Irresistible Force (IC)

[Electra]

"No, that sounds like a pretty strong connection," Fleur agreed, pursing her lips at the card. "If he was supposed to steal this ruby for her, she's not going to be happy about what happened to it. But that also makes the obvious question, why donate the stone to the museum if she still wanted it? Villains aren't exactly known for their philanthropic impulses. He might be able to tell us," she reasoned, looking back at Khuitan, "but we should probably do it somewhere more secure."

[Gizmo]

"No argument here," Wail agreed with a brief nod, stooping to heft the vine entangled wrestler over his shoulder with ease. Fortunately his super-dense muscle mass afforded him considerably greater strength than even his prodigious size suggested. The pair of heroes made their way back through the museum, the crumbling hole Khuitan had left in the wall still dropping bits of debris as they stepped outside. Additional police cars and news vans had arrived since the fight had broken out, which both groups rushing forward to greet them.

[Electra]

Fleur hastened after Wail, a little surprised at this turn of events. "It's a bit of a madhouse out there," she warned her fellow superhero. "Once we get out there, we're probably going to have to turn this guy over to the police. If he's your old nemesis and he's suddenly back, it might not be a bad idea to let him wake up and have a talk with him first, see if he spills any information on why, exactly, he came back and what he wanted with that stone? We can give him to the police after that."

[Gizmo]

Wail made a low sound of consideration before turning to one of the police officers who'd pushed his way through the crowd of spectators and reporters. "That work for you, officer?" the towering man asked, not showing any strain from carrying Khuitan.

Taking off his hat, the officer scratched his balding head. "Well, it's gonna take a bit to set up a cell for this guy," he admitted. Stocky and heavyset, he looked old enough to have been familiar with Wail before his retirement. "We got power dampeners, but those things are sketchy as anything, 'specially with physical types, y'know? We can probably leave 'im in League custody 'till that gets sorted," he decided, replacing his hat so that he could tip it politely to Fleur.

[Electra]

Fleur beamed at the officer. "That will be just perfect." Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a business card that smelled lightly of flowers and passed it over. "If you'll just call when the cell is ready, we'll bring him back. You might need to leave a voicemail, but I'll make sure to check." With that, she laid a hand on Wail's shoulder and touched the flowers in her own green hair. There was a moment when the world was nothing but green and the strong scent of pine needles, and then they were standing in the middle of what seemed to be a massive virgin forest, in the middle of a little clearing full of buildings made of plants. "We'll be safe and have privacy here," she assured Wail, "and there's no way he can hurt anyone."

[Gizmo]

Wail planted his feet in a wide stance as soon as they emerged in the forest, steadying himself and looking about with reflexive speed. Seeing that he was in no immediate danger, he placed one hand wryly on his chest. "Thank goodness for super-dense heart muscles. Give an old man some warning; I'm used to teleportation being more- well. Different, anyway." LaMarr's face fell slightly behind his sunglasses as he halted that train of thought and took a more in depth look at his surroundings. "Quite the place."

[Electra]

"Sorry," Fleur said with a little laugh, sounding honestly apologetic. "It's such second-nature to me by now that I sometimes forget other people aren't used to it. This is my home, my backyard, anyway. I don't want this guy getting loose in my actual home, but all of these buildings were really just for practice anyway. If he escapes the bonds, he won't get too far." She gave the wrestler an assessing glance. "He'll be sleeping for a bit longer anyway, I think. Would you like something to drink, coffee, tea, soda?"

[Gizmo]

"Just water would be lovely," Wail replied, a little bemused at the Freedom Leaguer's genial approach. He hadn't expected to carry out the interrogation in what appeared to be a remote cottage getaway, nor had he prepared for his hostess's pleasant hospitality, but he wasn't complaining. Things had obviously changed quite a bit over the years, and the city's heroes were clearly much more a community than ever before. "Where shall I set our friend down?"

[Electra]

Fleur looked around for a moment, then pointed to one of the plant buildings. "That one will do," she told him, "it's empty and sturdy enough. I'll be right back." She turned and headed up a little flattened-grass path to the biggest plant cottage, one that had glass windows and looked the most like an actual house. The building she'd pointed out to him was more like a shed built of live plants, with no windows and nothing inside but a couple of plastic storage boxes with lids.

It didn't take her long to get the water, in just a couple of minutes she was back with two reusable thermos bottles, puffing slightly from the short, brisk walk. "Here you are," she told Wail brightly, setting her own down on a crate along with what looked like a purple tacklebox. "I brought some stuff along in case our guy here doesn't wake up soon."

[Gizmo]

Depositing their captive in the bizarre plant-matter shed, Wail spent the time he was waiting for Fleur to return trying to piece together where exactly they'd been teleported to. By the time his hostess reappeared, the big man was forced to admit that he had absolutely no idea, his only real clue being the staggeringly large trees of the surrounding forest. Accepting his thermos with a polite nod, he gestured around them. "So just what is all this? Somewhere remote, I assume, but geography's never been my strongest subject."

[Electra]

"It's Freedom City, actually," Fleur told him lightly, sitting down on a storage container and sipping her water. "Or at least it used to be. This is Sanctuary, a world where something wiped out just about everything back at the dawn of the twentieth century. When I came here, it was empty and uninhabitable, but I've been rehabilitating the place. And as it turns out, it's not as empty as I thought. I have a little colony of survivors living here now, so it's possible that there may be more. And I rehomed the giant bees that Beekeeper II sicced on the city last year, if you were following that story in the news. It's nice to have neighbors. But right where we're standing is the center of Midtown, more or less."

[Gizmo]

"Alternate dimension?" Wail asked by way of clarification, raising his eyebrows slightly behind his sunglasses. "Is that the new thing? In the seventies you could just about flip a coin between previously abandoned hotels and underwater domes. Honestly, it got to the point where folks'd try to differentiate their base. 'My dome is near the ice caps!' 'My dome has a miniature rainforest!'" He shook his head with a smile, remembering. "There was a brief fad in the late eighties for sticking your HQ a couple decades in the future, but the continuity was such a damn headache."

[Electra]

Fleur chuckled. "I'm afraid I can't get to any of those places, or at least afford to buy abandoned real estate. I liked the idea of taking something that had been destroyed and recreating it, and there's plenty of room to work with here. It's also convenient when you have to find a place for something very large, like a hundred bees the size of semi trucks. My friend Gaian Knight is thinking of building a headquarters here as well, perhaps we'll start a new fad for alternate-dimensional living." She opened the tacklebox and began rummaging through what looked like a bunch of dried plants. "So did you go with future, or dome, or hotel?" she asked, half-teasing.

[Gizmo]

"Oh, hotel, naturally," Wail assured his hostess, placing one hand on his broad chest. "We were terribly gritty and down to earth that way." His expression fell almost imperceptibly as his thoughts trailed backward through time. "There were a lot of time-travelers about in the late eighties, you know, I suspect because they knew what was coming in the nineties. Well." Clearing his throat pointedly, he looked about. "You've done a remarkable job with the place."

[Electra]

"Time travelers always make me a little nervous," Fleur admitted. "If they've been to the future, it's likely that they know important things about you and your life that they aren't telling you. Even if they think it's for your own good, it's a little bit bizarre. I find myself watching them closely just to see if they start acting strangely or getting jumpy at certain times. Not that I've met many," she added lightly. "Maybe we live in boring times these days. I wouldn't mind that."

She pulled several dried leaves and flowers out of the box, crushing them in her fist so they released a pungent aromatic scent into the air. I think it's time we our friend here up and got some answers." More vines rose from the ground, securing the wrestler more firmly than ever. A single tendril of vine snaked out to Fleur, opening a delicate cup-shaped leaf. She poured the handful of crushed plant into it, watching as the vine curled back to Khuitan and waved the potent concoction under his nose.