Practice Makes Perfect (Open)

[Zack Fair]

It was not often that you would see Zack Fair sitting still, he was usually the type who preferred to always be doing something. However, on this occasion that's exactly what Zack was doing. The problem with empathic abilities was that there were times where you were unable to separate the emotions of others from your own. Such things required practice and so that brought Zack here, sitting on a bench on main street. He was mentally sifting through each emotion that weaved its way into his head, carefully separating and compartmentalizing it.

Unfortunately, like a little puppy, Zack was becoming quite impatient with the slow and tedious process. He hadn't stopped the practice just yet, but he had begun tapping his foot against the pavement of the sidewalk while his shockingly blue eyes gazed up and down the street in search of something interesting to look at.

[Haraken]

If Zack were looking for something 'interesting' to see, the sight of myself, leaning against a wall, typing rapidly on a panel with one hand and holding a sword with the other, while text scrolled down another panel in front of my eyes, likely qualified.

I had no idea that he could see any of those things, though. I probably ought to have been more careful.

[Zack Fair]

As Zack's gaze flitted up and down the street like someone with the attention span of a goldfish, one thing caught his eye. A rather peculiar sight to see in the middle of the day. He was no stranger to people with weapons, encountering Crossings fairly often got you used to that quite quickly. This was different from the standard human with a gun for protection. Primarily in that this person was holding a sword and they had it out in the open at this time of day. The panels weren't exactly familiar territory either. "Not many people keep their weapons so out in the open." he remarked as the corners of his mouth turned upwards in a jovial smile.

[Haraken]

I blinked, looked up.

"You can see...?" I begain, then sighed, sweeping the panels into nothingness. "...It shouldn't really even surprise me anymore..."

[Zack Fair]

Zack blinked in slight confusion at the other person's words. Obviously from the other person's words he wasn't supposed to see the panels. "Urbadelphia does seem to be the place to be for the unusual to happen." He responded as he stood from his seat on the bench, stretching his arms above his head to try and chase the stiffness from his body. "Heck, we seem to have the market cornered on weird things." He added when his arms fell back to his sides, his smile turning into a fully fledged grin before he made his way over to the other person. "Name's Zack. What's yours?"

[Haraken]

"Harakawa Kenji," I replied quietly, shifting my eyes away. "Just... Haraken, please." I shoved the sword back into my bag, back into storage for when I might need it again. "I've... seen quite a lot of strangeness in the few months I've been here," I admitted. "It's nice to meet you."

[Zack Fair]

"Yeah, I only got here maybe half a year ago. Apparently what I've seen hasn't even topped the charts yet when it comes to weird." He said with an easy laugh as he leaned against the same wall that Haraken was. "It's nice to meet you too. So, where'd you come from anyway?" He asked casually as if they hadn't been complete strangers little more than 10 seconds ago. Zack had always been sociable. Well, as far back as he could remember at least. Anything from before he woke up here in Urbadelphia was a complete and utter blank.

[Haraken]

"It's... not anywhere you'd ever have heard of," I replied, somewhat uncomfortably. I'm not very good with conversation. "A small town near San Francisco. Daikoku. Some weird things happen there as well, but... nothing like this."

Kanna... she must've been drawn here. All the little weirdnesses had never satisfied her.

Had the city itself drawn her, just as it had drawn me? And now... now look what was happening to my life.

I kept my thoughts to myself.

[Zack Fair]

"Still sounds like an interesting place. What sort of things happened?" Zack asked curiously as he folded his arms across his chest and looked at Haraken with inquisitive eyes. "If you can talk about it, of course." He added hastily, he may not have years of social experience in his memory but even he knew that there were some things that people just didn't want to talk about. Where they came from sometimes landed on that list of untouchable subjects.

[Haraken]

"We all thought it was just the hackers playing games," I replied offhand, pushing the goggles back up on my nose as I started to pull up records and go through them again. "Kanna's friends were always in the middle of it.... things not working like they should, a couple of things that got messed up or destroyed... that was when people started to get worried. Glasses hackers can't affect the physical world..."

I trailed off. I hadn't meant to give him a lecture.

"Some people almost got hurt. We were all friends, but... after it happened... none of them were ever the same anymore. Not them... not... the world..."

I felt it again, the choking feeling that always accompanied thoughts of Kanna that went too deep. I tried to shove them aside, but it wasn't... really working. I shook my head.

"Some of it probably was the hackers," I said, looking up at him over my screens, forcing lightheartedness into my tone. "But I'm wondering if the weirdness that lives here was affecting Daikoku as well."

[Zack Fair]

Zack's usually ever present smile faded at the news, that something so terrible had happened wasn't good news. Something that serious could probably mean problems for Urbadelphia as well if it spread. He couldn't help but nod in agreement with Haraken's guess regarding the oddness in Urbadelphia though. "I wouldn't be surprised. Things have apparently been really chaotic. You should go to the Veil. The people there generally tend to be on top of all the weird stuff around here so they might be able to five you some information." It wasn't the greatest suggestion but it was all there was aside from leading him right to Neku. The talk about the oddity suggested that he was Otherborn or otherworldly, but Zack was hardly a buffoon. He wouldn't take a chance on that unless he was sure.

[Haraken]

I nodded.

"I... I'm meeting someone there tomorrow, actually," I volunteered. If he could see my screens... if he were talking about the Veil, a place Sairen said was a highlight of the activity...

"Can you see them, too?" I asked quietly, looking up at him, hoping to possibly catch him off-guard with the question.

[Zack Fair]

He chuckled lightly, at Haraken's words. It never ceased to amaze him just how frequent coincidences occur. Though Haraken's next question did catch him off guard. He knew he had to be careful with this, if this guy wasn't an Otherborn then he risked exposing the Network even though he wasn't officially part of the network. Zack finally settled on an answer that, if Haraken meant something else entirely, it would just mean that he would look insane. "Do you mean the demons?"

[Haraken]

I nodded quietly.

"Doesn't seem to be anything else to call them, does there?" I asked. "If it weren't for these..." I pulled my glasses slightly off. The world became just a tiny bit duller - this place was so coated with the paranormal energy they picked up, everything seemed brighter. "...I wouldn't be able to see them at all..."

[Zack Fair]

Zack glanced towards the glasses when Haraken had removed them. The glasses themselves could pick up the demons. "Really? I don't think I've ever seen anything like that before. Most of the people I've met here just see them naturally. Though that could also be the reason we tend to get pulled into Crossings." Zack was less cautious about things now. If Haraken could see the demons with the help of the glasses then he doubted that Haraken hadn't seen a crossing or two.