"It's soooo...beautiful!" Hawkgirl murmurs. She whistles and gathers a cloud of birds about them.
Then she slings her absorb-o-scope and aims it at the gorilla. What -is- he thinking?
He's thinking, or rather feeling, "Beauty! Paradise! Lush fruity abundance, without thorn or tooth!"
Underneath it, he's thinking, "King Solovar will be angry when I fail to return to Gorilla City with a report on the vanishing giraffes, but he'll come around. This isn't a threat --- it's the opposite! It's every gorilla's dream ..."
And then another thought enters the gorilla's mind, from outside:
"Yes. Yes. Enjoy the fruit and flowers. All this me has made for you, because this is what life craves -- beauty and plenty to eat. All me ask is that you enjoy my bounty, and multiply, making more animal life. Because when me make animal life myself, it turns out wrong. Not so beauty."
That thought is immensely powerful, composed, solid, and forceful. If that being knew Hawkgirl was there, he could impress his message on her mind, too.
But of course, Hawkgirl wouldn't be vulnerable to that! She's a hero.
The birds she summoned flutter around her in a color wheel, blue-red-yellow-blue-red-yellow, tweeting their joy.
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ReplyDeleteHawkgirl is still enjoying the ravishing beauty all around her. But... this might be a problem, still and all. She suspicions that someone with a great knowledge of supers could recognize the being controlling the happy gorilla. Whom does she know... Ah, Jack!
ReplyDeleteShe tries to bring him up on the comlink. "Jack? It's Sheila. Quiz time. Who can cause lots of verdant growth, can mind control intelligent gorillas, would like to create life but messes it up when he tries and doesn't understand the parts of speech?"
"Speech? Like Yoda backwards talking, or "me am opposite of you Earth people"?
Delete"The second one"
Delete"Well, 'me am' is pretty much a fingerprint. It's Bizarro! "Me am imperfect duplicate of Superman" was his intro line. Is Bizarro behind this? Why's he stealing candy?"
Delete"Uh-uh. I'm in Africa with Swift. It's amazingly lovely and I wish you were here but I guess you're dealing with candy thieves. Thanks... he seems to be doing some kind of mind control thing on the gorilla. Any ideas on how to stop him?"
Delete"Bizarro doesn't have mind control ... and heaven help anyone he used it on. But okay, a case could be made for Bizarro developing powers that Superman DOESN'T have ... that would be pretty 'imperfect', I guess."
Delete"Thumping him won't do zip. But outwitting is what the Big Guy normally did. It's not supposed to be all that hard."
"We'll have to find him first. Good luck with the candy thieves."
Delete"Yeah, about that ... we seem to have it kinda covered. Do you need backup? I mean, loveliness ... could get outta hand. And Bizarro, really anyone from Superman's enemies list, it pays to have a lot of options."
Delete"Loveliness is getting out of hand," she says dreamily. "Sure, come by if you can." She does manage to give him the coordinates before being swept up in it. Hopefully she can tell Swift what's going on.
Delete