Millie

Millie was born in 2014 in the southern United States. Her father, Etienne's long-lost older brother, was constantly being emotionally and physically abused by her mother, and neither of them took proper care of Millie. One night when Millie was seven, her parents got into a huge and brutal fight that ended in Millie's mom nearly killing her dad, which stopped only when the neighbors filed a noise complaint. Millie's mother convinced the police that nothing serious had happened and the fighting would stop, the police left without investigating further, and as a result, Millie's father died of his injuries the following day.

After Millie's mother was arrested and convicted of second-degree murder, it was found that Etienne was her only living relative. Etienne's family was contacted, and when his adoptive mother Admiral Brickell heard what Millie had been through, she took Millie in in a heartbeat.

Millie had a relatively peaceful childhood with her new mom, where she got to heal from her traumatic first few years and feel safe in her own home again. When Brickell got together with Ember (another one of the Heroes) a few years after Millie was adopted, Ember was always worried about messing something up and being a bad father, but in little Millie's eyes, he was the best stepdad she could ever wish for.

She begun training in late 2025, following an event where Ember let her use a shotgun and she managed to shoot a can off a railing from forty feet away in her first session. She was regarded by many as a prodigy of the gun, a chosen one of sorts, a new hope for the Monkey Military. Of course, she didn't have to train if she didn't want to, but Millie was excited about this. Her parents wanted her to train, and so did she. She'd always wanted to fight for something bigger than herself.

From then on, Millie spent her adolescence training to be a top-path Sniper. Some kids had piano practice, some kids had soccer practice, and little Millie had target practice. Her parents encouraged her to only do what made her happy & what she could handle, they never pushed her to train when she didn't want to, and learning to fight never took away from other activities. Millie loved training. It made her feel useful and important. Everyone had so much hope for the future now. She was always told she'd do great things someday, that she'd save them all once she was old enough to fight.

Soon, Millie started feeling awful that she couldn't fight yet. Somehow, she was already worried about letting everyone down and not being the warrior they needed her to be - before she even started fifth grade. Of course, she never said anything about it. She'd eat a raw onion before she ever asked for help. Brickell's warm and accomodating nature couldn't undo what Millie's old parents had taught her: You are nothing but a bump in our road. Step out of the way before we have to flatten you ourselves.

When the Bloons stopped coming for a year in 2028, she continued training, just in case. And when the Bloon War resumed, worse than ever, she begged and pleaded to be let into the war. Her parents insisted it was a terrible idea for someone as young as her to start fighting. But Millie had other ideas. There were other teenagers in the war, and she wouldn't drop out of school, and how dangerous could a bunch of balloons be anyways? Eventually, she managed to convince Ember and Brickell to let her join the war. Just on weekends, and nothing too dangerous. That was their agreement.

From her very first day in the military, Millie realized that her soft personality would get her eaten alive out there. So she put on a mask. Millie the child and Millie the warrior were two separate entities, and as one grew, the other withered. She acted cold, unbothered, almost heartless. Perhaps deep down she was scared, but she didn't let herself feel it, and Sun forbid she ever show it.

Millie joined as a Deadly Precision sniper, but worked her way up the ranks as her skill grew. "Just on weekends" became whenever she was needed. Once she was promoted to Maim MOAB, the mask started to work its way into her skin. People started forgetting she was fifteen. She was called Hawkeye more than Millie. She had only been in the war for two months, but everyone either looked up to her, feared her, or both.

The Bloons got stronger. Millie was promoted again, to the final tier of her path. Admiral Brickell was watching her daughter die and be replaced by a killing machine. She tried pulling Millie out of the war, but after two weeks without her, their base was getting overwhelmed.

Captain Churchill and Admiral Brickell, distant cousins and joint leaders of the Monkey Military, had a huge fight about whether or not Millie should be allowed in the war. Churchill insisted that as long as they were kept safe, wanted to be there, and there was a good reason as to why they needed to be there, children and teenagers - especially highly skilled teenagers like Millie - were needed in the war. Brickell argued that the safety rules were never being enforced, and that Millie's condition was living proof as to why this could never happen. But the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few - in its current state, the base could wefrgyueiufytyue, and despite Brickell's grief, it was ruled that Millie being allowed to fight was needed in the long run.

Brickell tried to find ways to make up for Millie's absence, but Millie insisted none of that would be needed. This was her duty alone. She returned to battle no better than she'd left.

Slowly but surely, Millie was losing herself in the fight. The mask she put on to protect herself had grown into her skin, and she was a distant shell of who she'd been six months ago. She knew she was a child. She knew she didn't deserve this. But she couldn't just leave like that. After all, she was their protector, their last hope, the light of the world. Leaving would be an unforgivable act. Good protectors don't sit down and rest while their worlds are being ravaged.

Kids should never be allowed to be heroes. When you make a kid feel like they could be a hero, they're going to feel like a monster for not putting their childhood off to go be a hero instead.

And that's how Millie ended up like that.

In the spring of 2031, Millie met a girl named Rosalin: a little Druid about her age, who had recently escaped from The Legion. Ember had helped Rosalin escape, and he decided to introduce the two to each other. Most monkeys were disturbed by Rosalin's twisted foot, but Millie never gave it any thought. Other monkeys saw a loner of a Druid with a scary-looking deformed paw, but all Millie ever saw was a kind, soft-spoken girl who'd been through a lot.

There's something about Rosalin that lets Millie be soft again. When they're alone together, Millie drops her cold facade. Millie's heart is a wall of iron with a locked gate, and Rosalin has the only key. She's the only monkey who can make Millie laugh, or cry, or show any emotion besides anger or fear anymore.

At the end of that year, Millie was brutally mauled by a Transforming Tonic Alchemist from the Legion. She was ambushed in the park, where the Alchemist transformed immediately and started trying to rip her to shreds. Its laser eyes weren't as effective against other monkeys, so it used its claws instead. Millie managed to kill it using her knife that she brought with her everywhere, and staggered back into the park plaza, where Rosalin was waiting. Rosalin's disability kept her from carrying Millie, so her wounds would have killed her if Jericho didn't arrive and bring her to the hospital. She is now mostly covered in deep scars, which cause her pain and make it harder to move.

Rosalin was worried that she wouldn't be able to be a Sniper anymore after being maimed to that extent. But it is in Millie's nature to keep fighting until her last breath. Millie is a zombie. A zombie rests for nothing. When a zombie loses its foot, it will walk on the bloodied, exposed stub of bone instead. When a zombie gets shot in the spine, it will drag its body behind itself. When a zombie gets shot in the head, it will continue to hunger and search, even if all coherence is gone. A zombie rests for nothing. A zombie only falls when it will never rise again.