16525/The Gotham Devil

The Gotham Devil
Date of Scene:	10 September 2024
Location:	China Basin, Old Gotham
Synopsis:	Nobody knows
Cast of Characters:	Spawn, Deadwatch

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Spawn has posed:
Depending on where you got your intelligence, there's either a new villain haunting Old Gotham or there's an old monster rearing its ugly head. The crime rate here is unbearable for residents, unmanageable for police, and just plain rampant for everybody else. Nobody listens to the homeless population, but if they did they'd hear stories of a creeping horror that is a true friend of the least members of humanity.

The ones who can afford rent or mortgage payments, meaning the ones who found neighborhood watch societies, whose stories get published as interest pieces in the middle-to-back pages of the tri-state newsrags, have been reporting a giant batlike creature that flies in the night skies. Either that, or some huge *thing* that appears only in the darkest back-alleys and dirtiest storm-drains, best identified by glowing green eyes and oversized wings that resemble living, flowing blood.

Even if you aren't into old wives' tales, Old Gotham is still a good place to get some exercise when your next goal is closer related to cleaning up the streets than it is to a bicep circumference or a caliper-reading taken from skin pinched against your abdominals.

Deadwatch has posed:
Nolan Voight limps down the sidewalk, the stirrup of his leg-brace scraping against the cement. He uses his fore-arm crutch as leverage. He doesn't appear to be paying any attention to his surroundings, moving almost by memory. The people walking by him keep out of his way, and if he even noticed that he still wouldn't care enough to thank them. He has other things on his mind.

Three Years, he thinks. /Over/ three years.

That is how long he was gone, stuck in the furthest reaches of the NeverNever until that... broken fragment of Willow's magical mistake brought him back.

He still hasn't gotten 'synced' with the Real World. Sure, he finds not much has changed but some things have remained the same.. Things that shouldn't have.

Something dark has been haunting Old Gotham.. and that shouldn't be, because 3 years ago /he/ was that something dark. So What is now being that Darkness? He has asked a number of ghosts for any information, but most of them either don't know what it is.. and the others won't tell him if they do.

Spawn has posed:
Nolan just didn't ask the right ghosts, or maybe didn't ask the right way. As long as he's been on the streets tonight, Nolan Voight has had a sense of the *thing* that's out there. The feeling ebbs and wanes, like an overwhelming sense of impending doom, but there's neither rhyme or reason to its fluctuation. One might start to imagine was getting stronger because he was getting closer to the thing itself, but then there's a sound like a thunderclap under a clear sky and the feeling diminishes in a second. The "monster" or whatever it is would have to have been traveling at the speed of sound to make that noise, and above it for the sense of dread to diminish so quickly.

But then there are the distant screams, always following the thunderclap. Never more than a few blocks away, always reached on shuffling feet just in time to find several police cars, at least one ambulance, and a thousand reasons not to get close enough to rubberneck.

Finally, near midnight, the wandering brings Nolan to an absolute peak of that horrific sense that not just something but *everything* is wrong. At that point, standing directly at the mouth of an alley so narrow that the streetlights give only a shallow scoop of light, not even a halo, before the walls are so close that extended arms must be bent at the elbows but the rooftops would take hundreds of yard-sticks to measure.

Deadwatch has posed:
Nolan isn't used to feeling this way. Feeling this level of fear. He has stared at Death itself on many occasions. He has faced the laments of the Dead who have not yet passed Beyond to the other side... But starring down this dark alley /chills/ him.

Maybe he is still 'out of touch', not yet back in the vibe of the real world. Maybe he still has out of tune NeverNever energies still not burned off of him. Or maybe, just maybe, there is something REALLY bad down there.

"Well, it's not like I have run away from shit like this before, am I right?" he asks. There is no one near him yet it is just like he /is/ talking to someone there, beside him. Nolan then snorts, and starts limping into the alleyway. "Yeah yeah, you guys stay here... Pussies." he grunts, to no one.

Spawn has posed:
Choosing to head into the alleyway only makes it worse, and increasingly so with every step. To those who might have experienced the actual place that is Hell, and not just one of the many places considered equivalent, it is the proximity to Hellfire itself. To the homeless, those so far beyond "desperate" that they call this monster a friend, that sense of wretched helplessness and utmost hopelessness has become not the belief but the understanding that salvation is nigh. They might be eating garbage for three meals a day, even at the best shelter they can reach on foot, but they won't be raped, tortured, or killed so long as they fall asleep while that sensation permeates their being.

Something further ahead breaks up that strange thought process. There's a fight, or at least a struggle. Maybe it's just a rat king whose individual participants all want part of whatever's inside a bag.

Deadwatch has posed:
That puts Nolan in a weird spot. Not only has he actually been to Hell at least once in his life, when he was a teenager, but he was also once in his past one of those desperate homeless types. The difference being he got past that being Beyond desperate, more or less.

"Get out of my head, whatever you are.." he growls aw he limps deeper into the darkness. He won't give in.. won't run.. He Mutters The Words that change him into the costume of the Deadwatch, his fore-arm crutch becoming a cane.. His clothes becoming a an etched black leather jacket over a fine business suit and a facemask.

The costume helps a little, but not too much.. And even less hen he sees the disturbance ahead. But instead of turning away he limps more quickly toward it.

Spawn has posed:
The world itself lurches. A powerful telepath has entered Nolan Voight's perception of reality. It's a blatant invasion, almost an "attack," if there's a difference between "telepathic communication" and "assault." This is an auditory hallucination which targets Nolan Voight alone.

"I was never in your head, you goddamn gimp," the smooth basso intones, his tone of voice defensive. "In fact I've been avoiding you all goddamn night."

There's a pause, and if your heart can beat normally it will beat at least a dozen ti.mes before the kicker: "Now I think you want to dance."

Deadwatch has posed:
That telepathic assault /almost/ rocks him to his knees... Almost. It isn't just a plain psychokinetic blast but something backed by a hell-like energy. Nolan grits his teath and, unlike many humans, walks THROUGH the attack.. both literally and figuratively. He has been deflecting the attacks of Spirits and other psychic beings since he was a child and he will be /damned/ if he will let this one stop him.

He just doesn't fully realize how true that might be.

"Well fucking excuse me. how the hell was I supposed to know you were avoiding little old me." He Grunts. "And just to tell you comma I'm not much of a fucking dancer. So why don't we just play like nice guys and maybe you can tell me just what the hell's going on."

Spawn has posed:
The glow of literally burning green eyes emerges from the pavement in front of Nolan Voight's feet. It's surrounded by such deep, encompassing black that there is nothing else for at least the first meter. Then the crimson red cape's collar becomes evident, suddenly surrounding the white-on-black head when it wasn't there before.

Whether you can see it, or hear it, or merely sense the spiritual energy, it rises out of the asphalt amid a source of heat more powerful than the sun itself. Those glowing green eyes literally burn, replete with the popping sounds of fire consuming biological matter, and with the soft hiss that emits the smoke which rises from the inner and outer corners like tears streaming forth but already turned to steam before they exited the ducts.

"Then play, as such," the imaginary voice echoes in Nolan's auditory perception matrix.

Deadwatch has posed:
Nolan Voight really has to close his eyes for a moment, centering himself lest he loses his remaining bravery. Bravery which really is just the ability to be scared out of one's mind but still not run away. He then opens those solid black eyes and looks to the truly hellacious entity that is basically looming over him.

"I really don't feel like playing either" he tells the Demonic spawn and then almost casually leans on his Cane. "What I'm trying to figure out is why you are here. I mean, you can't be here to bring hell on Earth to Gotham because really that's all that Gotham has ever been and we haven't seen anything like you in, well, ever. Not that Gotham doesn't deserve anything like that. Now, you don't seem like a damning just one or two person type of guy. You seem more like a force of nature riding the rag.. so to speak. So what gives."

So, even facing true darkness, Nolan is flippant as hell.

Spawn has posed:
Even though the monster befronting Nolan Voight has no mouth, its featureless face splits where a mouth should be to reveal row-after-row of sharklike teeth. It even throws its head back and laughs, to show the way that those rows of teeth multiply into infinity as if impossibility itself had been given form. When the chin lowers though, the face is mouthless and lipless and simply not there.

"Do you know the story about the little girl and the starfish?" the auditory hallucination wants to know, in Nolan's head and nowhere else.

Deadwatch has posed:
Even being partly behind a mask, Nolan. is obviously making a face of some sort. But it is less of a face of fear and more of a face of disgust. His free hand reaches into his pocket, withdraws a tin of mints, and offers it to the smiling Darkness.

"Fuck. No offense but your breath stinks. Try one of these." he offers. "And no I don't know the story about the little girl and the starfish. I doesn't sound like a story that goes in any books that I have read lately."

Spawn has posed:
The Hellspawn befronting Nolan Voight turns aside and takes a single step into nothingness, and is gone.