Pitch had felt almost like a new pattern was emerging in his life. He'd go about his normal life and was still keeping his job at NexGen, but then whenever Ishwada had a case for the last two cases Pitch had been called on to assist. Although it was something Pitch had actively asked for he had not realized how mentally and emotionally taxing the job would be. The hardest part was maintaining his mask and not showing his true self to Black Eagle. This meant avoiding cuts and sometimes damage in general as if taking a single hit could kill him.
Although such a thing would be true for a human, the former General already knew Pitch wasn't. Pitch had allowed himself to take blunt trauma in the last fight and showed that his strength and durability surpassed what a human was capable of, but he still restrained himself as to not scare Ishwada or his men too much. Working with a Cryptid was one thing, since Black Eagle did employ a number of Doppelgangers. Pitch firmly believed however, that if Ishwada knew what he was, even if told how he was, the former General would act emotionally over rationally. That if discovered his life, or at least his freedom, would be at genuine risk. Especially considering Pitch was directly responsible for the deaths of several Black Eagle members.
Yes, it was technically self defense. Yes, Pitch didn't know who they were. This did not change what Pitch had done to those men five years ago. It did not change the fact that he metaphorically had their blood on his hands. The only person Pitch could truly confide in was Kathryn, and so he invited her over to talk about his concerns. “Anyway, that's about everything I'm dealing with right now. It's been stressing me out lately. I'm not sure how long I can keep this up, but we need the General on our side if we're ever going to confront NexGen and their use of an Umbran to power the city. He definitely agrees they're suspicious but he needs something more if he's going to convince his bosses to look into the sub basement.”
Kathryn put her hand on Pitch's shoulder. “I've been trying to get in good enough to gain access to that area or at least overhear something but they're definitely not taking chances when it comes to the generator. They've kept it secret this long even within the company by letting only a few people know about it not counting the head researcher. There's only two people per shift that have access and they are always posted in different sections in the regular basement and have different break rotations to prevent them from even being able to talk. They've thought of everything. There isn't even an air vent for you to use to sneak down there. I'm not sure how we'll ever get anything from within NexGen outside of what we already have. Unfortunately you can't show Ishwada the math without him asking where it came from.”
Pitch rubbed his eyes and cheeks with his hand. “It really is the best way forward isn't it? Trust goes both ways and if we want Ishwada to trust me, I'm going to have to trust him. Besides, it would be a far worse disaster if he found out much later on his own then it will be from me just telling him. I just… don't know where to start.” Kathryn squeezed Pitch's shoulder gently. “Isn't it obvious? You start at the beginning, and be thorough about it. Try to cover everything related to what you are and how you got here before handing him a thumb drive with everything we've gathered up to this point. All the evidence.”
Pitch sighed. “Right, right. If I'm doing this, it won't be without you. We're in this together.” Kathryn moved her hand to grip Pitch's tightly. “I've got your back. Through thick and thin.” Pitch nodded. If he still had lungs he would have taken in several breaths to help ready himself for the conversation he was going to have to have with Ishwada. “This is definitely a risky move Kat, if this goes south-” Kathryn squeezed Pitch's hand tighter. “Don't do that, you'll only start a spiral. Focus on what needs to be done right here and right now. We can deal with the aftermath when we are on the other end of this.”
Pitch sat for a moment holding Kathryn’s hand. He gave her a simple small smile before getting up and letting go. He paces back and forth a few times anxiously. “Okay… let's do this.” He then picks up his cell phone and calls Ishwada who picks up fairly quickly. “Hey Ishwada, are you free? I had a few things I wanted to talk about. Privately. … Yeah, my place is fine. It's free and clear since I bug bombed it, completely roach free. I'll see you when you get here.” He then hangs up. “He'll be here in about a half hour.”
The two wait patiently for their guest to arrive. Pitch makes some tea in a kettle and sets out a charcuterie board. When there's a knock on the door, Pitch quickly answers it and lets Ishwada in offering tea and snacks. “I wasn't sure what kind of tea you drank, so I made matcha. I've got milk if you want.” Ishwada grabbed a pillow and sat at the low sitting coffee table in the traditional Japanese fashion before pouring himself some matcha milk tea. “You definitely know how to make a host feel welcome.” Pitch chuckled. “I didn't expect you to sit on the floor, but whatever works for you.”
Ishwada sips the tea and nods. “So what was it you wanted to talk about that requires an in person meeting?” Pitch shifted on the couch. “I… think I need a bit more time to mentally prepare so I'll start with some lighter questions. During our last mission you told me holy water is a thing and that the power of belief can alter an object and grant it anomalous properties. Does that mean someone with a mental condition like schizophrenia could alter reality around them?” Ishwada shook his head. “No single person could ever hope to do anything notable no matter how strongly they believe something. Holy water is relatively low energy but most things take multiple people all believing the same thing.”
Pitch quickly asks a follow up question. “What about cults and those fake as shit healing preachers?” Ishwada explains: “Well unless that preacher is drinking his own kool-aid and actually thinks he can heal people his own knowledge of his fraudulence is enough to prevent him from healing people for real. And even if he did and could it wouldn't be instant and would take time. It's far more likely these people keep the energy for themselves. Probably in some vain attempt to extend their own lifespans. As for cults it depends on the size. The amount of influence on reality and the creation of anomalies and Cryptids seems directly proportional to the population and its density. They may not follow the laws of physics we are familiar with, but there are definitely rules and limitations that remain consistent.”
Pitch takes a moment to digest the information and takes a few breaths even if they are just for show and more out of habit then necessity. “Okay, I think I'm ready for the real conversation now “ he places a thumb drive on the table. “This includes everything we've gathered from our investigation of NexGen including mathematical and logistical proof that NexGen has a Cryptid in a sub basement powering New Arkham. As well as proof that their parent company is part of a massive operation that involves the kidnapping and subsequent murder of a significant number of homeless people and registered felons.”
Ishwada raised an eyebrow. “Something tells me you've had most of if not all of this information for a while but had some reason not to share it sooner. Mostly because you yourself said you had strong reason to suspect wrongdoing weeks ago. So what's changed, why give me this now?” Pitch sighs. “Because trust works both ways, and if we are going to work together to weed out the corruption in Tomorrow corp and Black Eagle we need full transparency. Including telling you how I got some of this information and what kind of Cryptid hybrid I am.”
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Ishwada sets down his tea and gestures to Pitch. “I'm all ears.” Pitch lets out one final sigh. “Our current working theory is that my transformation was a slow build that started long before my disappearance five years ago. It all started on that faithful unforgettable day sixteen years ago, the day Yuri and the rest of my first grade class were brutally slaughtered by that Umbran.” Ishwada nodded, indicating that Pitch had his full attention and to continue. “During that moment of serenity, when all fear left me and it started to study me, it stuck a tendril down my throat. We think that when your men hit it with the light and it bolted, that it left the tendril behind.”
Pitch paused briefly as Ishwada took a sip of tea. “That part remained inside me, feeding slowly off what I did like a parasite. A supernatural tapeworm. It went without notice and issue until I reached the age of eighteen. It is at this point it started to grow exponentially and normal food became less and less effective. It slowly started eating me from the inside as I reached a point where nothing seemed to reduce my growing hunger. You see, Umbrans have an ability to possess people and maybe even animals. When they do there is a mental bleed causing the two beings to experience the memories of the other. But since the fragment had none of its own it was one way.”
Ishwada's eyes widened as his face paled. Pitch continued as Ishwada set down the teacup. “That day I vanished, the James that was died. Eaten from the inside in his sleep. Giving birth to a new hybrid Cryptid that on that first day was in a feral state existing in the backseat as the body fed on its own. Since then I've been regularly feeding on criminals to keep myself from going feral and losing what little humanity I have. I'm almost literally a shadow of my former self, the echoes of the memories of a dead man in an amorphous body wrapped in a human looking shell that's little more than a mask.”
Ishwada sat in stunned silence for what felt like forever. Pitch then made his final statements. “This data includes information that I've gathered from experimenting on myself. It proves that NexGen is using the Umbran that killed your daughter to generate power for the city. They've had it locked up for years and it's responsible for The Signal that draws in Cryptids. In fact from what I can tell they caught it around the same time my appetite jumped when I was eighteen.”
Ishwada runs a hand on his mouth. “Then when I lost those men to an Umbran a year after you vanished…” Pitch nodded. “I was defending myself, acting mostly on instinct then intentionally to prevent myself from being located later. Once they were dead my habit of not wasting food kicked in as I… consumed all of them. That's when I got the ability to make this shell. Since then I've devoted myself to finding out what happened to me and tracking down the Umbran that started this. Like you I've been trying to get my hand on the monster that killed your daughter so I can end it. Not simply for revenge either, but that's a bit of a factor. I mostly kept this to myself because I was worried how you would act once you knew, worried you'd try to kill me. I've acted mostly in the best interest of my continued survival and trying my best to pick the lesser of many evils.”
Ishwada moves from sitting on his legs to sitting on the floor and leaning back, stretching his legs under the low sitting coffee table. He rubs his face with both hands for a minute before letting out a mixture of a sigh and a groan. The exasperated sound goes on for quite some time before Ishwada leans forward and grabs the thumb drive. “So you're saying that the Cryptid I've been hunting has been in containment for seven years?”
Pitch nods. “We think Tom Marrow is using the various subsidiaries of his company to build the infrastructure to place power plants like the one in New Arkham all over the U.S and the E.U. That he’s been feeding it more than the minimum to get it to split. Many Cryptids defy the normal rules of reality as we know them, making the impossible possible. Turning pipe dreams into reality. Unbrans can amplify the electricity run through them for some reason making them able to perform something akin to cold fusion, a sci-fi nonsense myth originally made up by some guys in the eighties as part of a scam.”
Ishwada holds up the thumb drive. “You know if I show this to the people above me they'll have questions as to how I got it. Not to mention Tomorrow corp is responsible for the technology we use to capture and kill Cryptids. There's a chance they'll ignore it, or worse already know about it. They might not give me permission to go to the sub basement even with this. Besides… let's say hypothetically we get down there. Let us also say hypothetically you kill it. Then what? New Arkham shut down the old coal plant, meaning the city would be without power.”
Ishwada rubs his face more. “I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place, working for a goal separate from the rest of Black Eagle I can't even tell them about. And on this secret special mission my only help and back up are some lab rat and a monster who just happens to hold the memories of a friend's son. You… aren't human, you're not even James anymore.” Pitch sighs. “In private or in my true form, I go by Pitch. Pitch Black. I know it sounds kinda dumb but it felt wrong to use James outside of as a mask to protect myself.”
Ishwada grumbles, groans, and sighs. Shifting back and forth trying to think of what to do next and what to do with this information. “This is a lot to take in, and it shakes the foundation of everything I thought I knew. Everything was so much simpler when I could think of Cryptids as monsters to slay, even with the addition of the few exceptions. Now I'm looking down the barrel of a large scale conspiracy to… what? Provide the world with clean energy? But it's a bad thing because it's at the expense of some literal man-eating monster but you want to put it out of its misery because you don't think it deserves such torment and I want to kill it for vengeance. What are we even doing?”
Pitch sighs. “What is right, what is good, what is just. These three things are not always the same. Sometimes all we are left with is a bunch of bad and evil options. Sure, torturing a literal monster in exchange for clean energy may not sound like a bad deal, but these people see all Cryptids as a resource to be framed and exploited like a precious mineral or a fossil fuel. Although they may defy our definition of life, they are for all intents and purposes, alive. Living things deserve a level of respect. Is a tiger a monster when it attacks a person? These things are only doing what is in their nature. If we allow the use of an Umbran to power a city… to power a nation, to power the world… Where do we draw the line?”
Ishwada sighs. “Like any good man, you just want what's best for you and your's. It's funny, even as a man eating monster you are striving to do what you feel is the right thing. Even if no one else can see it. You can say something about how you are only acting logically, that there's no emotion behind your actions. Truth is, there's a passion behind it. I finally got to reading your full file after letting you work with me. Your psychological evaluation is included. Honestly, I think the shrink got a few things wrong. You're not emotionally stunted. You may feel like your emotions are watered down and hard to access, making it difficult to tell how you feel.”
Ishwada stands up. “But I think, especially knowing your ability to sense the emotions of others, that it's actually the opposite. You are so overwhelmed by your own emotions and the emotions of others it causes a sort of… overflow error in your system. If that makes sense. Honestly, as funny as it sounds, knowing your natural empathic abilities and the way Cryptids function… I think maybe you were always meant to turn out this way. As a Cryptid, especially something like an Umbran, your abilities were likely enhanced. It's why you're so good at detecting and dealing with Cryptids. What I saw in our last mission… the way you handled that Onrio…”
Ishwada picked up and downed the rest of his tea. “It was quite possibly the most human thing I've ever seen. You defeated it not through force but by reaching out and taking some of the emotional burden so the energies that made up the Cryptid could be resolved and dissipate. To be able to show empathy to something everyone sees as a monster… I think maybe… there’s something noble about it. I may not exactly have the best feeling towards Cryptids, one could say I'm a little biased, but if there's one thing I can empathize with it's the fear of prosecution for being different.”
Ishwada turns to leave. “I'm glad you chose to open up to me, and although I don't know what I'll do with this information just yet and will need time to adjust, I do know that we'll likely continue to work together. Because as strange as it might sound, I'm not sure I can do this without you. Right now, you are my best chance at reaching my goals.” Ishwada left peacefully, without conflict. Pitch let out a sigh of relief and sat back. “I'm going to turn into my true form in the tub and just… soak.” Kathryn looked at Pitch. “Did you want me to stay over?” Pitch hesitated before nodding. “You can use the bed tonight. I just… I don't want to be alone in this house right now.”