Don't Worry, It's All The Way Up From Here [Scion] [Pseudo-SI]

[ryuan]

I had to go to the bank today, mostly to deal with some of my debts or another. Thankfully I had enough money to start paying them, but the whole meeting took a while to complete.

I decided to turn around and get some ice cream when I heard someone scream. Quickly turning around I saw a car hitting people across the sidewalk. I looked at the screaming lunatic that was apparently coming after ME, and in a show of athleticism that would be more at home ten years earlier, I dodge the man and let him crash on the wall behind me.

As I stand up trying to figure out what the fuck just happened the door of the car opened and from there cames out a man that looks terrible. A ghost or a zombie would be a better description of the thing in front of me. It was frotting at the mouth, and lunged at me.

Now, I had some martial arts training back in the day, even almost reaching black belt, but it's been at least a decade since I last trained, so I went with the safe option when facing an unarmed opponent.

Run, find a weapon, beat the shit out of him until it can't stand up anymore.

I turned tail and the crazed man followed me, and I tried to look for anything that could be used as a weapon nearby, until I came across a sturdy stick on the ground. I wondered why nobody was helping, or if the police would soon come, but aside from that I turned around and looked at my pursuer.

Did he became bigger?

Once more I managed to dodge his assault with instincts I didn't knew I had, before bringing in the stick right at his nose. The man stumbled back for a moment, tear in his eyes, before I spun my weapon and hit him on the groin as hard as I could.

And again and again and again.

I was deeply disturbed at my strength and his endurance that it took him four hits to finally feel the damage and fall to the ground, clutching at his nether regions. He looked at me with hate in the eyes, before I kicked him in the face for that little bit and to make sure he stayed down.

"Now", I said to no one in particular, "can somebody tell me what the fuck happened?"

"I'd like to know that myself." I spin around, and see a police officer looking at me.

"Uh, he attacked me first?"

"Don't worry, you're not in trouble. We're going to talk at the station and then short things out."

I nodded while internally wincing, I really wanted to get back to my notebook and forget this ever happened.

~~O~~

It took until night to ping all my i's and cross all my t's back at the police station, but thankfully I wasn't in trouble. It was night time and I went to my notebook after taking a quick shower, and when I sat at my bed I heard a knock at my house's door.

Who the fuck might be at this time of the hour. This better not be my family bothering me again.

Another knock, and I stood up annoyed at however was at the other side.

Opening the door, I saw a face that was both familiar and strange at the same time. Something about him reminded me of someone, though don't think I ever saw someone that handsome ever. I mean he looked like a model and had a confident, almost arrogant air to him that made me want to crawl into a hole and die.

"It's been a while, Yu."

"... who are you?"

"I am your father."

~~O~~

"My father is dead", I told the man with a frosty tone, "and so is my mother. Please forgive me if I think you're full of shit."

"I think this is a conversation better done inside. Don't you want the neighbors to listen in, do you?"

I stared at him up and down. He looked strong but if he did something funny I could always scream for help, even if that's not something I would want to do, and he didn't had anything in his hands that could be considered a weapon. I let him enter and showed him the unused room I had yet to decorate from my new home.

"Alright", I told him, "make your case. Convince me."

He just gave me a shy smile before he opened his mouth.

I won't go into specifics, my life is not somebody's else business, but he managed to tell me things that only me and my mother would likely know since she was a rather private person. He knew details of my life, of my family's circumstance and even gave me a reasonable time frame to which I could be born.

He was a bit light on the details of the why, though.

"So, you're my father, my real father." I said in a whisper.

"Yes", he said with a smile, "I wanted to-"

I interrupted him by decking him in the jaw as hard as I could, and I think I felt my hand break from the impact. I winced at the pain, aware that beating someone on the head have good odds of hurting myself, but it wasn't something I wanted to simply let bygones be bygones.

"You BASTARD! Do you know how much our family suffered? How much we had to struggle to make ends meet? How my mother drove herself to an early grave? And you have the gall to come in after I'm a grown man expecting me to accept you with wide arms? Fuck off! You never showed an interest in me, why I would accept you back into my life after so much time had passed?"

He massaged his jaw a bit, even if I could see that there wasn't even a hint to a bruise. "I think I deserved that. It's been a while since I involved myself in mortal affairs, let alone fathered a child, but needs must." He turned at me holding my had before gently taking it into his. "Here, let me help."

Pain sharpened for an instant before it was eased and a comfortable warmth spread over my hand. Taking it away from him I clenched and unclenched for a few moments before looking back at the man who claimed to be my father. "Who are you?" I said, letting a bit of my wonder pass int my voice.

"I have many names, though the one I was born with is Tsukiyomi."

My mind immediately went to Naruto before I thought better. "The japanese moon god?"

He smiled at me and gave me a nod. "Looks like you know your mythology, though for a moment I thought you would quote that famous manga."

"Wikipedia helps." I said before looking at the man. Now that I noticed it, I could see the moonlight pass through the tinted windows of the room, something really weird since it hardly allows for sunlight to be seen during the day. "So, you're some kind of magician or something?"

He laughed at me. "No mere mortal magician, young Yu. Come, there's much for me to discuss, and perhaps a different location might be in order."

With a quick nod I took my clothes and changed before accompanying him to who knows where, excited at the prospect.

I didn't knew that internet legend was true. This is the best birthday ever.

~~O~~

We had arrived at the large park on my city. There were trees, a large running course and some equipment to exercise. Quite the place, all things considered.

"So... we're here." I said to my father while looking at the full moon. It was ironic, that I had been born into a night of full moon and after so many year had passed my father came in during my birthday with the full moon on the sky. "Come on, lean on me your big secret."

He let out a small chuckle at my words. "Well, I suppose you would be excited to learn more about your origins. Though I'm not sure how excited you will feel when I tell you about the truth."

"Life was both pretty boring and a chore, to be honest. I admit it was all my fault things descended like this, doesn't mean I can't find it unbearable or wanting to find some kind of escape from it. If I didn't knew it was such a terrible idea, I would be using drugs a long time ago."

He nodded, a bit sad at my words. "To be honest, I wasn't sure you could catalise. Not all of my children reach the heights necessary to become heroes, most often having their dreams snuffed out from under their feet." He shook his head. "At least they all lived long, peaceful lives, even if they all grumbled about how unfair life was or something. Few of them managed to get past that, and fewer still did so at your age." He said while eyeing me, "a younger hero is often better than an old one, specially when they are starting out, but it's not me who decides such things, nor are my sons and daughters themselves."

"It is Fate." He let the next words of his mouth carry the gravity it deserved, I could even hear the capitals in his words.

I suppose I should shiver in dread at them, but frankly I never had much in terms of self-preservation when something caught my interest. Of course I would curse and moan about it later, and deeply regretting it for the most part, but at the heat of the moment I usually went along with such harebrained ideas. Which many would consider ironic since I'm not the type to follow on other people's schemes, at least not after I grew up.

"So, you have children, and those children become heroes. While you have children, not all of them become heroes, and it isn't yours or the children desire that makes them heroes, but rather it is Fate, correct?" He nodded. "Then what exactly made me into one, or warranted making you come from whenever you came from to tell me about this?"

"The man who tried to kill you", wait, seriously? He wanted to kill me? But so far he looked quite pathetic in doing so, even if he looked scary for a while. "He was possessed by a titanspawn. If you had taken too long in defeating it, the person would have been consumed by the hungry spirit and been a threat to the whole city. It discovered your divine scent, and thus tried to finish you off before you could ascend."

"Wait, back up. My 'divine scent'? Does that mean when you said you were Tsukiyomi, you weren't named after the god but instead..."

"Correct, I AM the god of the moon."

I didn't do this often, but my mouth was left hanging. I'm an honest to god demigod? Wasn't those people supposed to be super talented at something and be inspiriing figures and shit? Then again...

"You weren't expecting much from me", I finally said, "perhaps you even thought I would have died against this titanspawn, isn't it?"

"I admit, your performance thus far was rather disappointing. Most aspiring heroes are exceptional in at least one area, but you failed to meet the requirements to ascend. At least, until Fate itself decided to bring you in on our war."

Great, I'm that son families doesn't like to talk about during meetings and is sometimes invited by courtesy alone while desperately hoping he wouldn't come. Guess nothing much had changed since before I learned I'm a demigod.

I shook my head to disperse those thought. No reason to get all depressed and shit, not today at least. Still...

"Then you came to help me get to my feet? Because I'm not much of a fighter anymore, and if those titanspawn come I don't think I can deal with them as I am. Specially not if me defeating one was considered praticaly a miracle to a god like you."

He coughed a bit. "Not a miracle, just unexpected is all. The titanspawn acted hasty, if it had more foresight it could have easily killed a mortal man at the time with none the wiser. Fate have certainly favored you my son."

I nodded, internally grimacing. All the bad karma I had accumulated until then will be cashed soon enough I guess.

"So how exactly I'm supposed to fight against those threats?"

He smiled. "You didn't think I came here after all those years without bringing gifts, didn't you?" He presented me a necklace and a wrist band, both made of wooden beads, the necklace with one magatama and the wristband with two. "May I?" He said while putting them on me, and as soon as he did that I felt something inside me, some kind of power, instinct, came over me.

It felt AWESOME!

"Those are your Birthrights, they will allow you to access the purviews associated with me. There aren't many, but I found they synergize well together. They should be able to help you fill a role of infiltrator, should you choose to do so, or at least will greatly help you with those actions."

"Good for a lone operative", I said while envisioning myself like Sam Fisher or Snake, "will I have to do whatever I'm supposed to do alone?"

"For a while, yes, until you find your band. They are currently scattered across the globe, and eventually you will meet with them."

Across the globe? So I will be traveling a lot? "I can't really expect to travel without the proper documents and with my current debt."

He nodded. "There are those who will aid you in the future, but certain minor concerns will be dealt with by mortals that will aid you in your journey. They have been blessed to recognize you as someone above them. You won't be able to command most of them, but minor things will be at your reach more easily than before due to your parentage."

Next, he pulled a piece of paper and handled it to me. "Handle this Birthright with care. It's a new invention that greatly helps any heroes in their journeys, and while common, at the same time they are irreplaceable."

I looked at the piece of paper in disbelief. This was, this was...

"The world of Scion from White Wolf is REAL?" I knew something was oddly familiar about his talk.

"One of our allies on the greek pantheon was involved in creating the tabletop game. The information contained in this paper came about after countless millennia of research and trial and error. It will also help you improve your abilities in a more optimized form instead of trying to fumble around with your abilities. We found out that giving such detailed coverage of a heroes abilities lead to better results on the long term."

I had no words before looking at my character sheet. It was, well, pretty shitty all things considered. So standard mortal fare.

"Place a single drop of blood on the paper, and it will help you grow in power, alongside updating itself. It's far more durable than normal paper, but compared to other Birthrights it is rather fragile. The good news is that it can repair itself back if there is a hole on it, the bad news is that it takes time, time which you can be unable to properly improve on your abilities unless you wish to risk Fate doing it for you like the heroes of old."

"Keep the character sheet safe, got it." I said and he nodded before pulling out something else.

It looked like a blocky red and black object before he twirled around and it became a massive scythe. "It's a giant scythe that can also turn into a high impact sniper rifle." He said, pleased with himself.

I stared at him.

"It's also a gun." He helpfully supplied.

I turned my gaze to the weapon before looking back at my father. "Is that Crescent Rose?"

"... noooo? Why would you think it's a weapon from a web show on the internet?"

"It's a scythe sniper rifle, it's black and red and it looks exactly like the weapon of Ruby Rose."

"I assure you, it's not."

"Then what's the weapon's name?"

"Mikatsuki no... bara...."

I glared at him. "You literally named it Crescent Rose!" I shook my head, "dear god, my father is an otaku."

For some reason the blush he gave me wasn't very reassuring.

"Speaking of father's and gods, what about the christian god. Since the world apparently run on Scion rules is the being worshipped as YHWH the titan Aten?"

"Yes", he said in a neutral tone, "we tried to bind his legend to that of YHWH, an older God that was long since been slain by Aten himself in the hopes to make this titan less likely to go on a rampage since he is much more powerful than a normal titan."

That was a chilling thought. "Did it work?"

"Better than we hoped, not nearly enough, and that's the end of the discussion."

Well, I suppose that's fair.

"You said a god was killed, does that mean more gods were killed?"

"Yes. In fact, most pantheons through history were killed in the process sealing away the titans, while some were so terrible we were forced to slay them at great cost to many."

"Wasn't killing a titan a bad idea?"

"It still is. Many concepts died with the titans that only us elder gods remember them by. Of course, as the age passed the surviving pantheons made alliances between us, and new gods rose to fill in the gaps."

Just as he said that I heard multiple growls from all around us and I looked around. Seeing shadows at the edge of the small forest of the park. "Looks like we have compa... ny?"

My father wasn't there anymore, the spot he previously occupied by him empty. I heard his whispers on the wind though. "I believe in you my son, make me proud."

As I looked at the approaching beasts, no doubt titanspawn of some short, I took Crescent Rose from the ground and swung it over my hands. It felt natural to a degree, like I had trained with it for a long time before.

Well, no use crying over spilled milk now.

"Come on, you mutts. I just got myself some discount awesome cosmic power and I'm itching to try them out."

As far as pre-fight banter goes, that was pretty bad, but still with those last parting words, I joined battle with the monsters of darkness in front of me.

AN: As I said it on the SV forum, the metaphor fucking stays.

 

[ryuan]

A few days later after my father visited me, I was taking a good look at my character sheet. At first I saw that I sucked overall, with less points assigned than normal for a scion, but I had more points to spend.

I could have fully optimized myself to a certain specific role, but considering I would be alone for a while I couldn't just put all my points into stuff. That, and some of those points were already assigned anyway. Still, while I wasn't a true master in any field yet, I was passable to professionally good in a fair bit of fields. On in particular would be my bread winner from now on since I had resigned from my old job: Art.

Now you might be thinking, 'why anyone would take Art as his skill?' Well, like I said, I need a bread winner skill. Supposedly there is a network of mortal supporters for a scion in order for him to actually do his job, but unless I get access to the 'followers' birthright which grants me my own personal minions, it's good to have at least some backup plan.

Of course, just because I brought the points, both in attributes and skills, didn't meant I got them instantly. I had to put some effort into learning them, so I used my laptop to research topics and start my training. Best of all though, was that using Paypal and some instant blog on the internet I managed to write a story that got quite a few people supporting me online. Combined with my new abilities and that handy knack that gives me actual eidetic memory, I could generate enough revenue that money won't be a problem in the future.

My talk with my family... went better than expected really. I told them I got a new job opportunity but I had to travel a lot, and I would start in a few days. They were oddly alright with me going off to who knows where, considering how they were annoying back then. Must be the improved charisma.

~~O~~

"I will keep paying rent even as I travel, since I plan to come back here every so often, and having my own place is rather convenient. I will deposit the money to you on each 5th."

"It's alright", said my female neighbor, a middle aged short woman. "Just come and visit some time."

"I'm not going away forever yet." I said while lugging around my stuff, "see you soon." I said while getting out taking out my bag.

I had brought a new one for me to travel light, with a couple of clothes change and hygiene products. I had changed the keys to my house before going away, and was armed both with my cellphone and my laptop.

It was the start of a new adventure.

~~O~~

"Why did I ask for adventure?" I murmur to myself looking at the chaos unfolding in front of me.

Let me get back on that for a bit.

I took the bus to the nearest city, Campinas, intent on going from there to the sate capital. So far nothing happened in transit, and I managed to reach my destination easily enough. It wasn't until I reached the bus station when something started to go wrong.

I wasn't very perceptive back before this all started, but once I managed to grow into my abilities I became sharply perceptive of certain things, like the two guys glaring at me from the other side of the food court. I couldn't really ignore them, considering they had all the marks of being either titanspawn themselves or being possessed by one, so I did the right thing and confronted them.

And by that I meant I ambushed those two fuckers to beat the shit out of them.

I had to leave the bus station, leading them to an empty slot nearby, before I jumped over the wall and circling the place, ready to get the drop on them.

As they entered the empty slot they were confused at my disappearance. "Where did he go?"

I had silently sneaked behind them, and with Crescent Rose already in scythe form I whispered to the one closest to me. "Right behind you."

With two quick swipes I knocked them down with the back of the blade, before I reflected on what just happened. This kind of shit usually doesn't work in real life, but since I'm running on Scion physics right now things like stunts are my bread and butter, and no matter how impractical it looks, so long as it is cool enough and is actually related to the task at hand such actions will be easier to perform than be harder as expected in normal causal physics.

Now, I could interrogate those two right now, but frankly I don't want to bother. My ride will go out in a few minutes and those two were likely sacrificial cultists sent to measure my abilities or something. It would explain how I managed to knock them down so easily, if they were of any actual importance to Fate's plot they would had made at least a token resistance.

It was with those thoughts that five minutes later I was panting on my seat in the bus before calming down and relaxing for a moment. Nothing seemed to happen for a minute, and I closed my eyes to take a nap since it was at least an hour and half long ride.

I was rudely awoken some time later when a large vehicle hit the back of the bus, shaking all passengers inside. Whatever was behind us hit two, three more times before the driver went to the road coasting, hoping to see what the hell was happening.

The attacker keep up the pressure regardless.

Already seeing where this was going I broke the window of my seat and went outside, seeing a large truck after us. Well, after me since I doubt this kind of shit would have happened if I wasn't there. Seriously, I wanted to take a single bus, is it too hard to ask? I didn't even used any legend points to do anything!

As the truck driver saw me he ignored the bus and started moving towards me. I promptly turned tail and started running going outside the road and into the small woodland area, which the vehicle didn't come after me. I pulled Crescent Rose into sniper mode and took aim, looking at however came after me. With a single, well placed shot I managed to hit the ignition, before I went back to confront him.

Just for me to hear the sounds of screams as mass panic across the road started to spread.

Three more trucks had came from the road, closing in a small section and from the back of it honest to good zombies, or Hungry Ghosts according to my previous check of the Scion source book. They were attacking passing cars and large trucks, and while they weren't strong enough to stop it with raw strength, they could use their bodies to stop the vehicles advance.

It was utter chaos. Movie-zombies running around in bright day light, attacking those from the bus, those who came out of their vehicles AND WAS THAT AN OIL TANKER ON FIRE?

I jumped back on the wooded area just as the oil tanker exploded on the road, killing a lot of people and setting the place on fire and being ready to start a forest fire.

With grin determination, and possibly ticking a willpower point or something since I'm not the valorous type, I went about with my grim task to re-kill the movie-zombies and hopefully get the hell out of this place without being implicated into it. Setting the sniper rifle on my arms I started shooting at them, picking them up one by one while praying to whatever god that's watching to help me deal with this madness.

Why did I ask for adventure?

 

[Valor]

Lol. *Takes a bussride, gets attacked by titanspawn, cultists and zombies within the hour*

Crazy.

 

[ryuan]

My last bullet killed one of the last wandering hungry corpse of the region. It was a good thing that with Perfect Memory I remembered how many enemies there were and with just a cursory glance I could keep tract of their position, by using my prodigious intellect and some math to extrapolate their likely direction. Not that they would go too far away anyway since I was making short work of them for a while now, and they went either after me or the still alive victims.

Gripping my weapon I shift it into it's scythe form, and I dash towards the nearest hungry corpse to kill it once again, and with a mighty sweep I decapitated it. Sidestepping the clumsy yet fast attack from another one I impale the corpse on the tip of Crescent Rose, before going to the next set of enemies and slashing and piercing at them, making sure I only engaged between one to two of them at a time.

I wasn't nearly as good at close range, but with my improved dexterity, my weapon abilities and the divine might, I was managing to finish off those hungry corpses in a timely manner.

Which was why when I finished them off I wasn't surprised when another interloper came out to greet me, as if teleporting from the flames themselves.

I was only a bit worried since Fate wouldn't be such a bitch to throw me into an unwinnable or impossible to retreat fight on my first week of being a Hero. I had to believe in that, least I start doubting my every action and actually get finished off by something above my weight class.

The man in question was clapping at my performance, his clothing not the least bit singed. He was wearing a simple jeans and a wife beater t-shit, a gold necklace and several rings on his fingers. "Wonderful, this isn't going to be nearly as boring as I thought i would. Still, you certainly let yourself go in your age, huh old man?"

I was only mildly annoyed by him calling me an old man, I always thought of myself as being youthful looking for my age but perhaps that's wishful thinking. What made me upset was the jab at my weight.

"You do know most of this became muscle, right? A Hero can't survive long if they don't have at least a minimum of combat capability."

"True, true", he agreed with me, "but then again, I can see that fighting isn't your primary focus. Now then, let's see how far can you go, Hero."

I saw him start to dash towards me, but I reacted faster on instinct. I sidestepped him and brought my scythe to his chest, which he artfully dodged just as he threw a punch towards me. With a spin I hit him with the butt of my scythe before slashing at his face, managing to cut at his face and giving him an ugly wound. He became enraged at that and threw me a powerful kick.

He hit me in the face so strong that I almost felt my neck snap away, a few teeth coming loose as I see his malicious grin towering over my fallen form.

No!

The present-that-never-was faded as I twisted myself just a little bit to avoid the kick, and I took a few steps back recompose myself.

"What's wrong, Hero? Already getting tired? You fight like a little girl."

"What a coincidence, you fight like a cow." I replied, making my opponent blink at the weird retort to his taunt. Jumping high in the air I spun in a way I remembered from the RWBY Red trailer and cleaved a path of destruction towards the ground, which the unnamed enemy avoided by the skin of his teeth. With a twist of my body I landed on top of my scythe shaft before I spun, taking the weapon with my feet in a gracious motion and slashing once more towards my enemy, this time taking a large gash to his chest. "If I fight like a little girl, what do you say about yourself who is losing against me?"

That did it to infuriate my opponent before he came rushing towards me. I used the shaft of the weapon to bob and weave his attacks, standing at the tip of the weapon before dropping myself forwards, grabbing at the shaft near the edge before spinning it around his feet while slowly extending the range of my weapon, making him dodge, but once more I went forwards with my scythe reaping at the air before I ducked at his retaliatory strike.

I keep pushing him further and further back, until we were near the truck. With a jump that was followed behind I hit him mid air with a grazing wound, before I planted the butt of the shaft on the truck, spinning myself with a level of grace I never knew I had before landing the blade near his neck. For a moment both our eyes meet as he was being tipped over backwards to avoid being decapitated. I winked at him, before violently pulling the weapon and taking off his head.

It still had a look of disbelief as I had so effortlessly killed him.

Well, not really, I felt like I had tapped all my Legend reserves, and only the fact that my Legend Rating was so low as to make Fate Binding a very unlikely prospect made me go crazy with it. That, and even if I got a at least one fate binding it would be of the lowest grade so for now I'm good. One of the few perks of being scrub tier I suppose, after all my opponent probably also was using his own legend to tip the scale on his favor. I was just better at it today.

There was also the many bruises he gave me, even if he was attacking unarmed I felt most of those blows. Fucking Epic Strength.

As I slid wordlessly on the ground to catch my breath I contemplated how I was holding up. The answer to that was... pretty good honestly. I had just killed a person, and while I felt my heart beat faster at the thought and memories of the event, I managed to hold up pretty well in face of this.

I guess it's the increase in my virtues speaking, in this case. Endurance which allows me to endure hardships and press on. The first kill must count in this case.

Taking a deep breath I stand up and look at my enemy, before a thought occurs to me.

Looting!

Rings, necklace and wallet goes to my bag before I go and toss his body and head into the roaring flames nearby.

Now, to get away from all this chaos before police would arrive.

 

[Gladiusone]

Very nice: we don't see many Scion fics about these days. I look forward to seeing more.

 

[ryuan]

Hey, thanks for watching.

I think people don't use Scion much since they are a bit schizofrenic on the power level scale. While 'stronger than werewolves' is a nice accomplishment to world of darkness, on the grand scheme of things the heroes aren't all that good, and their special abilities are pretty expensive xp wise.

Personally I prefer Exalted, but since this is an SI story I can't see myself doing something exaltation worthy, so I cheated by giving me divine parentage.

 

[ryuan]

Sitting on the chair I take another large gulp of my drink. It was a long walk even with my enhanced stamina, though not only I managed to complete it in a single day but I did so without puking my guts out in fatigue. On the other hand while my newly improved stamina made me survive the whole ordeal that didn't meant I didn't wanted to go to sleep and rest, taking a long shower and eating a hearty meal. It was a good thing the motel room I found had all three.

Fortunately no incidents happened while I rested, and nobody tried to steal my stuff while I slept.

Thank Fate for small mercies.

~~O~~

I spent a few days on São Paulo both working with my stories for money and trying to investigate more cultist and titanspawn activity. I suspect I went as well as I could due to my improved mental abilities, since my character sheet gave me only a single point of investigation, which I acquired beforehand by trying to track things on the internet and making inquires around the town. Suffice to say that I wasn't all that successful at the time, and I wasn't expecting to be successful here either.

Of course that changed when I spotted someone that screamed suspicious to me.

Long coat, black hat, a scarf covering his face and when he crossed my he keep looking back as if he expects to be followed. Considering it isn't nearly as cold for him to be dressed like that, I indulge in his paranoia and follow him.

I manage to remain undiscovered until we hit the Avenida Paulista and I see the man meeting a few people. It's a quite varied bunch with three men and one woman, with the woman, a petite one with nice curves and long hair, kicking him on the shin before he takes of his coat, hat and scarf before looking presentable. He's a tall guy, blond with a beard. He also looks repentant on being late to their meeting, and the group departs.

I was half tempted to follow them, but thought against it for now. If the group itself proves to be important in the future, Fate will make our paths cross at some point. That, and I didn't felt anything that looked malicious. Suspicious as all hell, but not malicious.

Well, guess I have my wits and newly improved empathy skill to thank for that.

And I'm going to thank my improved abilities a lot, aren't I? They do come quite in handy after all, I just hope I don't get too narcissistic later.

~~O~~

It took some time, but I managed to find out some strange happenings in the city. Apparently a new 'evangelic' church sprung up and is getting quite a bit of new members, and from what I understood they are the type to swindle money from their members. The difference this time was that this church catered only to the rich and powerful.

Well now, that's bait if I ever seen one. Now, how do I infiltrate this place to get some information out of it?