The strategy meeting wasn't that long to get over with, a nice surprise to Ale since she liked this way more, she didn't need an overly complicated plan with a ton of pages like what the theater master had done. It was stupidly complex and was bound to break more easily. This was better.
What did they speak about? Mostly theories bout vectors of contamination, Ale had chimed in since she had made contact, and then they corroborated the data that Ale brought with [Gabriel] 's opinion, since he had also come into contact with Meli-Meliˋs zombies.
It was easy to prove that neither were under the compulsion, nor that they had [Core Users] that could do that. What they did was use [Eleanore] 's Core Power to prove it. The woman asked [Gabriel] if he had any qualms about going after Meli-Meli. And when the answer was satisfactory, they moved on.
The weirder question was if he had any problem with Alexa. Meli-Meli had some issues against Alexa, and so it was a normal enough question. Honestly, Ale had expected something to come up there.
"None, so long she does her work all is well." Was the answer that [Gabriel] gave.
That was surprising, she had thought that [Gabriel] would find issues with the fact that Alexandra and Ale had bound out [Eleanore] in a way that she couldn't use her power against them. But that was not the case.
The next issue came from a more predictable side.
"Hey! Aren't you going to interrogate the pipsqueak?!?!?" That is to say, from the Heroe's side.
"Vulcanus?" [SuperForce] asked afterwards the outburst from [Chrysalis], "While the tone is wrong, I do wonder, she had a more direct contact with the target did he not?"
"Yes," [Vulcanus] answered, "And we will, if you don't mind your own side being put under the same scrutiny, we did [Gabriel] as a show of goodwill, but if you want more, you will need to do the same."
"I don't mind trusting you, so if any of you have an issue, you can volunteer for the testing." [SuperForce] said turning to his side of the problem.
No one came forward, predictably.
Afterwards they got their mission parameters and areas of activity, more normal stuff. If this was something like the bank heist, Ale could imagine being given an encyclopedia of orders with multiple scenarios, but it was not.
"Where did you get assigned to?" [Big Sister] asked, coming forward with her papers, "I am on overwatch duty again."
"The pier," [Golem] said, showing his papers, he was assigned that with extra orders and clearances, some boats would be moved near his area for him to pick up and use as weapons, other minions had been assigned to move the boats, it seemed. "I'll stop the zombies from escaping into the ocean, we don't want this to spread to any of the mega fauna outside the city."
"Imagine this girl getting control over the hives…or some of the sea dragons…" [Big Sister] shuddered as she spoke, "What about you Ale?"
"I am in the sewers team," Ale said showing her own papers, she was sent to investigate the sewers, "They took into consideration that I have been there a few times and my powerset it seems."
"Your powerset?" [Golem] asked confused, "You shift, what does that have to…"
"I have clearance to use any biomass I find in the most efficient way possible." Ale answered before they could ask, "My [Core Power] is more efficient when I don't need to think too much about optimizing, so a place filled with Biomass works better for me, it will also mean that I can fight without worrying about wastage."
Really, this was the best gift anyone had given her so far, the fact that it came with a permit to go nuts into the local fauna was better, more so because they were currently categorizing the zombies as monsters and not [Humans], any kill to them wouldn't be counted as murder or something.
Ale didn't know why this distinction mattered, but she wouldn't look too closely at the gift she was offered. That is to say, a permission to go wild in the sewers, also as far as she knew, there wasnˋt that much recording or monitoring under the sewers.
"If you get into trouble escape to ground level," [Golem] said with his gravely voice, "If possible run towards the pier, I'll deal with whatever comes your way."
"And if not, just get a signal into the sky. I'll swoop down to help you." [Big Sister] added, to which Ale nodded to both of them.
They ended up giving Ale some advice about how to deal with situations in the sewers, mostly [Golem] telling her about the tell-tales about unstable tunnels and [Big Sister] reminding her that she should always prioritize having a way to escape and to always have a getaway tunnel in mind.
Overall, helpful advice. Not that they could remain to talk for long since they needed to move out, soon enough all the [Minions] with sheepherding duty got sent away and the same could be said about the [Sidekicks] and [Heroes].
Soon all that remained was [SuperForce] and [Chrysalis] from the side of the [Heroes] as for the [Villains]?
[Eleanore], [Gabriel] and [Vulcanus].
It was…heavily loopsided to the Villain side, but somehow, the remaining minions near Alexa weren't that confident.
"So you are accepting more underage Minions now, Vulcanus?" [Superforce] asked, "Not enough with having Stellar?"
"Rhapsody is a special case." [Vulcanus] said.
"Rhapsody? How many Rhapsodies do you have? She is obviously a different one." [Chrysalis] hmphed while saying so, "They don't even have the same body build. This is ridiculous, if you don't want to give us her code name just say so."
"She is Rhapsody," [Eleanore] stated, "I can vouch for that."
"....Then who was the one I fought?" [Chrysalis] asked narrowing her eyes, "Because sure as hell it wasn't this one, or what? Is that her Core Power? Losing age when she loses the extra fat?"
"Chrysalis." [Superforce] said in a cold tone, then turning to Ale and smiling as if nothing had happened, he spoke in a gentler tone, "Sorry about that, is your mom or older sister a Minion? Did you inherit their name?"
"I am Rhapsody, an Orphan." Ale stated, "As far as I am aware, no one has used this name before. And yes, it is because of my [Core Power] that I look ."
"....So you are the cow bitch?" [Chrysalis] said looking down at Ale, "...I am not apologizing."
"It's fine," Ale said shrugging, "I'll also not apologize when I rip out your arms out."
"Hohoh….is that a threat?" [Chrysalis] said as her energy armor shimmered into place around her body, making her hover a few centimeters above the ground, "Because we can get into it if you want."
"Chrysalis…" [SuperForce] spoke again, only this time his hand was atop [Chrysalis ] 's shoulder, not atop the energy armor, but actually went past the energy armor and settled into the woman's shoulder, "You will not fight or threaten children, we spoke about this."
"....Sorry boss," [Chrysalis] said as her energy armor disipated, "I'll go…and patrol or something."
And in that tone, [Chrysalis] flew away, or well…It looked more like she was running away if Ale was to be honest, actually, how did he went past the energy armor?
"As for you…I don't know what kind of past you had, or if you really meant it. But please do not speak so lightly about human torture," [SuperForce] said shaking his head, "A girl your age should be playing around, not out here fighting monsters." Fınd the newest release on nοvelfire.net
"Are the monsters only in the sewers?" Ale asked instead, "Because as far as I have seen…"
Ale took a few seconds to turn her head towards [Eleanore], "I have seen a few outside the sewers, at least the ones in the sewers are easier to deal with." And afterwards she turned to [SuperForce]," Besides, your [Sidekick] used violence beyond the acceptable limit, and while we are built differently, she could have left serious injuries to a normal [Minion]."
"...we?" [Superforce] said in a thoughtful tone, turning to [Vulcanus], "Did Chrysalis hurt more minions?"
"Rhapsody has an interesting variant to the DID Disorder," [Vulcanus] said, shrugging, "As far as we know, Chrysalis only hurt Rhapsody, since she was the one directly affected. You are aware of what she did after leaving her unconscious, aren't you?"
"...She is an employee of the Saintswortsh," [SuperForce] stated, "You are aware what that means."
"....That does make this more interesting yes," [Vulcanus] said with a smirk on his fake face, "But that is besides the point, do you require more from us Hero?"
"Not at this moment, send me the relevant information that I need about Rhapsody." [Superforce] said as his body started rising, "And it was nice seeing you, Vulcanus, Cerberus, Gabriel."
"...Wish it was in better circumstances," [Eleanore] said first before anyone else, "Keep the good work."
"Take care man, and whenever you want to dispose of that girl, call me." [Gabriel] said before teleporting away.
"The amount of information I can send will depend on Rhapsody's legal guardian stance," [Vulcanus] said as Alexa got a prompt, a question from [Vulcanus] about how much information to release. "I'll send it as soon as they get back to me."
Ale decided to set up an automated answer to be sent in two hours, basically sending the rough version, the fact that each form of her had a different personality…and only a mention about Alexandra, no mention about Alexa.
That would set her like normal shifters, or well, more normal than what she was right now, as far as she knew not many had the issue of multiple selves around, or at least not shifters. Part of that was probably the fact that they didn't do as an extensive shift as Alexa and them did.
Not that Ale wanted to change that, she enjoyed life as it was.
"So I'll go, any special order before leaving?" Ale said walking towards the nearest manhole and turning to look at [Vulcanus].
"Remember to double tap all your kills, the civilians are probably a lost cause." [Vulcanus] said in an even cold tone, "And if you have problems dealing with them…which I doubt you will have according to Gabriel's report. Call in support, your mask is patched to our emergency frequency, so a Lieutenant will know where you are and assist you."
"Ignore the tin can, if you can neutralize them do so." [Gabriel] added from the side.
"Remember that there are people waiting for you," [Eleanore] said at the last, "You have to return for them."
"I'll take that into consideration," Ale said, kicking down the manhole so it flew out of its socket, and without losing eye contact, Ale jumped into it.
She felt herself fall for a few meters before her feet made contact with the ground. Luckily, she was wearing her body armor, so the fall damage was absorbed by the body armor, and she wasn't hurt. As soon as she landed, her mask changed its HUD.
Instead of a clear view of what was around a minimap materialized on the top right of her field of view, it showed a couple dots moving around, she had a part of the map highlighted, allegedly, that was the area that had been asigned to her, so she now had a clear area of activity.
The other dots seemed to run around and move in their own designated areas, Ale removed those other dots from her view and zoomed in the map so it would only show her part of the sewers. She didn't need to know about the other parts that weren't part of her duties.
Why would she want to know about those if she wasn't going to go into them? It was stupid. It was more productive to focus on her own part of the sewers, besides, it was a miracle that she could even see them… And she wasn't entirely sure how good that intel was.
As far as she knew, the sewer system was usually isolated from the bigger network, or they had told her that. So how could she see other people with such high fidelity? Unless there was a Core Power at play then it didn't made sense. And as far as she was aware, the members that had come from [Vulcanu's Forge]... None had such a power.
So no, Ale wouldn't use that data for now, if she needed then it could be brought back as needed, but she would act as if she didn't have access to that data. Instead she started plotting and planning.
[Trace a route that encompasses all the areas that I need to visit.]
[Secondary objective, prioritize areas that could be used as a hideout.]
[Efficiency is to be set up as the priority.]
[Order acknowledged…]
[Building up virtual map…]
[Virtual route built, transmitting.]
This was useful, even if Alexa didn't use it that often, or as much as they had used Main Core, Ale liked it more, less the sass, more the helpful advice, not that it did things that Ale couldn't do. She could probably build up that route as fast, if not faster, than Main Core had done.
But she hadn't needed to do it, since there was a subroutine that could do it for her, why bother with the effort if someone else could do it after all.
Was this irresponsable? Perhaps, but Ale didn't mind it. It was easy, it was made for this, so Ale used it like that. Looking into the route, Ale found it also passed dangerously close to one of the hideouts used by Sam, she couldn't help but wonder if Sam would be there when they ran past it. Not that she wanted to see the spider man, but if he was around…She would need to summon Alexandra, and she wasn't sure that Alexandra was up for the task. The older woman had been more lethargic since the event that had occurred.
Ale was worried, but Alexa had said that everything was fine, so she would need to believe in the little girl, even if she wasn't sure what the little girl was doing, or if they could do more. Instead she was ending up wondering bout what to do, well, she knew what to do right now. She was to look for servants of Meli-Meli, that is to say, the weird zombies she was using to propagate her dominion over people, and the fact that she was using other Humans as a vector to infect more people, that was smarter than Ale had given credit for.
Now the question was, how long would she need to walk into the darkness of these sewer tunnels before she was able to find the dark matter and the invaders…