MP3.

Part of it revolves around being far from my wife and daughter and being alone. I can't seem to separate my own personal circumstances from it.

That is why a song will stick with you,even if you never really liked the type of music in the beginning.

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of Rob Zombie. But, I like Living Dead Girl. Mainly because of its association with a friend of mine. It is one of her favorite songs.