I will strive beyond this cursed bloodline!

Alarms were going in continually without end and red light was bathing the whole laboratory.

 

"We lost connection with proxy server # 4!" Said a blue-haired woman from one of the terminals.

 

"Connection to proxy server # 9 was lost, no confirmation of destruction." A black-haired woman said after.

 

"Stop reporting losses we can't do anything about and patch the errors as they come!" Said the blonde man while furiously typing away in four consoles at the same time.

 

Alexanders wasn't having a good day...Nay, cross that out, since Elizabeth had come to this city he hadn't been having a good time.

 

Whatever was trying to worm into [His] domain was persistent and was eating away at the defenses he had built, the insidious little [Snake] was persistent and was eating away at the [Soulscape] he had built with so much effort.

 

And the stupid [Dog] wasn't helping, "Sir the rogue element has destroyed the efforts to reinforce area ND0 sector." Said one of his assistants, was she Jenny?

 

He wasn't sure "Someone go and spray that stupid dog with water or something!" Screamed Alexanders while throwing a keyboard at one of the windows in the laboratory.

 

Only for the keyboard to disappear in blurred static and show up once more in his station.

 

"Weird..." Mumbled Alexanders while more errors were piling in his stations.

 

Something was weird but he couldn't quite put a finger on it.

 

"[Tch...]"

 

And then he noticed it... His secretary... "What happened to your face?" she didn't have a face.

 

He never paid much attention to her as she would be replaced soon enough by another upstart from another sub-branch of the Saintsworth's clan.

 

But the fact that her face was a blur was something that didn't look quite right, and after noticing that, everything fell into place. The people in his laboratory?

 

Old acquaintances, heads of other laboratories that had no reason to be in his lab... Mostly because they all were dead, erased from existence with no hope of returning to the land of the living.

 

One by one they all disappeared in blurs of static, leaving behind empty stations manned by his loyal mechanical servants, extensions of his [Skill] working to keep the [System] in place.

 

Soon enough the boisterous laboratory was silent besides the sound of new alarms. He couldn't help but look down into his hands. If all the work was being done solely by himself...

 

"What are Catherine and Jack even doing..." Mumbled Alexanders as he saw his hands being corroded by shadowy veins.

 

A snap of his fingers brought a holographic mirror and sure enough, his whole body was showing cracks made by shadowy veins all over his body.

 

They stayed far away from his face but they were slowly encroaching upwards to his head, only being kept at bay by the workings of his skill as his blue eyes shined with a golden halo around them, at least his [Skill] was working as intended...For now.

 

"I knew letting that stupid [Librarian] set the pace for the development of Elizabeth was a mistake." Said to himself alexanders while laughing.

 

He didn't even bother to try and fix the new errors that came his way, one by one the screens were turning off, and the laboratory was turning off...

 

Alexanders was getting more and more pings and screens off errors but he didn't seem to mind it as he stared at the darkness beyond the [Soulscape]'s Laboratory.

 

"I don't mind being here...Didn't have many options, not any good ones at least." He started saying while moving away from his station and dismissing the blue screens that came his way. "I don't mind all these bindings either..."

 

He said while one of the robots pointed a light his way and a series of red and blue chains materialized, all bound to Alexanders, a few of them were broken but he didn't seem to mind those.

 

"What I [Hate] is you using the illusion of my friends...No, my comrades in arms...My subordinates...My [Old Life]... As a mockery to try and get me to do your job...Especially when you don't help." Said the blonde man while his whole body was engulfed in lighting, burning away the shadowy veins in his body.

 

A pair of sharp plasma wings on his back started to form only to dissipate a few seconds later as more chains materialized around him, but even so, the shadows stayed far away from him.

 

"So if you don't want to listen to my advice, do your best on your own...Se how far you can go. [System Off]" And immediately after saying that, the whole laboratory turned off.

 

Whatever was doing Elizabeth in the real world seemed to put a strain on his System, and while it helped to purge the [Taint], it also put whatever agenda the [System] wanted at risk it had him working to patch it.

 

So he turned it all Off, it would help whatever Elizabeth was doing and help her against [The Taint], while also giving a metaphorical middle finger to whoever had used the memories of his old life as a means to further its gains at the expense of Alexanders.

 

He might end up more chained than before...But he was willing to trade it, who knew?

 

Perhaps his own [Machinations] would be advanced too?

 

Nah, he wasn't that lucky.

---

---

"WAKE UP!" He was woken up by the scream of a girl.

 

It seemed as if he had fallen asleep in one of the new stations he had spent the night setting up, it was a comfy hole in one of the walls with everything he would need.

 

"And what the hell happened to you? It's the second time you look younger... Midlife crisis?" Asked the black-haired girl.

 

He was still half asleep but he didn't remember giving new access perms to his lab to anyone new, not after they had moved the lab to this plane and affixed it to Elizabeth's Soul.

 

And that girl...Didn't look like Elizabeth, nor anyone from Catherine's family, she had the feeling of someone related to Jack though.

 

"It's rude to wake up people by screaming at them." He said while measuring the girl.

 

She had all the hallmarks of a goth girlfriend, she was quite the looker even if she looked to be somewhat younger than him, maybe five years younger than him?

 

He just had gotten over 18 a few months ago after all.

 

"Don't look at me like that, you might look younger now but I still remember how you looked at the start of all of this." Said the girl while shuddering.

 

Was she bad in the head?

 

He could work with that. *Ping*

 

A blue screen materialized to his left, the results from his query had finished and the identity of the girl was finally confirmed.

 

"Hah?" Said Alexanders while reading the reports. "Elizabeth?"

 

The girl just shrugged "I go by [Alice] in this form." Said the girl while throwing a silver bracelet his way.

 

He caught it by reflex and looked at it, it was a match with the one the girl had in his left hand, "Sorry girl...You might be my type, but I value my life more and your Mother would kill me if I tried anything." He shivered at the image of Catherine.

 

That woman was a terror when she wanted to do something about her family.

 

"First of all, ew. Second [Ew]...Thirdly [EWWWW]." He could even feel the [Idea] in the last two.

 

Rude, he wasn't that bad of a choice, he was a respectable [Scion] in his prime!

 

Granted his [Prime] started maybe way before she was born... Wait, was his body affecting his mind again? Great, he would need to tweak his [Skill] again.

 

He decided to focus his detection skills on the bracelet and found something he wasn't quite expecting, there was an [Skill] imbued in the bracelet.

 

It wasn't quite obvious, it was hidden using the stealth properties of [Shadow] based skills, but it was there "And I didn't even get you a present." Said the blonde man while pocketing the thing in his jacket.

 

It would be useful if they were to be attacked once more by the [Madness] and he needed to do another last stand.

 

Wait...Last Stand? Again?

 

"Ugh..." He suddenly felt a headache strike him.

 

"So? What happened to you, you looked different last time, but the change wasn't this extreme." Said the girl looking at him.

 

'What the hell was this brat going on about? ' Thought Alexanders while flicking one of his hands and summoning a recording of their meetings.

 

He needed to find the origin of this nagging feeling at the back of his mind, so he focused on his [Skill] and went about his recent memories.

 

"That is wrong though, look. "Said the girl while pointing at the recordings, " You grabbed that [Book] but it looks as if you are holding air and the book is hovering above your hand."

 

"That is..." Started saying Alexanders only to stop flat while staring at the holo screen, "... Impossible...What?" The headache intensified and a few error alarms showed in his HUD, he turned off the notifications while focusing on the recordings.

 

That was impossible, his body looked as always, the body of an 18-year-old going about his life, he moved it away from the times he met with Elizabeth, and still was happening.

 

His recordings showed him interacting with the world as if he was...Taller, he even acted sometimes in ways he would never, not unless he was under the influence of his [Body]... And he didn't have his [Skill] available.

 

Actually, the only time he could find of him using his [Skill] was in the first meeting with Elizabeth, when he used one of his attacks as a way to deliver...

 

What did he give Elizabeth?

 

"Okay girl, listen... I will get to the bottom of this, but if something happens please bring this again and do until I listen to you, no matter how you have to do it. Okay?" He summoned the full brunt of his [Skill].

 

Summoning several screens that were meant to be used to monitor bugs and errors in [The System] that kept this place intact.

 

"No wait. I came to ask you about the skills!" Said the girl but he ignored her.

 

She didn't understand, no one ever did.

 

This was [Dangerous] something was going on and neither of them held [Fate's Blessing], this was the kind of thing you used [Fate's Choosen]. If someone got involved in this kind of thing they ended [Dead], or worse...As [Extras].

 

"[Alexanders]!" Screamed the black-haired girl, as a shockwave shoved her backward, he must be a sigh to see right now.

 

If his headache was something to go by he must be bleeding all over, but his [Skill] made it so that he was able to [Think] even if his brain was a boiled mush, it was better that way actually.

The world suddenly turned monochrome, he couldn't help but smile. "[Gotcha]" his body wasn't an exception and he couldn't move his brain couldn't even form a coherent thought either.

 

"[Look at what you did to my body, that is a work of art made by centuries of work by The Saintsworth's Clan.]" He said while a whisp of electricity flew from his body's head and formed a body made of thunder.

 

It slowly turned into a facsimile doppelganger of his physical body, It wouldn't last long, but it would be good enough for this.

"But you aren't [The World] are you?" He said in a mocking tone while looking at the ceiling of his laboratory.

 

There floating was a red screen, if it was anyone else they wouldn't have caught on it, but this wasn't his first time dealing with these types of beings. "Not really...Who are you?" He asked he could feel his time was running short, so he really needed to get the information.

He suddenly couldn't breathe, it felt as if the weight of the world had dropped on him. "W-Who...are....y-you?" He barely managed to say.

 

Whatever that [Thing] was, his whole body shivered at its presence, a new blue screen hovered high in the ceiling, and he almost felt...Indifference? Care? Pity?

 

He wasn't sure why he could feel emotions from that [Thing].

And then, the world turned dark as the last of his [Mana] was expended, he fought with all his might to try and send some of the information back...

 

But the last whisp of his [Mana] extinguished a few millimeters away from Elizabeth.

 

And he could only hope that he would remember...And if not that his [Skill] would warn him about the dangers he was in, Catherine had lied about her part of the deal. This was not [Better].

---

"WAKE UP!" He was woken up by the scream of a girl.

 

It seemed as if he had fallen asleep in one of the new stations he had spent the night setting up, it was a comfy hole in one of the walls with everything he would need.

 

"And what the hell happened to you? It's the second time you look younger... Midlife crisis?" Asked the black-haired girl.

 

He was still half asleep but he didn't remember giving new access perms to his lab to anyone new, not after they had moved the lab to this plane and affixed it to Elizabeth's Soul.

 

...What?

 

"Deja vu...?" Mumbled Alexanders while nursing one of the worst headaches he remembered having before.

 

Had he spent the last night drinking? Had Alexa kept him all night running around and drinking another one of her [Great Inventions] or something?

 

A quick ping into his [Skill] came up empty, it seemed that he had gone to sleep after fixing some weird bug in the [System], now who was this girl though?

 

Before he even could ask a ping from one of his holo-tablets showed the information about the girl. "Elizabeth?" Asked flabbergasted the blonde man.

 

"I go by [Alice] in this form, but yes." Said the girl while throwing a bracelet his way.

 

A quick look at the girl showed it was a matching one with the one the girl used, he felt like there was a good joke about this, but somehow he couldn't come up with one, for some reason, the flirt joke felt...Used?

 

Like he had used it before? But this was the first time he had seen Elizabeth like this...Right?

 

"So, why are you in the goth girlfriend mode?" He settled for the second-best joke while directing his [Skill] to connect into the [System] for an analysis of the thing.

 

Somehow the [System] was better at it since it returned the result almost as fast as he asked for them, was the girl in a heavy mana zone or something?

 

It was having quite good efficiency today... If only he could deal with the headache as quickly...

 

"I'm at the induction of [The Hydra's Fang] a [Villain] organization, we are having a break so I came to ask a few things." Said the girl while pointing at the bracelet, "They use that to deal with the [Taint]. I learned how to do it myself since it seems my [Skill] is pure enough to make it work, but I thought you could use it to patch anything I missed."

 

The girl was joining a [Villain] group? Wasn't that a fun development?

 

He couldn't help but imagine her going the dark route and ending up fighting against Catherine, that would be something he would pay to see. "Sure girl, I can make do with this, should be able to deal with it... I will check the [Logs] to see how you dealt with it, if [Pure Skills] are what you need mine should be good enough to deal with it too." Answered the blonde man.

 

"So you need anything else?" Asked Alexanders while putting the bracelet in his left hand like the black-haired girl, he would experiment with it later to see if it interacted with his [Skill].

 

"Yeah, what's the deal with my [Skills] and those notifications?" Said the girl while making a gesture with her hand and pointing to her left.

 

"Yes, I see..." Said Alexanders while looking to the left of Elizabeth, "I need you to give me permissions or I can't actually see your notifications, you know... Privacy and all that [Bulllshit]." He added with a smirk.

 

The girl just grumbled and after a few seconds he could see what she meant, those..."Are dangerous notifications, wait a sec." He said while searching in the [Logs].

 

He had noticed something like that before but didn't pay much attention to it, after fishing around he found the same notifications Elizabeth had gotten but from his side of [The System].

 

Sure enough, some notifications were hidden, if not outright deleted. "It seems that the [Taint] or [Something] tampered with your [Skill]." He said while bringing more holo screens and searching in the code for errors.

 

Besides a few notes about [Errors] here and there, he didn't see any reason for the withholding of the [Achievements]. "...Weird..." He mumbled while reading all over the [Logs] and executing a few diagnoses.

 

"Also..." The girl fidgeted trying to say something else.

 

She really was the right type for his tastes...If only she wasn't the daughter of Catherine...No Alexanders, focus.

 

"There." Said the while pointing at something after a notification, "It said that my defenses against the [Madness] were decreased."

 

She was trembling as a kid scared about a monster in the dark, "Then here..." She struggled with the words, "It treathen me saying [The world will have it's due]."

 

Then immediately after saying so she grabbed her head, Alexanders did the same as suddenly he felt a sharp pain in his head, usually, it wouldn't be much trouble, but he was already under a nasty headache.

 

One that suddenly felt more ominous than before. "Then after it, there was..." She was saying struggling to weave her words, "..Rolling back...Thought...kernel," her eyes started to shine red, and new [Error] windows started popping up around both her and him.

 

He tried to focus on the [Errors] the girl was seeing, and the ones she was seeing and the ones he was seeing were different. Those that the girl was seeing were only standard errors.

 

While those he was seeing spoke of problems with information he wasn't [Allowed] to [Known]. Wasn't that interesting?

 

"Okay," he said while dismissing all the screens that had shown up. "I will try something since it seems [Someone] is messing with our [Mind] and that shouldn't be possible...Well maybe for you, but not for me, my [Skill] should prevent it." He pinged his [Skill] and it returned the ping as usual.

 

"What is going on with these [Notifications]?" Asked the girl.

 

And wasn't that the one thousand question?

 

"Don't know, but you need to ask me about this and convince me to look into it no matter what..." He said while struggling to say the next part, "If I don't listen...Threaten me with your Father, that ought to get me moving." He didn't want to give the girl ammunition to coerce him, but this was important.

 

This was the kind of thing that could be a danger to someone like him...And he would be a bad brother to Alexa if he left something this dangerous alone.

 

So swallowing his worries he invoked the full might of his [Skill] "[Heed my call...]" He hadn't needed to use one of these for quite some time. "[...Brighter than the light that birthed the universe...]" He could feel the blood pouring from his eyes already... This would give him an extra headache to his headache, "[...This is the thunder that bridges the light of Science with Knowledge!]"

 

After finishing his chat he felt the deluge of information, "Alexanders!" said the voice of a girl while he fell onto the floor, blood pouring from his mouth, nose, and eyes, he wasn't quite sure whose voice it was, since blood was pooling in his ears too.

 

He hoped it wasn't Alexa, she was too young to see him bleeding from everywhere, well...She probably was seeing worse stuff on the internet already.

 

"Alexanders!" Came the nagging voice bringing him back from the land of the headaches, his [Skill] was working overtime allowing him to think straight while his brain was overloaded.

 

He tried to stand up but fell back into his back again, "Here you might want to.." Said the black-haired girl offering a handkerchief, he took it and wiped the blood from his face.

 

"Yeah sorry, probably for the best if I don't return this...Your [Skill] still hasn't evolved a washing machine." He said while looking at the red handkerchief.

 

"Don't do that again." Said the girl with finality.

 

He couldn't help but laugh at that, the girl looked adorable when she pretended to care about him. No one ever did, why would a brat that didn't even know him would?

 

But it was a nice gesture, even if the girl probably just didn't want a dead body rotting in his soul.

 

"So...in a nutshell." He said while projecting a screen using his [Skill] he didn't trust the [System] to provide the information...Even if he had created the damned thing.

 

"We both got [Mind Raped]." He said showing the results of his search.

 

In that screen he summoned with his [Skill] showed moments where their mana had been tampered with, It didn't show who did it, nor what they did, but it showed moments when they had been affected, both dates and time.

 

Both he and the girl had been tampered with the same dates and times, but Alexanders had been more affected if the logs were to be trusted, and that... He wasn't sure if he should feel proud or annoyed that he had been more attacked... And that he hadn't been able to notice it before.

 

"So...Why are you being more targeted?" Asked the girl.

 

The hell if he knew!

 

"Probably my [Skill] is at fault...I didn't find evidence of me using it as much after our first meeting, and that is one of the biggest intrusions I found." He answered he would need to run his [Skill] almost all day long if possible, that would be a huge mana drain that would affect his efficiency in dealing with the bugs in the system...

 

"So...Your change in form...?" Asked the girl.

 

His what?

 

"My what?" Said back Alexanders. He went all over the logs again and groaned at what he found.

 

Once more the system had videos highlighting how he moved as if his body was different...Oh..."Crap." Said the blonde.

 

The girl looked at him weirdly, he debated if he should even tell the girl, and decided that suffering was better when shared.

 

"This isn't the first time we find this...To be precise, this isn't the first time we have had this conversation." And he showed the queries he found, "I didn't input these searches, the system saved my queries and showed them to me this fast because I had searched them before...When? Who knows...But we had this conversation before..."

 

And wasn't that a problem?

 

How many times had he found this information...

 

The long list of tampering in his mind..."At least my [Skill] is [Thunder Aligned] so no matter how much I get mind zapped my brain can survive it..." He said letting his meaning parse over to the girl.

 

Yeah... He didn't envy Elizabeth, if she ended up being mind zapped as much as him...The girl would probably end up dumb as a rock...

 

This...This would be a problem...Now he would need to bribe Alexa so he could check if she was in danger too...

 

That would be hard, that girl hated testing. Granted with how she had grown...Wait...

 

"ALEX!" He felt a sting on his face.

 

Had the brat slapped him? Why?

 

"Are we getting kinky? Sorry girl, even if you are my type your mother would kill me..." He said with a smirk on his face.

 

The girl didn't seem to react to his joke though...Was she into him?

 

"What did you though?" Asked the girl with frantic eyes, she was... Scared? "Before my slap, what did you though about?"

 

Oh right...What was he thinking about?

 

He looked over his [Logs] and found a new error...

 

"Whatever it was...It was a clue and now we lost it...This...This might take me some time to fix." He said while looking at the left of his HUD.

 

He was in the third threshold now...Maybe if he nudged Elizabeth to the fourth threshold that could work?

 

The only question was...How?

 

"If you feel like you aren't getting experience notifications again come straight to me okay." He said while standing, he was feeling the headache calming down...

 

That or his brain had finally shut down and he was working only on [Skill]...Either way, it would be an improvement at this point.

 

"Also, I think your break is about to finish, so go on and be a [Villain] or something, I have some stuff to deal with on this side." He nudged the girl away while walking to his station.

 

He had liked the new pod design, but now...Now it felt more like a prison...

 

And wasn't that ironic considering his situation?

 

He was stuck in the [Soulscape] while an older copy of himself paraded himself in the real world...

 

But he would have his price...As long as Elizabeth managed to arrive at the next threshold fast enough...As long as his [Insurance] stayed in place...

 

He would be the one laughing at the end of all of it.