Almost large enough to be considered a theme park while remaining free to the public, Terrace Park is rumored to have been the site of the Grand Hollowheart's defeat, leading to the Hollowhearts first accepting a pact with humans. (+2 Fame, +2 Endurance)

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A Strange Encounter [self] [HUNT]

Postby crow » 12/30/2015 8:14 AM

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Did you ever have the feeling you were being followed?

Destiny generally didn't think of herself as the paranoid type. That was more Reaper or, say, Glass's area of expertise. Alright, so maybe she was being unkind; Reaper was merely weak-hearted and Glass was more cautious than truly paranoid. The point still stood, though, that Destiny's own attitude tended more towards getting into trouble first and thinking about it later.

That was why she was in the park in the first place, alone. She sat perched on a bench, watching a woman feed pigeons on the next bench down, and sighed.
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Re: A Strange Encounter [self] [HUNT]

Postby crow » 12/30/2015 8:18 AM

She had really been expecting something more exciting. After all, it had taken her days to convince Cain to, very grudgingly, allow her to do this. Come to think of it, if she was calling Glass paranoid, she might as well call Cain that too, if only where she was concerned. She also knew a little of why--- uncle Nihil had given her a stern talking-to about keeping up-to-date with her bi-weekly sessions. Something about the end of the world if she didn't let Cain or Morpheus fiddle with something in her head every so often. It sounded pretty dire, but the rest of it, that was all Cain, probably. She would probably take more of an issue with him bossing her around if it wasn't so easy to circumvent him. Well, usually it was easy, anyway.
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Re: A Strange Encounter [self] [HUNT]

Postby crow » 12/30/2015 8:21 AM

In retrospect she probably shouldn't have told him that she felt like she was being watched. Of course he would take that the wrong way. Even now, she thought it might just be a stray animal, which was what she had told him.

... But at the same time, it just... didn't feel like that. She could have sworn that it felt like something more. She couldn't have said what it was, or what exactly gave her that impression. It just was what it was. Even a stray cat would have been welcome though, if only so she could find out once and for all what it was.
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Re: A Strange Encounter [self] [HUNT]

Postby crow » 12/30/2015 8:50 AM

So far though, nothing doing. She had been jumping with eagerness at every movement at the periphery of her vision for nearly an hour, only for it to turn out to be someone taking their dog for a walk, or a duck who had no interest in her. It was starting to wear her out.

She didn't feel like going home just yet though. To do so would be to admit defeat, and more to the point, she didn't think Cain would give her another chance so easily. "There must be something," she said quietly to herself. Or... Was she maybe becoming paranoid after all?
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Re: A Strange Encounter [self] [HUNT]

Postby crow » 12/30/2015 8:52 AM

No, she wasn't going to go there. She wasn't imagining things. And okay, if waiting around for whatever this was to come out of hiding, then she might as well change tactics. She stood up from the bench she had been slouching on, adopting a determined pose, her hands bunched up into fists in front of herself. "Alright," she said, "if you're not going to show your face, I'm going to hunt you down. You hear that, mystery creeper? Des is coming for you!"

... Having said that though, how exactly was she going to do that? She peered speculatively into a nearby bush, but of course it wasn't that easy. Nothing was there except leaves.
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Re: A Strange Encounter [self] [HUNT]

Postby crow » 01/02/2016 8:21 PM

Well, whatever, she would figure it out along the way. At least what she was looking for wasn't going to run away from her. She was assuming it wouldn't, anyway. It was pretty tough to tail someone and watch them if you had to run away from them too.

So the bush was a bust. That didn't mean she couldn't look elsewhere. She scanned the other people at the park, but she had been doing that for the past hour. None of them looked as if they had any particular interest in her.
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Re: A Strange Encounter [self] [HUNT]

Postby crow » 01/03/2016 3:59 AM

That made sense; it would have been too easy to notice someone if they stalked you in the open. But the fact that her apparent observer was hiding just made it seem creepier. "You're not doing yourself any favors, you know," she said. She didn't know if this whoever-it-was was within earshot or not, or even if they could understand her even if they could hear her. Still, it made her feel more... purposeful if she spoke to them as if they could hear her. As she said it, she walked out away from the bench for a moment before hurriedly ducking behind it. "Aha!" she said, but there was no one there.
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Re: A Strange Encounter [self] [HUNT]

Postby crow » 01/03/2016 4:09 AM

Looking up, she caught the eye of the lady feeding the pigeons. The woman's expression told Des exactly what she thought of her. "I'm not crazy," she said to the woman. "I'm... uh. Looking for my little brother. We're playing hide and seek."

The woman didn't look as if she believed that. Alright, that was fair; she had seen Des lounge around on a bench for an hour. Did it really matter what this woman thought, though? She wasn't used to being stared at as if she was a spectacle, but she was pretty sure Cain and the others went through it every day.
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Re: A Strange Encounter [self] [HUNT]

Postby crow » 01/03/2016 4:16 AM

It didn't really happen where she could see, at school, where she might have been hit with it by proxy. The kids there had long since grown used to them, especially since no one used their abilities at school. Des hadn't thought it would work at first, but Reaper had been right about that. If they didn't shove their powers in everyone's faces and the other kids saw them often enough, eventually they'd... well, not forget, but adjust, maybe.

Des didn't have powers though, just weird friends. Come to think of it... "Fade, if this is your idea of a joke, it's not funny. Just come out," she said aloud.
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Re: A Strange Encounter [self] [HUNT]

Postby crow » 01/03/2016 4:26 AM

There was no response to that one either. Thinking about it for a moment, Des supposed that made sense too. If it was Fade, Cain would have known. Even when they were completely vanished, Fade would still have had a mental presence; and Cain, who usually didn't like to read people, would probably nevertheless have tried to find a hidden intruder.

... Wait, she could work with that! If it was a person, whether they had powers or not, Cain would definitely have detected them. If he hadn't, that meant it... wasn't... human. "Oh," said Des softly, aloud. Without meaning to, she sat back down onto the bench, hard.
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Re: A Strange Encounter [self] [HUNT]

Postby crow » 01/03/2016 4:41 AM

It should have occurred to her earlier, really. It hadn't though, and now that she'd figured it out, she suddenly thought Cain's graveness concerning the matter might not have been excessive after all. There was still a part of her that didn't quite believe it though, so she pulled her phone out of her pocket. She considered it for a moment. Calling him would certainly worry him, but not calling him would also worry him. It was just tough to figure out which would worry him more.

"Ugh, whatever," she said, and pressed the button. Speed dial number one, just like he'd insisted. She'd argued that it ought to have been her dad, not her best friend, but he'd been surprisingly stubborn about that one too.
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Re: A Strange Encounter [self] [HUNT]

Postby crow » 01/04/2016 7:41 AM

She probably would've argued with him more about it if he wasn't usually so permissive. Not that she needed his permission for anything, but she knew she'd given him her fair share of grief since he'd been assigned to her, and she knew he had a job to do.

It took less than half a ring for him to pick up. "What happened?" he said, his voice low and husky over the line.

"What, no hello?" Des returned. "Hey. It's me. I'm fine, before you ask." She could hear his sigh of relief, and rolled her eyes, even though he couldn't very well see what she was doing.
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Re: A Strange Encounter [self] [HUNT]

Postby crow » 01/04/2016 7:43 AM

"Nothing happened, you know. I'm just at the park. What do you think anyone is going to do, with this many bystanders?" She shouldn't have said it; she hadn't intended to get dragged into the argument again, and here she was bringing it up herself. She couldn't help it though. How did anyone get by being so stressed all the time?

"But we aren't there. It's just you, alone," Cain said.

"Right. Alone. You want to know how many couples I can see right now, just from where I'm sitting? It's twelve. That's twenty-four people, Cain. I'm not hurting for company," she said.
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Re: A Strange Encounter [self] [HUNT]

Postby crow » 01/04/2016 7:46 AM

He sighed again, this time distinctly less relieved and more frustrated. "You know what I mean," he said. It was true. She knew very well what she meant. As the only weird mutant in their little cadre of weird mutants who wasn't actually good for anything, she needed an honor guard. Which was supposed to be him. And, theoretically, their extended circle of friends, though they were more the irregular casual troops.

They weren't going to get anywhere like this though. "Right, so I called because I had a question." She paused, not for him to tell her to go on (he wouldn't), but because she wasn't sure how to phrase it. "When I told you someone was following me... Did you, uh, try to scan for them?"
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Re: A Strange Encounter [self] [HUNT]

Postby crow » 01/04/2016 7:48 AM

"Scan?" he repeated.

"Oh, come on. You know what I mean." If he was suddenly developing a sense of humor now, he was picking some pretty terrible timing for it. Regardless of how cooperative he wanted to be, however, she pressed on. "You did, didn't you? And you didn't find anything, right? That's why you've been so hung up over it." Again, he didn't answer, which was as much affirmation as she was going to get. It would have been so much easier if she could see him. She could read his face like a book most of the time. "So... that means they're not human, doesn't it?"
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