What's Going On? (Tag: Pitch)

This....this cannot be me. This is simply impossible.

The thought passed across Pitch's mind as he looked down into the still and reflective surface of a small pond. A reflection stared up at him, mimicked his every movement perfectly and looking exactly like him, yet part of him could not seem to accept it was really him. For the face that looked up at him was not the face of a demon, but that of a human!

He continued to look downward as he stood in Raoul Park, trying his best to make sense of this unimaginable change that had occurred and all that came with it. The face in the water was still pale but nothing close to the deathly white it had once been, and where his hair had once been the black of pure shadows, it had lightened to a more.....human tone. However, perhaps the most startling change was in his eyes. They had always been so cold, so distant and remote, a haunting yellow like that of a harvest moon about to be eclipsed. But now......now they were a deep amber that seemed to display far too many emotions within them.

Almost as if the sight were too much to bare, Pitch suddenly closed his eyes and looked away from the water with almost a snarl of disgust. Appearances were bad enough, losing his powers worse, but the absolute worst were the sudden and powerful emotions he was experiencing. As a demon, his existence had consisted of hardly any emotions. Emotions were a mortal thing and he rarely felt anything at all. It was only in the most intense of situations that he had experienced any form of feeling at all, and even then it was a muted thing.

But this.....

He shook his head and put a hand to it as he started to walk away from the pond and along one of the quieter paths of the park. He and the drugged Other officers had been immediately put on temporary leave by the Commissioner himself. For their own safety, he claimed. However, this had done Pitch no good. He might be off the case, but the results of the botched raid had left him in a state he had never experienced before. And he simply didn't know how to cope with it. He knew he should be keeping himself concealed, making sure no one knew of his sudden weakness, but he just couldn't stay trapped in his apartment. Not like this.

He continued down the trail, his eyes closed as he did his best to fight off the strange and overpowering emotions that now filled him to the brink. How did Mortals ever function with such feelings constantly present?

Pitch was walking down a pathway lined on one side with benches, his hand still raised to his head as he tried to sort through the myriad emotions he now felt, when a voice suddenly spoke his name.

Pausing, he lowered his hand and looked to the nearest bench to see someone rising from their seat and staring at him in complete shock. It was Adeline.

"Hello, Adeline."

Pitch tried to keep his voice calm and collected, to sound just as he should have always sounded, but he was not a Demon in that moment. And he could feel a mixture of emotions building up inside him, feelings of anger, confusion, anxiety and embarrassment. To have Adeline, his pupil in a way, see him in such a weakened and unbalanced state was almost shameful. Pitch, one of the most powerful of Terror Demons and a figure that invoked fear in even the most dangerous criminals in Bellerouge, reduced to a powerless, pathetic and overly emotional human.

It was disgraceful.

"Why else would I be reduced to this, this.....state?"

Pitch's tone was filled with barely controlled anger as he spoke and it startled him to realize how venomous his words were, let alone the accompanying emotion. He stared at Adeline in shock for a moment before turning slightly away from her and once more closing his eyes.

"That was uncalled for..... I apologize."

However, despite the apology he wouldn't turn to face Adeline again. Instead, he kept his back to her and struggled in vain to make sense of what had happened to him, what he had become. The BPD was busy running test after test on the samples of Sapien they had managed to procure, but there wasn't much they could say at this point except that the drug was temporary. The drug would eventually work its was out of their system and they would return to their original biology, but their was no answer to how long that might take.

And Pitch wasn't sure how long he could stand being human.

Another emotion, perhaps the strangest of them all, started to work its way through Pitch when Adeline tried to offer her help. It was gratitude and it was something he had never felt before. However, it was a small note compared to the other feelings that threatened to overwhelm him.

"I doubt anything Other related will change this. The substance, Sapien.......it was specifically designed to nullify any and all abilities of Others. Your spells and potions would likely have no effect."

He let out a sigh and finally looked back towards the young witch. It was clear she wanted to help, but until they better understood the drug that Grey Dawn had created to target Others, any help would most likely be a waste of energy.

Pitch shot Adeline a look and didn't answer for several seconds. He knew he could lie to her or refuse to answer, but what was the point? The story had already gotten out and sooner or later she would hear the news.

"Yes."

Setting his teeth into a near snarl of agitation, he suddenly turned and continued down the path he had been taking before running into Adeline. He found that walking helped him to at least gain some level of control over the onslaught of emotions that had begun when the Sapien worked its way through his flesh and blood. It was one of the reasons he had left the relative safety of his apartment when he had otherwise been advised by the BPD Commissioner to stay out of the public eye.

Pitch only gave the briefest of glances towards Adeline as she hastily followed him. Part of him wanted her to simply leave him be, and part of him was angry that she would flutter about him in such an annoying manner, but another part suddenly seemed to want her company despite his current emotional imbalance. What troubled him about this feeling is that he could no longer distinguish if it belonged solely to his current human state....or to his true self.

For a time he didn't say anything to the young witch and continued to walk along the path set before them. However, after several moments he veered off onto a side trail, one that wasn't paved but went into a wilder part of the park. He continued down the dirt trail for a long time, occasionally glancing up at the sun as it shown down through the trees that surrounded them. He had always felt uncomfortable in direct sunlight before, had always resented and disliked the golden orb within the sky. He was a creature of the shadows and a demon of nightmares, so it was only natural that he should detest the sun. And yet now......

He suddenly slowed his pace before coming to a complete stop, his amber eyes turned up towards the sunlight as it fell onto him, warming his skin and filling him with a strange energy he hadn't known before. He could hear Adeline following him a short distance away but kept his face turned upwards before speaking softly, his voice almost calm despite everything that had happened.

"Adeline, why are you following me? I can't help you now, not in this weak form. If anything, I am a danger to you."

"But why?"

He took in a deep breath, trying to calm the storm inside of him and arrange his thoughts. A soft wind had picked up, and he could feel it cooling his skin where only a moment before the sun had warmed it. That was another thing so different between humans and demons. Sensations were so much stronger. At first, that had seemed more a burden and nothing more, to feel hunger, fatigue, exhaustion and pain. However, now as he stood in the open and felt the sun warming his body, the wind softly playing across his skin, the press of the earth beneath his feet....

Suddenly, Pitch turned his now amber eyes and stared directly into Adeline's violet gaze.

"You say I helped you so you will do the same for me, but why? Even if I am temporarily human and even if people think I am different from others of my kind, I am a Demon. We are selfish beings. We do nothing to aid others unless we can work it to our own benefit. Rather, we use whomever we manage to lure in until their usefulness has run out, and then we toss them aside like nothing if we don't outright destroy them. Selflessness, compassion, self-sacrifice, they are unknown to Demonkind."

He paused here for a moment but his gaze never wavered from Adeline. He almost felt that if he looked away, he would no longer have the drive to continue speaking.

"The only reason I joined the BPD....the only reason I have done any good at all for anyone in this city is because of a promise I made."

He raised a hand to his chest without thinking. He had been wounded there during the raid and a bandage still covered the injury, but beneath that was something else, something that would never go away as long as he existed.

"So why would you want to help me at all?"