Log:A Peace Offering Extended to the Apostate

2020/11/19 Grimm Apostate 1

An asteroid floating in space. Improbably, there is an atmosphere. And the sky doesn't look...normal. It's not a typical night sky, with just stars. There are bands of color.

Apostate is in his sanctum when Grimm arrives. It's...much like Connor's own sanctum, in many ways. Though different in others. It's more heavily technological, for one thing. She appears on an 'entry room', and he can be seen on a far floating rock, sitting on a couch and reading a book of some kind. No...a notebook.

He also isn't wearing his mask. But he looks up as she appears.

Apostate

This man stands about five ten, and he's dressed in a white and green costume of sorts. The shirt and pants are solid white and look like they might be armored. Over this is a white trenchcoat. He conceals his hands and face with leather gloves and a full mask over the head. There are two obvious special lenses built into the mask. Setting off all of this black is a series of green highlights on his knees, boots, belt, and piping on his jacket and mask.

Grimm slips her hands in her leather jacket pockets, getting a read of the place with her shadow sight and trying to pick up on any magic. An Apostate showed up again in her dimension, but she's not sure if that's the Apostate who destroyed his home dimension, and then started poking holes through hers. "Connor Duran. Apostate. Like what you've done with the place." The last time she saw this place was in a fight.

There is a sense of magic. Order and Chaos. But some other type of magic, too. Something more...holistic? Central? Integral? Personal? He sits up and looks over to you. "Ah...yes, I remember you. Gabrielle Grimm, right? You are friends with my coutnerpart who helped me fix my dimensional harness."

Grimm is also the one that may have tormented Apostate with visions of his worse nightmare when he was fighting them. "Yup. I'm surprised you remembered me. I wasn't quite friends with him at the time...but more so, now," she grins a bit at that. She senses something different about him, which makes it more likely he -was- the one who visited. "Since when did you learn magic? Specifically -that- magic," she nods to him from across the void. She could teleport over to him, sure, but she's not sure if he's hostile or not.

Apostate waves her closer. "You're welcome to join me. My counterpart showed up and talked to me a bit, after he helped with the harness. He was learning magic himself, and...well, my world as it was is no longer around. I figured I should carry on the family legacy of sorts.

Grimm is surprised by the welcome and takes a step as a gate opens before her and also before him on his floating asteroid. She steps through and the gate closes. "I tried checking up on you earlier to make sure you weren't languishing here. Glad to know your other self checked on you." She suddenly realizes something that didn't make sense. "It's not...? I thought it was fully restored. Haven't you gone back?"

Apostate shakes his head, "I...have. But only briefly. It is not my home now. I've seen too much to feel comfortable there, but I feel content enough that the world lives. So I am still in...what can only be described as self-imposed exile."

Grimm smiles faintly. "Well...I was going to try and offer you a way to live there without...y'know...risking running into yourself and messing things up. Plus there's an infinite amount of other dimensions you could call home. But...it seems you've been traveling a lot like I have. So was that you that showed up in my home dimension recently?"

He nods, "It was. I had...been trying a spell that your Connor taught me. Seeing the future. And I saw that there was a conflict soon on the horizon. But...my accuracy was off. I arrived sooner than it was scheduled.

"A conflict?" Gabrielle asks in surprise. "I'm...surprised and not that he taught you that. Glad you two get along," she grins. "Is that what you meant by seeing too much? That spell?"

Gabrielle thinks for a moment, then pulls her right hand from her pocket and reaches out, making a grasping gesture with her hand. As her hand closes, dark energy swirls and alters reality locally, a bottle of scotch appearing as her grasp closes. "Hmm. Sanctum warming gift. I figure maybe you had similar tastes to, uh, 'my' Connor." She holds it out to him.

He smiles. "That's very kind of you. Thank you." He takes the bottle from her. "I do believe you guessed well." He reaches out to the side, and his hand seems to disappear through a small portal. When he pulls his hand, back, he has two small glasses.

"It's a bit fancier a gift than tea. And not much guessing needed. I just paid attention to the brand of scotch my local Connor likes," Grimm explains casually. "And now that you know magic -and- have a working harness, you two are more alike. Although...I like my Connor's color scheme better," she teases.

Connor laughs. "Umm...well, there was a reason I picked these colors. It deals with family tradition and all that." He nods. "I...am still new at magic, to be honest. He has more facility with it than I do. And I think he's more adaptable. But I'm getting there."

Grimm smiles as she manages to get him to laugh. He was so much more ...crazy last she saw him. And devastated. "Well...he's used magic longer. And it's his family tradition. What was yours?" Grimm asks. "Since you said you wanted to keep up yours."

He nods. "I turned it down intially. My family included a...wizard king, basically. I turned away from it."

"Oh, right. Hah, Randal, right?" Gabrielle asks as she tries to recall. "So you're already a wizard. How goes work in becoming a king?" she chuckles.

He chuckles. "Me? It won't happen. But the new version of me...the branched history...is more accepting of the idea."

Grimm blinks at that. "Wow, that's...wild. I wonder if the two of you...yeah, you'd have to," she muses to herself.

He raises a brow, "If what?"

"If you two would have the same dimension signature," Gabrielle says wth a grin. "I can tell the difference between two dimensional alters, but...if you two come from the same dimension, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference."

He pours some scotch for both of you, "I am not sure if we would or not. WE're from two different dimensions after all now. I'm the only survivor of mine, and he's in one that branched from mine. They may be different, if you look closely enough."

"It may be subtle," Gabrielle agrees, but seems disappointed. "Sorry. I thought we properly undid what happened to your dimension and it was never destroyed. Not that we...I dunno, just created an alternate timeline version where that didn't happen."

He grins. "Is that not enough? You helped save...billions of lives. No...more than that. An uncountable number."

Grimm blinks a few times at that. That clearly didn't occur to her. "I think I need a drink," she laughs. "I...guess maybe that's enough. It didn't hit me until you said that. I was just along for the ride, though."

He nods. "And that is why I don't mourn the loss of my life. The people I knew...the world I knew...lives. In a new form. That is good enough." He offers one of the glasses to Grimm, and he raises his own.

"Well," she takes the glass and raises it in return. "To your world's health. And to you crafting a new life for yourself. You seem to be doing well enough on that," Gabrielle smiles gently in a toast.

Connor nods. "I am...doing alright. I will admit that I do get lonely here over time. But I can also look in on a myriad of dimensions. Or travel, if I wish." He takes a sip of his drink, and smiles. "How is your world?"

Grimm smiles faintly. "Not currently ending," she replies cheekily before taking a sip. "I think you know more about what's going on with my world in that regard than I do." She drops some of the snark and says more with care, "You -do- have the ability to go to any dimension. I can't imagine that being too lonely. I guess having yourself visiting can't -really- count as other company." She thinks in that a bit. "I could drop by from time to time if that's anything that you'd be interested in. I think my Connor's suffered enough having to endure my baking experiments, anyway," she chuckles. A new victim is at hand!

Connor chuckles. "Being a visitor in other worlds is not the same as having a friend, I'm afraid. And I am...hesitant to get to know those in other dimensions, in fear of...complicating matters."

Grimm raises a brow. "Complicating matters how?"

He sips his drink. "There is often an analogue of myself in these dimensions. Sometimes, they know I'm around. My abilities do have enough of a signature that they can be tracked." He shrugs, "Dimensional incursions invite investigations."

Grimm grins a bit at that. "Ah...yeah. Sometimes that's problematic. Most times I manage to slip into other dimensions unnoticed. But running into my other selves can be...interesting. We don't always get along." Or often. "But that's when disguises help to some degree." She raises a finger up. "By the way, if you run into other versions of me? Run. They'll notice you're out of place before they even lay eyes on you, and it's a toss up on whether they'll be good or bad."

Apostate smiles slightly at that. "How many of them can survive a black hole?"

Grimm blinks and tilts her head as her finger curls back down. "I...don't know. Never tried to find out. You can do like...real black holes? Like...not just the singularities Radical can?" she asks in awe. Maybe she should be afraid of this Connor.

He nods. "You didn't witness it, did you? Yes, I can do just that. It's smaller than a normal black hole, but pretty devastating."

"I mean...I didn't know you still could. I...don't know. Maybe they could survive it," Grimm says, though she sounds doubtful. She's pretty sure she couldn't survive it.

He nods. "I can. My gear is...less precise that your Connor's equipment. But it's more powerful, I think."

Grimm winces at the thought. "More brutal, probably. Does Order and Chaos affect your mood or thoughts when you use it?" She leaves off the 'too'.

He shakes his head. "A bit, yes. But my facility with magic isn't on par with that of the man you know, so I only know a handful of spells."

Grimm nods and sips her glass. "Well, maybe over time. Speaking of those spells, was there anything else you can tell me about the conflict you foresaw on my world?"

Apostate shakes his head, "Not a lot, honestly. I know...that it will be a war between other-worldly beings. Deities, for lack of a better term. But there is another force of some kind that will attack while that is going on. I was able to get some details on that, but not much."

Grimm coughs a little on her sip. Oh, that burns. "Oh...damn. That's...a lot. Why is it always us?" she chuckles weakly as she tries to absorb all that. "So an attack on several fronts." She thinks on that. She doesn't care how stubborn Jack is, she is going to get him off dimension for that.

He smiles. "Do you really think it's always you?"

Grimm chuckles. "Probably not. That's -almost- comforting. I just need to find a nice, cozy, safe dimension that never has to deal with this stuff. Just as an emergency backup."

Connor chuckles. "It's not always your dimension. And it's not always your planet. Or always your country. Or your city. It just feels like it."

"Yeah, I get it. It's because I don't always see all the shick other places are going through. Fair point," Gabrielle grins.

He smiles and looks around..."That's one thing that I manage to have perspective on, at least. Seeing lots of dimensions...lots of places...they all go through similar things. Different, but similar in many ways."

Grimm nods. "And I'm guessing you have a lot of time to look around. Though I imagine if you keep a low profile, you'd be safe to visit my world from time to time. Especially if you give Connor a heads up. Get out every once in a while. Get some food. Dye your hair maybe if you don't want to get mistaken for him," she chuckles.

He chuckles. "Would it be bad to be mistaken for him? I got the impression that he's well regarded."

Grimm smiles at that. "He is. He's a good man." She just worries a little of this Connor may ruin that rep by accident, but she doesn't voice that. "I suppose it wouldn't be so bad." She thinks for a moment. "I just don't really know you that well. And when we last met...we were both in bad places, I think. I'd...like to fix that." She smirks a bit. "The Connor on my world makes me want to try and be a better person. So...this is my peace offering. Come by my world for drinks or food sometime. I could visit on occasion. And I'll make my gift a little extra special."

She reaches out to touch the bottle of scotch and thinks carefully and focuses intently on it. "Everlasting," she utters, her voice echoing a little as if it were a word of power. It's something she saw one of her alters do. And it seems to at least have sounded the same coming from her.

He smiles and raises his brow. "I...would appreciate that. Thank you for offering. You definitely surprised me."

"Well, thank me if that bottle really does refill once it's emptied," Gabrielle laughs lightly. "Surprised you with the sudden visit? Sorry about that. I didn't really have a good way to announce myself. I wish I had gotten to it...y'know, before finding out about a war. But there was always something taking up my time." To put it very mildly.

He nods, "I'm somehow not surprised. You do seem to be a...nexus of sorts. Trouble finds you, and follows your friends around."

Grimm is surprised that he's not surprised, and what he knows about her. "Wha...how...do you know about that?" Maybe Connor talked.

Grimm says, "I'm pretty sure you're thinking of Porter..."

He laughs and sips his drink. "Porter is certainly worse that way. But I did talk to my counterpart a bit about your problems. Congrats on finding your sister, by the way."

Grimm laughs, still a bit surprised. "Thanks. It's...still weird. She can't make it to Thanksgiving and she hasn't been able to come with me yet to tell my parents. But...it's something. She's alive. That's all I care about." She smiles a bit over Connor bringing it up with his alter. "I guess Connor told you some of the other stuff. Like how much of a pain in the butt I was, how he saved me, etc, etc."

He grins, but he doesn't confirm or deny her last statement. "Family is important. I'm glad you were able to get back in touch at least."

Grimm smiles. "Yeah...it is. It's been a while since I felt any connection with my family. But...I have some chosen family, now. And my sister. I'll take it." She pauses to sip. "You'll let us know if you discover anything else about this war, right? Like...when it's coming, what you see, that sort of thing?"

Connor Prime thinks about it. "I will. I'll let you know if I learn anything more."

Grimm raises a brow. "Took you a little while to say yes there," she points out.

He nods. "Yeah, it did. I just found myself wondering if getting involved would be good or bad. There are consequences for actions that can be...hard to predict. But I decided that the potential consequences are worth it."

"Oh," Gabrielle says as if that didn't occur to her. "Yeah, I suppose...it isn't really your problem. And also if Connor's spells taught us anything, it's that the future can be changed. At least in some ways," she smiles briefly, because something disturbing comes to mind. "So if you foresee your death or something...change course! I imagine my Connor could use his spell to check on the future instead."

He smiles again. "I haven't foreseen my death. Not yet, at least."