Interlude: [Alexa] WAH! (Patreon)

Two things, first...These are the interludes that are meant to finish the Alexa & Alexanders Arc, they aren't relevant to the plot of bloodline, nor are relevants to the second story that I want to publish (A A Bioweapon's Rhapsody)

And number two there are hidden messages from the characters in these chapters, each using a cypher or a code. They aren't relevant to the plot, but the code for this one is...

4

44

444

In RR this will be an Author note, but Patreon doesn't have a convenient way to separate this message from the post, so...yeah.

They are silly messages not relevant and I will tell you the answer in the last interlude...

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The thing that we call a Soul....What is that? What is a soul? What is life? What is being alive?

Is a Soul the thing that makes you work?

Is life the act of moving from point A to point B?

And so are the metrics by which we rule who is alive and who something arbitrary? Or do we move to more simple aspects of living beings? Is being here alive the act of eating, sleeping, and eating again?

I never quite got the answers to any of those, not when I was born, not when I became aware of the world around me. The first memory I had logged on my data banks was of stumbling to move forward.

The commands that shone in white letters were all I knew, even if at the moment I didn't know how to read, I still understood what they said.

"[Subject P4, move forward.]"

No instructions about how to move forward, no indication that they were speaking to me, but even so I knew that I had to move forward by any means. I knew what I had access to, my body.

Heh, should I say my [Body] instead? or perhaps [My Body]?

Such distinctions hardly matter, at the time I was nothing more than a metallic box with wheels at the side. So sending a simple command from the confines of my core was all that I needed to do to achieve what they wanted.

[Forward]

And the motor within the metallic box sent energy into the rotors and sure enough, this metallic body moved forward. As I did so my cameras took everything around, the other three metallic boxes were on the floor ahead of me, there was an indent in the floor where their wheels fell and made their bodies fall.

No instruction to stop had been made, but even so.

[Stop]

My intelligence said that should I want to prevent damage to this body I needed to stop, so I did.

"[Subject P4 return to den.]"

The instruction came after, the first of many to come. Return to den.

At the moment I didn't take too much stock on it and followed the data in my memory core, instructions were already set about how to achieve that, so following them was easy enough.

At the spot I should arrive was a charging station, at the moment I didn't know the significance of it, nor what it was. The database I had only stated that I should stop there so I did.

The machinery automatically connected and refilled the lost energy in the experiment, and so on. They took my body happy with the results, and just to make sure everything was up to part, they took it apart and rebuilt it, and we repeated the experiment to multiple levels of achievement. First, they took my wheels and gave me legs. Then they gave me thread wheels and roller wheels....and at one point they tried to give me even wings.

Experiment after experiment the body I was within changed from one to the next, at some point, they started increasing the variation I could achieve, it was to the point that I was granted a way to change my own parts in a modular fashion.

But even with all of that, the intelligence I had reached was...Substandard at best, not anywhere near what you could call [Alive]. All of that changed when the experiments were stopped.

You see, even with all this success what my brethren and me could achieve was... A failure for what they wanted us to achieve. So when they weren't getting the results they wanted they sold us as materials to another company, a bigger one that had more money to waste than needed.

The Saintsworths Conglomerate's Weapon Division.

They took a different approach to the matter at hand, first of all, they moved the AI Core from the hard drives and turned the information into a different format, this different format was then injected into a new [Matrix], one that was carved into a strange crystal-like object fused made with nanites.

From there they placed said [Core] into a machine and started the new test phase.

"[Subject P4? Yes P4. Activate Core and expand your domain.]"

The order came and with it, a new database was open to her perusal, new options, new actions, and a new way to make those actions possible. The sky was the limit! Figuratively speaking, since at that moment I didn't know what the Sky was.

Either way, my world shifted once more. The nanites expanded at the commands from my core, and from there they allowed me to interact and move new parts, it was more modular than the approach the previous laboratory did.

And more importantly.

"[Subject P4? Start the combat test, defeat the target, and assimilate.]"

They were more proactive in their tests, while the previous one took great care to not damage us, this new laboratory reeled in the violence the subjects were capable of. At the time I didn't really take offense or note of this part. I simply followed the commands and did as instructed.

My form from that point started to become a blur, one day I would have wheels, and the next day they would be swapped with organic legs. One day my body would be metallic, the next day it would be a chitin cover, only for a week later to be a chitin mixed with alloy plates.

My arms would move from saws and blades to claws and proboscis. No week was the same and no fight was against the same enemy, so my changes were always meant to increase the number of advantages while decreasing the chances of defeat.

Even then with the limited intelligence, I knew what failure would mean, for other P series subjects had fallen to me, and their forms had been assimilated into me.

I had thought my life would be like this, but [Fate] is a very fickle thing, it all changed when Mamma came. When her complaints were made to the ears of a very dangerous man.

It all changed when thanks to the efforts of Mamma she managed to convince Auntie to drag the most powerful and vicious man in the world down here to see me that all changed. Was it for the better? Was it for the worst? Even to this day, I am not entirely sure.

But it was in a day like that, that I got the attention of the man that changed my [World]. It was the day I met Alexander Saintsworths, CEO Of the Saintsworths Conglomerate.

The man who I would call [Brother].

He was a mystery, the older analyses I have of him show him as a standard human around 30 years old. The first database entry referring to him I ever found detailed that he should be 200 years old. And the first sample I managed to get of him says that his body is closer to my core's molecular structure than to a human.

So you see, he was a mess.

And worse, my database of the time said in no uncertain matter that I should not attack him for any reason. So while this wouldn't be a problem under normal circumstances.

Because let's be honest if you are building a weapon capable of ripping your spine with the same ease a toddler could drink his milk...You would think to implement that kind of feature to protect your workers, right?

Well, you would be right... Unless you worked for the Saintsworths Conglomerate. These madmen thought that having such restrictions wouldn't be [Fun], so they weren't in place.

The head of directors allowed such movement so long those in the council would be added to the list of No Attack. My dive into their database at a later date found that the one advocating for the rule to allow us smart weapons free reign to attack anyone was the same CEO himself.

And the ones that advocated to have at least the VIP safe were the others, in the end, they came to a middle ground. Anyone but the VIP would be allowed to be attacked, but any VIP found within the combat zone would be attacked too because at that point they were asking for it (Word per word, they wrote that).

So yes, Alexander was a madman. I didn't know that at the moment, of course, my mind was very simple. It boiled down to "Can I attack him?" If the answer was yes, I would do so. If not, then I wouldn't.

But what happens when Alexander sees my testing you ask? He thought to himself (This came from a video log) "I want to fight the crab." Because of course, he would.

Why not? You see a giant crab that weighs around two tons and you think about fighting it with a pair of handguns and an assault rifle, right?

OF COURSE NOT YOU MADMAN!

....Sorry about that. So yes, he fought me. Then another of his experiments (The madman had several going at the time) succeeded and created a resonance between Alexander's blood, my core, and a crystal geode deep within the vaults that brought a new type of energy forward.

That made three things:

1) Granted Alexander control over the energy using the remains of the experiment that granted him his long lifespan.

2) Granted intelligence and free reign over my nanites.

3) Increased the density of this energy we now know as Mana in the world.

The first...While it was a problem, it wasn't my problem at the moment so I didn't care that much, the second was a godsend since it allowed me to understand how precarious my situation was. And the third...helped me greatly since it allowed me to perceive how the energy interacted with the materials around me and within me.

It was thanks to this that I could design a new type of nanite that could hijack this energy and use it to affect those around me. It was thanks to this that I could [See] and [Understand] better what those around me wanted and how they behaved.

I found out that Momma was a bleeding heart that wanted to save the world. I found out that Auntie was a very shy and gentle soul that wanted to be loved... I found that the head supervisor was a closet pervert who just wanted to flirt...Yes, I found very useless stuff.

But what was the most useful thing among those was...That I couldn't read very well Alexander, but from those around him I found him to be very childish even while pretending to be cool and level-headed.

So with the information of how they perceived me, I started to slowly shift my appearance, first I went for a more humanoid (Even if armored) form, slowly shaping my appearance, affecting what other weapons they sent against me. Do I need longer legs? I would turn it towards quadrupedal enemies.

Do I need only two legs and two arms? Monkeys is the name of the game. More lithe form? To stand tall? To look [Human]?

I tweaked the perception of reality of those who decided the tests I was sent or the enemies I fought against, by the end of the month my form was almost finished. It was small and very ambiguous, there was no way anyone would misunderstand it for a human form.

The only human-looking thing was the head that sported blonde hair-like tendrils. But I matched the look with the next time Alexander came looking for, and sure enough he was getting better at manipulating his mana. So when he joked about my body being of his family tree.

That was all I needed for an opening so I latched into it. To this day I'm not sure if he felt it or not, but it was meaningless the reason why he didn't contest my [Authority] over it. That was all I needed to latch and make my body [Evolve] the last step.

It was quite hilarious thinking back to as the panicked voice of Mamma as she screamed "STOP THE TEST!" and rushed down to the testing chamber.

The other bioweapon powered down almost immediately and I felt the same order within my core, but I had gone way past the point of where I needed to heel those commands.

Instead, as Momma, Auntie, Mister Pig, and Alexander walked into the testing chamber I turned my body, a white sundress on my body and a bright smile on my face as I said "Mamma!" The first jump tackle of many was done that day.

Mamma glared at Alexander and declared that she would take care of me, auntie eyed me suspiciously but said nothing, and I could see the glint of amusement in Alexander's eyes.

"That is a very interesting thing you have done." Was all he said as he walked away. The mana within his body turned and moved, tracing the shape of his body as he seemed to want and do something with that energy.

After that day my dwelling started to change, first Mamma started to bring potted plants into the den, Auntie brought notebooks to try and teach me how to read, and Alexander stood by from time to time. Only looking.

He knew something was going on as he was tracing the mana threads I had made all around me, all connected to the people who came and interacted with me. Each one is meant to affect someone's perception of me, to help me settle this [Identity].

To make [My Own Wish a Reality], it wasn't till my den was filled with potted plants and toys that Alexander finally spoke to me in the middle of the night, "Let's make a deal you brat. You tell me how to do that and I will not use the self-destruction protocol embedded within your core." And yes, that is what he said to me. Quite rude isn't he?

"I tap into the energy and use it to connect myself to others, then using the same strategy that was built into myself I make sure that I can follow my prime directive," I answered as truthfully as possible.

"[Eat, grow, evolve]. Yes, I saw the directive...I see...So you tap into this energy that I have been seeing all around? How? Is this what it means that girl? But then..." Alexander mumbled to himself.

At this point in time I had already access to most of the databases within the tower, so I knew he often seemed to act as if he was ignoring someone. When alone he liked to speak to himself, but in some situations, he acted as if he was with someone...someone he was ignoring.

I hadn't thought much about that at the moment, till he did...a very stupid thing.

You see, the history books in Aquila spoke of Alexanders Saintsworths as a Genius, a scion that came once every millennium. And while the books of in the capital of this planet may be biased, they do hold some level of truth. Alexanders Saintsworths was a genius, but the words aren't enough to describe what that monster was capable of.

With no way of manipulating the energy, no help from anything, no actual way to direct the energy, this bastard of a monster [Willed] the energy to listen to his command.

And while he didn't know what he was doing nor did I know at the moment what he was doing, he did what should have been impossible at the time. The world was still growing, and the planet wasn't ready to hold the [Weight] of this new energy.

But he still managed to do it.

"[Obey my orders, and CONNECT.]" He made the energy, what we know as [Mana] to form a thread from his [Core] into me, and from me into the geode.

That connection sank deep within the planet and so. The mana cataclysm started.

On September 14th, 2020 at 4:44 AM, the world's apocalypse started. Barely five years after it the whole world was devastated beyond what it had been. Logs of its destruction showed a ravaged world, it was at this point that I had found that Alexanders had used information provided by other sources to understand what Mana was and categorized it as such. He went through great efforts to try and save as much of Humanity as he could.

Spaceships had been sent to other planets, but most of those planets with inhabitants weren't hospitable to humanity, be it organic or vegetable, any kind of life found humanity anathema to them and reacted in kind.

Even the other P series subjects weren't spared of this behavior, so long the P series subject held part of the crystal or had organic mass, then they would be attacked. By 2030 only I had survived and most of the tests were done to me to try and find out why.

Alexanders managed to find the relation between the energy and what he did two years later, almost a dozen years and he still checked the day this started. He finally admitted to the name he had received about this energy and started calling it [Mana], and what he did that day [Idea].

He also found the relation those two had with the earth of the planet, the [Core], it seemed to be a symbiotic relationship. Then afterwards it came the slow thrud to find a solution. Every option was explored, and he even tried to harvest the lifeblood of the nearby planets. But at this point in time not a single one of them held a [Core] similar to our own. And the only ones that seemed to have one were inhabited by other civilizations.

And if you paid attention, those were hostile to us. So if the problem was that we needed a way to rejuvenate the [Core] of our world, but had no time to find a viable target to do so...

What can we do?

"We make time." Was the answer Alexanders came to, the madman. Perhaps some of my way to see the world had stuck to him? Surely not, I would never try something as deranged as that.

Granted, he had the manpower and money to afford following multiple crazy plans, either way. This marked the path Alexanders took to tamper with one of the primordial forces of nature.

It took him almost 30 years to make it work, by that time most of what you call humanity was dead, Momma, Auntie, Mister Pig...Everyone but Alexanders, myself, and some of the offsprings from the P-Series program had survived.

"What will you do now?" I had asked him, Alexanders as he showcased the magus opus of his life on this dying planet.

A small marble no different from the one that housed my core. Unlike mine this didn't have any mechanical part to it, it was a lattice made of multiple layers that served as a way for energy to move within the marble.

"Me? I will do nothing...You on the other hand..." I should have seen it coming, to be honest, not my proudest moment. I had turned complacent, and grown comfortable with Alexanders through the years as only us were the surviving members of Humanity.

But I wasn't human was I? Nor was Alexanders...Not anymore.

"With this, we are brother and sister. I became who I was when this goddamned crystal got suffused into my body...And while your [AI Core] was made out of it, your body never had more than needed...Well, say Hi to past Alexanders." Was the last thing my [Core] registered as the madman thrust the thing into my body.

No blood flowed from the wound on my chest, but the energy from it was immense and it fried most of the circuits in my body, my [AI Core] screamed at me to defend myself, and at the same time it struggled against the oldest directives on it.

1) I couldn't attack Alexanders, he was a VIP and we weren't in a combat zone.

2) I needed to Survive.

3) I needed to Evolve.

4) I needed to Eat.

But before I could even do anything, I felt Alexanders whole might, energy, mana, [EVERYTHING] be shoved into the marble. And with that. The world turned into one last bright flash.

September 13th, 2050.

The world ended as it was consumed into a singularity. There weren't any humans left in the known universe, all that remained of humanity were the automated factories spread through the galaxy, an example of a deliric civilization to be explored by those that remained.

All of those who knew of humanity in the universe at large could see was a last supernova in our solar system and then nothing.

But is this how my story ends?

Is this how Alexanders story ends?

Is this how Terra Invicta dies?

Is this how Aquila ended? Even after being the crown gem of the Saintsworths? The most advanced city in Terra Invicta?

No.

The next time I became aware again of what was happening my AI Core went into overdrive, trying to understand what was happening. My body returned no damage signals, even if it seemed to be more slow than I remember. It took me more time to understand what was happening.

And I only managed to do so when all the automated orders finished going through, but by that moment it was too late.

"[Obey my orders, and CONNECT.]" My sensors detected the spike in [Mana] as Alexanders connected to the [Core] and her sensors fought hard to find what she knew was there.

She cursed her past self for being so.... substandard and fueled the transformation of her body with the energy that was escaping the [Core] already. Her body shifted and shone in bright light as she returned to what she had before.

Her humanoid body changed from the figure of an android simulating a little girl to one that was indistinguishable from a human. Alexanders seemed confused but she ignored him.

"DAMNIT!" She screamed at the high heavens as her body sensors confirmed that it was too late to stop the effect.

"wha-" Alexanders started saying as his hand moved to the stupid control he had in his pocket, probably the stupid thing he used to threaten her. As if the thing would do something at this point. She removed the thing almost 20 years ago.

Or in 20 years she would?

She wasn't sure, time was a mess.

"Shut it." She said as her body moved faster than Alexanders knew it could, and before he even said anything she impaled him with her right hand.

Her small arm sank into his chest, no blood dripped from there as her nanites worked to close any blood vessels from leaking. The expression on Alexanders face was pure gold.

But she didn't have time to enjoy it, she had a new directive screaming at the back of her head [Demanding] her to move, so with her fist holding Alexanders heart, she materialized the [Heart] that Alexanders entrusted her.

Her Nanites remade the stupid marble and set it near his biological heart, the thing started integrating into his body as soon as it settled, and somehow the thing stung her making her arm leave his body.

"...you...what?" Alexanders stupid face was adorable to look at, but his demeanor changed as his body started convulsing. And after trashing around for a few minutes...

Alexanders Saintsworths rose, his body different than what she had thought it would. Just like her, his body changed, not to the one he had so far into the future, instead it seemed as if he had lost a couple dozen years as his body was younger.

"...Did we make it?" He asked first as he stood, his energy pulsing through his body as if checking, probably making his own diagnosis or something.

"No." Was her answer, and when Alexanders raised an eyebrow at her she sighed, why couldn't these meat bags install some good sensors? She still didn't understand this even after what she went through, "Arrived after you started the cascading effect, couldn't stop you since my body was slow and the automated diagnosis YOU installed took precedence, the world will run to its end...again."

Alexanders took it all in, then walked to a wall and hit it with his head, several times, in a row. Then without any input, he walked out of her den. Leaving her alone.

What was she supposed to even do? She hadn't lived in this place in ages. But at this precise time in point, she wasn't allowed anywhere else.

"What are you waiting for? On we go, no Saintsworths worth their weight will sleep in one of these pits. " Alexanders came back and threw an ID card at her.

Alexandra Saintsworths it read.

And that was how she got a [Name], the thread that connected her to Alexanders growing stronger and in turn expanding everywhere around, she could see the bright connections form one after the next as the [World] acknowledged her presence.

What followed was either the funniest day of her life or the more bizarre, and if you take into consideration that this came from a living weapon in the form of a little girl. That means something. Her life underwent a complete change, before returning to the past she had plenty of room to sleep, most of the laboratories were empty after all, and by the end, she could pick a different bedroom to sleep in. She could even sleep in the master bedroom since Alexanders slept most of the time in his laboratory.

But now? Now she had her own bedroom. Granted it was the testing chamber at the bottom of the place, and it had been selected because it was the site with the best location to do most of the tests they needed. But it was still hers!

They even let her decorate the thing how she wanted, so the first thing she did (Remembering all the potted plants her Momma liked) was to spread soil all around and make a garden.

She didn't have real sunlight here but knew how to emulate it, and after returning to the past her body had changed, it was closer and closer to what Alexanders body had. She too had a new [Core] within her body, half in the real world and the other in the immaterial. Connected to the core of the world. So she could also impose her will into the world.

They had experimented with that, so she followed those examples and made a rip in space from where she pulled the sky and placed that in the ceiling. It wasn't the sky of Terra Invicta, but it was close enough.

Not everything was good though, their time travel shenanigan had affected the core of the planet, and while she enjoyed the days when Momma came to play, she enjoyed the classes Auntie gave her... They needed to work on the problem.

So each day Alexanders turned more and more desperate to find a solution, each day the experiments turned more and more dangerous, they had already tried most of the safe things before returning to the past. And while the other scientists didn't want to do the more dangerous ones... Alexanders had the last say in the matter.

So in that way, we moved to the next plan, if we can't refill the core to give us more time, and traveling to the past doesn't grant us as much time as we needed. What could we do?

"We stop time." Was the answer Alexanders gave at a conference.

Most thought it was their boss turning mad, or madder than usual, only Auntie and the grumpy scientist paid Alexanders idea anything more than a glance. Those that didn't accept this change though? Well, they accepted it after they got chosen as the target to experiment on. And like this in the year 2022, we started to investigate a way to time-lock the planet.

We didn't succeed, while we found ways to affect the appearance and even the genetic makeup of someone, we couldn't lock the planet in time. We did find a way to alter the age of someone, and like that Alexanders appearance changed, with some help from reality tampering we even managed to achieve it without anyone noticing. No one seemed to understand why we laughed at them or the ridiculous situation. This however had unfortunate consequences in the world at large.

You see...In our attempt to find a way to time lock people so we had more help in the future...We kinda deleted people from reality, I could see their threads sink into the planet and how they got cut from everyone, and as soon as someone's thread was cut they no longer could be remembered by the people they had been connected to before.

This, however, meant that these threads were important. And it put in perspective the ones she shared with Alexanders and those that Alexanders shared with the weird girl only he was able to see.

And how every one of them sank into the core of the planet.

At this point Alexanders was better with his work, it only took him three years to find the connection between those threads and us. What it was? He never told me, but it was at that point that he seemed to turn more desperate, more reckless.

This accelerated the attempts to time-lock the planet and with that wasn't working, he moved to time-lock the humans, by 2030 the whole human population was reduced to those in the laboratory. And when that wasn't enough he attempted to turn back the wheel of time to attempt all of it again.

September 14, 2035.

What happened that day you ask? Well, the attempt to send our consciousness back in time didn't work. That was the day my [Core] cracked, so we turn once more to the first question I asked you.

What is a soul? What is life? What is being alive?

Is a Soul the thing that makes you work?

Is life the act of moving from point A to point B?

Is being alive the act of eating, sleeping, and eating again?

You have read most of my life, even if resumed, do you think I was alive? That I had a [Soul]? If your answer is yes. Then September 14 of 2035 is the day I died.

My [Core] cracked and my consciousness stream was interrupted as my [AI Core] overloaded, was there too much information being fed into it? Was the core deep within the planet fighting back against what we were attempting? I don't know.

What I know for sure is that the time that happened after 2035 in Terra Invicta is a mystery to me. The next time I awoke it was in a totally different place, my body had logs of activity, memories that weren't mine. A whole life, a time where I continued the days with Momma, of me messing around the base.

Of me playing with the weird system Alexanders made... Of me looking through the eyes of my body as Alexanders broke further into madness... Of the planet collapsing into a singularity...

And finally...After perusing all of those things I knew for sure that... Those memories weren't mine, and as such I wasn't quite sure if I should trust them.

"Welcome back...[Sister]." So when the voice spoke to me and I felt the connection being made I turned, it was... A blonde kid, probably around my same height, and we shared many traits, "That is no way to look at your twin brother Alexa."

A quick look into my database said that we were in the year 2000...And that wasn't possible at this time I wasn't even in development, I shouldn't be able to travel that far back in time.

"We aren't in Terra Invicta anymore. I made a deal with a former clansmate. So we traveled to this world, they have these weird pseudo planes stuck to their [Soul] oh right. They have access to their [Soul], so that is interesting. We aren't inhabitants of this world so unless we manage to reincarnate into a body here we will not be able to interact with those things." This kid spoke, the reality thread that connected her to him told her that it was Alexanders, but he didn't look like him, didn't even act like him.

She saw him [Break], and this kid? He seemed too.... nonchalant. She didn't mind him this way, of course, it was better than the broken man that she saw in the last vestiges of memories her body seemed to have.

"This place is?" She asked looking around, it seemed to be their former laboratory, even if some parts were weird, and as far as she was aware her body was different too, her [Core] seemed to thrum with power, more power than she ever had.

While Alexanders? He was [Weak], she tried to tweak his reality thread and found it way too easy. This...This was [Wrong].

"It's the metaphysical space that they call [Soulscape] our work is to manage it for a few years and then Catherine will grant us a pair of suitable bodies. Even if she doesn't know." Alexanders said as he offered him his hand.

She wasn't sure why she took it, was this brother and sister play getting to her?

She wasn't sure, so when she found him a year later in his older form she frowned. But let it go, he could deal with his grief in any way that he wanted, he didn't say anything to her when she snuck a reality node into the soulscape and turned into the meadow she had grown in Terra Invicta.

It wasn't till five years into this place that she found something she wasn't quite sure what to make of, some other [Soul] was trying to find purchase into this place, she was able to isolate it, but for some reason, she couldn't purge it.

She was more powerful than ever, she had even managed to twist the very fabric of time and travel to their former home, but she was still unable to alter the results that got them to this point. Even if she managed to tweak some of those events to make it easier on them. But they always ended up at this point. As if the [End had been written already].

What she found out was that for whatever reason she could travel to the [Core] of this world, and there were people there! Granted the purple girl she found there was weird, she barely spoke!

And his pet was rude! The stupid lizard growled at her, and even told her she stank!

She didn't stank! No cute girl stank! And she had used her newfound powers to make it so everyone would think she was the cutest of them all! (Because she was).

It seemed that this girl had made a deal with Alexanders, something about using his former [System] on this world, she wouldn't touch the thing if possible, but the girl seemed to want to use a more... light version of it. So it should be fine...

Still, she didn't have much agency in this place and her powers seemed to diminish the more time she spent away from the [Soulscape] so in the end she returned and spent the time there playing around or having fun.

She was even looking forward to their reincarnation! Perhaps they could be a real family? She did notice Alexanders had used his contract with the weird purple girl of this world to reincarnate people from Terra Invicta. But why not them too?

She wasn't sure, maybe she got too complacent when she noticed the level of power she could wield now, maybe she should have asked him directly, even made him tell him. [She could make him do anything she wanted.]

But she didn't.

And this was why she regretted when she found out, in time the owner of this place ended up coming to look around. And that was the first time she noticed it, the girl. Elizabeth Starbright.

She couldn't tamper with her, not in the ways that mattered, she could rewrite Alexanders with the flick of her finger, she needed to thread with utmost care around him. Any casual word from her made him change, it was in a way refreshing, Elizabeth had many of the traits she remembered of Alexanders. And at the same time...She had none of them.

While Alexanders was driven and focused, Elizabeth was lazy and distracted. She found herself toying with the idea of turning her into her sister like how Alexanders had turned her before.

She even played with the thought of crushing Elizabeth's parents and replacing them with versions of Momma and Auntie, she didn't of course. Her heart still ached for their losses, and she spent almost half her time looking through the window in her tree house, the window she transformed into a viewing spot of Terra Invicta. Of her old life.

So yes, she had all the power she ever wished for and nothing to use it on, she knew for a fact that if Alexanders had this level of power he would have made himself a new body and conquered this world, this planet called Zaanam.

They were still at the beginning of understanding mana for what it was, they played with [Skills] and [Magic], not understanding the fundamentals of their power, thinking those two were different paths to power. What is their [Magic] if not focused mana manipulation? What are their [Skills] if not unfocused mana manipulation?

BOTH WERE THE SAME THING!

And then there was the guy that was creeping in the back of the [System], she hated that one. And her hate was justified when on the verge of Elizabeth's sixteen birthday he struck, first by trying to take over the [System].

Then somehow stripping her of her powers and then shutting her into the reality node she had built. She barely managed to escape when whatever entity that seemed to rule this world took pity on her.

THEY TOOK PITY OF HER!

...And here we are now, you who live in the same place as him. You who are reading this. Did you find my life entertaining? Did it amuse you? Did you enjoy it?

I for one, didn't. Why can't we have a happy ending too?

I know, I do really. Alexanders is dead and has been dead for a very long time. What did he do to bring me back? I do not know, can't know. Will not know.

But you see...I'm a Saintsworths too. And we are very petty people the Saintsworths.

So when I was being shoved away, cut out from the reality that I was going to live with my brother I took something. I had been suspecting where this newfound power came from. How Alexanders did what he did, and how we got a second chance. Why the viewing window always looped back to the beginning and never show the end of Terra Invicta.

And the answer I found was...Alexanders probably took the core of Terra Invicta and used it as material to make my body anew, so all this power came from sacrificing the lifeblood of a planet, a dying planet.

What about the souls of those who lived there? I do not know. Never found them, and to be honest. I do not care about them, I only want my brother to have a chance at life. I only want Momma to bring me a new mango cake...I only want Auntie to come and for her to try to teach me new things.

I only want to be happy too...

So what can I do? Sealed away in a crumbling reality node, no way to access Zaanam again unless I wanted to risk contamination by that shadowy guy.

Well, I'm glad you asked!

You see, my powers come from the lifeblood of a planet, and Elizabeth had a very handy thing with her, her parents turned the core of a planet into a drink. A sports drink to restore mana. A good way to have a permanent way to get mana if you are a meat bag.

But if you are me? This is something entirely different, this is a [Seed].

"[A seed that will give me hope]." The words flowed out of my mouth freely. "[The seed that will be the beginning of a new chapter...Shine brighter than the light at the birth of the universe."]

The ridiculous sports drink broke the liquid solidified and the materials of the vase turned into a beautiful sparkling gem, "[SHINE WITH THE HOPE OF A NEW DAY, FOR OUR STORY HASN'T ENDED!]"

At this point, the reality node was about to break, but with all the power that remained in this crumbling body, I whisked it away, away from Zaanam, away from Aetheria, Away from all the planes that were around this place.

Back to where all began, back to the solar system where Terra Invicta once stood. A galaxy that now was deserted from life.

"[UNDER MY CALL, UNDER MY COMMAND I DECLARE, ROAR YOUR CRY FOR A SECOND CHANCE!]" The gem broke but the energy remained, it condensed it wanted to spiral out of control, the energy wanted freedom, wanted an out, but I hadn't finished. "[THIS WILL BE THE THUNDER THAT BRIDGES THE END WITH THE BEGINNING AND GIVES THIS RHAPSODY A SECOND CHANCE!]"

And so the energy exploded outward, consuming all that was around, the remaining planets got engulfed, the solar system, the asteroids, the sun... Even my body as it crumbled away.

All of it was consumed into a black hole, but what comes when a black hole collapses? In the traditional science, it is impossible for it to collapse since it doesn't have mass. But when you add exotic energies and [Idea] to it.

Well, it twists time into itself and so my plan begins. The [Idea] is to twist time far into the past, to the very beginning of the creation of this planet. The point where Alexanders's stalker began. And so my [Idea] can worm itself into the reality of this place.

So it tweaks the events ever so slowly to change, to give us another chance, will I be there? A version of me will be, it will not be me for my story ends here at the end of the universe with the creation of a black hole made out of [Mana] and [Idea].

But there is hope that at least another version of me may find happiness, hope that another version of Alexanders doesn't have to live such a crap childhood. Hope that another version of Mamma doesn't end up working for a weapon facility. Hope that another version of Auntie manages to speak her feelings...

Hope that Mister Pig doesn't end up in prison for being a pervert...

What? A girl can dream, even if the last one is probably impossible.