2013.05.05 - Grodds Hope?

Did Hope ever just have one of those days where things just go crazy? Well if not, Hope is about to. It's taken Grodd a while to track her down using the residual energy trail left after her time jump but he finally got her pinned down and then...

The world moved! Hope was one place the moment before and now she's in a yellow box made of energy. It's a solid light force field. She is teleported without warning, no matter what she was doing, into the center of the 12 by 18 containment cell.

Once she adjusts to the fact here there is now here she can look out through the filter of the yellow light-box and see a laboratory all around her and a very, very large gorilla in a lab coat reading data on a large device. No bout the thing used to teleport her there.

Where was Hope? Lower Metropolis. The financial district to be exact. Not that far from The Halo Towers. After a 'talk' with her 'Uncle' the redhead is in a bit of a funk. AFter all, he may look like her 'Nathan', but he sure as hell doesn't act like him most of the time.

Sure there are moments when it shimmers through, like there's a hint of him there, buuuut...

It doesn't really matter much, does it? One moment she's taking a step out of the coffee shop they were meeting in. And the next...

The next, she's in a cell. She's still in her 'borrowed' civilian clothes, not her uniform, or worse, but she's in a cell. The forcefield is such that she doesn't try anything, especially since she recognizes it for what it is. but the fact that there's a lab outside of it...

"All right. Who ever did this... I give you maybe five seconds to let me go or send me back."

What? Did you expect her to be afraid?

Grodd has a cup of triple chocolate mint frappuccino sitting on the edge of oe of the control panels. He too enjoys a cup from time to time. The great Gorilla in a lab coat turns to look at his subject standing up to his full height at 14 feet tall as he picks up an oversized clip board and asks, "Or?"

Hope might feel oddly smaller in this room like the teleporter shrunk her. Like her captor everything else in the room is larger than it should be. The entire structure has been scaled up to fit Grodd. Giant buttons, giant chairs, giant computer screens, everything is at least 25% larger than it should be. This might cause Hope some distress as her mind will make her feel like she has shrunk. It's like she's a child in this lab where everything is adult sized.

"Or..." The young mutant starts to say as she turns and just looks at the source of the other voice in the room. And well... As she notices a giant talking gorilla, her jaw drops.

Sure the size deference in the room might strike her as odd, in a disconcerting kind of way, but it doesn't shake her. Much like finding herself being transported from one place to another, it's almost as if outwardly she's.... Use to it. Somehow. Maybe not the size thing, but just finding herself in places where things are just weird like that.

"Or a talking.... I'm not sure what you are." is muttered as she tilts her head. "Well... You're not him. Or Brood. Or a Cockroach."

"You are babbling, try and stay focused." the large Gorilla says as he wheels a large office chair over and sits down in it looking at the girl in the box, "For the record, please state your name and reason for violating this temporal safety zone." he requests as he takes a pen out of his clipboard and clicks it..

He's a giant, naked gorilla, with a clip board and he wants to know her name... Yeah, you can't get much stranger than that. Around the room if she notices there are displays monitoring her bio-signs, invisible scanners from the emitter array high at the top of the box are monitoring her life signs. A blue bar of light creeps down the walls of the force-box creating scan lines that travel down her body as the Gorilla waits for her answer.

And what does Hope do as she hears that request?

She sits down. Cross legged. And peers directly at the gorilla as she rests her elbows on her knees, intertwines her fingers, and then rests her chin in said fingers.

"And I should do that because...?"

Grodd reaches up and rube the bridge of his nose and sighs like he can't believe she is being so stubborn. He looks across at one of the displays and says, "I've got about twenty minutes before Metropolis Has Talent comes on. Now if you cooperate and explain your presence in this time line as well as your mode of transit, and your intent truthfully, I'll send you back to where you came from. Otherwise I'll be forced to leave you here overnight until you are more cooperative. You have violated the temporal incursion laws. Paper-work is the price you pay for time travel without a permit." he says pretending to be a very strange government worker.

There's a pause at that. And even a snort before finally Hope shakes her head.

"Nice try. But who ever you are, I doubt you're some sort of 'Time Cop'. Sorry. If you were... No, if you are, then you might as well give up, and go eat a couple dozen donuts while watching daytime soaps, because you guys definitely are asleep at the wheel, and not doing your job."

And then... She smiles...?

"Especially if you have to grab me like this, and asking like this."

Grodd rolls his eyes and sighs, "Ok, fine. I'm not a time cop." the ape says as he stands up and walks across the room to check on her bio-readings, "In fact I'm rather insulted that you didn't know who I was right away. What kind of future do you come from where you don't know who I am? I know there are in theory an infinite number of time lines where an infinite series of probabilities play out but it's disheartening to know that in yours no one even remembers me. I have given the world so much, the least they could do is cower in fear and awe of my visage for a few hundred generations." the Ape says as he flips off the switch that controls the force field, "People just never appreciate the work I put into all this." the villain rambles.

"Who... What ever you are, you're lucky if there will be a hundred generations." is said after another brief pause, as Hopes smile fades. Heck, the redhead even closes her eyes before she goes back to resting her chin on her fingers.

"I don't know exact dates... But I'd say a thousand years, maybe less. Maybe a bit more. Then the Earth is dead."

Yeah, she gives that a moment or two to sink in before she continues.

"Lets see... Every continent but two gets hit by hidden 'super weapons' that another time traveller buried some time in the past. Australia is nuked out of existence. Bio-weapons wipe out Asia. All the water in Europe is poisoned while plagues hit. South America burns to the ground due to some sort of super napalm. And a mix of bio weapons and toxic chemicals destroy Africa."

"All of that was done by just one guy too, who set them to go off decades, some times even centuries apart."

Grodd looks at the readings to make sure she is telling the truth, then he looks at the girl and says, "I need to see." and he walks over towards her reaching out with a big hand to grab her. He's not exactly Mr. Subtle. "Try not to bite off your own tongue." he advises as he closes in on her. He tries to grab her both with his large hands and with his mind. He pushes his mind against hers trying to invade it directly and make her relive her entire life time in one burst. To her it would seem like living her life again in fast forward with the story slowing down at crucial moments of great pain or joy, where crucial information is hidden and of course where her most embarrassing or best kept secrets are held. He tries to rip through her mind's defenses and consume her completely, so that he knows everything she knows and her mind is laid bare before him raw and exposed.

If she knew who she was dealing with, what to expect, she might try to evade that grip. But even as she hears the gorilla coming closer she doesn't move. Oh she lets out a yelp as she's grabbed, but then....

Then she's lost in memory.

She's growing up, in some sort of 'hidden town' for the first few years of her life, with her mother, and 'Nathan'.

Then the 'Cockroach soldiers' come, lead by 'The President of the United States' Nathan gets guns, and fights them, her mother dies...

Something happens... It's as if in an instant the world changes. The world is suddenly more barren. Her and 'Nathan' are going to some bunker where there's a lot of armed human, but the cockroaches come again. This time they can fly... There's explosions...

And another jump. A /series/ of jumps. each time it feels farther into the future, until 'Nathan' passes out. Each time there's a jump he touches something on his arm.

Then there's traveling. Nathan telling her about what the cockroach soldiers told him. About the other continents. After what feels like months, possibly years the end up at a city...

But another bunch of time travelers, /mutants/ arrive, they try to bring Hope back with them, but they end up facing a guy that looks just like 'Nathan', and another guy who is crazy to kill Hope...

In the end, the 'clone' dies, and Hope and 'Nathan' Escape, only during the jump they're separated...

Hope arrives in a city by herself. befriends a boy. Later, (days? Months?) 'Nathan' arrives. The cities fight. One lead by 'Nathan', and the one Hope is in, while hiding, is lead by the guy who wants to kill her, a guy who admits to destroying the world so he could corner, and kill her.

The cities battle, they launch space ships, they battle again until bug like aliens known as 'Brood' attack and kill everyone but Hope, 'Nathan' and her would be killer...

Hope and 'Nathan' use what appear to be escape pods to get away. They fall back towards the Earth. But they're followed. The other guy attacks...

There's a rapi series of time jumps.

Then 1920s. 1776. Farther into the future. Farther into the past. back and forth. Hope suddenly showing powers to save Nathan. Them getting separated in a time jump again...

And finally her arriving in this time, trying to stay one step ahead of her pursuer in case he's here too...

All while trying to find friends and allies to stop him, while still trying to make sure that she's born, since as far as she can tell, this is the past...

Grodd filters all the information in his mind, which is surprisingly easy for him because he is Grodd. She can feel him organizing and classifying her entire life putting it in order in his mind. She might realize that the connection goes both ways somewhat. She can feel what he is thinking. He's examining the data, calculating the series of events which must have lead up to these things happening, theorizing, and trying to think of a way to stop them.

She'll also feel something dark and terrible inside him, a primal, savage bestial thing in the back of his mind full of rage at the idea of someone destroying his world. He is not going to let some interloper from the future destroy -his- planet. The beast in him rages at the back of his mind like a thing trapped behind mental bars wanting to rip this upstart who would dare threaten HIS planet to shreds and eat his brain.

Letting the girl lower to the floor Grodd reaches up and rubs his chin as he thinks about what he is learning. The mental connection fades gently so it doesn't damage Hope's brain too much, "What is so special about you?" he asks but not to Hope directly. He knows she doesn't know.

No. She doesn't know. Not exactly. There's some vague hint that something she may do later on might cause something, but nothing specific.

And yet as she feels that darkness, Hope shudders. The rage. The reaction, it...

There's no way for her to describe it. Not even as she ends up back on the floor.

"Next time that psycho appears and tries to kill me, I'll ask him for you. Hell, maybe I'll be lucky and can draw him out."

Grodd says, "I'm going to tag you with a tracking device. It's a transponder which will let you activate my teleportation system and jump to my lab. You will be safe here. Even from your time traveling enemy. This place is shielded. The only way in is my system. I need you to stay alive until I can find this lunatic and rip out his spine." then the gorilla turns and walks over to a cabinet built into the wall of his lab. He presses his massive finger against it and it opens. He takes out something that looks like a hypo-gun and loads a canister into it. "Do you have a problem with that?" he asks.

Grodd may be an evil, egocentric, jerk but he does actually care about the earth. "If you accept my help, you belong to me. When you are in danger you will come to me. You will do what I tell you, when I tell you and I will keep you alive so long as I see fit. Agreed?" well, at least he's being honest about it.

Huh? (Type "help" for help.)

"And if I say 'No', let me guess, you'll keep me here until I agree? Because if that is your counter offer, I suggest you think again."

Yeah. Even after having her mind ripped through, even after that 'offer' Hope is still stubborn, and almost strangely calm.

"In fact, I have a question for you. Just how good are your psi-shields where ever we are right now?"

"The entire justice League including the most powerful telepaths on earth have been looking for me for the last five years. I made some mistakes when I was younger." Grodd admits, "And no, I wouldn't hold you against your will. I would just reach into your mind and remove your free will making you my slave. Then you wouldn't have to suffer. You would happily stay here with me making me tea with no memory of anything outside of how much you love me." again with the honesty. "A willing slave is much easier to protect than a unwilling prisoner." the Gorilla says as he adjusts the settings on the hypo gun assuming she will see reason and say yes.

"The Justice League is a bunch of pushovers compared to the people I'm thinking of." is said as Hope finally starts to stand up.

"I won't mention names, but there's /AT LEAST/ three telepaths, all on par with you, if not stronger. And one... Well, I got the impression that once they get a hint of someone they can find them anywhere. No matter what."

Then she shrugs.

"As for tech... Your toys look fancy. I'll give you that. But so are theirs."

"So how about instead of posturing, and trying to force slavery, we make a deal. A sort of... Temporary alliance dealing with this threat. If we need each others help, we call. Literally call. No implanted tracers. No mind control. Anything else that happens though... Well, anything goes."

The large Gorilla arches an eyebrow at the last part of that, "Ok, fine." he says as he puts the hypo back on the shelf and closes it back up. He looks around through various smaller drawers until he finds a note pad and writes down his phone number. "If you get in trouble call me." he says as he kneels down to give the number to the tiny human. She looks so small and helpless but she's very brave. Stupidly brave, "Remember, no one is allowed to kill you but me. If you ever get captured by a villain, you tell them you belong to Grodd." then he reaches up with his other hand and rubs the bridge of his nose again.. Why does everyone have to make things so difficult? All he wants to do is forge a perfect world. Why do people keep trying to blow everything up?

Hey... Don't blame Hope for making things difficult! She's a /SUMMERS/! It kind of comes with the name!

But anyways, the phone number is accepted, and pocketed. Only as it does, Hope is reminded that she's in civies, and not her uniform... Oops.

"Fine. Grodd. Got it." is said out loud even if Hope is sure there may be a few people who disagree with him on that count.

All though then she pulls out a small slip of paper, one that has a number written on it already, which she offers the gorilla.

"Do you want to send me back now, or...?"'

Grodd takes the paper and reads the number then crumples it up to be destroyed later, "I'll send you back, but remember, don't trust anyone. Especially not anyone calling themselves a hero. They are not prepared to do what is necessary to keep you and the earth safe." the gorilla says as he walks back to the teleporter controls, "They fight criminals, but you're not fighting a criminal. You're fighting a monster. The only way to stop a monster is with a bigger, meaner, monster." he says then he flips the switch and sends the girl back where she came from.