16482/From Carnage to Calm

From Carnage to Calm
Date of Scene:	15 August 2024
Location:	Bushwick (Mutant Town), Brooklyn
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Shadowcat, Spawn

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Shadowcat has posed:
The scene Kitty leaves behind is one of grim aftermath. The once quiet street in Bushwick is now a macabre tableau of violence, the bodies of the Friends of Humanity members lying still where they fell, their blood pooling on the cracked asphalt. The woman Kitty phased into the sidewalk remains trapped, her defiant expression now twisted with fear as she realizes the gravity of her situation. The flashing red and blue lights of approaching police cars reflect off the nearby buildings, casting eerie shadows over the scene. The air is thick with the acrid scent of gunpowder and the faint metallic tang of blood, mingling with the distant wail of sirens that grow closer by the second. Spectators who had gathered to witness the chaos are beginning to disperse, leaving behind only the grim evidence of a confrontation that ended in death and despair.

Kitty darts into the alley, her footsteps light and quick as she tries to put as much distance as possible between herself and the scene she left behind. The sound of sirens still echoes in the distance, their wails growing fainter with each passing second, but she doesn't slow down. She rounds a corner, her heart pounding in her chest -- not just from the exertion, but from the tension of the situation she just extricated herself from. Her mind races, replaying the events in a loop, but she pushes the thoughts aside, focusing on her immediate goal.

She reaches the end of the alley and quickly assesses her surroundings. Spotting a building that looks deserted, she takes a deep breath and phases through the outer wall, her body slipping effortlessly through the solid material. The inside of the building is dark and silent, a stark contrast to the chaos she just escaped. Kitty doesn't linger, though; she's not here to hide, only to regroup. She phases up through the floors, moving with practiced ease until she emerges onto the roof.

The night air hits her as she steps onto the rooftop, the cool breeze a welcome relief after the adrenaline-fueled sprint. For a moment, she just stands there, catching her breath and letting the tension in her muscles unwind slightly. The flashing red and blue lights are still visible in the distance, but they're far enough away that she knows they won't be overheard. This rooftop feels safe -- disconnected from the turmoil below, but not so far away that she's lost sight of what's important.

Kitty walks to the edge of the roof and looks out over the city, her thoughts finally catching up with her. He had told her to say something when she got to where she wanted to talk. The words that come to mind are simple, almost a joke -- "Something." It's tempting, the thought of injecting some levity into the situation, but she dismisses it almost as quickly as it comes. This isn't the time for jokes.

She turns her gaze away from the flashing lights and closes her eyes for a brief second, centering herself. When she opens them again, she feels more composed, more ready to face whatever conversation is about to unfold. Kitty draws in a deep breath, then speaks into the night air, her voice steady and clear.

"I'm here. I'm ready to talk."

The words hang in the air for a moment, the rooftop's stillness absorbing them. She's not entirely sure what to expect from this conversation, but she knows it's necessary. Her mind is already turning over questions, uncertainties, and a resolve that's only growing stronger.

She waits, the quiet night around her a sharp contrast to the chaos that brought her here, as the crow that had been watching from that lamp post lights instead on the top of an air handler only a few yards away.

Spawn has posed:
Through Kitty's pained flight through dark streets, darker alleys, and the bowels of an abandoned building, Spawn trails along. He doesn't have any trouble keeping up and he doesn't leave any trace when he phases through walls when she does, so far all intents and purposes there's good reason to question whether or not he really is there.

Up on the roof, though, in the cool night air, when Kitty speaks, that halo of green fire and smoke appears in the air a few feet away from her and instead of dispersing this time it fills slowly in with the physicality of the Hellspawn. That's apparently a bit of showmanship, or maybe it's just the monster being considerate enough not to over-tax the brain with simple vanishment and reappearance.

"What were you going to say?" the auditory hallucination speaks for him, and even manages to indicate the direction from which it came as if it was a real sound in the real world instead of a telepathic delusion. "I like jokes."

Shadowcat has posed:
Kitty takes a deep breath as the eerie green fire materializes into Spawn's form beside her. The cool night air, which had felt so refreshing just moments ago, now seems heavier, tinged with the weight of his presence. She turns to face him, her expression a mix of caution and resolve.

His words, though disembodied, somehow manage to elicit a small, almost reflexive smile from her. But it's a smile devoid of humor, more an acknowledgment of the tension between them. She crosses her arms, her posture trying to convey a confidence she doesn't fully feel.

"What, do you read minds, too?" she asks, her voice wary despite the fact that she's grinning a little at one corner of her mouth.

She uncrosses her arms, letting them fall to her sides as she meets his gaze, or what passes for it behind that mask. "I didn't know what to say, so I was going to say 'Something'... because that's what you told me to say." She rolls her eyes. "It wasn't much of a joke. You want a joke? Why don't programmers like nature?"

Spawn has posed:
A new sensory hallucination hits Kitty, but this time it's only a vague impression of something tactile. It shifts between a low, constant rumble and a hard pulsing sensation, then ululates in waves like standing close to the stage at a heavy metal concert. Over a period of what seems like forever, but only spans a few actual heartbeats in reality, individual components of the vibration are picked out as if silenced, until what remains is a sensory imprint of whatever emotional state Kitty Pryde is currently feeling.

This hallucination is sustained, just a transmission of that one tiny part of Spawn's own perception of the Universe. It persists when the separate auditory effect echoes in Kitty's ears: "Why?"

Shadowcat has posed:
Kitty's breath catches as the strange sensation washes over her, like the thrum of a heavy bass vibrating through her bones. It's disorienting, unsettling -- an echo of her own emotions, amplified and reflected back at her. She closes her eyes for a moment, trying to steady herself, to separate what's real from the hallucination.

Her emotions are, somehow all at the same time, ridiculously simple and mind-bendingly complex.

She's curious and sympathetic. It's as straight-forward as that, really. Kitty Pryde is that girl-next-door that was always happy to babysit on short notice. She was the girl in the Cubs baseball cap and the shirt that was a little too big because it hid her curves.

Below that, where she doesn't let the world see (and she certainly doesn't indulge them out loud), there are other emotions like fear and anger and remorse and guilt. They churn like a molten core she refuses to acknowledge or perhaps have shoved so far down under righteousness that they're simply caged away from ever seeing daylight again.

It's a complicated imprint.

"Because... it's so full of... bugs."

The words sound... distracted. Not exactly pained. But it's hard for her to focus through it.

"Is this how you... see me?"

Spawn has posed:
"I filtered you from everything else to answer your question," the voice of long-dead Al Simmons echoes in Kitty's auditory perception, but not in the real world. "I see, I hear, and I feel everything a thousand different ways at the same time. You think you're talking to a man in a mask, but the mask and the man underneath are both nothing but a physical shape."

The transmitted sense of Spawn's empathy fades away, but the voice continues. The monster itself just continues to stand there, its cape wrapped tightly around the armored humanoid underneath even though the wind blows hard at this altitude. If it weren't for the rippling flames and wafting smoke of those radioactive-looking green eyes, there wouldn't be any movement from the statuesque thing at all.

"Over a hundred thousand human souls in Bushwick, only a few dozens in the surrounding block. Rats, cockroaches, birds... housepets... they all feel and they all have intentions. If the monster under the bed didn't know who felt what, how would it know who to eat alive?"

Shadowcat has posed:
"Not even a courtesy chuckle? I guess tech-humor's not really your thing. That joke killed at the last cyber security conference," Kitty murmurs once that new, usual flood of information on her senses has subsided.

A telepath she isn't.

She's rubbing the bridge of her nose as she moves over to some maintenance box for some piece of equipment or other, sliding up onto it and folding her legs in front of her, criss-cross-apple-sauce like she's six and not twenty-six.

"So is that what you are?" She doesn't sound particularly surprised or frightened by this fact. It's that curiosity that remains in her voice, that sympathy that lingers in her eyes. "The monster under the bed?"

There's something vaguely sad about that, though. It's not as if she didn't believe him, but she doesn't seem to approve of the characterization.

"My name's Kitty... well, it's Katherine, but all my friends call me Kitty. Since you saved my life, I feel like that qualifies."

Spawn has posed:
The giant paces after Kitty when she moves, maintaining his distance and position of facing her.

"Hellspawn is name, rank, and serial number," he answers her introduction and question of 'what' he is first. "If you want the whole picture, it's a lot worse than what you saw down on the street. I gave a good look to some little twerp in red pee-jays the other night," is added with a humorous tone. He seems to take amusement from having shown 'a lot worse' to whoever that was.

"Your joke only reminded me of something I try to ignore," comes next. That's ignore, not forget.

"People call me Spawn, or the Spawn, or Hellspawn, or freak or whatever comes to mind. I think you should consider *whose* bed I'm under before you worry too much about that label."

Shadowcat has posed:
Kitty tilts her head slightly, studying Spawn where he's followed after her. The weight of his words settles in, and she can't help but feel a pang of something -- empathy, perhaps, or just the deep understanding that comes from her own brushes with darkness.

"Spawn, huh?" she repeats softly, the name rolling off her tongue as she tests it out. "Well, I guess we all have our labels, don't we? Some we choose, and some are chosen for us."

Her voice is gentle, but there's a firmness underlying her words, a quiet resolve that's been shaped by years of experience. She's not here to pity him, but she can't ignore the weight of his words. The revelation that he's more than just a man, more than just a monster, is one she doesn't take lightly.

"You know," she begins, leaning back slightly on the maintenance box, her gaze steady and unflinching, "I've spent most of my life trying to figure out who I am... all those labels, they're just pieces of the whole. But at the end of the day, they don't define me. I do."

Kitty pauses, letting that sink in for a moment before she continues. "So maybe you're Hellspawn. Maybe you're something more than what I can understand. But that doesn't have to be all you are, right? I mean, you didn't have to follow me here, didn't have to talk to me, but you did. And that tells me there's more to you than just the label."

She shifts slightly, her tone softening, though the curiosity remains in her eyes. "And as for whose bed you're under... I feel like we would have had this conversation before now if it was mine. I've fallen through mine _plenty_ of times and never seen you down there. So, I think that's your choice too. Just like how you decide what you do with the power you have. It's your choice what you let define you."

Kitty offers a small, genuine smile, one that reaches her eyes. "For what it's worth, I'm glad you're here."