Pitch watched as Kathryn woke up, nestled in his tendrils in a big hug. She stirred to face him and smiled before passing a hand there where his face would be if he was human. She then missed at the air where his body was before slowly getting up. “Last night was… amazing. I can't believe we've finally done it. It feels surreal, like this is all a dream. I just wish we could sit here and cuddle a bit longer but I have work to do.” Kathryn walked to a dresser and grabbed underwear, smocks, and then grabbed a lab coat from the closet. “I have a sample to run and still need to figure out how to help Kasa. If I can figure out how to restore more of her humanity, then maybe I can also stabilize you so you're not killing yourself on the inside.”

  Kathryn walked back over and gave Pitch another air kiss before making her way out the room. “I'll be in the garage if you need anything though.” Pitch floated his way out of the bed. “Good luck Kat.” He waved at her as she shut the door on her way out with a wave. Feeling somewhat down, Pitch floated to the living room. There was a knock on the door just minutes after he started trying to settle in and watch some TV. He quickly put on his human mask before going to the door and opening it.

  On the other end is Ishwada and Anderson. Pitch sighed as he saw the two both geared up. Ishwada being the one to address Pitch. “I've been given a specialty request to go to Miami Florida. The request, oddly enough, was issued for you. Apparently Black Eagle wants your special skills on the case. Not sure what skills exactly since as far as HQ knows you're just a human with an empathy anomaly who's great with electronics and knows his way around a mop.” Pitch nods. “I'll let Kathryn know I'm heading out.”

  Pitch entered the garage to see Kathryn hard at work running samples as she pet Kasa who laid down beside her. “Hey babe, Ishwada got a call for a case in another district that requested for me specifically. So I guess I'm flying to Miami Florida.” Kathryn stopped what she was doing and looked up at him. “No without me you're not. Come on Kasa, we're going to Miami.” She packs a few things and walks to the door. “I can check the results when I get back. The machine is doing all the work at this point anyway.”

  The three go to the front with Pitch addressing Ishwada. “Well Jiryu, I hope they gave us a private plane because apparently the entire family is going.” Ishwada chuckled. “I figured as much so I arranged special temporary living arrangements to keep Kasa out of sight.” Everyone packed into Ishwada's Humvee and made the trip to the local airport where they then loaded into the small jet to take the trip to Florida. Once they landed Ishwada drove them to a camper set in the grass to the side of the landing strip covered by trees. “The case is at the airport itself so this'll have to do.”

  Kathryn opened it and led Kasa in. After setting some food aside for her she shut the door Leaving Kasa by herself inside as they remained outside. “You stay here, I'll be back.” She said as she closed the door. Pitch looked to Ishwada. “So the case is at the airport? What exactly are we dealing with? Is broad daylight and this area isn't exactly remote outside of the airport area itself.” Ishwada shrugged. “They just told me to report to air traffic control with you in tow. No other details.” Pitch sighed. “I'd guess something that flies fast. But that alone would not require special assistance.”

  The four made their way to the air traffic control tower and after showing I.D. were let inside. The person in charge greeted the group enthusiastically. “Finally! We've been putting in a request for days before anyone even agreed to send someone. I called six different numbers before I was redirected to your organization. Though… I was under the impression there were just going to be two. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I got more, but I was told I was getting a specialist and a handler.”

  Ishwada walked over and shook the man's hand. “Ishwada, former General of the U.S Army and Commander of the Wisconsin division of Black Eagle PMC. Dealing with the strange and unusual stuff the government doesn't touch. This here is Lieutenant Anderson, a trusted member under my command. This is James Holden, Civilian consultant. Our specialist for this case. This is Kathryn Smith. She's a genetics specialist and James’ girlfriend. She's mostly here to support James.”

  The man continued shaking Ishwada's hand. “Ah, I see. Well the more the merrier.” Pitch grumbled. “Let's get straight to brass tax. What exactly are we dealing with here?” The air traffic control chief snapped into a focus. “Oh, right, of course. Right this way.” He then walked up to the radio. “So uhh… it's hard to put into words since it's not happening now but around midnight every night for about five minutes we get this interference in the radio. This has been going on for… three months or so now I think. Since it's just a few minutes during a low traffic time we ignored it. But some of the guys handling the radio started making complaints.”

  Pitch put his hand on his chin. “Elaborate.” The chief continued. “Hearing patterns in the static, hearing phantom voices on the other end, one of our regulars requested switching shifts because he started having nightmares and was convinced it was tied to whatever is going on with the radio. I tried to get a recording of the static one night but the recorder is also on the fritz whenever this happens. All the lights start flickering, and it's spooking everyone in the tower. We were desperate and weren't sure who to even call. Eventually I got a number for Black Eagle and explained everything.”

  Pitch looked at the radio. “Looks like we'll have to wait till midnight and see what's going on ourselves. What's the range on these radios?” The chief responded quickly. “They're not exactly long range, a few miles or so. The frequency isn't exactly public but it's not private either. However, I don't think it's a prank because of the electrical issues. If it is, then hats off to the amount of effort put into it.” Pitch nodded. “We'll be back in about ten minutes to midnight to observe this. I'm guessing you can't track radio signals.” The man shook his head. With that handshakes were exchanged and everyone returned to the camper to wait.

  After sitting around and keeping busy by playing Gin Rummy and chatting for several hours the group of four returned to the tower with a different chief in charge of the third shift. She introduced herself to the four and seemed happy to see someone was finally going to fix the problem. Pitch stood right by the radio and watched the clock while he readied his phone to record what was going on. “We tried that, you know.” The female chief told him. “For some reason all electronics go wonky whenever the signal comes in.” Pitch sighs before putting away his phone. “I should have figured as much.”

  The clock struck midnight and the lights started to flicker lightly as the radio chirped with static. Pitch listened carefully as the static came in and out, trying to get a better signal. “Do you hear that?” Pitch asked while looking at Ishwada. Ishwada listened for a bit. “Morse Code? It almost sounds like an old school S.O.S made of static.” The static then became more frantic. Pitch frowned. “That's definitely not Morse Code. I'm guessing all they know of that is S.O.S. Four, one, eighteen, eleven. Four, one, eighteen, eleven. Same pattern a third time. Six, five, one, eighteen. Now that's repeating two more times. Four, five, one, twenty, eight. Repeating two more times.”

  There was then a long static, Pitch listened closely as he tried to get a better signal. Suddenly, Pitch heard a faint voice, almost like a whisper, barely coming through the static. “Help us. Monsters everywhere. Trapped. Lost. No way out.” Pitch tilted his head as the signal started to cut off and the static. Pitch hit the button on the radio. “Hello, respond.” “Come in, over.” There was light static as Pitch looked at the clock. It struck five minutes after midnight and the lights returned to normal.” Pitch put the radio back before sitting down with an exasperated sigh.

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  Ishwada rubbed his eyes. “So did you learn anything?” Pitch groaned. “The first part, the person knew S.O.S but not any other Morse Code. Imagine you know about the code but nothing more. Trying to recreate something similar the easiest solution is to press the button really fast relative to alphabetical placement. Dark, fear, death. That's what they sent after the S.O.S. Based on what little I heard when I managed to get a voice to come through I think I know where the call is coming from.”

  The chief looked relieved. “So you can put a stop to this?” Pitch pinched the bridge of his nose. “I honestly don't know. The S.O.S call is coming from that radio.” He points at the one he just held. “It's coming from this tower.” Ishwada, Anderson, and Kathryn all went slightly pale. Ishwada grabbed a bottle of water, wet his hand, and splashed his face with it before handing it to Pitch who drank from the bottle. “So the S.O.S is coming from…” Pitch nodded as he finished off the holy water. “Yeah, and I'm not sure what we can even do about it.”

  The air control chief looked confused, but shrugged and did her best to get back to work. Kathryn pulled out a tablet and started going through it. “There has to be something, right?” Pitch shrugged. “I've gone between a couple times but never intentionally. I've even towed things with me once. So if I knew how to trigger that I could just pop in and out grabbing the people. I don't even know if it was me causing the transportation between locations.”

  Kathryn brought the tablet over to Pitch. “What about this?” Pitch grabbed the tablet and looked at it. Moving it closer and farther away from his face a few times. “Franklin Finkton? Wasn't he a nut job?” Kathryn nodded. “They definitely thought so at the time, but the thing he went to prove is exactly what we're dealing with. Besides, we both know the rules are different for these things. So maybe his device to visit the feywild and prove it was a real place actually works. I mean Black Eagle has a file on him so I'm not the first to suggest that his work could be valid.”

  Pitch pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay, but where in the hell would we get enough old fashioned mirrors? Modern ones wouldn't work for this. We'd need at least one mirror that was nearly a hundred years old back when they still used actual silver and even sometimes mercury.” Anderson looked around the room. “I uhh… I have one at home. It was an heirloom from my grandma. I could have it transported. However, I'm not doing that if whatever you do with it results in damage.”

  Pitch looked at Anderson with his hand still on the bridge of his nose. “I can't promise that, but I'll try my best. I'm just glad the regs finally gave us enough space to talk. Make the calls, get stuff moved. It'll probably take me a while to set everything up once we have everything. I can't believe I'm about to try and recreate the Finkton gate and hope it works. This feels silly.” Pitch then looked to the air traffic control lady and talked loud enough for her to hear. “We're going to need a few things brought over, but hopefully we can fix this.”

  The four returned to the camper since there was little they could do till the things they needed were brought over. Kathryn spent time petting and interacting with Kasa as the guys minus Pitch took naps. Pitch simply stood and waited in silence as night eventually gave way to morning and the group got up to grab the things that got brought over. The group needed someplace they could isolate and secure that was as close to the tower as possible. The building had a storage area for bags that went unclaimed so they cleared out an area in what was basically a mini warehouse attached to the airport building. Pitch, Kathryn, and Anderson all got to work setting up while Ishwada remained in the tower.

  The mirror was placed upright with wires and a number of devices being hooked up to it. Pitch carefully set everything up and eventually got up and wiped off his forehead even though he wasn't sweating. “This should be about right. Now we just need to find the right combination of light and electricity to get the thing to work. Unfortunately, it seems Black Eagle either didn't get all his notes or lost some or he never got it to work because I saw a bunch of tried attempts but marked no success.”

  Kathryn sighed. “Well at least we know a number of combinations not to try. You'll just have to fiddle with it till you get it right.” Pitch sighed as he activated the hodgepodge contraption. The generator they got whering to life as electricity was run through the mirror and light was shined on it. Anderson cringed as everything was turned on. “Please don't break the mirror. It's worth a lot of money and has sentimental value.” Anderson’s radio then chirped with Ishwada talking on the other end. “Anderson, we've got a bit of a development. Over.”

  Anderson picked up his radio. “What do you mean? There's no active Cryptid, this is a rescue mission with zero dangers on our end. What kind of development could there possibly be outside of stuff the… was was the term Pitch used? Regs. Yeah, why can't the regs deal with it? Over.” The radio chirped once again. “We've got Black Scripture, and they've brought in tanks. They're literally right outside the airport and they radioed in using a civilian frequency. They're demanding we bring them the demon. But as you said there's no Cryptid in this case on our end so I don't know what they are on about.”

  Pitch sighed as he turned off the makeshift device. “Unless they're here for me and someone ratted me out to them. Everyone in our division knows I'm a Cryptid and I'm surprised no one contacted HQ about it. I guess they turned to Black Scripture instead.” Anderson got a bit animated and raised his voice slightly. “Yeah, but no one knows exactly what you are.” Pitch let out an exasperated sigh. “Yeah, but you and I both know there are members of Black Scripture that don't agree with the non-human citizen protection agreement.”

  Pitch starts making his way out of the storage area with Kathryn grabbing his shoulder and stopping him. “What are you doing?” Pitch looked at her and smiled. “I'm going to try and reason with them. After all, their go to weapon of holy water doesn't hurt me.” He gently placed his hand on Kathryn's. “I've got this.” She lets go and nods. “I'm going with you.” Anderson groaned. “Yeah, I might as well come too. It's not like I'll get this thing working on my own.”

  The three went out to the road to see it had been cleared out of cars but a crowd had gathered. The Black Scripture had three armored vehicles. One was one of those riot APCs with the water cannon on them. Likely loaded up with holy water. The second looked like a proper tank but the barrel was rectangular and was glowing blue. Likely a larger version of an electric pulse cannon similar to the Gauss. The third was a small armored vehicle with what looked like two large Gatling guns on the turret that was obviously made to be able to be aimed up.

  Pitch sighed. “You want to hit me with that oversized squirt gun, go right ahead.” The door on the passenger side of the APC opened and sister Jeanette. “I should have known, I should have known you were one of them with your disrespectful and heretical behavior. Your presence is an affront to the Lord.” Pitch raised his voice. “Then do something about it and hit me with that big ass water cannon! I'll prove I'm not the evil you think I am.” He spread his arms out wide. Waiting for the Black Scripture to attack.

  Jeanette gave the order and the water cannon was fired, pressurized water hit Pitch and slammed him into a wall were he was stuck and unable to really move without turning into his true form. Instead he simply sat there and waited for the water to stop. Eventually the cannon shut off and Pitch got back up and walked right to where he was standing. “See? I'm not a demon. Holy water doesn't hurt me, in fact I drink it to help calm me down.” Jeanette’s face turned red with anger as she activated a radio. “Fire the Galven. Kill this fool.”

  The radio chirped with the person on the other end objecting to his order. “But mam, the water had no effect. Doesn't that mean-” Jeanette interrupted him. “I gave you a direct order, fire the cannon.” The electric pulse cannon on the second tank quickly charged as the APC moved out of the way. Pitch stood there with his arms out wide and a big smile. “Go right ahead.” In the hopes they would stand down assuming the weapon would have no effect. Instead Jeanette rushed over to the tank “Fine, if you want to play it that way I'll play along.” and hopped in. The cannon turned slightly and instead aimed at Kathryn.

  The cannon fired and Pitch's eyes widened. He moved with an inhuman quickness to be between the shot and Kathryn making sure it hit him instead. The shit was absorbed into Pitch's body as small purple arcs of electricity came off him and he fell to his knees holding his chest. He slowly looked over to Kathryn who was about to run at him but he held his hand out and shook it indicating that she should keep her distance. His body looked to be dissolving in a purple energy. Both the mask and his real self looked to be burning away. Pitch looked down and saw he was vanishing. He looked up and spoke one last sentence before his face disappeared as well. “I love you.” With a hand outstretched and a single tear in his eye before what was left of him vanished.

  Kathryn fell to her knees and cried as Jeanette laughed wickedly, proud of her accomplishment. Ishwada and Anderson both pointed guns at her and declared that she and her accomplices were under arrest for murder. Several Black Scripture members abandoned the vehicles and ran hoping to escape with Jeanette getting the weapon ready for a second shot but Anderson quickly sent EMP bombs under the vehicles to disable them. In the end, with the help of stun rounds from their Watt Pistols, Ishwada and Anderson managed to detain Jeanette and five others. Kathryn simply continued sobbing loudly as she hit the floor with her fists and cursed.