Easier To Find Than I Thought

And doing as you pleased came natural in this part of the city.

Wei found himself in the den of debauchery. The hotbed of vice was the perfect breeding ground to the sort that couldn’t resist the call of Euphoria. Just from the end of the district, Wei’s nose tingled with the stench of Ace’s energy signature all over the place.

The man was just as popular as ever, and the amount of places where his energy lingered proved it. Wei tracked the shifting flow of the energy with his eyes, while his body made the straightforward trek. Ace’s energy bounded between the shops and clubs that were on this main street, but Wei knew that Euphoria had never been an aboveground affair. He could read that the erratic patterns of Ace’s visitation of shops was to either shake pursuers, or to confuse inexperience energy sensors. It really was the oldest trick in the book.

Wei continued to walk in the straight line, identifying that it was the only pattern that remained constant for Ace as well. Truthfully, Wei didn’t want to get distracted either and if he allowed himself to loiter, then he would do just that. He would lose track of Ace, but he would become much more interested in the women roaming the streets. Women had always been one of his major weaknesses. When you traveled in one of these distracts, it was better to move with conviction, or the vultures would come and scoop you up and into their respective shops.

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Behind him, the traveling man on his path to his companion would be able to actively sense and feel a greater energy manifesting that was not like those of the regular Dusk Citizens, as regular and irregular as they may have been.

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The Entertainment District of the Dusk buzzed with activity, as it always did. As the hottest spot in all La Crysta, most of the Dusk Citizen youths congregated here to enjoy themselves, whilst the older folks came here to unwind from the day's work. Old or young, the Entertainment District remained the go-to area.

All around, Dusk Citizens of all variety were sharing in their individual means of fun and excitement that came from the advanced technology and developmental planning of the Crystal City of the Dusk. Even above, there were those who had the latest hovering devices and vehicles racing through the sky like kids in a bike race, whilst down below there were those vacating the various gaming centers and stations that littered this particular section of the city. There were arcade-like machines out even on the streets. It nearly looked like a theme park, and had festive lights that accentuated the night air and dark sky. The sound of music ever present, and shops abound for both tourist and resident alike, the Entertainment District had its fill of activity.

Passing through, Wei couldn't help but feel... old. In earlier years he'd be ecstatic about how lively the Entertainment District was, and elated to grant patronage to the various gaming centers along the strip. If for nothing else to cheat at the some of the games, scope out the gyaru, and eventually start chasing the skirts that belonged to them.

Now, he had much more interested in quiet cafes and bars with good drink and mellow music. There were plenty of those along the strip as well, with much older dames than the gyaru he didn't bother eyeing. Still, he also knew that the bars with better booze and better music were usually hidden. Sometimes in the backrooms of more popular attractions, exclusive to VIPs and big shots. Euphoria could be considered one of these places, but geared to a much younger crowd. He'd be lying if he didn't admit that he was beginning to regret going, wincing prematurely at the idea of what passed for good music nowadays.

He stayed as focused as he could, darting his eyes across the crowded strip to remain on target with Ace's energy signature, which dipped swiftly into the darkness of an alleyway, only a couple of steps away from Wei, in between a convenience store and pachinko parlor. Wei posted up, casually, in front of the convenience store, Pachinko Parlors being notorious for their tight loitering policies, being careful to watch his sides behind his rolled around the edge of the shop and into the darkness of the alleyway once he was sure that he wasn't being followed.

"Alright Ace," Wei whispered, stepping carefully, twisting and contorting his bulky frame to navigate the tight corridor of darkness. "Where'd you hide the fucking door. I'm sure you're still using the old cloaking tech my other self left with you." It had been some of the most advanced cloaking technology on the market using a combination of Koudo's cloaking ninjutsu and some "borrowed" plans from one of Cleff's labs. Fusing them together allowed the club the uncanny ability to cloak itself by shifting in between dimensions, so to speak.

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Now, among all the activity that came from the natural festivities of the Entertainment District, between the movements of the Dusk Citizens there was a faint fog that had passed through; one that was too thin to recognize immediately to those that weren't paying attention to it, but was not so transparent that it wouldn't nor couldn't be noticed. Yet, it was so negligible to those whose minds were wrapped up in other things that none seemed to pay it any mind.

However, as the sedimentary mist rested, old energy that had settled long ago in the ground was stirred from its place, particle at a time, like the mist, itself. There, a strange coagulation of it manifested where an incident occurred a while ago, and as a man passed through on his way to a predetermined location all his own, the residual signatures of energy that were attached to him stirred that which was in the fog, carried about on its vapors. The figure of an indistinct woman both familiar and unfamiliar to him appeared in the highest condensation, where no one was looking nor paying any mind. As he passed by, this woman followed him.

A soft yet exasperated gasp echoed loosely in the air like someone taking a breath with a sound that blotted out the others for a brief moment, and also faded out just as briefly as was heard. A drop of water in the still puddle for but a second, the thin Myst that had been both guiding and following behind Wei during his travels also manifested nearby in the familiar image as a familiar energy and presence, yet also still ambiguous and indefinite. To everyone else's ears, the gasp was silent, but his ears could pick up on it, if he could listen to hear it.

Being the Entertainment District for all ages, there were more than enough sophisticated establishments that weren't exactly made for the 'Main Attraction' that the Main Street of the Entertainment District was geared toward. The literal back alley club was, nevertheless, embedded into the wall with the cloaking device, itself. Which one, however, was left a mystery left only up to the one that sought it out in the quieter part of the Entertainment District, and the connecting framework into it from the busy area more closely to the main street that he'd come from.

Anyone who was anyone could enter the club via a member's-like identification mechanism that even allowed them to find the place this far in order to trace out the last intricate details inside. The technology was highly advanced, but was technology nonetheless, and still had its own indiscriminate technological disadvantages and vulnerabilities that required more technology to be made to support it. With a background history, finding the entryway embedded in any of the walls of the general location wouldn't be difficult, should the technology still synchronize.

Wei caressed the walls of the alleyway, using his rouch and callous to search for something, anything, that would reveal his destination. It was a form of radar that he was using, in much the same vein as echolocation for Bats and Dolphins. The Infestation Release, lightly coursing through the palms of his hands, sent waves of chakra out and into the walls and pinged when it found forms of technology. Those pings appeared as blips in Wei's mind's eye much like chakra signatures did.

He continued this, like a bat in the quiet and solitude of a dark cave, turning off the blips that weren't close or anything similar to what he wanted to find. It was simpler for him to continue this until his chakra pinged with the distinctive sound his own technology made in his head. If there was an issue, then it would pinged with the familiar sound of Cleff's technological achievements instead. Cleff's, Cross's and Aeon's craftmanship all had very distinct "sounds" in Wei's mind's eye. He was most familiar with Cleff's and Cross's, and had a specific disdain for Aeon's.

"There it is!" He whispered excitedly as a calming ringing in his ears and soothing tingle in his hands alerted him to the entrance way to Euphoria. He looked down the alley to see just how far he had roamed. Spacial awareness dictated that he was practically on another street than the one he started on. The club being nestled deeply and in the darkest corner of the Entertainment District as he surmised it would be.

Now, he just needed to open the pathway, so that he could make it to the entrance. It shouldn't be difficult, he thought as least. There was always a trick to his intricate locking mechanisms that involved releasing and applying specific amounts of pressure at just the right moments. Remembering passwords or codes were fine and easy, but remembering the exact amount of pressure to use and for exactly how much time was a much harder thing to accomplished. It took massive levels of control and restrain: Too much pressure at the wrong time and you risked destroying the lock, too little and you risked tripping an alarm of some sort.

This lock, specifically, didn't look for physical pressure, but chakra pressure. Easier to manage, especially if you were with a group. Depending on the size, everyone only needed to remember on specific amount of pressure to apply. He was alone, unfortunately, but he was also a master of regulating his chakra usage.

Unable to resist, he smirked to himself, breathing easy before he began to apply the first amount of pressure. Large load, easy for a beginner with not much control, meant to lure the overconfident into a false sense of security. He accomplished it without a sweat.

The second application was a little tougher, the complete inverse of the first. It took a small amount of pressure, acutely minuscule, but easy for anyway with the right amount of chakra acumen. Wei huffed, finding it much harder than he originally anticipated it would be, considering the sizable increase in chakra he had acquired over the time he'd been banned from the establishment. Still, he managed.

He continued the alternation, favorably, until he got to the last of the amounts of pressure. It was perhaps the simplest of all and involved simple applying enough pressure to push a brick out of place on the wall. Not physically, but with pure chakra alone.

He began the process, ...! becoming distracted by the muted sigh of a person or figure nearby. Swiftly he turned to look to his sides, hoping there was no one coming down the alleyway to see him. Ideally, this process was suppose to be done way from the eyes of any one that didn't know the club. They wouldn't understand what was going on, but they would see a weirdo, or group of weirdos, rubbing down a wall. Not a good look for anyone involved and Wei, being relatively "new"-ish to the region, wanted to avoid avoidable misunderstandings.

As he looked over his shoulders, he saw no physical beings, not close at hand anyway, but witnessed a congregation of myst around him. A congregation of myst that he hadn't been privy to before, considering the squared focus he'd had on following Ace's signature. Wei, from the basic knowledge he acquire from Koudo, knew that the myst was magically inclined, but deeply ambiguous, as most things in the Veritas were, he was coming to understand. He couldn't sure, but... it seemed to be mimicking a chakra signature that should be familiar to him, being, effectively, an alternate version of Koudo. He, however, couldn't really place it, and he couldn't investigate while he was preoccupied with unlocking the pathway to Euphoria. He... wanted to investigate though.

The energy that came from Wei's mind as he thought and shifted his attention and focus were clear to the ambiguous being that stood at the end of the alleyway, gazing at him from afar. His mental energy could be read by his brain waves, and his focus alerted the phantasmal being that he'd finally been looking that way.

(Think 'Spiderman's 'Spider Sense.')

It was only the brief moment of focus that needed to be noticed, for there were patterns in the air emanating from his head similar to how a heat signature picks up on the different temperatures of the activity of the body, yet with a primary focus on the mental focus of the brain rather than the entire body. To the energetic entity of ambiguous shapeform, it would be as if both their minds locked when attention was given, and there, a great deal of the Myst that was roughly shaped would begin congregating in the area of target focus around the eyes, signifying that they'd met and that more energy was being drawn into them. Time seemed to slow at that point, and silence once again swept through the corridor of the dark alley.

Before long, more energy focused to a different point directly under the now vividly glowing eyes, yet the more of the Myst's focus went into the features, the less there was spread about the rest of the shapeform, causing it to disappear at the legs and appear as a hovering upper torso of ambiguity with extremely focused and defined eyes. Soon after, a mouth opened up with the same glowing focus as the eyes, looking no different from them, yet in the shape of a mouth rather than the shape of eyes. The moment the mouth opened, one of the arms lifted up to point at the man, and the other arm disappeared entirely. A haunting, ghastly voice of a woman cried out with a distinguishing echo, "Tama..." And a great wind passed through the alleyway, taking the lesser defined portions of the Mystform with it. Before the entire construct were blown away in the wind at the head, the concentrated eyes and mouth moved again, and again, another name was called, yet seemed to be an extension of the first name called. "... Tamura..." it said, only for the remaining focused energy to finally disperse in the passing powerful gust, taking the fullness of the Myst that congregated with it.

As it passed over and the body completely vanished, no longer revealing eyes nor mouth either, a memory would flash in the head of Wei that the Myst carried. The mental energy that he deemed as 'magical' due to his vague understanding of the energies of the Veritas would draw forth the memory of the one that was spoken, and Wei would see it clearly in his head through the 'Manna,' or, this mental energy that the Myst had taken on due to the sediment that was left behind by the one whose name had been spoken.

Memory: https://theveritas.forummotion.com/t527-quiet-night

When however much of the memory that was drawn to him by the Myst as the mental energy that was linked to his past finally subsided, so also would the wind, the voice and the congregation of Myst subside as well, no longer filling the back alleyway. The land fell eerily silent and the temporal experience returned to its natural normalcy, as would the natural sounds and occurrences that were going on prior to. The presence was completely gone and nothing remained of the Myst.

When all was done and the lock to the entrance had formally been 'picked,' so to speak, in the manner of which was accustomed to entering the hidden meeting place, the shifted brick that was misaligned from the wall altered the alignment of the other bricks in a certain pattern that was like the entire wall sinking into itself brick at a time all in formation from the first to the fullness of the spread. Each one that was stacked atop the next shifted as the prior did until all of the ones that made up the entrance had fully depressed in the wall and uncovered the hidden passage, which was scarcely filled with others who were allowed inside in whatever variable manner they knew how to enter. The bricks that looked like bricks were actually highly advanced technology that allowed for their shifting like independent articles without breaking away, something like blocks connected to each other, and also their reconstruction after the entering party had come inside. The time frame was short to prevent trespassers, but just long enough for one to step within the perimeter and be considered within 'bounds' of the territory -- Euphoria.

When one stepped inside, other people entering and exiting in similar manners could be seen through other variable 'entrances' that were not exactly definite, but like the first, were hidden all about numerous locations throughout the Veritas and beyond. Wherever the secret franchise had done its business throughout the cosmos, there was an entrance hidden in this fashion, and many people from both the Dusk and other worlds that knew of this place -- mostly for business -- were sitting around and enjoying the brews of the house. Though their numbers were not exactly many, they were also not exactly few, because this place was both a house of business and leisure with a hint of exclusivity that had come about due to the nature of its secrecy and privacy beyond the dealings of Valparaiso, of which there was indeed an entrance to. None seemed to mind the passing between the entrances, since all who were even allowed inside beyond the main entrance were aware of how to enter and exit.

There were estranged faces -- some like men and some like monster, or alien -- that littered the abode, each tending to their own. Some seemed to be enjoying the 'pleasantries' that were known throughout the land and others were doing hard business. Yet, a vast many of these faces were unknown to Wei. Each dealt with what they would, keeping to their own business or pleasure as they did. None batted an eye nor looked away, for in their eyes, this man was nothing more than another customer to the establishment, just as they were. Few of them knew each other, either, for whatever happened to Euphoria in its developments throughout the lands, it invited more who were foreign in this particular section of it. Being a stranger to both the Dusk and the Veritas, Wei would not know native from outsider, anyway, being labeled one of the Foreigners, himself. Yet, certainly, his old compatriot who ran the show, wherever he may be, would know him, even in his new form, should they meet in the midst.

There was a flash.

Whisked away to the middle of nowhere, the center of everywhere, the disembodied consciousness of Wei experienced the totality of what transpired that cold Dusk night... from the perspective of the third party. What he saw, not through the eyes of the mysterious figure, or the woman, was a man firing a concentrated bullet of imminent death upon an unsuspecting female assassin. A bullet that she just barely was able to dodge with an indistinguishable amount of speed that appeared as teleportation to Wei's eyes.

He couldn't make out all of the conversation. In fact, only certain things pertaining to the girl and the mysterious gunslinger he was capable of making out. None of the conversation between the gunslinger and whoever Wei was watching through the eyes of was audible to him. He supposed that was for a specific reason, but he didn't have quite enough time to dwell on it.

Just as quickly as the flashback happened, Wei's glossed over eyes were returned to normal and his consciousness snapped back to his body like a rubber band that had been stretched just shy of snapping in half. "Ugh..." He groaned as he shut his eyes, trying to shake the grogginess out from experiencing whatever... that was.

"It's stuff like this that justify why I never bothered with this place before Koudo absorbed me." He grumbled as soon as he was capable of speech, and the wooziness subsided to an acceptable degree. He heard a click on the doorway that he was trying to open, which stole his attention.

"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!" He exclaimed, but not from excitement. The vision quest had caused him to lose focus and he applied the wrong amount of pressure necessary to open the lock. The click he'd heard, for sure, was the locking mechanism's alarm protocol, and he knew that it couldn't be anything close to good news. He didn't panic though...

The wall began to split and open, revealing the pathway between this dimension and the dimension that housed Euphoria. An inter-dimensional highway, was the pathway, that was short by had many doors that opened to it. Wei hadn't been expecting that upgrade, but was able to deduce it to be so with all of the alien like beings that were filing into the pathway from other open doorways. It had been awhile since he had come here, so he was sure why he was surprised that Ace had made some adjustments. After all, Ace was just as good with his hands as Koudo had always been. Except Ace's talent didn't come from any latent supernatural ability that allowed him to speak with technology, like Koudo's did, but from trial and error like a real engineer and scientist.    

Wei rose a brow, straightening his posture. He didn't expect the door to open, not when he'd botched the last lock, but he supposed that maybe the locking mechanism had been changed just that slight bit. It was possible that because it was the last lock, it was looser on the restriction just so that people in a hurry could get in that much faster. He could rationalize it that way, and he chose to do so, but there was still an uneasiness in his stomach and it wasn't only from the vision that the Dusk had just so nicely gifted to him.

Still, since the pathway was open, Wei wouldn't decline the entry, and stepped through the opening in the wall, bending down slightly to avoid hitting his head as he did so. He joined a congregation of other beings, who were traveling towards the front door of the club. Because the club was so exclusive, illusive and elusive, there was no need for security right outside of the club. The doors were enough to separate the wheat from the chaff. Anybody that was able to open the doors were suppose to be here and it was as simple as that.

Wei blended in well with the crowd. He was slightly older than the majority, but not so much so that he was an oddity. Slightly older than the human majority, anyway. Wei hadn't really seen any of the alien species that were also allowed entry, and so he could judge them based on appearance alone. Many didn't even pass him a glance because no one was suspicious of anyone. Everything was either fun or business.

Wei was able to enter the club, identifying the neon colored dance floor in the middle that provided most, if not all, of the lighting to the place. He moved out of the way to allow the crowds behind him to pass by without a fuss and looked over the tables and dance floor to see the clientele.

As he did that, he moved towards the bar,

"Hey! You! Stop there. You're the one that messed up the last lock!" A voice called out. It was gruff and authoritative, but with a melodic tone that skewed feminine in nature. It's abruptness cut off Wei's observation and, even worse, his path. The body the voice belonged to appeared before him, digitizing into place with a hand outstretched and pressed against his chest to stop him from moving anymore than he had.

The woman was shorter than Wei, by a few inches or more, but was built solidly. Her style of dress was shabby, to say the least, and modest with a black tank top and oversized work pants that were stuffed into her combat boots. Her hair was vibrant pink, almost as neon as the dance floor, shaved on the left side, but long on the right and hiding her terribly scorched right eye. Her left eye hadn't fared much better, with a distinct scar that stretched from her eyebrow and down to her cheek.

Wei stopped, was forced to stop, in his tracks, by this woman. If he thought he could push past her, he was terribly wrong, he could feel that his body was being held in a stasis field that prevented energy usage of any kind. Wei could move his eyes, he could breath, and he could move his mouth to speak, but that was all that she was allowing him the privilege of doing.

"We don't let folks in if they mess up a lock. That's the way it's been since before I found the place." The woman continued, reaching her right hand towards her hip where Wei could see there was a pistol positioned. She reached past that, however, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes from a pouch just beyond the pistol on her hip.

She shook the pack, tapping it against her leg, before she flipped it open and pulled a cigarette out with her lips. "So, how the fuck you get in?" She quirked a brow, lifting her left hand from Wei's chest and moving the bionic arm that it was attached to away from him and closer to her cigarette. A flame sparked from a small chamber right below her human thumb and she used it to light her cig. Her eyes never lost contact with Wei's.

It was then that there was trouble in paradise, clear as day even among the crowd independent of each other. The ones who had some not-so-pleasant things that they were negotiating under the sound of the relative liveliness took to the secrecy of their whispers, cutting their eyes at the 'suspect' that tripped the passageway. None of them moved from their places, but they certainly spoke with caution now and moved with discretion, wary of this 'visitor' that was stopped nearly at the gate by the woman they all knew as the 'bouncer' of sorts. Still, they minded their own, trying not to get involved, nor what their involvement was involved.

The rest of the crowd kept to their leisure and their languor, some already drunk off their asses with asses intoxicating them more than their drink. The women there who were serving as the entertainment knew what it meant for there to be a hint of trouble and caution, and seeing their gal dealing with the new face, they found it best to up their performance to keep the crowd aroused and their attention off the spectacle. "WOOOO!! YEAH!!" they cried, the noise now drowning out the commotion and taking whoever's attention would even dare look away back to the beauty of the women striding up and down the floor on their elevated platforms, working their bodies to the utmost of their effectiveness. Whichever one would look away, there was a rather coherent, beautiful maiden that would snappily snap their heads back into focus on they and only they -- be it with an alluring motion or with the touch of their hands on their faces.

Of course, none who were enjoying their entertainment cared anything for what was happening. They'd come here to take a load off and that's exactly what would be done here. From wherever and whatever part of the cosmos or the Veritas they'd come, they were here to enjoy themselves. Nothing else mattered.

The establishment was more organized and efficient in secret than it seemed, it seemed. With everyone's attention no longer on the supposed 'trespasser,' he could be dealt with as he would and no one would care nor notice. Life went on.

Wei blinked a couple of times, getting accustom to how this... force was holding his body in place. He wasn't sure what had happened, particularly, but he assumed that this woman before him served as some sort of bouncer. While the doors were security enough for the outside, there still needed to be some sort of protective force on the inside to deal with rowdy patrons and protect the dancers and workers. This woman had be that, or a part of it at the very least.

He tried all his other body parts to see what was still afforded to him, and to better understand how he was being held. If he could understand how it worked, then it would be simple to over come it.

He tried his hands and arms... nothing.

He tried his legs and feet... nothing.

He tried his torso, neck, and head... nothing.

It was a shrewdly constructing containment field meant to provide the containee with nothing but the means to explain who they were, why they were doing what they were doing, and why they shouldn't be tossed out.

"Are ya gonna answer my question?" The woman spoke. There wasn't impatience in her voice, but a hint of irritation. Every time Wei tried to move his body, she could feel it and needed to use more chakra to contain him. He was... stronger than the usual drunk fools that got detained. It was a strain, though she didn't show it and remained calm and collected as she took a drag of her cigarette.

Wei hadn't intended to ignore her, he was only trying to think of a valid excuse. "Honestly, I'm not sure why it opened in the first place. I knew I fucked up the last lock." He knew he did. He'd heard the click that, probably, alerted this woman to him in the first place. He didn't think the wall would open, but it did.

The woman took her cigarette out of her mouth, holding it between the index and middle fingers of her bionic arm, and blew the smoke out through her nose. "So ya just waltz on through, knowin' ya ain't welcome. Aren't you some sort of genius." She responded, sardonically, as she grabbed a glass of a passing waitress's tray and dumped her ashes into it. "Look, the wall couldn't have just opened by itself, what did you do?"

If Wei could, he would have shrugged his shoulders while his eyes wandered towards some of the female entertainers occupying the neon dance floor. He turned his full attention back to the woman after she blew out her cigarette smoke. Personally, Wei couldn't stand the things.... well, not anymore anyway. Being a part of Koudo had completely shifted his body and morphed his mind. He used to be an avid smoker, now he thought it was a stupid thing to do, especially if you were a fighter or a soldier.


"Like I said, I don't know why the door opened. I messed up on the last lock, I heard the silent alarm click, but the wall opened."

"Then it didn't open for you."

"I was the only one in the alley."

"Apparently not, someone else had to have opened it."

"No one was coming out."

"Someone else was coming in."

"I was the only one in the alley."

The woman sighed. "You got an answer for everything besides how ya got in." She took another drag of her cigarette.

"Honestly, I was just coming here, looking for a friend." Wei said, stretching his arms towards the ceiling of the establishment until he heard a satisfying crack. Then he rolled his neck. Apparently, not all the ways that being a part of Koudo had altered his body were all that bad. It hated being contained and the Infestation always found a way to adapt to stasis fields so that its user could move freely.

The woman's arm had already alerted her to the fact that her hold on this man was being to loosen. He didn't seem hostile, not outwardly, and he'd been pretty cooperative, when he wasn't ogling the dancers, so she figured there wasn't necessarily a need to detain him. Regardless, his explanation was lacking, and she couldn't just let it go that the wall opened on its own. "A friend? Come with me." She didn't ask, she ordered, and she walked away from him and towards an empty table. He didn't have to follow, but he'd get far worse than detainment if he didn't follow. She couldn't hold him with her stasis field, but her arm analyzed him and she could definitely kill him.

"Did you ever possibly think that someone let him into the establishment?" a lone stranger garb in all black blurted out from his place at the bar, enjoying the scenery and the engagement secretly without telling anyone that he was actually consciously aware and attentive to it's goings on around him, unlike the rest of the Dusk Citizens and Foreigners that were about in the Veritas presently. "Did you think?" he asked the man as he went through the interrogation and inspection, wondering what his take on the scenario was. It was unclear why this strange man who spoke up out of nowhere got involved and why he was interested at all when it seemed like everyone else in Euphoria was more or less completely distracted or conceited with their own dilemmas, however with his minor suggestion, it may have helped the two of them solve their situation. If not, certainly, it would get worked out in some way or another, it was figured. The entire time, the man's head was turned only just slightly so that his voice could be heard, but involvement in depth seemed to be beyond him.

"Follow." The woman followed up, putting her cigarette back in her mouth, after she dumped the ashes in the glass that she was holding in her opposite hand.

Wei didn't really have much choice but to follow her. Confidence in whether he could take her in a fight, or not, were irrelevant. He had absolutely no idea just how many security officers there actually were, or if it was only her, and he really didn't want to bother with another mishap like Koudo's at that stupid Academy that replaced the Veritas in the primary universe. On top of that, causing a ruckus could get him excommunicated... again, and he wouldn't be able to talk to Ace, where ever the man was.

Wei stuck close to the woman. Not too close, but close enough not to lose her and the smell of her cigarette in the ambiance of the club scene. Truthfully, he hoped that he might be able to identify Ace, or be pointed in the right direction, by just complying with what was asked of him. If he left a better impression then she might just be willing to tell him her name so he could match it to anyone he might remember from the other universe. He doubted it though.

The woman stopped in her tracks just before the empty table that she was leading Wei to, and motioned for him to take a seat with her glass. While she did that, she looked towards where she thought she heard a voice interfering with her investigation and cleared her throat. "We're considering that possibility, sir. Refrain from interfering with an investigation or be escorted out." An empty threat, but it was usually enough to keep the common rabble from sticking their noses where it didn't belong. She was considering the possibility that this man had been let in by someone, but with no actual evidence to go on, she had members of her team inspecting the tapes.

Wei sat down, and the woman followed suit, choosing the sit in the booth opposite of Wei for safety reasons. She sat her glass down on the table, lightly, and dumped a new clump of ashes, as well as the butt, into the small lake of polluted water at the bottom of the glass. "Name." She asked, reaching for the pouch on her hip to pull out her pack of cigarettes again. Chain smoking during an investigation was a bad habit of hers.

"My name?" Wei asked, mainly to himself, more than the woman in particular. He hadn't completely decided whether he should use Koudo's name, or use his own. Both came with their bonuses and detractions.

The security officer looked up from her pouch searching, briefly, to shoot Wei a look of disbelief that oozed the amount of judgement and disdain she had for him. "Who's else?" She replied in kind, finally finding her pack of smokes and tapping them against the table.

"Right, silly question." Wei responded with a slight laugh, the woman didn't share in it, before resting his forearms on the table in front of him. He figured he'd just go with his own name. While there were people that would recognize the name, "Koudo," he more expected that no one would considering, technically, "Koudo" didn't exist in this universe. The "Koudo" of this universe was him, he assumed anyway. "Most just call me Wei."

The security officer nodded, glancing towards her mechanical arm for any inclination that would suggest that security was familiar with the name. They didn't investigate, nor keep tabs on anyone, just particular troublemakers and person's of interest. Once the scan came up negative, which she could see with her bionic left eye, she turned that very eye back to the man before her, "Alright, Wei, you see to be new around these parts, ain't nobody come out and vouch for you, but you knew about the locking mechanism," she rested her cigarette on her lips and lit it with the lighter she had on her arm, "Your 'friend' tell ya about the place?" she asked, sitting the flame off and cutting her eyes towards Wei.

Wei didn't retreat from his posture, and kept eye contact as well as he could. "Not... exactly. I already knew about it." He couldn't outright say that he was the one the invented it. She was already suspicious of him, and that would only make her that much more suspicious.

"Right, okay, let's say I believe you." She decided to play along, "Then how'd you already know about it? The location of the 'Doors' swaps between locations in any specific town, city, country, continent, and planet randomly." That was how it was explained to her by the owner of the club, or that's how she chose to interpret the explanation. She dumped ashes in her glass, "If you knew about the door, how'd you know it would be there."

She was indulging him, great, that made this much simpler. It made explain how he knew about the door irrelevant, especially if he could properly explain how he was able to find the location of the specific door that he came through. Wei sat back in his seat and stroked his chin with his hand, "I followed my friend's energy signature. I assumed the door doesn't switch locations until the very next morning. My hunch was right."

The woman's eye drifted towards her bionic arm for a split second before she turned her gaze back to Wei. "Alright, who's this friend of yours and why haven't they come to vouch for you?" There was always the possibility that his friend had helped with the last lock, from the inside, and dashed off just so that they could fuck with him and security. It would be an annoyance of hers, but it wasn't an offense worth kicking them out over. Unfortunately for Wei, none of the cameras were showing anything of the sort. All they showed was him tripping the alarm and the door opening. She dumped her ashes into her glass.

"Look, I know you're just trying to do your job, trust me, I know how it goes." Wei said, leaning forward again and resting his arms on the table again, "What I'm going to say to you isn't gonna help my case any, trust me. When I say the name, you're gonna think I'm lying."

The woman took a drag of her cigarette, a nice and long one. A drag long enough to smoke out the entirety of the cigarette, which she dumped into her glass and exhaled the smoke through her nose. "Try me."

Wei acquiesced. "Alright. Ace. His name is Ace. He runs this club, made all -- most of the technology for it. Got it to the place it is now where it flourishes as a den of debauchery and business."

The woman sat back in her seat now, resting her head against the booth and closing her eyes, "Ace, huh?" She breathed a sigh, "I wanna believe ya, Wei, I do," and leaned forward again, "Problem is, Wei, Ace ain't a man."

Just passing through, the man in dark garb also got up from his place after the exchange was done, seeing it handled carefully as it was, and made his way through the crowd of Dusk Citizens just the same as any of them.

Wei didn't appear visual distressed, but he was shocked to hear what this security officer had said. So shocked that he wasn't sure that he'd heard her right, at first. The club was pretty crowded, there was a lot of noise and music all around them, so it was easy to mistake her words. They could have blended in with any noise around and made him hear the wrong words.

He couldn't indulge himself in those delusions. From the distance that they were sitting away from each other the fact that they had carried such a coherent conversation, independent of the noise level, and he had such sensitive hearing; there was absolutely no way that he hadn't understood what she said. It forced him to sit back in his seat, but he remained composed. "Shit."

The woman reached for her pack of cigarettes again. He didn't look visually shaken, his breathing remained composed, but she could tell that he was shocked to hear her fact. She didn't have any spectacularly advanced facial reading software installed in her arm or eyes, but she did have her detective intuition and most of the time that was enough. While he sorted himself out, tried to get off the rebound, she pulled out another cigarette and rested it on her lip so that she could light it. This time, she decided to leave her pack on the table, instead of putting it back on her belt. Maybe he'd need one to relax.

"Shit." Wei said to himself again, wondering why he hadn't consider the possibility. He knew that even though everything appeared the same, there were drastic changes to way the Veritas had been on Vescrutia and how it was now. It was foolish not to consider that things were different here, just like they had been in Valparaiso.

"There you have it, Wei." The security officer said, lighting her cigarette and taking a couple of puffs before she took the thing from her lips and exhaled smoke. "Now, I don't doubt that ya know Ace, I certainly don't doubt it, but not knowing she's a woman is kind of a red flag." She dumped her ashes in the glass to her left.

"Yeah, it definitely is." Wei couldn't help but snort a short chuckle. He wasn't sure if it was from embarrassment, nervous, or just plain disbelief. For now, he allowed it to remain ambiguous. "Wait..." He quickly said, sitting up straighter in his seat, "Are you--"

The security officer rose the hand that was connected her bionic left arm and shook her head, "Let me stop ya there, I ain't Ace. I wouldn't fuck with you like that. She would, but I wouldn't." The woman said before retracting her arm and putting her cigarette back to her lips, "Most call me Whiz. Don't rightly remember why."

So she was Whiz then. Wei didn't have any memory of her at all. Not of her, not of an alternate universe counterpart or anything. For all intent and purposes, she was a new face that he'd never seen before, and it was probably why he was having such a hard time conversing with her. "Alright, Whiz, thanks for letting me put a name to a face, but I certainly ain't lying to you."

"I know you're not. Can't say ya got an honest face, but you don't seem the type to lie about something so petty." Whiz responded, exhaling smoke out of her nose and grabbing her glass to put it on the tray of a hostess passing by their table and taking an ash tray instead. "Besides that, there's something strange about you. Stranger than the other foreigners and aliens we get in here."

At least she believed him, but there was a pit of unsettling feelings building deep in his chest. He tried to be as nonthreatening as possible, but apparently that worked against him. He decided to switch up. "It's my chakra, isn't it?"

Whiz raised an eyebrow, dumping cigarette ashes in her ashtray, and nodded her head, "Yeah, see I recognize your chakra signature, I think any talented sensor in the building can recognize that signature, but your face doesn't match it. That's the REAL reason I stopped you. The lock as an excuse."

One of the women who were inside of Euphoria at the time, idly passing through as many of the numerous hosts and hostesses were doing, stopped suddenly before Wei and asked him, "Do you need anything sir...?" somewhat casually in order to see if his needs were satisfied whilst he perused the establishment.

Wei was about to speak, but was interrupted by a hostess that stood to his left side. He looked towards her, before turning back to Whiz, "May I?"

Whiz waved her hand, taking a drag of her cigarette as she did so, "Go ahead, I'm sure you need a drink."

With the affirmation given, Wei turned back to the hostess, "Bourbon, any label. No glass, no ice, no water. Just bring me the bottle."

"Make it so." Whiz nodded towards the hostess, to affirm that it was okay to give this particular guest whatever he asked for. There were a few... deeper workings going on, but it wasn't time to explain them just yet. It was easier just to send the hostess off with the knowledge that Whiz was allowing such liberal usage of their alcohol. The hostess didn't need to bring the most expensive stuff, but Whiz would leave it to the woman's discretion.  

Wei turned back to Whiz now. With the knowledge that his chakra signature was abnormally familiar to Whiz, but 'his face didn't match it' he had to consider how to approach the rest of the conversation. He couldn't sure whether it was related to Koudo, and Wei didn't look as much like the man in question as he thought he did, or if it was in reference to.

"Whiz, is this girl the face the signature belongs to?" Wei asked, reaching in his shirt and pulling out the picture that he found in the orphanage. He felt a similar resonance to the chakra that coursed through this photo as he had the woman in vision that he had seen before coming inside of Euphoria. There could very well be a correlation, and Whiz could be the key.

Whiz dumped her ashes and looked out the corner of her eyes at the picture that the man pulled out of his shirt. She squinted her eyes, turning her head fully towards the picture and trying to get a closer look at it. After a while, she leaned back and shook her head, "I don't know. I don't think so. Your chakra signature is familiar to a woman I've met before." The woman in question wasn't exactly the 'co-founder' of Euphoria, but she was a frequent customer. So much so that she established a friendship with Ace that couldn't be mistaken as anything else. Unfortunately, she disappeared a while back and no one had seen her since. No one had gotten a sense of her chakra either, until Wei showed up.

Wei stashed the photo again, at least for now. There was still the possibility that the woman Whiz was referring to and the girl in the photograph were the same person. Wei wouldn't rule it out. It was understandable that Whiz probably didn't recognize the girl in the photo because she met her much later in life. "If I can ask you a question then, since the pretense of an investigation to how I got into the club has been dropped?"

Whiz smirked, taking a drag of her cigarette and exhaling the smoke out her nostrils, "Shoot."

"This woman... was she as assassin by any chance?" Wei asked.

Whiz stopped smirking, cutting her eyes pretty sharply towards Wei as she put cigarette out in the ashtray. "What would make you assume that?"

Wei didn't retreat, "If you'll indulge my wild explanations for a moment more," he prefaced, "I saw it. Right before I got let in."

The Servicemaid that was sent off to get the man his drink completed the sequence based on her primary protocol and previous given instruction and authority. When she returned, naturally all of the extraneous services that came with the 'House' would be complimentary on the house based on what 'Command' she was just given. Everything and everyone else functioned similarly all throughout Euphoria, as did throughout the Dusk. "Your drink, sir," she said in a chipper, yet monotonous manner, something like a drone before returning to the rest of the other Mechanica that operated Euphoria from the inside mixed in with the Dusk Citizens. None of the Foreigners seemed to be able to tell the difference initially between the 'House Servants' and the actual paid hostesses, who were paid off of the tips that the Mechanica did not receive.

Whiz quirked a brow, thoroughly intrigued. "You saw it, did you?" She didn't believe in superstition or anything without substantive evidence, but she had heard rumors about the Myst of the Dusk giving particularly "energetic" people visions. Sometimes they were of the past, sometimes of the future. There ever even times when they could be glimpses into other dimensions and universes. She had never experienced it herself, but she heard another crazy stories about it to trust him on it.

"You saw this woman, who I haven't even described to you, yet, as an assassin?" While she trusted that he might have saw a vision, she doubted that it was of the woman she was talking about. Crazy stories be damned, there wasn't anyway he'd seen the person she's talking about. Very rarely does anyone, especially since she went missing.

Wei tossed up a hand, a shrug, "I know, it sounds crazy, but I've heard and experienced fair crazier." He replied, taking the bottle out of the hand of the hostess with a nod of his head.

Whiz scoffed disdainfully.

"Don't believe me?"

"It's not that." Whiz said, turning her attention to the hostess, "We'll call if we need you. You're free to service another customer." She ordered resolutely. Being a full time regular, a natural resident of the Dusk with close to thirty years of life under her belt, and having her bionic arm, she could explicitly tell the different between the machines and the human hostesses. She wasn't a fan.

Wei watched as the Mechanica returned to her duties, almost independently of Whiz's order to do so, before turning to Whiz. "What was that?"

"It's those machines."

"Don't like them."

"It's not that I don't like them. It's..." Whiz paused for a second, "You ever heard 'if you do too much, people get dependent'?"

"If you do nothing, they lose hope."

She nodded her head towards a mechanica passing by, "Those are definitely the definition of too much."

"They're pretty reliable though, I'd imagine."

"Useful. The term you're looking for is... useful." Whiz said, looking back at her bionic arm for a second and then tapping the table, "Your vision."

Wei, pulling the top off the bourbon and just about ready to wet his palette, groaned and sat the bottle down, "Right. Let me ask you this then, was the woman you know in any danger at all? Like, was someone after her?" Remembering the vision, there was a mysterious man figure that he saw as well. The figure shot at her, nearly killing her, but when she was able to dodge it, he appeared before her and said he was her father. Wei... had his doubts, but if the woman was also the girl in the picture, then he had just done the same at the orphanage.

"I wouldn't--" Whiz started.

"She wasn't. She did mentioned something big happened to me, however, a little while before she disappeared." A new voice interrupted, feminine. Much less gruff than Whiz's, but not exactly melodic either. It was weary, as if it had just gotten done yelling, but still held a certain amount of youthful buoyancy. "You're gonna pay for that, by the way. Wei." She held a short snort of laughter, at her self-perceived witty wordplay, in.

Wei cocked his head to the side, looking over Whiz's shoulder at the new figure that appeared behind her. Shorter than he was, obviously, but shorter than Whiz as well. She looked younger too, not quite as worn as Whiz, who gave off an old and grizzled detective vibe the more Wei conversed with her. She certainly didn't look like the type to run an establishment like Euphoria, but then she sort of did. Her youthfulness gave her the nonthreatening appearance of a trust fund baby, but the sharpness of her eyes definitely lent themselves well to show just how much experience and expertise she had at what she did. In fact, her outward appearance seemed like it was meant to lull people into false senses of pride, or security, before she rocked their world. The perfect candidate for Euphoria management.

"I finally figured out why you looked so familiar to me. Everything about you positively screams Tama's relative. Your air of mystery and that intoxicating aura of chakra that shrouds you." Ace mused pleasantly, strolling to Whiz's side of the table, almost to the sound of the beat of the music that accompanied her sudden emergence. The lights of the dance floor flashed and flared as she moved, like it was reacting to her natural rhythm. Chances were, it was.

"Ace." Whiz grumbled with a dismissive wave of her hand before she reached for her pack of cigarettes that were sitting on the table.

Ace reached out and stopped Whiz's hand before she bumped the older woman's hips to scoot into the booth with her. "You've smoked enough. I thought you were quitting."

"I'll quit when I'm dead."

"Maybe I'll kill you then."

"Better women than you have tried." Whiz quipped nonchalantly, snatching her hand, and her cigarettes, away from her boss, and on again off again life partner. If investigations made her chain smoke, then she wasn't sure what to call her bad habit when Ace was in close proximity. Assisted suicide? Probably a little too dark. "Not like you wouldn't just resurrect me as one of those machines you're so damn fond of." With that, Whiz pulled out a cigarette in a huff and lit it up quickly.

"Anyway," Ace said, rolling her eyes, wrapping herself around Whiz's human right arm, and turning her head to look at the man of the hour, "Wei, you're definitely related to Tama. There is no mistaking it. Brother? Cousin? Betrothed?"

Wei was kind of at a loss for words. While he couldn't deny that she was a woman, obviously, it was clear that her resemblance to the male Ace was uncanny. There were differences, subtle ones, but differences that would make it easy to tell them apart in a crowd. However, if they were ever in the same room, you'd be hard pressed not to think they were twins. The only problem with that would be that this Ace was... older.

Wei recomposed himself, shaking the visions of, apparently, Tama's last night in the Dusk out of his head. He twisted the top back onto the bottle of bourbon, reconsidering drinking for now. While it would take more than this to get him anywhere near a blood alcohol concentration level sufficient enough to display the signs of intoxication, his senses would still dull and he needed to keep his wits about him.

Specifically, he needed to decided how he wanted to approach Ace's questions. Depending on what she'd heard from Tama about the mysterious man that shot at her, her "father", then Wei wouldn't be able to play that angle. At the same time, depending on how close Ace and Tama were, the brother angle might not work either. He was clearly an older brother, and if that were the case then undoubtedly questions about Tama's separation from the family would come up.

Maybe it was better not to over think it.

Whiz spoke first, "So this guy is related to Tama then. I wondered why you opened the door for him."

"What did... Tama tell you, exactly?" Wei finally asked, deciding to ignore the question about how, specifically, he related to Tama.

Ace's eyes shined with the lights of the dance floor, making her amber gaze bewitching to behold. "I asked you a question first." Any hints of playfulness that her voice held in her previous statement were gone. She deadlocked her eyes to Wei's sapphire stare and waited for his reply.