A Bioweapon's Rhapsody

The next part was a flurry of activity, Alexa was lifted, prodded, patted, pocked, poked, and picked. Not that Alexa minded much of those, she merely stood there while she was being studied, it was normal to study an Alexa.

Considering how cute she was, that was what was to be expected.

All that time, Aunty Viv and the mom person continued talking among themselves while the nice ladies moved Alexa from one bed to the next, and sometimes to comfortable sofas with a smart screen for Alexa to see Magmo!

Magmo even followed her using the screens from one place of the laboratory to the next!

"Chief, we can't turn it off." One of the nice ladies said when they noticed that Alexa was watching Mamgo.

But why did they want to turn it off? Magmo was on the TV! And Alexa was watching it!

"Does it impede the testing?" Aunty Viv asked with a glare from the other side of the laboratory.

"...No," The nice lady answered turning to Alexa, "The patient seems to be enjoying herself and is being distracted by the livestream."

"Then let it be." Aunty Viv said shrugging, "Don't bother questioning it. We are busy over this side, if we can get one more test before Alexa gets annoyed that much better."

"...Okay...?" The nice lady said, turning to Alexa, who merely waved and turned to look at Magmo!

"Say it with me kids!" Magmo said with a bright cheery tone, "Magthulu!"

"Maghtulu!" Alexa said raising only one of her arms, the other was being poked at the moment, they wanted some blood from Alexa.

Alexa still wondered why they didn't wanted the blood that she pulled out by herself, they could save in needles that way! (As they seemed to be throwing away the used ones, such a waste!)

The nice lady merely smiled a strained smile for some reason and started sealing the test tubes and placing them in a small box that other of the [Humans] wearing lab coats moved away.

Alexa wondered what they were seeing that made them nod so much, or well. Alexa knew of course, they were marveling at how cute she was!

Alexa was coded to be the most cutestest of them all after all, from the top of her head to the center of her blood cells, all screamed cute! Alexa knew it!

Why? Because Alexa was Alexa!

"Did you run the tests again?" Aunty Viv asked as she came after a few minutes of Alexa licking the latest poke, she had seen in the livestream how Magmo laughed at a dog licking a wound to make heal it.

So Alexa was testing if that worked or not.

It didn't. But Alexa was tasty, so she didn't mind licking, even if the wound was no longer there.

"Yes Boss." The nice lady said giving Aunty Viv a set of papers with funny words on them. "Same results. She is fine."

"No," Aunty Viv said as she grabbed the papers and gave them a quick read and then passed them to the mom person. "She is not 'fine'."

"Really?" The mom person said with some worry on her voice, grabbing the papers and starting reading, "Vivian... these are all within error margin."

"They aren't just within error margins Miriam," Aunty Viv said shaking her head, "They are straight in the middle. All results, this girl here is showing are perfect."

"Yes, because Alexa is cute!" Alexa said nodding sagely at the point that Aunty Viv was saying. "It's only natural!"

"And that's an issue?" The mom person asked confused, "Isn't it good that she is fine?"

"Not fine," Aunty Viv said again frustated, "This is how an MRI should look."

Aunty Viv then pulled into one of the big screens the image of a skeleton, a human skeleton from the looks of it. Alexa knew how those looked, she had one too!

"And this is the MRI from the control group." Aunty Viv pulled a few extra images, then placed them all around the first skeleton image.

"Which one is Alexa?" The mom person asked.

"None!" Alexa answered first, "Because not a single one of those look cute!"

"Exactly," Aunty Viv said nodding, "Not the cute part, but Alexa is not there, here is Alexa."

And with another click of... actually what was using Aunty Viv to summon those images? She had no remote on her hands!

"She looks... okay?" The mom person said as the image of Alexa's skelly showed on the big tv. "I don't see the issue."

"ALBIREO highlight the wounds, abrasion, erosion, stress fractures and anything that is not normal in these pictures." Aunty Viv said aloud, and after a second or two, the images started highlighting in red spots all around.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"Like a lightshow!" Alexa pointed as more and more circles started showing up on the images.

"...Are they... sick or wounded?" The mom person said as she looked at all the circles that showed on the images.

"No, this is normal." Aunty Viv said shaking her head, "We get all kind of wounds even if we live a healthy and normal life, the scrap you got when playing as a kid, that time in the morning where you hit your feet against the table... Whenever you miss a step and fell, whenever you trip..."

Aunty Viv started saying and with the snap of her finger called a new image, this time it was a grown skelly.

"This was from when I fractured my arm two weeks ago to test the new procedure." She pointed to one of the arms, "This was from the training a month ago, this was from the car accident, this was from the failed procedure last year...."

She went through the skelly highlighting every circle that was put.

"...But you look healthy." The mom person said, "And...Alexa..."

"Has not a single one," Aunty Viv pointed to Alexa Skelly, it was devoid of any circle at all, "Which is impossible, even if she was born from a C-section, she would still have some remnants from that. They should show on her lungs as they didn't develop as well as in a normal birth."

Aunty Viv pointed to Alexa's skelly and how the chest area had no circle.

"But this girl is perfect, no wound, nothing. Even the procedure we are doing doesn't leave a blemish on her skin." Aunty Viv said pointing to Alexa's arm, "And I checked, all the blood samples were taken from the same spot. Which can't be done, usually."

"Alexa is a regeneratator and shapeshifter!" Alexa said raising her hand, "So Alexa doesn't have hurts! She removes them!"

Alexa sometimes wondered why not more people did that, it was such an easy way to deal with the hurts after all.

"Does it work like that?" The mom person asked turning to Aunty Viv. "I don't deal with Core Powers that affect the body to that degree, that is not my speciality."

"...It can," Aunty Viv said, moving, swiping the air with her hand, all the images disappearing, leaving only the Alexa Skelly. "If her power stores a sort of blueprint of her peak condition, then she could theoretically return to that state with her core powers, but that would work in one of two ways."

Aunty Viv then wrote something in the air with her fingers, or well, more like typed some on the air. Alexa didn't see anything where she was pressing though.

"Number one," The Alexa Skelly duplicated itself, "She made only one copy of a point in time and is always returning to that state, you understand why this could be problematic, I assume."

"It would mean that she is bound to the same state," The mom person said nodding, "That would make her case a bad trigger."

"Or a good one, depending on who you asked. I know a few investors who would kill for this specific brand of Core Power," Aunty Viv said shaking her head, "Option number two, she can make or store points of restoration and can move between them, that would explain what you said to me before."

"Then her case of DID would be less of DID and more of the difference of mental development?" The mom person said nodding, "Or the body dysphoria triggered the DID as a self-defense mechanism when she moved from an older to a younger form, but then she wouldn't be much of a shapeshifter and more of a limited shapeshifter..."

"But Alexa is a shapeshifter, she can shape her shift!" Alexa said raising her hand and changing the muscular density of her arm into the gorilla form that she had used so long ago, "See! Alexa has the unga-bunga arm!"

"Or option number three, she has a high-order Core Power." Auty Viv said sighing, "Either way, she is healthy as can be. The mind is your area of speciality so with that I will not dabble, as far as I can see her body is okay and there are no risk of diseases, any disease. Even the immunization we gave her disappeared within five minutes of immunization."

"And the other samples?" The mom person said.

While they had talked one of the nice ladies had come and brought Alexa a cup of ice cream, it was choco mint. Alexa didn't like it that much, but it was one of Ale's favorites (And they didn't have mango flavor). So for now, Alexa would eat it and send all the sensory data to Ale, the girl needed good things since she was suffering the sad at the moment.

Alexa would later find a mango parfait for herself.

"Those... those are more troubling," Aunty Viv said looking around, "Anyone who doesn't have Level Six clearance out!"

As soon as Aunty Viv said that, all the nice people stood and started leaving, the nice lady that had given the ice cream waved at Alexa before leaving, so Alexa waved back with a smile.

"...that bad?" The mom person asked worriedly.

"You gave me a sample of primordial matter," Aunty Viv said in a serious tone.

"Primordial matter?" The mom person asked confused.

"ALBIREO, bring the data." Aunty Viv said looking at the ceiling, "I'll shoulder the clearance requirements."

"[Requesting temporary clearance for Level Seven restricted data.]"

"Level Seven!?!?!?" The mom person said surprised. "I don't need to know that bad, I only want to know if she is fine!"

"Then you need to know this," Aunty Viv said turning to look at Alexa, "More so if you are planning to stay around this girl for long."

[Albireo: Lady Alexa, do you authorize the temporary clearance level seven to Miriam Eversoul?]

[Ah...yes?]

[Albireo: Acknowledge.]

"[Temporary Clearance Authorized, releasing Level Seven restricted data.]"

"Good, I don't need to give more allowance to the Saintsworths," Aunty Viv said, nodding, "This is primordial matter."

Then the main screen on the wall displayed a body, the body of what looked like...

"A purple-haired woman?" The mom person said.

It was the purple-haired, weird woman who was around Big Brother.

"Look," Aunty Viv said pointing at the screen.

"Subject is biologically twenty-two years old." The image shifted a little and allowed an Aunty Viv to show on screen, "The original genetic code is still a mystery and any attempt of tampering results in a cascade effect that ends up destroying the sample."

Aunty Viv continued speaking about the purple-haired woman, till at some point she stopped and looked the woman closely. She was floating in a crystal tub filled with a weird green-ish transparent liquid.

"[Warning, maximum mana entropy level achieved.]"

Then a mechanical voice sounded and Aunty Viv threw the device she was holding on the tv, she ran towards a machine and started working on it saying something to the people around.

The camera panned to see the rush of people running around and pulling cables and connecting them to the device that holded the purple haired woman.

"...Alexanders?" And among those, there he was, the blonde person that for some reason was Alexa's twin brother. "What is he doing there? His speciality does not lie in genetics...or health..."

"That is one of his pet projects, and the reason I am allowed to work on my own pet projects using Saintsworth's funding." Aunty Viv said as she pointed to the screen once again, "The information you want is next."

On the screen, the movie carried on. At some point a red alarm had started sounding and Alexanders within the image sighed and shook his head. He said something and everyone stopped moving.

Then within the next few seconds...

The purple woman started to turn into a black dust.

"She turned into... ash?" The mom person said turning to Aunty Viv.

"While it has many similarities with ash, at least in form and color. It is something else." Aunty Viv said pulling from his pocket a small bag, it had the same type of dust, "This has many similarities with soot, carbon or as you put it. Ash."

"But what is it?" The mom person asked, "And why does Alexa's secondary form was shedding it?"

"As far as we can tell, it is what makes us, you know, we humans and most animals on this planet are carbon-based life forms, right?" Aunty Viv said turning to look at her as the image on the wall paused, the frame it had paused had Alexanders standing in front of the test tube where the purple woman had been before. "When you strip us of all what keep us together, we are but motes of carbon, and so the form that ends is...our Primordial matter."

"Ash," The mom person said, then turning to look at Alexa she added, "So... whatever power MS2 had..."

"If that was indeed the result of the Core power of Test Subject MS2, then it was one hell of a power. As it made someone's integrity to collapse, something I had only seen with that weird clone Alexanders wants to make." Aunty Viv said shaking her head, "And if that was it, it makes me wonder why I didn't got the memo on it."

"As far as we could tell, MS2 was a Mind Core. There is no reason why she could make that." The mom person said shaking her head, "Wait, clone? Whose clone was it?"

"I don't know," Aunty Viv said shrugging, "I don't get paid to care about the romantic relationship of my boss."

"Romantic?" The mom person asked back, "Alexanders? Romantic?"

"It's what my subordinates say, that he is cloning an old lover. That or that he wants to make a body for a current lover who is paralyzed or on her deathbed. They can't decide." Aunty Viv said pointing behind her, "It has been the talk of those with enough clearance to join the experiments. And you know how that man gets, he will not tell us who she is or where he got the genetic code. What we know for sure is that he doesn't have it anymore, as all the data was digitized and given to us like that."

"...He wouldn't give you a sample, and would rather digitize it? Isn't that..." The mom person said turning to stare at Alexa for some reason.

"More complicated? Less efficient? More annoying?" Aunty Viv said for the mom person.

"More fun?" Alexa added since she was getting tired of not being part of the conversation.

"That does indeed sound like that annoying blonde," The mom person said nodding, "Alexa, don't grow up like that."

"Alexa will not," Alexa said sagely while nodding, "Alexa is cute, she can't be annoying. That wouldn't be cute!"

And Alexa couldn't be anything else but cute.