After all those revetions, the rest of the time went quite normal. [Gabriel] ended up asking her to transform in some things that she could analyze around the safe house to make sure, and they did ask her to transform in some quite ridiculous things.

  Like, Ale could shift into metals quite easily, but he had asked her to make a bde out of crystal. While not offering her any sample for it, Ale could do it of course, she had some crystals avaible.

  But none had been able to behave like a bded weapon, most of those were quite brittle after all. And when asked about it, he said that the weirdo that he had used as an example before could do it.

  Ale could make a sharp bde that looked like crystal; she had a few polymers that could make up the appearance, but [Gabriel] looked through her attempts and tested the materials; when he found the material wasn’t a gss-like material, he called on her.

  She wasn’t cheating! If it looked like crystal and was as sharp as he wanted, why did it matter if it wasn’t crystal?!?!?!

  At the end, Ale ended up grumbling and seething about the injustice of the world, mostly because she was being treated like Alexa, when she was more mature than her. Also, because it was stupid, who would even make a bded weapon out of ice? That was stupid, ice wasn’t supposed to be a good weapon.

  But somehow, that weirdo was doing it, so she was supposed to be able to do it too?

  “You said that [Core Powers] got unique at the higher tiers? Why are you asking me to do what others do then?” Ale decided to ask after getting annoyed at being told to make up a fictional metal without using any of the base materials she already had avaible.

  “Because higher tier Core Powers usually are able to mimic their lower tier counterparts.” [Gabriel] answered without bothering to look at her, he was reading something on his phone.

  That was…stupid.

  “So you cim that I am a [Mythic Core] user, then you go about proving that I am not?” Ale asked confused, was this man good on his head?

  It for one didn’t look as if he was good in his head.

  “Do you want me to deal with him?” Alexandra asked from inside their head.

  “Nah, I’ll just excuse myself and leave the next chance I have….we do have some things to deal with.” Ale answered.

  “It is all about covering our bases, Eleanore alwasy said that you need to be thorough.” [Gabriel] answered, “Also we can leave now, the fiasco at your school resolved itself now.”

  They resolved it?

  “Meli-Meli?” Ale asked, then remembering the faces of Alexa’s friends, she added, “Glory? An?”

  “....Your friends are all right, your teacher is too by the way, both of them.” [Gabriel] said back, turning to Ale as he did, “Do you want me to go into details?”

  Did she?

  Of course.

  “Yeah, Alexa didn’t get a chance to see Glory’s [Core].” Ale said nodding, she knew that Alexa wanted to see that.

  “Of course I want! It was Glory’s turn! And we missed it!” See?

  “That girl, the Bckthorn?” [Gabriel] said, confused, “She isn’t a Core user as far as we can see. Did you see her trigger event?”

  “No?” Ale answered, “Alexa has this weird theory that she would become a [Core User], since we found out that Meli-Meli was one, she found her hurt on the way to school once. And then we had that fight when she went….violent.”

  “Oh yeah, I read those reports, nasty stuff.” [Gabriel] said nodding, “So using that as a basis Alexa theorized that Glory would become a Core User?”

  Said like that…it was quite….dumb.

  “Yeah…?” Ale said as she blushed from secondhand embarrassment.

  “Well, as far as we can tell, she didn’t have a Core Power when our spies left the school after the Heroes arrived.” [Gabriel] said shaking his head, “Same with the Harmonia kid.”

  So An and Glory were fine? That was good.

  “Your other friend, however…” [Gabriel] said bringing out his phone and pointing it at Ale, “She may be problematic.”

  On the screen, Ale could read the title of the notice, [A rogue Mind Core User going rampage at school.] there was no mention about the age or description of Meli-Meli, but her use of human wave tactics and how she was willing to discard the bodies as needed was mentioned.

  Along with some considerations in case someone thought they were being controlled by a [Mind Core User], among those, there was one that was quite ridiculous, who would tie themselves to a building and throw away the key?

  That was pinly stupid.

  “So they didn’t catch Meli-Meli?” Ale asked as she finished reading the note.

  “No, she escaped into the sewers, the report doesn’t tell you that, but our monitoring system caught her escaping into the sewers, we have reported it to our allies within the sewer system and our monitoring drones are out sweeping the area.” [Gabriel] said, sighing, “We will find where she is hiding soon enough.”

  Well that was good? Ale wasn’t sure what to think about it, to be honest.

  “So, what will be next? Do we need to file a report or something? I think Alexandra or Alexa did file one before.” Ale wasn’t paying that much attention then to be honest, most of that was because she didn’t had to deal with those problems then. Also she wasn’t that relevant by those times.

  And she may have been annoyed at how the people only took care of Alexa and Alexandra, why no one paid attention to her? She was the prettiestsest of them all!

  Who cares if Alexa is cute? Who cares if Alexandra is beautiful? She was pretty!

  “Yeah, I’ll send you a message with the stuff we need from you, I was around part of the event, so I can deal with those things, I only need confirmation on some of the events that happened. And why did you behave like that.” [Gabriel] said, going through some things on his phone; a few seconds ter, Ale got the notification on her bracelet… Why did that thing chime first before her phone anyway?

  “So I just need to answer these and send it forward to…” Ale said reading the files, it was mostly questions about the stuff that happened, and some of those were already answered in some parts. How had he done it that fast? “I didn’t see you writing anything…?”

  “I have interns for that,” [Gabriel] said shrugging, “They review my camera feed and file what I need from them.”

  So…everything that Ale said…

  “They can only see what I show them, or allow them to see. Most of our conversation was private, don’t worry about that.” [Gabriel] said before Ale could say something, “You can remain here or leave for your own apartment. As for me, I’ll leave, I have other things to deal with.”

  And like that, [Gabriel] vanished in a burst of light.

  “....Main Core, do you think we can get a sample from the motes of energy?” Ale said aloud as she stretched her hand to touch one of the feathers made out of light.

  They felt warmth to the touch, even as they turned into motes of light.

  “[Negative, we need a biological sample, our analysis devices aren’t that advanced yet.]” Main Core’s mechanical voice resounded in the room, coming out from just above her shoulder, so he had moved the speaker there?

  Ale wasn’t sure what his decision-making was about how to set up those speakers.

  “[It may be possible using the Mk1 Nanites, but we advice host to keep that part of her skillset for entities that truly merit such movements, Lieutenant Designation: Gabriel, seems like one that host would be able to get his Blueprint with enough time.]” The st bit was said only within Ale’s mind.

  “Yeah…fine, keep your secrets winged teleporting man…” Ale said turning to the safe house that was now empty, walking to one of the walls that had a small screen on it, Ale clicked a few buttons here and there and brought an schedule, “So it will be empty till after tomorrow….”

  Meaning, she had the house for herself if she really wanted. Not that she had any reason to remain here…

  “Let’s just go back,” Ale ended up saying, but first she walked to the bathroom, why? “First let’s fix this….Alexa did a number on us when she threw me into the dust.”

  That is to say, Ale’s hair was a mess; she could, of course, use her nanites to fix her appearance, but was it her own pride? She felt as if she should at least do this much herself. She knew that Alexa let Main Core, [Eleanore] and [Fan Girl] fix her hair.

  But Ale didn’t have those perks.

  Alexandra, on the other hand, half the time came out with her hair already done from the shift or let a hairdresser work her; Ale had neither option. So she opened the water and plunged her face in there.

  The water was cold and nice, but she was too busy cleaning her hair to enjoy it, it took her almost an hour to wash her hair from debris and dust that got stuck inside her hair, another half an hour to dry it and get it into something that was half decent, and then another half an hour to be happy with what she brushed her hair into.

  That is to say, she got tired of fighting against her hair and merely brushed her hair free of dust and let it go wild, no hair ties or anything to keep it in pce, she merely brushed her hair so it looked mostly okay and was done with it.

  Hair was hard!

  With that out of the way, she exited the bathroom and walked to the front door; Ale took a deep breath and….found nothing outside. That is to say, there was not a crazed Meli-Meli waiting for her with an army of the mind-controlled; there wasn’t the theater guy ughing while making some kind of montage or the scrambled guy raving.

  It was a normal day without anything special outside….

  “What did you expect?” “The mean girl is weird, why would anyone be waiting outside?”

  Okay! Ale was wrong in expecting something amazing to happen, but it felt right! Almost too right! She wasn’t to bme for it, okay! Too many things happened that shouldn’t be under normal circumstances!

  “Fine…let’s….let’s just go home and do our homework…” Ale said, sighing as she closed the door behind her.

  “Not mine, they gave it to you.” “Alexa is eepy…she will go to eep….”

  Betrayers, the both of them.

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

  “Did you use excessive force?” Ale read that one again, did she?

  No, because she never once fought during this encounter. But then again, that was probably against the idea behind the question, so she should answer thinking about the fight itself.

  “Are you having any trouble with the questionnaire?” [Fan Girl], or well [Big Sister] I guess? Asked. Ale had found the girl waiting for her outside the building when she arrived back to the pce her current dwelling was.

  The girl seemed to fuss over everything and apologized for not being there, saying that they had told her how [Eleanore] was going to go since she was the one listed as the main caretaker for Alexa and whatnot.

  Ale didn’t really mind it if she was to be honest, [Eleanore] had kept her distance and was probably using Alexa as an excuse to be with [Teach Baker].

  “Did you see the fight?” Ale decided to ask, “I am having doubts about how to answer this one.”

  “The fight?” [Big Sister] said, looking at Ale from the kitchen, Ale was on the dining table writing on the notepad that was linked to her personal computer, a superior alternative to using mere paper if you asked Ale. “Not really? They are saying the records got deleted by some weird mana phenomena. I think your friend probably sent one of her zombies to deal with the recordings if you ask me.”

  ….That was probably Alexanders making good on his promise, if anything.

  “What’s the question?” [Big Sister] asked, “Also do you want extra honey, extra marmade, or both?”

  “They are asking if we used excessive force.” Ale answered while thinking for a second, Alexa would probably ask for mango marmade, while Alexandra may ask for extra honey….or probably [Beer], “Can I ask for chocote syrup?”

  So Ale decided to ask for something neither had ever tasted, perhaps that would be for the best? A way to make her own choices away from the other two.

  “Chocote is fine,” [Big Sister] didn’t seem to mind the fact that she asked for something else, “Also I think you should answer with a Yes. You aren’t very good at containing yourself when on your smaller form.”

  [Big Sister] said that st part while ughing, Ale wanted to compin about how that was not her fault, and it was mostly Alexa being Alexa, but she was right at that. Alexa was not good at containing herself, and it was worse since the one that had done part of that was Alexa trying to emute P4 only to actually pull P4 to the front.

  That memory made her shiver, the projection about what would happen to them if Alexa pulled P4 to the front too often or too much, she didn’t like how it looked when their [Consciousness Stream] was ripped apart by the seams.

  “Then a yes it is…” Ale said picking that option only to get a new question added next to it, “Describe how you used overwhelming force and your reasoning for it…”

  Ale couldn’t help but groan at that question.

  “Here, let the chocote syrup help you,” [Big Sister] said as she put the food in front of her, it really wouldn’t help her though, the food couldn’t write this for her, “Go ahead, taste it.”

  So Ale did just that, she left the notepad by the side and took her fork and knife (Because she was normal, unlike Alexa and her weird fixation on highly inefficient cutlery), and with great care, she took a small piece of the hot cakes with chocote syrup and pced it on her mouth.

  “!!!!!” And so, Ale saw colors, explosions, and the birth of a whole new universe, “!!!!!”

  That is to say, she found it quite delicious, “!!!!!!!!!!!!!” And had to contain herself from screaming at the seven winds about how delicious it was, not that she had to, because if the face of [Big Sister] was something to go by, it seemed to be quite obvious.

  “So?” [Big Sister] asked, looking at Ale, “What do you think? How did you use excessive force?”

  First of all, she did not use excessive force.

  Second of all, “....I like it.” Ale said taking another bite of the hot cakes with chocote syrup, “...I like it very much.”

  “All the kids love chocote, it is weird how much you are fixated on mango while little if anything.” [Big Sister] said nodding at her, “And? You need to finish these before going to sleep, it is getting te. I only made these for you since you had such a bad experience today…So don’t get any funny ideas.”

  Bad experience?

  Alexa did?

  But she had fun…

  “Thank you [Big Sister],” Ale said, nodding at her, “And I think this will help me get my ideas in order,”

  If nothing else, she was liking how the chocote was reacting with her brain chemistry, it gave it just the right kind of push to get the ideas flowing.

  Ale could finish this, she could write the report as she needed! Thanks to the power of chocote!

  “...it would have been better if it was mango marmade…”

  Not that anyone could say otherwise!

  “...but the mango marmade!!!”

  Especially since that someone else was, as they said…eeping!

  “....dang it.”