C. S. O'Leary
The Renaissance Man
"For me?"
Hercules gulped. She may have been a giant, she may have been a 10000-foot tall wrecking machine with a vast array of machine guns and rocket launchers at her disposal, but what terrified him the most about her was that cold feminine charm that lurked beneath her cold callous metal frame.
A rejection from a normal girl was character-building. A rejection from a girl who wrestled with fire-breathing monsters and hurled them into skyscrapers could easily end up being character-crushing.
"Y-yes, for you."
One of her eyelids shuttered down her face like a guillotine falling upon a French noble's exposed neck. For a few brief seconds (an eternity to Hercules) her remaining eye lingered on him, it's ominous red glow falling on Hercules like the spotlights of the dreaded authoritarian regimes she fought so hard to keep at bay from their hometown.
Then that smile, that coy smile that lurked within the arsenal of weapons that belonged to every lady, woman or machine, emerged from beneath the tangled wires and mesh of lights that governed and swayed her mechanical heart.
Helga said nothing, but she laid off the fingertip that had been gently pressed against the chest of her young admirer, and turned and opened up her rusted and bloodstained palm to him.
"Give them to me." She quickly barked but with a tinge of embarrassment at the end of her words, a tinge of red fluster that Hercules quickly picked up on as he gently placed the bouquet of handpicked roses, daisies and lilies upon her palm.
Her hands, Hercules thought as he watched the flowers mingle with the smattering of colours that swirled around, were like an artists palette filled with the blood of the countless monsters she'd slain over the years. The blue ink of the monster jellyfish she'd choked out, the odorous green marks left from bludgeoning the swamp monster to death with its own stumpy legs, the grifts of fur clogged between her nails and thumbs after tearing the bigfoot revolutionaries apart during their revolt a few months prior; they were etched deeply into her, like the scars of her savage past that would forever dampen her future.
To him, she was a greasy machine that never cared to cleanse her hands, and a violent woman who would never let go of her grip around her enemies throats as they cried out for mercy.
And Hercules greatly adored her for it.
He looked up again, and now he saw the bouquet he'd given was placed upon her head a floral hairpiece. It rested gently there, being used now in a way that the florist who sold it to the impoverished boy with the scabby knees earlier would've never thought of it being put to use like that in a thousand lifetimes.
Helga's coy smile was gone, and now painfully unsure of herself, her admirer and the situation she was in, clasped the back of her head with her other hand in embarrassment.
"Is it nice?" She asked in the German accent she'd gained from the European Mecha factories she emerged from over a decade ago.
"Yes, very nice."
Hercules gulped. She may have been a giant, she may have been a 10000-foot tall wrecking machine with a vast array of machine guns and rocket launchers at her disposal, but what terrified him the most about her was that cold feminine charm that lurked beneath her cold callous metal frame.
A rejection from a normal girl was character-building. A rejection from a girl who wrestled with fire-breathing monsters and hurled them into skyscrapers could easily end up being character-crushing.
"Y-yes, for you."
One of her eyelids shuttered down her face like a guillotine falling upon a French noble's exposed neck. For a few brief seconds (an eternity to Hercules) her remaining eye lingered on him, it's ominous red glow falling on Hercules like the spotlights of the dreaded authoritarian regimes she fought so hard to keep at bay from their hometown.
Then that smile, that coy smile that lurked within the arsenal of weapons that belonged to every lady, woman or machine, emerged from beneath the tangled wires and mesh of lights that governed and swayed her mechanical heart.
Helga said nothing, but she laid off the fingertip that had been gently pressed against the chest of her young admirer, and turned and opened up her rusted and bloodstained palm to him.
"Give them to me." She quickly barked but with a tinge of embarrassment at the end of her words, a tinge of red fluster that Hercules quickly picked up on as he gently placed the bouquet of handpicked roses, daisies and lilies upon her palm.
Her hands, Hercules thought as he watched the flowers mingle with the smattering of colours that swirled around, were like an artists palette filled with the blood of the countless monsters she'd slain over the years. The blue ink of the monster jellyfish she'd choked out, the odorous green marks left from bludgeoning the swamp monster to death with its own stumpy legs, the grifts of fur clogged between her nails and thumbs after tearing the bigfoot revolutionaries apart during their revolt a few months prior; they were etched deeply into her, like the scars of her savage past that would forever dampen her future.
To him, she was a greasy machine that never cared to cleanse her hands, and a violent woman who would never let go of her grip around her enemies throats as they cried out for mercy.
And Hercules greatly adored her for it.
He looked up again, and now he saw the bouquet he'd given was placed upon her head a floral hairpiece. It rested gently there, being used now in a way that the florist who sold it to the impoverished boy with the scabby knees earlier would've never thought of it being put to use like that in a thousand lifetimes.
Helga's coy smile was gone, and now painfully unsure of herself, her admirer and the situation she was in, clasped the back of her head with her other hand in embarrassment.
"Is it nice?" She asked in the German accent she'd gained from the European Mecha factories she emerged from over a decade ago.
"Yes, very nice."