Hope Mengsk

Hope is the only Nekojin in existence, appearing to be Human except having the ears, tail, grace, and poise of a Catfolk.

Birth

Conceived after a wish made by Valerian and Mana, Mana carried Hope to full term (See Valerian's Ring of Wishes for more info.). Whether an aspect of her new race, or some sort side-effect caused by the wish, Hope grew up at an accelerated rate. At five she looked like she could be ten, at ten she had both the mental and physical maturity of a twenty-year-old.

Princess

Hope was born during The Empire's war with Antioch. Despite this she had a few happy years with her parents before her mother was assassinated. After that her father became very protective of her and more and more she felt like a prisoner in her own home. She witnessed her father go crazy overtime without his wife, destroying the country he was supposed to protect. One day even his very best friend, Hanzo Hattori, attempted to stop his madness, but ultimately lost the fight (see Valerian Mengsk for more info.). As Hanzo was trying to escape with his life, Hope came across him and urged him to let her hide him. She had looked up to him as an uncle for years, and at this point was the only sane family she had left. As her father searched for him she was able to keep him hidden until he recovered enough to be able to use his powers to escape. Hope no longer wanted to be a prisoner, and wanted to flee from the mad emperor. Hanzo agreed to take her and together they escaped the capital, and eventually The Empire's territory.

Resistance

While the war began with The Empire against Antioch it soon spread to The Empire against most of the civilized world. When Hanzo failed to overthrow Valerian he and Hope defected to what was now the resistance, a collection of nations that joined Antioch to fight against The Empire (see The Empire and Antioch for more info.). Hanzo was friends with one of the former Imperial officers that led a legion, and left Hope under his command, training, and protection while Hanzo put his skills to use doing the sort of black operations he was known for. He told Hope he wanted her to learn how to fight and be a warrior, and that he would return for her. It was a long conversation and Hope was never altogether happy about separating from Hanzo, but she was very passionate about fighting back against her father and his regime.

She received very little special treatment. While the legatus Hanzo left her with did his best to have men look after her, he made certain to never let her know that. He wanted her to work her way to learn to fight and not rely on others. It was a lesson hard-learned, but learned none the less.

War

Hope became a true soldier. She had innate powers from her blood, a mix from her mother's Bardic abilities, and her father's Wizard ones. She learned to use her sorcerer powers to great effect, and over a period of five years fought and grew into a disciplined and powerful woman. Over those five years she fought alongside people of all races, from the Humans, Elves, and Catfolk she had lived her life knowing, to the alien Formians, gruff Wyvarans, and strange Fey of the Lin Kuei. But her enemies were always the same - clockwork. If she grew up under different circumstances she may have been more well rounded, but instead she focused many of her abilities and spells into ones that could deal with clockwork, and grew to become as familiar with electricity as the air she breathed.

Hope began to make a reputation for herself and was becoming known for more than just being the enemy's daughter. Her contubernium (8 soldiers) were well known among their Legion (6000 soldiers), they were called the Myrmidons. After her maniple (160 soldiers) was involved in a vicious battle, only Hope, a few of her Myrmidons and a single person from another contubernium survived. On their way to regroup with the local Cohort (3 maniples/480 men) they encountered a clockwork detachment known as bark burners. Bark burners usually consisted of a mithral clockwork dragon and around 16 clockwork warriors, servants, and firebats delivered through the MIS that would go around burning every forest they see (see Project Rhythm for more info.). Only Hope and two of her Myrmidons survived the encounter to meet up with the cohort.

After hearing that Hope led a very very small group to destroy an entire bark burner detachment and survive the praefectus cohortis (commanding officer of a cohort) promoted Hope from decanus (commanding officer of a contubernium) to a Centurion (commanding officer of a Century [10 conturbernia/80 men]). Attending a meeting of officers she was informed that everyone was to move out to defend an Imperial city called Tanlu. Intel came in indicating that The Empire was moving a very large portion of their army to destroy the city because they found out the Resistance had a significant hidden command post there. Hope was confused she didn't know of any command post there, but the praefectus cohortis who promoted her indicated that if everyone knew about it then it wouldn't been much of a secret. Hope was fatigued and the prospect of moving out so quickly after having only narrowly survived this ordeal was depressing. Lucky for her, she wouldn't have to because surprisingly Hanzo arrived!

This was the first time they had seen each other since they separated and she was overjoyed to catch up with him. Hanzo told her what she had already been feeling more and more and she fought this war, that it was lost. The only thing Hanzo wanted to do was kill the man he felt responsible for putting in power. It was a personal matter, deeper than any war or desire for peace, he felt it was a responsibility. Hope felt the same way, and agreed to go with him to try and assassinate Valerian. They both knew it wouldn't end the war, the clockwork would keep marching on, and the factories would keep making them, but that wasn't the reason. This was a personal vendetta, and it was their responsibility to kill Valerian, the world be damned. There was no victory in this war, the world had already lost and just hadn't realized it. The war couldn't be won, but Valerian could be killed, and from this moment on that was Hanzo and Hope's life's mission.

Hope along with the two surviving Myrmidons joined Hanzo to meet up with a friend of his to get safe passage deep into Imperial territory. When they met up with Abathur, he indicated that there was no longer safe passage and that they didn't need to travel to Korhal anyway, as Valerian was on his way to Tanlu with his army (see Abathur for more information.). Abathur told them that the Dwarves planned to join the resistance to defend Tanlu. That's when Hope figured it out, the Intel the Empire got about the secret command post was a lie fed to them to draw them into attacking their own civilian city. It was designed to lure The Empire into doing something so egregious that the nations who had as of yet kept out of the conflict would join. But Hope and Hanzo knew better, there was no chance against the army. Even all these forces joined together would loose, but with Valerian there perhaps the two of them could finally kill him and fulfill their self-ordained charge.

During the battle of the seven-nation army the party attempted and failed to kill Valerian. They were committed to fight to the death, but before they were killed Abathur sacrificed himself to teleport them to safety. Another friend dead, and another reason to kill Valerian. Hope and Hanzo survived to fight another day, and even made a new ally. Thorin Dragonson had attempted to kill Valerian at the same time they did and fought with them during that battle. He was teleported to safety with them and they learned of his own vendetta against Valerian. Joining forces Hanzo, Thorin and Hope spent the next five years sneaking and fighting their way to Valerian's palace in Korhal to finish this once and for all.

The Wish

Hope was twenty when she killed her father. In a vicious battle in Valerian's throne room, Thaurin was killed, Hope was mortally wounded, and Hanzo had sacrificed himself to defeat Valerian. In his last moments he appeared to have a change of heart and in his last moments gave Hope a chance at stopping him before from ever doing all these terrible things he had done. He poured the last of his life into the depleted ring that brought Hope to life, and taught her how to wish for the chance to undo this all from every happening (see Valerian and Valerian's Ring of Wishes for more info.).

Hope was ready to die. When Valerian finally passed the room went still. This felt like the first real moment of peace she had ever had in the past ten years. She lived her life, and fought her war, this was supposed to be it, today was supposed to be the end of her struggles one way or another. Instead now she was realizing she had even more to do. Hope wanted to give up, to just lie there and die on the floor next to her father, but something in her rose up and made her rise too. She took the ring, weakly put it on her finger and made the wish her father had taught her with his dying breath.

"I wish I had the chance to stop this from ever happening."

Arrival In Kadesh

She woke up with a start. Covered in mud, lying on a metal table surrounded by people she didn't know. After getting her cleaned up, the strangers introduced themselves and told her what had happened. Their names were Lanris and Victor, and they had found her inside a meteor that crashed onto the shore and was struck by lighting. That was strange, but hey no stranger than using a wish to change the past right? Stranger still however was what she learned next, that she wasn't in her homeworld. She was in some place called Kadesh a world of Elves and anthros, and she was an alien to their world. They oddities were still coming however as they handed her a picture that arrived with her. It depicted Lanris, Victor, herself, three men she never saw before and a man in a black suit decorated like a skeleton. The same man imprisoned in a small room across from her.

Hope's Picture — The picture that arrived with Hope.

She told them her story, and then the strangest of all these events occurred, the imprisoned man knew the names of her father and mother without anyone telling him. Then she saw it in his eyes, they were the very same ones she had just watched the light leave out of moments ago. This man was somehow her father! She talked with him and found out that he was indeed Valerian Mengsk, but his story was different than her biological father's. This Valerian, who called himself Baron Samedi, came from a different version of her homeworld, one where Mana died before he became Emperor, was resurrected and died again. In his timeline he had died, and much like Hope found himself here in this world (see Baron Samedi for more info.).

A New Life

She began to foster a relationship with Baron but was not about to jump into a father-daughter relationship with him, and held him at arm's length. Despite this, she did feel more kin to him than anyone else given that they both were aliens, and the two spent a lot of time together. Baron would often ask her about her world, and asked a lot of questions about Mana. He seemed more like a normal human than her real father, despite the fact that his face was scarred and he wore a skeletal respirator to breath. He seemed to want to step into a father role, but she had heard the stories the party told her about what he had done in this world and she had no trouble believing them. He was man with nothing to loose, who just found something, and in some way she kinda wanted to have someone too.

She had to get used to a lot of new things. For one thing her hair had turned from brown to white for some reason, though she didn't mind this change. This world had technology that she hadn't, this world had the father she hadn't, and worst of all this world didn't have the booze she had. It was all distilled from algae and was nothing like the stuff she was used to drinking. Part of her being a Nekojin meant that she couldn't get drunk, it made alcohol an exceedingly exceptional cooping mechanism. It could dull her senses and the pain of war without throwing her decision making capabilities off. But this stuff tasted stale, and didn't work as well as what she was used to, but she figured it would have to do. She was incredibly excited to find out this world had cigarettes, another habit she picked up during her time as a soldier.

While she couldn't deny it felt good to relax and just be a person instead of a soldier for a while, she never lost sight of her purpose. Hope had nothing to go off of except the picture that arrived with her, and the knowledge of what she had wished for. She knew she had to try and make that picture happen, and she got everyone to at least agree to stick together. They were focused on their own issues instead of hers though, which was reasonable enough she figured, she didn't expect them to drop everything they were doing for a stranger from a strange land. However things did not continue to go as well as she had hoped.

Her new friends were dealing with some issue that her father had some insight on. He helped them to cure themselves of this sickness they had, but in the process she was arrested by the navy of this land, and then released only to fight a monstrous creature of unknown origin. It felt good to fight alongside instead of against her father. They fought well together and despite the horribleness of battle she might have looked back on the experience with fond memories if it wasn't for the memories she had to let out to win the battle. The party had brought back with them a book that manifested people's nightmares into reality. In a desperate attempt to help sway the battle in their favor she used the book knowing that it would bring into reality one of two things, either the clockwork dragons which she feared so much, or the man she had spent her half her life hunting. She was relieved in some way to see the former. In retrospect she didn't know what she would have done if her father appeared. Could she have talked to him, would he be identical to the man she put down? It didn't matter she supposed, what happened happened. And what happened next was her biggest regret of her time in Kadesh.

Her father kept telling her of the people he was working for, people who were trying to return to the homeworld. He wanted her to return to them with him, that they had more resources, knowledge, and success than this band of rabble. Hope refused every time knowing two things - first was that the picture had two of these guys in it, and second was that they seemed genuinely kind, while her father was not to be trusted to look out for anyone but himself. However despite all of her refusal, Baron got his way. Her father woke her up in the middle of the night and told her they had to flee. He refused to answer her questions and promised her answers soon but that they were running out of time and something very bad could happen any minute. They fled the boat secretly in the middle of the night, hours before the police arrived and either killed or arrested the entire A.A.A. Hope watched her plan get carted away in vertibirds, and didn't know what to do next. The picture looked like it could never happen now. With no where else to turn to she agreed to her father's plan, and went with him back to his employers.

The White Rabbit

It wasn't long before Hope's concerns were validated. The conspirators took her away from Baron and practically imprisoned her. She underwent surgery, her head was shaved and she got ports installed in the back of her skull to allow access to her brain. She was then hooked up to a machine for how long she never knew, that forced her to relive her memories over and over again. She became a prisoner of her own mind until one day the men her father tricked her into betraying broke her out. She felt responsible for what had happened, she hated herself for falling for her father's trick. Not knowing if she could still do what she came to do, she vowed she would at least stop her father in this world if nothing else. It was soon after that she discovered that it was her father who helped the party break her out.

After confronting him she took charge of his life this time. She had him help them or loose his daughter again, something that it appeared he genuinely didn't know was going to happen when he brought her to meet his employers. Together they helped the party to put an end to the conspiracy that had planned to invade the homeworld. With the threat of loosing his daughter she made him testify to help the party, and after everything was revealed to the city she made him help them go to Upper Kadesh and stop the invasion. She would be lying if she said she didn't enjoy turning the tables on her dad, finally she was the one manipulating him into doing something. It wasn't until ti was too late that she discovered that she was playing right into his hand.

Moments before their victory Baron betrayed them. She wanted so much to save him, to believe that he could be a normal man, but he had gone too far. Just like her biological father, he had become a monster and there was no going back. Together with the party she killed her father for a second time. It was only her and Victor standing in the end. And as they prepared to destroy the harbor towers, and with them their lives, she felt that moment of peace she hadn't felt since that moment in the throne room when she had thought her struggle was finally over. She closed her eyes and was ready to embrace the peace of death when the discovered it. The detonator hadn't worked, Baron had destroyed it in the battle. Her father had doomed this world, and the homeworld for his selfish cause! She had to watch as the lower city was incinerated, and she and the entire upper city was transported through space and time. She looked out of the window to see the green fields and blue sky of her world, and below them the city she grew up in.

She was home, and her struggle was to begin anew.