Now that he'd had a few seconds to stop freaking out, Keiichi quickly tried to forcibly get his wits back about him. This had gotten way too tense way too fast, and even if Hex was clearly off her rocker, this was his own damn fault, so it was kind of on him to fix it. The answer didn't take long to hit him - if this really was just a question of manners, then the solution was both simple and painfully obvious.

He forced himself to relax and lowered the bat to his side, then grinned sheepishly and scratched the back of his head with his other hand. "Excuse me - sorry about that," he said. "It's just that I'm new in town, and you startled me." A lot. As an afterthought, he waved back at Hex. "How about we start over. Nice to meet you!" Never mind that you're crazy and probably not even human and I must be out of my mind-