16502/What's In A Knife

What's In A Knife
Date of Scene:	23 August 2024
Location:	Shiloh's Apartment, Flushing
Synopsis:	Spawn returns Shiloh's lost throwing knife and shares a bit of his personal history.
Cast of Characters:	Shiloh Foster, Spawn

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Shiloh Foster has posed:
The day is done, the bakery all cleaned up and ready for tomorrow's opening. Shiloh has a few hours before she likes to be in bed, but after a few night's prior she's been keeping herself up a little later than normal on her nights when she's not out patrolling the streets. She's not like your normal vigilante - most of them don't have day jobs or if they do they can afford to be scarce from them. That's not on Shiloh's radar at the moment - so she does what she can when she can.

Right now, she's cleaning a few of her blades. Taking stock of the ones she still has and lamenting over the fact that she let herself lose one. Not very keen of her to do - but nothing has come of it yet and therefore she figures that it's fine. Really.

So that's it. There's some stupid television show playing for background noise, she's got a beer on the coffee table in front of her and a plate of what very well may be leftover pizza. Just trying to mostly relax on a night where she's decided to stay in. Unless something interesting comes across her doorstep.

Spawn has posed:
Spawn doesn't make noise unless he wants to. He isn't even visible when he doesn't want to be. The monster moves through the world of Earth the way mysterious particles are theorized to move through solid matter, which is to say that it arrives in the upstairs apartment by passing directly through the closed (and presumably locked) entry door. There's none of the light-show with green flame, like there was in that dive bar in Old Gotham. There's no super-cool (or ultra-creepy) sound effect either. The seven foot tall abomination just passes right through the closed door and then looks up to be sure he isn't materializing in the ceiling before he phases back into sync with physical matter.

Shiloh's lost knife is held up in the left hand and gently rolled across the back of each finger the way show-offs like to do with a coin or a poker chip. It's a never-ending motion, with the knife rolling all the way across the back of the fingers, then all the way around the edge of the pinky, before it starts rolling back toward the thumb on the underside of the hand.

The only sign of his presence, apart from that sense of dread that emanates from him like a bad smell, is the slight creak of the floorboards as his four hundred pound weight materializes and settles.

Shiloh Foster has posed:
It's likely the dread that hits her first. Like a weight and a thought that something is about to happen and it isn't going to be good. Then there's the sound of the creaking floorboards and Shiloh turns, taking a kneeling position on her couch with her dagger gripped in her palm and poised as if ready to stab or slash. Then she notices the height. Remembers this vision from the other night in the alleyway and slowly she shifts backwards to stand up properly but her eyes never leave the presence.

"...How did you get in here?" Because that's the most obvious first question anyone would ask, right? Light soon catches the knife rolling over his knuckles and her eyes stray from his 'face' to his hand. "Holy shit. Is that my knife?" Still, she doesn't move. Just asking questions, for the moment, and hoping answers will come in a peaceful manner.

Spawn has posed:
The blade abruptly stops rolling across the fingers when Spawn grips the blade between his thumb and forefinger, and the handle-end is extended toward Shiloh.

"I walked through the front door," that auditory hallucination answers in the woman's head, in a tone that by itself seems to add, 'Duh!'

"I didn't spot you in the bar, but I spotted the empty sheath in the alley, and I did the math." The giant stands there, the top of his head close to the ceiling, the raised collar of his cape all but brushing the ceiling, eyes burning with Hellfire, left arm held out with the knife extended in offering.

Shiloh Foster has posed:
Shiloh blinks as the blade stops rolling and is offered out to her handle-end first. She reaches to take the knife back, looking it over and then gives a little smile. "I'm not entirely certain you 'walked'... but I can't argue the whole 'through' idea because there's a lot of ways to define what through means." She grins then, rolling the knife over her own fingers in the same way he had been, quick and nimble are her fingers and then she shifts to spin the blade on her palm a few times before she sets it on the arm of her couch.

"I didn't calculate all the others in the rooms with guns properly. Figured I needed to duck out of there before I got caught in any kind of crossfire." She explains and then nods her head towards where she put the knife. "I appreciate you returning that to me. You didn't have to...." Of course he didn't. She might even hear that in her head in his unnatural voice before giving him a chance to say as much.

"So. Ahm. Thanks?"

Spawn has posed:
"I went unseen, unheard, and unknown," Spawn answers the aborted question. "They put the knife in with the property of the victims, along with the guns. I took the whole box because," the monster's green eyes shift as if it was looking up and to the right for the answer. "I can use the guns." The broad shoulders physically shrug, sending a ripple down the crimson cape. "Then the forensics lab had some computer trouble."

When Shiloh had taken the knife, his arm fell back to his side and now the cape moves on its own to wrap around him until it closes at the front. "You can repay me by continuing to do what you do. You're welcome."

Shiloh Foster has posed:
"I do try. Can't be out there every night... obviously... as much as I'd like to be. But I got a business to run and I can't afford to hire people to do it with or for me just yet." Shiloh offers this much and looks the creature up and down once more. "I feel like I should be cowering in your presence but then there's a little something else about you that makes me feel like you're not a danger. Least not to me. Then again, I suppose since you found me ridding the streets of scum the other night that currently has me on your good list."

There's also that other slight feeling just out of her grasp that she's heard this voice before. It tickles her in that familiar way but just as she thinks she's got it pinpointed it skips off again. "I... don't know how to play good host to someone who is tall as they are scary but... well let me ask you something. You said your name was Spawn. Hellspawn. What's Hell got to do with ridding the world of evil? I figured Hell was happy to let evil people roam around until they die and -then- they get their licks in."

Spawn has posed:
The monster's head tilts a bit to one side, and the cape moves to accommodate it. "Should I torture and kill the innocent, in the name of dogma?"

There's a pause long enough for a human heart to beat a dozen times before the voice starts up again: "You know your Holy books were written by men, in languages so ancient they were all but forgotten when they were translated the first time into languages that were all but forgotten before they were translated again. When the Protestants in England did their translation, they were not only working from two forgotten languages but they also had the unenviable task of entertaining the King without offending his personal sensibilities." That's *Professor* Spawn to you, Earthling!

Shiloh Foster has posed:
Shiloh shrugs. "It's all bullshit if you ask me. Religion anyway. People get stupidly killed in the name of religion. Among other things. Evil is evil, and everyone knows right from wrong after a certain point in their lives. I have no shame in ridding the world one evil asshat at a time." Thanks for the lesson, Professor, but it's falling on deaf ears. Her eyes shift around a bit again and then she grabs the knife from the couch arm and moves to pull open a secret closet, slipping it back into it's place on her thigh sheath.

"Still doesn't answer my question. Translations be damned. I figured if anyone was going to come here and try to rid the world of evil it'd be someone more claiming to come from above rather than below."

Spawn has posed:
Rather than keep talking in her head, Spawn transmits a full-sensory hallucination instead. It's memory, partly from Al Simmons and partly from the Hellspawn that he became.

Orders to leave no witnesses were ignored, to spare the lives of a housemaid and a small child who saw Al's face as he fled from the scene of a political assassination. There was an argument with a superior, and a formal reprimand entered into Simmons' record.

Orders to improvise and deploy an explosive device, filled with ball bearings as shrapnel and rat poison to prevent blood clotting, using enough explosive to drive the material through plywood barriers, were modified in the field to prevent the explosive from injuring audience members who were forced to attend a dictator's public speech. There was an argument with a superior that almost came to blows, and a formal reprimand entered into Simmons' record.

Orders to perform an outright act of terrorism, against the people of a banana republic, were outright refused. A superior took a swing at Al that time, and Al broke his nose and jaw with the same reactionary punch.

On a dark night, working with a trusted and well-liked friend, Al was shot non-fatally in the back before he was doused with accelerant and set on fire.

The memories of Hell that follow are fractured and difficult for a humanoid mind to comprehend. The pain is excruciating, and every second feels like eternity.

The return to Earth isn't any relief at all. The pain continues, endlessly, as if the body was made of Hellfire itself and given nerve endings. That pain is only slightly relieved when confronting, torturing, and killing souls that belong in Hell, as if the Hellfire was feeding from the Hellspawn's victims instead of from the Spawn's own soul.

The entire experience occurs in flashes of transferred memory spanning days or weeks or maybe years at a time. There is no concept of time after Al Simmons died... only the unending agony and the drive to patrol at night, looking for ways to lessen it.

The upload takes a split second in real-time, but the experience itself is like really being there.

Shiloh Foster has posed:
Even in that split second of time that it takes to feed Shiloh the memories, and her face and body react in tandem to every moment shared within her - she feels like she's aged ten-fold by the time the images are done. By the end of it all, she's doubled over and breathing quick, looking herself over as if thinking that she herself is on fire from the inside out. "What the..." It's all she can manage, and even then it's a breathless sputtering of words.

It's like both a real-life montage and a home movie played in tandem. Her breathing begins to regulate again and after a longer moment her heart slowly begins to feel less like it's going to burst out of her chest. A life time worth of adrenaline and hopelessness all poured into the span of flashing memories. "Wow. Okay. Uhm. Okay..." It even resurfaces her own memories - and the various ways that her life could have taken darker turns - up to and including her own death.

She shakes her head.

"Your existence is torture. This is the only solace you find in it. But... to what lengths? Is this your hell? What someone thought of to put you through for eternity? ...Fuck me..."

Spawn has posed:
The Hellspawn stands there watching from those burning green eyes while Shiloh reacts to the telepathic answer to her question. It makes no move to help. It seems like it already knew what would happen when it sent the memories like a late-night matinee.

"If I knew, then you would know," the voice in Shiloh's head answers drily. "There was a deal made with a demon, and I was sent back to Earth to fulfill the contract, but my memory of it was ripped away. So," there's a touch of irony in the tone of the imaginary voice, "I just do what feels right."

Shiloh Foster has posed:
"Well. So long as you need scum of the earth to feel better... I can keep sending scum of the earth to you to finish off." Shiloh says this much and then shakes her head. It's almost like she's trying to shake off the last lingering bits of those memories shared, but a hand idly moves to touch against the solid collar on her neck for a moment before it shifts to act like she was about to scratch her ear or something.

"Wait. So like a deal with the devil only the devil ripped your memory away? Sounds like you got shafted, my friend." She comments this much before turning and grabbing her beer off the coffee table, drinking about half of it down in one go. "Well. I'll keep doing what I do... bake by day, kill by night. You don't have to worry about that none."

Spawn has posed:
"I only know that I am meant to become the general of Hell's army, when the war against Heaven comes. Every soul sent to Hell is another soldier in my army," the disembodied voice answers while Shiloh's attention is focused on dulling the memory of having lived a microscopic fraction of the Hellspawn's existence. At the same time that sense of dread fades away. Spawn had phased himself out of visibility and headed straight out a nearby wall, not exiting by the stairs, so by the time the auditory hallucination is finished playing in Shiloh's head the Hellspawn is already gone from the apartment.