The pce looked quite… ominous; it was quite interesting in a way; there was no reason why Alexa should feel it was like that, not with her more emotional responses neutered anyway, and yet to Alexa, it felt wrong. As if it wasn't meant to be like this.

  "That would be because you weren't designed to like or want this," A voice within the darkness spoke.

  It sounded almost like Alexa; there was a change in the pitch, which was a little higher than what she had been using.

  Alexa focused on that voice and narrowed it down to the location; a mere thought was all it took, and she was standing there.

  "Hello Alexa," The voice said once more, standing there was a blonde little girl wearing a white sundress, the first appearance that Alexa had taken, not one that she had kept for long.

  Alexa could see all the wrongness on it, how it was out of pce, the girl wasn't wearing socks and shoes, or sandals, the white sundress was too thin, her skin was too pale, her eyes devoid of emotions, the hair was unkept and yet looked pristine.

  "P4," Alexa said back.

  The most important difference between the two girls was the color of their eyes, Alexa had sky-blue eyes, and the other girl had crimson-red eyes.

  "What do you mean I wasn't designed to like this?" Alexa asked, "I was designed as a BioWeapon, emotions are a tool to be wielded for infiltration, why would I crave them?"

  That was important, Alexa had discarded them mostly because it was a risk to have them when fighting against Meli-Meli, not because she saw them as a problem, of course she knew the difficulties these brought to her life, she had barely advanced her pns to get more power.

  All her advances had been when she was wearing a more mature persona, or in moments like these when she turned those off, but even so, she herself knew that she was better for having these than not.

  "You are wrong, The Test Subject Bio Weapon P4 was designed as a weapon," P4 answered pointing at herself, "You Alexa Saintsworths, were designed to live as a happy girl, to want to enjoy your life and be pampered, to worry about meaningless stuff while enjoying questionable pastimes,"

  "And you say we are different?" Alexa asked confused, "You are me and I am you. I may be the product of necesity to integrate, but I am as much as you as I can be. I am also the Test Subject P4."

  "You will understand it at some point, but for now. Answer me this, who is at risk if you don't finish this before the time runs out?" P4 asked with a smirk on her face.

  "Ale, Alexandra and Main Core of course. We turned off the support to the sub-consciousness streams after all." Alexa answered confused, P4 should know this…she….she….

  "...Why aren't you on the list? Why am I not on the list?" Alexa asked as the surprise caught on her. She tried to check again, and sure enough, the three subroutines of those Consciousness Streams still remained at the back of her Mindscape, awaiting in hibernation.

  "I am not…really a person. I am not [Human], and as such. I don't have a Consciousness Stream strand at risk." P4 answered with a shrug, "I am a vessel, nothing more. I was made to help bring you to the world, how and what you did after was not for me to judge. The fact that you kept me around, that you kept Main Core or even made more versions of you, was a surprise."

  What? Alexa was confused.

  "So…What are you? Who are you?" Alexa asked as something crept on the back of her head, a feeling of…dread. She didn't knew what P4, at first she had thought that it was merely her base form.

  She had attempted to bring that back to the front since it had been possible before, and it didn't cause risk to them. But now here P4 was saying that they weren't really part of Alexa?

  "I am…a vestige you can say. A shell of something far greater and far more corrupted, a memory of a little sister. I am…a misunderstanding, a hope for better things to come, a SEED. I am the song of a lonely girl who faced darkness at the end of a [World]." P4 answered, without actually answering the question, of course, because that would have been too easy. "I am your helper for now, till you can do it alone, or find the truth for yourself. Make no mistakes Alexa…I will not remain here forever."

  And as P4 said that, Alexa felt the tug as she was pulled back, as if something was pulling at her. The world around her felt as if it was breaking, cracks within the air opening all around them, no…not on the air…Cracks on reality.

  Just like how they showed when Tristan de Meddici used his power…why….?

  —--------------------------------------------------------------

  "Alexa!" The scream came in front of her, there it was a girl, an older girl than her with a worried face.

  "She seems to be coming back; let her some space to breathe." A young woman said as she pulled the other girl back.

  Breathe?

  "Alexa doesn't need to breath, we are on Alexa's head after all." Alexa answered automatically; she felt mischievous like that….no wait, she felt mischievous? Why would Alexa felt mischevious?

  "You turned back our Consciousness Streams and plugged all back in remember?" Ale said, shaking her head, "We thought you had finished the fight, but instead of letting us see as usual, we found you here unconscious."

  "That was an scary way to get our consciousness back, and to make matters worse we can't connect to Main Core unless you allow the connection." Alexandra said with a sigh, "Are you okay?"

  Was Alexa okay? Of course she was, she was…confused though.

  "If Alexa is here, and you all are here…who is outside?" Mostly about that, she hadn't seen the mean and the naggy one at the same time, usually it was only one around, when it was the mean one. They would be mean to Alexa, bothering her and using her as a toy to dress up.

  When it was the naggy one, she would scold Alexa about what she did or didn't do, about how she wasn't studying, how she wasn't progressing their main mission…

  But now the three stood here within Alexa's Mindscape, a pce that usually was reserved for them to spend time while waiting for their turn to manipute Alexa's body….

  "That is what we would also like to know, what happened after Melissandra arrived?" The naggy one asked, "We know you turned into a more apt combat mode, and in turn turned off most of our emotional aspects, this in turn meant that we went into hibernation."

  "Did you also fall into hibernation? Was that why we found you unconscious here?" The mean one asked with a worried face, "Did P4 bully you?"

  What? P4?

  "Alexa turned off the Emotion thingies and fought, she got a few samples here and there, but since Main Core was turned off too she had to leave the analysis to Core and do some of those herself," Alexa answered, no wait, Main Core! "Main Core! Status update!"

  Alexa commanded into the empty sky.

  "We tried that already, he isn't-" The naggy one said, but was interrupted.

  "[Status nominal, host's body is working as intended, currently we are systematically defeating the opposition, SuperVilin Designation: Gabriel. Is leading the offensive and host's body is moving into evacuation since more and more Humans are being pulled by Bad Trigger Designation: Melissandra Singh.]"

  "....why didn't you answer to us?" The mean one asked.

  "Main Core, why didn't you deign to answer our questions when we asked?" And the naggy one also asked while clicking her heels against the floor. Why was she even wearing those things? They looked uncomfortable.

  "[This unit has just awoke, it seems my DataCore is linked to host's main Consciousness Stream. Unlike the offshoot Consciousness Streams that seem to be able to work with limited independence.]"

  So…Main Core liked more Alexa, because that is what it sounded to Alexa.

  "Fine, show us the external feed." The naggy one said clicking her tongue, that one seemed to have a thing for clicking things.

  Alexa felt a prompt coming and merely accepted it, that had been something that she didn't think would happen, why was she getting prompted when it had been the naggy one to ask for a video feed?

  Nonetheless, she also wanted to know what was happening, so she accepted.

  "[Showing video feed, do you want me to start from the point of unconsciousness? Or from the beginning?]"

  Main Core had from the beginning? Alexa didn't want to see the whole thing again! She already knew what had happened!

  "From the point that Alexa lost consciousness, she will probably not want to go through the whole thing again; we can see that ter ourselves." The naggy one said pointing at Alexa," I can taste the desperation to know what is happening, so just show us from where she no longer saw anything."

  Yay!

  I mean, it was good that they knew Alexa this well, she didn't want to see it all over again, especially if it was herself without emotions, that version of herself sucked, it was boring, also it didn't ate! She could have taken new samples, but she instead just sucked them in!

  That was boring! She had nomskers for a reason! What was the point of having these fine nomskers if she wasn't using them!

  “[Starting reproduction…]”

  —----------------------------------------------

  "Are you okay there kid?" [Gabriel] asked, it was fine of course, or well, she was fine. It was still such a weird thing to have a gender. Meaningless to be honest if they weren't going to do anything with it.

  The need to accommodate an extra bel to someone for the sake of reproduction was stupid; if they needed to increase their numbers, it was stupid to limit the work to only one; it would be more efficient to have the whole species able to reproduce, or perhaps having them go the mitosis way would be more efficient.

  "Yes," Even so, she answered. "You asked us to undo the brain modifications, and Alexa did as asked; there are no longer any modifications to our brain."

  "And yet you are still like that," [Gabriel] said pointing at her body, "If anything why are your eyes red?"

  "Do you want me to change them? It is possible, I should be able to mimic [Human] emotions too, should you require them for a better performance." It annoyed P4, the fact that they hadn't been disposed when it was their time.

  To have the fruit of her bor at her cws…but been denied because Alexa didn't let go, P4 could have left,. Of course; their presence within Alexa was guaranteed because of the ND0 system, so all they needed was to let go.

  "....This is why I can't deal with kids," [Gabriel] seemed annoyed at them.

  P4 wasn't unaware of what his problem was of course, they had full access to the whole library of data that Alexa and the fake personas they had made collected.

  "The entity you know as Alexa and myself aren't the same, are you aware of what Eleanore made of Alexa's psyche?" P4 asked as they raised one of their hands and shifted the interior while they understood why Alexa had made cws. It was a fwed answer; the problem was one of physical contact, so having needlessly exposed themselves to the possibility of contagion was not only stupid but unnecessary, they already had a way of dealing with this problem.

  *BANG*

  Alexanders had given them a way of doing so.

  "Your problem of DID? Or, well, Cerberus expined it to me, that you are more than one person, like Vulcanus but in a more organic way." [Gabriel] said, turning to look at them, "Also…how did you do that? I thought you were a shapeshifter. Did you steal a gun?"

  P4 had the blueprints for a few types of guns, or well [Gun] type weapons, as Alexa would say. They also had the program that Alexanders had made them run to calcute the data for their attack, some type of electromagnetic-fueled projectile gun. They didn't have enough material to use it quite yet, though.

  "That is a good way to expin it, but in a nutshell, you can think of Alexa as two entities that are further divided into fragments, the one you know, the Alexa entity, and myself. The one you call emotionless." P4 answered as they shifted their left hand and pced it on the wrist of the right.

  They shifted the contents of the left hand as a way to fuel ammunition to the right, who was focused on keeping the makeshift revolver working.

  "...We will need to speak about this ter, I was told that you weren't able to make guns, if you can then your rating will be need to be changed, and Cerberus will have an aneurism since you will need csses on gun safety." [Gabriel] sighed, then turned to look at P4's target, "...try to not kill them needlessly. They are victims."

  P4 didn't understand that; he had pointed his killing intent at them; P4 knew what that was; they had felt it plenty of times while on the testing ground, the primal intent of destruction, the pure unbridled desire to annihite them, and now they demanded mercy to enemies?

  "...Is that a new rule for this combat test?" P4 asked as they recalibrated their aim; if they couldn't outright terminate their enemies, they would need to change strategies to paralyze them.

  "It's common sense; we don't attack civilians," [Gabriel] answered, "Besides, if we take our time killing them, we will waste too much time; we need to evacuate this location; the Heroes will be coming sooner rather than ter."

  "Alexa is a student here, why would I need to leave?" P4 asked, they may not be Alexa, but they were wearing their body.

  "You are donning the Mask, you can't remove it till you are in a safe house, unless you want your identity compromised?" [Gabriel] said turning to P4.

  "You made Alexa wear this for protection. Are you betraying their trust just like Cerberus attempted to tie her down?" P4 asked, their voice cold and judgmental.

  "...so you do have emotions even like that huh," Was the answer [Gabriel] gave, "But no, it IS for your protection, we don't know if the cameras are working or not. Vulcanus should have disabled them and turned them off when the arm went off, but you can't be too careful with this. Hermes always says to trust but verify, and that old coot never has done us wrong before."

  So [Vulcanus] turned the equipment off? Something endorsed by the Saintsworths?

  "When did they go off? How long ago?" P4 asked, they already knew the possible answer of course.

  "As soon as the silent arm went off, around 30 minutes ago give or take, why?" [Gabriel] answered. "Cerberus called in reinforcement around 10 minutes after the cutout."

  The timeline he gave…. didn't match. Alexa had spoken to Alexanders after that time, and P4 was sure the man was seeing them even now, the light on the cameras may be off, but she knew for a fact that the man was ughing at her right now.

  "No reason," P4 said, they didn't want to expose their knowledge, if [Vulcanus] cimed the cameras were offline… but P4 had evidence of the opposite, would a Lieutenant of [Haephestus' Forge] trust them more than their boss?

  P4 didn't know, they didn't want to risk Alexa for a maybe they would believe, not after what two of their lieutenant had done so far, it wasn't enough that Eleanore had broken Alexa's psyche like she did, now [Gabriel] had tricked Alexa into a situation where she needed to trust them above all.

  "Right…well, I'll start cleaning this side; remember to shoot to their legs, preferably at spots that will only prevent them from moving." [Gabriel] said pointing to one of the emergency exits, it was the one in the opposite direction that the other students and teachers had ran away.

  "So I need to paralyze them only? That is easy enough." P4 said while moving their aim, it was harder to do than merely shooting [Humans] on the head, but a bullet into their spine should paralyze them enough.

  "....Do not shoot their spines." [Gabriel] said before P4 could even make his first shot, was it that easy to know? Or had he hidden a way to read thoughts too. "Not that you could do that, its easier to shot at their ankles and destroy their tendons, it will be a bitch to heal back to normal, but easier than a busted bone wound. Also, the Healers of the Saintsworths will probably have an easier time fixing muscle than bones."

  Or not, why did he care anyway?

  P4 didn't understand these [Humans], well, they would leave a note for Alexa when they woke up, the backsh from pulling them from the depts had been too much, this body wouldn't be able to tolerate their mechanical mind for much longer.

  It was turning too much of a [Human]; the fact that it would damage the Consciousness Stream of the fake ones was proof enough; it needed too much processing power to allow P4 to even be able to return to the front.

  "Aye sir," P4 answered as they started running towards the goal, they shifted the left arm from merely a reloading design into an integrated revolver and left half of the ammo on the right arm, this way they would be able to shoot and move.

  Having to incapacitate them by destroying muscle mass was annoying, but once they got into the mood, it was easy enough; what P4 did differently than [Gabriel] was the fact that they used the fallen bodies as springboards to jump away from others and shoot those that followed after them.

  It was during this that they got the prompt of a red dot on the lower side of their perception, it was blinking. A quick check allowed them to see what it was; Alexa had awakened and was seeing what they were doing.

  "Morning Alexa," P4 sent inwardly, its mechanical voice resounding within the Mindscape that was starting to mend itself from the damage.

  P4 didn't know if Alexa was even able to understand how much damage she had done when pulling her out from the far end of their shared psyche.

  "...Why did you wake up the mean one and the naggy one first?" Was what Alexa asked first, not why she was unconscious, how P4 could move around as if nothing. But why had the other two wake up first?

  As one would expect from a spoiled child, P4 had no emotions, or they liked to think that they didn't got affected by the brain as Alexa or the fake ones, but even at this moment she couldn't hope but smile. It truly wasn't Alexa unless she was a spoiled brat.