Dagan nodded his head sagely and disregarded any sort of disbelieving feeling he may or may not have felt from the hooded man’s direction; that guy wasn’t going to rain on his bullshitting parade, no sir--wait, what?

“And… And, like I said; there are people who go out there and get them, right? Out there … Where … Others are found and brought here, to this city. But … Wait, do you go out there and get them?”

Did that mean they had also been the ones that brought him to the city, Dagan thought to himself. If that was the case, then why didn’t he remember them? That troubled him to no end, and he wasn’t very fond of the feeling. Hopefully he was wrong, he would have felt bad if he had actually met Attis before, and for some reason or another, he had forgotten the man.

“Is it dangerous out there?” Dagan suddenly asked Attis, and even looked to the hooded man.

"He does, usually," Attis motioned to the hooded man again, "Because it can be dangerous sometimes.

Well, the hooded man had running shoes on, and he seemed to have dressed lightly, as if he were ready to break into a sprint at any given moment.

By this point, Attis figured, concretely, that Dagan must have only had a few flashes of memories from back then. He was actually off with this calculation, as Dagan knew full well how much he didn't remember. Attis was giving him the benefit of the doubt, though, unlike his hooded compatriot.

"I don't, usually. It's my job to examine people that are brought here, make sure they're okay, do a quick physical, see how they're feeling mentally and emotionally, and try to integrate them into the rest of us," Attis elaborated on his specific task in their society.

It was no wonder that he was busy so often. There wasn't an influx of people into the city or anything, but he had to make sure everyone here was all right, even if he didn't do so in person.

"We've never had one so far away from us, though . . ." Attis trailed off; he sighed at the thought. There were probably so many predators out there looking for him or her . . .

Dagan hadn’t really paid attention to the hooded man’s clothing, but then he couldn’t really imagine the man bringing the people to the city by running, and this was with fractured memories, at most. But then, if they were normally close to the city, then maybe that was possible, hell; maybe the hooded man really did run out there, grabbed a new arrival, and forced them into a mad sprint back towards the city. Oh god, how he hoped that wasn’t how he had been found, if he had been found.

“Predators,” Dagan looked concerned for a moment. “That doesn’t sound … Well; it doesn’t sound good at all. And, wait--are you going to go out to get them, that far? By yourself?”

Maybe Dagan hadn’t given this man enough credit, he was still unsure about him, but bravery was something respectable and he couldn’t be all bad, if he was willing to risk himself for someone else. In fact, that was a distinguishable characteristic, as far as Dagan was concerned.

The man unconsciously straightened his sweater and rocked back on his heels, then forwards, and back again; thinking.

"Yes," the hooded man replied.

His reply was simple and to the point, as seemed to be most of what he said-- speaking only when it was relevant, in fact, and keeping it simple.

"But . . . well, like I said-- not that kind of distance usually," Attis sighed again.

Yes-- yes, predators. That's what was on his mind. Where they lived, in this gray world, there were predators. They weren't scarce out there, either.

"He's great at it-- he just goes, finds one of us wandering aimlessly, picks them up, and runs back," Attis elaborated just a bit, "But even then, that far away-- the amount of predators out there-- it might even be too dangerous for him, alone."

"It'd take too long. By the time I could arrive, it would probably be dead, and the area would be overrun," the hooded man acknowledged-- not that he'd be in dire straights by going out there, but that it might be a waste of time.

That didn't sit well with Attis-- not at all. "Who knows, though?" he pleaded, "None of us have ever appeared that far from the city. What if he or she is already thinking? And running . . ." or fighting.

--And then the hooded man lost any respect he may have just gained. This guy was really trying to not be likable, Dagan was sure of it now.

“Wait, you might not--,” Dagan looked to Attis, who had started speaking, in defense of going to retrieve this new arrival, maybe it wasn’t Dagan’s place, but he couldn’t help but smile and agree with the man. “Yeah, seriously. They can’t just be abandoned, or left for dead.”

Self-righteously, Dagan had stepped forwards, it wasn’t done on purpose, it hadn’t even been a conscious decision, to step forward, but forward he did step. There was weight behind the gesture, though; that much could not be ignored.

“Huh, what am I doing? Sorry, sorry. No, but really; there… You can’t just leave someone out there to die, or whatever.”

Having composed himself, Dagan looked back to Attis, and then to the hooded man. He wasn’t quite sure what had gotten into him, but it felt right and he really couldn’t accept any possibility of nobody attempting to go look for this new arrival, or whatever.

The hooded man addressed Dagan with a stare-- a leer, perhaps. He didn't seem amused-- but then again, he didn't seem like the type to find amusement in just about anything, really. "And you would be willing to risk it?"

Attis was about to say something-- he really was. Instinct told him to suggest to Dagan that backing down would be a good idea, that the hooded man knew what he was talking about, even if he wasn't that likable of a person, that it really might be dangerous to go out there, that far away-- but he didn't. There could have been hundreds of different reasons for this. Perhaps he thought that Dagan might inspire the hooded man to be more proactive about this; perhaps he had hope that Dagan himself might be able to take on such a task; perhaps he even though that the person they were looking for would be closer to them by the time someone stepped foot out of the city. There could have been hundreds of different reasons, but Attis could name a single one of them.

All he could do was stare at Dagan with an almost defeated expression. He wouldn't hold it against the man if he was a little too intimidated to say yes, even if the hooded man was only presenting a hypothetical situation-- in fact, that's what Attis kind of expected. Few people wanted to risk their lives like that . . .

“Yes,” Dagan replied a mere second after the hooded man‘s question. “And without regret, too.”

There wasn’t a single pause behind the hooded man’s question, and it wasn’t because Dagan spoke without thinking, either, but that was perhaps a contributing factor to his promptness.

“You guys said it yourselves; there are predators, or something out there. Someone could be suffering, or scared; they could be getting attacked or might even be dead now, and I don’t understand a lot of things--I don’t, but if you’re asking if I’d go out there, if I’d risk myself for this person; then yeah, I would.--No, I will!”

Dagan seemed ignited, and he really couldn’t contain himself or the rush he had just gotten.

“If you’re not going to go, -- I will,” he repeated.

Dagan’s hands formed a fist, his knuckles turned white; it was everything to keep himself under control. It was odd, because he couldn’t quite recall the last time he had, had trouble keeping himself under control.

Attis leaned back a bit, a hand behind his head, scratching at his scalp nervously. He wasn't too good with these situations. He didn't have the opportunity to socialize enough to know how to break up bad situations like this. Of course, he didn't want these two men to get into a fight. The hooded man was already irritable. If this erupted into a fight . . . well, Attis wasn't too worried about the hooded man. It was Dagan that he was ultimately concerned about.

"No one will stop you," the hooded man replied gruffly.

"W-wait a second," Attis finally spoke. Not even a second had passed after the hooded man spoke, actually. "Alone? N-no, no, I'll stop him. No one's going out that far alone."

The hooded man looked to Attis. Attis narrowed his eyes and furrowed his brow. The two stared at each other for what might feel like hours, but was, in actuality, nothing short of a second.

"Besides . . . we don't even know what Dagan can do," Attis thought aloud-- an afterthought, truly, but still an important one, all things considered.

The hooded man looked, then, to Dagan. Would Dagan even know what Attis meant? There was a fifty-fifty chance, really. Sometimes, a person just knew they could do more than others. A natural born artist knew sometime that they were born for the sake of art-- just like natural born writers, architects, engineers, psychologists . . . and fighters.

For once, Dagan could have actually replied without making up a lie to back his story, but he didn’t this time. In truth, he knew what he could do, in so much that Attis was probably talking about the things he could do, that he hadn’t seen anyone else, despite his limited exposure to them, accomplish, but he didn’t mention it. Not yet, and in reality; there was only so much he had really … explored, and then there was that he may have been misunderstanding what Attis meant, entirely.

“Not looking for someone to stop me, anyways,” he finally said to the hooded man, but he had cooled his temper alongside the delay. “-- And, Attis? What do you mean, what I can do?”

His tone was not suggestive of not knowing what the awkward man was speaking about, but rather suggesting he should elaborate on the meaning of his words; that he may have known what he was talking about. It didn’t really matter if Attis picked up on that, though.

Even though Dagan was talking casually now, he still hadn’t lost the feeling he had earlier, and there was the fact that he was worried about this new person, too. How long did this man or woman have out there alone, and especially while he and the other two spoke amongst themselves. Was this really the time?

"He means," the hooded man began, interrupting Attis before he could even have the chance to speak, "What you can do. Everyone here has something. They come here, they exist, and someday, they find that they can do something extraordinary. Sometimes, they can defend themselves with it. Sometimes, they find that their own extraordinary prowess is nothing short of useless."

"Th-that's not true!" Attis protested instantly, "No one's "useless," even if they can't defend themselves! What about Sera? She's not "useless" at all! She--"

The hooded man then cut Attis off, "She can sense an emotional shift? She can steal away emotions? What good is that against Geist?"

"It--" Attis began, but held his tongue when, regrettably, he couldn't fathom any such thing. Sure, he could come up with a theory. What if someone to snatch away a feeling of doubt? Then, a person would have all the courage in the world. But alone? Someone like that, alone?

The hooded man unfolded his arms. Without a second's hesitation, he lifted his right arm, pointing his finger to Dagan indicatively.

"Do you even know that? That you're special? Or are you, and you're nothing more than a meat shield in battle?" the hooded man asked roughly.

“Ha!”

Dagan laughed, and then he laughed some more. It may have been seen as odd, but the hooded man’s words were… They were just so perfect. In fact, this may have even further aggravated the man; he probably wasn’t expecting to be laughed at, especially laughter quite as spirited as Dagan’s.

“It’s--ha~!heh~Mmf,--funny that you said that, like that. Yeah! I am a meat shield, you‘re right, actually, and yeah, I am special, too.”

Dagan pocketed his hands and rolled his shoulders, “that was a good laugh; I really needed that.”

Maybe Dagan should have shown what he could do, but his abilities weren’t easily demonstrated; that was one of the problems he had, he had always wanted to go further with them, explore them, but he wasn’t really sure how. If there was some special area designated for this, he hadn’t been told, or he had forgotten.

“You hit the nail on the head, but what do you want me to say, really?”

Attis saw the potential disaster in this. Dagan was laughing at the hooded man, and the latter figure wasn't doing anything at all. If he were an empath, he would probably have been scared witless by this point-- and again, not for himself, but for Dagan. It wasn't until Dagan ceased laughing and calmed himself that the hooded man elaborated, just as asked:

"I want you to say . . ." the hooded man began.

And just like that, he was gone. In a simultaneous blink of Attis and Dagan's eyes, the hooded man was no longer stand next to Attis. It was as if he was never even there, in fact; as if he had been in the room, as if Dagan and Attis had perceived him there, just not in that spot-- not for the entire duration of Dagan's existence in this Hall. No, it would seem as if the hooded man had, instead, always been behind Dagan-- that it was not until now that either of the two men realized it.

If Dagan were to turn, he'd find the hooded man behind him, indeed. One hand was in the pocket of his sweatshirt, while the other, his right hand, was out and pointed at Dagan, but not like before. Before, it was an indicative pointing. Now, it was as if he were treating his hand like a gun; index finger out, middle, ring, and pinky fingers in, and thumb up.

Immediately, Attis panicked. He practically threw himself from the wall, hands waving in front of him, as he shouted, "Wh-what the heck are you doing?!"

But the hooded man ignored Attis. Instead, he brought his thumb down, meeting his first knuckle with the tip of his thumb, as he concluded: ". . . that you're not just wasting my time."

And then . . . there was a light. A bright, powerful light, a half second flash that would level Dagan into the wall, next to Attis where the hooded man once existed-- not a lethal blow, but one guaranteed to put him down for the rest of the day. So much time was played into the development of this, though-- so much time allowed for Dagan, to display the instincts of fight or flight, to allow instinct or conscious thought or whatever in Hell's name drove the man to kick in, and perhaps allow him the rest of the day unharmed.

Dagan was thrown forwards, or backwards; it depended on one’s perspective, and the wall he had hit barely withstood the force of him hitting it, but it was not because of the hooded man’s attack.

A flash of emerald lit the small cloud of dust that came from the cracked wall, it wasn’t broken, but it was damaged; a hand had been firmly planted into it, this hand had enough force to crack the wall, and then there was the fact that Dagan had practically been thrown into it, too.

“Now that was uncalled for,” Dagan remarked as he walked out of the cloud, but the emerald light vanished before he had stepped out. In his right hand was a piece of debris, a small portion of the wall that fit nicely in his palm, but was thrown a short distance in the air; caught and tossed upwards again and again and again.

Dagan wasn’t mad at the hooded man, not in the least, but he didn’t appreciate the lack of warning, either. Sure, he probably shouldn’t have laughed, but it had wanted to come out so badly.

Dagan walked past Attis, he didn’t worry about the man’s surprised look, or how alarmed he was by the hooded man’s attack; that was far from his mind, at this point. Instead, Dagan stopped tossing the piece of plaster, or concrete he had picked up; it weighed a bit, was probably something a bit harder than plaster, he thought, and then, then he crushed it.

The gesture wasn’t threatening, it was demonstration for the hooded man’s sake, he wanted to see what Dagan could do, and so Dagan demonstrated.

“I can’t hit you,” Dagan remarked, running a hand through his hair, just realizing his hat must have been lost in the … flight. “Hard to hold back sometimes; fast, too, by the way, and I can jump pretty high. Pain’s distant, too. I fell from out a’window once, scared the shit out of me, but I got up like it was nothing. That’s when I figured myself out, actually, well; some of it, at least.”

It was a shame that Dagan couldn’t hit the hooded man in good faith, he wasn’t quite as fast or whatever it was that the hooded man had pulled, but it’d only take one hit for someone with the same physical limits as a normal man, and there was something special about Dagain’s abilities, too.

"I see," the hooded man replied.

He set his arm back down to his side. He didn't stuff this hand into his pocket, though he did release the partial fist he'd made.

Attis, on the other hand, was practically frozen. He looked as if he were stuck in mid-step. One foot was forward, firmly placed on the floor, whilst the other was crooked up, ready to plunge forward quickly. But no. No, that wasn't to be. He'd partially lost color in his face. He was tense all over. His eyes were wide, his mouth partially agape. Perhaps he was ready to jump between the hooded man and Dagan; perhaps he was too late; perhaps he was running forward without even knowing a course of action to take; and perhaps he was caught by surprise by Dagan in mid-step. Attis was a young man; he didn't look any older than twenty, but he felt as if a gray hair was going to pop out of his head at anytime.

The hooded man stepped to the side, facing his profile to Dagan. He held up his arm again, but only to motion to the opposite wall.

"How fast are you?" was all he said then.

Before the hooded man had even finished his sentence, immediately after he had gestured towards he wall, even; Dagan had already assumed what he was going to ask, his image would blur, slightly, and the wall would have an imprint on it, of Dagan’s hand; seconds afterwards, a rush of wind would blow the hooded man’s clothing, Attis’ clothing, but it would not be strong enough to uncloak the previously cranky individual. Likewise, it was not nearly as impressive or fancy as the hooded man’s ability to relocate, teleport, or whatever it was that he had done, no; it was a lot simpler, Dagan had actually moved to that spot, hit the wall, and then moved back to where he had been standing. It was, however, practical, and it always served Dagan’s needs.

“About that fast, I’ve never had to push it, though; there isn’t much reason to, normally.”

This was truth, he hadn’t really had to use his abilities, ever; in fact, he had discovered them by mere accident, although he had always possessed his strength, but he had thought that was normal.

"So I'm guessing it really isn't just me, then? Well, guess that figures."