A Bio-Weapon’s Rhapsody

Ale wasn't sure how long she had been crying, that was something she had been doing more and more lately. Was she this emotional? What had brought Alexa to make the self that would be responsable for fighting and defending her this emotional?

Or... Was this also something that Alexa had wished for? Alexa was hard to understand at the best of the times. And while Ale knew that Alexa meant the best, she was not... entirely up there. Not in the ways that matter.

"Feeling better?" And then there was this dandy old man offering her a handkerchief with the emblem of the Saintsworths embroidered in gold. "I am so sorry about being the bearer of such notices... I know it must be hard to know that ev-"

"Okay stop," Ale said shaking her head, "Whatever narrative that got you all broody and suave going, stop."

Ale didn't...

"I can't...No, I won't. Even if I can theoretically learn about it here... Whatever force is outside will make it meaningless." Ale understood it, she knew it already, that Alexa hadn't... She hadn't made them from nothing, it was obvious in hindsight, the evidence was always there, but they hadn't paid much attention to it, they couldn't. "What I was, who I was... It doesn't matter, what matters is who I am now. I am Ale Saintsworths, Alexa's older sister."

"...The ND0 System will not touch you here, and when I am done..." The dandy old man said shaking his head, "It will not be able to touch you outside."

That... The dandy old man kneeled in front of Ale, one hand extended forward and atop said hand a purple crystal started hovering there, golden lightning coursing through the interior of the crystal.

"This will grant you your birthright," The dandy old man said offering the crystal, "It will release you from the grasp of the ND0 System. And will solidify your claim as a Saitnsworths."

"I thought you said... No wait, I can be a Saintsworths?" Ale asked confused, she... didn't really thought of herself as a Saintsworths, as the actual one would be Alexa. Since this was her life.

"The Saintsworths," The dandy old man said shaking his head, "The actual ones, are born from the pits of hell, forged in difficulty, tempered with tests that would make the common man wish for death. We are the flame that is used to light forward the path towards the new world."

That seemed... a little too dramatic, she loved it.

"We are..." The Dandy old man said as a pair of leathery wings manifested behind him as his eyes shifted into those of a dragon, a pair of horns growing from his head and...

"The fire that lights the beacon of civilization?" Ale asked, interrumpting the whole thing perhaps.

But the dandy old man didn't seem to care about it as he nodded to Ale's words, "Correct. We are the fire that will show the way... Or that is what we should be, what we must be... So we can atone to the sins we piled up."

The dandy old man snapped his fingers, and the world around them burned away, turning into ashes. Ale was now standing in the ruins of a city within a ruined world.

The sky was covered in clouds, and wherever she looked, only a desolate world looked back at her.

"This is..." Ale said, looking around, doing a quick scan of her surroundings, she noticed something she would rather not have found, "... primordial matter?"

The same ash that her body turned into, all around them, as if the whole world was made of... "No..." The thought came to her, a silly thought really, it couldn't be after all, this was the result of the body rejecting itself as Mana broke the links between the atoms within oneself.

That happened because Ale got hit with a corrupted version of Mana, a hostile attempt to actually annihilate her, for it to work at this scale...

"Yes," The dandy old man said as if he had read her thoughts, "Terra Invicta... The proud craddle of humanity, the craddle from where we spread to the stars and formed the biggest intergalactic empire within our galaxy. Spreading the flag of the Saintsworths Intergalactic might far and wide..."

The what now?

"Was brought to its knees when our [World] bared its fangs at us." The dandy old man said shaking his head, "It was my hubris that made it so, thinking I could fix it... Thinking I would get an epiphany that would somehow make the Mana stop becoming toxic to our [Existence]. Thinking twisting causality would be easy..."

The Dandy old man started laughing, "Is it not hilarious? A mere [Human] daring to think they could wield the power reserved to [Gods]. No wonder I turned like this." As if to make a point of his statements, the dandy old man form started to grow, his body expanded as an obsidian dragon with golden stripes on its body that looked like lightning across its body stood in front of her. "That is why I bear the name of [The Calamity Dragon], because I could not bear with the simplest answer of them all. I was not powerful enough, smart enough, resourceful enough to save those that put their hope on me."

"What... Happened?" Ale asked, unsure if she should even ask, this? This was so much more wrong that she could expect, a whole world turned into ash? Mana turning hostile to the life within the planet?

That would be...

The mana tide that started gifting powers to humanity was like... thirty? forty? It was not that old, but there was no sign of something like this happening.

At worst they had to deal with the megafauna that triggered a Core and turned hostile, but even that was manageable. If the ethereal energy that was spreading across the world turned hostile? It would be game over.

Ale needed... They needed to think of a way to... No wait.

"Alexanders managed to do it though." Ale said as she touched her forehead, "He found a way to isolate the corrupted mana from me, he found a way to survive."

"Hah!" The giant of a dragon barked a laguh, thunder raining from the sky into his body as he laughed, after the thunderstorm stopped, the dandy old man was there once again, "What that brute did is nothing that complex. He fished among the things he stole from me for a stopgap, and even that was only achievable for the shortest amount of time."

The dandy old man snapped his fingers and there atop his hand stood once again a marble.

"A Core?" Ale asked.

"Yes, the artificial Core that I made. These were designed to syphon the Mana and redirect it. Their original goal was to work as a way to channel Mana and turn it into an energy source." The [Calamity Dragon] sighed, "At least until... That happened."

That?

Ale was getting infodumped right now!

"We found... something," The dandy old man said as he snapped his fingers, the surrounding space between them shifted, as if time was being rewound, building actively reassembled themselves, ash formed into trees and vehicles.

Rivers started forming at the distance and slowly a majestic city formed around Ale, a place that... looked oodly familiar, and yet, she couldn't place a finger on why it seemed like that.

But that was not the most surprising thing, no, it was when the ash started forming humanoid figures, all around them humanity started to take form, at first faces filled with horror and panic, but slowly and surely, the faces returned to normal. till at some point Ale noticed how some of those didn't seem surprised.

Ale was not allowed time to study this as they got moved to another place, a sterile space, a place that she recognized from their shared memories.

A test chamber.

Inside was someone that chamber stood three figures that Ale recognized almost instantly, even if they looked somehow... different.

"Let us see, the beginning of the end, shall we?" The Dandy old man said snapping his fingers, Ale noticed how her own figure and the figure of said dandy old man turned almost transparent, the figures of the people inside the testing chamber becoming more alive...

And there, at the distance floating without any care was the crystal that the dandy old man had offered her.

"Are you sure this will work?" The first figure spoke, it was a woman of cold beauty and blue hair, her eyes seemed devoid of emotions, and yet, that did nothing to lower her beauty. She was wearing a white lab coat and a black dress under it, it didn't seem to fit the place at all, but somehow it matched her body quite well.

"Will it be safe?" The second woman asked, she seemed almost mundance in comparison with the other two figures, black hair, a normal leather jacked under her white lab coat and a pair of blue jeans, "Why do you even needs us here Alexander? Vivian is a geneticist, and I am a sociologist. While this... does not look like something someone like you would deal with."

"That's the thing!" The blonde man said laughing, the black T-shirt under the white lab coat had the Saintsworths logo on it, and his cargo pants pockets seemed filled with devices that did not match the serious ambient, "I found something that made no sense, a piece of code embedded into the stupid heirloom the old man passes down when picking the new heir to the golden throne."

The blonde man that Ale had much trouble to link to the carefree version she knew said as his face turned serious once again after his fit of laughter, "Sorry about that." The blonde man said shaking his head and slapping himself, "This has me on edge since I found it, the thing is... This probably will do something, I am not quite sure what or how so I am filling my bases. I have other seven other experts in different mediums coming later."

"Ten?" The version of Vivian asked, "You managed to squirrel away ten different scientists into this?"

"Scientists, politicians, one manager, one restaurant owner, and one weapons development guy... also a couple of engineers." This Alexanders said shrugging, "I got everyone and everything I could and managed to get them to fly here."

"Why the Antarctica anyway?" The Miriam Eversoul asked, "I am grateful for the temperature control you have, but any reason why here?"

"...I don't like the idea of blowing my backyard if this turns volatile." This Alexanders said shrugging, "It will not explode, that much I know. But whatever happens, I'd rather have a place that will not be missed if we need to blow it to kingdom come."

"...Thank you for the warning," The Miriam Eversoul said with a frown, "Can you believe this Viv?"

"Yes," That version of Vivian Kellet said, "I noticed the evacuation pods around the place, we will need perhaps a minute to get to them if needed."

"That's the plan yes," That version of Alexanders said, "But you two get to see it first, I suspect that if this is what I think... Then we will get either first contact... Or a portal to another realm."

That... sounded like something that Alexanders would think yes. At least something never changed.

"Stop." Ale said shaking herself, the world that she was seeing stopped and slowly turned gray, the dandy old man turned to look at Ale, "Why are you showing me this? What do you get out of this?"

"You would not want to know about the fate that befell Terra Invicta?" The Dandy old man asked, "Or the result of all that kickstarted the events that ended with your current situation?"

"This?" Ale asked pointing around, "This caused the fall of your world? Where is this anyway? I assume not on Terra Nova."

"Terra Invicta is where it happened, this place is somewhere you know well too." The dandy old man said as the scenery zoomed away and they stood above the buildings, it seemed to follow a star shap-

"...That's Aquila." Ale said pointing down, "That is Aquila, the floating city that Alexanders made and... he grumbled about the high council wanting it on the artic pole but he put in the middle of the ocean for shit and giggles...Is this an alternate reality then? That's the thing? The whole revelation? You come from an alternate reality then?"

"You could interpret it like that, the easiest answer is that I am the past." The dandy old man said placing a hand on his chest, "And you are the future."

"...Because I came from this place and Alexa somehow saved me." Ale said nodding.

"...That..." The dandy old man seemed as if he wanted to refute the statement, "Is a way to look at what happened, and this is an even more reason for you to look at what happened that hateful day."

The view shifted and they got once again stood there, looking at the scenery as it started to move forwards.

"Aaaand contact!" Alexanders said as he threw a necklace with a purple crystal into what looked like a ring than a machine, in there the crystal pendant turned into dust and Ale could see as a small azure sphere materialized.

And from there, a pulse of Mana was emitted, not that anyone reacted to it.

"Can't they detect the mana radiation?" Ale asked as the look of Alexanders shifted from confidence to confusion.

"It... should already have an effect, I exchanged an heirloom for a stone?" The blonde man asked confused.

"They can't, they are being bombarded with Mana and suffused with it, but know not of it. This chamber is containing it at the moment and increasing the degree of which they get contaminated. At least till someone opens the door." The Dandy old man said. "Not that it matters, as it has already started."

"Well, it was fun but I am leaving." This version of Miriam Eversoul said as she walked to the exit, with this version of Vivian Kellet in tow, "Any idea of what you will name your new pet rock?"

That Alexanders picked up the rock and for some weird reason, Ale almost asked him not to, "I guess that since it came from literal nothing... How about Abyssal Liminal Entity of Xenothaumic Anomaly?"

....That...

"Is there a joke somewhere in there?" Miriam Eversoul asked.

"This thing was born from my heirloom, so it's part of the family. Might as well bear our name." Alexanders said shrugging, "Besides, the last thing I scanned to see what it was made had instructions on how to make that happen, wonder what I'll find in this small metal ball."

The world turned into a pause with Alexanders holding the Core and the rift behind him closing.

"...Is that..." Ale asked pointing at the Core, "...Your world's version of Alexa?"

"No," The dandy old man said shaking his head, "That is Alexa."

...well dang it.

Ale cursed at herself from not grabbing the stupid crystal thing and get this over with, now she was finding that Alexa's origin story was not that of a bioweapon made in a lab, but apparently she was spawned from a mana rift in an alternate world... kind of setting?

What the hell was she supposed to do with this?