Log:A Radical Difference of Opinion

2019/10/30 	 Connor Grimm

1

Connor makes a call to Grimm, "Hi, Gabrielle? This is Connor. I was hoping to speak with you again for a bit in person."

Grimm picks up her phone, not recognizing the number. "Hrm. Okay..." she replies warily. That suspicion from before has cooled off a bit, but it's still there. "I know this isn't about my grades, so...what is it?"

Connor chuckles. "If it was about your grades, I'd be saying 'Miss Grimm, this is Dr. Duran.'. No, I just wanted to ask you some questions in regards to waht you said earlier at Randal's place. Would you mind meeting me out there again when you get a chance? I know you're busy."

Grimm makes a hmphing sound that sounds amused, like she's trying not to laugh at that. There's some time while she thinks it over. "Fine. I have a moment to take a breather. What time?"

Connor nods to himself. "Whenever works for you. My schedule is...pretty open with classes cancelled for hte next day."

"I can make it out now if you're out there," Grimm offers. There's the sound of straw slurping on the other end.

Connor says, "I'm out there now, yeah. I've been looking through Randal's library."

"Be there in..." Grimm starts to vanish from her spot, flickering out as darkness swallows her and spits her back outside the Duran home. Well, a few meters off. "...a sec." She starts walking up to the door and presses the doorbell.

Connor comes to the door after a few seconds. "Hey there. Come on in." He smiles. "And...thank you for coming. I appreciate it."

Grimm didn't take the time to dress down or remove her piercings as she did to look a little less rock 'n roll for Randal. She sips from a grande pumpkin spice frap when he answers the door. "Hrm. Figured I'd give you a chance, after having a talk with someone." Malcolm spent a good part of the evening calming Grimm down. Having Kysmette with them to babysit also helped prevent her from going off too much from past traumas.

The front room is just as it was last time Grimm was here. Clean. Orderly. Mostly antique furniture. Mostly Stickley pieces that look like they're from around maybe the 1990s. Connor smiles, "I'd offer you a drink, but you already have one. Tell you what. We can talk on the porch. It's a nice evening, and there aren't really any nosy neighbors." He steps out onto the porch, and motions to the chair that Grimm sat in last time she was here. "I'm afraid Randal isn't here. I've evacuated him to our old sanctum, along with my other family members. But...thank you again for checking up on him last time you were here. It means a lot to me."

Grimm feels a bit more comfortable outside, anyway. She takes a step back and moves towards the chairs. "Good to know he's somewhere safe." She loses a bit of that forced tough exterior as he mentions how much it meant to him. It definitely throws her off her game. Connor's probably seen enough students to see it all as a defense mechanism for certain kids. "Uh...yeah. Sure. Just...felt it'd be right."

Connor takes a seat in the chair Randal had been sitting in. "He's like a second father to me. But one that I can talk to more easily about the problems of...well, magic, and being a superhero." He pauses, "It feels weird saying that. I dont' feel particularly super. But...well, it is what it is, right?" He smiles, and then adds, "So...when we talk about this kind of topic, I want to make it clear that I consider you a peer. This isn't like...issues in math classes. This is a situation where you have as much experience as I do. Probably more."

Grimm sinks down into the rocking chair. She's still getting used to it, like she expects it to slip out from under her. But once she's certain of it, she idly rocks and listens. Mentioning he doesn't feel super disarms her a bit. She also struggles with the idea of being a peer to someone who taught her. Or tried to teach her, at least. "A...peer...? You...you do?" she asks, offguard from that.

Connor grins. "Not in math class, though." He waves his index finger at her. "But in terms of magic...and well, being part of the metahuman community? Yeah, absolutely. And that's why I wanted to talk to you a bit about what you said last time you were here."

Grimm pales a little slightly at the reminder of the traumatic math quarter she had. And is having again. She cracks a smile without meaning to. "Okay, definitely not in math. You may as well be speaking enochian when it comes to math," she concedes, and sips some coffee. She pulls her lips away from the straw and sighs. "Okay, then. I guess maybe you stumbled into parts of it you didn't know about. Since being the Cartesian seems like...I dunno, some higher realm of do-gooding?" She hasn't fully grasped it yet.

Connor gives her a wink. "It isn't Enochian. But it IS Greek with some Babylonian and Egyptian thrown in for good measure." He nods at the comment about the Cartesian. "Being...the agent of Order is like being a superhero, except...not. Order doesn't equate to 'Good', as I'm sure you well know. It can be used for good or evil. And...well, in general, I like to think I leang toward the former, I can't guarantee that every prior Cartesian did the same. I'm sure they have done some downright evil things over hte centuries. If they did, it didn't really end up in the journals I have access to. But the history is longer than that of my family.

"Really not any better," Grimm smirks back at the correction of origins. She listens carefully. "Hmm...like...squashing freedoms for the sake of keeping order? Making everyone toe the line? Or...authority and control versus anarchy and entropy?" she tries to understand.

Connor nods. "Exactly. A world where Order controls everything would be as bad as the opposite result, when Chaos controls everything. The rest is in the details about why and how it's awful." He looks out at hte countryside, which is...as pleasant as ever. There are a couple of passing cars on the road, moving by at a good clip, not even slowing down. "I guess this gets to some of my questions for you. I should give you a little more background, though. When I was the Cartesian, I was taught to be...very careful with certain things. Other dimensions. Time. Warping reality. You know...the big stuff." He grins, "I've noticed that since I'm no longer in that role...I'm not as careful. Not as cautious. And I'm trying to...self-evaluate. Self-reflect. I want to make sure I'm not over the line in how I act now, if that makes sense?"

"You should be," Grimm says gravely about being careful. More a cautionary warning. Old spooky person warning you that you should be scared? It's October. Her month. She can't help it. "Makes sense. You weren't taught wrong. And it took me a while to learn it myself. Everything has a consequence. Power really does corrupt. I've seen it...more times than I ever wanted to. Been very tempted, too."

Connor nods slowly. "So...let's talk about the woman who was traumatized. It's related. Really, it is. Moonshadow was kidnapped by DEMON. And tortured, physically and emotionally. Sheviews me...like an uncle." He leaves out that the relationship has been more complicated in the past...no need to go into details that would further embarrass Moonshadow, after all. "That situation was not Amelia's fault, unless you want to assume guilt by association, since it was an alternate dimensional version of Amelia who did the kidnapping. I don't blame our local hero Porter for what the guy on the moon is doing, and I didn't blame Amelia for what her counterpart did, either." He pauses again and says, "I didn't want to see Moonshadow suffer. So I took it upon myself to push...to relearn one of the the healing spells I knew as the Cartesian. I effectively reached in, and undid a lot of the emotional trauma in her mind. I feel like it was the right thing...but you know...the road to hell...good intentions...yadda yadda."

Grimm seems more receptive as Connor speaks about temperance. She sips her coffee and listens. Her eyebrows seem to animate as the story goes, expressing unspoken reactions and judgements she's trying to keep to herself, but...lacks the maturity to. "Guilt by association..." she thinks. "I've done that dance with DEMON more times than I'd like to admit. Would she have been targeted by Amelia's alternate version if she wasn't associated with Amelia? Was there something Amelia did to earn the ire of her counterpart so her associates would be targeted? What'd she do to make sure Moonshadow was safe?" She at least doesn't seem too opposed to his attempt to fix her mind. "Oh yes, I found that saying to be very true. But...in this instance, maybe it was okay. Sounds like you wanted it to purely help someone. Not to gain more power."

Connor nods slowly. "I believe Moonshadow was targeted due to her own mystic background, rather than an association with Amelia. She has...lycanthropy in the family, and a parent who may have made a bad choice in regards to gaining magical power. Her family history is a bit murky as a result."

Grimm nods slowly. "So I'm a little confused. Was it DEMON who took her, or this alternate Amelia? DEMON's after anyone with magical power if they can twist it. But you said her alternate was involved."

Connor smiles slightly. "Both. The alternate Amelia is known as 'Amelia Half-Demon'. There's a bargain that was struck...and well, the name is accurate. The way I heard about her originally was when our Amelia was kidnapped by her. Half-Demon wanted to use as many other Amelias she could find from other dimensions for....spare parts. Sacrifices. A group went to a cyberworld to recover the Amelias who had been kidnapped. Mostly metas from here. One local police detective went as well." He thinks about it. "The next I heard of Half-Demon, she had a run-in with Victory, trying to sway his father's vote in the Senate. He came to the Travelers, our group, to pass on the message. He couldn't get involved in something international, and Half-Demon supposedly was connected to a business in Switzerland. And then...the third time she showed, Moonshadow had been kidnapped, and DEMON agents were working for her."

Grimm leans back in her chair and halts. "Not far off the nose. I mean, this Amelia's made deals and compromises with demons and chaos before. Nothing good comes of it in the end." She raises a brow at the story. "What detective would be crazy enough to..." and the answer comes to her right away and she gasps. "Carpenter?" He's okay, though. So she stops tensing and thinks some more on the story. "Sounds like that other Amelia's gotten her hooks into this dimension. Not unlike how Amelia's done to other dimensions, from what I've heard." She slurps more of her frappe and absorbs the information.

Connor nods in agreement, "I think that was the detective who went, yes. I don't really know him personally, and I didn't go myself, so I haven't met him at all." He thinks about Grimm's words, "I won't deny that Half-Demon is like our Amelia in some ways. That's the way of the multiverse. Each time you come across a version of someone you know, it will be like looking at that person in a funhouse mirror. Some core of the person will be the same. But the details are different. The life path is different. And the environment they grew up in is different. Our Amelia is, at the core, a good person. She means well. Is she constantly looking for more power? Perhaps? I don't know for sure. But I do think that her feelings along those lines have been tempered by events in her past now. Dampened."

"He and I have...worked together," Grimm says a bit evasively. She frowns a bit once he calls Amelia a good person. "Oh, I think she certainly wants people to think that. And wants to present herself that way. Self-delusion is a crazy thing. She's always questing for power. Any time she sees me or someone do something she can't? She wants it. Needs it. And will do irresponsible things to obtain it. I warned her when she was first starting with magic. I knew the team she used to be with, at least a little. Sounds like Timewarp's still around. Matt Regent's...gone. Enforcer? Dead. Harlequin? Well, he was pretty broken up over losing someone. Bad things happen to people around her." She sits up a bit. "You think stealing resources from other dimensions, amassing unconscionable wealth, erecting a tower that's just missing a friggin' flaming eye on top of it, and messing with time and reality is DAMPENED?" She's almost seething. "That's so far off the deep end, it makes DEMON look like stage magicians!"

Connor smiles while Grimm starts to go off...and then more broadly when she mentions messing with time and reality. "I won't say she hasn't done things that I've questioned the motives behind. But I'm relaying my personal feelings on what I've seen in my time working with her." He waits a few seconds to let Grimm vent or calm down a little, "After you left, I had a conversation with Randal in regards to my actions. You know...messing with time and reality. I mentioned that my grandmother was attacked by a time traveling robot, right? That attack happened decades ago. Records were sketchy but indicated that a person of my description was there. To fight it off. So...do I go? Do I save my grandmother in the past? The Lords of Order would have forbade it. Messing with time in ANY way was verboten." He takes a deep breath. "I chose to save her. That guaranteed that I'm here now, but more importantly, all of hte good that she did as the Cartesian in her lifetime after that was allowed to happen as well."

Connor shrugs, "The time traveling that I've done has generally been to fix attempted changes made by others. Some crux point in time was created and the flow of time needed to be returned to its normal stream. And I have endeavored to be careful. I have felt, that up to this point, the good done has outweighed the risk or any damage I've done to the time stream."

Grimm rubs her temples. "If you're questioning someone's motives, how can you work with them?" she asks, seeing things way too simplistically. And also colored by several past instances. "She even made deals and worked with Lazare and freed his demon girlfriend, just because she didn't want to deal with some Wrath entity in her city," she spouts in exasperation.

The time travel part has her fully vexed. "You time traveled because you ...wow. That's so circular I can't wrap my head around it. Time physics are not my thing. Sounds more like a trap of Fate or something. A self-fulfilling prophecy. You had to go and mess with time because you messed with time. I feel like that's how the world breaks in most movie plots."

Connor smiles. "How do you know they haven't?"

Grimm snorts. And doesn't have an answer. He's got her there. But...it seems to make her only angrier somehow. "So. Then." She tries to control herself and temper things. "You have access to time travel. Can you take me back to save someone?"

Connor shrugs, "As for Lazare...remember...Chaos does not equal 'evil', any more than Order equates to 'good'. I agreed with her assessment on that situation. Helping Lazare likely was a lesser problem than letting Calmet continue to invoke the Wrath spirit on us over and over."

"From what I recall, she just made a deal that Calmet wouldn't do that in Colonial Bay. She made it someone else's problem," Grimm comments, though she's not fully certain.

Connor nods. "Calmet is immortal. Wrath would ALWAYS appear someplace. That is immutable and unchangeable. As for your other question, I don't have access to time travel. I have access to a friend who has access to time travel. Timewarp. I'm reliant on her to get us through the time stream. I'm good with lateral trips. Other dimensions. But not through time itself."

Grimm frowns at that. Thoughts of saving her little sister simmer in the back of her mind. "Right. So if it was unchangeable...why make the deal at all? Especially when it involved freeing a demon?"

Connor thinks about it, "But the idea of going back to save someone...I guess the question is...were they saved originally? And is that moment in time changeable? In the case of my grandmother, my understanding is...the default was she was saved. I was making sure the flow of time remained unchanged. If you're referring to someone you know DIED in the past, you could in theory save them. But the history would need to remain the same." He smiles and lets that sink in. "That means...if someone was reported dead, that report would need to still happen. They might not ACTUALLY be dead."

Connor shrugs, "Was the demon that was freed evil to begin with? Or merely believed to be so?"

"I don't know. There were no witnesses," Grimm says hollowly. She sounds so very small, just for the moment. Pained. Another breath, and she's built up the walls that have kept her together through all the horror she's been exposed to. She grips her drink a little tighter. "You're saying there's good demons?" she asks, skeptical.

Connor nods. "Of course there are. 'Demon' refers to someone or something from another dimension. I've been called one more than once in my lifetime. It's a name. A label. That we have chosen to place on a type of interdimensional being."

Grimm snorts a bit. "Really? I thought it referred to a hell-spawned creature all this time."

Connor grins. "Don't get me wrong. Some of them are VERY evil. But Lazare isn't good or evil in his actions. He is...chaos. And any demons working with him or for him will be in the same category."

Connor nods. "I suppose if we want to be technical, there are terms we could use like 'demon', 'devil', 'daemon', 'daeva', 'deva', and the like. Do yuou know for sure what type of being was freed?"

"I don't. I just know it was bound away for a reason. I doubt it was because it was helping mankind so much. Otherwise Harlequin would've never tried to keep it locked away. He's real gray if you hadn't noticed." This is all heavy stuff for Grimm. She takes a while to reflect on what some of her mentors have taught her, along with experience. "Here I thought you were trying to self-evaluate. But what I'm hearing is more justification and excuses."

Connor nods and sighs, "I apologize. The conversation took a bit of a turn, as these things tend to do. I am not trying to make excuses for my actions. Or Amelia's, for that matter. I have only attempted to explain how I viewed them." He takes a deep breath and sighs, saying to himself more than Grimm, "Perhaps...I have been going about this wrong. What right do I really have to change anything? What will happen will happen. I should stop trying to push my fate in a particular direction."

Grimm hesitates, not even sure what to say now. She's managed to let those angry emotions calm again. "How many people have you helped? Who weren't yourself or Amelia's interests?"

Grimm says, "Down to earth, normal, powerless people?"

Connor adds as a way of explanation, "The woman that I love...is a time traveler herself. Elizabeth Moriarty. Related to THE Moriarty. I was mentioned in one of his math publications in the past. You can see a 'Dr. Duran' acknowledged. That's me. Some of what I've done is to try to see her again. At least one last time. And I haven't been able to. I am guessing I will again at some point...but I can't be sure. That's what I mean by trying to push my fate in one direction. I've been relearning spells to try to see her. To see when we cross paths again." He takes a deep breath and nods, "Yes, I have certainly helped other people. There's no question. I'm not disputing that. I just think...I need to restrict what I work on."

"I thought that was a fictional character. Whoa..." Grimm mutters, then sips her coffee to think. "That's...kind of romantic." Something she wonders if Malcolm would ever do that for her. That leaves her quiet for a time, not even sure how to address it. "Guess I see why you've associated with Amelia's crew. I suppose if Dr. Duran ever disappears from campus, I can guess what happened and just check the history books?" she smirks.

Connor smiles slightly, "Well, it would be more likely I'd end up in the future, I think. In a cell. There are time cops. Did you know that? There are time cops who will imprison you if you screw up the timeline too much. Elizabeth is one of those from what I understand. But she's not allowed to tell me anything about the future. I have to experience it for myself." He chuckles. "Oh...and there's a second organization who seems to view ALL time travel as bad...and wants to kill anyone who does it. Of course...they travel through time to find these people, so...it's complicated. And dumb."

Grimm leans back, holds, and then lifts her feet to start rocking. "Does that mean your love is a crime?" she asks in amusement. "Got to admit...the last thing I thought of you as is the romantic type. Must be because I can't really picture my professors that way." She looks a little alarmed and surprised. "Time cops? Huh. No, I had no clue except for some old retro movie title. What's the second organization? They seem a bit...hypocritical."

Connor nods. "I agree. They seem hypocritical. But I didn't get much in the way of details about them. The people from the future don't like giving details to those in the past. I know...shocking, right?" He smirks.

"Who'da thought?" Grimm shares in the smirking and sips her drink. "So...from Order's frying pan and into the fire, huh?"

Connor chuckles. "I used to think that Order had a view of the big picture. That I understood what was going on, overall. Now, I'm realizing...they have a limited view as well, with a certain...filter they use to look at the multiverse. I should have realized that previously, but...well, you get blinded.

Grimm rocks a little and thinks on that. "Well...everyone has filters, right? Biases. Cultural ones. Social ones..."

Connor nods. "Yup. And when dealing with the Lords of Order and Chaos...those filters won't be re-examined. They are who they are. They will not change, as far as I am aware."

"Rigid. Kind of like how you were?" Grimm gets brave enough to tease her former professor.

Connor nods slowly and smiles. "That is...a fair assessment. I'm still somewhat...orderly, but not like I used to me. I can relax now, given the right conditions. Previously, not so much." He takes a deep breath and looks out at hte countryside again, "It's part of the reason I really dislike mental control or emotional manipulation now. It has happened to me, effectively."

Grimm raises her eyebrows at the revelation. "Huh. I hadn't actually thought if it in that way. You're going to have some problems with your future wife then," she jokes a little on the emotional manipulation side. "A lot of my powers tend to affect the mind and psyche. Used to be hard to control. I'm better at it, now. So, uh. No worries from me. Hopefully."

Connor chuckles. "Well...that wouldn't be direct control, right? And every relationship requires some compromise." He nods at Grimm's mention of her abilities. "Just...don't use them on me. I'm pretty sure I would react badly."

"Have you not dated much?" Grimm smirks in amusement. She gets more serious and nods. "Don't really plan to. But I got the message. I understand all about having triggers."

Connor smiles and nods. "That reminds me. I wanted to ask about your powers. You...work with a type of magic that I find more dangerous than anything I've personally worked with. How did that come about, if you don't mind me asking?"

Grimm slurps her drink as she listens, then suddenly stops as he asks, but her mouth doesn't leave the straw for a few moments. She finally pulls her drink away, her cheer gone. "A DEMON ritual gone wrong. I was...an uncooperative sacrifice."

Connor nods. "I notice you don't use any hand gestures or incantations. So, it's a natural link for you now?"

"Always was. I'm not a witch or a mage. Never studied magic," Grimm answers. "Well...not until I started hunting DEMON. It just...comes to me. Not always when wanted. I wasn't able to contain it at first. I'd demand something, and was accidentally compelling people to answer. My shadow had a mind of its own."

She falls silent a moment, gripping her drink with both hands. "I was...really angry over what happened to me. About all the things DEMON put me through afterwards. My control's gotten better. -I've- gotten better. But...it's never going to be perfect."

Connor nods. "I know a little about the beings on the other end of what you're channeling, but thankfully I haven't had much in the way of hands-on experience. Do you...feel it speaking to you? Or like it affects how you act, like what I've dealt with?"

"You...really don't want to deal with them first hand," Grimm says, repressing a shudder and looking haunted for a moment. A bit of the weight on her shoulders shows through on her face before she walls up again. She looks at him solemnly. She'd been avoiding eye contact earlier as she spoke about it, but now she looks him dead in the eyes. "I've...heard it calling. In my dreams. Nightmares. I've had only nightmares since it happened." Connor may recall Grimm's few embarrassing outbursts of waking up with a fright when she'd falling asleep in his classes. "Or when I far-travel In Between. I hear things, but can't make it out," she says quietly. "I...never used to be so angry. Or scared. I...huh. I never thought it could be related to that rather than just how I received them." She glances down at her drink, suddenly worrying and introspective about that idea. "It's...sometimes hard not to channel it. To hold back. I work so hard keeping it in..."

Connor nods slowly. "Well...you seem to do a good job at holding it back. I'm impressed." He smiles, "Not all magic is as dangerous as that, though...so...not every magic user is as dangerous, either."

Grimm scowls a little. "I haven't really met a good magic user, or one who didn't abuse their power over others just because they could," she says with some bitterness. "Most just want more power. A lot have wanted mine and controlled me to use it."

Connor's brows raise. "Myself and Randal included? I'm a bit hurt at that. I'm sure Randal would be too."

Grimm suddenly flinches and looks guilty. "I wouldn't consider you two the traditional magic users..."

Connor shakes his head, "But we are, or were, magic users. Channeled magic, in Randal's case...and mine originally. But we are in that category."

Grimm manages to repress her bias for the moment. "Well, it seems now you're the type to try and learn magic spells. That's a bit different from channeling."

Connor nods. "I'm learning to do what I could previously. But I needed to find a different source of mana than I had access to. I have the book knowledge, but I feel like I'm learning all over again. Like when someone who knows how to drive already has to suddenly learn how to drive stick."

He may be teaching Grimm a thing or two, but she can be stubborn. Or just not seen enough evidence beyond a rare exception in her short life. "And you don't find it at all scary that someone with the determination and desire for power can just acquire it?" Grimm asks.

Connor thinks about it. "No. I don't. Do you think it's scary that someone with determination and desire can become a politician? A sports star? An artist? A superhero? What makes magic different for you? Why is it so much worse in your eyes?"

Grimm grips her drink tighter, the plastic bending inwards. "Because Magic can do anything. Alter reality. Cross dimensions. Change people. It's a weapon of mass creation and destruction. It can change worlds. And those who lust after it aren't usually the type to wield it responsibly."

Connor nods. "And while I agree with you that magic can do all of those things...it's a tool. Like a weapon. Like armor. Like my dimensional harness." He smiles broadly, "I'm a fan of Arthur C. Clarke's work. The writer. He once said, 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' And I agree with him. I have replicated the ability to shift in dimensions with technology, rather than the magic I used to use to jump between dimensions."

"Never heard of him," Grimm says. Kids, right? "So...your harness. Can it make people do things you want them to? Turn them into slugs? Make day into night? Utility's one thing. Weaponry's another." She clenches her jaw. "You know Amelia's wanted my power, right? You're making it sound like you're still like her..." she says as she stands up, leaving her chair rocking wildly from the sudden rise.

"And the last person before her that said stuff like that was a Morbane," Grimm's hand tightens around her drink more.

Connor shrugs, "I'm just pointing out...that if you condemn me for wanting to relearn magic to heal minds or see through time...you should condemn me for folding space or jumping through dimensions with technology. The end result is the same. The method is different." He sighs, "And if you have a problem with me doing those things for a cause I believe is right, then I'll give you the same answer I gave to Lord Antherion."

"And what's that?" Grimm asks, trying to control herself. Maybe the magic does affect her. But there's no way to tell.

Connor takes a deep breath and stands as well. "I would say exactly what Randal did too, when he refused his orders. I would tell you to take a hike, and that I'll find my own way. If you want to advise me on how to proceed with research, I am more than willing to listen to your advice. But to condemn me outright, comparing me with a Morbane? I have no time for that. And I don't want to put up with insults." He pauses and adds, "And if you call Randal anything similar, we'll have a reckoning. I guarantee it. He's not a saint, but he's a good man."

Grimm freezes a moment as Connor stands and makes himself clear, still tense, jaw still clenched. But he catches a flicker of fear in her eyes. Something about him, at this moment, scares her. Could just be being told off by one's professor. Although this is something deeper. "I wouldn't say it to him. He's not trying to get his magic back and associating with reckless magic users," she finally finds the strength to say firmly, holding onto her old wounds and bias before a swirl of darkness rises up from her feet and swallows her up before vanishing.

Connor can hear those whispers that emit from the dark void she summons. It's several overlapping whispers. Something dangerous, something forbidden, something tempting? In the end, it's too difficult to make out, but it is ominous. All that's left behind when they fade is the creak of the rocking chair Grimm was sitting in, rocking slowly in the breeze.

Connor remains as stoic as he was when he lost his powers. Until she leaves. That's when he shivers. He basically was confronting her while he was powerless. If she wanted to, she could have done...anything to him. Well, perhaps unless she attacked his mind. He mutters to himself, "Connor, why do you make enemies when you don't need to? It's getting to be a habit." He shakes his head...and heads back inside the house.