A's/N: And we're back to the long chapters! XD This one took me all month to write, much like the last one, but I'm glad I finished so I can move on to the next one. :)
Warning! This chapter contains subjects such as animal breeding, a blood explosion (similar to the bloody bathroom scene in the movie IT), self-harm, and OC backstory drama.
Enjoy the chapter! :3
"He what?!"
"What do you mean he left?!"
The room seemed to have exploded with the groups voices. All of them expressing shock and disbelief that Derek would actually leave so suddenly. The only ones that were silent were Tori, as she tried to make sense of this, and Pope, Dot, and Dolly since the three of them didn't know Derek, as well as the others, did. And then, there was Caesar, who stood still.
"For the last time!" Dreyfus was yelling at this point. "He DIDN'T leave!"
"Then explain this!" Aaron held up a folded up paper. He shoved it at Malcolm. "He left that in his house!"
Malcolm unfolded the paper and read it out loud: "Everyone, I'm sorry but this is becoming too much for me to take. I've decided to leave the city to clear my head. If I don't come back, assume that I'm dead. Derek." He frowned. "That doesn't sound like Derek at all."
"It's not even in his handwriting!" Dreyfus protested.
"You haven't seen his handwriting in nearly twelve years, Dreyfus." Aaron interjected.
"Doesn't matter! I know Derek's handwriting when I see it!"
Caesar waited for the arguing and angry hoots to end but when it only got louder, he had enough. "No!" He bellowed, silencing everyone. "If Derek chose. To leave. That his choice. If not. We send patrol to find him."
"No, we need to look for him now!" Argued Dreyfus.
Malcolm tried to calm him down. "We know, Dreyfus. But we also need to figure out how to get to the base and get the apes-"
"Oh, here we go again with the ape talk!" All the apes in the room stiffened-except for Dot who saw Dreyfus' outburst as a threat and hid behind Pope for protection. "Let's not worry about humans, only the apes matter! Oh, look! there's their files! Let's read them and feel sorry for them!"
Before anyone can stop him, Dreyfus suddenly started grabbing random files and started reading them out sarcastically. "Maurice! Born at a circus, sold to many others-Poor devil! Milo! Born in the wild, taken from Africa and sold to a guy named Tommy-What a shame! Red! Born in a zoo, mother bought from Africa-Boo-Hoo-Hoo-Hoo!"
"Dreyfus stop it!" Yelled Ellie. She and the other humans were horrified by his outburst.
"You're crazy, Doofus!" Shouted Tori.
As angry as the apes were, none of them knew what to do. Luca was growling at Dreyfus and Rocket was getting ready to pounce him. The only thing that was holding Koba and Pope back from going for the human's throat was Dolly, who held her twin brother tightly, and Dot who practically clung to Pope's arm. Caesar himself was about to grab at the mayor when suddenly-
"Pope! Born at Ape Land and sold to Blue Hill Laboratories immediately after birth! Mother killed-" Dreyfus must have realized what he was reading because his voice suddenly changed from sarcastic and angry to shocked and confused. "… Shortly after?"
Everyone went silent, thrown off guard by the sudden words. Pope froze. His anger forgotten. "…What?…"
"Ape…Land?" Caesar never heard of this place before. Many years ago, back when he was a child, Will and Charles put on the movie 'Peter Pan' and watched it with him. In the movie, there was a land called 'Never Land' where children never had to grow up. Ape Land sounded similar but it being a land full of apes instead of human children. but if it were run by humans, then were they free at all?
"Let me see that." Said Malcolm as he took the paper from Dreyfus. He read the words carefully in his mind. The paper had something attached to it from behind. When he looked at it, Malcolm realized it was some kind of flier for this 'Ape Land' place.
Ape Land
Breeding Farm for Zoo and Research apes. Established in 1970.
The more Malcolm read, the worse it got. He knew for years that most animals in zoos had either came from the wild or had been born in their enclosures but he never knew, nor heard of, anything like this before. It was disgusting!
"It was a breeding farm…" His voice shook as he spoke. "…They bread apes to sell them to zoo's and laboratories."
For a moment, everyone was silent. Tori, Ellie, Foster, Malcolm, and Dreyfus too in disbelief that such a place like Ape Land existed and horrified that someone had to dreamt it up. Even Aaron looked shocked. The apes themselves were still, barely daring themselves to breathe as they slowly began to realize the full magnitude of this place and what may have gone on inside of it.
Humans…Took baby apes…Away from their mothers at birth…Then immediately brought them to zoos…Or worse! To the labs!…And their parents..! They would either be forced to mate again, or…Be killed!
Ape Land wasn't just an ape breeding farm…It was an ape slaughterhouse…!
The group suddenly became aware of a breathing sound in the room. It started low, like a sigh of air, but then grew. The sound was coming from Pope. His golden eyes were huge, his face unreadable due to all the mixed emotions. Pope was always intimidating, but the look on his face alarmed and worried Caesar and the others more than any of his training tactics ever had.
Ellie recognized the beginnings of hyperventilation and realized Pope was having a panic attack. "Pope-!" Before she could get to him, the fishnet scarred chimpanzee suddenly bolted from the file room and ran out of the building. He moved so fast, he almost broke the front door.
Dot, who had let go of Pope's arm when she saw the look on his face, stood where the male chimp had been. She glanced at Caesar and the other apes, her silvery eyes widened. Without saying a word, she turned around and ran after the fishnet scarred chimp.
"…Ok…" Aaron inched away from the door, as if he were afraid Pope would suddenly charge back in again. "…That was…Not good."
"Oh shut up." Said Foster as he shook himself of the shock. He frowned when he looked at Dreyfus. "What's your problem, Dreyfus?!"
"Oh so now you're all going to blame it all on me?!" Dreyfus snapped back. "He was going to find out eventually-!"
"Maybe, but not like that!"
"Ok, ok! That's enough!" Malcolm stopped between Foster and Dreyfus before it could escalate.
Silence briefly fell again, it seemed like everyone was at a loss for words. What kind of words can be said about a place that stole infants from their parents, only have them grow up in cages and in the meantime, kill their mothers and fathers without ever seeing them again?
"Others." Caesar shivered as the realization came over him. "Pope. Not only ape born at Ape Land. There had. To be others."
The others looked at him, the realization hitting them as well. Caesar was right, if Ape Land had been around for a good forty years before the Simin Flue, than there'd be more apes born there. The apes born within the first ten years of it had to be very old or long since dead, but maybe those apes-and the others that followed them, had children of their own wherever they ended up in and same with them, and so on.
"…Caesar…" Ellie looked from the Ape King to the other apes. "…Luca…Rocket…Stone…Where were all born at?…Koba, Dolly where did your mother come from?… What about your parents, Maurice?"
It was a question the apes now asked themselves too. Koba and Dolly had been born at the research center and they always assumed that their mother had been born there too but was she really? And if she was, then were her own parents born there too? Maurice wondered the same thing about his own parents. Luca was born at the zoo, but never knew anything about where his parents' origins. Rocket and Stone never knew their parents.
It quickly became apparent that Caesar was the only one of the group whose parents had been born in the wild. He may never have known them, but he knew his mother was brought to Gen-Sys and his father was left back in Africa. He doubted he was still alive.
"…I think it's safe to say most of you apes were either born at Ape Land or are decedents of apes who were born there." Said Foster when they realized all this.
Tori hadn't said a word since Dreyfus' outburst, so her voice startled the group. Having almost forgotten that she was in the room with them. "I hope that place was burned and destroyed years ago. If not, then it should be."
Suddenly, Blue Eyes came running into the room. The scared look on his face alarmed all of them. "K-Koba! Dolly!" He half yelled, half cried out. "It your father! He is attacking humans!"
Pope ran until his body hurt all over. He had ran on all fours, so his hands and feet were bloody from the small cuts and scrapes he got. His air deprived lungs demanded him to breathe and he inhaled as much as he could take. His heart pounded so hard he could feel it in his chest and throat and could hear it's echo in his ears.
He had to get out of there. Out of that room and away from everyone. Especially the humans. What he just found out…The existence of Ape Land…Where he came from…How and why he was born..!… It was just too much!
Pope had spent his entire life alone in a cage. He had no memory of his parents as a child, and had thought he had come from the cage itself when he was little. He didn't even know what parents were until Caesar freed him. By then, Pope knew his parents were probably dead but it always comforted him to think that they loved him. That they named him first before the humans changed it. That maybe he got to spend some time with his mother before being separated from her. That his mother may have had him in the cage and had either died or was moved somewhere else before he was old enough to remember her.
And despite being too old to believe it-despite knowing that it may be impossible-deep inside, there was a part of Pope that hoped that one or both of his parents were still alive somewhere and was looking for him. And maybe someday, he'd be with them again. It was a stupid and childish thing, but it was the only thing that gave Pope a sense of hope and he needed that after feeling hopeless for so long.
But now, Pope could feel his hope die and shatter all around him. His wishful thinking gone. His mother had him because she was forced to mate with a random male who she didn't even love…Neither of them, not his father nor his mother, wanted him. They didn't love him. Even if they did love him, they were both dead. He'll never be reunited with them. The only reason he was born at all was so the humans could use and abuse him. That was his only purpose…If it wasn't, he probably wouldn't exist at all.
The realization gave Pope a crushing, lonely feeling. Despite him fighting them, he felt burning tears filling up in his eyes. It didn't take long for them to trail down his cheeks.
No one wanted him…No one loved him…No one was looking for him.
"Pope!" The voice made him freeze.
No! Not her! Pope turned around, intending to yell at Dot to leave him alone but found himself staring at her instead. The scrawny, nearly bone-thin, female was huffing for breath. Her waves hair wild from running. No doubt tired out from running after him.
The concerned face looking back at him pained him almost as much as the news of his past. Pope immediately turned away from her. Embarrassed and horrified that she had seen him at this level of weakness. Crying over parents who were long gone and being an orphan since birth.
"G-Go away, Dot." Pope's voice cracked as he fought the sob building in his throat. "I don't want you to see me like this." He signed to save himself from talking.
But Dot didn't go away. She walked closer to the male chimp, her steps as light as a feather. "Don't. Want. To leave."
Pope barely heard her. The despair that he was never loved by anyone turned to rage at the humans that destroyed him. "Pope! Tool of humans! No one wants Pope! No one loves Pope! Pope have no purpose! Pope have no one!" He ranted until his voice fell. He could no longer hold in the sob as it broke free.
At that moment, his hatred returned. He felt like he wanted the world to explode and kill everyone in it.
Dot could only watch on in concern silence. Now she understood why Pope didn't mourn his family as he had no one to grieve for. Dot, however, was used to crying and anguish. She lived a lifetime of shedding her own tears. But seeing Pope like this was something different entirely. What she was watching, was an ape who held in so much and let out so little and was now breaking from the inside out before her.
Hesitantly, she walked closer and sat down in front of him. Pope tried to avoid her gaze but didn't have the heart to fight her when she placed her hand on his cheek. He reluctantly looked at her, thinking he must look like a big baby crying over his parents like this.
Drying away his tears and looking at him in the eyes, Dot said something Pope didn't expect her to say. "…Pope…Has Dot…" Pope stiffened with surprise. "Pope not weak…Pope strong…Pope more than just…Human tool…" She then wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him.
Dot was shedding tears now too, but this time her tears weren't for her own trauma. They were for Pope, and all the hurt he suffered through. In a voice as soft as rabbit fur, she said one more thing. "…You…Are…My hero."
Pope nearly choked on his own breath. Did Dot really mean that? He did save her, so of course she'd probably see him as that. The fishnet scarred chimpanzee's lip quivered as he felt fresh tears run down his face. He felt as if sunshine was warming him up on the inside. As if he were lost and was finally found. Pope had never been hugged before, and he never let any ape touch his scars, but Dot's arms gave him a sense of safety and belonging that he never felt before.
So when Pope wrapped his own arms around Dot as he returned the embrace, he hoped she knew just how much this meant to him.
No one knew what they'd find in Carlos' room, but they certainly didn't expect the scene they saw when they entered. There were already five or six human nurses inside the room, all were trying to restrain or calm Carlos down, but the elderly bonobo would have none of it. He was bitting, scratching and kicking at any human who dared to come near him. Worse of all, he had one arm firmly wrapped around a woman's body-restraining her-as he held something in his other hand-a scalpel-to her throat.
"What happened?!" Ellie asked one of the nurses, a man called Joe.
"Not sure, mental breakdown I guess." He motioned to the woman Carlos held captive. "She was trying to give him some medicine and he just lashed out."
"What kind of medicine was it?" She pressed on. Due to how many nurses that were already in the room, only she and Koba and Dolly had entered while the others were just outside the opened doorway.
Joe shrugged. "I don't know, it was in a syringe. It fell on the ground and broke when he lunged at her."
Oh crap. Maybe it wasn't the nurse that set him off at all but rather the syringe itself. Ellie stepped forward. "Ok, everyone stop! Just stop!" She shouted.
The nurses all looked at her funny but did as they were told and backed away from Carlos. The woman in the elderly bonobo's grasp, a pale human with long, mud-colored hair, watched with wide, dark eyes.
"Stay! Away!" Carlos growled at Ellie, not trusting any human at all. His pale and bony hand shaking as he held the scalpel to his hostage's throat.
Koba and Dolly squeezed past the humans in the room to get closer. "Father!" Dolly both spoke and signed. "Let her go!"
Carlos' eyes practically popped out of his face when he saw his children. "Koba! Dolly! Get out! Escape! Leave! Now! Not safe! Soldiers everywhere!"
The bonobo twins glanced at each other. They have never seen their father like this before and it honestly disturbed them to see him act this way.
"There no soldiers here!" Koba gestured to Ellie and the other nurses. "Good humans! They help you! Not soldiers!"
"SHE! Give drugs!" Carlos shouted he nodded at the floor where a broken syringe with some liquid around it lay. "Drugs! Bad! No good!"
"Not drugs, medicine! Different!"
"I thought he was a drug addict." Whispered Dreyfus with confusion.
"No, McCullough gave him drugs to control him. I don't think he would have taken them on his own." Malcolm whispered back.
"This has to be a PTSD episode." Muttered Foster.
Caesar, Blue Eyes, Maurice, Rocket, Luca, and Stone didn't know what to do. They could only hope that Koba and Dolly could calm their father down before he actually hurts that nurse.
"Shall we tranquilize him?" One nurse asked Ellie.
"No, let's see if they can talk to him first." Said Ellie.
"They! Soldiers!" Carlos pointed at the other humans with the scalpel. "Stay! Away! From them!"
"No! They friends!"
The change was almost immediate. Carlos looked at Koba with mortified disbelief. "WHAT?!" He roared.
Koba hoped he could get through to him this way. "They friends." He repeated. "Saved my life. Koba trust them. They help apes. They not hurt you."
As relieved and happy as Malcolm and Ellie were that the scarred bonobo trusted them and considered them his friends, there wasn't time to show it. They feared what Carlos would do now, not knowing how he'll react to this.
Carlos stared at Koba for what felt like a long time before looking at Dolly. "You too, Dolly?" There was still anger or panic in his voice, but he wasn't shouting anymore.
Dolly glanced at the humans and their eyes met. Dolly had never talked to them, she had only seen them. When they first came to the forest, she was wary of them and kept as much distance she can from them. She may not know them as well as Koba, but she knew they were good humans. They saved her brother's life, and she'd never be able to thank them enough for that. Turning back to her father, she said: "If Koba trust them, Dolly trust them too."
It was as if someone clicked pause on a TV screen as it played a movie. Carlos kept his eyes on his children, not moving at all. It was only now, with him being so still, that Caesar and the other apes finally got a good look at him. It was hard to believe that Carlos, a skinny and frail bonobo with so many open sores, could be Koba and Dolly's father.
Slowly, the hand holding the scalpel began to shake before Carlos pulled the sharp blade away from the human nurse and dropped it on the floor. He then let go of the human, who immediately ran to the other nurses the second she was released.
"Are you ok?" Ellie asked the nurse, who only gave a quick nod before being escorted out of the room. Too shaken up to talk.
"Shall we do anything?" Joe asked.
Ellie glanced back at Carlos, who was now being embraced by his children. "No, I think they got it."She said, glancing back at Joe. "But we should clean up that mess-And no more syringes in this room." She added.
Joe understood and quickly picked up the scalpel and cleaned up the broken needle and it's spilled medicine. Koba decided to stay with his father and sister for the rest of the day, which the group agreed with. Knowing Carlos needed both of his children right now. once the room was cleared, the group talked in the hallway.
"What is wrong with that ape?" Asked Dreyfus as soon as it was just them again.
"I told you. McCullough controlled him with drugs and alcohol for years and now he may have drug and alcohol withdrawal." Said Malcolm.
"Although." Ellie interrupted. "Carlos has never been violent before. He's usually just paranoid and delusional." Technically violent outbursts wasn't uncommon with withdrawal symptoms, but Ellie wasn't fully convinced that was the cause of Carlos' behavior. It felt like there was something else going on, but she just couldn't say what it was. "He may have more problems that we're not aware of."
"Ok, then maybe he needs to see a shrink then." Suggested Foster. "It couldn't hurt to give it a try."
"Maybe." Said Ellie.
Meanwhile, in the room, Carlos had calmed down enough to lay back down on his bed. His eyes were still wide, but he didn't seem angry or alarmed anymore. He stayed like that a for a good five minutes before his green eyes closed as he fell asleep. Koba and Dolly just stared at him, hoping a good rest would help.
"This is my fault." Signed Dolly. "I left him alone the last time he was asleep. I was just exploring and…I guess I thought he'd be ok by himself for a little while."
"You couldn't have known he'd do that." Koba wasn't sure why his twin sister would blame herself for something their father did, but he didn't like it. "It not your fault."
"I should have stayed with him." Dolly argued. "You're gone with the council most of the time and Father obviously can't be left alone long-"
"Why don't we just take turns watching him?" That sounded fair to Koba. He could spend one day with Carlos and Dolly spending the next. That way, they could share the responsibility of helping their father heal.
Dolly didn't know how to answer that for a second. She was used to having to care for someone else alone. Of being the adult when she had no other choice. The only one who ever helped her protect Koba was Milo, and that was back when they lived at Tommy's.
Still, the thought of not being the only one taking care of their father, made her feel better. As if, for once in her life, she didn't have to worry. "Ok. I like that." She thought of something then and tilted her head slightly at her brother. "Do you even know how to take care of another ape?"
At that, Koba smiled humorously at her. "A little bit. I learned from you, best big sister I've ever had."
"I'm your ONLY big sister!" Dolly playfully shoved him. "But I'm happy you learned from me, Baby Brother."
Oh, now it's on! "I was born on the same day as you! You're older than me by a few minutes!"
"Yes! I'm older! Born first! That makes you the baby!"
"Does not!"
"Does too!"
The bonobo twins were soon playfully shoving each other around, though making sure to be quiet to not wake up their father. This was their game, their favorite activity as siblings. Playfully bickering, and then wrestling. They didn't get to do this as much as they should have when they were younger, but doing it every now and then gave them a chance to laugh and just be siblings. Not abused and orphaned children who were now grown up.
It had to be the first normal thing they've done together since the humans and apes first discovered each other.
Once everything had settled down, for the time being, Tori went back to the file room and began cleaning up the mess Dreyfus had made. Quietly picking up and collecting stray papers, reorganize them and placing them back into their folders. Since Dreyfus had only thrown around three or four files, it wasn't too hard to do. She didn't have to do it, it was Dreyfus' mess and he should be the one to clean it up but with everyone turning in for the night, Tori assumed the mayor was too and she didn't want any of the papers to get lost. Besides, she knew Derek would have wanted it.
She had just picked up a document with Red's name on it when she heard the door open and close. She looked up, and seconds later, Dreyfus appeared in the hallway. He looked just as surprised to see her there as she was to see him. "I thought you went home." He said. By now, everyone else had turned in for the night. Caesar and Blue Eyes went back to Cornelia, Rocket was now with Ash and Tinker, Malcolm and Ellie were checking on Alex and the others were probably going to bed soon. Dreyfus had thought that Tori would do the same.
Tori couldn't help but roll her eyes at him as she looked back to the paper she held. "I don't have anywhere to go." Her voice came out cold, like ice.
"What are you doing here?" He asked, genuinely curious.
"What does it look like? Cleaning up your mess."
Dreyfus took this as a challenge. "I didn't come here to be sassed!"
"And the apes didn't come here to be harassed by you." Tori said with a frown. "Reading their files and throwing them around like confetti? You should know better!"
"Don't you dare talk to me like that, Victoria!"
"Oh, what are you going to do?! Banish me from the city?! Put me in jail?! Kick me off of the team?! Would that make you feel like the big man around here?!"
Dreyfus opened his mouth but couldn't think of anything to say back to her and ended up stuttering over himself. He huffed angrily. He backed away and sat in one of the chairs as Tori went back to reorganizing the files. They were too annoyed with each other to continue talking. Still, Dreyfus found himself reflecting on something else entirely.
"I heard what you said…That night at the jail."
Tori froze. Her back was to Dreyfus, but the mayor could see her stiffen.
"The monitors were working…Enough that we can hear…Malcolm, Blue Eyes and I heard you and Koba talking."
Slowly, Tori turned to look at him. Her brown eyes met his.
"I reviewed your record. From all the times you ran away, to all your hospital visits…" It was hard to tell what Dreyfus was feeling, but clearly something had changed in him. "CPS investigated the…Accidents you've had…Even though they didn't do anything, they were suspicious."
Tori waited. For what, she didn't know but knew there was no avoiding it.
In a voice, so different than his usual tone, Dreyfus asked: "Why didn't you tell me?"
Tori blinked at him, casting her gaze down at the floor for a moment. She never thought she'd have this conversation with Dreyfus. Part of her thought that maybe her past would be topic for only her and Koba to discus. A secret they'd share together forever. She didn't know what to feel now that the very man who had been the second 'bad guy' in her childhood knew the truth.
"I was afraid." Her voice was empty, flat. "…My father…Threatened me and my mother that if we told anyone, he'd make it worse."
"Victoria, I was a police officer then. You were in my car, in my office. You were safe there. You could have told me any of the times I picked you up." Dreyfus wasn't sure if he was angry at her for not telling him about the abuse, or if he was disappointed in himself for not recognizing the signs sooner. "If you had just told me, I would have made sure your father would be thrown in jail. That you and your mother were safe."
"You don't get it." Tori looked back at him. "When you're raised by a parent who abuses you and tells you every day that they'll make it worse if you tell anyone, you accept it and do what they say because that's all you know."
Dreyfus never thought of it that way. He found himself revisiting the day he first picked up Tori. She was eight years old then, with shiny and black hair and always long sleeves shirts and pants. That day, she had ran away from school during lunch. She apparently had a history of doing it, but on that day she managed to leave the school grounds and the teachers lost track of her.
"That's why you ran away so many times…" It was weird how soft his voice was. Tori never heard him sound like that before. "…It wasn't because of behavioral issues or because of school…"
"I was trying to escape." Tori confirmed.
Again, silence fell. Dreyfus couldn't believe it. Ever since that night in the jail, he had secretly been reviewing all of his records on Tori and everything he had on her parents. The Jacobs family weren't rich, but Steven Jacobs sure liked acting like they were. The family lived in a mansion in the more affluent neighborhood. Dreyfus forgot the name, but he knew it was the one that was on a hillside, next to the beach. On the outside looking in, they seemed like a typical family: Steven being the breadwinner with a well-paying job, Aida the stay-at-home wife and mother, and Tori taking swimming and track in school. Unless they knew Tori, one would never know that she had ran away enough times for Dreyfus to alert the neighboring states to watch for her in case she ever crossed state lines. Not that she ever did of course.
Dreyfus had known Tori for seventeen years, and during that time, he thought she as a troubled, out of control, rebel. But now that he knew the truth, that she was actually a victim of child abuse, he felt as though he had failed her. He should have protected her, but all he did was let the abuse continue.
"What happened to you? After your parents died?" He asked, finally. "…I knew you survived the pandemic, but I haven't seen much of you."
Tori only sighed, placing the file she was holding down and walked over to Dreyfus, sitting down in the chair next to him. "…I lived off of the streets for a while…When my mother died, I never went back to my house, so I was homeless for the first two years…Then I met Derek."
At the mention of Derek's name, Dreyfus stiffened up. He still wanted to know what happened to Derek and he was still angry that everyone else seemed to not take his sudden disappearance as seriously as he was. But now he was suddenly wondering why and how Tori ended up working for him in the first place.
"You don't think he left, do you?"
Tori took a minute before answering. "Let me put it this way." She met his eyes. "Eight years ago, I was a thief. I stole food, water, jackets, anything. It was all about survival back then. One day, I stole bread from a camp and the guys living there saw me and cornered me into an alleyway. I didn't know him, and he didn't have to come and help me, but he did. Derek appeared out of nowhere and bargained a trade with those guys. He gave them raincoats and fresh firewood as payment for my bread. After they left, he asked me if I needed a place for the night and let me stay in this building. I've been helping him find lost or forgotten things ever since."
So that's how they met and what they've been up to. It was hard to say what the building itself used to be-or was supposed to be and it seemed like the only real purpose it had was the file room itself but all the other rooms, some being similar to bedrooms and others just being storage rooms, seemed to have a purpose too. Even the rooms, filled to the brink of stuff, were deliberately organized. Dreyfus wondered if Derek collected these things for a reason, and he knew he must have.
"He saved your life."
"He could have been killed. If those goons didn't want to trade, they could have lynched both of us. Derek had to have known that and even after they left, he had to know I could give him trouble but it didn't stop him from helping me."
That sounded typical of him. The Derek Dreyfus knew was always looking out for someone.
"Even if Derek knew it was dangerous and he could be harmed, he would never turn his back on anyone. Humans or apes. If he did leave, he couldn't have done it willingly."
"Something happened to him. I know it."
"If something did, we'll find him and bring him back. But we still have to find that base, otherwise, nothing will get done."
"I know…Why does he care so much about apes anyway?"
Tori wasn't expecting the sudden change in conversation. "What?"
"Ever since all this started, he's become a protector to the apes. I wanted the apes gone, I admit that, but every time I tried to convince him to agree with me, Derek would defend them and even when I arrested Koba and put him in jail, Derek still tried to help him. Even when he admitted to killing McVeigh, Terry, and Carver and tried to kill Caesar." Dreyfus never understood this at all. It frustrated him that Derek would choose the apes side over his when he and Derek had known each other for a good thirty years.
The pink haired woman frowned a little, thinking. Finally, she shrugged. "He never talked to me about his views on the apes…But he did tell me this once: Ten years ago, we-the humans, did things to the apes. We tortured them for science in laboratories, kidnapped them from their homes to display them in zoos, and we abused them for our entrainment in circuses. We all knew it was wrong, but we did it anyway and the lie we told ourselves back then was that it was ok to do it because they were animals, lesser beings than we were, and how we treated them wasn't a reflection of our humanity and we told ourselves that lie because it's always easier to believe in a lie than to accept a horrible truth."
Tori never forgot those words. What Derek said to her really made her see the apes differently and she never saw them the same way again. She never blamed them for the virus, but she used to fear them and what they could do if they decided to attack the city for revenge. Even if they did though, she wouldn't have blamed them.
Lies we told ourselves. Those four words were what stuck out the most to Dreyfus. He never thought of it that way. Ten years ago, he paid no mind to the animals who lived in zoo's or were victims for medical research or performed in the circus, but he was aware of them.
The closest he got to seeing it first hand was that one time, many years ago, when he and Maddy took the boys to a circus. At the time, Edward was eight and and John was six, so it was long before Dreyfus even ran for mayor. After the show, there was an orangutan that suddenly got out of it's cage and the workers started beating it. Everyone saw it. Including his boys. Dreyfus remembered distinctively that Edward was screaming at the workers to stop and John threw his ice cream at one of them, hitting the guy in the head (which was actually kind of funny). Needless to say, both boys went home crying after that.
At the time, Dreyfus was more baffled at the entire thing than angry. Finding both the workers sudden and violent display of disciplining one of their animals to their own customers and the tantrum his sons both had equally shocking. He and Maddy didn't punish the boys for their behavior, but only because they agreed that the workers shouldn't have beaten the orangutan in front of them like that. They never went to a circus again after that.
Now, several years since that evening at the circus, Dreyfus was suddenly realizing that his sons acted that way because they didn't believe in the lie. They were young children, hardly old enough to approbate going to school and just learning to tie their own shoes, but they knew being human didn't mean having the right to hurt animals. In that sense, they were right to throw that double tantrum.
It slowly dawned on Dreyfus that both he, and most of the people in the city, were telling themselves lies too. They all wanted to believe that the Simian Flu was all the apes fault, but the truth was the virus was a human mistake. The apes may have been given the virus but that didn't make them contagious and it wasn't like they wanted to be experimented with it either.
So there it was then. Ten years since the apes were last caged up in the city, and the humans were still telling themselves lies about them. Dreyfus wondered if the apes told themselves any lies about the humans.
Patrol was uneventful. If it wasn't so important, Grey would have mistaken it for a very long walk in the city with humans and apes. At least he got plenty of exercise, though he'd have to do it again tomorrow.
Cedar's cousin, Redbird volunteered to stay with her for Grey. She didn't really need anyone to watch her, Cedar could take care of herself and Grey knew it but he didn't feel comfortable leaving her alone when he knew it was possible she could get hurt if there was ever an attack.
The building the apes had been given as their 'temporary home' had become something similar to a small village: There were nests and beds everywhere, small fireplaces, places where food and water was stored, and children played all the time. It wasn't as nice as their village in the forest, but it kept everyone safe and gave them a place to sleep and that was all that really mattered.
Their nest was at the corner of the first floor, next to a window so Cedar can see outside. The pregnant chimpanzee was sitting in the nest with her hand on her growing belly as she gazed outside the glass. Redbird was next to her as she groomed her. When she saw Grey coming, she smiled and got up so Grey could take over. Cedar turned her head and froze when she saw Grey. Her lips curved into a smile when she saw him.
"You're back." She signed when Grey was next to her. "I was so worried about you."
"I know." Grey could still see the worry in her eyes. He hated that look. "I'm sorry."
Cedar shook her head, pulling her husband into an embrace. Grey head joined the patrol for the right reasons, she understood that, but she wanted…She needed him here. With her. She didn't feel happy or safe when he was away. "…You're…Protecting me…And baby…I understand." She whispered. "…But hate it…When gone."
"Here now." Grey whispered back as he returned the embrace. "Always."
They fell silent for a while after that, letting time fly by as they snuggled together and watched the shadows grow as night fell over the city. The others in the room began to quiet down as children were being lulled to sleep by their parents, and other apes started making and fixing up their nests to fall asleep on them. Redbird had already settled down in her own nest, right next to theirs, for the night.
Grey was about to fall asleep himself when Cedar nudged him. "Do you think the peace will last?"
"What?"
"The apes and the humans have united." Cedar explained. "But only because we share the same enemy. When the soldiers are defeated, what happens then? Will the colonies still be united? Or will we go to war with each other?"
Grey hadn't thought of that but come to think of it, she was right. If it wasn't for the Alpha-Omegas, the apes and humans would still see each other as enemies. "I don't know." He admitted. "Malcolm, Ellie, Tori, Derek, Alex, Foster, Kempt…They're all good humans. Friends." He wondered if he should consider Dreyfus a friend too, but that was still debatable. The mayor was on their side, and he wants the same thing that the apes did. But he wasn't as nice to the apes as Malcolm and the others were.
"That doesn't mean all the other humans are. What if they're just waiting for the soldiers to go away before turning on us?"
"If there are any humans like that, the ones we've befriended will stop them." For some reason, Grey had to believe that. Too many things happened since the night of the kidnappings for him to consider all humans bad again.
Cedar frowned a little at him. "How can you say that?"
Grey wondered if he was beginning to sound like Caesar. He certainly felt like it, and now he found himself feeling annoyed at his own words. But at the same time, as annoying as Caesar's love of humans was, Grey couldn't help but hope that the peace will last. Not just for the sake of not having to fight another enemy, but because he knew that if they didn't stop fighting each other, nothing would change at all.
"I guess you just have to have a little faith in them." Was all he could say as his answer.
It was late at night when Rex and Bon met on the roof of the building. They had deliberately chosen to meet when everyone else was sleeping so no one would spy on them. "Did anyone follow you?" Asked Bon.
Rex shook his head. "I don't think so."
"Good."
They sat silently for a moment. Neither of them were used to meeting privately without Pope, but if they were still too disappointed and annoyed with him to include him.
"What are we going to do now? Pope doesn't want to do anything anymore." Rex asked grumpily.
"He's too distracted by his new friend." Pope could deny it all he wants, but Bon wasn't stupid. Even he knew the fishnet scarred chimpanzee had eyes for Dot-even if he himself didn't realize it yet. "It doesn't matter. We can still figure out what to do about Caesar without him."
"We're still going to rebel against him?" The silverback looked surprised. "How are we going to do that?"
Bon glanced at their surroundings. From the building that the colony was staying in, to the many others that housed the humans. Caesar was currently distracted, the entire Ape Council was. They were all busy with trying to find the base and stop the soldiers, but they also had other concerns. Rocket was worrying about Ash-who couldn't even be part of the council right now because of how traumatized he is, Koba now had to help his sister care for their father-who apparently went senile and attacked a human healer earlier, Grey had left the council so he could be with his pregnant wife…Even Caesar seemed to have other stresses. The other apes in the colony appeared to be busy too: Cornelia and most of the other females were caring for Hopely, the Human-Ape hybrid baby, and the many children that had been freed from the base, and many others were too preoccupied with just trying to keep each other safe…
Maybe…
"Maybe we won't have to do anything." Bon was still thinking as he signed. "Everyone is already too distracted, even Caesar himself. Maybe we can simply take any ape who disagree with Caesar's rule and just leave without anyone noticing."
Leaving sounded like a big step. Not only would it mean being free of Caesar, but it would also mean abandoning the Ape King and all the others to fend for themselves. It would be a hard choice, but maybe it would slow the soldiers down and maybe keep them from finding them.
Rex tilted his head. "So…We leave…And let the bad humans take over Caesar and the others?"
"Essentially, yes."
The gorilla went silent again as he thought about this. "…I don't know of any apes that don't like Caesar…But there are plenty of apes who still aren't happy that we're in the city and don't trust the humans here."
Bon knew what he meant. He could only think of Pope or Koba, but neither of them disliked Caesar enough to abandon the colony to fight the soldiers alone. Aside from them, he knew Stripe, Fox, Red, and Pongo didn't like the Ape King but Red was held captive at the base and Stripe and Fox were just troublesome teenagers…Still, though.
"Anyone in the Gorilla Guard?" He asked.
"Aghoo, Olo, Oak…Me…And I think Russell, Winter's father."
"You realize Russell isn't going to drop anything and leave without his son, right?" Bon didn't have to be a Gorilla Guardian to know that Russell would never do such a thing. That gorilla was just as loyal to Caesar as Luca and the others were and if he believed the Ape Council could help find and save his son, whether they were working with humans or not, he'd stay right where he is.
"That's just it." Said Rex. "Russell is loyal to Caesar. But let's face it, if Russell had to choose between his son's life or Caesar's, he'd choose Winter."
"So? All parents are like tha-" Bon stopped. Now he realized what Rex was getting at.
Most apes, even the most loyal to Caesar, loved their families. Love that could easily rival their loyalty to their leader. Of course, it's only natural for mothers and fathers to want to protect their children, and husbands and wives wanting to protect each other. Russell, having lost his wife in childbirth, was very protective of Winter. He almost coddled him in a sense, but he loved him all the same. If he could, Russell would probably charge at the base and destroy it in a heartbeat if it meant he could save his son.
Grey, meanwhile, didn't have any loved ones in the base, but the Alpha-Omega soldiers threatened the lives of his wife and unborn child and he'd do just about anything to keep them safe…Anything.
"I think I have an idea."
Koba's Nightmare:
Koba is playing with a kitten. The very kitten Mary let him and Dolly play with that one time. It's golden and brown striped fur is as soft as he remembers. Dolly is sitting still as Mary slips on a dress over her head. Playing dress up again, like always.
He was back to his childhood. Before the bad things happened. Despite the familiarity, Koba felt dread building up in his chest. Mary's laughter, Dolly's happy squeaks, and the kitten's mews didn't sound normal. The room seemed darker than he remembered, with shadows reaching out to him with their pointed claws.
As he played with it, Kobe noticed the kitten began to change. It was subtle and slow, but the tiny cat's fur begins to fade and become lighter until it was white. It's nails became long and gnarled claws. Worst of all, it's head was growing, like that thing Mary showed him once that she called a 'balloon'.
Koba backed away from it, he didn't want to play anymore. He didn't know if he wanted his mother, or if he just wanted to get out of the room but he defiantly didn't want to stay in the same room as that used to be the kitten.
Suddenly, the kitten's head exploded! Covering the entire room with it's blood…Far too much blood for just one, tiny kitten, to contain…
Koba was now covered in it. The crimson liquid so thick, it matted his fur. He tried to scream but, to his horror, found he couldn't make a sound. His throat felt as if it were being squeezed by an unseen pair of hands. Koba turned around and saw that Dolly and Mary were still sitting together on the floor. Mary holding up a small, black box with a tube sticking out at it's center and pressing a button on it's top side while Dolly sat on the floor and looking up at the thing. Her dress, which was probably normally light yellow, was soaked with blood. Both of them were. Mother, who was watching them play with a rested gaze, was dripping wet with blood too.
None of them appeared to be aware of the blood that was now all around them. It was as if they didn't see it at all. What little sound Koba could make wasn't enough to get their attention. It was like they didn't know of his existence.
"Stupid animals."
The voice was unrecognizable, but he knew immediately who it was. Koba didn't want to look, but found himself turning his head anyway.
Roger stood right over him, but only as a shadowed figure. He was unnaturally tall and only his eyes, as red as the blood in the room, glared down at him. The stench of his bottle and the oranges in his sack threatened to make the scarred bonobo vomit.
"Stupid animal." The shadowed Roger repeated.
Koba tried to get away, but the floor was so slippery with blood that he slipped and fell instead.
"Oh! No you don't!" Roger raised the sack of oranges, intending to strike him with it, but then-
"Mother!" Koba cried out at the last minute.
The sack hit Mother and she fell to the ground. Koba scrambled to his feet and ran to Dolly and Mary, hoping one of them had seen it. But of course, they didn't. Koba could only hide behind Dolly and watch in horror as Roger hit Mother again. And again. And again. More blood and brain matter spattered and poured out of her now limp body. The blood began to pool around her, and the walls appeared to be oozing the stuff itself.
The blood…Was FLOODING THE ROOM!
Koba desperately tried to shake Dolly out of her trance and yelled both her name and Mary's, but they couldn't hear him. The blood was rising faster and faster, until it was up to his throat. He could almost taste the copper as it touched his lips.
A splash of the crimson had just entered his mouth and choked him silent-
End of Nightmare:
Koba woke up suddenly when he landed against something cold and smooth. He staggered to his feet and frantically looked around.
"Koba?" Dolly was sitting up, but her eyes weren't completely open. She appeared to be half asleep. "You ok?"
Koba realized with relief that he was in the infirmary room. He glanced at the bed, realizing he must have fallen out of it. "Yeah." Despite knowing where he was, Koba felt scared to be in this room. His old stuffed kitten, the one Tori returned to him, was on the nightstand on his side of the bed. He had never been afraid of stuffed animals before, but right now Koba didn't want to be near any kitten. Real or not. "Go to sleep." He whispered, making his way to the door. "Need water."
Dolly had to be too sleepy to fully understand him. She replied with just a mumble and fell back on the pillow. Falling back to sleep.
Koba opened the door and sneaked outside, careful not to wake up Carlos or rouse Dolly further. Once outside the room, Koba started walking. He didn't know where he was going, he just needed to move.
When he found the old bathroom, he went inside without much thought. This bathroom, in particular, wasn't used anymore. It mostly served as a storage unit for barrels of rain collected water. Koba picked up a random bowl, took some water, splashed some of it in his face and sipped the rest.
As his face dripped wet from water, Koba found himself looking at his reflection in the mirror. At his blind eye and the scar running down it, the scar on his neck and all the other marks that came from humans...Human work...
The last thing Koba remembered before it all went black, was the rage creeping it's way back into him.
It was cloudy when Tori did her morning run. Her duffle bag flung this way and that, but she ignored it. She had ran to the beach like this so many times that she barely felt her bag fling as it protested. This was how she always started her mornings: A run to the beach and a quick swim in the ocean. This way, she can clear her mind of any troubles from the previous day so she can focus on whatever problems the new one would bring.
But more importantly, she loved it. The pounding of her heart as she ran. The windy sound of the cold air blowing in her ears, breathing it in and filling her lungs with it. It made her feel alive, like she was free.
As always, her run was a blur. When she got to her favorite beach, the very one she and Koba became friends on, she took a moment to catch her breath before taking off her regular clothes putting on her bathing suit shorts. The chilled air cooling her off as she did.
Wonder what happens now. She couldn't help but think back on her and Dreyfus' talk last night. They had gone from fighting, to talking. Talking about the past...Her past…And about Derek and the apes Did this mean that she and Dreyfus were friends now? Would he start being nicer to the apes? Will he finally stop being such a doofus?… Would she even still call him that? Hell, she had no idea.
The sand was soft, and felt good between her toes as she walked over to the water. Tori inhaled as much of the sweet, salty air as her lungs could take in and let it out in a long sigh. This feels good. She took a minute to listen as the waves splashed and soaked into the think sand and then pull back to the blue water. Then, she walked across the brown wooded dock and leaped into the water, letting the water take her away to a cold, yet beautiful calmness.
Like always, the ocean water embraced her like an old friend. The shock of suddenly being in cold water made her shiver and her bathing suit felt as though it were glowing with the freezing water, but Tori was used to this and didn't let it stop her from swimming. She stayed in the water for an hour before getting out and drying off. As much as Tori loved the freedom of her morning swims and being at the beach, she didn't want to be alone and away from other survivors for longer than she had to be. Eight years ago, there were the riots and lynch mobs that always looked for their next victims and now they've been replaced by the AO soldiers who could appear at any time. She had never encountered a shark in all the times she swam out here, but the possibility of seeing one was always there. Even if the beach was perfectly safe, Tori would rather be careful for nothing than get killed for being reckless.
She had just dried herself off and was about to change into her normal clothes when suddenly: "TORI!"
Tori jumped when she heard the sudden cry, not expecting the usually quiet and abandoned beach to suddenly come alive like that. She turned around, and saw a blur of black fur running from the parking lot and down the stairs.
Koba? The bonobo was holding something in his arms. Tori thought it was a bundle at first, but then she realized he was holding it wrong. He had one arm under it and the other on top. His black furred arms and the white rag-or towel, looked like an Oreo. It was only when he was just feet away from her that Tori saw the thing was bloody.
Blood? He was bleeding!
"What the-?! Koba!" Tori ran over to him. She grabbed the arm on top of the rag and looked at it. His arm had this horrible, deep cut across it. She took the rag off of his other arm and saw the same cut on it. They weren't as long as the scar running down his right arm, but they deep. Deep enough to need a tourniquet.
"Come here, Koba!" Tori pulled him to her duffle bag and she quickly pulled out her rainwater-filled water bottles. She opened one and dumped the water over his left arm and did the same with another bottle on his right one. Tori suddenly wished she had paid more attention to her biology class in high school. Even if she doubted the textbooks had any information about open and bleeding wounds.
After cleaning some of the blood off, she dug around her duffle bag before finding her first aid kit-though it mostly contained of sunscreen, bug repellent, various lotions and just a few bandages. She could clean the wounds and stop the bleeding, but Koba's cuts were deep enough to need stitches. Tori knew he wasn't going to like that.
Koba's eyes were huge. If it wasn't for Tori holding his arms, he'd be shaking all over. "Koba…" Tori hesitate, feeling sick with worry. "How did this happen?"
He didn't answer. He just kept looking at his arms with this look on his face. A look that scared Tori almost as much as the wounds themselves.
"Holy crap, Koba! Don't tell me you-!"
"No-!" Koba finally looked at her, he was close to crying. "N-Nightmare, last night…Needed water…K-Koba…See Koba in…Glass…" Mirror? "…Wake up." He gestured to the wounds. "This."
So these wounds weren't intentional? Koba seemed fine yesterday and the days before that, so Tori didn't think he was still suicidal…She didn't want to believe he was…Especially after he reunited with his father and let go of his- Then it hit her.
"Are...Are you stressed about anything?"
Koba didn't answer at first. After letting go of the past, he thought he'd be ok. He thought he won't have to feel angry anymore. Now he just didn't know what was wrong. "…My…Father…He hates…Humans too…" He gestured to himself with one hand. "Hard to forget…Past."
She still wasn't sure, since she never knew anyone who had it, but could it be possible that what Koba experienced was a mental blackout? What little Tori knew about these things couldn't hold a candle to what a professional would know but she did know that they tended to be a result of trauma-related stress.
He cut himself with the mirror. Tori glanced at his arms, finally noticing the much smaller and minor cuts in the sides of his hands. It looked like he slammed them into glass. How could no one hear a noise like that?
Whatever Koba was thinking, he kept it to himself. "…Think…Need…Help." Was all he said.
Tori didn't know if she should be amazed that he actually said that or concerned by how frightened he was. Koba obviously didn't hurt himself with the same intention he had when he attempted to hang himself. He knew this was bad too, and it scared him.
She didn't have to see his face to know he was shedding tears. Tori gently pulled him into a hug and felt relief when he wrapped his strong arms around her smaller form. She stroked his head and back, finding comfort in feeling his fur. "Ellie has friends who can help with these things. Physiatrists, they're like nurses but they help with mind problems instead of physical injuries." She tried to explain. "Do you want to see if she can help?"
Koba answered in the form of a nod. He didn't have energy for words. He swallowed to loosen the cold rock building in his throat as he rested his head on Tori's shoulder. She smelled like the water, and he breathed in the smell because it comforted him. He felt himself feeling calmer. Not better, but like he was safe.
And Koba knew he was.
Alex didn't want to leave his room. He didn't want to do anything other then sit in his corner and draw pictures. He drew many things the past several days since coming back. The lab, all the people he saw, what he saw soldiers do, the things he was subjected to. He drew everything he witnessed while at that base, afraid that if he didn't the images would stay in his mind and haunt him in his sleep. Many of them did, and those were the ones he drew the most often.
He sat quietly as he sketched his latest memory. This time, of some of the people from the base. Though the door was closed, Alex could hear his parents talking in hushed tones.
"How is he today?"
"He still hasn't eaten much. He just stays in that corner, drawing all those pictures."
"I've seen him draw them but for some reason, he hides them away."
"He does that with me too."
Alex ignored them. They wouldn't understand. No one will ever understand. All he had was his paper and pens and pencils.
"I wanna take him with us when we go meet with the others today."
"Malcolm-"
"He needs to get out of that room, Ellie. He's been cooped up in there, drawing pictures all day, since he came back."
"You know what we see on a regular basis. We're trying to find the base and Alex had been there. I'm afraid it might scare him."
"I'm not saying have him watch what we do. I just don't want him to be in that room anymore."
Their voices became more muffled for several minutes before the door opened and Malcolm walked in. "Hey, Alex. Did you have a good sleep?" He asked as he squatted down in front of him.
No answer. Just another scribble on his paper.
Malcolm glanced at the bed, taking note of the untouched blankets and sheets and undisturbed pillow. Alex hadn't touched it at all. How could he sleep in the corner with only the clothes on his back? "Sure you don't want to sleep in the bed? It looks comfy."
Still no answer. Alex doubted he'd ever find comfort in a bed again. He kept his eyes on his paper, the rest of his head hidden by his hoodie.
Whatever his son was drawing, he clearly didn't want Malcolm to see it. He didn't push him to, believing these drawings could help Alex cope with the trauma. But it still hurt and worried him that whatever Alex went through, he wasn't opening up and talking about it with him, or with Ellie, or anyone for that matter.
"You know, while you and...Caesar, Ash, and Dolly were gone, we-Foster, Kempt, Dreyfus, a man named Derek, a woman named Tori, and your mother and I, had teamed with the apes in the Ape Council to try and find the people who took you."
At the mention of the apes, Alex's hand abruptly froze and the young boy finally met his father's eyes.
"We see each other every day." Malcolm noticed this and he hoped it was a good thing. "We're going to see them again today...Do you want to come?"
Alex stared at him for a second. Before the monsters of his memories would haunt him at night, he'd think about the apes. From the moment they discovered each other, to the night they saw the city lights come back to life. He thought about Caesar, and his mighty bellow. Of Maurice's gentle eyes, and of Koba's snarls. Though he only knew the apes for a short time, he missed them. Alex side glanced at his sketchbook, he clung to it as if it were a blanket.
"You can bring your sketchbook along too." Said Malcolm in a soft voice, as if Alex was a small child again. "Would you like that?"
The teenager only gave a nod as his answer. He closed the sketchbook for now, knowing he can work on it again later.
In the meantime, he hoped he wouldn't forget her. The chimpanzee with the very brown fur.
"Ok, so what do we do today?" Asked Kempt enthusiastically, trying to lighten the mood.
"Same as always, I guess." Said Dreyfus. He hoped so, his head had picked today to start aching.
So far, it was just Dreyfus, Kempt, Caesar, Blue Eyes, Maurice, Luca, Stone, Malcolm, Ellie, and Alex. Foster was late, no one knew where Koba was, Tori wasn't back yet, and Rocket had decided to spend the day watching over Ash for Tinker. From what they saw yesterday, poor Ash probably shouldn't have come at all. With them and Derek gone, the group seemed small. Despite being around the apes again, Alex still stayed quiet. He decided to be next to Maurice and hadn't left his side since, which the orangutan didn't mind at all.
"We talked to the patrol." Said Caesar, gesturing to himself and to Malcolm. "They will search for Derek."
"Yeah, in the meantime we should look for that base." Added Malcolm.
"We'll have to send Victoria back to the junkyard for that." For once, the slight annoyance in Dreyfus was welcomed. It felt normal that way. "You guys didn't find anything yesterday."
"Things. Happen." Shrugged Stone as the door opened and Tori appeared.
"Speak of the devil, Victoria we still need stuff for the radio." Dreyfus barely looked at Tori, he really didn't feel like talking to her again after last night. If he had thought, he would have seen what the others noticed.
Almost immediately, the group knew something was going on. Tori was still in her swimsuit and was trailing sand everywhere. Her hair wasn't even tied in their usual ponytails and just hung in clunky, dried knots. She looked worried about something, though she no indication of what.
"I'll do that later, Dreyfus." She answered half-heartedly. "Ellie, may I borrow you for a minute?"
Ellie glanced at Malcolm and the others before answering. "Uhh, sure." She then followed Tori out of the room and down the hall. The door closed behind them seconds later.
"What was that about?" Asked Kempt.
"Probably nothing dramatic." Dreyfus wished he had a coffee, he needed one. "Let's just figure out what we're doing before I fall back to sleep."
Stone and Kempt found that funny and they laughed at the mayor's remark.
"I can look in junkyard." Volunteered Blue Eyes. "Help Tori find things."
Caesar never thought he'd emotionally relate to a human-like Dreyfus but he found himself wanting to go back to bed too. "Be. Careful then."
Be careful. Blue Eyes had a feeling that no matter how old he'll get, everyone would still tell him that.
Malcolm considered having the group split up again: Half stay and work on the radio and the other half look for parts. He also thought about the files and whether or not they should continue looking through them today. He had managed to find the files belonging to Koba and Dolly's younger half-brothers. There wasn't much in them though. From what he could tell, Nemo was born at a laboratory and was going to be used for experiments, like his older siblings, but was taken by the Alpha-Omegas when he was six. Gavin, meanwhile, was born at a zoo and was only a year old when he was kidnapped. Malcolm, Caesar, and Maurice had also looked for any information about Carlos' other children but their files were either missing or said that they had died. It looked like the only ones still alive were Koba and Dolly themselves. No one talked to Cooper yet, so there was still a chance that Gavin and Nemo were already dead.
And then there's that girl.
"Uh, guys?!" Foster Appeared in the doorway. Everyone had been so focused in their planning that they didn't even notice the door open and close. He held something in his hand. "Any reason I just found this outside?"
What Foster was holding, was a bouquet of flowers…Or, what used to be. The flowers were so dried up and rotten, they disintegrated at the slightest touch.
"They're just dead flowers, what's the big deal?" Dreyfus couldn't help but frown at the bouquet. Whoever put this together obviously didn't have very good taste.
"Not just the flowers." Foster pulled one of the dead plants out. It crinkled and broke into a million pieces in seconds. "These." The group looked closer. Now they saw what he meant.
Each of the flowers, had a tag tied to their hollow stems…And each tag had a name written on it. One had Rocket's, another had Ellie's.
Wordlessly, they took the bouquet apart and pulled out the name tags. The humans reading them out loud.
Derek
Maurice
Pope
Foster
Malcolm
Tori
Blue Eyes
Luca
Grey
Stone
Koba
Kempt
The only names they didn't find were Alex's and Ash's. Even weirder than the names themselves, was how they were written. Everyone had one letter in their names that was capitalized and colored a different color. The I in Tori's name was red, the C in Caesar's name was light green, the O in Pope's name was magenta colored and so on. Rocket's didn't have this, but his did have a reddish-orange mark over his name and Derek and Dreyfus had brown explanation points next to theirs.
Caesar vaguely remembered male humans giving female humans flowers when they liked them, Will did that a lot for Caroline. But the flowers he gave to her were always fresh and alive. He wasn't sure what dead flowers meant, but Caesar was certain it wasn't a romantic gesture.
"Someone sent us dead flowers with our names written like that on them?" Asked Dreyfus.
"That's a little weird." Said Kempt.
"Hell yeah, it's weird." Foster looked creeped out. "Who would send dead flowers as a bouquet? That's just messed up."
Stone, against his better judgment, sniffed one of the flowers. "It not smell good." He said.
Luca frowned a little at the chimpanzee. "It doesn't have a smell, you idiot."
"Yes, it does." Stone argued. "It smells like a dead weed."
Alex stared at the tags, particularly at the way the names were written. He reached out and managed to take the ones that belonged to his mother, Pope, Grey, Koba, Derek, Rocket, and Tori and looked at each one more carefully. Every time a page was dropped or abandoned, he'd pick it up and add it to his little mix and match game.
Maurice didn't stop him. He watched silently as the boy concentrated, wondering what he thinks of the tags.
"You know what else I don't understand? Why Pope is included when he's not even on the team."
"Maybe whoever sent us these thought he was."
"Why would they send us dead flowers at all?"
"Forget the flowers, why would they write our names like that?"
It frustrated the group that they had no answers to these annoying questions. None of them were necessarily afraid, but the fact that someone had actually left them dead flowers and knew their names well enough to spell them was unnerving.
"It's a rainbow."
Malcolm's knees buckled at the voice he hadn't heard for days. He and the others turned around. Alex sat on the ground with the tags lined up in front of him. "Alexander?"
"The names." Alex pointed at them. "They form a rainbow."
Maurice looked at the group, his face questioning. "Could this mean something?"
Malcolm came closer to look at the tagline.
"Maybe." Caesar answered as he watched Malcolm think.
Alex was right. It was hard to tell, but the names did form a rainbow starting from TorI to Dreyfus! and Derek!… Huh, it almost looked like…Malcolm's eyes widened. He reread what he was seeing, before bolting to the whiteboard and writing it.
"Malcolm?" Dreyfus asked.
"What. Is it?" Asked Blue Eyes.
Foster, Kempt, and Dreyfus understood the message before Malcolm could finish it but the apes still didn't understand. When Malcolm pulled away and stepped back, he read it out loud in a shaky, terrified voice.
"I'm watching you."
I'M WATCHING YOU! as it read back on the board.
A's/N: Cliffhanger time! XD
Something I noticed when I was reading the comics online was that Pope's backstory is never revealed, which I think is a little sad. The poor guy obviously had some issues that were similar to Koba's but unlike Koba, Pope only appeared in the comics and virtually doesn't exist in the movies so it's easy to forget him like that. Ape Land is sort of my explanation for where some of the apes came from in general. I mean, seriously, I doubt they were ALL born in zoos or labs and what not. X3
And now we see Pope's vulnerable side! Honestly, this is another thing I noticed on here. There are very few stories of Koba being a good guy on but there are even fewer stories that have Pope as a character at all and the few that do have him as Koba's 'villain replacement'. Nothing wrong with that of course, but I think it would be nice to see more stories of Pope AND of Koba in general.
Ok, who can relate to Carlos here? Does anyone else hate and/or fear needles? Personally, I'm ok with shots (I used to be really afraid of them tho!) but I have a phobia of blood drawls so I don't blame Carlos.-And hay, we finally get to see Koba and Dolly act like siblings! :D
I don't think I've ever had Tori and Dreyfus really talk before so I felt like it was high time they sat done and talked their issues out. Hope you guys found it interesting! X3
More Grey and Cedar too! Shoot, I should really do something with Red, Winter, and Lake again. I kind of neglected them this time. DX
Uh oh, what is Bon and Rex planning here?! I guess Pope's minions are smarter than he thinks! XD
I actually didn't realize how much like that scene in the movie IT Koba's nightmare actually was. X3 Oopsy! But yup looks like he still has demons to face.
I honestly forgot about Alex. X'D So hopefully this will fix it.
Now, who's the wise guy sending our favorite team some dead flowers and all that?...Let's just say, this is gonna get interesting.
Alrighty, now that I got my comments up, I'm gonna ask/announce something here. I currently have two other PoTA fanfic ideas that I'm considering starting as soon as this one is finished or just start it as I work on BTS. I only want to do one of them though, I don't think I can do more than two at the same time. So, here's the two stories:
Land of The Dead (Before anyone asks, no I didn't steal the name-I only know the title was also used in either a movie or TV show when I got lost on this site once and by then I've already named in Land of The Dead so I'm just gonna stick with it): Land of The Dead takes place after Caesar dies. It's basically about Caesar, McCullough, Blue Eyes, Koba, Cornelia, Luca, Preacher, Pope, Malcolm, Ash, Grey, Red, Winter, Stone (yeah he's dead in the story!), Dreyfus and my three OC's (Esther, Sheila, and Netta) are trapped in a prison in the afterlife and are forced to team up to move on. This would be my only story that doesn't involve changing the plots of the movies and it's the first time I make McCullough the not-so-bad bad guy. XD
Loveless War is the Caba story I mentioned a while back though it's also becoming a Winter x OC story as well as a Caesar x Koba story. XD In Loveless War, Koba has an adoptive daughter named Nala (my only OC in the story and Winter's possible love interest) and when the humans reappear, it reveals a darkness within Koba that not even he knew about…It may include a Caesar x Koba and Pope x Koba love-triangle thing too.
Like Before The Storm, both stories contain OC's and Canon x OC's couples but neither follow Before The Storm and are different stories.
I tend to jump between the two but I'm kind of leaning towards Loveless War because I have the plot mostly figured out and I'm actually excited to do a Caba story of my own! X3 Again, I may do one of these stories soon but I'm not sure if I'll do it after Before The Storm is over or if I'll work on both-I think I can do both, I'm just afraid that if I do that I'll lose interest in one or the other or both or get overwhelmed or something. Idk, what do you guys think?
Thanks for reading and please review! :D