From one Friendly trade for another (Azoth)

Another late night out, another quiet walk back to the Sanctum. Azoth was very close to tracking down an old book she’d had her eye on for quite a while, and after many long nights spent reading ledgers, obtaining personal notes and letters, and trying to connect all the dots, she was narrowing down her target. Given another night of study, she bet she could, at last, pinpoint her target. Then she’d just need to begin negotiations, name a price they couldn’t refuse. If that failed, then she’d name a price they really couldn’t refuse…

Azoth had been so deep in thought, mulling over the details, that she hadn’t realized she’d wandered into HappyWorld until she nearly walked into an unsettling wooden clown cut out. As she’d been coming from an odd part of the island, she’d been planning on taking another path to the Sanctum, but it seemed her unconscious mind had decided to route her down her habitual path. Resigning she may as well alter her course if she’d made it this far, Azoth turned into the park.

Normally, this place was fairly empty. She’d heard tell of the occasional Keeper haunting the place, but besides that, this place belonged to the rats and ghosts. This made it surprising when the parks’s speaker system started up. Azoth’s initial thought was some bored teens had found the place, but when the voice came on, she recognized it.

Azoth stopped walking. So he was here, and looking for a simple chat? Perhaps rather than a bored teenager, there was a bored nightmare at the speaker. Azoth was somewhat inclined to ignore him and continue on - this was none of her business and she had things to do - but this was Keeper territory, and he’d all but challenged her faction. What kind of villain wouldn’t show up for a direct meeting request?

A light fog began to roll in through the nearby area of the park. The clouds particularly thick around her, and they moved with her step as she paced towards the central building, following her even as she entered the building. Only once the super was in her sights did she let the fog stop. Perhaps twenty feet away from the faceless super, Azoth stepped from her cloud, revealing her form completely for the first time. But by now, she assumed he would recognize her entrance as easily as she did his voice.

“Seeing you here, you’re either here for a fight or you’re telling the truth.” Azoth said, letting the fog disperse around her. “I’m inclined to assume the later. You have my ears, Anonymous.”

Are you scared of a little fog?” Azoth couldn’t help but poke at, a grin coming to her lips. “I think I will deny your request - some water vapor in the air isn’t going to hurt you.” She tilted her head to the side. While Anonymous’s grin would normally send chills down her spine, circumstances placed him low as a threat. “I’m here to humor you, Anonymous, and I can leave as quickly as I came. I don’t see why I should be the hospitable one.”

Indeed, as far as Azoth was aware, fog was of little threat to people. It begged the question, then; why did Anonymous want it gone? The only things it did were condense on surfaces and obscure vision. The first might be harmful to electronics, but Anonymous didn’t seem to be or use anything of the kind. Something to do with vision, then? Perhaps he was nervous she’d attack him from where he couldn’t see? She didn’t know enough of his abilities or weaknesses to know if something like that would be a threat to him.

Either way, she did still fear an attack from the mind-manipulator. The fog was a means of concealment and possibly escape for her, and while bringing in a new cloud wouldn’t take long, the couple extra moments the current one might give her might be the difference between her winning a fight and her getting a stab wound to the chest from some civilian Anonymous had hypnotized.

This matter was settled in her mind. “State your business, Anonymous. Why have you called me here?”

Azoth froze. He’d done something; Anonymous had used his power on her. He hadn’t harmed her, per say; all he’d done was turn on the lights and redecorated a bit, but it didn’t matter if the attack wasn’t threatening in nature - it was still an attack. He couldn’t blame her now if she struck back.

What she needed to do was keep a clear mind. She didn’t seem to be in immediate danger, so she could take a moment to gather a bit of intel. But what could she do? As far as she could tell from the quick glances she dared to take away from Anonymous, this was real. The park looked like the advertisements on the old “coming soon” posters, from before it was clear that soon would never be coming. Even her goggles were reading everything as giving off the heat and electricity one would expect. Not only that, but her fog was gone. She could no longer feel the chill of the wet air or the moisture that gathered on her goggles or hands.

She did have one way to test if it was real. Beside her, a small bit of air vanished. Its disappearance was marked only by a slight change in the way the fog moved, like a pebble dropped in a current.

Fog. She’d gotten fog. If this was real, she would’ve gotten nothing but air. Azoth looked at the spot she’d taken from. There was no fog; the hall was clear. Moreover, though she heard music, the air had been devoid of the soundwaves of such a song.

This was surreal. The information she got from her power was deeply contradictory to what her senses told her. She felt a little sick to her stomach, in the way one does in a car as your brain tells you you’re moving but your body says otherwise. But she knew now; it was an illusion.

And now she knew how to strike back. A gas mask appeared in her hands - a small one, sized to cover her nose and mouth. This she could be certain was real. Her power couldn’t be tricked by some illusion. She pulled down her scarf, revealing the bottom half of her face for just a moment, before slipping it on.

“Undo whatever you’ve done.” She commanded. She succeeded in keeping most of the fear from her voice, but still there was an uneasiness to the way she spoke. “Or I will fill the room with sarin.”

She hoped she did not have to explain the consequences of breathing in the nerve gas.

Azoth ignored Anonymous's jab. He knew full well as she did that even if the current manifestation of his powers were “cheery”, they could turn sinister at the drop of a coin. Outwardly, she did the same to his second comment. Internally she was slapping herself for being so stupid. Anonymous wasn’t a normal human; he didn’t have a nose! How could she be certain sarin would work? In her rush and panic she’d jumped to one of her go-to threats and made herself look a fool. What she needed to do was calm down and think things through.

Azoth had gone for a gas because it didn’t require her to know the location of her opponent to work. Gasses were far from her only means of threat, however. All she needed was his location.

Of course, knowing she was under his illusion, she could not be certain the Anonymous before her was real. She would be willing to bet it wasn’t. In the current situation, all of the information her senses were bringing in should be considered moot and useless. The only thing she could rely on for certain was the information gathered by her power. So, she would test his location with her power.

First, she took a peice of air between the assumed illisitory Anonymous and herself, making note of the temperature. Next, she took a few molecules directly beside what her eyes said to be his location. If he was there, his body heat would make the temperature of the air beside him higher than that of the air between them.

It was not. The Anonymous before her was a fake, and when the area around her returned to “normal”, she knew he had not fully lifted the effects of his power. He was trying to trick her; make her think he’d removed his illusions to make her relax. For what? So he could get behind her? Better threaten her should things not go his way? Azoth took a small glance to her left and right, surveying the supposedly fixed surroundings. Visibly, there were no signs of the real Anonymous. She would, again, have to use her powers.

Around her, small bits of air began to vanish. Just a couple molecules in each of the dozen spots that made a small ring about a foot around her. Finding inconclusive data, she took another round of air, about a foot beyond the last. She was reading for heat, slight changes in air current, and sound waves.

What she found sent a shiver down her back. The variation in those factors lead to the conclusion: he was behind her. He had circled to her back, the place where she was most vulnerable. As Azoth stared into the eyes of the illusion in front of her, she could feel the real Anonymous’s eyes boring into the back of her skull. Her mind playing to her fears, she knew, but she felt the chill of being watched by an unseen foe.

Azoth forced herself to take a deep breath. She knew his direction, she just needed to locate the actual him. All it took was a moment; tracing the signs of his presence, Azoth took bits of air, moving backwards until she found a molecule that matched in heat to what someone would give off. She’d found him.

Now it was her turn. Eyes locked with the illusion, Azoth snapped her fingers. An explosion detonated directly in front of the false’s head with a flash of light and fire.

Every few seconds, Azoth had taken another bit of air beside where she’d located Anonymous. Had he moved, she would have tracked him. Now, before the dust of the explosion had settled, she turned to look directly at him. Or, the air that her power said contained him.

“All of it. Next time I will hit your real head.” She demanded, ignoring the fact that it looked to her like she was talking to a literal wall.

A spoiled child? And here he was, using his powers on her over a bit of water vapor. Azoth had come at his request, taking time from her busy schedule to discuss an unknown topic with him, out of curiosity and hospitality alone. She was, as she had said, under no obligation to play his little game, nor should she be the one to play the kind host for the evening. “If you didn’t want to deal with a Keeper’s powers, you shouldn’t have called for us.” She sighed, breathing a sigh of relief as well that at least he'd dropped the illusion.

“But, the staircase?” She wondered aloud. She wracked her brain for any sort of connection between herself, Anonymous, and a staircase. “Ah,” she continued, remembering, “so it was you I saw on the staircase at the seminar hall. That incident occurred during battle, after you had posed a challenge, a race, as it were. Over information, none the less. When you make such challenges you must expect me to do what I need to in order to win. You bring such harm, or ‘messings with’, upon yourself. Using your power on me because I refused to remove fog from the air is a little… silly? Juvenile?” She nodded to herself, settling on the second word.

Nor did she appreciate the number of insults being slung at her from the super. One would think she had upset him because she’d seen through his illusion and made him trip on a bit of ice. She imagined Anonymous slipping on her sheet of ice down the stairs. She hadn’t stuck around long enough to see the actual outcome - or even confirm it had been him - but the thought made her feel a little more even with his slander of her.

“I feel obligated to apologize, but I’m sure you can understand after that little display of your own that I would like to fortify my own safety, or the illusion of my safety, a bit.” In part because of that, as well as out of curiosity why he responded as such to some simple fog (and in some part just to spite him), the grey cloud began to thicken around her. “Your offerings of information are the only thing keeping me from leaving immediately. I simply don’t want any kind of provocation tonight. If I don’t feel comfortable discussing matters with you, I may consider it more worthwhile to favor my safety over a bit more information. Do not worry about me attacking you - as long as you don't use your illusions on me, you will have nothing to fear. I have no ulterior reasons to harm you.”

The fog grew thick enough that she was but an outline in a large cloud that filled the hallway. He was, to her, a lump of heat seen through her goggles. “I did indeed acquire a sum of information from the good doctor.” She said, grinning proudly under her mask. Not only did she acquire a very interesting piece of information, she obtained a good bit about the conference itself via a trade with Aurora Disicio. Most of that information was not useful to her, but the sheer amount of it was worth a good amount. “I have both all of the doctor’s notes as well as information on the attendants of the conference. I can offer the entirety of both, and I would be interested in a trade.” In a small gesture of proof, a paper folder appeared in her hand, held out before her chest. The folder was empty, she wouldn’t bring out the information just yet, but that fact was beside the point. “Information does not come cheaply from me, however. Before I can make any solid deals with you, I want to know what kind of information you are dealing with. Subject matter will do.”

Azoth was surprised. “You have information gained from a failed Keeper operation?” She asked. That was quite the piece he was offering. On one hand, if the Keepers had really wanted that information, they would’ve put further efforts into obtaining it, but the fact that they’d wanted it in the first place put some weight on what he was offering. “I would be willing to ignore your name calling and mildly flawed logic to initiate a trade for such information.”

She paused, taking a moment to sort through what information she had related the seminar. It was perhaps ten seconds before she spoke again. “I have, in total, 148 pages detailing the 71 attendants of the talk, including their occupations, backgrounds, and other projects they were working on. I also have information on who was funding both the seminar and the doctor himself. The only flaw in the information is I lack the addresses or families of those involved.” She shrugged. “But there is little I can do about that.

“From the doctor’s office, I obtained a total of 112 sheets of various kinds of paper and one booklet. Most of these papers are business letters, ledgers, or simply mad gibberish, but the doctor seems to have turned up some authentic results in his research.

“Of these, I consider 58 pages of the formerly mentioned group to be of use. Of the second, 21 pages and the booklet. I can either give you the entirety of the information for you to sift through yourself, or I can give you the condensed and frankly more useful amount. I will accept your information in exchange for either.”

Azoth had had her eyes closed as she had spoken. Having said her piece, she opened her eyes and waited for Anonymous’s response. Hopefully he would be reasonable enough to see this as a good offer and that what he was offering wasn’t simple or useless. Considering his view of what was proper force, she wasn’t sure he had a good gauge on equivalencies. She’d make sure If he did cheat her that he really slipped on ice next time they met.

“For the sake of both our securities, I will give you half of my information before you give me yours. After I have confirmed the validity of your trade, I will give you the rest. Is that acceptable?” She finished.

So he did notice back at city hall. He was a super, and a seemingly perceptive one at that; she shouldn’t be surprised. What she should be is more careful. In this instance it didn’t particularly matter if he’d noticed her little swipe. If anything, it meant he wasn’t going to try to offer her information she already knew. If subtlety had been important, however, she would’ve been in trouble. She’d remember this instance for such later cases.

Her outward response was expressionless. Anonymous had agreed to her terms, so Azoth held out her hand, palm up. “I will gather the information.” She said simply. Her other hand she kept clearly in view at her side - not that she had much in the way of means of threatening him with it. A lot of her information traders got ancy the first time she did this around them, and thus had taken to stating that outright and performing the “gathering” clearly for them to see. Normally she tried to subvert the whole situation by making up the information before her client arrived, but Anonymous had caught her unprepared. Lucky him. Azoth was still deep in the fog, but the outline of what she was doing should be plain enough.

The folder grew from the bottom up, all of the papers within appearing with it. It took perhaps thirty seconds for the full folder containing just under a hundred and fifty sheets of paper to finish forming. Since Anonymous had not specified how much of the information he’d wanted, she’d taken the safe option and had filled the file with the unabridged version. The folder contained 89 sheets on the attendants and 62 papers from the doctor’s office, but lacked the booklet.

Azoth strode towards Anonymous, fog continuing to swarm about her. It wasn’t until she was within a few feet of him that she stepped out of it. She held the folder out to him at arm's length.

“Take as long as you need.”

As soon as he had a good hold on it, fog would again surround her and she would back off several feet. She would wait as long as he wanted.