-Were you hurt in the incident?

Was Alexa hurt? No, she was not, but did it account for the damage done to her programming and her psyche? Surely that didn’t count… right?

She did not think so, so she let that in the [No] zone. Next!

-Was your identity compromised at some level?

That one was easy; no one knew she was a BioWeapon, so no! Alexandra signed that with a happy [No], and even if that was the case in some future, she could just change her appearance…

“NO!”

….Or kill anyone involved in that event, that would also work.

-Was it your fault or any member of Haephestus’ Forge at fault for the incident?

This one was tricky, Alexa was technically at fault, since the incident occurred when she Perceived whatever the [Teacher] was doing, but she didn’t really think it could be helped, so it wasn’t like she did it consciously, and Alexandra believed that Intent mattered in this case. So she ended up thinking about it and settled in a No for this one too.

-Have you taken into consideration what happened, and how can you prevent it from happening in the future?

Yes, Alexandra wrote as much, followed by: ‘We will prevent Alexa from perceiving or staring too much into cracks from within reality as possible. Any future interaction will be logged and isolated as fast as possible to prevent future bleedthrough.’

That was the best Alexandra could do, and the limit of what Main Core could achieve without having full access to the whole [Code], Alexandra did think about engaging further into her own [Code]...

“[Requesting access to mainframe of P4.db.]”

“[Access denied, no main administrator credential found.]”

That was all she got back from it, the fact that she hadn’t noticed it before was…worrying, but also understandable, Alexa left plenty to Main Core to manage…The same could be said of Ale and herself… They would need to find what was needed to acquire the necessary administrator credentials to access this part of the Code. As far as Alexandra understood…

Alexa was the main administrator, but even so, she didn’t have the correct credentials. That was weird. Hadn’t Main Core declared them main administrator before? Or was this another set of credentials?

Either way, she needed to finish this before delving into that.

-Will this affect in some way or form Haephestus’ Forge?

That was easier to answer: No. This should have no ramifications whatsoever to [Haephestus’ Forge]; if anything, they shouldn’t even be aware of it. At least not unless Alexandra declared it.

Actually, if not for the fact that [Skye] had been present, Alexandra would not have thought about reporting it to such a degree.

-Describe the incident.

This one was…harder to achieve, how does one explain seeing a fractured reality?

Alexandra went for something along the lines of: ‘While undergoing the assignment for the day (Going to school), Alexa interacted with unknown phenomena. She perceived the fracture of what could only be interpreted as reality as her perception of the world was twisted into seeing more than one representation of someone.’

Alexandra reread it, and while she nodded her head about what she had written, she found that it didn’t do justice. So, at the side, she made a small drawing of the recorded image. The face of the [Human] that was her Teacher twisted into multiple faces, one smiling, one laughing, one crying, one screaming, one angry, one sad, one happy….

It was a representation of madness.

Then afterward, she continued writing: ‘Alexa was particularly badly affected by this twisting of her perception and ended experiencing a corrupted memory of another life where she had a [Mother], [Brother] and even an [Aunt]. While there is no evidence of these memories being real or accurate, she was able to return to normal functions after merely one hour of being in that state thanks to help from [Skye Venti] and her own use of her [Core Powers.]’

At this part Alexandra was doubtful about whether she should add an addendum about how it had been [Main Core] the one to achieve returning everything to normal, but decided against it and instead added: ‘Further work was made to isolate these corrupted memories for further analysis at a later date, they are available for perusal at any time.’

Yes, that should do it.

-Name of Worker.

Alexandra just signed it as ‘Alexandra Saintsworths’ and checked to ensure she had written everything; a quick scan confirmed that she hadn’t skipped any section nor was missing too many details.

She didn’t add how [Skye] had found her crying while hugging a tree, for example, which made it look as if she was unstable and a liability after all; she also didn’t mention [Main Core] or even anything else about how she had done during classes. As that wasn’t relevant to the incident report.

So with that out of the way Alexandra was ready, now she only needed to wait for-

“Alexandra? Eleanore is ready for you.” That, she only needed to wait for that. The secretary called her to go, “Did you finish the report? I can tell her if you need more time.”

“No it’s fine, I was just doing a double check.” Alexandra said standing up and taking the extra paper she didn’t use back to the desk, the secretary (sadly) took it back and nodded to Alexandra.

“Okay then, good luck with your meeting. The big lady has been in a good mood today, so you should be fine.” And the other blonde said reassuringly, “It seems her pet project didn’t cause problems today; you should have seen it yesterday. All day making calls….”

….Or maybe not.

“Thank you,” Alexandra said, sighing; thinking back on it, it made sense; Alexa did make a scene yesterday. Even though Alexandra didn’t see any problem with the resolution or how it had gone through.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

But the fact that [Eleanore] had apparently been busy thanks to that event didn’t make her feel good, that meant that either she didn’t do a good job during the [Test], or that she had done a little [Too Good].

She didn’t need either, doing too well meant the difficulty on her [Tests] may spike, and doing too bad meant that she wasn’t [Useful]. She needed to be in the middle, just a little above average but not too much.

*Knock Knock*

“Come in.” [Eleanore] answered almost instantly, had she [Percieved] her?

“[Mental offuscation is in process, no mana wavelenght detected.]”

Main Core hadn’t detected anything probing her defenses, and the passive conversion to machine code within her [Brain] should have prevented any peek at her thoughts. So how had [Eleanore] known to answer her to come in?

“Hello [Eleanore].” Alexandra said walking into the office, she noticed [Eleanore] was taking a small sip from a cup of steaming liquid while reading some [Papers].

“Oh, hello Alexa.” She said as she put down the papers and turned to look at her, “What can I do for you?”

“In this form, it's Alexandra, we are attempting to make a divide between our [Stages],” Alexandra answered as she took a seat in front of the desk. “And [Skye] told us about the meeting with the [Incident Reports], so here is one from us.”

Alexandra said as she placed the [Papers] she had filled.

[Eleanore] arched her eyebrow and took the papers, as she said “Separating your system-pals huh. That is a good step forward.” Was that what Alexandra was doing?

She didn’t think so, it was mostly so she wasn’t getting other people confused when speaking about her. It was already a hassle when someone said Alexa while speaking about her [Young Woman] stage, not her [Teenager Stage].

“...*Le sigh*” [Eleanore] stopped reading for a second and turned to look at her, exhausted. “So, are you okay? Is…how do we call your younger form?”

“Alexa is the [Child Stage], Ale is the [Teenager Stage] and I am Alexandra, the [Young Woman] Stage.” Alexandra said, raising a finger with each name.

“I see, so then this incident report is for Alexa…Am I reading this correct? You already dealt with the problem?” [Eleanore] said reading further into the document.

“Yes.” Alexandra answered while nodding, “We isolated the memory using our [Power] into an empty [Mind Core] and set up a [Firewall], we are slowly trying to crack the encryption but we are having-”

“Wait, you made a Mind Core?” [Eleanore] stopped her in that phrase, “Do you have a secondary Mind Core?”

“...I did not achieve the [Catalysist] for a [Secondary Core Power], what I did is I made a [Mind Core] using the [Blueprint] from Melissandra.” Alexandra answered raising her finger and burning some materials from her [Banked Materials] and materialized a small marble with pink accents. “This is a copy of the [Mind Core] that Melissandra Singh was using.”

[Eleanore]’s eyes blazed in blue light as Alexandra felt the wave of mana crash into her body and scour her as if to search for the smallest sign of [Lie].

“Truth.” Only to return that back.

“Why would I lie?” Alexandra asked, she was quite confused about it.

“Can I have that, please?” [Eleanore] asked extending her hand. “As for why…I do not know, but what you have shown me isn’t possible. No one should be able to do this.”

“I can, thanks to my [Core Powers]; as soon as I know what the composition of something is made, I can make it.” Alexandra answered while extending her hand and letting the [Mind Core] drop into [Eleanore]’s hand. “Also, these disappear when away from me.”

Or at least should, the newest blue screen seemed to imply that they could remain so long they had [Mana]. She would need to check on that, perhaps making a double layered [Core], internal of [Mana Core] and external of [Anything else Core]?

“I see…” [Eleanore] said playing with the small marble, only for the thing to burst into blue crystal dust after a few seconds. “And there it goes…the answer to most doubts about what a Core is…”

The what?

“Don’t you all know what these things are? Haven’t they been around for some time?” Alexandra asked, she knew they had some information about them.

They had at least two to three different theories about them roaming about after all, from the one that [Frank the bettle] had given her to the one [Gabriel] and finally, the one Sam had given her.

“We…know some stuff, we can confirm other…But for example, you can explain how Vulcanus is what he is using the association theory. He became what he is because of where he was when he trigged.” [Eleanore] said in a small voice, “But that does not apply to me or Gabriel. We are closer to the Wish theory…I…I have this power because I didn’t like how the people lied to me. And Gabriel wanted…well that is personal.”

…That is anticlimactic.

“So you say, then does that mean that if I want to show this I can’t say my [Core Power] is of a [Shapeshifter]?” Alexandra asked, she….didn’t want to change how she behaved, not that many people would know about this part of her.

Only Sam and [Eleanore] needed to know, perhaps she could allow [Vulcanus] and [Billy] to know. But beyond that? She didn’t see a reason for anyone else to know.

“You make harder questions, this feels more like something more exotic than normal Shapeshifting, that would move you away from Miscelaneous Core Users into Exotic Core users. Just like Gabriel or myself.” [Eleanore] sighed as she said that, “And to be honest…I don’t want Alexa to be labeled as that, not yet at least.”

What? Why not?

“Wouldn’t this increase the value of Rhapsody?” Alexandra asked confused as she poked at her mask. “This would mean that it is more valuable to hire me, right?”

“Yes, but you are already being a headache as it is, and you have only debuted.” [Eelanore] sighed, again, as she pulled a notepad and showed a video. The video's title was ‘Chrysalis Killing another non hostile Minion.’ “Your video got leaked into the populace.”

That…was problematic.

“Yeah, we are tracking the leak, but here look.” [Eleanore] clicked on the tablet and showed another video, ‘Official response from Chrysalis PR team.’

“[We have not found any evidence about any deceased with the alleged wounds within two weeks of the timeframe the video in question indicates. We believe this to be propaganda against an outstanding member of our society. Chrysalis has continuously given generous donations to multiple charities across the city. No supervillain organization has claimed the deceased, nor has anyone come forward to report the death of this alleged Minion. If someone does come forward we are willing to show the video evidence of the Super Suit of Chrysalis, that will be all.]”

“The bastards, they know that no one will come forward since doing so will expose their identity to one of the most vindictive Heroes in town. Also they will also demand the full video from the Minion of the event. Which can’t be provided since she burned it all.” [Eleanore] spat as the video showed other nonimportant interview.

Alexandra would search for that video later.

“I can try and reproduce the video data from the encounter.” For now, Alexandra said that.

“You can what?” [Eleanore] asked confused, “How? The suit was destroyed, and more importantly, you didn't have any camera on that Body Suit, or are you talking about doing a one-woman show changing your body to make both actors? That will not work, no shapeshifting is that good.”

“The same way I move my memories to seal the corrupted ones in a [Mind Core].” Alexandra answered pointing at her head, “Anything I can remember I am able to move around, if I know the [Blueprint] for a [Digital Storage Device] and how it looks when any type of data is input, I can manually imprint the data there.”

Really, Alexandra could already do that, but it wouldn’t make sense for her to know it using the [Background] she had been assigned. But if she made an excuse right now…

“So if we get you blueprints about Data Banks and how they look with footage…” [Eleanore] said buying into her narrative.

“Then I can save those memories into it and make a spare of the situation.” Alexandra confirmed.

“...that is not something a Shapeshifter should be able to, this is closer to…Molecule shifting? No… Technomancy mixed with Shapeshifting? That makes what your Core is even more intriguing, perhaps it is closer to a Technomancer / Shapeshifter? But how?” [Eleanore] said mumbling to herself, “What kind of Wish could make this? Or are you closer to Vulcanus? Did they set you up in a situation where not having this kind of skill set would put you in danger?”

That was…awfully close to the truth.

“Even so, we need to test it first to know if it even works,” Alexandra said, somewhat regretting this. Thinking it further, if it did work, it would mean that she could theoretically give any memory at any point in time.

So what if they asked for her first memory? It would mean giving visual recordings of her life at the [Test Site]...

“Yeah, here take this.” [Eleanore] said pulling a [DataBank] similar to the one the school had given her, only this had the emblem of a gear with a white mask similar to the helmet of [Vulcanus].

Alexandra took the thing and sent tendrils extending from her hand into the [Device].

Notice:

Analyzed new blueprint data, found new blueprint...20%...30%....50%....Found correlation to current storage method....comparing.... analysis finished.

Data Bank:

A primitive way to inefficiently store data in a primitive format, advised that host doesn't use this one. These methods are weak against high voltages and degradation over time.

Additionally, found new types of data formatting that match these devices: MP4, MPG, MOV, AVI, MKV, WMV, FLV, WebM, MPEG, 3GP, OGV, M4V, VOB, ASF, RMVB, MTS.

No advantage is found in using these; conversion to these formats requires extensive processing power. Current conversion into these formats includes 1 minute of storage of the host into 5 Geopbytes.

Yeah…this was compatible with her format and while she would need to convert the video recording into another format, it was…doable. Not any of her memories as she saw them, but with some tinkering, she could probably downsize the quality and aspect into something doable.

“So? Is it viable?” [Eleanore] asked looking intently at her, Alexandra noticed the blue light behind her eyes ready. So she couldn’t [Lie]...

“I can give you the [Footage] from the point of view of any [Camera] set on my [BodySuit], but giving you the files from memory is impossible without converting it. The format is different.” Alexandra answered as she gave back the [DataBank], she of course had fixed the tiny holes made from her tendrils as she retracted the [Nanites] back into her body.

“So then asking for memories of your parents or what they did to you are out of the window huh…” [Eleanore] said shaking her head, “Yeah, probably a bad idea to make you relive those moments anyway.”

….Dangerous.

That would, without a doubt, expose her true identity as a [BioWeapon]. That had been a save, “So I will ask Billy to add a camera to your suit from now onwards, go ask him for the updated one when you leave.” [Eleanore] said sending a message from her [Phone].

So, was that all?

No, she still needed information about the new [Job].

“And about that new [Job] that [Skye] keeps talking about?” Alexandra asked turning her attention back from the [DataBank] to [Eleanore], the woman grimaced at the statement.

“Yeah…that….to be honest, your video is part of the reason why we haven’t…told you much about this job.” [Eleanore] sighed and turned to look at Alexandra, “And the reason why we are moving forward giving you cameras even though you are still quite new and haven’t caused problems for us.”

Wait…the [Camera] was for problematic [Members]?

“So what’s the problem? Did I showcase less [Skill] than desirable for someone on my [PowerLevel]?” Alexandra asked, she would need to up her allowance of muscle mass if that was the case.

“Quite the opposite, someone wants you specifically for this job.” [Eleanore] said as she pulled out a small card, “You were nominated for this work by ‘The Theater Master.’ “