A Bio-Weapon’s Rhapsody

"So all I need is to purchase a hundred gifted membership?" The Minion was looking at her weirdly.

"For each of the channels on the list, yes." Ale answered pointing at something she had written on the notebook of the Minion in question. It was a list with over fifty channel names.

"... And you will not snitch?" The Minion said again, pulling out his phone and going straight to the A-tube app, "Really?"

"You are saying it like it is cheap, do you know how much that will cost?" Ale said raising an eyebrow at the Minion, "That's almost fifteen thousand A-Dollars."

Ale did not think this was something cheap to do, it was quite expensive if she was to be honest. Her channel was among those that she had picked, among the channels of a few people she had collabed before, and then people those had collabed with.

Main Core had made the list ensuring there was a separation of five people to her, and a few had a separation of over ten people to each other.

A few of those had no connection to Ale at all, but that was the main idea. She would not lose anything, and she would get fifty membership gifted on her channel.

"That is still cheaper than dealing with the outburst from Billy." The Minion said messing with something on his phone, "Done, they will be spread out across the week, every channel will get it with a different account. Remember your side of the promise."

"Yeah sure," Ale said shrugging, "I will not tell him, but that's as much as I'll do. If they ask..."

"That's fine," The Minion nodded, "Then grab this, do you need a guide?"

Did she?

Ale had memories of how it looked the place she was going on, but she assumed it would not be that hard to find, and if worst come to worst, she could ask Main Core for guidance...

[Downloaded map of base, setting up minimap guidance system.]

And sure enough, in a corner of her view now there was a fancy minimap, like one of those in videogames, convenient.

"That will not be needed." Ale had the minimap ready to help her on her travels after all.

And with that solved, Ale walked into the workshop. As soon as she walked into the workshop, she was hit by a wave of heat and a cacophony of sounds, from the sound of metal being hit by hammers to the sound of saws breaking out metal into smaller bits.

The sound of people soldering on circuit boards, the chatter of people bickering and complaining because of prices and the like, that was a surprise to Ale. She had assumed the repair and maintenance was part of the deal with being a Minion?

Thinking on that she would need to remember to ask [Elder] about it, she had not needed to send her gear for repairs before, but if it would cost money... Well, she would need to take that into consideration whenever she was using it, and depending on how her Core continued working...

Perhaps she would need to start using more of her biological form instead of the Minion armor, but then again, she was not really using a normal Minion armor, was she?

She was using the Nuzzler Armor, that had been made with the help of [Elder], but it was not exactly a Minion armor was it?

Then how did that one fit in this case? Ale could fix it before, she only needed to decompose it and remake it, but what if she was no longer able to do it as she had done before?

More questions to explore, she was not entirely sure where the limitations were, she could interface just fine with the information and the computer and artificial systems around. So could she still do that? Remake her body armor?

So while pondering on that, Ale ended up arriving at a worktable with plenty space around it, in the middle of that space was [Elder] looking straight at Ale as she walked towards him.

"Took yah long enough." [Elder] said with a weird smile on his face, "Did yah have any problems getting in?"

"Not really." Ale said shaking her head, "What's with the set up?"

Unlike before, [Elder] was waiting for her in the middle of a room filled with other minions, all working, but even like that, Ale could still feel their occasional gazes turning towards them.

Not like Ale couldn't understand it, not with it was that obvious that [Elder] wanted to be noticed like this.

"A little something for Vulcanus to keep his microchips untangled." [Elder] shrugged as he answered, then as if it was the most natural thing he pulled out his tablet and started to fiddle with it.

[Notice, detected an isolation-type barrier set up.]

[Notice, detected an illusion-type barrier set up.]

[Notice, detected a hologram projection superimposed over the host's immediate area.]

[Notice, detected a sound projection generator set up.]

[Barriers are set up in a way that they are not perceived by host.]

Well, Ale had noticed it, or more like, Main Core had.

"Record the external feed if possible." Ale sent the command, "I may need to watch that, and see if we can emulate that effect."

[As you wish Mistress.]

"So, questions. You have a few I imagine." [Elder] said in a knowing tone. "Shoot."

"I have been having some issues with my Core Power." Ale started with the easier one, or the more important one for her anyway.

"That one huh." [Elder] said nodding, "I would assume you would go for how we noticed about Vulcanus situation, or where is Gabriel... Or even why we accepted you this easily back."

"The [Vulcanus] situation doesn't really affect me negatively, besides the fact that I may end up jobless." Ale said with a shrug, "Gabriel... Worries me because Big Sister and [Golem] seem to like him and he is missing. I assume any information that could help on that will be provided when needed."

At least that had been how it was before anyway.

"Hmm... You ain't wrong on that kiddo." [Elder] nodded at Ale's argument, "But you should worry more on that, you have the interest of a Saintsworths' plant, best case scenario is your asshole of a brother. Worst case scenario he is a plant for the council."

Another mention about that high council, Ale was collecting those as of late it seemed.

"As for Gabriel Light, you should worry more on him." [Elder] said with a frown, "He is working hard to make it up for letting you down in that mission."

Letting Ale down?

"Because he let you die," [Elder] stated grimly, "Or so he used to believe, the fact of it is that whether he let you die or not, the issue of you being gone does not change."

...Right.

"He doesn't need to feel responsible for what happened with Alexandra." Ale said after thinking on it for a few seconds, "What happened was a decision made by Alexandra. Fighting Melissandra was a decision made by me. In both cases, Gabriel Light [The Fallen Angel] holds no responsibility."

At least that was what Ale believed. She would not diminish the decisions of Alexandra by thinking that someone else affected that decision.

"People do not think logically," [Elder] stated, "Not even us Tinkerer Cores are exempt from that."

"I'll tell him that next time I see him then." Ale said, frowning, "But my more immediate problem is still the fact that my Core Powers don't seem to work as well as before."

"Oho..." [Elder] said with a weird glint in his eyes, "Elaborate."

"Before I could shapeshift with ease." Ale said raising her left hand, "A thought was all it took and I could make this into something else."

Ale had tried to create the patented gorilla arm, it had not done anything.

"Hmm..." [Elder] picked up his tablet and pushed other buttons, this time a scanner came out from the work tablet and scanned at Ale.

[Detected non-hostile mana probe.]

[Probe didn't penetrate defenses.]

[It was not possible to alter the results.]

That was a surprise, so far Main Core had been able to tamper with most of those information gathering attempts.

"Your Core doesn't seem cracked or damaged." [Elder] said reading the results from the scan.

[Downloading data...]

[Interpreting data.]

[Data indicates Core Integrity within normal range.]

[Data indicates Core stability within normal range.]

"So, what can you do?" [Elder] asked with a knowing smile on his face again, "Can you still use it for what you want to do?"

Ale stopped to think about that, what could they do?

"I can still use most of the things I used to do, the only real change is that I can't shape shift as well as I used to." Ale said unsure of how much she could share. "Same as usual, besides that point, really."

"You could shape shift," [Elder] said raising a finger, "You could generate mechanisms, be it complex or simple, you could alter the structure of what you touched and let's not forget that you had some degree of ability to interface with the computers around you."

Ale was surprised, honestly, she was quite surprised at that description.

"I hadn't told anyone of those points." Ale said impressed, "How did you find out?"

"It was quite easy," [Elder] pointed at his tablet yet again, "First of all, your small speakers, those weren't biological in nature, but mechanical."

That was quite obvious, there didn't exist biological speakers after all.

"You just downloaded the scan results I took." [Elder] finally said turning his tablet towards Ale, "As you can see here."

There was a data log on uploads and downloads, there was a download of data from the scanner into the tablet, then an upload from the tablet towards an unknown device.

"Main Core... Did you leave evidence?" Ale said inwardly.

[There are no ways of hiding the upload of data, most people do not monitor these logs, so the risk of discovery is close to nil.]

"No one pays attention to those logs." Ale said repeating what Main Core had said.

"They are substandard Tinkerers." [Elder] said smirking, "I am not one of those."

"Noted." Ale said nodding, "But what does that mean then? Some of my powers got diminished because I was too versatile?"

"Nothing of the like." [Elder] said laughing, "What happened is that your Core moved closer to perfection."

"By taking away some of my abilities?" Ale said confused, "That does not sound like perfection."

"No, you are thinking too simplistic." [Elder] tapped at the worktable and it opened a hidden compartment, from there a small figurine got raised, "This is something I can do with my [Core Power]."

[Elder] touched the figurine, and the body armor it was wearing started moving, it sped through the worktable, jumping, punching, and even doing some flying kicks.

It moved quite well for something that small.

"Now, if I wanted to do that but with this one?" [Elder] pulled a small toy car from his jacket, "See what happens."

[Elder] set up the small toy car on the table, closed his eyes and focused.

[Detected huge mana infusion.]

[Detected great mana leakage.]

[Technique is not optimized.]

"That was tiring." [Elder] sighed and let go of the toy, the toy car then moved for a few centimeters before starting to smoke and crush unto itself, it was as if it wanted to change it's form.

Actually it did change it's form, Ale could see how it had grown an arm from one of the doors and half a leg from the trunk. That looked wrong, no matter how one looked at it.

"Why the mechanical horror example?" Ale said, shuddering, it just looked wrong, no matter how Ale looked at it, it made Ale feel extremely uncomfortable.

Ale could see how all the joints had been made in a wrong way, the way to optimize the build and she wanted nothing more than to grab that thing and fix it, she had this weird nagging at the back of her head about how she could fix that thing.

"That is what moving towards perfection looks like." [Elder] said with a smirk on his face, why the smirk? "Before I could do that, I could make all kinds of toys move at a good pace, not remotely close to how a normal human could move, of course, not like that one."

[Elder] pointed at the other toy figurine that was standing at attention at the back of the table, as if waiting for instructions.

[Detected open channel.]

[Robotic figurine broadcasting: Awaiting for instructions.]

"But as my Core moved closer to specialization, what I could do increased... But also decreased." [Elder] shrugged, "Now if I want to use my [Core Powers] to cheat, I need to ensure the template I have fits what I do, or it ends up like that."

"So the more you move your [Core] towards higher degree of power, the more you need to specialize and the less freedom you have?" Ale asked as she extended her hand and grabbed the toy car, looking below the toy car, Ale could see how all the internal mechanisms had twisted wrong.

"You could say that," [Elder] nodded moving a toolbox near Ale, "I can still make toys like that work as I want, but I need to do it manually, no skips from Mana or the like."

Ale turned to look at the open toolbox and without thinking she grabbed a few of the tools on it, a screwdriver, some pliers, a spool of solder wire, normal stuff.

"Most Tinkerer Cores move like this, we have freedom to do most of what we could think at our earliest phases, but when we find a... [Spark] is when we move towards what we will end up doing." [Elder] continued his explanation while Ale was focused on what she needed to do, ocationally [Elder] would provide Ale a different tool when she was having issues with her personal picks.

Of course, she wouldn't be having such a hard time if she just let her nanites go wild, but that was not something she could do, not here of course.

"So?" Ale asked as she replaced the broken parts with newer pieces she scavenged from the worktable of [Elder], "What does this have to do with my Powers not working?"

"That would be because you moved a step closer to your actual power and not the one you thought you had before." [Elder] said nodding as Ale put the fixed toy on the table, it no longer resembled a mechanical horror spawned from an eldritch mind. It now looked like a normal toy car. "Care to turn it on?"

"...On? Oh right." Ale hadn't built a controller for the toy car, "Transform."

"Main Core, please." Ale sent the command inwardly as she didn't prepare an external controller.

[Executing transformation sequence on Toy Car Mk 1.]

The toy car's parts shifted and reassembled themselves. Ale had fixed the dissonance between the parts to allow it to change form. It moved its engine and mechanical parts to allow a seamless change, from a toy car into a toy robot.

What was before a toy car now looked like a toy robot with some parts that resembled a toy car. It was, evidently, a transformer toy car.

"So, when did you learn how to make this kind of mechanism?" [Elder] said, smiling at Ale, "I have not seen these types of toys around."

"...Huh?" Ale finally realized what she had done, and... how had she done that anyway? "I... Don't know?"

"Hahahah!" [Elder] laughed, he honest to god laughed at Ale, "Don't worry about that, we all go throught that. Our [Core] is not as understanding as most Core users."

"How so?" Ale didn't seem to understand what [Elder] was speaking about, he had the same type of Core than Ale? Wasn't he a [Tinkerer Core]? "Don't most [Core users] just get the information about how to use their powers like I did?"

"That they do." [Elder] nodded at Ale, "But [Tinkerer Core] work differently, we don't get the influx of information about how to use our Cores. We get inspirations or [Sparks], how many we get and how often is anyone's guess."

... Oh.

"So I am not a shapeshifter? But a Tinkerer? How is that possible?" Ale was confused, "If I am not a shapeshifter then how can I change my form like I do? I can still call Alexa out, and she can use our powers like before with no issue."

She had no doubt of that. There was no way that Alexa's powers weren't working.

"The hell if I know." [Elder] barked another laugh as he answered, "I know for a fact that you are a Tinkerer, if not you would not been able to do what you did. What type you are? That's for you to find out. If I had to guess you are closer to [Vulcanus] or maybe you are bordering on technopath? Either way... You have more control over these than you let on, don't you?"

Well, how to answer that...