Steam-Punk Rebels (Started, Accepting)

The World

The city of Faint Hope is breathing its dying breath. The steam that once fueled it is becoming a thing of the past. A rebellious group of fanatics aim to end steam powers reign, they fear its destructive powers could lead to violent wars. Their fears were justified when Mayor Daron T. Thayne turns a deadly secret on the rebels.


The Weapon

A man who once thought he would never walk again stands over the city as one of its guardians. The Angels of Faint Hope are powerful biological experiments turned weapons of mass destruction. The Angels of Faint Hope have a rare tool grafted into their very flesh, electricity. Steam generators fuel their deadly gift.

The War

Who will you side with? Will you character be an ANgel or a Rebel? Will he fight for Industry, or will he take the harder road, and aim to abolish steam altogether? Will he just get caught in the crossfire?

Rules

Do not godmod.

Please do your best to honor your partner's characters. If someone says their character likes so-and-so, don't take liberties and make them fall in love with a street urchin just because you think it'd be romantic.

Please use your best quality writing. Remember that this is just for fun, don't be hard on someone if their writing seems lack luster. You were there once too, I'm sure. (Whom am I kidding? This is YWS! We're all civilized!)

No explicit scenes. Nothing past second base (kissing), and keep the blood and guts at a minimum. Use your discretion, a good rule of thumb is don't write anything you wouldn't let your own mother read.

Please write a minimum of five hundred words a post.

Have fun!

World Building

This story is set in a fictional world similar to Europe. The technology is pre-industrial, bordering on full on industrial. Electricity used in technology is a government secret. Transportation is not well advanced. Horse and buggies are cheap and reliable, so that's what most people use. Steam Ships are seen coasting the rivers every now and then, but they are common targets for the rebels.

Please, no vampires, werewolves, faeries, or unicorns. You can invent your own original animals, though. Just be sure to give a good description for the sake of fellow writers.

Use that as your basis and feel free to world build from there.

Daron T. Thayne looked down upon the city that sprawled out beneath him. Steam and smog obscured his view, he feared that smoke and blood would obscure it soon. Faint Hope was in danger, and Daron was ready to do what it kept to keep it safe. Daron's large stomach rumbled, and he pulled a cord above his oak desk. A bell rang, and soon, two men pushed a cart of food through the massive double doors.

He watched to make sure that not a single morsel of food, not a single drop of wine, touched his finely woven carpet. It hailed from the Orient, a gift from some high strung ambassador he didn't care to remember. They sat a whole roast turkey in front of him, as well as steaming scalloped potatoes, asparagus spears, and a light salad. "What is this?" He asked, holding the salad in front of a mustached nose of a waiter.

"Salad sir, the Consulate has advised you take on a healthier diet."

Daron would've laughed if he wasn't so angry. The Consulate was always sticking its ugly nose in his business. "Tell the consulate I am a grown man, and i'll eat what I like!" Daron slammed the plate into the waiter's face. "Leave me to my business!"

The waiters left immediately, grateful that Daron hadn't made them suffer any more than he did. Daron rustled through the pages of a public appeal. A rebellion was spreading its ugly wings over Faint Hope. "The nuts! They belong in an asylum, along with the other mad men."

An explosion rang out over the city. Daron turned to see thick black smoke welling up out of the clock tower like blood in water. A man burst through the double doors, "Daron, theirs a coup in the riverside district. What should we do?"

"What should we do? What should we do? We snuff it out, that's what we should do. I want every god-damned copper, soldier, sailor and ruffian in the riverside district, now. Kill anyone who even looks like a rebel! The Catalyst must fall." Daron slammed the turkey leg in his hand against the table.

"What about the Angels?"

"No! Not yet. Not until we absolutely must use them. Now go!"



The city was burning.

All Mikael could do was watch.

The explosion in the clock tower was so forceful, it nearly leveled Mikael. The thick black smoke filled his lungs and stung his eyes even from a half a mile away. He wondered about Abel. HIs son was the Time Keeper's apprentice, and if he was in that tower, he could die soon.

The tower was leaning precariously, its bell tolled a death sentence as it prepared to crush anything below. Chunks of brick and mortar fell flaming and smashed against the cobble stone. Mikael left the apothecary without bothering to lock it up. He hailed the nearest carriage.

"Get me to the clock tower, my son is in danger!"

Daisy Michaels giggled like a school girl in a carriage rattling down the road at worrisome speeds that didn’t worry the five passengers squeezed into the average sized carriage. She caressed the arm of the young man beside her, smiling into his red face as he blew his unpleasantly hot breath into her face. “You’re so funny!” she gushed and leaned forward, so the two women and the other man couldn’t hear though they were being loud enough as it was. “I think I would like to get to know you a little better.” She batted her eyes and fluttered her fan provocatively. “I have a great interest in shipping.”
Though she would not have believed it a moment before, his face blushed even darker, and he stuttered, “It’s not really that interesting.”
She shook her head emphatically. “I want to know so much...” She turned toward window and studied the few monsters in the docks. “Especially about the steam boats.”
He blinked in confusion. “Steam boats?”
She nodded and turned to face him in excitement. “I’ve heard rumors.” She grinned slyly and put her lips to his ear. “Someone’s found a way to make them even more powerful.”
He pulled away and scoffed, feeling silly at taking the fantasies of a woman seriously. “More powerful than steam?”
She pouted, losing interest quickly. “It’s what people are saying.”
He laughed. “It sounds like you need to find more reliable people,” he joked, wiggling his eyebrows.
A sharp look flashed in Daisy’s eyes before being covered with a sickly sweet smile. “Like you?” she squeaked.
His chest puffed up immediately like he hadn’t been fishing for a compliment. “Well...”
“I’ll ask you from now on,” she drawled and turned to gazing out the window again, so he couldn’t see her roll her eyes. She grew silent for a moment, arranging her features in an expression of sickness and waited a proper amount of time.
There were a few explosions that no one paid attention to. The rebels were crazy and loud, but they had done little damage to anyone unconnected to the government as of yet. The rebels were the government’s problem, not the wealthy’s. They merely posed a nuisance to the merchants until their ransacking and burning of the city. But the passengers were young and cared not about the supposed ‘dangers.’ Explosions had become normal and unthreatening.
After they had passed over a rough stretched of road and entered the ‘safe’ part of town, away from the few steamboats at the dock, Daisy reached over the heads of her howling companions and banged on the roof. “I feel sick,” she moaned and stumbled out of the carriage as it rocked to a stop. She made her way to a reasonably shadowed niche and forced her shoulders to shake, ignoring the cries of alarm and concern from her friends. She laid a heavy, yellow envelope from a large pocket hidden in the folds of her skirts in a crack in the pavement. She frowned when a beggar limped out of the building she was bracing a hand against.
He bent down to tie a boot and murmured, “See you tonight?” A ragged cowl hid his face. She could barely see his lips move.
“Of course,” she replied and mocked a heave for her friends’ benefit. She thought she could make out the hint of a smile.
“The clock tower is about to fall. Don’t travel in that part of town.”
She nodded in thanks. “Be safe, Enoch. I want to see you in one piece.” Affection and worry spilt into her words.
He inched closer. “Me? Don’t worry about me?”
“Hey, guy,” the red faced boy cried. “Why don’t you leave the lady alone?”
Enoch straightened and turned to disappear into the building again.
Daisy would never be sure what happened next. She was watching him, wishing she could follow rather than return to the stuffy carriage with her obnoxious fellow passengers, and then the world consisted of red, heat, and sound, the sound of crumbling and screams. She heard a wild whinny and the clatter of wheels as she was pushed into space. She forced her eyes open to see Enoch crumple against the opposite wall as she was slammed into the ground.
And all was darkness.

Spoiler

If I'm way off base, let me know, and I'll try to fix it. I love your idea.

Abel gripped the edge of the clock tower as tightly as he could, stained glass cut into his fingers, and his hands were becoming slick with blood.T. K. Adrian was surely dead, Abel had watched the rotted out beams explode into his side, tearing him into shreds. Abel was lucky to be alive.

He wasn't lucky to be dangling from the edge of a burning building.

He pulled himself up as his legs swung limply, searching for a foothold. Finally, he found on in the brick and started to force himself up. His fingers ached to the bone, and he knew he was drawing himself into the heart of the fire, but that was the only way out. The floor was slanted at an angle towards him, and flaming debris slid towards the edge, and plummeted down towards civilians. The thick black smock and smog burned his eyes and clogged his lungs.

"Master Adrian! Are you okay?"

Abel began to search the building.



Lieutenant Hearse hammered back his revolver and aimed for the rebel. "Don't move a muscle," he grinned at the man, who was partially pinned by a steal beam and chunks of brick. The lieutenant watched as he groped at ashes, trying to drag himself to safety. But no, he wasn't struggling for safety, he was crawling towards a shuffling mass of rubble.

There was someone under it. "Officers, start digging, make sure that body is disposed of. This operation has been a success." Lieutenant Hearse aimed his revolver at the hooded man and shot him in the skull. The man collapsed in the rubble.

He was far from dead. Beneath Enoch's cowl he were a reinforced plate. It had absorbed the bullet before it could penetrate his head. However, he was unconscious. The rebel leader was dead to the Lieutenant though.

"Lieutenant, it's a girl. She's not dead."

"I can't let her hurt my career, take her to Dr. Faust."

The men carted her off in a police carriage. They headed around the riverside district to avoid the crumbling tower. Lieutenant Hearse headed towards the capitol building to report to Thayne. With another rebel leader dead, he was surely in for a promotion.



Daisy awoke with a brilliant light in her eyes. She felt like she was on fire. Something was digging into her wrists, restraining her against a cold steel table. Her waist and legs were pinned as well. A voice came from the surrounding darkness. "Be still, my little angel."

Dr. Faust's face cut the brilliant light in half. His eyes were strangely discolored, one was brown, the other a cold, almost white shade of blue. "I'll fix you up nicely. How about a pair of wings for you, my dear?"

Daisy shuttered at the sound of his voice. She could smell bourbon thick on his breath. "Where is Enoch? You can't hurt him!" She shouted with every ounce of hate she could muster, in spite of her white hot agony.

"Enoch is dead, hopefully you won't be soon!" Dr. Faust laughed, his eyes nearly rolled into the back of his head as he pitched it back. It bumped against the bright lamp, sending shadows dancing across the room. In the brief illumination, Daisy saw others, their bodies stitched, strange metal rods protruded from their shoulders. She could hear electricity crackling, one of them lifted its head with a sickening pop.

It looked her right in the eyes.

Spoiler

Thanks! You're not off center. If you feel like the story is going in the wrong direction, let me know and I'll change my post! And, Enoch isn't dead.

Enoch woke with a strangled yell and attempted to sit up, swearing when pain ran through his chest, a steel beam pinning him down. He groaned, closing his eyes against a pounding head ache, and lifted his one free hand to his steel plate. He managed a grin through the dull ache at the dent and circular disk he assumed was a bullet. People had said his steel plate was a paranoid contraption.
Slowly, he tested each limb, moving his toes purposefully, the fingers of his left arm. Everything seemed to be mobile though his was a challenge to breathe and his left arm was dangerously painful.
He looked around as far as he could, trapped as he was. His mind methodically pieced together the events that had been shattered by the bullet. He saw quick pictures in quick flashes. Blonde hair falling before a woman's face. A man standing over him, holding a revolver. A yellow envelope. A carriage. A bloody hand apparent beneath rubble. Lips turned in a slight smile.
He cursed and squirmed as much as he dared to find an easy way to see the pile Daisy had been under. He reached out, only to realize the pile and been mined for its treasure. His breathing quickened as he felt the ground tremble beneath him and screams from blocks away. "Daisy?" he rasped, already hopeless.
There was silence in the alley, and he did not revel in the chaos of the collapse of the clock tower as he had planned to that morning.
. . .
A murmur broke through the darkness, was overpowered by the mechanical hum that was always present. The murmur was accented by cries of the less mentally stable as lights flickered on, beginning on the side closets to the single narrow door and coming on in in sequence to the far wall. The shadows were never quite banished where they sat or stood if their modification required it as the Magic was not strong enough to make the lights properly bright.
All fell silent as a table was rolled through the door by the poor Beast whose name had been lost that seemed to be made of more metal than flesh. His jaw was completely steel and only worked properly a quarter of the time. If he could even move his jaw, his tongue had been replaced with a thick, unusable device, so he could only grunt to communicate.
Everyone looked down at the floor as Evil followed the table, whistling. He stopped suddenly. “Why? Why the lights?” he demanded, glaring at his tool as he fiddled with the controls.
All went black.
And then there was a single bright light that created a circle on the floor. “We have to conserve electricity,” he snapped. Electricity was Evil’s name for the magic that made the lights, the beast, them.
Previously Carter Bellingham, but now unaware of the existence of names, stared at a small pool of blood that dripped from his elbow as he considered Magic, the beast, Evil, them, and Innocence tied to the table in that order. At some point, he thought he had probably been a philosophical being in the Clouds of what he could not remember, merely knew existed. He ignored the high pitched cries of the woman. Innocence always sobbed before Evil changed it. He ignored Evil’s soft lies.
Silence.
Silence was different. There was normally screaming, normally crazed laughing. Never was there nothing. Nothing was new, and Carter was not used to new.
He broke the rules. Slowly, though it pained him to do so, he looked up. The metal that ran from the right eye, avoiding the mouth, down his neck as it sprawled across the back of it, across the right half of his chest, and down his arm to the elbow, popped and moaned terrifyingly. The lens replacing his right eye that painted everything in a red hue was covered by a mechanical lid, and Carter looked at Innocence.
He gasped and met Innocence’s scared gaze.
She stared, and Carter recognized the horror spill across her face and knew he should be ashamed though he no longer knew why. Her mouth worked soundlessly and finally she managed through dry lips, “...What...”
He shook his head slowly, left, right, left, right. It seemed to make a terrible racket in his own ear, the one that was still attached to his head.
She bit a trembling lip. “Me?” she could only mouth.
He nodded, sorry that Innocence must become one of Them for the first time.
A tear slipped from her eyes, and she cried silently as Evil put ether over her nose.