A Bioweapon's Rhapsody

The door was quite heavy, Ale found that quite interesting. There wasn't anything particularly special about this particular door, as far as Ale could see from the make-up, it was a normal metal door reinforced with some extra bars on the inside.

Nothing that would make it heavy, there wasn't anything particularly special about the alloyed bars or metals, there wasn't anything that would absorb the mana wavelengths or condense it into the door, so why was it that the door was this heavy?

Nonetheless, Ale opened the door, even with the trepidation that she felt. There was no reason not to open it.

And so, Ale walked into the new room.

What she found... was another room filled to the brim with the nameless creatures that had been transformed thanks to the Core Power of Meli-Meli. And at the center of it an enormous blob of Mana Wavelengths condensed into a figure who seemed to be in a fugue state.

"Beatrice... I need you to run straight out and wait on the ladder for the reinforcements, guide them here as soon as they arrive." Ale said pushing the door to close.

"Master!" Beatrice screamed as she moved towards the door, attempting to keep it open.

"This is not optional," Ale said as she put more strength into the door, closing it behind her. She could hear the voice of Beatrice complaining and screaming, banging against the door.

But Ale paid no mind to it, instead she used her Nanites to seal the door against the walls, making it part of the wall instead.

Beatrice knocked against the door a few times, but Ale ignored her completely. If she had gotten something out from the Core or how Beatrice's Core seemed to work, it was that it followed a set of rules upon which it would not deviate.

And Ale making the door into a part of the wall, and giving her the Order to run back, it meant that she would be unable to do anything against the door-wall.

Why? Because while Beatrice could kick down any door, she couldn't do that against the wall. Why? Because it wasn't something that happened. Beatrice would attempt to break down the wall as if it was a door, but to break the wall she needed to break it as if it was a wall.

It was a contradiction, yes, Beatrice had shown the strength to break either the door or the wall, but her power seemed to work under rules that Beatrice acknowledged and followed willingly, which was why, even though her strikes had enough power to pulverise a humanoid, they only incapacitated them.

And as such, even if she wanted and had the strength to break down the wall-door, she could not since she wanted to break a door that in reality now was a wall.

"I'll be fine," Ale said with a hand on the door/wall, "Now do as your Master said."

"...that's cheating Master..." Beatrice said in a small voice, small enough that Ale shouldn't be able to hear it, and yet, she was able to hear it clearly, "You only called yourself my Master now that you want me to run to safety...."

"Will you not follow your Master's command?" Ale asked, she knew she would, Beatrice was that kind of girl after all.

"I'll do it... But you better come and see me later, I'll send you my personal information even!" Beatrice said as she ran away, Ale could hear it, somehow, the steps as Beatrice ran away, with some luck she could even find Body & Soul, finishing her mission.

Ale doubted she would find them now, more so now that she had found this.

"Now... What do we do with this..." Ale asked in a low voice, the place was filled with zombies, and then there was Meli-Meli who was at the very back, mumbling something. "Might as well..."

And so, Ale activated the [Arm-mament] on her arms and prepared her suit to activate the compressed gas cannisters as a way to boost her movements.

It was closer to what P4 had done yes, but if it was effective, why not do it again?

"Alexandra, Alexa? If either of you are awake... Right now would be a good time for you to say so." Ale said as she started looking around the room.

It was a normal testing chamber designed for combat tests.

It was quite similar to one of those that they had been fighting at the beginning, when P4 still held dominance over the body, instead of Alexa. When Ale and Alexandra weren't a thing.

It brought quite the old memories to the forefront, just like how Ale remembered that this place had traps seeded all over the place, assuming that the design was the same as the ones Ale was used to. But then again, if this place was designed by the blonde asshole and his purple woman. Then chances were that it had the same type of traps.

[Start broadcasting handshakes, seek a data entry point and hack it, do not accept any data transferences unless it has been sanitized and sent to the isolated virtual machine.]

[Order acknowledged, starting broadcasting.]

Ale prepared for the combat as best as she could, if this was anything like the normal testing chambers then there would be monitoring device embedded within the walls, and like that, if this was set up by Alexanders, then he was probably looking. Ale could use that connection to bother the asshole (Or at least pester him) so that was worth some investigation.

After setting that up, Ale was ready; it was eerie that no Zombie had attacked her while all of this was happening. Beyond the door Ale could hear Beatrice running away, how could she? Simple, she could hear the sound of walls being broken in the distance. Probably Beatrice running away and testing her powers, as she hadn't been able to break the door.

That little trick did wonders for Ale after all.

"[YOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOU!!!!]" Ale heard the scream as the zombies moved to the sides and showcased Melissandra Singh, the little girl, who was wearing a white sundress.

Oodly similar to the one that Alexa had worn the first time she escaped from the R&D, what was the deal with that?

"Hello to you too," Ale said with a smirk on her face, not that Meli-Meli could see it behind her mask.

"[Fear], [Truth], [Speak]!" Meli-Meli screamed and a wave of Mana spread around, Ale felt it trying to settle within her, and weirdly enough, she felt an oppressive feeling in her chest.

"The hell?" As soon as the oppressive feeling hit her, the presence of Alexandra bloomed at the back of Ale's mind, and the world around her slowed down. "What is this? Why is it here?"

Alexandra had returned, and accelerated the perception of time for Ale. And with the return of the older woman, the feeling of the weird foreign Mana started to fade away.

"Are you purifying the mana?" Ale asked inwardly.

"It woke me up, it tasted horrible and it seems that most of my wounds are healed." Alexandra answered within the mindscape.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"Wounds...Are you... Is Alexa awake?" Ale asked worriedly.

"Not for now, I made sure to intercept the foreign Mana as soon as it started to paralyze me, it seems it went from you to me, and from me it would have gone to Alexa." Alexandra answered, "If I had to guess Main Core used to be the first to be paratized, but he could isolate and dispose of it as he didn't hold real emotions unlike us."

So that was why they were immune? Because the first one to be affected was emotionless? Then losing him was going to be worse than Ale had expected, not only because it made them need to do his work manually, but because if they weren't paying attention, then they left Alexa...

"Wait, then is Alexa vulnerable to it?" Ale asked worriedly, "Surely... Surely [Core] would help....right?"

"Want to bet on that?" Alexandra asked, Ale could hear some strain on the voice of the older woman, "We need to finish this sooner rather than later... And... I didn't want to say it, but... we may need to [Terminate] Test Subject MS2."

"...That was always the plan," Ale answered, Meli-Meli... was too dangerous, too unstable, she would become an issue, if her power continued to grow in this way, soon it would achieve a cascading effect, as [Vulcanus] had stated. She...That no longer was [Human].

Meli-Meli was so much closer to a defective weapon than anything, no reasoning, no control, only unbridled [Hate] and destruction.

"...I'm sorry for this, I'll help you in the back, so finish it as fast as you can." Alexandra said as the world started regaining color, "I'll try to make sure that Alexa doesn't wake up, so make sure to dodge as much as you can, we can't risk Alexa waking up."

"Roger that." Ale answered aloud as the world returned to normal speed around her. "That was not very nice of you Test Subject MS2."

Ale said as she stretched her arms, that was unnecessary of course, her body was at peak condition all the time, more so now that she was in a combat setting.

"[That isn't my name!]" Meli-Meli screeched at Ale, the horde of zombies beside her screaming and wailing with her, "[I am Meli-Meli! And you are a monster! An imposter! A bad girl!]"

"...You are right on all accounts," Ale smirked as she crouched down close to the ground, lowering herself till her [Arm-mament] was against the floor, her profile was reduced to the utmost, and her legs tensed, "And we [Hunger]."

And with that, Ale emptied the gas cannisters connected to her legs, the effect was both obvious and instant, Ale was shot straight ahead towards the mass of Zombies under the control of Meli-Meli.

"[Stop the monster!]" Meli-Meli screeched as the zombies piled one on top of the other. Ale could see it with her sensors as their mana wavelength seemed to resonate between each other, increasing the density and helping to align with each other.

She didn't see how that would help them though.

"[Melancholy!]" Meli-Meli screamed as the purple weird mana around her sharpened itself into the form of a stake that went straight towards Ale, she could probably dodge it.

But she didn't; she trusted in Alexandra. Besides, dodging would change the direction of her lunge and mean she had wasted the compressed air cannisters.

"Leave it to me," Alexandra said at the back of their mind.

So Ale ignored the pain on her chest as the Mana spear sank into her body, the feeling was both fleeting and worrying, but she could already feel the fake emotion being purged away.

"[Conviction!]" Meli-Meli screeched, and Ale prepared herself, she was barely a few seconds away from impacting with the dubious-looking defense that she had formed, so whatever that emotion did would be her last attempt at stopping her.

Only...

The spikes made out of the purple mana didn't traverse towards her, instead they manifested above the zombies that Ale was about to crash against and dove into their heads. Ale could see the purple mana spreading across their bodies and condensing on their chest.

That is to say, where the [Heart] should be.

Ale wasn't sure if that would do anything, but she raised her [Arm-mament] forward and crashed against the zombies, it wouldn't be long before she-

"What the heck?" Ale said as she felt her [Arm-mament] stuck in the body of the zombie in front of her, it was as if the thing had tensed its muscles as the claw latched on them.

That... was a way to get her stuck.

"[Now! Attack the monster!]" Meli-Meli screamed from the back, her eyes now fully purple with the blood vessels in her eyes shining in red light.

"Yeah, sure, you stuck me here..." Ale said as she was unable to pull out her [Arm-mament] from the body of the zombies she had been stuck in, "But that only applies to my claws."

Ale merely disconnected her [Arm-mament] from her body and jumped back, just in time as a group of zombies had jumped from above to where she was.

Ale barely managed to dodge the brunt of it, one did manage to latch onto one of her arms, but Ale merely kicked that one in the head, crushing his head and throwing him away.

They burst as easily as a watermelon (Not that Ale had ever kicked one, but she was going by her vast knowledge in memes from her time as a variety streamer on the interweebs).

But no, that was not the issue here.

[Start secondary prompt, search how a human body was capable of achieving what just happened in this data file]

[Start transfer, Arm-mament captured.mem]

[Starting secondary calculation, do you wish to prioritize this over the search for data port access? Currently only one data port has been found. Search is at 13%.]

[....Negative, this is lower priority.]

"Do you think that is wise?" Alexandra suddenly asked as Ale continued jumping backwards as she was busy rebuilding the [Arm-mament] with the materials she had at hand and some of those from their [Banked Storage].

"Yes!" Ale answered aloud, "That doesn't affect us, but the first is a must."

"[Are you speaking with your kin Monster?!?!?"] Meli-Meli screeched, "[Surface!]"

The purple mana wavelength struck all around. Ale saw the zombies that were after her stagger for a second, their eyes no longer glassy, but the next moment a purple flash shone in their eyes, and then their eyes returned to their glassy color.

"Did that...?" Ale asked to Alexandra.

"...I think so." Alexandra answered, Ale had felt Alexandra's consciousness stream want to rise, but fortunately, their body only had one seat for the one driving. So it was pointless, unless they had a secondary body. But that was somewhat of an impossibility at the moment.

They hadn't checked if that was viable, and even if it was, what they were supposed to do with that? They couldn't explain how they managed to grow a secondary body.

Besides, their Nanites only worked within their Mana Wavelength, so the secondary body would be utterly [Human], devoid of any special ability, so it was meaningless and only put them more at risk, there was no one who would...

No wait, perhaps Alexa? But Ale somehow doubted that [Core] would allow that to pass, if anything, the new body made out for Alexa would in turn just become the new main body.

The same had happened when P4 made the original body for Alexa, the Consciousness Stream, Main Core and [Core] had left the [CRAB] body to move to that body.

So yeah, no. That wouldn't do, why would they even want a body that was powerless?

"Heh," Ale couldn't help but laugh, she would never accept that, Alexandra wouldn't either, and of course, the only one who could possibly entertain the idea would never become powerless, and while Alexa was spoiled rotten, she was a good girl, she wouldn't leave Ale or Alexandra powerless, so that meant not a single of the three would accept that.

Not under any condition.

"That was wasted Mana Test Subject MS2." Ale taunted Meli-Meli; those who had come after her were starting to struggle moving, as if their bodies wanted to betray them. A few even had started to clutch at their heads. "And it seems that it backfired even."

Ale smirked as she finished making the new [Arm-mament], "Wait a second." Ale said as she swapped the spent Air Cannister with new ones, the interior of her armor shining for a second as she spent the mana to do so, "I will solve your headache soon."

And so, Ale shot straight at those that were clutching their heads, her [Arm-mament] doing a wide slash crushing and splitting open their heads.

The blood spurted like a fountain behind her, and soon, Meli-Meli had lost eight of her zombie horde.

Not much in the grand scheme of things...

"[NoNoNoNoNoNoNO!]" But it was more of a feels thing for Ale, "[First you take away Mama and Papa! You broke them! Now you take away my new friends! They understood me better than anyone else!]"

And for Meli-Meli, it was also a feels thing it seemed, the girl was running these [Humans] dry, Ale could see the signs of organ failure in most of them, their skin turning yellow, their eyes empty and a few even had open wounds on them.

Most would die soon enough, they probably only remained active thanks to the reinforcement that Meli-Meli was doing constantly with her purple mana.

Which brought the question... Ale had thought that Meli-Meli was a [Mind core] user, but this? This seemed to go beyond even that. Alexa had taken a sample of Meli-Meli, and they had the original [Mind Core] and [Information Core] that they got from that blueprint.

But this? This was not something that should be achievable with those Core Types, something was afoot here.

And Ale didn't like it one bit.