I woke up in a room at an inn. I wasn’t sure what I needed to do to find Lo, but at least I had enough money to live for a while. While I knew bits of information about this realm from the memories I’d gotten from John, the homeless man, some things were a bit fuzzy. For example, I was charged $100 per night for a room that had some sort insect infestation. I could deal with the fact that this part of the city had a serious crime problem, probably as a result of having too few city guards, as well as the fact that about half of the rooms seemed to house prostitutes and their clients or people attempting to secretly exchange various powders and plants for money. What I didn’t like is that I got woken up twice, once from insects crawling on me and once from some sort of loud noise and flashing lights outside my window, the local guards doing their jobs, I assumed. I hadn’t lived in such conditions before. I would need to do my best today to find a better place to stay.
I tried to take a ‘shower’, a poor version of a bath in my opinion, but the water was already brown when it came out so I simply put on the closest thing I had to this realm’s clothes, a set of simple linen shirt and pants, and stored everything else in my ring. I told the guy behind the counter that I wouldn’t be returning and left.
It was early in the morning so I went to a nearby eating establishment. My memories of this type of food weren’t the best, but I knew that the people of this realm called this meal ‘break fast’ and that the meat, eggs, and fried root vegetable called a ‘hash brown’ was normal, so I ordered it. None of the food in this place seemed to have been properly cleansed of toxins or grown without them like Spirit crops, but I could deal with this. I had been given an entire bottle of Collection grade cleansing pills, so if they started to affect me I could easily get rid of them. Some realms, after all, were full of toxins.
The food wasn’t bad, if a bit too greasy, so I paid and left. I had the card from the woman I met last night in my ring if I needed more money, but I wasn’t sure what form the work would take, so I didn’t want to call them unless the money was about to run out.
I bought several sets of local clothing from a nearby second-hand store and took a bus to a nicer part of town. My memories of those two things were actually pretty clear, as John had done both several times. I got out in a nicer part of town with many middle class people and walked towards that nearest inn. This place would probably cost several times as much as the inn I stayed in last night, but it would be worth it to be able to sleep all night. I didn’t technically need to sleep, but if I was going to work out during the day, like the fights last night, I would need to recover, and sleep was a good way to do that.
With my failure last night I decided to use a device that I had been given to help find him, but didn’t use because it was too complicated. Basically, if I fed it chi it would point to stronger versions of that type of chi. For example, I knew that Lo had a natural talent for metal chi, so if I fed it foundation levels of metal chi it would most likely point to him. Sure, mine wouldn’t be as pure as his, as he had more of a talent for it, but it should work better than trying to just sense the chi in the area. The problem was that the relic used chi, so it could only be used for a limited amount of time and weakened the user.
Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to find anything. I did get a few false positives, people in costumes, but none of them looked like him.
I rented a room in one of the much nicer inns in this part of town to stay in that night, and the next day I continued my search. I was out of excess chi by noon, but kept walking, trying and failing to sense him. Walking that much wasn’t tiring, as I was more than used to it, but it was still annoying.
Just after seven p.m. I was about to give up for the day I saw someone that looked him drive a fancy car into into a parking garage. His levels of chi were too low, but it was the best lead I had. At least by walking the city all day I had gotten used to the culture and buildings of this realm, so I knew what a parking garage was. I walked into the garage only get stopped by the gate guard.
“Excuse me. This isn’t a public parking garage. It’s for Wayne Enterprises employees only. Do you work here?”
“No, sorry, I just saw my friend drive in here.”
He looked at me incredulously. “Really? And who would that be?”
“Me, actually.” said Lo, walking up while wearing a fancy suit. “I’ll watch him, Carlos.” Carlos nodded and stepped out of the way. “I’m surprised to see you here, Yu. I didn’t know you’d left the town, much left the homeland.” He gave me a hug and motioned for me to follow him back to a nearby car. “So, what brings you here?”
“Master sent me here to find you.” I said in our native language. “I brought some supplies, but we’re going to have to reconstruct the formation from this side if we want to return home.”
“That’s going to be hard.” he said, “There aren’t really any strong cultivators in this realm. There are people with abilities that are called ‘Metahumans’,” he said the last word in English, as it didn’t have a translation, “but, while they might have strong elemental chi, they only know how to use it through their abilities, not the proper manipulation of chi. It’s great to see you, though. A lot has happened that we need to talk about.”
“I know. It seems you are acting as one of these crime fighters as well, mister ‘Jade Dragon’. I just have to figured out how a mercenary got swept up in the transfer yet. That and why you’re late Cleansing stage now.”
Lo looked embarrassed. “I can tell you all about it someplace private. For now I can’t risk someone recording us and decoding our native language.”
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I nodded. “I forgot they could do that here.” Then I continued in English. “So, that’s a nice car you’re protecting.”
“It should be. Rolls-Royce Spectre. It cost Mr. Wayne over five hundred thousand dollars. So I take my job to protect it really seriously.”
“Interesting” said a man whose posture reminded me of a rodent as he stepped out of the shadows. “Of course Bruce Wayne is going to have a car that’s worth ten of his employee’s yearly salary.”
“Mind telling me who you are?” asked Lo.
“Mind telling me what language you were just speaking?” the man countered.
“Mandarin, now answer the question.”
“That wasn’t Mandarin.” he said, “I know what Mandarin sounds like and that wasn’t it. Cantonese too, if you want to claim that instead.”
“Fine then, we were speaking Korean. Now answer his question.” I added.
The man shrugged. “Hey, if you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to. I just thought it was interesting that Mr. Wayne has had the same driver for forty years, but last week he suddenly hired you, a foreigner who somehow speaks fluent English.”
“That’s kind of racist.” said Carlos, walking up behind him. “Now, either tell us why you are here or I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
The man reached into his jacket and pulled out a plastic tag. “Tim Tucker, Gotham Daily News. I’m just waiting for Mr. Wayne so I can ask him a few questions.”
“GDN is a tabloid.” Lo said. I kind of knew what that meant, but from John’s memories it seemed that would make it more reliable, not less. “The last story you ran on him was how he was dating a middle eastern oil tycoon followed by speculation about her having ties to terrorist organizations. I’d say Asians aren’t the only ones you’re racist against. Carlos is from Brazil. You want to say something about him too?”
“I’m not racist.” the man said, backing away from us by a few feet. “I just call things the way I see them. My writings about Mrs. Al Ghul had nothing to do with her race. I simply haven’t published everything I know.”
“And let me guess, you won’t if enough money greases your palm?” The man shrugged. “Not interested. In fact, I don’t believe Mr. Wayne will want to talk to you either. If, however, you want to try your luck you can always contact the office and try to make an appointment. Maybe you’ll get lucky.”
“Are you sure about that?” he asked. “There could be things that I know that you don’t want getting out.”
“I doubt it.” Lo said and motioned for Carlos to haul the man out of the garage, which Carlos promptly did. Lo watched him go, then pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and handed it to me along with the charging cable. “I’m in that object.” he said in our native language. “You will recognize it. Meet me at ten at this address. I need your help.” He wrote something down on a piece of paper and handed it to me before getting in the car. I noticed several men in suits coming out of an elevator into the garage. The meeting must be over now.
“Sure.” I responded, and walked back towards the guard station as he backed the car up silently and drove off to pick up his new boss.
Over two hours later I arrived at the location, a run down apartment in a bad part of the neighborhood and walked up the creaking stairs, past the drunk man that was sleeping at the bottom, and to the apartment in question. This place looked about on par with the motel I stayed in the night before last. I knocked on the door and Lo answered it.
“Please tell me you don’t live here.” I said in our native tongue.
“No, I have a room at my boss’s mansion. This is just a safe house.” Once I was inside and the door was locked again, he moved a corner of the carpet and wiggled a board out of the way, pulling out a storage ring. He put it on and withdrew two outfits, both having leather trenchcoats with the Soul Blade emblem on the back.
“I was surprised to find a number for him in the phone. So, why are you him too?” I asked Lo.
“Sometimes people aren’t willing to speak to heroes.”
“So, you’re playing a villain?”
He nodded. “And, unfortunately, I started re-cultivating two nights ago, so I’m not strong enough to put on a proper show, so I need you to do it for me.”
“You want me to attack people for you?”
“Mostly just scare them into not trying anything while I try to get them to tell me what they know. That and I need someone to control the sword, since I don’t have the chi to fly it yet.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I can do that. I take it you’re investigating this woman as a hero?”
He nodded. “There’s a chance he has some knowledge that we don’t. I need to get it to the other heroes.”
I nodded. “Just out of curiosity, do they have a contribution system? I don’t mind helping a friend, but if this is for someone else…”
He looked at me for a few seconds before pulling out a paper bag. “One thousand money units. I keep these bags to bribe criminals.”
I nodded and put it in my ring. “So, where are we going Mr. Blade?”
Five minutes later we watched as the weasel man walked out of a burger place, picking his teeth with a small stick. He entered an alley a few blocks away and I landed us on either side of him. Controlling two swords independently was about all I could manage, but I was pretty sure the strain of the effort didn’t show as I landed Lo in front of him and myself behind him.
The man looked between the two of us as we both put our swords away in our rings. “I take it you’re Soul Blade? I guess that makes you his henchman, Fist.”
I smiled and punched my hand with more force than a human would normally be able to exert and he gulped down some air.
“A little birdie told me you had some info I might be interested in.” said Lo, drawing his attention. “So tell me, what do you know about Talia Al Ghul?”
“You have beef with her?” he asked. I had to admit that he had courage if he was able to ask questions in this situation.
Lo smiled. “You could say that. A client of mine is interested in her company. Specifically in hurting it. I was paid to facilitate a bit of a stock market crash.”
“That might not be the smartest thing.” Lo looked at him, revealing a bit of anger which I knew he didn’t really feel. “I’m sure you’re strong. Probably one of the strongest villains in the city, and even managed to take on the bat’s latest sidekick, but she’s got a whole organization backing her up. My source says they’re assassins, a League of Assassins if you will. Taking down a single hero is one thing, but a whole group of assassins is something else.”
Now Lo looked more interested, even if his body language told me he already knew that. “Got any proof of that?”
“That of more. Plus criminal business practices that could get her shut down, like using her company’s ships to smuggle. And I’m willing to sell the information too, for say, fifteen thousand?”
“Do you think I’m an idiot?” Asked Lo, and the man looked surprised. “How do I even know the information is real, much less useful?” He paused for a second to let that sink in, then continued before the weasel could say anything. “I’ll tell you what. Five thousand now, and another five once we verify the information. And if you find anything else useful about any other villains or corporates, I’ll buy that later too.”
The man nodded. “We’ll need a way to arrange the payment, and for me to get you the other information. I can’t just have you drop in on me whenever you want to meet up.”
Lo thought for a second and tossed him a business card with a ten digit number on it. A phone number. “Text three question marks and the number 47 to that number at midnight, so I know it’s you. If the information is legitimate, I’ll send you a deaddrop location where Fist can leave the money. After that we can arrange deaddrop locations for the rest of our transactions.” Lo pulled out a larger paper bag than he handed me and tossed it to the weasel man. In response the Weasel man tossed him a metal stick. Something told me it had the information we wanted.
Lo pulled out his sword and dropped it on the ground, so I did the same. As soon as he stepped on it, I made us both fly away. Back at the trashy apartment he handed me a bag with five thousand in it, in case the information checked out, and pulled out a laptop. At midnight he got the text he was hoping for and pulled himself away from the computer long enough to tell me to put the paper sack behind the toilet in the third stall at a nearby truck stop. He had found what he was looking for.