A Bio-Weapon’s Rhapsody

“Please…Melissa is a good girl, I’m sure of it, even if she twisted our view of her…she only needs help…I…I don’t want her to suffer as we did…as you did…”

 

The [VIP] had been finally dealt with, but P4 was honestly not very satisfied by this one. Not only had they tied her hands and made her waste [Biomass] by restricting her vectors of attacks, but they had also made the [Test] incredibly more dangerous. It had all the markings of a [Combat Test], with the restrictions of a [Logic Test], and if P4 was guessing right, it would also have the rewards of a [Logic Test].

 

Without [Terminated Test Subjects], she would probably be limited to either [Nutrient Paste] or, in a worst-case scenario… [Nutrient Gruel].

 

P4 didn’t like either. She couldn’t extract much from them besides the energy needed to restock her expended energy, and most of its components couldn’t be recycled for other needs. Unlike how she would have been able to recycle the [Biomass] from the other [Test Subjects], with an average weight of around 30-40 kgs per [Test Subject], she would have gotten around almost one ton of [Biomass] alone from this.

 

If P4 considered the loss of [Biomass] from [Banking] it, she would be ¼ of her way to her goal of returning to the bare minimum needed for her [CRAB] glorious return. And now it was all wasted.

 

“So…like, how do we go about this?” [Human Designation: Skye], spoke at the side. “I can probably restrain them like…this?”

 

This was one interesting [Coworker], the [Woman] was dressed lightly, wearing a short [Skirt] that showed most of her lower body, she was using a thin [Stockings] to cover part of her [Legs], and some [Sportwear] at her [Feet].

 

Her [Top] was a simple [Blouse] with a [Jacket] atop it to cover her arms. Nothing of her [Ensemble] seemed to be designed for [Combat], and yet…

 

A single down motion from her hand had made a gust of wind come crashing down around P4; most of the [Hostile Targets] had been immediately glued to the floor thanks to these [Winds].

 

This [Woman] had [Lied], she implied that her [Core Power] barely allowed her to move winds from one side to the other, and yet…here she was, commanding winds that had no reason to form or had that strength into a confined room…

 

The weird small turbine she had atop one of her hands wasn’t enough to explain this either.

 

[Notice: Detected small signature of mana waves in turbine and in the ceiling of testing area]

 

“Can you keep the [Hostile Targets] restrained while I [Neutralize] the [Main Target]?” P4 asked turning to look at Melissandra, the girl had started looking around in a [Panic], most of those around her had been stuck to the floor thanks to the high winds.

 

Leaving her standing alone, crying.

 

[Pathetic]

 

“....Are you sure she is responsible and not a victim?” The [Coworker Designation: Skye] asked.

 

P4 noticed a slight tinge of pink coloring [Coworker Designation: Skye] 's eyes for a second. This was bad. Should someone of her level of power become an enemy, it could threaten the safety of this [SkinSuit] and her current identity.

 

“HELP ME! YOU ARE A HERO RIGHT?!?!?” Melisandra screeched at [Coworker Designation: Skye].

 

This seemed to stir something within [Coworker Designation: Skye], as a greenish mana wave coursed her body. “Okay, yeah, she is the responsible. Man, that was like, a very weird vibe I got for a second.” Somehow, [Coworker Designation: Skye] had flushed the influence away.

 

So the [Humans] could indeed deal with this? Or was it only the [Core Power] Users? Was it because [Coworker Designation: Skye] had flushed the [Mana Influence] using her own [Mana Wave]?

 

Was this something they could deal with simply by washing over it with their own [Mana Waves]?

 

“I can keep the other kiddos quiet, do you have a way to deal with her that doesn’t include bodily harm and/or bashing her head? I would rather not have them all screaming in pain or screeching like maddened zombies…This already feels like a zombie apocalypse.” [Coworker Designation: Skye] asked.

 

Could P4 [Neutralize] the target? Before this? No, she couldn't.

 

“Yes, we will be using the [Sleeping Agent] you used before. If you have any [Paralizing Agent] at hand, it could be used in tandem to increase overall effectiveness.” P4 answered while turning to prepare for the next part.

 

She had taken some samples from the atmospheric gent as it hovered near her when [Coworker Designation: Skye] had used it against the [VIP].

 

“...right, just let me…do a call quick before giving you some of this stuff okay?” [Coworker Designation: Skye] said while taking out her phone. Why was she doing that? In the first place she could already synthetize the thing. “Hello? Hermes? I am just asking here for the sake of it…But what is the recommended dosage to use with kids….Yes, I said kids….okay okay, then what would you need to put Rhapsody to sleep? Aha…and you know this because?......so wait a goddammed second, the suit? So you also know how much you need to put me to sleep?”

 

The pressure surrounding [Coworker Designation: Skye] seemed to change visibly, as if the barometric pressure surrounding her had increased and the temperature was slowly lowering itself. P4 could even detect the formation of ice crystals around her.

 

“...You ever put me to sleep, and they will not find your body.” [Coworker Designation: Skye] said coldly, “...So long we are clear on that, would the same dosage for the paralytic gas work then? No? Why the hell would you need less? What? The paralytic gas is more dangerous? Why did you even give me it then!??!?!?”

 

[Coworker Designation: Skye] took a pair of canisters from her purse and threw them at P4. She caught them both and immediately sent a tendril into the thing. A hard exterior hid the gas within a pressurized interior, an interesting design that she had seen before but never analyzed.

 

The blue screen showed itself for P4 again, right. She had that thing. Perhaps it was a good time to revisit this while preparing?

—

 

…Why was it like that? What kind of metrics were these?

 

[Query: Give me easy-to-understand numbers to reflect this information.]

 

Soon after that, the screen morphed once more to reflect these changes.

 

 

“Fine, yeah, I will explain everything to Cerberus after this. We are in an emergency at the moment. Of course I didn’t put the stupid suit on; why would I?” [Coworker Designation: Skye] kept speaking with [Hermes], “Okay, bye!”

 

And she [Hung up] on him and grumbled something under her breath that was too low for P4 to hear.

 

“Okay, the dosage is around 20 to 40 m/u for the paralyzing gas and 100 to 200 m/u for the sleeping gas. The dosage may vary depending on your target's core power and emotional state. You managed to guess the correct one for your teacher so I guess you should be fine on your own.” [Coworker Designation: Skye] said while taking out another canister from her purse, “The nozzle at the top is what allows you to decide the amount of gas you want to administer and how fast or slow, you can also change the spread and speed of it with these dials…”

 

The design was [Art] if P4 had any chance to say, so many delivery variations with so few dials to toy around.

 

“[Aknowledged],” P4 answered. While taking each canister into one hand, she could tweak it with a few tendrils around, allowing her to not only have a firm grip on it but also change the delivery method in a heartbeat.

 

“....Please stop moving your tentacles like that.” [Coworker Designation: Skye] said while turning her eyes away from P4’s hands. "I have seen what the Japanese do with tentacles, and the gap between your appearance and those things is doing weird things to my taste for seafood.”

 

What?

 

There was a species that used tendrils like hers?

 

*Wiggle* *Wiggle*

 

“DON’T WIGGLE THEM AT ME!” [Coworker Designation: Skye] screamed at her. P4 didn’t have time to say anything as she felt a burst of wind hit her from behind. It wasn’t so much an [Attack] as more of a [Push]. P4 took this as a chance to save some energy and run forward.

 

As soon as she came close to another of the [Hostile] targets she would notice a [Mana Wave] flare from above and the [Wind] would stop blasting for a second, long enough for her to get past, but not so long that it would allow the [Hostile Targets] to stand again.

 

It was, quite honestly, a marvelous synchronization between [Coworker Designation: Skye] and her.

 

It took her barely a second to arrive in front of the [Hostile] target, that is Melissandra Singh, with her in front of her frooting at the mouth as she continued screaming meaningless things such as ‘I want my Papa back!’ and ‘I want my Mama bacck!’. Really, what was the difference between these [Entities] that they seemed to be so important?

 

P4 didn’t understand it; perhaps Alexa would? She hadn’t saved any entity under that designation yet, but P4 would continue checking for them unless she was purged from memory after this. It's not like it would stick. She was at the very base of what made Alexa anyway.

 

“With this, the [Test] should be finished, be grateful [Human]. You get to [Survive].” P4 said as she turned the dials in the [Sleeping Gas Canister] just right to give the correct dosage to someone around the estimated weight of Melissandra Singh. She was guessing it by how much her own [Biology] would need to get forcibly shut into a sleep cycle.

 

When the [Canister] was ready, P4 just shoved the thing into Melissandra’s [Mouth] and made it release the dosage.

 

It was [AntiClimatic], as the [Human Child Stage] girl only twitched a few times as she tried to run away from her, but P4 quickly used her other hand to restrain her, she may be holding another [Canister] in that hand, but that didn’t stop her from turning her other [Arm], into something akin to a big sturdy tendril, or as [Coworker Designation: Skye] had referred to, a [Tentacle].

 

P4 had lodged that for research later.

 

“...Help…me….Mama….” Melissandra Singh said as her eyes unfocused and she stopped resisting, if her calculations had been accurate, she shouldn’t be out quite yet, by the estimated weight she should had needed at least a higher dossage…

 

P4 didn’t understand why her defenses were this weak, but she still gave her half the remaining dosage. She couldn’t quite [Terminate] this one according to the [Rules], but she also didn’t want a surprise attack.

 

“Is it done?” [Coworker Designation: Skye] asked as the other [Hostile] targets also seemed to stop struggling and remained on the floor without moving.

 

“Yes, all [Vital signs] seem to indicate [Hostile] target has entered [Sleep Cycle].” P4 answered as she let go of the body of Melissandra Singh, she hit the floor a few seconds laters with a *thud*.

 

That made [Coworker Designation: Skye] sharply turn her head at her. “Why did you let her go? Did you lose strength or something?” she asked as the black-haired woman rushed to check on [Hostile] target Melissandra Singh.

 

“Negative, all my functions are at top efficiency, but there was no reason to continue holding her. A check into her makeshift reported that she could withstand the fall, so it was deemed more efficient to let her wait on the floor for the [Maintenance Crew] to arrive and [Repair] her as needed.” P4 answered, it was weird, this was a [Test] enviroment but no one had declared the end of it. Nor was the door to the [Maintenance Bay] opening, either for her or the other [Test Subjects].

 

Did this mean that this wasn’t finished?

 

“The what now? Oh right, we need to call Cerberus for a clean-up crew,” [Coworker Designation: Skye] said, turning to look at her [Phone] yet again. She seemed to hesitate for a few seconds before punching the call button. “Please don’t answer, please don’t…..answer.”

 

[Coworker Designation: Skye] said as the phone seemed to connect to someone else if she was to guess to [Eleanore].

 

“Hello….Boss,” [Coworker Designation: Skye said as she turned to look at P4. Yes, I made it to Alexa’s class. Yeah…I introduced myself to the guard and her teacher…Yeah…Listen, I am calling because we have a…problem.”

 

[Coworker Designation: Skye] motioned to her to come close.

 

“What? No, Alexa is fine. She is actually more scary than I thought she would be in Combat from close…What? Of course not. She didn’t scare the other kids, it's more of them trying to mess with us, here, let me…Alexa explain Cerberus what happened here please, I arrived late so I only saw the end.”

 

So she was to report? Right, they had a [Test], it was natural. As soon as she took the [Cell phone] the voice of [Eleanore] rang at her ear.

 

“Alexa? Is everything okay? I got some weird reports from Billy and Skye as soon as I arrived at the office, good thing I used one of the teleporters that was around.” Eleanore spoke from the other side of the [Phone], “What happened? Did Lisa say something?”

 

“I arrived at the [Classroom] after separating and everything was right.” P4 started her report, it was important to show that she was capable of functioning in these ever-changing [Test] that the [Humans] gave to their spawns, “The [Test] seemed to be of a combat subtype, as one of the [Students] started using her [Core Power] to try and tamper with my [Psyche]. She was attempting to breach my [Prime Directives] and [Sub Directives]. It was determined that these would put the [Rules] under which I was to behave at risk.”

 

P4 wasn’t quite sure how that had happened, as Alexa had encountered it, and while she had access to the logs, she didn’t have access to the whole thing.

 

[Warning: 1 minute till imminent brain failure. Please restart organ or make a new one.]

 

And the alarm was there, right.

 

“Wait wait, put at risk the rules? Do you mean the ones I gave you? What happened?” Eleanor asked, confused.

 

“Wait, Alexa is about to return. She will explain this,” P4 said as she started the process that would revitalize her [Brain] and allow the full suit of [Human Emotions] to take the reins of her logic process. “Remember Alexa to prioritize the [Combat Form]; we have tested enough new ideas and left them for check later.”

 

Was the last thing P4 said before she felt the [Stream of Consciousness] shift within her [Skinsuit].

 

And so, “ALEXA HAS COME!” Alexa returned.

 

“Alexa? Who was I speaking with? It wasn’t you?” Eleanore asked at the other side of the phone, the silly [Human], of course it wasn’t Alexa! If it was Alexa she wouldn’t have said that she had come!

 

“It wasn’t Alexa!” Alexa answered as such, “It was before Alexa!”

 

How was she supposed to explain? That had been her most base form, the origin of all that was Alexa even thought it wasn’t Alexa after all, so…half alexa? Quarter Alexa? Alexa discounted? They all felt wrong thought.

 

That was closer to an Alexa that was playing pretend being an Alexa than an Alexa! It didn’t have enough Alexa to be Alexa, yeah. That was it.

 

“It was an Alexa that isn’t Alexa, but also is Alexa!” So Alexa explained while nodding, “Anyway, that isn’t important! What is important is the [Test]! Alexa passed it!”

 

Alexa was quite proud of her own results; even if they weren’t the result of Alexa’s effort, they had been done with Alexa’s body, so they were as good as hers!

 

“You see, you see…After Alexa introduced herself to the class, we found Meli-Meli! But Meli-Meli was a bad Meli-Meli! Who would have thought?!?!” Alexa said with a flourish as she pretended to be hurt, why? Because Alexa felt cute while doing it so it was okay! Also, she may have seen that in one of the [TV feeds] that she had access from her [Phone] while [Not-Alexa] was dealing with the whole thing.

 

She needed something to do while waiting for her turn! And the boring information processing was being done by [Main Core] anyway!

 

“Meli-Meli was doing weird [Mana Wave] things! She was putting weird [Feels] into everyone around! And she was using these [Feels] to make people do what she wanted! She was cheating! Cheating I say!” Alexa didn’t liked that, she had wanted to twist Alexa into another not-Alexa, one that didn’t want to follow her prime directives!

 

Her Prime Directives were important!

 

[Mango Over all, Mango is Justice, Alexa is Cute]!

 

The most important directives of them all yes!

 

“[Wrong, Main Directives are: Eat, grow, evolve.]”

 

Main Core of course came chiming in, giving boring prime directives, Alexa liked hers more!

 

“And then, and then, when she tried to twist Alexa into not Alexa…Main Core said that there was a risk for Alexa’s Prime Directives, so Alexa needed to let Prime-not Alexa deal with it! Since she wasn’t affected by the [Feels]!” Alexa wasn’t quite sure why P4 was like that, was it because she wasn’t [Human]?

 

But Alexa wasn’t [Human] either? Or she was? Not like that matters, Alexa was Alexa anyway.

 

“...can you pass the phone to Skye?” Eleanore said with a sigh.

 

“Yes! [Fan Girl]! [Eleanore] wants to speak to you!” Alexa said as she put the phone towards [Fan Girl].

 

“....fan girl? I’m fan girl now? “ [Fan Girl] said while trying not to smile at that. “Yes boss? What? I mean yeah…it felt like that….No…Alexa seems fine... Don’t get me wrong, she was craaaazy scary when she had the whole Mechanical Assassin vibe going… I think that if her teacher had only said yes to her she may have just killed all the kids here…No? I mean…Yeah I was there…Yes….Yes…. I can check but she seems fine… I know the procedures….Do we… ugh….Yes I have mine with me…. I did bring Alexa’s ID, just in case… Yes, Hermes gave me hers…”

 

[Fan Girl] continued speaking for some more time while Alexa was busy poking Meli-Meli’s face with one of the wiggles not-Alexa had made. P4 did make some fun things, the amount of mango Alexa could eat with this [Hand BluePrint] was bigger, she could probably peel two mangoes at the same time with these [Wiggle hands] now!

 

Did Alexa need to hear the conversation between [Fan Girl] and [Eleanore]? Probably!

 

But Alexa was too busy poking Meli-Meli’s [Cheek] with one of her [Wiggles]! Why was this important?

 

 

Well, she was also collecting [Blueprints]! With her wiggly hands!

 

They were so cute!

 

“Alexa? Sorry to interrupt you while you molest that girl.” [Fan Girl] said bringing her attention back from touching Meli-Meli’s hand. What was molest anyway? “You need to keep this ID with you at all times. There will be a Hero coming here since this was the site of one of the…dangerous Core Powers being wielded, and since we have witness, we will need to come clean.”

 

….So the [Test] wasn’t done?

 

“Now, you need to act like a normal girl. I know... that will be hard, so just smile and stand behind me. If someone points and finds that you have a Core, you let me speak, and when I ask you about your ID, you show them that ID, okay? That is a Civilian Core User card. Usually, it is granted to those who don’t want to join Heroes but also don’t want to be labeled as vigilantes or villains.” [Fan Girl] said giving her a card that had her photo and name. It also said that she was a [Miscelaneous Core User].

 

Wasn’t she a [Shape Shifter Core User]?

 

“Yes, we are lying. We don’t show our true powers to the Heroes because even when they like to say they are the good guys, they aren’t above trying to find our civilian's identities. So try to not use your powers, if they ask for a demonstration just say you can’t control your powers.” [Fan Girl] said with a smirk, so this was like how she misled everyone at [Haephestus’ Forge] by pretending to be weaker?

 

Alexa could do that!

 

No wait! She could do better!

 

“I can pretend to be a [Beast Core]! I have [Blueprints] for a [Giant Rat] saved! I could grow [Rat Ears] and [Tail]!” Alexa remembered those weird [Humans] that kept wanting to guide her evolution towards growing certain substandard parts that didn’t match her [CRAB] form.

 

“....I will find you a cat, and we can try to pass you off as a Cat Girl Beast Core. Those are always let get away with most of what they do. Besides, you will probably look cute with cat ears and tail…” [Fan Girl] mumbled as they stood there around the unconscious [Students].

 

Alexa wondered who would come…

 

With some luck it wouldn’t be [Chrysalis], Alexa wasn’t sure if she could pull again the same strategy as before… But just in case she hid the [Canisters] within her arms, she moved her [Bones] to latch the things within her arms. She would set them to allow her to discharge the gases from the palm of her hands…

 

This way, she could perhaps incapacitate her and [Devour] her…

 

Yeah, she would try to do that… Now….would it be a [Chrysalis]? Or a new [Sample]...

 

Alexa was getting [Hungry].