legionworld | (no subject)

Who| Judy Hopps, Open
What| Bunny in space
Where| Observation Deck
When| After diploplot
Warnings/Notes| N/A

Judy had finally been let out of the medical bay. One of the downsides to having a small body was the fact that things like poisonous gas tended to hit a person harder than someone twice their size. The doctors had kept Judy a little while longer than most, poking and prodding at her before deeming her healthy enough to start exploring the satellite, with strict instructions to report back if she had trouble breathing. Oddly enough, it didn't feel like they were patronizing her because of her size, but were just generally concerned with her health.

Not something they needed to do, really. She felt better than she ever had in her life. Though that just might be the superpowers talking, which was bizarrely weird. Not for the first time she caught herself wondering what Nick would think about it.

The bunny, clad in her uniform, eventually made it to the Obs Deck. She stared down at the planet, considering her options. Legion or Science Police, Science Police or Legion. The idea of doing neither didn't occur to her, having spent so much of her life wanting to be in law enforcement. The only question was which would be the better fit for her.

There was also a small part of her recalling a small lamb from back home in Bunnyburrow who'd be extremely jealous of her right now.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Holy crap. It was a tiny little rabbit person. Like from a Disney cartoon.

Well, ain't that something?

Rich carefully repressed the urge to 'aww,' however, due to past experience with tiny furry people. You didn't become friends with one Rocket Raccoon without understanding that someone being small and fluffy didn't mean they couldn't kick your freakin' teeth in.

It was best not to be patronizing. Also, she was in uniform and that was extra reason to avoid accidentally being condescending. It looked like he and Hal had some company.

"You are absolutely new," said Rich, walking over. It wasn't necessarily her tiny bunny-ness that stood out the most in his eyes. "I'd have noticed another cop before now."

The man that was speaking to her positively loomed. At 6'1" he was considerably taller than her and a little grizzled looking. There was a faded scar on the right side of his face and his right arm was a robotic prosthetic, like something out of a sci fi movie -- but hey, that was no surprise when they were all living in one, right?

The looming was something she was used to. Even after Nick had joined the forced she was still the smallest animal there, and likely would be for some time. It was the rubbery faces around here that threw her, but she was polite enough to not bring it up. It wasn't like they were horrifying, just...weird.

"Oh, yeah. Just got here. Judy Hopps, Zootopia PD," she replied, ears flipping up into a more attentive, upbeat position. "You're a cop too?"

"The name's Rich Rider, aka Nova, aka Nova Prime -- and all those titles are just a really fancy way of saying yes, I'm a cop. Back home I was in charge of the Nova Corps, an intergalactic police force. Small now, thanks to a pretty terrible war back in my 'verse, but rebuilding."

They were something he was proud of and he hoped he could get back to rebuilding them once all this was over.

"Hal Jordan, he's another guy here -- he's a cop, too. Same deal as me, part of an intergalactic police force called the Green Lantern Corps. His Corps is waaaay bigger than mine, though. Thousands of corpsman serving thousands of star sectors, when all I got is a little ragtag crew. Lucky bastard."

He wanted to shake her hand but she was waaaay down there, so he decided to just sit down at the edge of the observation platform, with his legs dangling over the edge. He held out his flesh and blood hand to shake her paw.

"Nice to meet'cha, Officer Hopps. Can't say I'm not glad to see another cop. Aside from Hal and I, we've got a few soldiers and experienced superheroes and all that, but some of the people that are getting pulled into this are pretty green."

Judy's eyes widened as Rich shook her hand.

"And I thought going from Bunnyburrow to Zootopia was a big deal. How do you even manage to wrap your head around that kind of scale?"

Because she couldn't. Not yet anyways. Despite being a bunny who routinely thought big, the idea of protecting an entire universe was, for now, just too far beyond her scale of reference to contemplate.

Rich chuckled, though whether it was mirth or something a little darker -- or a mix of a few things -- behind it, it was hard to tell.

"You don't," he admitted. "I've seen the edge of my universe -- the edge of the big space sombrero. I've been in a colony inside the severed head of a giant, celestial being. I've felt the psychic backlash of a cosmic abstract -- a being that wasn't a living thing so much as the supposedly unkillable concept of a living thing -- die. I've been to broken places where death itself was dead, and sentient beings lived forever. And I'm still not used to it. I'll probably never be used to it. I don't think we're meant to get used to it, little mortal beings like us."

He shrugged.

"But someone's gotta do it. Someone has to stand up against the googly-moogly nasty things chomping at the edges of the universe, the space despots, the genocidal maniacs. And I have the power. Life just worked out that way, that I wound up with enough power to stand up to them."

Power that even most superheroes never saw in their lifetime.

"'The power to right all wrongs,' that's what the alien that gave me my powers told me it was. Back when I was seventeen. How can you have something that important handed to you and not make the universe a better place? I don't know how I'd live with myself if I didn't do it however I can, wherever I can, at the biggest scale I can. When whole worlds cry out for help, you don't say 'Sorry, this is too big for me.' Not if you wanna be able to go to sleep at night."

Edited 2016-04-23 08:40 (UTC)

That resonated with Judy. The size of it was mind-bending, but the actual emotions, thoughts, desires, and will behind it were something she had a more than passing familiarity with.

"Wow. I guess we're not that different, really." she said, a little surprised by that fact.

"Every time someone asked my why I wanted to be a police officer, I said it was so I could make the world a better place, however I possibly could. It's nice to know that even if the size of it changes, the reasons I don't."

"It never changes. It's people, that's what it's about. When I'm on some alien world and a giant robot is running around destroying everything, and I save people, they're just like the people on Earth. Just as scared for themselves and their loved ones, just as grateful. They look different, but that don't matter. Look at the two of us, we look different, sure, but we're both cops with -- apparently -- the same priorities."

It never really felt that different from superheroing on Earth, even if the way everything looked was different.

"In the end, I'm still just an ordinary guy from Long island," he said with a small, almost-shy smile, and he shrugged. "And they're just people that need someone looking out for 'em. You serve and protect, it's just the things you're protecting 'em from are a whole lot bigger."

Edited 2016-04-25 00:51 (UTC)