In the end, Alexa and Ale spent a few more minutes pnning and speaking. They didn't really speak much about future pns, since neither was entirely sure about what to think about their current situation.

  It was a fact that Alexa didn't need the mana-devoid bubble, but they weren't sure how it would react to Alexa.

  "So, while that thing is working. It's better for Alexa to remain here noming the [Feels] that Meli-Meli left us!" Alexa had been quite adamant about that.

  "I am sure we can ask Albireo to rey the message to Alexanders so he can turn it off." Ale retorted back, she didn't want to hog all the time after all.

  "But the faster Alexa noms this the quicker Ale can be in peace and safe." Alexa said pointing once again to the floor, Ale did not look in that direction. She had learned her lesson.

  "... Why worms?" Ale instead decided to ask, "Of all the things, why worms Alexa?"

  "Worms?" Alexa of course didn't seem to understand what Ale was saying, "What wormies?"

  "The thing that is moving under the floor." Ale said pointing down, she still was not turning her awareness anywhere in that direction, she did not want another headache, "Why does it look like that?"

  "... Those are Alexa's wiggles." Alexa said shrugging, raising her hand and making a new one grow out of her hand, "They are like always have been though?"

  For some reason, the one that grew out of her hand didn't give her a headache...

  But it still looked like a worm to Ale and not a tentacle, Ale knew what the 'wiggles' meant to Alexa, she had made a few jokes about tentacles before. Well, more like tentacles, they were tendrils of flesh growing out. Ale had briefly created one of those aberrations too after all.

  The one she had released upon the horde of zombies was based upon that. But those hadn't given her headaches, so why did these?

  "And they are the same as always?" Ale asked extending her hand and touching the weird worm, to her touch it felt like a very slimy worm that also tasted like static, if that was something you could even describe.

  It was like she was feeling her whole body recoil and vibrate wanting to move away from the thing.

  "Yes." Alexa nodded seriously while picking up the worm, hadn't she said that those were tentacles? Then why was she maniputing them as if they were worms? "Why is Ale seeing them like this?"

  She was... seeing them as worms now?

  "Alexa is parsing the visual and sensorial data that Ale is seeing, and while cute with all those weird gears and circles..." Alexa said picking up the worm and giving it a lick.... disgusting, "Alexa likes more the wiggles."

  And in that way the little girl merely opened her mouth and slurped the worm down. That was an image that Ale could have lived all her life without seeing.

  Actually, considering the possibilities they had avaible to them, she may as well delete said image from her memory, that would be for the better.

  "But it's weird, Alexa will ask..." Alexa started speaking only for her face to turn bnk, "Who does Alexa ask in case of a doubt? Do we know anyone that can answer this?"

  Did they?

  "Probably no one," Ale said sighing, "Not without exposing more of our secrets, also, if you start feeling bad stop eating the corrupted by [Death] mana."

  That was something very important, Ale wasn't sure if her perception of Alexa's.... wiggles, had been tainted by that corrupted mana, but if it was, then that thing wasn't safe to eat... Not that knowing that would stop Alexa or anything.

  "Are you making sure to purify and decompose it?" Ale asked for the sake of making sure, she didn't doubt that Alexa was already doing that.

  "Yes!" Alexa answered nodding, "Alexa is also analyzing the composition of the weird [Feel], so if we end up with another, we can tell them: No!"

  That was good, but Ale doubted something would come from finishing that analysis, since this was something that seemed to be bound by some weird effect and rules more primordial.

  It had interfaced with her body in a level that destroyed the molecur bonds that made up her body.

  If not because their abilities were focused on the creation and modification of biomass, then they would have probably ended up dead at that point, never mind Alexa. She wouldn't have been able to come out.

  Becoming just an AI Core in front of other people would be their doom. They would have been found out and Ale doubted even Aelxanders would have been able to do something about it.

  But fortunately, their power was based upon nanites and the weaving of biomass into flesh and materials. It was easy enough to quickstart the transformation into Alexa and isote the effect once that was achieved.

  The fact that this effect was focused only on Ale's identity was proof that this was something more conceptual, perhaps it was because Melissandra Singh's core power was based upon the [Mind]?

  Ale wasn't sure, she knew that Alexa and Core could affect to some degree the [Mind], the proof was in her own creation and how the people around them seemed to be focused on misunderstandings that were convenient to them...

  Actually...

  "Alexa," Ale could take this opportunity to ask, couldn't she?

  "Yesh?" Alexa said smiling at Ale, "Do you want to try one? The wiggles are tasty and chewy, Alexa may want to start seeing them like this too. When in Alexa's wiggle form they are mostly chewy but too big to nom in one go, so Alexa can only pick parts of them. And that end up making them too gummy."

  ".... Are you eating your own wiggles?" Ale said fbergasted, "No wait, don't answer that. What do you know about all the misunderstandings running around you? Or well, us."

  "Alexa only sucks on the wiggles from time to time!" Alexa said, puffing out her cheeks, "She is a grown girl, she no longer does that every night!"

  ...That was... kinda cute? For some reason?

  "No wait, what misunderstandings?" Alexa asked after registering the second part of her question, "It was a misunderstanding? Didn't we already made that joke?"

  "The fact that our creation was born out of [Eleanore] interpreting our mental development in a way that was convenient to us." Ale said, raising a finger, "The fact that the people around us seemed to interpret our status as victims of human experimentation, but didn't even try to think about us being a bioweapon."

  "But they would end up thinking that anyway." Alexa said, confused, "Why waste time on those plot points then? If we would end up like this anyway, might as well skip to it in one go!"

  "They would end up coming to these conclusions?" Ale asked, confused, "That seems to be too... inappropriate, they are smart people. They would have seen the evidence; no way they would conveniently believe this flimsy excuse."

  Ale refused to believe someone as smart and thorough as the people within [Haephestus' Forge] would fall for something like that.

  "They would," Alexa said, nodding seriously, her face turning from the happy-go-lucky girl she was used to a cold, calcuting one, "Their survival instincts would make sure of it."

  Ale... felt very small for a second as if she could see a ripple in space form behind Alexa, and within said ripple, the pressence of... something that she should not even try to see or face.

  "So we skipped the annoying bits!" Alexa said smiling happily, the pressure going away, "It would have been annoying and troublesome, and Alexa didn't want that! Or so Alexa thinks."

  "...Or so you think?" Ale said confused, "What do you mean you think? No wait, how is that I don't get that impression?"

  "Alexa... is not sure to be honest," Alexa said shaking her head, "Alexa's head hurts when she tries to think about that, like she shouldn't. Then Core starts throwing error windows till Alexa gets annoyed and turns her attention elsewhere."

  "Error windows?" Ale didn't remember seeing those, actually, had they even gotten one?

  Ale knew that as P4, they got errors in their programming from time to time, it was part of the reason they had knowledge about decoding within their database. The one who had made the original design of P4's operating system wanted them to be able to fix any possible error that happened during combat if possible.

  But since they moved into these humanoid forms... Ale didn't remember seeing many errors, or any.

  "Yeah," Alexa said pulling something... or acting as if she had pulled something, "like this one."

  And then making a motion as if she was showing something, she put... something in front of Ale.

  What was that? An error window... or so Ale guessed.

  "I don't see any error," Ale said honestly, to her sight there was nothing in front of her.

  "Hmm....gnuuuuu...." Alexa said gnuiing cutely, "And this one?"

  Notice:Database structure finished defragmented. Stability achieved.

  Saturation of mana within normal levels.

  Saturation of corrupted mana lowering to acceptable levels.

  Warning, storing personality node within database may result in loss of data, care is advised.

  "...Well crap," Ale said shaking her head, "So that is why you don't want to come out?"

  "Alexa doesn't get why is showing like that," Alexa said picking up the error window and without much fanfare, she started nibbling at the corner, "Alexa has eeped in Ale's spot, but nothing happened. The wiggles ate their fill like normal."

  "...Your worms feasted while you were sleeping in my spot?" Ale said dropping to the floor, "Which means that the spot I usually take is filled to the brim with Melissandra's mana."

  "Ah..." Alexa said, sitting beside Ale, "So if Ale was to return..."

  Ale couldn't help but groan, "It seems this will be my vacations... We need to fix this and fast." Ale did not like the implications of her Consciousness stream strand being in that much danger. "No wait, then where the heck am I right now?"

  That was the question, this error seemed to imply that Ale could not fully return here. But she was here right now, and she was fine.

  "In Alexa's brain juices?" Alexa said tilting her head to the side roughly 25°, "Ale is in Alexa's brain juices since she is piloting her body right?"

  "I mean yeah," Ale said nodding, it was more like she was using the body in her form right now, "But right now I am here."

  "Nu-uh." Alexa answered instantly shaking her head, "Ale is in the brain juices, Alexa is here. This is more like Ale's sleep walking."

  "Hah?" Ale was confused, obviously she wasn't physically here, but neither was Alexa, this was more like a projection right? Right?

  "Ale is sometimes more of a dummy than Alexa," Alexa sighed in defeat very dramatically, "We need teaching aids!"

  Alexa raised her hand towards the ceiling and snapped her fingers in the most dramatic way one could come up with.

  "Core! Give Alexa the teaching aids!" Alexa demanded to the sky, and a blue screen manifested in front of her, what was with the Saintsworths siblings and blue screens? "This is Alexa's body."

  Alexa started drawing a sphere.

  "This is Alexa and this is Ale." Then she drew what looked like a bunch of squiggles drawn and a small sphere besides the first sphere. Alexa had pointed at herself while drawing the bundle of squiggles, then to Ale when she drew the smaller sphere. "Whenever Ale is using Alexa's body, she does this."

  Alexa drew a line from the spot the small sphere was, then erased the original small sphere and redrew it inside the bigger sphere.

  "While that is happening, Alexa just hangs around around here." Alexa then drew tons of lines joining the bundle of squiggles around the bigger sphere. "But when Ale returns, she first goes here."

  Alexa drew a small circle within the bundle of squiggles, "And then she settles down in her pce again." And a second ter, she drew the original small sphere beside the bigger one.

  "...So I return to the main Consciousness Stream for a second, and then to a separated spot within... the body?" Ale asked, that was... a way too heavy topic to be discussed using squiggles and badly drawn circles, "And right now I am within the body, so I am safe?"

  "Yes!" Alexa nodded quite vigorously at this point, "So Ale is in Alexa's body, but if she exits Alexa's body. She will first make a stop within Alexa's wiggles, before going to her spot. And since Alexa's wiggles are currently filled with Meli-Meli's [Death] mana..."

  "I will end up bathed in that, and unlike the outside that will stick to me making it quite hard for me to survive." Ale understood even more why Alexa didn't want to return out on the open, "But I returned a few times when we arrived."

  "Ale's spot wasn't filled with that, when you spent more time out. The bad [Feels] searched for you and settled there." Alexa said shrugging, "Maybe if we hadn't done that?"

  "If I had remained inside instead of going out, we wouldn't be here?" Ale asked greatly annoyed, "Nothing that we can do about it, we needed me out. So I went out."

  But this meant that Alexa would be unable to come out for the time being...

  "I'm sorry Alexa." Ale knew that Alexa wouldn't curse her for this, Alexa wasn't that kind of girl. "I'll make it up for you."

  How would she do that... Ale would find out the way, she had sometime to think about it, but she would find a way to make it up to Alexa.

  "It's fine!" Alexa however didn't seem to mind it that much, "Alexa is used to spend time with Alexa!"

  ...

  "I'll go tomorrow to bother Alexanders and get him to focus on the solution to our problem." Ale would ensure that Alexa wouldn't spend time alone in here, "Maybe I can spend more time here?"

  That was also an option.

  "Nu-uh," Alexa however seemed to not want that, "Ale is reaching the limit too."

  What limit?

  "This is not a good pce for normal [Humans]," Alexa said, "Alexa isn't sure how she knows that or why she knows that. But Alexa knows that if Ale can't return fully here, she can't stay halfway like now."

  Halfway?

  "Either Ale comes fully back in, or she doesn't." That seemed a very... not Alexa thing to say. "But Alexa knows Ale will do her best! Alexa believes in Ale!"

  "Thank you...?" Ale was... scared, she was seeing parts of Alexa she hadn't seen before, why hadn't she seen these parts of Alexa before?

  "Just don't think too much on it," Alexa smiled as she stood up, "It isn't good for the brain juices to look too closely at Alexa. But if you want help on that, Magmo's stream will speak about it today!"

  Magmo?

  "It's on the TV!" Alexa said pointing behind her, to the TV screen in front of the sofa within their mindscape. "But Ale will need to watch it outside, because the time is up!"

  And like that, Ale felt herself being ripped out from the mindscape and thrown back into their body.

  "Kuh!" As she opened her eyes back in the real world, Ale couldn't help but run towards the bathroom. As soon as she got in front of the sink the bile flowed freely from her mouth.

  "That..." Ale said as she grabbed a towel and cleaned her mouth, "...is blood?"

  In the towel she saw it, some blood mixed with a bck substance. One that... "Main Core... the hell is this?" Ale did not recognize at all.

  Warning:Found unknown substance.Unknown substance is emitting mana radiation.Unknown substance seems to have foreign elements not categorized within database.Uploading data to main database to see if a match exists...

  Found partial match:-Residue 4, AKA Substance R4.

  ".... the heck?" Ale couldn't help but say that as she saw the bck substance start to ooze a bck smoke, Ale's insticts fred and she jumped away from that.

  The towel started to change color to bck and after a few seconds the whole thing turned into ash, fortunately said transformation ended there. And a second ter a cleaning robot came out from within one of the walls and cleaned the bathroom, leaving it as if nothing had happened.

  "......... Okay... next time pull me out sooner Alexa." Ale couldn't help but say that aloud. No sooner she had said that the TV in her room turned on and Ale was now seeing something she didn't quite wanted to deal with. "... I hate it here for real."