Easier To Find Than I Thought

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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.

Some Valparaiso Denizens who entered through the Valparaiso entrance of Euphoria that were nestled in with the bunch of Dusk Citizens and Otherworlders had a mind of their own to get into different parts of the Veritas. Through Euphoria, they would exit through one of the Dusk entrances and end up in the city of Dusk, completely bypassing any prolonged travel from Valparaiso to the planet, Veritas.

Whiz sighed, audibly. The sigh was comically loud. She exhaled smoke and puffed her cigarette a couple more times before turning her and head and withdrawing from the conversation, at least for now. She hated when Ace did her intimidation game, but it helped when someone was withhold useful information. Still, she tried to avoid looking directly into Ace's bewitching stare, or she'd find herself falling into the abyss and struggling to pull herself out. It was how Ace contracted her to work for Euphoria.

Just as scary as the male Ace when information was on the table. Wei made a strategic retreat. There were few whose gaze could paralyze him with a fear of the unknown and Ace was one of those individuals. It was refreshing to see that even this version could use 'the stare'. It was unfortunate that it produced the same results.

"Right..." Wei said with a bow of his head, "I'm her father." Presumably so. Granted the woman in his vision couldn't be that many years younger than he appeared.  It might have been easier to use the brother angle.

"You're lying to me." Ace said, flat out, her amber eyes gleaming as she did so. Slowly, she unwrapped herself from Whiz's arm and rested her hands on the table in front of her. "Family members have similar chakra signatures, that's how you can tell who belongs to what clan."

"I know that. That's why I'm telling you--"

"Your chakra signature isn't similar to Tama's, Wei." Ace interrupted, interlocking her fingers and holding her hands tightly together.

Wei raised as eyebrow, tilting his head slightly to the side. From what both her and Whiz had said, he and Tama had similar chakra signatures. He knew that withholding information was all apart of the game, but there was no denying that he had similarities to the chakra that coursed through the photo resting against his breast.

"I said your chakra signature was familiar to me, but that's not because it was similar to the woman I know. You know that the signatures are identical."

Whiz's attention immediately returned to the conversation, her head swiftly shifting from Ace and then to Wei. "Wait, you can't be implying!"

"That I'm not her father," Wei inquired, cautiously.

"Not her father, not her brother. Not her cousin or any other nuclear or extended family member. You are her." There was no denying it after all. Ace had already figured that out. Even Tama, who knew the locations of all the doors in the Veritas, would forget the last locking mechanism and mess it up by applying too much pressure, just like Wei did. She drifted into Euphoria, got her assignment, and drifted out without drawing attention to herself, despite how much attention she would get if she flaunted herself more, just like Wei had attempted to do before Ace sent Whiz after him. There mannerisms were the same. Wei was much more eloquent than Tama, and the potency of his chakra was leagues above Tama's, but they were the same.

What Ace didn't know, and couldn't puzzle together, was where Wei came from. She dealt with clones and highly advanced robotics, but Wei was different from those.

The Dusk Citizens that knew when Euphoria was opening and closing would begin making their way out if they weren't certain that they wouldn't be able to exit, though the ones that had an intention to spend the night weren't worried about getting up before the club disappeared again to wherever it would go.

(Pass)

The area thinned in number somewhat swiftly, yet over a period of time that covered the length of the span of the idle conversation between Wei and Whiz, as well as whatever differences they were sorting out between each other whilst the club naturally started shifting.

Wei narrowed his gaze, lowering his brow and undoing the top to the liquor bottle that never left his hand. He was pensive, but not uncomfortable with Ace's level of knowledge. The memories he got from Koudo showed that Ace had always been more perceptive than himself. If Koudo was considered a genius at sensory abilities, then Ace was an entirely different monstrosity. He never considered a military career, but he put the latent talents to good use.

So did she.

Wei took a drink, quickly and painlessly, sitting the bottle down just as swiftly as he'd turned the bottom up. "Alright, I won't play around with you and dance around the subject like I was doing with your detective." He shot Whiz a look and an apologetic bow of his head. Once Ace made her appearance, it was easy for Wei to surmise that Ace had set him up specifically to by herself more time to analyze him. It helped that Whiz's bionic arm fed information about the things it scanned right to Ace, or that's how Wei assumed it worked.

"Goood~." Ace purred, crossing a leg over the other and removing her hands from the table, only to place them in her lap seconds later, "Start with who you are."

"Easiest place right?" Wei responded in kind, pulling out the picture in his shirt and sitting it down in the middle of the table for the two women to peruse at their leisure. He was operating under the assumption that Tama was the girl in the picture, and it was safe to assume it. Ace knew the woman, Tama, so it made looking for who the names on the back of the picture belonged to a moot point. He wouldn't ignore them and would bring them up when he had the time.

Wei took another drink of his bourbon before tapping the picture with his index finger. "If Tama is this girl, then I felt a suspicious sense of attraction to latent chakra housed in this picture. I came from an alternate universe. An alternate reality where this place," Wei tapped the table, "The Veritas, was absorbed by a man named Shinta Urashura."

Ace quirked her brow, intrigued, but didn't say anything. Instead she used the time to process.

Wei took her silence as a signal to continue his explanation. "Euphoria, didn't exist inside of The Veritas at the time, so it's still in my universe, but I'm operating under the assumption that the Tensei Clan."

"I've heard the name."

"Their patriarch, sensing the imminent betrayal of his peers, the leaders of the other kingdoms and empires that exist in my universe, his brother and closest colleagues that were supposed to help him run the Veritas, used his immense power to warp reality and create a universe where The Veritas separated itself from Vescrutia, just before Shinta's absorption would have taken place, and shaped its lands and territories into their own land masses large enough to become a world, a planet, of its own. Then, Vescrutia was overrun and, eventually, taken over by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse."

Ace nodded her head, "If what you're assuming is true, then some people may have been carbon copied over to this universe, and some aspects of Vescrutia as well that weren't, necessarily, involved in the betrayal plot. Like Euphoria, which exists in its own separate dimension."

"Except it doesn't. It only exist in this universe like this. The Ace that I know hasn't developed technology advanced enough, and he lost contact with Koudo... me... whatever. Anyway, Euphoria existing as it does in this universe is in direct correlation to the advances in technology that the Tensei were able to develop when they liberated themselves from the burden of Vescrutia. You, Ace and Whiz, are pure residents of this universe, like Tama."

Wei took a breath, had another drink, and pointed to himself, "I register to you as, pretty much, the same as Tama because, I am her. From the other reality. Or, I'm a spawn of the other her."

Ace sighed deeply. She didn't find it hard to digest what he was saying. It sounded pretty standard the the rules of the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics. She had never seen any Tensei members first hand, not that she could remember, but the rumors about their respective powers were the stuff of legends.

"Because of the way the Tamura's clan secrets work, it's hard for other beings to interpret us perfectly and create replicas without a few hiccups. Hell, even the Tamura's own most experienced masters and advanced scientists can't get it right. It's especially true for the individual that I spawned from. He wanted to stay on Vescrutia, no matter what. I assume Tama was created because there are Tensei that wanted a version on him in their universe. He was friends with a couple. From there, Tama lived her life."

"Until she vanished, shortly before you showed up."

"Right." Wei said with a nod, raising his bottle and taking another drink. This time, it was long, it was painful, and it was just the sort of stiff one that he needed. The sort of excessive drinking that set him apart of Koudo.

(Pass)

Some Foreigners that were native to Euphoria slipped in during all the dimensional disturbance. "Ey, Ace," someone said somewhat casually before taking a spot at the usual, wherever that may have been. "Don't rough up the chirren too much, there." There were light chuckles before the Foreigner regulars all attended their regular business, especially now that the Dusk Citizens left. They could really start doing some serious business now. "You let us know you got any problems." That was the end of the matter.

Some stragglers shifted to where some of the women were allocated.

(Pass)

Wei exhaled pleasantly, holding the bottle of bourbon up and towards the dim lights of the ceiling over their booth. It had been a long time since he'd had a really good drink. Koudo usually drunk single malt scotch, but Wei preferred american whiskey. "Am I still going to need to pay for this?"

"That was a joke." Ace answered with a short laugh. She could piece together that this man probably had no money, or no money worth anything since he was from an alternate universe. For all she knew, the gold from his universe could be fool's gold here and the bills of currency some used could have the faces of alternate historical figures. Besides, he was technically a friend, an alternate version of a friend, and Ace never charged Tama for drinks. Tama never actually drank, but Ace would never charge her if she did.

Wei sighed with relief, happily reassured that he wouldn't have to immediately work off this bottle of bourbon that he was sure was expensive. It might be a different universe, but it was the same old Ace. "Thanks, cuz I really don't have any money."

Ace beamed happily, relaxing and switching out of interrogation mode. "Still, all of that was a pretty hard pill to swallow. I'd always figured that there were alternate universes, any one with a brain has at least considered it, but to actually meet someone from one that's so... intertwined with ours is..."

"Kind of awesome." Whiz chimed in, offering her first piece of new opinion in a while. She'd been so quiet and reserved that Wei almost forgot that she was there. If it wasn't from all of her cigarette smoke, then he would have. He got tunnel vision when he was explaining quantum mechanics and hypothesizing about the secrets of the universe.

"I can agree with that." Ace nodded.

Wei finished what was left in the bottle he had and sat it down on the table, rousing a whistle from Whiz and a congratulatory hand clap from Ace. He wiped his mouth, "So that's why I came here. I've been looking for this girl," Wei tapped the photo in the middle of the table, "Because of the connection I felt and I figured you, being an Ace, would know something. I didn't know, however, that you actually knew her."

Ace nodded, "Yeah, but now you have another problem."

"Nobody has seen her in a while." Whiz added.

"I know. That's why I asked if you knew whether she was in any danger or not." Wei grabbed the photo from the middle of the table and slid it back into his shirt. After, he clasped his hands together and rested them on the table, "In the vision I was telling Whiz about, she was being attacked."

"That's not surprising, she was an assassin. Some assassins meet clients and get their contracts here." Ace said, looking around the club to take in the view of her respective clientele.

"Or in the office of a fat cat big shot in the corporate buildings of the Dusk who probably own the DSF." Whiz chimed in, again, "Though assassins that do business through here all have a code against attacking each other."

"I don't think she was being attacked by another assassin though. The person was certainly skilled, but he didn't shoot to kill here. Not from what I could see. He shot once and missed intentionally."

"Maybe it was a warning shot. 'This is my territory and those were my marks.'"

"That can't be it, because then he told her that he was her father."

"That's heavy." Ace said.

"And complicated." Whiz continued.

Wei sat back in the booth and crossed his arms. "Yeah. Unfortunately I couldn't see his face, nor who's eyes I was looking through, but I don't think it was actually her father. I mean, what kind of father shoots at their child?"

"My dad used to give me knuckle sandwiches." Whiz said, exhaling a puff of smoke.

"I never even knew mine." Ace replied.

Wei sucked his teeth, sensing that he'd touched on a sensitive subject. For both of the ladies currently present. "In any case," He said, hurrying to change the subject, "Finding her is my next priority, but you all have been more than helpful."

Ace tossed up a hand with a smile, "What are friends for, after all. I wouldn't be an Ace if I didn't clutch it for ya in the thick." She winked.

Wei smirked and nodded his head, much obliged by her playfully cavalier attitude. "Ya got that right. Ace is the same in every universe. A strong ally, if you get on their good side."

"You got it buddy. You're welcome to stay here if you want, Whiz can set you up with a room while you continue your investigation. There are probably a few folks that'd be willing to hire you on so you can make some money."

"Thanks, Ace, but I'll be fine in that regard. Besides, I don't wanna free load."

Ace shrugged her shoulders, "Suit yourself, but the room is still yours whenever you come to visit again. Pay me for that bottle next time too, got it?"

Wei tossed up his hands defensively and nodded, "Roger."

"Good." Ace mused as she rose from her seat with a salute to him, "I'll see you later, Whiz~."

"Right." Whiz said, putting out her cigarette.

Ace smiled happily before about facing, "Hey! What did I tell you assholes about trafficking humans, and human like species, in my shit."  She yelled to a group of in the distance, and then she was gone.

Wei laughed, scratching behind his head as he watched Ace saunter off before he turned to look at Whiz, "Different universe, so old Ace. Your boss." He said, pointing over his shoulder towards the direction Ace went.

"Some would say my better half." Whiz quipped, shaking her empty package of cigarettes and sucking her teeth.

"There is something else I wanted to ask about." Wei said, reaching to pull out the picture yet again.

"Shoot."

"There were two names on the back of this photo. I wanted to know if you recognized them." Wei took the picture out this one last time and handed it to Whiz. She flipped it over to get a look at the message on the back and hummed in thought for a second.

"To Bhumi and Mira... friends forever... T. T. ..." Whiz read out, "This was written by Tama, so this girl is definitely her."

"Okay, do you recognize the other two names?" Wei asked. He, of course, knew of the two individuals in question in his own universe, but he wasn't sure about their counterparts in this one. Ace being a woman really threw him for a loop, but she was basically the same as the male Ace he'd known. That could just be the luck of the draw, however, and these two particular individuals could be wildly different.

"Hmm... I know a lot of Miras." Whiz answered, stroking her chin and furrowing her brow as she handed the photo back to Wei.  

"Damn." Wei took the photo and slipped it back into his shirt.

"Hold on now," Whiz held her hand up to stop Wei from thinking that she didn't have anything to share with him, "I know a lot Miras, but I only know one that hangs out with a Bhumi."

"So you do know them?"

"I know of them. I've seen them. I've watched them," They were fairly well known from being excellent fighters. They weren't a part of the military, but their respective strengths were considerably. Both of them and the three other people in their posse. "They're regulars here. You actually just missed them when you got in."

"Seriously?" Wei said, folding his arms and raising an eyebrow. "Regulars here. That's not surprising." It actually wasn't. Usually Valparaisans didn't join the military if they didn't have to. They were much better at taking care of themselves.

"Yeah, pretty well known for their fighting skills. Both of them, and their gang of friends. There's only five of them, but they're all skillful."

Wei nodded, holding the information. "Good. Thanks." He said, rising from his seat.

"Wanna know more?"

"No. I think that's more than enough. Knowing that they're regulars means I know where to find them. You've helped more than enough." Wei was grateful. Both Whiz and Ace had been the most helpful individuals that Wei had come into contact with during all of his time here. He slid out of the booth and patted himself down to make sure he had everything.

Whiz waved her hand, opting to stay seated where she was. She wasn't in a rush to go anywhere. There was rarely any trouble in Euphoria. "Yeah. The room's open whenever you come back."

"Thanks." Wei said, finding he had everything he'd come in with on his person. He wasn't sure where he was going, but he figured that he would try another of the continents of The Veritas. He knew the Delta was a place where most of the other lands sent their children for formal education. There was a possibility that he could find clues of Tama there, but first he needed to find somewhere to stay that wasn't Euphoria.

He walked to the closest exit back into the Entertainment district and stepped out of Euphoria and back into the Dusk.

- The End.