Chapter 4 - Remarkable Qualities of Violence

It honestly wasn't that hard to get everyone tied up with some zip ties I had laying around. The hard part was getting everyone out of my room, and cleaning up the various blood trails that dragging them left. Fortunately, increased cosmetic affinity lent to not only my own appearance but that of inanimate objects as well.

All that left with me now was an empty apartment, devoid of anyone. It said something about my mental health when I began to miss the scared ramblings of my last conscious conversation.

Instead, I was left boiling with the information he had given me.

'This is crazy…' I thought rapidly, grabbing fistfuls of my blonde locks and plopping down on my bullet ridden couch. On the bright side, I never needed to complain about it being stiff ever again.

That nearly sprouted a laugh from me as I distracted myself from my supposed opponent. In reality, I was scared, terrified even.

Junior wasn't some thug like my last couple of fights; he was an honest to Oum crime lord who was known quite well on this side of Sanus, the continent where Vale was. He knew where I lived, my name, my expenses and even had several moles in the police. There was nothing to say that he didn't already know who my entire family was.

This was no longer about me wanting to go out, and try to be a hero. I now had to run damage control on someone who could effectively ruin me.

The worst part was that I had no clue what to do. I felt trapped with indecision, and all I could do was wallow in the silence that was my apartment.

It was torn to shreds. Bullet holes riddle the thick, plaster walls, and some of my floorboards looked ready to collapse anytime. Everything I owned was ransacked: my fridge thrown to the ground, broken. The nice papers I had placed in my kitchen were strewn throughout the place.

Everything smelt of gunpowder and blood; two smells I was getting disturbingly used to. In the heat of the moment, I never really paid attention to the bigger picture.

Or the fact that I was very, very sore.

[Liquid contact based accelerated healing. Minor micro-hydrokinesis.]

Taking a moment to connect to a nearby warmth, I started up a bath to soothe my wounded body. As I sat in the warm water that slowly sealed my bleeding cuts, I finally got enough energy to put my problems aloud.

"Okay, Jaune, let's think this through." I said, shaking a little.

"I have a bad guy, who knows everything about me, after my head. He's got who knows how many henchmen to do his evil business, and he doesn't like me for listening in on him and that Roman guy. I know he has a power along with those two girls that followed him." Frowning as a particularly painful wound closed up, I continued my monologue. "Now all I gotta do is figure out a way to stop him from attacking my family…"

I leaned back in my bath. "...all I wanted to do was to do some good…"

My healing finished for the most part after a couple of minutes. The sun was slowly climbing from the horizon, and a plan was forming in my head.

His actions threatened my family inadvertently, and an Arc doesn't let things like that go. I needed to let him know that that doesn't fly well against me. That threatening an Arc is one of the worst life decisions he had ever made.

Time was of the essence. I needed to react before Junior got the upper hand. He wanted to bring the fight to me, so he should be expecting a fight to come to him.

-x-

"Will that be all?" The lady at the counter asked tentatively. She looked back and forth between my awkward smile, the bags that I was carrying and the more bags on the counter.

"Could I buy more?" I asked, smile not even wavering.

She looked my up and down, frowning about something. "Could I see your official Huntsman registration, sir?"

"I left it at home." I answered rigidly. Perhaps it was my face that said that it was a lie, but we both knew it. However, no one said it out loud.

"Of course," The woman said smoothly. "But I can't legally let you buy more Dust from this store until I see a Huntsman license."

"Right, right." I nodded quickly, swinging the bags on my shoulders in the process. Pointing to the ones on the counter, I said, "Then I'll just take those, please."

"That'll be a hundred and fifty six Lien, sir."

Keeping the cramp inducing smile on, I hurriedly gathered my dwindling funds to pay for the Dust. When everything was almost over, the cashier looked at me weirdly before sighing.

"I am not one to judge, but could all those bags be filled with Dust as well, sir?"

My teeth flashed this time, everything about me was false. "Not at all!"

She decidedly chose not to answer for fear of incurring information she couldn't quite keep. We both knew there was something wrong with my actions, and the video cameras would probably attest to the fact that someone was buying loads of Dust throughout Vale all day long.

However, every single video would only show a different person adding to the growing sacks of volatile substance. A good portion of makeup, different clothes, malfunctioning cameras and, in some cases, some extra hush Lien would obfuscate all the evidence.

Jaune Arc would never be a suspect. Of course, I had no relation to the odd occurrences. And, after tonight, there would be no Dust to even link to the mass purchases.

Happily carrying my procured good, I made my way towards an empty warehouse. The rusty doors, slicked with unseen oils, slid open with nary a screech. My hideout was shoddily made, but it served to not implicate my apartment with the person who had bought so much military grade Dust.

Who knew that one needed to be a registered Huntsman or Huntsman-in-Training to even buy so much. Though, that rule only applied on a store to store basis, and there were a surprising amount of people who simply looked the other way when you bought so much.

It left a sour taste in the back of my mouth at the corruption of all of it, but it was surprisingly helpful. I was also enlightened on the fact that I did something highly illegal without a second thought.

'Well,' I thought actively. 'It's not like I'm going to use all this Dust for bad reasons… Or reasons that seem morally horrible...'

I stacked my bags on a small mound of it, and wandered over to an odd wardrobe that stood off to the side of the warehouse. Luckily, I was able to find a place that looked like there hadn't been anyone in here for years. A thick layer of dust had covered the floors, but that hardly mattered when it came to things.

Opening up the doors of my wardrobe, I was greeted with my current hero costume meant to hide my identity. Obviously there was a huge breach in information with regards to Junior, but I was hoping to hide it from those who still weren't informed.

Tonight would also rectify the inadequacies that Junior caused in my hidden identity.

A large beige coat hung over my shoulders and trailed down to a little bit above my ankles, hiding the skintight black undershirt that I wore underneath. It parted around my legs to give me free range of motion. The thick material would also be good for some protection, but the bullet proof vest that sat between the undershirt and coat would help more.

A pair of thick blue jeans covered my legs to my heavy boots that had straps to secure themselves around my calves. Several belts strapped themselves around my waist, holding up my magazines for Mercy, and the gun itself was peaking out just past my right hip.

Vengeance was held up diagonally by a magnetic strip that anchored to my lower back. The handle jutted out from my left side while the blade just barely trailed above the ground.

A larger, darker coat concealed my body and equipment. It's magnetic clips were there just in case it was stepped on or got in my way. For now, it would be useful in hiding my weapons.

Standing in my outfit, I felt a little bit of pride well up within me. My costume wasn't exactly complete, but that was only because I had a couple hours to actually put this together.

And while my first outing as a hero had gone horribly, and my identity was revealed not long after, I still wanted to do good.

This was a outfit I wanted to be seen as a hero.

And I was about to use it to threaten my enemies…

All in all, tonight was shaping up to be a good night. My hand clasped around the last bit of my outfit, and I adjusted the straps to fit my face.

A mask, fashioned out of a sleeker gas mask with removed oxygen canisters, was held to my face by two horizontal straps that swung around my head. It was painted bronze with light blue lenses to hide my eyes. The whole thing completely covered my face, but let my blonde locks flow with the nonexistent wind.

My disguise was finally complete.

Smiling underneath my mask, I grabbed my bags of Dust and made my way to my destination: The Club.

Oum, that was a horrible name…

-x-

The problem with explosives was that they were not the easiest of things to place. Dust remedies most of the problems that normal explosions are based on, but it replaces it with the fact that Dust, in all accounts, is so reactive that simply breathing on it wrong will set off a chain of explosions that make buildings into rubble in mere moments.

You wouldn't think that places would sell this highly reactive material in stores right next to groceries. However, you'd also be wrong to assume that Dust's only application is making things explode. There are a plethora of things that Dust can be used for: cooking, the odd cleaning, powering your house and all manner of mundane things that apply to current living.

I'm fairly sure that most Dust stores are built in accordance with this logic. They simply want to get the helpful material to the common folk who know not that Dust serves as a powerful helper to most dangerous activities.

I mainly used Dust to help around the house, and only really when I had to cook for the twins. It was one of the reasons why I knew that mixing three parts of Fire Dust and one part of Electric Dust together would create a highly volatile mix that was assured to take out anything within a couple meters of the blast.

Of which I am told is very, very loud.

And now I am putting those makeshift charges next to The Club. I made sure to find a power that let me hide better, and watched out for the three powered members that I knew would be there. The people never knew that they now had several hundred kilograms of Dust placed around their place.

I wasn't sure how much damage that it would all cause, but I knew that it would cause something. Though, they might seriously want to invest in perimeter surveillance.

With everything in place, mask on and costume set, the sun was just beginning to wane over the horizon as the broken moon of Remnant hung low in the sky, shattered moon pieces straying from the main celestial body. The stage was set, and it was go time.

Two warmths slotted into me at my calling, and I felt the links close by in the very club I was about to seige.

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

[Single-target parasitic Aura theft. Activatable shared Aura.]

As the information flowed into my head, I couldn't help but notice that the powers were rather similar when every single one before had been distinctly different. I was sure that the two girls I had seen last time were twins of some sort with powers like these. However, I didn't immediately use either of them.

I didn't want a replay of last time; Neo had thoroughly taught me that I could easily be found out with either of them. As such, I chose to switch out the parasitic perception in favor of Junior's supposed power.

[Volatile composite material remote detonation. Increased resistance against concussive force.]

I frowned as the fact that he could easily use my explosions against me was made known, but I felt assured when I knew that he had to have an idea where the material was to detonate it. The only thing I was worried about now was the fact that I had no idea what 'Aura' was.

One of the girl's powers was to take it from someone else, but it never told me what Aura was. I didn't have the protection granted to me by Rouge's power anymore, so finding something that I couldn't understand was worrying.

In the end, I decided to figure it out as I blew things up.

I strode up to the establishment, an old brick building with multiple stories dedicated to the actual club. On the outside it looked like a normal building, but through the windows I could see lights flashing with multi-colored noise. Music was thumping hard enough that I could feel it outside.

Underneath my mask, I felt a small smirk tugging my lips as I cut past the large line of people. Most of them took one look at my mask, and promptly left before they were dragged into anything. Others, however, were much braver.

"Hey! Who do you think you are? No cutting!" One of the people in line yelled at me.

I stared at him, and he didn't even flinch. Figuring now would be a good time as any to parasitize whatever this Aura was, I connected to the girl who was on the other end of my copied power.

"Do you think that some weird ass costume lets you own the place?!" The man spat as I felt myself connect to what felt like two entire pools of solid warmth, the one I parasitized and the one that they were connected to. The metaphorical liquid flowed into me through the connection, and I suddenly felt looser; as if all the aches and pains that had stayed with me the past few nights were gone.

I felt stronger. Like I was no longer limited by my physical body.

"Hey, no fighting!" A man in a suit and red glasses at the front said, cutting in between the two of us while I was marveling over the amazement that was Aura. "If you're gonna fight, get outta line!"

"This man started it!" The same brave man continued, and now everyone was looking at my costumed self. There were some that caught that something was going on and left. More men in black suits and red glasses reached within their coats, fingering their guns anxiously.

"Hey," I finally replied through a coarse, fake accent. "Get out."

Everything happened at once. Junior's men in the suits hurriedly tried to take their guns. The big guy that was next to me and the brave man tried to slug me, and I calmly took out a packet of mixed Dust that I had stored in the inner pockets of my cosume.

Immediately, I detonated the Dust after I tossed it up. See, the thing with Dust explosions was that they weren't as hot as normal ones, but the kinetic shockwave was devastating. Being so close to it, everyone was shocked to the ground with unrefined crashes. The grunts who were taking out their weapons were caught within the blast radius, and thrown back into the hard brick of The Club with painful thuds before they even got a chance to use their guns.

With Junior's increased defense against concussive force, I easily weathered through the worst of the blast with only a slight stutter step. I even had the notion to protect the rude man who had held me up before.

He stared up at me with wide, unblinking eyes. I smiled under my mask, addressing him with a dismissal wave. "Shoo, shoo."

It was only with small amusement that I watched him scamper away. The rest of my time was spent sauntering through the double doors of the building, stepping over the unconscious bodies that separated me from the doors.

The place was as loud as I thought it would be. Music boomed from several speakers situated around the building. Oddly enough, a man wearing a large bear head was manning the tower that held the DJ's booth.

A large, white and black tiled dance floor flashed with strobe lights and smoke that was hanging overhead by several pillars in the same color scheme. People danced without a care in the middle of the floor, and Junior's men mingled about the building in between the crowds and off to the tables around the edges.

Finally, I found Junior flanked by the two girls cleaning the glasses at the bar. He was talking to someone who I was fairly familiar with. Someone who had decided to jump out the window, too.

Making my way over there, I studied my three most worrisome opponents. Now that I could parasitize Aura I could sense a bit on who had some or not. Junior and the two girls had the energy, and if it felt any bit how empowering to me as it did to them, then I would be having a hard fought fight.

Junior himself was a fairly large man, dressed in a professional, black vest that clung over a white dress shirt. He had a well trimmed beard and a short crop of black hair that matched his eyes. I could easily see him benching me several times over.

His helpers were a weird mix, and now that I could see them clearly, they were definitely twins. Both of them wore a heavy coat of makeup and natural beauty. One girl wore primarily red, and her sister was garbed in a dress of snow white. I nearly disregarded them because they both were in high heels, but I remembered how fast some of my sisters could move in heels, and promptly stopped that line of thought.

"Hey," I said with a jaunty wave, hoping that my voice didn't sound too nervous. "Remember me?"

"Th- there his is, boss! He's the insane guy I was trying to tell you about!" The man who Junior was talking to blurted out, and suddenly I found that there was quite a bit of attention focused on me.

Junior looked me up and down from his place at the bar. The twin girls had left some time ago, but I was able to track them through sensing their warmths. "So you're… the vigilante that Roman talked about?"

"Yep." I said, enunciating the 'p' more than the rest of the word.

"Right, of course you are… so what do you want? I think you're too young to drink, though." Junior asked, reaching below the counter. I could almost feel his Aura trailing under his skin.

"I want all the information you have on me, and anyone I'm related to." I started, readying myself for how quickly everything was about to happen. "And I want it gone."

Junior's face was as impassive as ever. "Look, kid, I don't care what kind of hero you think you are, but I'm running a business. And I wasn't the one to decide to stick his nose where it doesn't belong." He shrugged as I heard several clicks echoing behind me. "Now, I don't really know what you have in plan here, but my acquaintance and I are thinking of using your talents. We can either do this the hard way, or you can save yourself the trouble and surrender now."

I frowned, noting how he never thought of asking for my help. He specifically said that they wanted to 'use' me as if I were some tool to be swung around, so I needed to bring things more in my favor. "I don't think you understand, Junior." I said, swinging closer to the bar and taking a look around. Almost everyone had left after we began talking. Perfect. "You see, I'm not asking."

The left wall of the building detonated in a boom of solid noise and fiery gas.

Brick, glass and people who stood too close were all caught within the massive explosion that encased most of that side of the building, sending them flying like comical ragdolls. Everyone inside the building collapsed as they felt the force of the explosion almost like someone took a sledgehammer to their chests. A ringing thump burned everyone's hearing, and if I wasn't used to loud noises, then I would've been rolling on the ground clutching my ears like some people.

Flying debris scattered some of the glasses around Junior and I, and some of the dance floor was ripped up in the explosion. Everyone who had trained their guns on me were now on the floor unconscious or incapacitated in some form. The only people who had weathered through the explosion were the twins who were still out doing something, the grunts who were now filing in and Junior and I.

I took the moment to speak as Junior was still shellshocked. "No, asking is too much for you, Junior. Now, I'm ordering you."

"What…" The man was confused at the situation, and only slowly growing to understand what happened. His face fell through a series of very interesting shades. "Get him! Kill him!" He finally yelled, spurning everyone into motion.

I jumped back as he made to grab me, and moved much further than I intended. Landing in the middle of several gunmen, I quickly reacted to my change in environment to push the closest barrels out of my way, and reach behind me to grab the handle of Vengeance.

It shifted with a flick of the wrist, and the edges became blunted as I swung it to the closest man. He barely had the time to notice as Vengeance slammed into his side with a meaty smack and enunciated with disgusting cracks. I hadn't meant to hit him that hard, but the man flew from the force of my blow, crashing into anyone in his path in painful manners.

No one hit got back up.

'Was that Aura?' I mused silently, moving to my next target. This time I dialed back my strength, and the next man hit only collapsed in a pained groan instead of screaming in pain. However, he was still getting up, so I hit him a few more times to make sure.

The next couple of grunts went down with ease as I transitioned between them, smacking them with my blunted metal stick with extreme prejudice. Their attacks were so telegraphed that I felt it was slightly comical when I had thought of trying to get Rouge's power for extra help.

My arms tingled with a sort of numb pain as I moved them faster and harder, and I felt that I had definitely torn a couple muscles from using them so hard. 'So Aura makes us remove our natural limiters, huh?' I mused as I felt more warmth gather in my damaged arms. 'But the passive healing helps...'

Gunshots rang out as I moved, more often than not, striking the men who surrounded me. I made sure to weave in between my cover, kicking up broken tiles to block where most of the bullets were coming from or taking cover behind an unlucky man. A few lucky shots found me, too, but they were deflected by a red and light green parasitized sheen that covered me.

'So that sheen was Aura…' I thought quickly, and, with my newfound bullet proof self, charged the furthest gunmen in a zigzag. They were quickly dispatched with a few swings of Vengeance.

Then a rocket hit me in a painful explosion.

I was sent flying into the broken parts of the building, crashing into raised pieces of broken club on my disorganized flight. I felt the sheen that surrounded me get weaker and weaker with each hit as I finally came to a halt. Marveling at the fact that the entire ordeal had only earned me a few extra bruises, I found Junior glaring at me with a huge obsidian rocket launcher slung over his shoulder.

'So Aura can only block so much.' I slotted the information away, watching Junior from my position.

After a few seconds we both burst into motion. He fired a salvo of mini-missiles that all locked onto me like deadly, explosive swallows that followed my every move.

My eyes widened and pupils dilated as they neared at speeds that made my head hurt. However, I did the only thing that made sense to me. I paused to find the correct areas and grabbed hold of the triggers in the missleheads, setting all of them into a fit of fiery blasts.

I easily ran through the shockwaves of fire. The force of the explosions themselves didn't hinder me at all, and the heat was easily weathered through as I had felt much worse days ago.

Junior wasn't even surprised as I tore my way through the prematurely detonated missiles. He answered with another quick pull of the trigger, and a new salvo of missiles were launched my way.

This time I continued to run forwards, dodging past a couple of the easier to track ones while detonating the ones that were harder to dodge. I saved quite some time with my new strategy. Then I burst a particularly close missile that blocked my vision of Junior.

That was when another salvo of flying bombs surprised me through the clearing smoke.

I flipped over the first one in a fit of acrobatic instincts, waiting for Junior to make it detonate beneath me. When My feet touched the ground without any unwarranted explosions, I found myself wondering what Junior was playing at. The rest of the missiles had missed me when I dodged.

'He should've got me…' I frowned beneath my mask, feeling the heat of explosions behind me. A new plan was forming in my head.

The next shot of rockets was expected at this point, and I ducked under the first one, reaching out to a rather slow missile and grabbing it by its tail. The propulsion nearly dragged me from my spot, but I managed to dig my feet into the ground, a new bludgeon in my hand. One that Junior wasn't detonating.

I smiled as I realized that Junior wasn't using his power for whatever reason.

The rest of the missiles were warded off with me pushing them out of the way with Vengeance or detonating them before they reached me. I hadn't been using the sword as I had thought that Junior would have just detonated them before I could even ward them off, but now that I knew he couldn't for some reason, I could stop wasting time by dodging.

This time I shot straight towards the large man. He hurriedly jumped out of the way when I threw my caught missile at him. Finally, he started to panic as I grew closer, and fired off rapid shots of rockets.

I jumped over the first one, swinging Vengeance in the air to move a couple out of my way. The rockets were exploding before they even reached me in some cases, and the ones that drew too close were shunted off by Vengeance. He fired a final salvo as I was right in front of him.

However, that only sealed his fate as I detonated the ones closest to Junior. He was thrown off balance as I slammed into him from the air with a satisfying knee to his face. A sheen of red flashed as I made contact, and I was forced to jump back as he swung his rocket launcher at me.

The pieces of the weapon shifted and folded until the large man now held an equally massive bat. The only problem with his weapon was that there were still missiles inside the weapon; missiles that I knew of and could detonate.

The metallic bat crunched under the forces of all its ammunition exploding, sending its wielder to the ground in a blast of heat and force. The only reason why half his body was even unmarred was due to his increased defense towards concussive force. He was even trying to lift himself up on shaky arms.

I kicked him in the face to keep him down. Whether it was the Aura I had stolen empowering my attacks, or him just being weakened by the explosion, Junior's sheen winked out in what seemed like swirling veins of energy that dimmed to nothing.

Despite that, the man was still miraculously still conscious.

I wanted nothing more than to get this done at the moment, but the appearance of two beautiful bouncers set my plans back a few steps. Instead, I was treated to watching as the twins from earlier were now decked with their own dangerous weapons.

The red dress wearing twin had a pair of foot long claws attached to her wrists, and her sister had a pair of heels with blades that ran up her ankles from the heel. They were incredulously looking around the destroyed place.

Then their eyes landed on my figure standing over their prone boss, fires from the previous explosions flickering behind me. My imposing height was blocking some of the light from reaching me, and most of my form was covered in soot and darkness. The image I projected was probably terrifying indeed.

"Are you two going to fight me as well?" My voice was scratchy from fighting and from all the smoke. It sounded like some horrible approximation of a human voice. However, that didn't bother me as I was feeling a bit of confidence that Aura was giving me. There wasn't even the need to bring so many explosives either.

They just tensed at me. No one moved for awhile, and then they charged at me.

The night screamed as another wall was torn by explosions.