Date Night // Zero & Louie
Zero didn’t really understand why people wanted to run around the dark and try to shoot each other with plastic guns, not any more than he really got why arcades were filled with games centered around also shooting monsters, zombies and whatever else; but at least his small amount of experience in the latter was bound to help him that night, right?
He thought so anyway; that conviction had begun to waver a bit when Louie had started explaining how laser tag worked while they waited outside the doorway all lit up in glowing colors, studying the strange mechanics of the plastic, mesh and LED covered monstrosity of a vest that felt truly odd and constricting. But Louie seemed excited when he had suggested the idea because he had little idea what it actually was but a game, and Louie liked games.
Was Zero worried about the town magic drain? Yes. Was he basically staying away from Enchantra because he wasn’t sure if the unpredictable power there wasn’t something he wanted to chance somehow setting off his own destructive Talent even if it was weakened to practically a dulled edge? Absolutely.
Was Zero able to do anything about any of that? Not really.
So, sure, he was at Pizza Planet with Louie on a date trying to make sense of laser tag because, well, sure it was selfish but it wasn’t like he was going to be helpful trying to help solve a problems everyone else in town still had no answers for.
Even if he had ideas, who was bound to listen him anyway?
“Why does-” he interrupted midway through the question by a suddenly flicker of bright blue lights along the vest and a vibration that startled him enough to make him jump as the vest hummed and activated in preparation for the game. He shot Louie a look, amused at his own surprise. “Okay, you could have warned me about that.”
Was Louie making a habit out of taking his date to Pizza Planet? Maybe. Were there that many places to take dates in Swynlake? Not really. So honestly, Pizza Planet was one of the safer bets there were about fun date plans.
Louie was ready to show one of the best games in this place: laser tag. Now, would it have been nicer to offer to be on the same team with Zero? Maybe. But Louie liked to mess around and be competitive and he thought it would be fun to chase him. And be chased.
“About what? The lights coming on? I mean...it is laster tag. Gotta do something for the lasers.” Louie admittedly had forgotten how it came on, but oh well. At least Zero seemed pretty tolerant of weird stuff. It was kind of working out in his favor.
“Anyway...the objective like I said is to track each other down and shoot each other with lasers. Whoever gets the most points wins.” Louie grinned, demonstrating how to hold the laser gun thing. “It’s gonna count down and then it’s game on....are you ready for this?”
