Chapter 262: Chapter 262

The question came like a thunderbolt. Ale had not really thought much about it before; it was always a question that she had asked others, what their plan for Ale and Alexa was.

And now they asked her that?

"Stop pressuring the poor girl," Miriam Eversoul said turning her glare to Alexanders yet again, "It's okay Ale, you can take your time. We are still setting up the logistics to check if it is viable for you to return to Ohio."

Weren't they only going to get her things back? Well, now that Alexanders had come and said that her things were here they probably would not check on that.

"What did we say about imposing our opinion on those that we shouldn't do so?" Alexanders said shaking his head and sighing, "You really never learn your lessons do you? "

Ale wasn't sure what to say or do in these situations, she felt the need to defend Miriam Eversoul, but at the same time, the point of Alexanders made sense.

"That is a question that can be solved easily." Vivian Kellet chimed from the back, "Can she even decide for herself? That should be the question here."

Could Ale do that? Alexa... would not really mind it, it was kind of weird how the girl hadn't wanted to come out as much, more so since she was that invested in Miriam Eversoul and Vivian Kellet.

"Yes," Alexanders answered before Miriam Eversoul could even say anything. "She can, she is not only a Saintsworths but my sister."

...That... was not something Ale expected him to say in public, not after he had said that only Alexa was his sister.

"Don't mind him, he is feeling guilty." Sapphire said from the side, floating beside Ale. It took great effort to not react at that, even though the woman was a projection only she was able to see (And perhaps Alexanders). Something told Ale that if she tried, she could interact with her, but she didn't want to. For that would expose another side of their powers. "He is sorry because he was oh so sure that reviving your older self would be possible for him. So after finding out that wasn't a possibility he came up with this as a way to apologize."

.... He had truly tried to revive Alexandra then? Ale had thought that wasn't going to happen, or was even a possibility.

"[Is that true?]" Ale sent the data packet to Alexanders, who seemed to merely shiver and take a sip of his cup instead of answering. Or well, at least for a few seconds, for then a... Ale wanted to say it was a data packet, but it looked weird.

It felt more like a bunch of code patched together and then thrown hazadrly away. Not to Ale, but to Sapphire.

Sapphire merely let that wave of data hit her body as if nothing.

"Don't waste your time in that, he can't interface or read the data quite yet. And he is just throwing a tantrum, whatever you sent him he attempted to decode, failed at doing so, failed at re-encrypting, and then threw it my way." Sapphire said amused as she played with what Ale imagined was the data packet, it was twisted and corrupted beyond recognition, and yet, Sapphire's eyes seemed to hold some nostalgia at that little bundle of corrupted data, "You can take my word for it. It is meaningless to lie to you as handsome man over there will just tell you the truth later."

"Even if she is a Saintsworths, that does not mean she got the same education as you; it is irresponsible of you to put the same type of expectations on her as those put on you or the other scions of the Saintsworths clan." Vivian Kellet said from the side.

Ale could understand her point of view, since they got the same story about Alexa being raised in a human experimentation facility after all.

"Vivian, we do not judge people for the environment they were raised in..." Miriam Eversoul said, only for a second later turning to look in Alexanders direction, "Exceptions do exist though."

"Noted," Alexanders said with a smirk, "But you both are understimating her, even like that, even if she didn't get the proper education that a Saintsworths would receive, she is still one of us."

Alexanders didn't address the fact of what Sapphire had said behind his back, or how he hadn't been able to decode Ale's data packet, or even interface with it. Honestly, Ale wasn't sure why she had thought he would be able to do so. There wasn't any evidence of him being able to interface or react to it.

But since Sapphire was able to do so, Ale had just assumed Alexanders would too.

"I... Don't have any plans at the moment." Ale ended up saying after thinking for a few extra seconds, that was the truth, and she was honestly, ashamed of it. She should have a few plans ready by now, but she had originally planned to think about that while doing the maintenance, and since that one hadn't come...

Nay, that was an excuse. She had just didn't think about the possibility about maintenance not happening, and in turn she hadn't prepared anything in case it didn't happen.

"Good," Alexanders said nodding, "See? How many Saintsworths do you know capable of admitting their failings?"

"None." Miriam Eversoul said without waiting for Alexanders to say anything else, the man had seemed about to say a few things besides that.

Ale knew because he seemed annoyed about the interruption.

"Which means she is already better than most of you." Miriam Eversould however continued speaking, "Good work Ale. If you don't know or aren't sure, you should always say so, unless you want to grow into an irresponsible adult like your brother here."

"I will have you know I always admit my mistakes." Alexanders pointed from his side, pointing at Miriam Eversoul with his fork, "I say it plainly when I don't know about something and get help from the experts in the needed fields as needed. Your friend over there can confirm this."

"... He did ask for my help when he was doing experiments on the human psyche." Vivian Kellet said nodding, "Or well, the physical aspect of the human mind."

"See!" Alexanders said pointing at Miriam Eversoul, "I wanted to know the point of view of an expert when it was about our meaty side, so I asked the expert in human biology!"

Ale... was not sure if that was the correct way to phrase, or even come about that statement.

"... If you wanted to know about the psychological aspect of the human mind, you should have gone to a psychiatrist," Miriam Eversoul pointed out, "And I doubt there is even a single psychiatrist in this world that can fix whatever is wrong with you."

"Ooof..." Alexanders said with mock mirth in his voice, "I don't care about the mind, or well, not in this particular aspect. The mind is already done and all the psychological tests (Which most were designed by you by the way) are done."

Ale noticed Sapphire smirking behind Alexanders as she looked down upon Miriam Eversoul, calculations going through her eyes. Ale wasn't sure if she should intervene or not, but there was something... scary about that purple-haired woman.

"Right," Miriam Eversoul said dismissively, "Your hidden fancy project that no one knows and you hide in your secret lab."

"You say it as if I was the only one with a hidden lab, you are aware that your own laboratory and Vivian's laboratory are also 'Hidden labs' right?" Alexanders said, shrugging, "Besides, you are welcome to walk in at any time you wish to do so, you have the keys after all."

Ale... didn't think that Alexanders was being as honest as he seemed to imply, but wasn't sure how to prove it. This feeling wasn't one coming from herself after all; it was something that bled over from Alexa.

Was that why she had felt relieved when Alexanders said he would come more often?

Ale would need to speak about that with Alexa. If she was bleeding this kind of relief over the presence of this blonde asshole, then she would probably enjoy it more if she was out when he was around.

For now Alexa wasn't answering though. Still working on whatever secret gift she had planned to give Ale.

"So, I know you said you didn't have a plan, but any beginnings of a plan?" Alexanders asked turning his attention back to the pancakes in front of him.

Ale did the same and started cutting into the meat(Or bread) of the matter, she did have a few plans in the make.... sort of.

"I want to learn more about how to use my power correctly." Ale started simple, who didn't want to understand better their tools. Ale was sure that there was no reason for Alexanders to even know how to interpret data since his power seemed to be more of an elemental variety.

As far as she knew from her superficial dive into other core powers, that meant that he could manipulate his element, but that was it.

There was no reason for Ale to make the jump into thinking that he should be able to interpret data. And yet, the man had tried.

Meaning that he had some rough understanding of how that could be achieved. And was probably striving to do just that.

"A noble endeavour." Alexanders said nodding, "Wish more people was as serious as you in that aspect."

"She is a brilliant girl," Miriam Eversoul said nodding, "Honestly, her being your family is probably luck for you."

Ale wouldn't go as far as saying that, if nothing else, it was probably the other way around, considering that she wasn't quite sure what had brought Alexanders to extend the saying that Ale was her sister. More so after he had outright said that she wasn't Alexanders sister, and that was only Alexa.

Or was it because Alexanders referred to Alexa and not her?

That thought made Ale's mood sink only a little; she should have suspected as much from the beginning, to be honest.

"He truly meant you." Sapphire suddenly said appearing as a miniature beside Ale's plate of pancakes, "Handsome meant you, granted he doesn't see you with the same degree of familiarity as he does to Alexa, you are closer to a foster sister to him. Someone he willingly adopted into the family. But that should be good enough, is it not?"

Ale was surprised at that, and that was probably reflected in how she had suddenly turned to stare at Alexanders.

"Is that much of a surprise?" Miriam Eversoul said, probably thinking that Ale's reaction was from the statement about of luck, "Honestly, from what we think about how your Core Power works, you are probably smarter than he was at the same age."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves here." Alexanders chimed in at that statement, "I am a genius, a talent born once every thousand years (Not my words). It is incredibly unfair to compare me to someone else."

Was Ale smarter than Alexanders? She wasn't sure to be honest, the metric couldn't be measured realistically. Ale had access to plenty of data that Alexanders wasn't able to access in the same way, but on the other hand, he had probably the best education that money could provide. So was it unfair to compare them to each other?

Ale could download data straight up from the cloud at a thought, but Alexanders had access to a vast repository of data in the form of Sapphire, and that was before getting into that weird feeling that Alexanders should be able to interface with data the same way or in a better way than Ale could.

"Get off your high horse." Miriam Eversoul, however, was not amused, "The fact that she doesn't get complacent and wants to capitalize more on her power is by itself something that should be applauded."

"She is my sister," Alexanders shrugged, "That was the same thought I had when getting these too."

And as if that wasn't enough, respect was due where it should be given, the fact that Alexanders was the mind behind the creation or the one who facilitated their existence couldn't be ignored.

Ale wasn't sure how much of what she knew was to be trusted after all, the fact that their only source of said data was Core or Alexanders didn't help, at least the ones who actually had reason to know anyway.

"You don't count," Miriam Eversoul said yet again, this woman had many reason to not count Alexanders huh... "You had been seeking to get one of those things inside your body since you were five."

"Who wouldn't want superpowers, honestly." Alexanders said defending himself, "Any sane person when offered the possibility of having these kind of powers by almost no downside would take them."

"No downside?" Miriam Eversoul said arching her eyebrow at him, "Really? You're saying these have no downside? After knowing goddamned well what happens to those who suffer a 'Bad Trigger' or the victims of said bad triggers."

Miriam Eversoul didn't point or even turn to look at Ale, but Ale got the impression that she was talking about her.

"Bad luck is bad luck, besides, you wouldn't stop complaining if I experimented on other people, would you?" Alexanders said shrugging at that statement, "This way I get to find out how Core Powers work, get fancy skills and you have no way to complain or try to shut my program."

"... You are experimenting on yourself?" Ale asked mildly surprised, she had not expected that.

"You don't get to criticize me, Miss I built a 20mm anti-material rifle inside my arm and shot it in a close subterranean environment." Alexanders said smirking at Ale. He had seen that? Of course he had seen that, she had done that inside a facility that he had built... And he had picked up Alexandra's body, which was all the evidence Ale needed to know about that.

She shouldn't even be surprised, she truly was distracted as of late.

"YOU WHAT?!?!?!" Miriam Eversoul screamed as she stood and rushed beside Ale, "Which arm?!?!?!"

"Miriam, calm down." Vivian Kellet said from the side, "You have seen her health status, you know that she has no wounds or evidence of any damage to her nervous system. Which shooting with such a theoretical gun would cause, this is probably a bad joke from Alexanders."

"... You F-------fricking asshole." Miriam Eversoul said after Vivian Kellet presented a very valid argument to calm down the black-haired woman, only...

"I did... do that..." Ale admitted in a small voice, "I was running out of options and Meli-Meli had brought other Core users to defend herself... So I needed the means to defeat them all in as few moves as possible."

"How did you... Where did you even get the idea of using that?" Miriam Eversoul said sighing, "And how is that we didn't find wounds? Wouldn't that damage your skin? Your arm?"

"It did," Alexanders chimed from the side, "She cooked her arm, damaged all the bones that weren't properly reinforced and probably destroyed and/or caused irreversible damage to her body."

That blonde man that Ale had started to call brother was not helping... at all.

"As for the blueprints, that may have come from that device on her arm." Alexanders also pointed to the bracelet that gave her access to the Saintsworths repository of data.

She hadn't gotten the blueprint from there, but it was a good way to hide the actual site she had gotten it from.

".... I'm confiscating that." Miriam Eversoul said in an even tone, "And I am filing a complaint to the Council, why would they even give access to that kind of weaponry to literal children?"

"You are free to complain as much as you want, I have been trying to curate that goddamned library for years, but they never listened to me." Alexanders said, smiling evilly, had... had he done that to achieve this?

Ale wasn't sure. But, she felt used. The blonde asshole had used her as bait, and then put her to the side... but she hadn't lost anything from that exchange, had she?

She could probably still access the data server even without the bracelet... since she had all the needed data to do so, hell, she probably could make a new one, and if she couldn't all she needed was ask Alexanders for a new one...

So... what was this feeling of loss then? She hadn't lost anything.

Such a weird, yet warm feeling.