Vanessa hid. Of course she did - that's what she's always been trained to do. No one must know of her true thoughts, and no one must be able to pierce through the veil hiding her intentions.
For the most part, acting in front of people was what she excelled at. She behaved in a way that would incite people to make assumptions that she wanted them to have. She controlled what others thought of her, controlled what they saw, and what they felt.
In more ways than one, Vanessa was more adept in hiding while in plain view of people than she was in actually hiding, though lately she had become incredible at that as well. A large part of that was because of a certain blue-eyed boy! He was completely rude and impolite, always pointing out her flaws.
Once she had thought that he was nothing more than a lecherous brat, but it turned out he was not obsessing over her figure, but searching for weapons. Whether she actually looked good or bad seemed never to be a concern for him.
Moreover, no matter how she tried to lead his attention towards certain things, or try to misdirect him, Nero seemed to be able to see right through it.
Looking through her facade was just as simple as looking through her ability, which admittedly needed some work in the beginning. But it was
after
she upgraded her ability, thereby improving her ability qualitatively and became
much
harder to spot, that Vanessa experienced something... something she did not understand completely.
Deep inside, Vanessa felt a faint, almost indiscernible fear that her ability had become
too
good and that Nero would not be able to spot her anymore. Yet he did. Every time he did, Vanessa was filled with obvious agitation and indignation at her clearly amazing ability being seen through. She also felt a faint amount of relief, as well as satisfaction.
But each time that fear grew, and so did the corresponding excitement at being seen through.
The emotions were reaching the point where Vanessa would have noticed them eventually on her own. She was not dense - she just had a lot of things to deal with back in the research facility, and immediately after. But then Nero went and did something that completely stumped her, filled her with confusion and elation, and finally made her realise that she was spending more and more time thinking about him than she did her actual objectives.
It was absurd. In fact, when Nero had noticed she was not who she seemed back in Lumina, figured out her identity, and agreed to keep it a secret without any issue, she was already surprised. Based on her character profile of him - something she created and logged for everyone she met in Kolar - he was highly patriotic and sought approval and promotion.
She had never felt so utterly defeated, and yet never felt so glad of it. Her emotions were contradictory and confusing, but of course nothing of it ever appeared on her face, which looked impassive as she studied him.
"How did you see through my ability?" she could not help but ask. Every time she asked him this question, and every time he answered, she improved. In response, Nero gave her that familiar, confident smirk she had grown used to seeing.
He snapped his finger, and a blue spark was produced.
"It's not hard. You just have to keep an eye on the shadows retreating from the light. If it doesn't retreat, then there is obviously something wrong."
She looked at his fingers, looked at the sparks that lasted for barely a second, and had to admit that she was impressed.
"You never fail to surprise me," she admitted frankly.
"I'm also surprised by your changing identity every time we meet, Junior Officer Abel," he remarked and pulled out a card from his case and activated it, causing a blue shield to appear around them.
"This is not a good place to talk," she said, shaking her head. "We can talk more in Perilith."
"Can you tell me what to expect from this trip, at least. After all, your protection is in my hands. The more I know, the better I can perform."
Vanessa audibly scoffed. As if
she
needed protection. Although, she could not help but have a flashback to the tentacle monster Nero fought in the basement. Maybe she might need
a little
help. Also, calling her by her last name probably meant that he finally got a hint as to her background, though he didn't seem intimidated so he might not have.
"All I can say is that do not compare this to any experience you might have had during the draft," she said, with many hidden meanings in those words. "It is
a lot
more dangerous than that. It is not casually that this dimension has been called Perilith. You will be sent a file containing some of our findings and understanding of the place. Study it carefully."