The alarm started sounding during lunch, which was considered the worst possible time for it to happen.
"Sir? The calls are starting to spill into the number of the workers…" And if that wasn't enough, his not-girlfriend was starting to get creative. He wasn't quite sure if this was because of his more recent advances into the neural synapsis acquired from his recent… [Core]. Or because he was that good.
"*Sigh* Fine, I was about to finish anyway." Alexanders sighed and pulled out his phone. To be honest, he had expected Sapphire to turn on the phone and blast him with a sound alarm of a dragon roar.
Sapphire had not done that. Instead, she had played along with his shenanigans and spam-called every phone in the area since Alexanders had used his privileges over the network to redirect the calls to everyone else.
"What's the matter Sapphire?" Alexanders said, deactivating the trojan he had injected on the network, letting the call connect to his earphones.
"Hello love, nothing much. By the way, your date has lined up dates in several Saintsworths love hotels for the next week." Sapphire said cheerfully into his ear.
"Of course she does; she is an actress." Alexanders answered with a shrug, "Also she is not a date, she is one of the Voice Actress of my favorite serie, I just wanted to make sure she would accept the job when they asked for a second season."
And he really liked her job as a voice actress, "Please tell me you haven't overloaded the phone network just to tell me this. I don't care much about what she does in her private life." Alexanders, against all odds, didn't really care much about the private life of others; all he really cared about was that his favorite character kept the voice he liked.
"Not really, just making sure you weren't getting your hopes up with that bitch." Sapphire giggled on the phone, this girl… "Also, your pet project is moving out. We detected several silent alarms triggering. Haephestus' Forge seems to be moving out in tandem with The Theater Master Troupe."
She was moving with the psycho? Well, that was…a dangerous thought to have.
"Yes, I'm monitoring all the vehicles and they are using the usual strategy of hitting multiple targets to diulte the defense response, so far there are eight possible targets," Sapphire said and sent an image to his terminal. The phone vibrated and so, Alexanders put it on the table.
A few seconds laters a hologram projection bloomed atop the table with a map of the city, some dots started showing on it, some reds concentrated around the middle of the map, and some blue traveling toward the red dots.
There were some dots bigger than others, "Can you identify the hostiles?" Alexanders asked as the some of the dots stopped moving while others continued.
"Of course I can darling," Sapphire answered and some names started showing on the map.
[Aqua - Villain / Sidekick, A-List]
[Gabriel - Villain / Sidekick, A-List]
[Unidentified - Villain, B-List]
[.... - C-List]
The list went on and on; Alexanders was quite surprised by the amount of power Vulcanus had invested in this one. What had that psychopath offered him to let some of his most powerful minions on it?
"Can you identify this one? How can it be a B-List Villain if we don't have any data on him?" Alexanders said pointing at one of the bigger dots, the hologram reacted and created a videofeed for Alexanders.
On it he could see a gigant creature made of rocks and asphalt, it looked like a titan or a golem from ancient myths. He understood why Sapphire had classified it as B-List, but… "That is probably a Minion," Alexanders said, looking at the creature.
"You sure? He seems quite powerful, maybe its unrelated to this event? But it felt too convenient, so I listed it." Sapphire said as a small projection of her showed on the hologram, hovering around Alexanders face.
"Yeah, where is he moving to?" Alexanders said, and the hologram reacted to his input. It showed a series of arrows pointing towards… one of the banks. The government one, not…
Oh…
"They are planning to hit our bank, aren't they?" Alexanders said smirking, now, why would they want to hit one of his banks?
They didn't have that much money on them since most of it was whisked away by the use of the private underground systems that he had set up to empty the money. No one knew of this since they still drove armored vehicles to the bank and drove away empty bags of trash.
The most expensive trash of them all.
"No evidence of that yet, love," Sapphire said as she refocused on the dots in the map.
"Any evidence of our pet project?" Alexanders asked, he needed to know what would his little gremlin would do.
"None so far," Sapphire answered. Alexanders decided that it was enough of a show for the other people in the restaurant.
So he stood up and walked out of the place, a vehicle was already waiting for him with the door open for him.
"Need a ride handsome?" A purple-haired girl asked him from the driver seat, a holographic projection of Sapphire acting as if she was driving the smart vehicle.
"Sure," Alexanders smirked as he climbed into the vehicle; the door closed on its own as soon as he was sitting, and the front windshield morphed from a normal crystal into a screen with the data of the surrounding area. The map moved towards the area of conflict that Sapphire had shown him before soon enough.
"The daughter of the Pryce family was in one of the nearby areas of conflict, but this is interesting here," Sapphire said as she pointed to a restaurant, then with the flick of her wrist Sapphire drew a line from it to the Saintsworths bank, "She is reported to have arrived at the bank, but also is reported to have entered the shelter under the restaurant."
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
That was indeed interesting, "So she either has a [Core Power] that allows her to be in two places at the same time…" Alexanders said bringing up the file of the girl, a somewhat chubby girl with a bad temper and all the signs of being the antagonist for any romance series.
"Or your pet project somehow learned to simulate the powers of a shapeshifter, a mimic class shapeshifter." Sapphire nodded from the driver seat, she had started driving around the city, going around the area of conflict.
That was… "Well, she did have some skills similar to that already, didn't she?" Alexanders said bringing up the P4 file, all the known strategies and skills she had shown.
He had thought that the crab had subsumed the body of one of the students at first, but if she instead had the skills of a shapeshifter…Well, that changed things.
Then she hadn't killed any random kid and instead had made that body from…well, god knows what.
"Hmmm… bring up the files of any known Minion or Villain that started showing in recent days, nay. Bring the data of any Minion that started moving after this Alexa girl ran away." Alexanders corrected himself, he didn't need data on the random minion, vigilante, minion, hero or sidekick.
He only needed to know what this particular crab girl had done.
"We don't have much data, the most viral thing that appeared was a video of Chrysalis killing another Minion, but the video data from her suit shows some weird data, here." Sapphire brought a new video, this time it was not of a little girl, or even a teenager, instead it was of a woman roughly around his age.
On the video Chrysalis had encased the woman into one of his shells to inmobilize her, and the woman started crying about being hurt only for her body to be severed in half.
Chrysalis had stopped moving for a few minutes as the woman crawled into a sewer and threw herself in, the video feed had sound, so Alexanders heard the crack as the body hit the ground.
Chrysalis then used the equipment made for the disposing of mutants or uncontrolled Insect [Core Users], a little overboard if Alexanders was to be asked.
"Yeah, that is one extreme use of the skills that P4 showed on the combat test, and perhaps a little too much if you ask me," Alexanders said grimacing as the video started once again.
This time, Sapphire took the time to show the discrepancies in the video, "Here, you can see the force field keeping form even though the body is starting to compress itself." And sure enough, with the augmentation from Sapphire's program, it was easy to see.
The girl had played Chrysalis like a pro, and then ran away while she was panicking, not from guilt of course, that one was also a psycho, instead Chrysalis had been too surprised to react in time. And when she did, she did the usual and instead had attempted to clean the evidence.
The problem had been because someone had reported the incident with this video, and while Alexanders could see the evidence of her innocence, it didn't mean that anyone else could, since there was problematic data on it, such as Chrysalis throwing a bomb to deal with the corpse.
If there was a corpse down there that is.
"Do we have telemetry from that thing?" Alexanders asked pausing the video when Chrysalis took the bomb, "That one is made by one of our subsidiaries right?"
The bomb had an interesting design, Alexanders was half sure that it was from them.
"Nothing shows up darling, this psycho was not deemed important enough for monitoring, she kills too often and isn't expected to succed SuperForce, if she was expected to achieve those levels of powers then maybe…" Sapphire brought Chrysalis' file and her normal levels of powers that she had been shown to demonstrate, which were nothing too impressive, just barely enough to be a threat.
But that was about it; her principal worth was the fact that she could help them make new artifacts with some money, unlike SuperForce, or the most powerful A-List heroes.
"A shame, any data on the minion that we suspect is Alexa?" Alexanders asked, rewinding the video once again and focusing on the woman.
"Hmm….it is logged as Rhapsody on the database sent to us by Vulcanus," Sapphire said bringing a new data folder, this one had some extra data, namely, other two pictures.
"So she wasn't…" Alexanders was about to say that this Rhapsody wasn't Alexa, when he noticed some on the images and zoomed into the pictures, "...is…is this girl pretending to be her own legal guardian?"
The photos showed three different people, the first was the girl that had walked out of the weapon's development facility. Alexandra Saintsworths.
The second photo showed a girl a little older and taller, the file refered to her as Alexandra Saintsworths.
Then, lastly, the young woman who he had seen wounded by Chrysalis, disfigured, and then who had thrown herself into a sewer, also named Alexandra Saintsworth.
"Oh, there is an update on the files; let me load it," Sapphire said, and the data on the three girls changed.
"...really?" Alexanders said sighing, "Alexa Saintsworths, Ale Saintsworths and Alexandra Saintsworths? That is the update?"
It was ridiculous of course, the three were the same, it was just as if he decided to dye his hair and start using a new name. No one would believe that, just as how he wouldn't believe.
"There is a note on the HR's database; it seems they suspect her to have DID, and the note claims that she has at least five identities, each with their own personality and some of them sharing memories between each other," Sapphire said as she brought the extra data file to the front.
DID?
"So she is cultivating multiple identities, huh? Wonder how that came to be." Alexanders didn't see any reason for that…Unless Alexa was pretending that her (Probably) terrible social skills were from having DID?
That was quite the rude statement, having that didn't meant one was socially inept…or so Alexanders thought, he didn't had that particular problem, he had ego problems, some pride problems and maybe (MAYBE) some megalomania problems, but not DID.
"Perhaps P4 is attempting to garner pity?" Sapphire chimed from the side, she had parked the vehicle somehwere, Alexanders had stopped caring about where he was going while reading the file that Vulcanus had made about Alexa.
"Pity? Alexa? Why would she even need that? She only needs to subsume the data needed from some random target and she should get all needed to integrate into human society, she has no need for pity." Alexanders quickly threw that idea out of his mind, it was honestly, quite ridiculous that something that he had made would even attempt to garner pity from others.
He had no need for pity, so why would one of his creations need it?
"But can she do that?" Sapphire said turning to look at him, "Her Ai Core is it good enough to parse the human emotions?"
…Could the ND0 system do it?
"It should….?" Alexanderes said unsure, "It should be able to do it, the AI Core should be able to grow and adapt as needed, and if she is using a human form, then the AI Core should be able to use the extra brain matter as extra ram to parse everything. She should be using the human brain as a translator, so it should be doable."
At least if she was using the brain as external hardware, but there was no reason why Alexa would be reunning her OS from the human brain while using the AI core as subsidiary. That would be stupid.
"And were we are anyway?" Alexanders said as he started noticing people running outside of his vehicle, they seemed like quite in a rush.
"We are a few blocks away from the State Bank, the probable target. And this one had one of the government banks nearby, so in case their true aim is elsewhere, we can get there in time, too." Sapphire said, opening an extra compartment at the back.
Alexanders wasn't surprised by that, mostly because he was the one who had put all the hidden compartments on his vehicles; it was a nice way to get stuff while traveling without sacrificing too much. Also, it made it easier for him to get his things from point A to point B.
It was quite surprising the degree of things a crazy person would do to get his hands on stuff Alexanders had used; at the beginning, it was flattering; after some time, it was annoying, and right now, he only wanted to burn and cut those people's hands.
As for what the things that Sapphire brought….
"A bodysuit armor, a pair of handguns, a tool belt, and an assault rifle?" Alexanders said checking the package. "You don't pull punches, huh."
"The best for the most handsome man on this planet," Sapphire winked at him from the front and never once pretended to look anywhere else; of course, since she was a hologram, it was a pointless gesture. Sapphire was looking at him from the cameras and not from the projected eyes on her smiling hologram, which eyed him with hunger.
Had it been a real woman, Alexanders would have feared for his dignity and purity (Because of course he had purity, he was no debauchery dragon as some implied of him), but since Sapphire was a program. And AI, he was safe.
Even if the girl was acting up more and more human with the days that passed by, her current AI Core had grown by leaps and bounds since he started using his [Core Power] to further his research on the [Consciouness].
Perhaps he was walking closer and closer to terrain that was not meant for humans… Not that he would stop.
"Right…well, I'll suit up then I guess, keep an eye on Alexa and the members of the [Theater Troupe]." Alexanders said as he started undressing and wearing the skintight undersuit, "Patch the local police calls that are dealing with this event, and the hero networks. I guess it is time for my debut as…will it be a Hero or a Villain in this case?"
"Of course it will be whatever you want," Sapphire chimed from the side, "Not like they will be able to stop you, even if your power is being a magnet the might of the Saintsworths can't be denied."
…He was not a magnet.
While most people with his power would never be able to get above C-List, he was not most people, movies and tv always made up those with elemental powers strong powerhouses, but on the real world, having these powers required a great amount of control and knowledge about physics…
Unless your power was bullshit and included instincts that worked as a crutch for you, his powers also included those crutchs of course, but he had verified and rather used his own means to confirm that these instincts were correct.
He would not be average.
He would not be played by his own [Core Powers].
If there was something that Alexanders hated more than anything was someone else telling him what to do and how, he would remain himself.
He would be himself and would not allow anyone else to dictate what he was or who he was.
Not his nightmares, not the masses, not the politics, the board of directors, his father, or his clan.
The only one who could decide what or who Alexanders Saintsworths was or would be. Would be himself and no one else.
"Have I told you how handsome you look in that tight skinsuit?" Sapphire chimed from the side.
Well, perhaps he could allow his personal AI to have some opinions about himself, "Of course, I am Alexanders Saintsworths." Alexanders answered as he stepped outside the vehicle, the helmet on his head coming up to the light as it went through the multiple diagnostics to ensure everything was okay.
And a small Sapphire manifesting on his lenses, "Make sure my alternated name is not being used by anyone, wouldn't want the heathens to be confused when I present myself." Alexanders smiled under his helmet, this next part?
This would be where the fun would start.