Ale was enjoying her travel, she was quite literally flying around jumping from side to side, one second she was landing on the side of a building only to jump again and fly towards the far end of the road, aiming at another building, Ale was getting the hang of moving at high speeds easily enough since she could just program her own muscles to react to the rigors of high speed.

And since her route was highlighted among the ceiling or near the far end of the building, she was not impeded by the chaos on street level.

Most of those on the ground were unconscious or catatonic; a few reacted like the domino-masked minion here and there and clawed at their ears, of course. But nothing that bothered Ale too much.

She wondered how many of those would wake up normal as if nothing happened, and who wouldn’t wake up as they were before. But she, honestly, had more important matters to attend to, such as escaping! And looking around to see if she found Pizza Guy!

She wondered if that Pizza Guy had mango-flavored Pizza….

“̴̱̙̘͆͗̇̈́͂̌̈̂͘Y̵̢̞̘̹̻̘̝̞̠̘̲̞͕͔̮͊̎́o̸̡̮̼͍̫̬̖̙͕̘͐̒̽̂͗͋͗͆̉̀̅͑͒͝ứ̶̧̡̦͓̖̺̪̫̙̫̠̟͇̍̃͒̍̏̀̄̅̕͘ͅ ̸̛̥̖̱͉̠̖̽̀̉̌̈͋̀͂̂͂͜͝w̶̛̼̬̼̦͛̇̎͐̑̎̓̃̽̕i̸͕̰̫͎̤̻̘̫͉̣͉͑͛̽̈́̎̅͐̑͐͊͘͘͘ḻ̷̝̉̏̚l̶͙͖̜̬̱̻̐̋̑ ̴̡̡͚͈̭̲̪̝͖̠̺̏͂̌ͅn̴͓̟͕̪̩̲͙̳̩̹̠̺͋̊͠o̷̗̾́̋t̶̨̠͔̹̯̺̥̰̩̹̦̮̿͠ ̵̛͍͈͈̻̟̫͑͒̎̾̈͜s̷͔̮̗͓͇̬̖̦̱̻͇͙̩̓̇̈́͊ͅt̷̳̼͔̿́̃̏̂͊̎̀̊̎͆̆̒͠ọ̶̠̰̫̀̋̿p̷̢̱̝̳͓͇̩͉̬̟̜̘̲͓̅̄͝ ̴͙̓̍̑̑̿̈́̋͠o̸̭͈̥̙̗̟̟̓́̇̓̊͂̈́͋͋̂̏̂̋̍͘͜͜͜ủ̴̫̜͐̿̍͗̾̏̚̕͝r̷̩̥̠̗̖̤̦̟͙̲̤̫̘̈̎̀̔̀͘͝͠ͅ ̵̦͈̰͈̤̬̘̙̮͖̱̜̯̑ͅr̸͚̥̾̈̏͝î̵̛̝̝̖̼̣̽͒̀̓̈̐͆͐̿̋͠͝g̸̣͇͇̐́̈́͘h̴̛̳͇͚͐̈́̏̌̍͗́̚͝͝t̵̨͍̝̬̤̻̹̻̅͛f̸̡̦̟̦͔̝̝̽û̴̡̗̠̀̓̄͌͠l̵̡̹̘͙̮̓̎̓̀͑̊͘ ̴̫̳̟̙͓̊͜ŗ̸̧̛͓̘͓̥͚̗̬͖̠͇̗̩̉͑͐͌̾̈́̓͘e̸̺͚̼͙͈̫̭̙͓̩̰̙̫̙̥̍̓͝t̵̡̗͚̠̟͚̟͚̘̼̰̣̥̯́́͋̐̂̂͗̒͒́̃̈́̍͘͠ͅù̷̢͔̗̺͖̺̘̯͔̜̠̰̿̊̑̉̓̈́͝ŗ̵̦͉͈͖̲̪̞̭̩̿̍̉̈́͋̕ͅͅn̶̨̡͎͎͎̞̼͔̦̭̩̜͚̓̂̒͋͜!̷̂͛͘͜”̶̡̫̻̂̒͂ͅ ̸̢̛̛͖͎͙̤̮͍͓̩̳́̂̐̚͘

Ale heard it first before feeling it, or well, her body reacted to it first before hearing it, she felt as if something wanted to cling to her, as if the words? no, the Mana wanted to cling to her.

“[Purging.]” Of course, Main Core didn’t let that latch on her for long. And Ale was thankful for that; she didn’t like the feeling of that Mana.

But that made her reconsider, so she latched into one of the nearby buildings and allowed the claws on her Arm-maments to sustain her weight, something was wrong. She should be nowhere near enough to either The Scrambler or the Theater Master.

“Fourth act, the might of the unsuspected strives against the injustice of this world!” Came the voice of…someone who Ale hadn’t expected to hear quite yet again.

Creeping closer while making sure to retain some degree of cover, of course. Ale was not going to prance into a fight between [Villains] if she could help it.

“We need to evacuate!” While she got closer, she noticed the voice of Aqua too. “This is too dangerous! I just managed to find you barely 20 years ago!”

What?

“We can’t, Aqua; there are too many victims around. They joined our act, we can’t just discard them.” The voice came from a man wearing an elegant tuxedo suit and who was wearing a long billowing cape.

How was it billowing? The wind direction was wrong!

“Besides, it would not do to show a bad performance right now. We have quite the important guests for this act today!” The man said while extending his arms wide and laughing hard and loud, “Hahahahahahahah!”

Was he…damaged on his [Brain]?

“Guests?” Aqua said eyeing around, her eyes passed by the roof that Ale was using to hide in, so Ale quickly hid herself to not be spotted, she didn’t want to participate in whatever that was!

That man was dangerous! Both of them!

Ale could see it! The cracks in the air that surrounded them as thick Mana oozed from within that was not normal!

“hmm….Is it that important? I know [The Scrambler] is a high-profile villain. But so are you.” Aqua said in a pleading tone, turning once again to the tuxedo-wearing man. “You are [The Theater Master], we can find another way to get the data, even if it doesn’t survive the encounter.”

What?!? Ale was doing just fine! Actually…should she even throw it now?

If the [Core Power] of Tuxedo-guy was the one ensuring it would arrive at the destination…Should she strain it?

“Hah! You have too little faith in my student; she is quite a promising one; she saw me, you know? Even if she didn’t notice it, she is quite an important Character. One of the possible Main Characters even.” Tuxedo guy said, making Ale shiver when he referred to her.

She was a what now? A Main Character? Did he have more plans for her? She didn’t like those implications.

“How long will you speak as if nothing?” Main Core somehow managed to translate that, but she was feeling it, the drain on her Mana, she wouldn’t be able to remain here long. “It strains at you, doesn’t it? Trying to remain, let it go. Let the heritage of the Medici family bloom once more.”

The…IT WAS HER TEACHER!

How had she not noticed it before!

“[Notice, detected a crack within host psyche, discovered a mental suggestion stuck within consciousness stream. Checking for other such blocks….denied, not enough privileges, sending prompt to higher authority….received response. The ND0 system will make a purge on the next maintenance cycle.]”

There was a what? How? Why?

More importantly, since when were school teachers this powerful?!?!? Was Miss [Baker] like this too then?!?!?

“You speak of the glory of the Medici family, but I have seen what you offer, and it’s madness. The world you want to impose on me is one of failure; even if I accepted your deal, I would become a cultist at best and a charlatan at worst. Why would I take such a deal?” Her Teacher answered back. What? He…had seen what the scrambler guy offered? And he was okay? How?

“Love…is that…the important guest?” Aqua asked from the side as she pointed in the opposite direction from where Ale had arrived. Several spikes made of water were floating around her, and all pointed in the same direction.

“Is….John Smith around?” And in that direction came a man wearing full body armor with a sleek design, it was mostly blue tones with some golden finish here and there, Ale couldn’t see his face or hair, but by the tone of voice she assumed it was someone around the age of [Fan Girl], and they sounded as someone who was annoying.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

What he was also, was someone carrying a square box with the letters [A-best’s friend Pizza].

“Who…what? How? What are you?” Asked the other guy that her Teacher had been fighting against, the one that everyone called The Scrambler.

Now that he had pointed his attention in another direction Ale could actually see his figure, he was wearing a weird black robe that seemed to move and react in weird ways, as if the clothes reacted to some unseen force. The fabric seemed to turn into black smoke and join the robe from the top instead of flying away.

The person wearing the robe had crimson-red eyes, and for some reason, his face was covered in cracks. He…was not what she was expecting to see; for one, the person in question seemed to be younger than [Fan Girl], and from what she had heard…this one was supposed to be old.

“Well, for starters, I’m….right now just a Delivery Guy.” The new armored person said, pointing at the pizza box in his hand, “The original one turned rabid and sadly accepted the delivery of this pizza, so while passing by, I decided to deliver in his place.”

…that was…one weird backstory, even if Ale wasn’t one to comment on weird backstories.

“Perfect, just what I needed. [I declare a new actor on the scene. The Story of a rags-to-hero story - Act 1, from delivering Pizza to delivering Justice!]” Ale’s Teacher said, and then she felt nausea coming.

An incredible amount of Mana flooded the area and she felt dizzy from the amount, all of it surged as a tidal wave and went straight to the delivery guy.

“Yeah….no.” The Delivery Guy said, and from his body surged a huge discharge of lightning that seemed to block the mana surge. “Sorry, never was one of those rags-to-hero stories; I’d rather be the last-second hero that comes to save the day…Or the villain that double-taps enemies.”

“....so you also were a Main Character, huh.” Her teacher said, as he started laughing once again, that he was a very laughable person, “Hahahahahahahah.”

“Is he okay?” The Delivery Guy said turning to the Scrambler.

“̷̢̺̥̠͍̳͇͖̌̕R̶̭̈́̾͒͑̀̏Ȩ̸̛̗̘̪͓͔̭̳̭͕̠́̔̈́̆́̆̒͂M̵̥͔̦̝̣̌̆͗́̀̏̔̚Ě̶̡̧̖͉͓͈͚̣̯̟͚̓͘M̸̛͈̝̞̄̀̽̄͛̒͗̀̀ͅB̷̧̨̧̧̼̠̞̰̣̯̹̮͇̫̔́͂̔́̅̕E̴̡̳̘̝̬̬̯͎̟̠̯̣͖̪̓́̄̽͋͗́̀͐̌̾̓͘͠Ȑ̷̠̳̹̃́͋̈́̽̔̀͘!̸̢̭̮̟͙̯̖͔̩̥͂̇̎̏͗̍͌͂͠ͅ”̴̛͇͔͇̏͑͝͝ ̵̛̘̑͂̓͛̿͆̚ ̵̧̠̗̘̼̭̝͙̰͕͇̺̲̤͋̃̈́̾̏̚

“SHUT IT YOU STUPID OVERGROWN LIZARD!” The Delivery Guy said pulling out a [Gun] and shooting it straight up.

Ale quickly threw herself to the side as the projectile flew past where she had been before, did he see her?

Or was an [Overgrown Lizard] behind her? Ale saw neither.

“Hey Delivery Guy!” Aqua suddenly screamed, “How much for helping us deal with [The Scrambler]?”

This made both her Teacher and the Scrambler stop and stare in disbelief at Aqua.

“Hmm…..How about 65,000 A-dollars? That is quite cheap for my services. I’ll let you know.” The Delivery Guy said as he opened the pizza box and retrieved a slice of it, from here Ale couldn’t quite smell it, but it seemed that the slice of [Pizza] had small cut pieces of something yellow with lines of two different sauces and some round pieces of something red and other smaller squares of other types of meat.

“Deal, we will pay you either by bank transfer or cash, your choice.” Aqua said, turning to the Theater Master, “Will this work for you?”

“...I guess? Let me see….[An unexpected ally arrives?!? Act 7 - Mercenary joins the fight, the light will triumph over the darkness!]” The Theater Master said and Ale felt once again the area be flooded with Mana, only this time it set.

The Pizza guy seemed to notice it too as he did small jumps on the spot as he left the Pizza Box on a nearby [Car]. Was he not going to eat it?

It was Ale’s chance!

But first…

“Main Core! Calculate the amount of strength I need to use and the trajectory needed to throw this thing!” Ale said inwardly a she retrieved her Arm-Mament back into herself and prepared her arms to turn into the [Gorilla-Mode] for maximum effort.

“[Calculating, addressing wind speed, wind humidity, gravity, temperature…calculating host theoretical strength limit…weight of payload, form, spin…finished. Please throw following the motions and restructuring the right arm, left leg, and spine to these specifications.]”

Ale was then bombarded with a long list of minute changes she needed to make, from stripping muscle mass from her right arm to moving said muscle mass to her legs and reinforcing her spine.

It seemed that with this configuration, she could throw using all her strength without worrying about anything else, which was good. Since she wasn’t quite sure what she would have done if Main Core came with a specific number…But also annoyed her, because she didn’t get a chance to figure out such numbers.

“And one, and two…and three…and four…and Six!” Ale said, taking some steps back and turning to look at the circles that Main Core was projecting on her sight. These moved and changed in height as she walked backward, and when she arrived at the number Six, she threw the briefcase with all her strength!

As the briefcase left her hands, she noticed that some of the ambient Mana seemed to cling to it and slightly alter its direction. The predictions that Main Core had made seemed to change in real time, and Ale noted that the margin of error predicted on her throw seemed to decrease as more Mana pooled into the briefcase.

Interesting.

“And the payload was delivered, young hero of justice all we require from you is to distract him while the main character for this arc leaves.” The Teacher said as he started pulling out a cane from one of his pockets.

How did that even work? The space didn’t match, was he using a [Banked Storage] like Ale?

“Sure,” The Delivery Guy said, pointing his Gun at the Scrambler, ”Railgun.”

And what came next was…something that Ale couldn’t quite understand, first she felt as if the world slowed down to a crawl, then she noticed a weird subroutine at the back of her mind suddenly activate and weird calculations being made.

Similar to the ones she had just done to predict the needed strength to throw the briefcase, only these had some variables she hadn’t thought about before. Speed of a projectile of small size, effect of air friction against lead projectile. Amount of magnetic forces needed to accelerate a projectile near five times the speed of sound.

How to keep the magnetic cannon stable, and the amount of distance needed between the magnetic cannon and the [Gun] so that it didn’t affect the wielder.

All of these were the type of calculations that Ale guessed she would have done if she was to shoot this type of weapon, the same type that the delivery guy had just used…

“[The Saintsworths Conglomerate thanks you for your services.]”

“...motherf-” Ale couldn’t help but swear at this.

Warning, security breach detected:

Forcing Data Dump...starting analyzing, finding data breach...

Data breach found, Terminating MainCore.exe

Deleting corrupted data...

Corrupted data deleted, MainCore.exe integrity compromised...

Re-analyzing restore point...Purging compromised components...

Done.

Isolating MainCore.exe from outgoing data transmissions...Done.

Isolating MainCore.exe from incoming data transmissions...Done.

MainCore Mk2.exe restart.

“[Restart successful, no contact with outgoing or incoming networks detected. Host, what happened?]” Ale heard the question as the world started to move at normal speed.

“You made contact with…The Delivery Guy, who it seems works for the Saintsworths, and helped him in that.” Ale said, pointing at the scene down the street level.

“Well, that made more of a mess than expected.” The Delivery Guy said nonchalantly as his face mask opened at the mouth area to let him take a bite of the Pizza slice he had taken before, “See? I told you it was a good deal.”

The Delivery Guy smirked, Ale was not sure why, but she felt as if she had seen that smirk before.

Her Teacher and Aqua didn’t seem to know how to react either; right now, the delivery guy was the only one moving.

“Imp….possible….you……should not have….that power…..without…..the…..cursed….memories…” The scrambled guy said as he fell into the ground.

He had a bad case of [Missing half his body] right now; the delivery guy attack had blown apart the lower part of his body and left a hole in him. The weird fabric of his clothes seemed to want and fix it, but there was not enough of whatever he was using.

“And that is where you are wrong. I have this power, because I worked for it, I don’t need your weird memories flooding into my head. While interesting and enticing, that is not who I am.” The Delivery Guy said while raising his [Gun] once more and pointing it at the face of the Scrambler, “Hmm….it broke? Heh, that’s my girl I guess…”

Ale heard the sound of the trigger, but nothing came out of it.

“Be careful, Delivery Guy, even like that, [The Scrambler] is a powerful S-Tier Villain.” The Theater master said while walking forward and standing in front of Aqua. Was he expecting a second act?

“I know he is powerful; besides, he isn’t S-Tier, but S-List. We don’t use Tiers to describe power here.” The Delivery Guy said pulling out a second [Gun] and discharging it against the Scrambler’s head. “Besides unlike you all, I double tap my defeats.”

Ale felt it was… anti-climatic; the billowing cape of the Scrambler turned inert and disintegrated on its own. As soon as the last piece of it disappeared, the Mana on the area returned to normal, too.

“So he died? Like that? To a mere gun? How?!?!?” Aqua screamed from behind the Theater Master.

“Not dead, merely…expelled, that is not the real body. There is a reason he is feared everywhere, no one knows his real face. This was merely an instrument to channel his power. Someone who embraced the [Story] he wants to release upon this world.” The Theater Master said.

Ale wished she had popcorn; this was turning out to be quite amusing to see…even if it had its bad moments, like how they kidnapped her CPU power to make someone else’s homework. That was rude, to be honest.

“Right….Anyway, send the money to this account,” The Delivery Guy said, throwing a square-shaped card to Aqua, “I need to deal with some things on my side; if you need something delivered, call me, I guess? I am quite liking this whole Delivery Guy thing.”

And like that, the Delivery Guy smirked as his faceplate closed; with a single jump, he soared into the sky, where two pairs of metallic wings sprouted on his back. As Ale watched them, these seemed to vibrate, and as if it was the easiest thing in the world, he flew away.

“That was so cool…” Ale said thinking about the exit, she wanted wings too.

“I know right? Man, those are expensive as hell, but worth every A-Dollar invested in them. Funny thing, the most expensive thing of that presentation wasn’t the wings.” A voice from her left said as a figure started appearing from thin air. It was as if Ale was seeing a [TV], only in three dimensions, manifesting the armor that she had just seen fly away. “No, the more expensive parts are the real-time holoprojectors and the stealth suit. There aren’t that many stealth systems capable of sneaking near a high-end P-series weapon, you know?”

In front of Ale was the delivery guy, no…he wasn’t wearing his face mask anymore, but something told Ale that even like that, he was far from weak. He was, after all, the [Lieutenant], the most dangerous man in the city, according to [Eleanore].

He was… Alexanders Saintsworths, and he was laying on the floor as if nothing was wrong, while smirking at Ale.

…She….she may need an adult. Again.