Chapter 2 - Not so Sneaky

After passing the fifth block, I realized that maybe following some unknown assassin probably wasn't the best idea. It sounded like a good one in the heat of the moment, but now it was beginning to seem a little odd.

I mean, if my target wasn't covered in an illusion to make them seem like a normal, middle aged man, I probably would have had the cops on me like rapier wasps on sugary sap.

One good thing that has come out if it so far was the fact that the ability I am copying from them allowed me to be aware of everything in an illusion. Well, only glass based ones like the one my target was using, for instance. And only at a certain distance...

Conversely, this meant that if I put up an illusion when I was close enough, I would expect a rather troublesome opponent. My now gone precognition had told me just how fast my opponent reacted to me suddenly appearing in a similar illusion. And that their umbrella had a very sharp hidden blade in the handle.

Call me a coward, but me and sharp objects don't mix well.

Through their own illusion, I saw that they were rather tiny in stature. At first I thought they were a child, but their curvaceous figure set that thought on complete lockdown. She put some of my more active sisters to shame.

Her color scheme reminded me of neapolitan ice cream. Chocolate brown hair flowed from one side of her head to her lower back while the other half was taken by strawberry and flecks of vanilla. Even her eyes were split in color, one taking to her brown hair and the other following the pink. Skin as white as priceless porcelain blended in her smooth features, but her doll-like appearance was broken by a vicious smirk that was only hidden by the illusion she wore.

Her clothing followed along with her ice cream colors. A white jacket with hints of pink held up her formidable bust, and spilled out from her back in a longer coattail. A corset of chocolate chip hung tight to her stomach and sensually -even if I was the only one watching- showed off her hips as she sashayed down the road. A pair of skintight, brown pants trailed down her legs to a set of black laced, white boots that rose up from her feet to her knees. I didn't want to comment about the fact that the heels on those boots were definitely adding tens of centimeters to her demure height.

A filly umbrella innocently swung in her arms, but I already knew better. From the curved handle there was a hidden blade that was a thin as a folded piece of paper. The filly umbrella itself was also some kind of alloy composite that could apparently withstand fifty caliber bullets point blank.

So now this just brings me back to the fact that I'm following a small girl. Or just a really short woman. Either way, it's frowned upon in equal amounts if I made myself noticeable.

In the end, I was just lucky that she was moving under an illusion, and that I could follow her from several hundred meters away. I hadn't thought that my ability to sense warmths would have such a tracking feature. However, I guess I was just trying to avoid fighting others with powers just yet.

Something that I was severely failing at if I thought of last night.

Though I could hardly play my inability to properly judge threats now. If anything, the fight last night taught me quite a bit of things, and one of those was the fact that information was probably my best friend at the moment. I wasn't going to get into a fight with this diminutive assassin just yet. Not without knowing exactly what I was up against.

However, as we kept going further and further to the eastern parts of Vale, I began to grow apprehensive. The city of Vale, in my eyes, was broken up into five different parts based on the proximity to the mainland.

North and west were normally richer. Having mansions and beautiful parks that dotted the suburbs between stretches of cityscape. They were understandably closer to the shipping ports of the city, and held onto the rich business in the area. It was the more reasonably safer areas of Vale as it was much closer to Beacon's campus as well. In fact, Rouge's Weapons was even there to spurn more Huntsmen and women in the area.

The center portion of Vale reminded me a bit of an art exhibit. Beautiful pieces of vegetation with little concrete jungle in between. Police monitored in in regular intervals, and always showed a smile to the happy citizens that walked down its colorful streets. They really enforced the idea that the city of Vale was peaceful and safe there. I always enjoyed the calming atmosphere that the center of Vale brought.

The eastern side of Vale, on the other hand, had quite a bit of undesirable areas, and was exactly where I had found myself just yesterday. It was closer to the mountains that bordered the southeastern parts of the region. Only the areas around the Beacon office in the east was ever a nice place to be in the east.

As one went further south the places got worse as well, but it was more along the lines of bars and other rather gangster like feel of the people who walked down the streets. I had heard that there were loan sharks that prowled the areas as well. However, I only knew that the areas only started to decline after some failed settlement was disbanded, and the people who had been trying to live there were relocated back to Vale.

All of that wasn't the cause for concern, however, it was the fact that I found myself a little ways outside a rundown part of the southeastern part of Vale. A seemingly abandoned warehouse stretched out in front of me, and my target confidently strode into the place, slamming the doors where she went. Her illusion broke down around her in shards of semi-physical glass that disappeared after a couple of seconds, and I was left blind to whatever was happening.

All I knew was the fact that she was still within the warehouse, and that there was another four sources of warmth nearby. I hesitantly read through their abilities as I began to carefully make my way to a building across from them. Information flowed into my brain as I linked to one of their warmths, pooling power into my gut.

[Single-target parasitic perception. Activatable shared perception.]

The best thing about this new power was the fact that I could now see of someone else's eyes and hear from their ears. All I had to do was know who I wanted to link up with, and it would do the rest. I watched from discolored eyes and listened from small ears to the five who were none the wiser.

"...wasn't in the deal, Roman." I watched as the diminutive girl's eyes trailed around the room without pause. She wasn't actually paying attention to anything, but I got the impression that the other four in the room.

I got the fact that there were two girls flanking a rather large man, but her aggravating attention span was quickly flipping elsewhere. She paused long enough that I got the impression that the large man had black hair, and his tag alongs were in red and white dresses. The other one was man in a tailored suit with orange hair.

Then her eyes closed, shutting me into the dark, and I was partly afraid that she had found me out. However, calm breathing and a feeling of relaxation came through the parasitic link made me understand that she was just being lazy. Her hands waved to and fro with her kicking boots from her position of rest.

Tearing my hair out at this point, I edged ever closer to the warehouse they were stationed in. Voices began to trail back in through the ears of my unsuspecting lazy target.

"Yeah well, Junior, I got the job done, so what's the problem?" I frowned at the words.

'Was the job from yesterday? Those murders were only a job? Or is it something else?' I thought to myself as whoever was Junior started to talk.

"The problem, Roman, is that now we have to deal with an increase in feds around here." Junior was apparently the larger man in the room, and oddly, I found that fitting that his voice was rather low. "You can handle a crackdown, but me and my boys can't. You know how much turf we had to give up last time they ran an investigation on us?"

"Please," Roman drawled back, and my target cracked open her eyes long enough for me to get the understanding that Roman was the one with orange hair. "All you got to do is sell some of your merchandise to someone who can get the big bucks. With the Reds moving here from Vacuo, and some hero out on the streets, you have to look at the bigger picture, my friend."

There was a growl of anger as I leaned into an alleyway next to the warehouse. Was it dangerous to get so close? Yes, but my parasitic perception worked best the closer it was. A rather annoying tradeoff, but I quickly switched my illusions to a different power that was radiating off Roman. If only my target would cooperate and open her eyes instead of playing around.

[Escape oriented path recognition. Enhanced dexterity.]

Plans of running away filled my head as I neared. The dexterity let me move more deftly, and with more surety in my movements. All in all, I felt pretty confident about my plans to get out of there if I had to. I even still had my parasitic perception on the lazy girl just in case she went after me under an illusion.

Junior started to speak again. "The bigger picture is that the Reds took over the entire underworld near the docks in a month, dumbass! There's a reason that they're called the Reds, you know. They didn't really name themselves, Roman, and I sure as hell know that they don't tolerate independents like you."

"Can't we just calm down, Junior?" Roman asked, and there was a clink of something glass.

'A bottle?' I thought, distracting my attention from how Roman got the bottle in the first place.

"The Reds are a problem, yes." Roman said through the sound of something clinking nearby. "However, I have a plan for them, but I need your men again. Sell me what you don't want the police to find, and I'll return with enough profits to make us kings."

"This isn't about profit now, Roman!" Junior shouted as several metallic clicks rang out. Briefly, I watched as the originally resting girl had zeroed in on junior. He looked like a well dressed gangster with his trimmed beard and hard eyes. "This is about trying to stay out of the way of the Reds till they grow bored of Vale. Some of the Union's men came to me with a offer of a truce till we are sure that they're gone."

"Tsk, tsk, tsk." Roman tutted a playful tune despite Junior's clear aggression, and I felt like I understood his arrogance here. His power was probably feeding him a ton of ideas on how to escape if he really was in trouble. "I had expected more from you Junior. Maybe playing king on your own little square of concrete paradise has dulled you. Think about it, the Reds have left Vacuo, and soon there'll be a vacuum of shady power there. A vacuum that you and I can fill with the appropriate means, cementing a new kingdom away from the streets of Vale. Think about it, Junior; would you rather be a small timer, wasting his days in a ruined portion of a great city, or would you like to spread onto more horizons with enough Lien to make kings jealous?"

"That's…" Junior's voice was heavy and considering. "What do you have in plan?"

"See! That's the Junior I know!" Roman exclaimed. "I have a perfect plan for the cesspool that is Vacuo, but first, I require your help with something."

Junior snorted, amused. "Of course, if we can really take some of the underground in Vacuo, what do you need?"

"We need to distract the Reds long enough for us to pull this off, but I'm going to run a little shock and awe for all the folks in the western mansions of Vale." Roman was definitely smiling at this point, revealing all of his dastardly plans. "How much do you think the Reds took from the gangs that littered the docks?"

I got the impression that Junior was paling rapidly. "You can't mean to…"

"I can and I will!" Roman cut in happily.

"This is madness, Roman!" Junior yelled back. "You're really thinking of targeting the Reds? On their own turf no less! Haven't you heard enough horror stories to tell you that that's a horrible idea? One of them has literally never been touched ever since his appearance!"

"Please, Semblances come in all forms." Roman chided, not even worried about this seemingly impossible foe. "They have their limitations, and I'm sure our helper would be wonderful at finding out what those might be."

"What do you mean, Roman? What helper?"

"Why, I am talking about Blondie who followed Neo all the way here, and has been listening to our entire conversation for some time now." Roman said nonchalantly, as if saying that it would rain today. "You wouldn't mind sparing your little twins to go and get our little eavesdropper now? After all, he has heard quite a bit of incriminating topics." Briefly, I felt the eyes I was looking through open to find Roman looking straight into theirs, and then he winked knowingly.

"Damn it, Roman!" Junior growled, probably realizing that he was now forced to follow along with the orange villain's plot. The two girls beside him were already running out the doors to the warehouse.

Glass shattered behind me as I realized that, while I could see through her ears, my target could see through her illusions. That that bottle I had heard earlier wasn't Roman getting thirsty, but a glass based illusion slinking nearby.

I had blearily accepted that I had been duped. Somehow I had been found, and Neo, or whatever the diminutive girl's name was, had realized that I was following her. It hit me that whenever she was lazily waving her hand around, she was actually signing something to Roman.

Not having the time to think, I pulled on Roman's power, and a path to escape filled my mind. Hurriedly, I switched out the parasitic perception for illusions, wrapped my face in a scarf before making a few replicas of myself to run out of my alleyway.

Neo would be able to instantly tell which one was which, but she was too busy inside with Roman, gloating about how they had seen through my poor attempt at tailing someone. Still, she wasn't able to say her input as I knew she suddenly found all the new illusions that she most certainly didn't create.

The twins were already around the corner as I ran, and were stumped by the sudden appearance of multiple blondes. However, the novelty ran out quick as they pounced on the wave of blondes with claws and bladed heels.

The red one had a pair of long, red claws that scythed through my glass illusions, sending shards of the semi-physical material through the air. The white one was kicking about with silvery stilettos attached to stilettos. They were making short work of my distraction, but the thing that they had neglected was the fact that the raining shards slashed at them with the reactionary force to their attacks.

Or they would have been if it weren't for the sheen of light that stopped the sharps pieces of glass from even marring their skin. In fact, they were speeding up faster than normal humans should, and hitting harder than their body's suggested. I blankly stared at the phenomenon with bugged eyes, Roman's power was filtering the information into another plan for escape.

'Where the hell does that power come from?!' I screamed internally. That little sheen of color was definitely a cheat of some kind that I desperately wanted.

Many paths were closing up as I factored in their enhanced speed, but I split off more illusions as I mixed in with them. My distraction was slowly becoming moot. The twins were catching up with me, and, for a brief second, Roman's power was saying that I had exhausted all my escape routes.

Then a bullhead flew overhead. The mechanic contraption roaring in with thrusters on full blast that was just barely within the city's flying limits, and with it, came several more warmths that shone to me. It was a metallic box of suicide that made all sorts of torture on my queasy stomach, but, right now, I thought it was the most beautiful thing in the world.

[Tactile matter dissociation. Inertial-independent rapid acceleration.]

I quickly slotted out illusions for the tantalizing escape power, and was gone in a cloud of white petals. Everything on me: my clothes, sheathed sword, gun and all the ammo I had been given had transitioned into petals as well. Then I really sped up, leaving my opposition in the dust.

Behind me, the twins struggled to keep up with my immaterial form as the illusions of glass slumped in shards of sharp silicone. Little did they know that I had split up into two clouds of petals as soon as I got the power, and I well on my way out of there.

They chased the cloud to a nearby alleyway that ended in a concrete wall. Shouting at me, they advanced slowly, but, in this state, I couldn't even hear them beyond knowing that they were talking to me. Junior and Roman rounded the corner to the little showdown a second later, one had a face a grim acceptance and the other a sure grin.

Glass shattered behind the cloud, and a smirking Neo appeared behind the deluge of petals. If I had the capacity to laugh, I would as the petals flew up above the laws of gravity. They disappeared over the lip of the nearby buildings, returning to the other cloud that I had split from earlier.

They had duped me before, and I was only returning the favor.

-x-

My body reformed as soon as the power of whoever was riding that bullhead left my range. I sent a silent thanks as I stumbled awkwardly from suddenly going from faster than a cloud of sentient petals should be to a below average jogger.

Laughing as I tripped up a little bit, I was in too good of a mood at my successful escape to notice that there was someone in the way of my path. And I slammed into them with enough force to send the two of us into a tangle of mismanaged limbs.

A slight, high-pitched shriek rang out from beneath me, and I fought to keep the stars out of my vision as I moved to get up. Long brown hair and chocolate doe eyes stared up at me in part fear and apprehension. However, I froze when my eyes landed on a pair of floppy, brown rabbit ears that tickled my nose.

Animal traits on a human body always confused me, but I quickly schooled my features as I realized that I had run into a Faunus. A Faunus that looked on the verge of tears as I continued to stay stock still above them.

"Uh, um, I'm sorry…" The Faunus below me murmured, as if afraid I would lash out at her.

"Oh, oh, no," I said in a hurry, dragging myself away from her with a rosy blush staining my face. "I should be the one to be sorry! I ran into you, after all… Uh, sorry about that."

"You're fine…" Rabbit ears drooped as she stood on steady feet. She definitely recovered from the hit more than me as I swayed uncertainly next to her. "Actually, um, are you fine?"

"Yeah! Don't worry about me; I have practice with getting tossed around." I explained, sheepishly rubbing the back of my head. Just then I realized that my sword, gun and ammo were spilled out over the pavement.

I groaned at wondering how long it would take to clean this up. Only slightly hoping that I hadn't damaged anything. The durability of my weapons were a rather nice bonus that had made itself known when I could actually understand how tough they were.

"Here, let me help." The rabbit Faunus hurriedly said while picking up a couple of bullets.

"Thanks." I replied, taking my sword and pistol.

When we were both done with the clean up, the sun was beginning to set, and the rabbit Faunus was looking apprehensive about the area. I just then realized that we were still within the eastern parts of Vale. That and I had a deluge of dangerous individuals after me who might or might not be really close.

The nervousness of the two of us were shared in equal amounts as we both didn't particularly want to be there. Turning to my unwilling crash testing partner, I raised a hand out to greet them. "I know it wasn't on the best of terms, but it's nice to meet you. My name's Jaune Arc; it's short, sweet and the lad- err, I mean my name is just Jaune…"

It seemed my nervous introduction was perfect for easing the tension as the girl giggled softly, taking my hand in her own one. "Nice to meet you Jaune. My name is, um, Velvet Scarlatina."

"Great!" I exclaimed, startling Velvet. "Now that we know each other, let's get out of here!" Then I paused, dawning understanding of how my words could be construed came to me. "I mean, I didn't mean it that way! Just, you know, east Vale is pretty bad. Uh, evil villains lurking around the corners…"

"Yes…" Velvet said slowly, doe eyes blinking in confusion. "But I, uh, need to sign up for Beacon first. I had thought that there was a office here, but I got lost for awhile."

I wanted to say something about how similar her case was with a certain mountain of a man, but I kept my mouth shut about the coincidences. Instead, I smiled at the brown haired Faunus. "How about I take you there? We're fairly close."

"That sounds great, but, um, do you want to?" Velvet said with a small tone. Her voice was so soft as if she was getting ready to bolt.

"Why wouldn't I?" I asked back.

Velvet shrunk into herself, mumbling something that sounded rather depressing. "...Because I'm a freak…"

I frowned, taking the self-deprecating Faunus's hand in mine. "You're an not a freak. And anyone who tells you otherwise is a complete idiot," I said, watching as she flinched from my words. "Now come on, let's go before it gets too dark."

Velvet made no other words until we reached the application office. However, she did stutter to demand my number after everything was done. She was weird, but nice.

-x-

I shuffled through my doorway, half exhausted from my long day, and looking through my Scroll at the two new numbers that I had gotten. The whole situation with Roman and Neo was really getting to me. On the plus side, I got information on who I needed to look out for with both Junior's gang as well as the knowledge to stay away from anything that had to do with the Reds.

In fact, I had pulled up some of the articles relating to said group of villains, and had found that they were a group of eight that had risen from Mistral's undergrounds nine years ago. Researching them more, I found several terrifying accounts of one of their members going toe to toe with whole teams of trained Huntsmen.

I had no illusions that I was powerful enough to call myself a Huntsman, but to hear that one person could take on whole teams of my heroes -as in, a terrifying double digit- was enough for me to decide not to mix it up with them. In the meantime, I found myself looking up both Roman, Junior and Neo.

Roman himself, had quite the large string of larceny cases in several areas of Vale, Vacuo and Mistral. He was rated as a master thief with a high level of training for Huntsmen, and was labeled as highly dangerous. His wanted poster was actually rather tantalizing as he had robbed several disgruntled wealthy people enough for them to chip in parts of their fortunes for his arrest.

Junior wasn't as big as I thought when I began looking him up. Apparently, he was some small time gang lord that had many completely legal businesses to his name. I considered them all to be a front for his darker deeds.

Neo was the confusion. I found nothing about her, even when I found a power that let me understand the fundamentals of technology and hacked into the information logs for renegade Huntswomen. She was a ghost that had seemingly appeared from nowhere, but I found accounts of some trained professionals being hired by Roman. One of whom was theorized to be some type of glass projection.

Or illusion.

I walked through my apartment with that thought in mind as I found something out of place. The papers around my living room table had been shuffled through. It was as though someone had been looking through my stuff before placing it back in approximately where I had it before, but I was used to being clean and tidy. I noticed the attempt instantly.

Just like how I noticed I had company in the form of several well dressed men in suits. I also smelled the familiar tang of gunmetal. They had hidden themselves in a a couple of the nooks and crannies of my place: the closets, behind the counter of my kitchen, and in another room that I normally kept closed.

I stilled at the realization that I was somehow followed back home. Then I fell into a calm acceptance of the situation, assessing how I could get out as well as finding any nearby power to help me out.

They all were completely without warmths, so I had missed them when I had just walked in, attention focused on my Scroll. However, I noticed them before they attacked as they had made the mistake of not knowing how tidy I had my place.

My closets were never slightly open like they were now, my kitchen was much more cluttered than normal, and I could see that they had removed any kitchen knives from easy to reach places. Most of all, I could literally hear them breathing softly as I pretended to be on my Scroll.

My sword was in my room, and I had no idea how fast there guys were, but I could safely say that I couldn't reach it in time. What I did have on me was my pistol, as I was going to research it later for tips on its use.

The lucky thing was that Rouge's Weapons was actually fairly close to where I lived. It was one of the reasons why it was the first shop I went to, but now that I knew that the owner had a clearly overpowered warmth with him, I was ecstatic.

[Weapon based omniscience. Intent-oriented short-term precognition.]

It was rather unfair as information began to flow into my head. How they would attack, how they would respond, whether I was actually seeing things, and what exactly I should do was all that flew into my brain. And it was all that I needed to feel the comings of a smirk of my face.

"So," I drawled, thumbing the safety on my pistol. "I take it you guys aren't just in the wrong apartment?"

There was utter silence. Then there was thunderous gunfire.