A Bio-Weapon’s Rhapsody

The rest of the time was spent speaking and chatting about her time with the Saintsworths. Ale managed to gloss over the location and situation, she suspected at least Vulcanus knew where it was. If not him, Vulcanus.exe sure as hell knew.

At some point the people at the back started leaving, starting with [Eleanore] who left first, followed by Hydra, and lastly Empress.

Who, before leaving, said something along the lines of, "Make sure to deal appropriately with your new student, Alexa." And walked out waving her hand.

That felt... weird.

"She got the name wrong though." Ale said mildly confused.

"Ah yeah, we still have some people within the base that aren't up to date with the peculiarities of your case." [Elder] said shaking his head, "Besides the folks that refuse to acknowledge it, which is stupid. We have weirder things around. Having a Minion with multiple personas living inside their head is not the weirdest thing a Core Power has made."

Right...

Either way, Ale left that outside her awareness for the moment since she couldn't really do anything with that at the moment, she had way too many things to deal with after all.

Speaking off things to deal with, "Main Core, how are we doing with the ambient mana?" Ale asked as she continued chatting about the logistics of her glider with [Elder] and some questions from [Vulcanus].

[Nanite stability within normal parameters.]

[Mana stability within normal parameters.]

[Mana integrity... within normal parameters.]

[Starting Diagnosis...]

[All within normal parameters.]

Ale let out a sigh of relief at that.

"Something the matter kiddo?" [Elder] asked looking at her as he touched the side of his googles, "You looked stressed for a second."

"I am just relieved that nothing happened." Ale answered with a shrug, "Alexanders said that it was risky to return, since the [Mana] from Melissandra Singh could have affected the whole city."

[Elder] frowned at that statement and pulled out a tablet from his back, not from his backpack as he didn't have one, but somehow he had a tablet stuck to his back? How did he do that?

"He said that?" [Elder] asked as he started working on his tablet, "Edwards, does any of your external sensors detect any change in the mana levels?"

Ale turned to look towards [Vulcanus], she could see the mechanical ghots behind his face narrow his eyes.

"[No chang-]" And while Ale could guess what he was about to say, what happened next made her doubt her eyes.

The world around them started to turn into a shade of grey, almost the same as whenever Ale accelerated her consciousness stream to get herself more extra time to think.

Or whenever she wanted to kick [V-8] in combat.

Only this time, she was not doing it, or well, not doing it manually. Something was happening and she wasn't sure what it was.

"Main Core?" Ale asked, as far as she was aware, if she wasn't the one to do it, then only Main Core could do that. Perhaps when [Elder] asked Vulcanus to check on something, Main Core did a passive search too?

Perhaps he found something and pulled her to check?

"Hello?" Ale said this time aloud, as Main Core hadn't answered.

Pulling at her internal controls she tried to bring out the blue screen that they used to interface whenever they spoke. All to no avail.

Something...

"Core!" Ale tried the next one on the list, there was no way that one would not be aware of what was happening, "What is that you are planning to do!?!?"

Perhaps this was how they wanted to deal with Ale? Pull her into this pseudo space to deal with her? Nay, even Core wouldn't do that.

Ale was a safeguard to Alexa as much as she was a danger to her. But even like that, she was more help than danger, at least while Alexa was still this young Core would leave her alone.

The risk to Alexa was too big, it would leave her in a foreign environment, and while these allies of them would help her, they would do so under the premise that she was harmless.

If they ever knew what their true nature of the powers they wielded was, they would turn hostile, no matter how much gaslighting and weird mental tamperings they did-

"Ah." Ale said aloud covering her mouth, even though she had thought about it and not said it aloud, but... she still remembered, and the error count sure as hell didn't go up. "Wait a second..."

Ale started walking around the room, the spot she had been before now held a monochromatic clone of her still speaking to [Vulcanus] and [Elder], she could still see the hidden mechanical face behind the face of [Vulcanus], she could see the graphics being projected into the lens of [Elder] as well as the data inside the tablet.

But taking a deep breath, Ale closed her eyes and thought very carefully about what she was about to do.

"THERE IS A POWER OR FORCE THAT IS MAKING THE WORLD A PLACE MORE CONVENIENT TO ALEXA!" And screamed her lungs out, still with her eyes closed and gracing herself, nothing happened though. "I AM NOT REALLY ALEXA'S SISTER!"

Nothing yet.

Ale went through all the things she had said that prompted an error and a change in her Consciousness Stream.

"Alexa is not my real family!"

"I may be playing to be Alexa's sister but I am not Alexanders' Sister!"

"The world does not work in anime logic!"

"Heroes and Villains don't work in the real world!"

"Vulcanus and [Vulcanus] are not the same people!"

"There is no logical reason why some words sound [Different]!"

Nothing, nada, no change at all. For some reason, right now, she was not... whatever force was being responsible for the error count was not affecting her.

"Am I... [Dead] then?" Ale asked letting herself fall to the ground, "What would you do now here Alexandra?"

Ale sighed, this was not... logical, whatever was happening had no reason, it was obviously not the same power that was responsible for the weird effect surrounding Alexa.

"Alexa... can you... Are you okay?" Ale decided to try her last guess then, "ND0 System... why do you hate us? What did we do to you?"

"There is nothing more futile than asking a machine why does what it does."

Ale immediately jumped towards a corner and burned some of the mana that was available to her to don her armor, materializing her [Arm-mament] and putting on the mask that [Golem] gave her.

"Good, that is the correct answer. In an unknown situation, in possible hostile territory. One must always protect oneself."

The voice spoke once more, Ale couldn't help but feel cold sweat at her back, all the hair on her body standing up as shivers went through her body.

There was something... [Wrong] in the voice, her brain parsed it as words, but her ears screamed in pain as if it was the roar of a [Predator]. The monkey part of her brain screamed at her to turn back and run.

The logical part screamed that she needed to materialize the Anzo anti-material rifle in both arms and use it like a Gatling gun, while her heart was trying to leap out of her body.

Ale methodically eyed the people inside the room, the first to be discarded as hostiles were [Elder] and [Vulcanus], her pod was still as normal.

The rest of the room was deserted and at the door... Was a [Man] wearing what looked to be like an expensive suit?

"Sorry about that, it is hard to speak like you... mortals." The man had this suave feel to him, his clothes looked prim and proper, luxurious without trying to be.

He walked as if the place should pay him for being here, and unlike the rest of the room, he had colors on him. Albeit one wouldn't notice it as the suit was black.

But Ale could clearly see the golden decorations on the suit, and then there was his hair, golden with some parts of it starting to turn platinum as a sign of his age. He was closer to what one would describe as a dandy old man.

His eyes sported a golden colour, but Ale couldn't get the idea out of her head that those were not the eyes of a mortal, no. Whenever someone would say that Alexanders was a dragon, Ale always laughed because she had seen the man. And he was closer to a clown or a normal guy.

But this old man? This [Thing], if someone told her this was an actual dragon she would have believed it.

"... Who are you?" Ale asked, not lowering her guard, she briefly noticed how she still had access to her mana, and doing an internal check up... she had some limited access to the nanites. Or her armor wouldn't have materialized. So that was something. Then why couldn't she access Main Core? Or Core for that matter.

"No manners, but then again your current situation excuses it. As you have been bound to... such crass individuals." The Man said shaking his head, Ale knew he hadn't any weapons on him, she tried to accelerate her awareness even more to no avail, so extrapolating how his clothes moved and behaved.

The pace of his steps, the sound they made, literally all the data her brain could process. She could roughly guess that the man was...

Normal. Average.

There was no sound of anything metalic or mechanic on him, her steeps didn't make a loud noise and even to her more normal senses (And the esotherical ones), the man was normal.

Yet...

"Sorry about that, but I don't do well to ambushes in strange metaphysical spaces." Ale said taking small steps backwards, "Name's Ale. Ale Saintsworths, so who are you and where are we?"

The man smiled and nodded at her.

"That is somewhat better," Then doing a small bow that for some godforsaken reason made Ale feel extremely rude, the man introduced himself, "You may call me [The Calamity Dragon], or you may call me Grampa."

"...Sure you are," Ale answered narrowing her eyes, "Is this some elaborate joke from Alexanders?"

That earned a glare from the dandy old man that made Ale jump back in one go almost five meters back and raise her arms in X form to defend herself.

"...Sorry about that," Only to get a sigh and an apology from the dandy old man, "I... I am not... You could say that in a way, I am here because of what that foolish idiot did."

....?

"First of all, may I approach you?" The man asked, Ale could see a strained smile on the face of the man, as if he didn't knew for sure how to interact with her, "I can do what I came from here, I could even do it without coming into contact with you. But that felt...rude, so I want to explain it first to you."

"...Why?" Ale asked back, "If came because Alexanders then it would mean that you are here to help. But you say that you aren't here because of him. You are only here because something he did, but can I interpret that as he didn't mean it to happen like this?"

"...You truly are a smart girl, are you not?" The Man nodded with a smile on his face, "That is right. That useless waste didn't intend for me to come here."

...Ale could detect some hate in the dandy old man, but for some reason didn't feel... normal or natural.

"He didn't knew that what he did would allow me to speak with you, if he knew he would have not done it. Or perhaps he would have come with you, only to ruin all of it yet again." The man shook his head, "But unlike what that waste of oxygen, you have the right to know of what I want to do."

"Why?" Ale asked back confused, "You... I'm sorry to say, but don't seem friendly towards Alexanders, why would I. His sister, trust you."

"Because you aren't." The dandy old man said, his golden eyes looked at Ale and she could see the phantom of the [Predator] once again behind the gaze, "You aren't his sister. You aren't even a true Saintsworths."

"... Then who am I?" Ale said with a smirk, "This golden hair, the golden eagle that I wear on my clothes, even this golden bracelet."

Ale pointed out all the things that had been used to identify her as a Saintsworths, "The sky blue eyes... What am I if not a Saintsworths with all these marks?"

"The last daughter of [Terra Invicta]." The man said, Ale felt as if the ground under her feet had answered at that call, "The last survivor of all the mistakes that piled on from the foolish mistakes of a man who wanted to play god... and failed miserably."

That... Great, Ale was dealing with another nutcase wasn't she?

"Are you by any chance a friend of the Scrambler? Or the Theater Master?" Ale asked relaxing a little her guard, the man... albeit unstable, didn't seem to be hostile to her... yet.

"So John and Tristan made it too?" The dandy old man asked, meaning he did indeed knew at least the Theater guy, "It doesn't change a thing, not in the way that matters."

The way that mattered?

"You see... There are two kinds of people on this planet right now." The dandy old man said, raising his index finger and materializing a projection of the planet, Ale... did not feel the mana echo from him doing that, nothing on her sensors at all. "There are the ones who are natives... And there are those that got tainted by the echoes of the past."

The what now?

"And now... There are also those that managed to pierce the veil on their own, or with help. And made it in one piece." The dandy old man said pointing at Ale, "Those that made it here and managed to not taint anyone and are living a life of their own."

"...So you are saying that Alexa is one of those?" Ale asked, narrowing her eyes, as far as she knew, there was nothing of the like on their shared memories, "I assume you don't mean Alexanders, since you keep changing the way you insult him every time you can."

"Wrong again..." The man said sighing, "The one that I speak of is you, the one who wears the Saintsworths visage and their name. You Ale, not the mockery that pretends to be human. You and your late mother are the ones I speak about."

"...My what now?" Ale asked as she noticed her vision turned blurry, raising a finger to her face returned it with tears, "What... Are you speaking about right now?"

"I'm speaking about you and the woman you called Alexandra Saintsworths." The dandy old man said, "The last vestiges that managed to cross into this new world. I am speaking about the last survivors of the [Calamity] that besieged Terra Invicta."

Ale felt the room spinning, for some reason the sadness that she had felt a few days ago came rushing forward as she hugged herself and kneeled on the ground.

She couldn't, she wouldn't... She heard the steps of the man walking towards her, but she couldn't find the strength to react.

"I refer to you, the last survivors to the foolish endeavors that made me bear the name of [The Calamity Dragon]." The dandy old man said with a sad expression on his face, "And as such... I couldn't stomach the injustices that besieged you, as thus... I came bearing... help."