Hope Estheim
Mar 4, 2013 1:15:15 GMT -6
Post by Hope Estheim on Mar 4, 2013 1:15:15 GMT -6
U-uh, Excuse me, kupo? What's your name, kupo?
”Hi, the name’s Hope Estheim. Director of Academy Research.”
Is that what everyone calls you, kupo?
“Well, yea pretty much. My colleagues call me Director, but all of my friends just call me Hope.”
That's a great name for a girl, kupo You... are a girl, aren't you, kupo?
“A-A girl? No. I’m clearly a guy. Wait, can Moogles not tell gender by appearance? Mog never questioned anybody’s genders. Hmm…interesting.”
O-of course! I was just... messing around, kupo! Ahem. Anyway, kupo. Uh. How old are you, kupo?
“I’m 27. I’m actually the youngest person to ever become the Director of the Academy!. Wait, how old are you? How do Moogles even age?”
Really? Everyone lately seems to be strange, kupo... so... no offense...but what species are you, kupo?
“W-wait! I’m a human! What did you think I was? Goodness, Moogles must be less capable of inferring details about a person than I thought they were.”
I knew that... It's just this light in here, kupo... my eyes can't focus... what do you look like, kupo?
Hope brushed off the front of his jacket, making sure there was nothing on it. “This is my official uniform as the Director of the Academy. All Academy employees must wear similar uniforms, but I have a slightly different one in order to show my rank.”
I-interesting...Which world is your home, kupo?
“Well, I’m actually from a world called Cocoon. It was a world that floated above a larger world called Gran Pulse. Eventually Cocoon fell and almost crashed into Gran Pulse, which is when everyone moved down below. Recently though, I helped build a new home for everyone so that they could live in a world that they were used to called “Bhunivelze”. I currently live on Gran Pulse still, but a lot of people have moved back there.”
I see... That's an interesting looking weapon, kupo. What do you call it, kupo?
Hope’s hand reached behind him and lurched forward as he flicked his wrist. “This is my weapon, Airwing. I’ve used it for quite some time now and it’s never let me down. It even saved a friend or two back in the day” he said with a chuckle.
Cool! Do you know any attacks, kupo?
Ravager:
Elemental
Thundaga
Aeroga
Blizzaga
Strike
Froststrike
Thunderstrike
Medic:
Cure
Curaga
Synergist:
Haste
Details:
Elemental:
Cooldown
5 posts
Damage
High
Strike:
Cooldown
1 post
Damage
Low
Cure:
Cooldown
1 post
Damage
Heals 5 damage
Curaga:
Cooldown
7 posts
Damage
Heals 20 points
Haste:
Cooldown
5 posts
Damage
Allows for two more attacks per turn for the next 2 turns
That's not bad, kupo..! Can you tell me anything about your past, kupo?
Hope looked down at the ground, smiling a sad smile. There were happy moments…and then there were very sad moments in his history. ”Well…there’s a lot to tell. I, well, a very, very long time ago, my friends and I had to pretty much save the world.” Hope chuckled at how crazy it sounded. ”I know it’s hard to believe. But, unfortunately it is true. We were chosen by the things that we thought of as gods; they chose us and marked us. Charging us to save the world. At the time it seemed like we weren’t really made for the job. We were just random people who happened to be in the same place at the same time.
Long story short, we basically had to flee our world, and go to Gran Pulse. Which taught us a lot. We all figured out a lot about ourselves and a lot out about, well about the world in general. We learned that we had been lied to about a lot of things. And we also learned that we were the ones that would decide our destinies. Not anyone else. Anyway, back to the story.”
Hope waved his hand absent-mindedly and sighed before continuing on. ”Before we were chosen as L’Cie…the government was having this thing called The Purge. It was basically where they were escorting people out of the world to kill them. It started this rebellion of sorts and lots of people were dying. My mother and I were unfortunately swept up in it. This is where I met two of my friends, Snow, and Vanille. It’s also unfortunately where my mother’s story ended.
In the fight, she died, saving countless people, including Snow, and I’m sure myself. At the time, I blamed her death on Snow and that moment was when Vanille convinced me to follow him as he ran off. That was when the my 5 friends and I started coming together. We didn’t realize it at first, but this was the beginning of our journey. We all made our way up the Pulse Fal’Cie that had started everything. Lightning and Snow went because of Serah, Vanille and I went because of my mother, and Sazh went because he was with Lightning.
We all wound up there for different reasons, but we all left with the same goal, the same focus. For the longest time, we thought we were charged with destroying Cocoon, but we couldn’t bring ourselves to do it. Soon after we escaped from the military, we separated. I went with Lightning, Snow stayed behind, while Sazh and Vanille ran off by themselves. During my travels with Lightning, she taught me many, many things. She taught me how to fight. She taught me how to be strong.”
Hope looked off into the distance and smiled, reliving those memories. ”She took care of me and well, she became the person I looked up to. She taught me a lot, and helped me learn how to continue living my life even without my mother. It was at that time that I finally decided that I would take revenge on Snow. It was silly for me to think that I could take a human life. But that was all I could think of. The only way I could move on. So that’s what I resolved to do.
We continued adventuring and eventually found Snow. Lightning handed me over to Snow so he could protect me and eventually…well, eventually we got to a point where we weren’t running away from anybody anymore and that’s when I thought I would do it. That’s when I tried to kill Snow. I was gonna do it, I really was.”
Hope looked sad now, and very hurt. Sure, he had never really liked Snow anyway. But the idea of taking even his life hurt him now that he had learned to forgive him. ”I couldn’t do it. And because of that, and because of other things, Snow got hurt. I’ll skip ahead quite a bit because I’m sure I’m boring you. But basically, the original five of us, plus Vanille’s friend, Fang had to flee Cocoon then. That’s when we made our way to the world below us, Pulse. We began discovering all of the powers we had, and we all began learning more about ourselves. It was here that we decided that we would decide our own fates. No Fal’Cie would tell us what to do. We weren’t going to listen to our Focus. We would save Cocoon. Not destroy it.
We ventured out through Pulse, adventuring through quite a bit of it. We were forced to destroy a few Fal’Cie along the way, and we eventually decided we would go back to Pulse and destroy the Fal’Cie who was controlling it all. I don’t really know why we thought we would be able to do it, but we resolved ourselves and convinced ourselves we would. Many things stood in our way before we got there, but we struggled through it all and eventually made our way back to Cocoon. To the center of it all: Eden.
We got there and of course met all sorts of resistance from the military. But nonetheless, we worked our way to the center of Eden. To where the Fal’Cie that was running the government was. We got there and it…it tried to get us to fulfill our original Focus was. It tried to get one of us to turn into Ragnorok so that we could destroy Cocoon. Because turns out that was what it wanted all along. It wanted us to destroy Cocoon so it could get the creator of the worlds, the creator of the Fal’Cie to come back so he could redo stuff. So that he could make it better.
That wasn’t really how any of us wanted to fix things though. So we resisted, even if it was hard. And we destroyed the Fal’Cie, deciding once again that we would decide our own fates instead of listening to others as to how we should live our lives. After destroying the Fal’Cie, the world started falling apart, no longer having anything holding it up. So Fang and Vanille sacrificed themselves, temporarily turning into Ragnorok, not so they could destroy the world, but so that they could become powerful enough to stop Cocoon from falling. They became Ragnorok so that they could complete their focus and turn into crystal. A crystal so powerful that they would keep a whole world in the air.”
Hope smiled a very sad smile as he recounted the sad memory. ”We all became crystals then. We were soon awakened by Vanille though. We were awakened and our L’Cie brands were gone. We were soon joined by Serah and Dajh, Sazh’s son. Unfortunately Vanille and Fang weren’t able to wake up, because well, because they were keeping everyone in Cocoon safe. They were keeping them from falling, and at the time everyone had thought that Lightning was up there helping them.
Soon after, things settled back into what can only be described as a normal pace. People started eventually going back to school, learning more, most moving from Cocoon to Pulse, but for the most part, things were back to normal. There weren’t any more Fal’Cie, but we were all managing. Two years later, my father and Rygdea created what they called the Academy. It was a place for learning, and a the new government. To replace the one that my friends and I had destroyed. A year later I joined the Academy and, determined to become the Director, I began studying and learning as much as I could.
Within two years after joining the Academy I had achieved my goals at becoming the Director. From then on, I kept at my goal of freeing Vanille and Fang. At 10 AF, I found Serah and her new friend Noel. They came to the Paddra Ruins and I began explaining what was happening. Paradoxes. Something or someone was messing with the time space continuum and was creating these Paradoxes, and it was Serah and Noel’s goal to fix them. To bring back Lightning. You see, when we all woke up, only Serah remembered Lightning being with us. Everyone else remembered her being part of the crystal with Fang and Vanille. I had always had my doubts, but wasn’t ever able to prove anything. But after hearing about what Serah and Noel had been up to, seeing them time travel, and seeing these Paradoxes pop up everywhere it only made sense that maybe Serah was right. Maybe my suspicions had been correct all along.
After that, I showed them something that we at the Academy had found. The Oracle Drive. It showed us a movie of sorts. A movie of Lightning in some strange place that Noel called Valhalla. This device was ancient, so it made no sense for Lightning to be the main part of the movie. But there she was. Soon, Serah and Noel had to leave to go fix more Paradoxes.
3 years later in 13 AF, I learned some new things from the Oracle Drive, specifically the Thirteenth Ark. A military facility from ancient Gran Pulse that was capable of self levitation. It was the answer to all our prayers and dreams. It would be how we would make the new Cocoon. But I wouldn’t have been able to stand it if I didn’t help the new Cocoon be created. So I invented a time capsule for myself and my assistant, Alyssa so that we would be essentially be frozen for 387 years when we would be awakened, in time for the arrival of the Ark.
Soon after we were awoken, we found Noel and Serah had stumbled upon where and when we were. I of course welcomed them and explained that we figured out exactly how the Thirteenth Ark floated and asked them if they would help me gather all of the parts we needed. Once again, Alyssa and I entered suspended animation, awakening approximately 100 years later at 500 AF. We awoke and helped Serah and Noel as they were attacked by a creature called Chaos Bahamut. I was going to go with Serah and Noel to help them save Lightning, but was told to make sure that Fang and Vanille were safe.
I learned soon after from Sazh that they were indeed safe and that’s when Cocoon fell. But the new world, the world I helped create, rose then. The new world that I named “Bhunivelze”. Very soon after that, Serah and Noel returned from Valhalla and I took an airship to get over to them, only to learn that Serah had died.”
Hope looked down in sadness, a tear gathering in his eye. ”Noel then told me that Serah was a seeress and was killed by the visions of the future that she had. Suddenly the world grew dark and Mog told us that the goddess Etro was gone. Serah then faded away, to our sad surprise. We had nothing of her to bury. Nothing of her to remember. None of us really knew what to do, and we unfortunately had to continue on with our lives. Lightning still wasn’t back and Vanille and Fang were still in their crystal stasis, although no longer holding up Cocoon. And here I am. A few months later, still the director of the Academy. And still trying to figure out how to rescue my friends. Because I know that’s what Serah would want me to do.”
Hmm... well, could you tell me what kind of person you are, kupo?
Hope blinked at the Moogle for half a second. ”Well honestly? I’ve never thought about that before. Well, I’d definitely say I’m a good person, or at least I try to be. I would most definitely say that I’m a hard working person. Although that could easily have been told by my standing in the Academy.”
Hope paused for a second, thinking. See normally you didn’t have to tell someone your personality. They just…could tell. ”Well I would say I’m a pretty good leader. I can tell what needs to be done and how to get it done. But I would also say, or at least hope, that I’m a good friend. If someone is in trouble, I tend to try and help them however I can, or if they need something done, I try and get it done for them if it’s within my power.”
...Oh, kupo... Then... what side do you fight for, kupo?[/color][/b]
“Well, the light of course.”
I don't mean to seem like I'm prying, but what dreams and aspirations do you have, kupo?
Hope sighed and looked down. ”Honestly? My real dream is just to be able to bring everyone back together. To find and rescue Lightning. To rescue Fang and Vanille…I wish Serah could be here to see it when it all happens. I know that was her dream too. But now I’ll do it for the both of us.”
Ah, that makes sense, kupo... sorta... well, what do you like, kupo?
”Well, it may sound cliché but I like my friends. They are my whole world and I don’t know what I would do without them. I also like learning because the more you learn and the more you know, the better you can do in life and to help. I also really like birds. In fact, I’ve actually owned a messenger pigeon for a while! I would send him to people’s offices if I needed something because it was waaay cooler than calling them or radioing them.”
Me too! Then, what do you dislike, kupo?
”Well, one of the things I definitely dislike are people who don’t think. They can compromise missions and are just obnoxious in general. I also have grown to dislike cats. Not all cats…but a striking amount of them tried to eat my messenger pigeon and so I grew to dislike them. ”
I'll remember that... what's your weakness, kupo?
”Hmm…weaknesses? Well if we’re talking strategically, I’m not very good at physical combat. I can do it, but I am much better suited to ranged fighting or support. But if we’re talking about not in a combat setting…hmm. I would say while a strength, my work ethic can also be a weakness. I tend to work almost too much, resulting in others getting frustrated and me just being exhausted.”
N-not that I'd ever attempt to use that against you or anything, kupo...! Er... next question! W-what is your strength, kupo?
”As for my strengths, as I just mentioned, I excel at ranged combat, mostly with Magic. I definitely am a skilled healer, and I am quite accomplished with buffing other people during combat. And I would say that while a weakness my worth ethic is also a great strength because if I want to get something done and it is within my power, it will get done. And if it isn’t within my power I will figure out how to get enough power to get it done. I would also say my leadership and how intelligent I am are both great strengths as well.”
I never would have guessed, kupo! So, tell me, kupo.. What's the secret password, kupo?
Secret password...secret passwor—Oh; you must be talking about "ADMIN BLOCKED"
Ah, well I am afraid I must go, kupo. One last question before I do, kupo. How did you find your way here, kupo?
My friend Serah showed me how to get here.
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