Pause to Pet the Dog, and the T-Rex [Phakk/Invite]

The juxtaposition between the sense of palpable dread and the happy bouncy demeanor of the young-looking woman who had walked into the Kangaroo enclosure was enough to break someone's brain. For Katsu, it was all underlined by the scent of a Shinjin, or something like a Shinjin, coming from the woman. He'd spoken at length with the pair of Shinjin Ward and Hops about their people, and they'd never really talked about one of their kind with this sort of aura. It was made all the worse because Katsu knew that in a straight up brawl she had him beat hands down; it wouldn't even be a fight, just a one-sided beat-down.

All of the animals in the Petting Zoo were being set on edge by the oppressive aura they felt; their instincts screaming at them to run for their lives. More than one even managed to throw off the low doses of calming drugs that kept them mostly docile for the customers. Naturally they ran as far as they could, but their range was limited. This was still a place designed to hold animals in captivity, after all.

Approaching slowly, Katsu would notice the woman was kneeling near one of the Kangaroo Joeys, trying to feed it some dried grass. The poor little Joey was unfortunately too young to be relying on an adult diet. Katsu was pretty sure this Joey was only about six months old, and the only reason it was here when it's mother was not is because she fled too quickly, accidentally dropping the Joey, who was old enough to peek out of the pouch from time to time, in their haste to escape.

Unfortunately, despite the woman's cheerful demeanor, the horrific aura surrounding her meant that the mother would probably never take this Joey back, viewing the infant as defiled and abhorrent. It would be abandoned, and now up to Katsu and the other medical personnel here at the Petting Zoo to take care of it until it could eat grasses like adult Kangaroos. Therefore, Katsu would step over to the cart that had his medical and food supplies for the animal and would grab a bottle of Marsupial Milk formula before re-approaching the woman and the dazed Joey.

”Excuse me, Miss? This baby Kangaroo, or Joey as they are known, isn't old enough to eat the grasses yet. That's for adult Kangaroos; this little guy would much prefer this bottle of milk instead. Would you like to try feeding it?” Katsu would kneel nearby and offer the bottle to Phakk with a small smile. Regardless of her evil aura and astonishing power, Phakk was a customer here, and Katsu had a strong sense of professionalism. She had yet to actually harm anything here, and so there was no reason not to tend to her as a customer of the Petting Zoo. ”Here, you can hold them in your arms like this and just hold the bottle to them and they'll go for it.” Katsu would offer to help position the Joey into the crook of the woman's arms, and once there the Joey, being unattuned to its instincts yet, would be more than willing to drink from the bottle...

There's still such a difference between the aura this woman produces and the demeanor she has, Katsu thought to himself idly as the woman began react as most human women did when presented with a baby of any mammalian species. It was still an adorable situation, but that aura she produced just...ruined it. A part of Katsu wanted to follow suit with all of the animals in the zoo and run far away from this woman, but unlike them he had enough logical prowess to know it wouldn't help. She was too strong, and Katsu had the feeling she was somehow even more terrible than what his senses were telling him already.

So Katsu would stand his ground, assist her as he could, and hope she'd leave sooner rather than later. Albeit, being this close to the woman he did notice something. She had a very similar scent as a couple of entities he had met before, on Papaya Island during the Tournament. It would explain a lot if this woman was of the same species as those two. Perhaps she was what could be considered a “black sheep” of their species? Regardless, Katsu would answer her words with a professional smile. ”No worries, Ms. We're here to make this a wonderful experience both for the animals and for our guests. However..” Katsu would trail off for a moment as he looked around at the cowering animals still attempting to retreat beyond the barriers and failing.

”If you don't mind my words; it's your aura that is the cause of the animals fleeing. While you look like a beautiful young Shinjin woman, your aura is very strong and... forgive my bluntness, but it's terrifying. Even as I stand here my instincts are telling me to flee for my life from you, Ms.” For one claiming that Phakk's aura was terrifying Katsu sounded very calm, but that was more or less because he was relying on pure logic to continue standing there. ”I'm not saying this to be contrary or overly critical, you understand. I'm saying it to tell you there is something you can address. You see, there are techniques for controlling one's Ki, or one's personal life energy, which is what is responsible for the aura you produce. If you learn how to suppress your energy, you can minimize the strength of your aura, and animals will be less scared of you.”

As he spoke Katsu would get out a datapad from his back pocket, splitting it open to reveal a large holo-screen held in place between two handles. He would begin tapping on the screen, going to one of the more popular sites concerning basic Ki training. Katsu was already subscribed to this particular service, and after logging in he would go to the first lesson about suppressing one's aura. He hadn't looked at it himself thus far due to his body never producing life energy to begin with; it wasn't something he had to worry about. But now, he'd flip the screen to show Phakk the contents and would ask, ”If you want to enjoy the Zoo fully, you might want to learn this. How about it? I can learn right along with you, and it's only supposed to take a few hours to master for someone talented. With your power and being a Shinjin you should have plenty of talent to learn this quickly...”

It seemed that Phakk was at least aware of what her aura was doing to her surroundings; if not how truly horrific it really was. She even averted her eyes away from Katsu when he brought this up, but not before her eyes would lock with his, and they would turn vanta-black! For just a moment, something stared out of Phakk's eyes that wasn't her, and it would stare at something within Katsu's own eyes that were not him. He could feel something previously hidden within his own body, something that wasn't remotely Terran in origin, wrench itself free and try to press forward, to take control. Katsu gripped his head with a sudden groan, lurching to the side for a moment as his mind came under assault. Yet, the being within, some remnant of Darkness similar but subservient to the Darkness within Phakk, was far too weak to control Katsu. It was much like a single drop trying to control an ocean, and taking breath Katsu crushed the Darkness within and contained it. It would have taken just a couple moments, and Katsu would continue the conversation as if nothing had happened.

”Well, Ms Phakk, Mystical Energies and Ki are quite different, but they are similar enough that if we can learn to control our Ki, we can apply the same lesson to your Mystical energy through a bit of trial and error. Trust me, I know a few mystical techniques myself.” Katsu would give a grin as he snapped his fingers, a single unadorned split-blade shortsword appearing in his hand for a few moments before he dropped it and snapped his fingers once more, the blade vanishing before it touched the ground. It was just a quick demonstration of the Magic Materialization technique, granted a heavily altered and bastardized version created by Katsu through his own studies rather than the typical ability of the Kai, but enough to show Katsu's prowess with more mystical techniques.

”Oh, and you can call me Katsu, Ms Phakk. It means 'Victory'. Let's get started, shall we?”

Katsu would carefully take the Joey out of Phakk's arms and place him with the other Kangaroos, then he would return and guide Phakk out of the enclosure into an area away from the animals. It was likely that her aura was going to spike before she learned to control it at all, so getting farther away from the animals so they didn't go insane with fear and despair was the very least they could do. Once they were about two hundred meters away from the nearest enclosure, and indeed that enclosure was for crocodiles who were cold-blooded killers to begin with, Katsu would bring out the datapad with the guide again. Looking it over for a moment Katsu would eventually bring his two hands up and hold them a foot apart from each other.

”Alright! According to the guide it's easier to perform this technique once you have a firm grasp on the sensation of your own energy, so first we need to focus on capturing that sensation. Basically, what we need to do it to focus on our hands here, focusing on the distance between them.” Katsu would act in accordance with his words, bringing his hands higher into the air so it was directly in front of his and Phakk's eyes. ”And then we establish a 'river' of energy, so to speak. Focus on your dominant hand, and pretend that it's the opening of a river spring. Your energy is the water, and on your command it will rush out of the spring and onto the riverbed, the space between your hands.” A pale grey light, barely visible in the midday sun, would slowly pool into existence from Katsu's left hand, focused around his palm, but floating into the space between his hands, ”Your non-dominant hand will be another entrance into the earth, where the river goes back underground. Or perhaps for you, the image of some thirsty creature drinking up the water would be better.”

The energy pooling near Katsu's left hand would begin flowing a bit more quickly than before, flowing from his left hand to his right, where the light would seemingly be sucked in and absorbed at the same rate that Katsu's left hand produced it. It was a stable loop of energy that Katsu was maintaining; done this easily because Katsu already had experience manipulating his energy. And this energy, unlike the rest of Katsu, was capable of being sensed by Ki Sense or other energy reading techniques, even if it was only a few standard units. It'd be something that Phakk could potentially sense and replicate through watching Katsu's actions. Now, what would happen when she began to channel her energy outside of her body?