As soon as Gabriel teleported inside (She would check later on the limits of that type of [Core Powers], the fact that he could teleport from somewhere else inside here was something Ale wanted) the door got shut.

And as if to make it obvious that no one else was allowed in, Gabriel pulled out his [Gun] and shot light stakes into the door making sure no one could open them. Ale was very intrigued about whether she could take a sample of the hard light material that was now embedded into the doors.

“Okay, that solves the issue about late arrivals.” Gabriel said as he took in everyone that was attending, “So, raise your hand if you already know who The Theater Master is.”

And so more than half the minions around here raised their hand, or to be precise, only Ale and some other outliers didn’t raise their hand.

“As one would expect, now keep that hand up if you have worked with him.” Gabriel added, this time however more than half lowered their hand, Ale noticed that the only group of minions that kept their hands up was the Dark Magical Girl alliance group. “Well, this will be a wild ride for you all, but first. Fairy Team, front and center!”

That surprised Ale, not so much [Golem] or [Sylph], either way. The three-man team stood up and walked to the front; a couple of chairs were open, so they sat there.

“You three are the lucky ones, since you got nominated for this job.” Gabriel said with a smirk on his face, “Now this means that The Theater Master asked for your team to participate in this new job.”

Yeah, she had heard that before.

“What is expected of us on this job?” [Golem] asked, the always steady mass of rock; he was not intimidated by the presence of Gabriel in the least.

“Of you? To rip open some vaults and to look as a scary mindless mass of rocks.” Gabriel answered, “For those of you that aren’t aware of who The Theater Master is, he is a high stakes Super Villain.”

Gabriel started his presentation, as he started speaking a projection of a man with stripes of white hair on his head showed on the wall. He wore the same clothing style as Mr Pig, only his clothes seemed pristine and well groomed.

“He is what we call an Eccentric case; he is famous for his ridiculous crimes and mostly weird targets.” Gabriel continued speaking as the projection changed from the well-dressed man to different buildings, “Last year, his most famed crime consisted of turning a lake into Jello.”

The image of a green mass of what seemed to be an amorphous object was shown on the projection. Ale found it quite interesting and wondered what the practical applications of such a crime were.

“Then before that he stole a museum…” The next image was a projection of both an empty plot of land and another of a building, “As in the whole Museum…he left behind all the painting, sculptures and items of the museum in organized crates according to their suggested new museum…”

So he quite literally stole a museum…

“And of course the biggest work so far…The replacement of Mount Rushmore, they either haven’t caught on it yet or don’t want to raise panic, we aren’t quite sure what it is.” Gabriel then showed the image of a mountain range with what seemed to be five [Human] faces carved on the side of the mountain. Was this a [Human] thing? Ale didn’t see the reason why they would do such a thing.

“Yes?” Gabriel suddenly stopped talking and pointed at one of the Minions at the back, it was one of the ones standing with [Snout Face].

“Is he a cartoon villain?” He asked making those near them giggle and laugh at the tone and words he used.

Gabriel for his part didn’t seem to laugh with them, nor most of the other minions that had raised their hands before.

“No, he is an honest to God Super Villain. Does anyone here know the difference between a normal criminal, a villain, and a Super Villain?” Gabriel asked to everyone.

No one quite seemed to want to raise their hands to answer that question, or no one till [Sylph] got annoyed and raised her hand. It seemed that she had the answer and hadn’t wanted to answer.

“Go ahead Sylph.” Gabriel said pointing to [Sylph] letting the attention focus on her, she was even focused by a ray of light and everything.

“A Criminal is someone who commits wrongdoings, be it petty theft, armed battery or murder.” [Sylph] started first with the criminal role, these seemed to be what they had done on their first job though, they had stolen things and had done a crime while being armed.

Also Alexa had technically killed someone, so was she a criminal?

“A Villain is someone who does all of these while using Core Powers or superhuman feats. Usually, anyone with some degree of power qualifies for this denomination, not only Core Power Users.” [Sylph] then added to her explanation, so that would make Alexa not a criminal but a Villain? “We Minions are not under these denominations since we are considered more of an accessory to a crime than the criminal or villain itself.”

Or not, Ale had been a Villain for quite the small amount of time.

“And finally, a Super Villain is someone who commits a crime that can affect many people and has some degree of theatrical flare to their crimes. They don’t steal warehouses during the night, but go straight to steal the goods from a Mall in the middle of the day, they don’t fear going about duking it out with other Heroes or Villains.” [Sylph] added to her explanation, so… a Super Villain was a really inefficient Villain? “They are by definition more powerful than normal Villains since they don’t need to mind their actions.”

That seemed counterproductive, if they had more power couldn’t they just go to more secure targets? Why bother with…these silly shenanigans.

“Precisely,” Gabriel said, nodding his head, “To add to this, not all supervillains or villains are made the same. Both Vulcanus and Scorcher are technically Super Villains for example, and anyone that has been near Scorcher can attest that she doesn’t move as Vulcanus does.”

That was the understatement of the century.

“And what does this mean for The Theater Master?” [Sylph] asked at the side, “Is he really a Mind Core User or not? What’s his deal. We deserve to know at least that much if we are to work for him, or even near him.”

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

This seemed to bring the attention from everyone into Gabriel, everyone seemed intent on knowing this small point of interest, even Ale was interested at this point, she wanted to know or find new ways to identify possible [Mind Core] users. If she got more samples perhaps she could streamline more her [Mind Core] and accelerate her debugging of the Weird-Alexa memory.

“He isn’t a Mind Core User, or at least as far as we can confirm.” Gabriel said sighing, “But no one will ever believe that, his Core Powers allow him to make a Set for his Act, and everyone that is within that area either acts willingly towards achieving that goal or becomes a part of his props in his Act.”

….what?

“What?” Ale couldn’t help but voice her doubts, “So…all those under the effect of his [Core Powers] turn into Puppets?”

That….that sounded like a [Mind Core] user to Ale at the very least, it was close to what Meli-Meli had attempted to do to Alexa, and what she had done to the other students.

“Not in the sense that you are putting it.” Gabriel said massaging his temples, “You will get it when you are there, or you won’t. Depends on how strong you are, for example a normal Mind Core User should be able to try and worm his way into making me obey him, but I would detect it thanks to my mental defenses and either fight it or teleport away.”

That seemed like a convenient power to have, just teleporting away from anything that he couldn’t deal with.

“[Envy]”

“But with The Theater Master, all I get is a rough feeling about where the Act begins and ends, some loose commands from the Maestro of the play, and some idea of who the actors are and who the extras are.” Gabriel seemed to want to explain what it was, but couldn’t get the correct way to input that into words.

“That is exactly what it is,” Only for a new voice to sound, the one speaking was a woman with blue flowing hair, she was fairly small and petite and probably only a couple centimeters above Ale even. So she was very small. “Your work is that of an actor Gabriel and that is what we expect of you, your power is what grants you that leeway…”

The woman turned to look at everyone else, “As for you lot, you are extras,” She said turning to stare at the Minions.

Ale got the feeling that the [Woman] was constantly emitting a low wave of Mana Emissions, but couldn’t quite place what they did, “Except for you of course,” But she didn’t have enough time as the woman turned to Ale, “You will be one of the main actors of this Rhapsody.”

What?

[Skye] was the first to react at that singling out “We are teams, so whatever you want for Rhapsody will include all of us, but as we heard Golem here will be on mayhem role so do you expect us to add to the mayhem?” That was a valid point; Ale was fairly sure that she could create some mayhem, too; she just needed enough biomass to make a buffier version of herself, perhaps a two to three-meter version of herself bulging with muscle.

That ought to be enough…

“Hmm….Ah yes Sylph, you are marked as a possible Actress… You will be given overwatch duty and support, all is here.” The woman said snapping her fingers and after that Ale heard the sound of wheels behind, so turning to look back she found a group of Minions with Domino masks walking in with small wheeled carts. Each one of them carried a stack of papers and started handing them out.

“These are your scripts for the Act.” The [Woman] said as the Domino Minions handed the paper bundles to the black mask minions and the occasional white mask. “Memorize them and then burn them, we will have someone on duty to solve doubts as needed so I only need you to memorize the first five pages, if you can memorize everything that will be for the best.”

Only five? That seemed… counterintuitive; these things were at least 100 pages long.

“Here is yours Rhapsody and Sylph,” The [Woman] said handing a pair of paper stacks to both Ale and [Skye], “And yours too big guy.”

And after she handed a single sheet of paper to [Golem].

“Destroy all the vehicles in front of the bank, then spend the next half an hour roaring and destroying any vehicle that gets too close?” [Golem] said as he read the sheet of paper, it only had that phrase.

“Yes, that is all we need for you, is it possible to increase your size? if possible we will provide the required material.” The [Woman] said as she looked up and down [Golem].

“Yes, we have a table with that data. It should be on his personal folder we sent your way Aqua.” Gabriel said from the side as he took a package for himself, “I assume my job is the same?”

He did read some words from the first page, only for his package to turn into motes of light that flew into his head….what?

“Yeah, sounds about right…Also do you really think I could stop a speedster? I may teleport at the speed of light, but that does not mean I am that fast.” Gabriel asked to the woman, Aqua.

“We only need you to distract them and if possible injure them, just give us time to set up the H-Horde.” Aqua answered turning once again to Ale and [Sylph]. “As for you, please read your package and ask any questions you need.”

The first one to react was [Skye] who started reading the first pages, “....This is…doable yes…” She said as she continued reading. [Skye] seemed angry about the fact that she was not finding anything to complain about.

On her side however, Ale took her package and stared at the bold letters on the first page.

[Book 1 - Act 4, To steal or not to steal.]

That was…overly dramatic yes.

Alexa turned it to the next page only to find [Actress, Rhapsody]. With a small drawn figure of herself waving at her. Cute.

The package contained mostly miscellaneous data about the place they would act in, it was a bank, a place that was designed to house the money people saved, be it from their wages or money that was gifted to them, it was one of these institutions that [Haephestus’ Forge] used to pay them too.

The package included some reassurances that the bank in question was not the one they used to pay them or that the bank in question was one used mostly by the high strata of society. Those were some weird reassurances all around; even so, Ale needed to know what her role would be.

So she kept reading, the third page included an index about what data would be found within this pack, and like so Ale had already red three of the minimum five pages…

What?

The fourth page had a small introduction about who this [Theater Master] was and what his mission statement was.

“[The World is my Stage]”

….weird statement if Ale was someone to say, then she finally got into the biomass of this deal.

“Let’s see…” Ale said as she finally laid her eyes on the fifth page, “...A questionnaire?”

That was what was on the fifth page, some questions about if she could shapeshift into several [Humans], then a mention to check the addendum, and sure enough at the other side of the page was a small list with pictures, weight, skin color, eye color, hair color, names, blood type, everything that one could ever need…

Or so it said at the bottom of the page.

“So?” Aqua asked her as Ale went over the descriptions.

“It should be doable, but I will need, if possible, a [Sample] of their [Blueprint] to do a better job, and I make no guarantees about the voice without hearing them speak.” Ale answered turning to look at Aqua.

“That is…acceptable.” Aqua said nodding to Ale and clapping her hands to make the other minions turn to look at her, “We got confirmation that we can go with Plan BS42, those of you that want to read the whole thing can skip scenarios SS 0 to SS 50, Plans AS 1 to AS 19 will remain on hold. Depending on how the first parts of the operation go we will move accordingly.”

At that, Ale heard several groans and the sound of people furiously moving to skip those sections; looking down on her own Index, she noticed that those plans encompassed barely 30 pages, but hadn’t she mentioned almost 70 plans?

“Look at the plans in question.” Gabriel said from the side, he had moved to them at some point.

So Ale did so, skipping a few pages to find the plans in questions, they had several mention to some Annex data pack…”The datapack?” Ale asked turning to Aqua.

The [Woman] smiled. “Why? Do you want to see it? Gabriel, did Hermes prepare the download?” And then turned to Gabriel.

“*Sigh* Yes, we have granted limited access to your database.” Gabriel said in a defeated voice, “MINIONS! Those of you who want to see the data annex it is available from your Masks or Phones, only while at the base.”

Ale took the prompt and poked at the menus from her Mask; sure enough, a new database with more detailed data was available.

“[Notice, found database with 358 Extra pages per series of planning, from AS, BS, CS, DS, ES to FIWB.]”

So much data….

“Why…how many scenarios are there planned for?” [Sylph] said from the side as she surely also checked the new database.

“Why, one for every probable problem we could encounter, we have found that while you can’t plan for every situation, you can plan for almost every possible situation with some thought.” Aqua answered as she turned to look at Ale again, “So? Do you think you can memorize everything? I am authorized to grant you a more resumed version and even to move you around to simplify your job, you are very important for this heist after all.”

Ale turned to look at the paper packet and then to her database, now available from her Mask.

“Yes, it should be doable. It could be easier if all was in digital format.” Ale answered as Main Core continued scanning the data from the database that [Billy] had made available to them.

“The database will not be available during the job.” Aqua narrowed her eyes at Ale. “If you are going to depend on that, I may as well give you the resumed version.”

Ale shook her head instead “No, it’s not that. It is easier for me to [Record Data] when it's already in digital form.” Ale corrected the misunderstanding. “If not possible, I can memorize these within the next hour.”

That made several minions stop reading and just stare at Ale, some with eyes that said they didn’t believe her, while others were just envious of her.

“Ohoho…So that is why He wanted you in such an important role…Your file didn’t say anything about good memory, but it did mention a possible Tinker Core or Sub Core…Okay, we will send the digitalized Data Package to your Mask within ten minutes, these will not be available during the mission nor will we give a new one, so make sure of what you do.” Aqua said and turned to nod at Gabriel.

After that she passed an envelope to him and walked away.

So…Alexa would get the data packet?

“[Notice, new arrival of information, starting analyzis.]”

Well, that made it much easier, now Ale only needed to compare it with the Paper package she had on her hands, better to make sure there wasn’t any deviation from the original plan, this seemed like the type of thing they liked to do to her in [Speed Running Tests]. Making something that seemed to be the same, only to introduce a different factor at some point, which made her fail because she hadn’t paid enough attention.