4031/Please Feed After Midnight

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Please Feed After Midnight
Date of Scene: 04 November 2020
Location: Food Court: Triskelion
Synopsis: Levian is eating after midnight, does not turn into a Gremlin. Talks with May about life, demons, and investigations.
Cast of Characters: Levian, Melinda May




Levian has posed:
Having not had actual money, mostly eating scraps, pigeons, and the occasional piece of fast food he can afford (also, lots of Slim Jims), Levian is sitting in the Triskelion Cafetera after midnight, wearing a blue trainee bodysuit with his denim jacket over it, chomping on a large pile of food.

There's pork chops, slices of pizza, chicken breasts, and he's sprinkled Reese's Pieces all over everything.

He is not an expert at human cuisine, but he is very rapidly eating like a starving person, keeping to a table by himself this late at night.

Melinda May has posed:
May tries not to be at the Trisk overnight. She's got an apartment. And it's not here. But there are times when paperwork kills the dream of an early evening. She has a travel mug in her hand as she makes her way into the commissary, angling for the drink counter, rather than the food counter. Unlike the new trainee. She pours herself a full mug of hot water and adds a tea bag to it before she turns to retreat again.

Of course, Levian's dining habits are a trifle distracting. Her brow arches faintly at his choices. But, then, he's a demon. At least, what he's eating is recognizable. That's something.

Levian has posed:
Levian sniffs the air, looking back at her as his eyes reflect in the light a little like a cat or a dog, with a slice of pizza in between his teeth.

He downs the slice in a few bites, then waves at her. "Agent May." he greets, tone dry, but there's at least a lightness about it, if one pays attention to the subtle differences in his tone. "There's so much food here. I haven't had money, so I've been very hungry since I've been on Earth."

He lifts a chicken breast, taking a large bite out of it. "There's fried food, heavily processed, covered in grease! I've seen so many demon lords eat like this, it feels like I'm royalty... What's your favorite food?"

Melinda May has posed:
May blinks mildly at the question. Her brow arches. "Dim sum," she says after a moment. It's not like it's a state secret. Just don't expect her to share her favourite restaurant.

She notes the jumpsuit he wears. "I see they approved your training. Congratulations."

Levian has posed:
"I don't know what that is, but I want to eat it." Levian licks his lips, and then nods. "Yeah... I'm doing training. It's interesting. I'm also getting psychological evaluations. The psychologist said I have PTSD, though I don't really understand it very well."

"Did you know there was another demon?" he asks, curious. "His name is Hellboy, I haven't gotten to talk to him yet. We killed zombies together, and I think he's some kind of agent. He feels very powerful, it's easy to fall into instinct and fight with him."

Melinda May has posed:
May doesn't bother to elaborate on dim sum. She'll let him figure it out on his own. She listens to his report on Hellboy, but eventually shakes her head. "I can't say I've met him, yet," she says. She gives a mild shrug. "SHIELD is a very big organization and I don't often work with WAND." All experience between them to the contrary.

"I take it you're settling in well, though." His plate would seem to indicate so. "I'm sorry to hear the PTSD. You're not alone in that, though. Many agents deal with it to some degree."

Levian has posed:
"A lot of demon evolution is different depending on species, or maybe it's a natural part of evolution, I don't know. But now that I can feel things more clearly, up here on Earth, my experiences and memories affect me more." Levian continues to munch on his chicken, thinking quietly for a moment. "There's lots of cruelty down there. Demons, they vary in their cruelty, and if you're weak, you're abused all the time until you're strong enough to be the one who abuses."

He stares down at his hand, frowning slightly. "Talking to the psychologist is making me understand my life the way a human would see it. A demon thinks, yes, suffering is fuel, violence feels good. A human thinks, suffering as fuel is a coping mechanism, and violence is the perpetuation of abuse, or whatever. Instincts don't make you evil."

"Hellboy seems normal..." he observes, considering the man. "I want to be like him."

Melinda May has posed:
"Normal's kind of overrated," May says. She lets out a small sigh and moves to lean against a table near Levian. She wasn't really planning on a late night chat when she came in her. And she's still not sure what to make of this... kid. Maybe that's about what she can make of it. He's a kid. A messed up kid.

She takes a sip of her tea to hide her thoughts on that. "And it's going to take you time to figure everything out." Her head cants slightly. "Way I see it... this is probably pretty similar to being dropped into a complete foreign country and having to learn both the language and the culture from scratch. No one can do that overnight."

Levian has posed:
"It's difficult, but I do like it more. I like people. When I talk to you, I don't have to worry that you're going to eat me. At least I don't think I do." Levian starts to brush the Reese's Pieces off of his pork chops. "The little pieces of candy might be too much." he decides.

"I'm also investigating something." he decides to mention. "I reported it to our superiors. But before I was accepted into SHIELD, I noticed a demon or maybe a god who stole someone's soul. An angel and some other people are also investigating it. I don't know a lot of details, but I'll keep helping and reporting back."

Melinda May has posed:
"Most people consider the candy dessert," May notes. "So, probably a little too much, yes." She wasn't going to say it. But, since he did? Yes.

Her head cants as he speaks of what he has discovered. "Do you... have names?" she asks after a moment. A beat. "Should you be telling me?"

She completely bypasses the idea she might eat Levian. Of course, she wouldn't. But she doesn't see any reason to dispell the myth.

Levian has posed:
"I mean... you're my superior too." Levian observes, though takes his phone out to go through it. "Sera, the angel. Vanessa, the human. They were helping. Also Spiral was there, she's a woman with six arms."

"The demon, or whatever it was, we don't know its name. That's what we're trying to figure out. If we know its name then we can stop it." He swirls his finger through the air, briefly creating a small fire ring. "It's very powerful and old, much more powerful than me. Like if you fought Thor... well, you can probably beat Thor somehow." He figures that seems like a good bet. "Knowing a demon's true name, that's the secret to sending it back to Hell or controlling it, even without a banishment spell."

Melinda May has posed:
May's lips twitch. Not a smile. But maybe vague amusement. "Thor's tougher than he looks," she says mildly. "His hammer's pretty impressive, too." Not on her to-do list.

"I know Sera," she says after a moment. Vannessa... maybe not. Spiral? Definitely not. Never met a six-armed woman.

"I doubt it's easy to get a demon's true name," she concludes. "What does this demon do?" Eat souls. Right. She clarifies. "What I mean is, *how* does he do it? Does he have a typical pattern or a typical victim? Something that is predictable about him? Likes, dislikes?" She regards Levian for a moment. "It's part of your training, you'll learn. But we try to understand how our opponents behave so we can learn how best to counter or capture them."

Levian has posed:
"He acts like a contract demon, in that he appeared to be collecting on a deal. But he also seems to have his own domain, a small dimension that feels like Hell but isn't. Spiral took us there for a moment, but he had the power to shove us right back to ours. Strange that he didn't kill us in his own domain." Levian considers because, well, probably demon psychology.

"Getting a demon's true name... if I could determine all of those things, I'll eventually be able to figure it out. Humans charted all of the major demons in books, but finding an authentic one is difficult." He motions to himself, now. "My true name isn't in a book, but I can also be shot with an ordinary gun, so I guess that's the tradeoff."

Melinda May has posed:
It does sound like a fair trade-off, yes. May takes another sip of her tea and nods. "Well, if he's on a contract, my next question would be: Who contracted him? The person he was collecting from, or a higher power who's using him as a collection agent."

She doesn't really know enough about demon culture or expectations to know the fine details or difference between them. She treats them, somewhat erroneously, as particularly violent and psychopathic humans. It keeps them somewhat understandable to her.

Levian has posed:
"We'd have to know what his motivation is. Why does a demon that powerful want a single soul? And if he has an even more powerful superior, why is that superior sending a demon that powerful to collect a single soul? //I// could collect a soul if it's in a contract. That's the part that doesn't make sense to me..." Levian peels some cheese from a slice of pizza, looking under the cheese out of curiosity.

"Powerful demons often have complicated plans. Some of their plans take hundreds or thousands of years to unfold. I'm not good at thinking in terms of a thousand years yet, that kind of demon is much smarter than me. A hundred years is... feels like a blur." He puts the cheese back down, then rolls the pizza up like a, well, roll, and takes a bite. "I need to learn how to draw demon traps. If I can trap it, I can interrogate it."

Melinda May has posed:
May considers Levian's questions. She pulls out a chair at the table next to him, sitting kitty-corner with her mug now on the table. "Generally, you only send a high level operative to retrieve a high level asset," she tells him. "So that single soul would have to be very important. Do you know whose it is?" Because that might make a difference, too. "Who is he after?"

Levian has posed:
"He seemed to be a human with business papers, on top of a bank. The papers were... accounts? They seemed to be accounts. I'm not sure who the man was. I can ask Sera, maybe. Sorry, I'm still learning to investigate, so I didn't find out." Levian admits, apologetically. "So the human could be important... it makes sense. Accounts, bureucracy, banks. These are all incredibly important things in Hell."

Melinda May has posed:
"THey're incredibly important things in the human world, too, Levian." May says. "We have a saying, up here. If you want to know motive, follow the money. Many times, that tells you more about why a person might do something than anything else." A beat. "Not all the time," she concedes. "But often enough."

She gives him a brief nod. "If you get the chance to ask, I would. You have unique position, Levian. You can ask questions many of the rest of us can't because you're still learning *everything*."

Levian has posed:
"In the human world, money is like how souls are used in Hell. Makes me wonder if it's some strange symbolism. He denied being a contract demon, but... it sure seems like that soul collection was the kind of ironic twist demons like to do." Levian shrugs, then leans his elbow against the cable, clearing his throat.

He's silent, awkwardly so for a few moments, then says, "You're kind of how I imagine a mom, if my mother wasn't a primordial cosmic representation of fire."

Melinda May has posed:
May really doesn't know how to respond to that. She clears her throat and sets down her cup. "Yes. Well. I'm... Not a mother." She shakes her head briefly, pushing the thought very, very far away. "Any chance of that is long past. And that's fine." That's just fine.

Levian has posed:
"I don't know. Not sure what a mother is like. But a pack leader who doesn't eat me seems good enough." Levian stands, taking his plate that's still full of food. "I'm going to my room to watch alien movies, I don't have a house yet. Maybe we can eat dim sum in the future."

Melinda May has posed:
Yeah. May doesn't tell him not to hold his breath on that. He probably wouldn't understand the reference anyway. The best she can say is, "Enjoy your movies, Levian. Just remember... they're stories."

She pulls to her feet now and looks down at her tea, briefly. "Keep me posted what you find out about this contract demon. I'll be interested to hear how your investigation goes."

So much for not getting involved in WAND. Again.

Why does she does this to herself?

Never mind. It doesn't matter. She raises her hand briefly to him and makes her way out without another word. Tomorrow, she'll leave on time. No more late night commissary trips for her.