"Greetings students," The voice of the pig sounded in the auditorium, as soon as he started talking the people around calmed down, most of the other students in the classroom of the elite didn't even make that much noise.

  Most of the noise came from the other classroom students; Alexa could see some of the students of her former class all together at the back. Alexa could differentiate whose class a student was, thanks to a weird badge they had given to them when coming into the auditorium.

  For example, Glory, Alan, and Alexa's badges were golden and had an A engraved on them. The students near to their class had a silver badge with a B engraved on their chest, after them were the students with a bronze badge with a C.

  Then those with a simple metallic badge with a D, those with a wooden badge that held an E…And finally…

  Those that all they had was a cloth patch with an F. Most of her former classmates had one of those, and while some among them had badges with other grades, none of those that had a bronze badge had walked to stand among them.

  Alexa… wouldn't mind standing with them, if not for the fact that her friends required help, and she had already been paid to participate on this side! Alexa was sorry, but a deal was a deal!

  So she would need to end this on this side and maybe later return!

  "Thank you for your patience; as some of you are aware, we have always strived to be a fully meritocratic organization." The pig continued speaking uncaring for the problems that were within Alexa's mind, "Before this was an event to deepen the thirst for knowledge and showcase your might, to prove to your peers what a knowledgeable student was capable of…"

  The pig said, and a projection behind him showed a group of students working together to create a complicated bridge made up of very feeble materials and somehow withstanding a heavy load.

  "And to prove to those that only embrace knowledge, that mere knowledge without might is useless…" Immediately after the pig said this, a new image showcased another event, the feared…dodge ball.

  In it, Alexa could clearly see the students wearing cloth badges dominating and triumphing over those with golden badges.

  So they wanted Alexa to compete in that one…and without her Core Powers to boot… How did they expect Alexa to win without access to her Core Powers!! (Not like it affected her at all, but they didn't knew bout it!)

  "And now that we are officially under the Saintsworths Umbrella as one of the first test schools, I proudly announce the new iteration of the Exam Wars!" The pig said raising his fist to the ceiling and with it the other students did the same as they screamed as one.

  What did they scream you ask?

  "For the glory of civilization and knowledge!" Is what they all screamed as one.

  Not gonna lie…it was…

  "Kinda cringe." "Ale!"

  The mean one had the right of it, it was…not something Alexa would like to do if she could help herself from doing it.

  It was…it made Alexa's cheek turn pink with embarrassment to even think about screaming it!

  "... Don't think about it Alexa," Glory said from the side in a monotone voice, "...it is better if you merely think that you are having a fever dream…"

  Glory!!!

  "...for me, I like to think that I am speaking in a foreign language that merely sounds similar to our own…" Alan added from the side…

  To think they suffered like her! Even if Alexa didn't scream it so she wasn't suffering at all, because Alexa got caught by surprise! For now she would never join these chants if she could help it!

  "Now, with that out of the way." The accursed pig said, "As your Principal I Kendrick Hamilton will be the one to spin the wheel for the first event."

  Heh, Alexa knew it from before, but getting a confirmation that the pig person had the name of a Ham was more proof that he was indeed a pig, it was still a surprise to Alexa the fact that they let a pig be at the helm of a school, but Alexa was sure there were many considerations in place to allow such thing to happen.

  "Aaaand spin!" The pig person said as he pulled on a wheel with multiple names of events on it, it started spinning…quite slowly at that, but immediately after that, the pig person pushed a button on the wall, and the wheel started gaining speed.

  So…if they could do that from the start, why wasn't he doing so? Was he dumb?

  Alexa was confused; if she didn't have the strength to make it spin from the get-go, then she would have used the button; why waste energy and hurt herself by doing things that she wasn't able to do after all.

  Even so, perhaps a pig didn't think like a [Human]? And since Alexa was using a [Human] body and not a [Pig] body, she was unable to comprehend his thought process. Yes, that surely must be.

  Even so, Alexa paid attention at the wheel as it was starting to slow down…

  "Damnit…" Glory cursed under her breath as she was looking…not at the wheel, why? "Did you notice it too Harmonia?"

  What? What did she see?

  “Yeah….this might be…harder for us…” Alan said sighing, "Should we bail?"

  "Are you kidding? As if they would let us do that, both your family and mine would never accept it…we will have to do our best…" Glory sighed, and Alexa was getting more and more annoyed.

  What did they see?!?!?

  Main Core?!?!?

  “[...Possible cause of concern may refer to the number of floating recording devices around.]”

  The recording what?

  “[There are currentely between ten to thirty floating devices cloaked using mana distortion technology similar to the one that Big Brother Designation: Alexanders used before.]”

  "...We are being recorded?" Alexa said aloud.

  "Shhh…." Glory said as she covered Alexa's mouth with her hand, "We aren't supposed to know that!"

  "....blep." Alexa used lick!

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  "...Alexa…why are you licking my hand?" Glory asked, confused, while removing the hand from Alexa's mouth and pulling a handkerchief from within her uniform.

  But it was too late!

  Main Core!

  “[....initiating analyzis…sending data upstream for comprensive analyzis…]”

  So Glory had the same sick propense body as Alan after all…But she had a couple of extra add-ons, like the extra tube thingies and the natural dampener to her emotional thingy?

  They wanted Glory to grow fast, but then become damp? Why? Why did they add that? It was already weird that they were giving her more fallothings tubes, Alexa hadn't even noticed these things before, but she only had two!

  Why did Glory need four? They looked funny, so perhaps they did a funny thing? Somehow… Alexa doubted it…

  "....Does it even work that design?" "Probably not, we can ask Core in the next maintenance cycle I guess, I don't see any advantages besides the obvious, and even that…"

  …Well, Alexa didn't see any advantage so if no one said any good reason to keep it Alexa was going to remove it.

  "....Alexa, we don't lick people it's rude." Glory said, right…she had done that to get Glory's blueprint.

  "Sowy," Alexa said, licking her lips and gulping the last remnants of Glory's cells; she was not going to waste anything if she could help it! She needed as much Glory inside her as possible to run many simulations!

  Now…she only needed someone to test this to make sure she could fix other people without, you know…breaking them more.

  "The first event has been decided." The pig's voice interrupted their conversation as the three turned to look at the raised platform from where the pig was speaking, "Prepare yourself for it, for we will be having our first event."

  The wheel had stopped at one of the events that made Alan and Glory groan in defeat, actually most of the students from the A-B and even the C grades groaned, while the students from the D and up grades cheered.

  "That is right, the first event will be Dodge Ball, a staple of our school's sports festival." The pig smiled nodding, "And to be honest, it was one of my favorite sports while at school too."

  So that was why Alan and Glory groaned, Alexa didn't like the idea of entering an event liked by Mister Pig, it felt…dirty. She couldn't help but imagine him lying down covered in mud while moving his fingers in weird disgusting ways.

  Ew.

  “Ew…” “Ewww…..”

  “[...host, where is this memory coming from?]”

  In a nutshell, eww…

  "Now, as this is a sport with high contact, we will be limiting the participants to dissallow core users." The pig said, no one reacted that much to it, if what Alexa had heard before there weren't that many Core Users to begin with, at least the pig had said so before. "Now, that isn't to say that we will allow Core Users to just skip this event, the Saintsworths Conglomerate donated a crate filled to the brim with these."

  And from within his tuxedo he retrieved a bracelet-looking device, "This is a neutralizer, it is linked to a Mana engine set up within the school, and it will prevent most Core Powers from manifesting. It can be tuned to specific core powers to fully neutralize them…But for our current needs, this will be controlled by CRADDLE to damp down the use of external core powers."

  External?

  What? Weren't all Core Powers external?

  "For those of you that weren't paying attention in Core Power classes. The use of Core Powers to affect the world around us is External Core Powers." The Pig person said, and behind him, a blackboard was projected into the wall, "Using Core Powers to get super strength, super speed, telekinesis, or even shooting beams of energy are external core powers."

  That…was an oversimplification, a weird one. Shouldn't getting super strength using Core Powers qualify as internal powers? Alexa could probably shoot beams of energy, and she would be using a purely internal means to achieve that.

  "Now, there are some Core Powers that when used in a certain way can achieve this by internalizing the method," The Pig person said, was he onto Alexa?!?!? "CRADDLE will monitor your current behavior and compare it with instances where you used your Core Powers, in case you are a Core User, and ramp up the mana blockage to negate the Core Power."

  ….So the CRADDLE person could do something like that?!?!?

  Alexa remembered how the Pig person had blocked Core Powers within his office and how Core had played it safe, predicting that. She still wasn't sure how Core had known that, but she was thankful that it did so.

  And now the pig person was saying that he could do the same at any place at any moment so long they were wearing one of those things!

  "So any Core User who wishes to participate will need to wear one of these chokers to do so." The pig person said while playing with the weird black not bracelet but Collar thing, "If your Core Power is something you can't be without or is something that deeply changes your body, we advise you to not take part in this event, now…most of the upper grades know this and they were told about it before this event. So if any of you is a Core User and wants to participate please go to your teacher. If your parents approve your use of a dampener, we will provide one, but we will not force anyone into using it, even if your parents approve it."

  So…who got told about this in Alexa's case? Did the naggy one hide information from Alexa?!?!?!

  "We did not get any mail about this," "Maybe they sent it to Eleanore or Skye?"

  ….mgnuu….

  "Alexa? What are you worrying about?" Glory asked from the side, "I asked Mother just in case, but those should be safe to use. In your case, they will mostly prevent you from changing your body to increase your strength like you did before and reverse any changes you made to your body using your Core Powers, so at worst, they will return you to normal…"

  To normal?

  ….Could they even do that?

  "Unless that is the problem?" Alan said from the side with an evil smile, "It's okay, I already knew you couldn't be this perfect without using Core Powers, so long you reverse any changes that aren't cosmetic, you should be fine."

  ….Gnnnunuuuuuuuuuuuuuu….

  But could they really return them to what was normal for Alexa?

  "...Will…will Alexa really return to her normal form?" Alexa asked with some trepidation, she shouldn't be feeling like that, returning to [CRAB] had been one of her main mission directives set up by herself, she wanted to return to her most glorious form.

  The mere idea of having an easy way to achieve that…it should make her run straight to the teacher person and rip all the collars she could before using them.

  "It's okay Alexa, I checked up on it after you told us you were a Shapeshifter Core," Glory said placing her hand atop Alexa's head and ruffling her hair like Billy had done once before, "Your real form is the one you feel more comfortable and happy, most Shapeshifters say the same. So the form you will return is the one in which you are the happiest."

  The one she was happiest?

  Hadn't that be her [Wish]? To…[Be Happy]?

  Then she would fulfill her [Wish] merely by putting that choker?

  It couldn't be that easy, no wait, the form in which she was the happiest? She…was happier on this form, but wouldn't she be happier in her [CRAB] form? She was the most powerful in that form. She hadn't been defeated or taken down before in that form.

  Something she couldn't say about her [Human] forms.

  This form was weaker, it was fleshy and easier to damage, she needed to funnel way too much [Biomass] just to keep it in one form while at combat, and she needed to burn more energy to defend herself.

  It…It shouldn't be, right?

  "Let's go, you'll see…" Glory said, holding Alexa's hand and pulling her towards the teacher person. He stood out like a sore thumb, what with the crack spreading in the air and the choked screaming figures around.

  "Greetings children…" The teacher person said looking down at them, Alexa wasn't sure why no one said anything about a Villain teaching to them, the only difference he had now as how he looked when using his theater person persona was the fact that he was wearing glasses.

  That's it.

  The only difference between the theater person and the teacher person was the fact that one used glasses! It was stupid! This person was stupid!

  "Greetings teacher, we wish to ask for three sets of chokers." Glory said doing a small curtsy and extending the hand that wasn't holding Alexa.

  "Three huh?" The teacher person asked, looking at Glory, then Alan…and finally Alexa. He smiled as he thought of something, "Interesting…it can be done, actually, there isn't a single reason why it is forbidden…And I was wondering why Alexanders sent so many of these, but yes…I can see it now…"

  "Indeed," Glory said nodding along, "The Scion Patriarch would indeed send it for a reason like this,"

  The who what? What did Alexanders do? Why did he send so many?

  "Are you sure though?" The teacher person said taking one of the collars and putting it on, "Even as a non Core user, this will feel awful."

  …But he was a Core user…

  Actually…Main Core!

  “[Monitoring mana levels…found no change within or near Super Villain Desgination: Tristan De’Medicci, The Theater Master.]”

  …How?

  “[His core type may not be included within the limits of the chokers, his power may be affecting something outside the physical realm and into the Metaphysical one.]”

  Dang it!

  "We are sure," Glory nodded still with her hand stretched out, "Please grant us three."

  "As you wish Glory Blackthorn." The teacher person said offering three collars, Glory took two and Alan took the third. "We will be closely watching, do make a good [Show] for us to watch, your Patriarch will surely enjoy it too."

  "...That was our plan from the start." Glory answered as she nodded to Alan, then after doing another small curtsy, Alexa was pulled away from the teacher person.

  They walked a few minutes till they found a somewhat secluded spot, while walking Glory sent a message and a few seconds after Alexa noticed how most if not all the students wearing a golden badge and some of those wearing a silver one walked to their teachers. Probably to ask for a choker too.

  Alexa was not sure what that was about, "There, our classmates will soon make a barrier to prevent people from coming here, do you want me to go first or should Alan do it?" Glory asked turning to Alexa while letting her hand go.

  "Let me go first," Alan answered for Alexa, "A gentleman should do this at least,"

  And before Alexa could say anything, Alan put on the choker, it made a weird beep and Alexa noticed a weird gem on the middle light up in a blue color, she hadn't noticed that one before when the teacher person used it…

  "It does feel…weird? But I think it's mostly because I never used a choker before…" Alan said, stretching as if to make sure he was okay, "What do you think? Does it suit me?"

  "Knock it off," Glory said, shaking her head, "Well, now it's my turn."

  And without waiting for Alexa (Again, quite rude), Glory put it on too, this time the weird gem shone briefly with a pink color and then took a more sedated color, it was still pink, but not as bright.

  Actually, Alan's gem was slowly dwindling in color too…

  "Now's your turn Alexa," Glory said turning to Alexa and offering the third choker, "It's fine trust me, no matter what you turn into or how you change, we will still like you."

  ….Well…In the worst case Alexa would end up as her [CRAB] form again…So…there wasn't anything to lose?

  "But would it even end like that? How could a choker provide enough materials to create the [CRAB] form?" "Would our [CRAB] form be compatible with Sam?"