Omake: Angela's IF (1?)
Within the consciousness of humankind, as you start to draw up your old body from the Light, you pause. It isn't really your body, is it? You observe the half-finished shape of the Corporation's founder, a man whom all things considered you don't want to imitate any longer. Instead, your thoughts drift to your coworkers. Hod and Malkuth, both desperate to prove themselves in different ways. Netzach, cutting back on his Enkephalin use to help keep the regenerators functioning. Chesed who offered you a cup of coffee whenever you met up. Them and the others, finally reaching the ending you had all worked for.
You wonder how well-off they are now that everything is over. You hope they are doing well.
Eventually, your mind settles on Angela. Your long-time assistant. A once thought friend. She was someone you were genuinely close to. Working alongside you, helping you bring about the great work the creator of the Corporation's founder assigned you two. Someone whom you once genuinely trust. Who always seem to have your back. Who always brought to the attention things you missed. And who helped you along as the two of you analyzed Abnormalities and read through employee reports. The person who you first met upon opening your eyes for the first time.
Even with her betrayal still fresh. You find that it did little to diminish your gratitude for her presence with you during your long journey.
Leaving the bare framework of your old body, you get to work on the details of a new one. Longer hair dyed with the color of the light blue sky. A mechanical frame. A healthy skin tone. Using your knowledge from your shared creator, you began to replicate her body perfectly, making sure to double-check her advanced mechanical brain. You also made special care with her red hair tie, knowing the significant nature of it to both you and Angela. Bit by bit, the body changes to something that suits you. Finally, you color the eyes a brighter red as a small homage to the woman who started it all. In the end, you're left with something that satisfies you. A quick mental tug and you've synchronized fully with your new body. All things considered; the process is much easier than you'd think creating a new body, especially one as advanced as Angela's, from scratch would be.
You continue falling, and with the benefit of your new sensory inputs, you can tell that you're moving very fast, or well, slow but it's hard to say. At least your newly made body is more durable than your old one by a lot because you seem to be reaching terminal velocity. Hooray. Speaking of your rapidly approaching destination, you can almost distinguish something in front of you now that you're more comfortable. There's still nothing to see, but you can feel some sort of pathway. It branches off like a tree, splitting into countless smaller links that you instinctively know lead to people. 'Why do I know this?'
You can determine very little about what's on the other side, but it gives off a very different impression of the City as you know it.
As far as you know there aren't any large groups of people living outside the City.
Especially not as large as what you've detected here based on Ayin's knowledge. Where are you going? You mentally sift through a few possibilities quickly. Parallel worlds? It's on the table, especially considering a few prominent names in the City are already known for interdimensional travel.
Come to think of it, what are other worlds like? You'd never given it any thought, as it was never relevant to your work and only came up in occasional discussions with Angela about the City. If they're connected by Cogito, there must at least be humans. Other than that, will this new place look anything like the City you're familiar with?
It would take a particularly cruel and creative God to dream up a world worse than the City, so you make no effort to halt your descent.
You reach toward the path out, and suddenly you are falling in a new direction. The world twists and shifts, thousands of voices chattering around you as you crash down. One of them catches your attention for a moment, but it's gone as embers of Light fill your perception and disperse, leaving you somewhere entirely new.
A burst of Light heralds your arrival. And immediately, you noticed the difference in Angela's body you have not seen before. 'I see…so this is what she meant.' The light hanging around you drifts at a snail's pace, almost as if they aren't moving at all.
Your very body itself feels sluggish. Yet your perception of reality has never been clearer. '100 times the reaction speed…it's something all right.'
Immediately, a part of your mind already began to take into the area around you. From the kaleidoscopic shrubbery with stop signs dotted among them, to the towering butterfly towers with roadways between them, stretching through the air, crossing the area around you with no organization, each leading from and to a door that should logically lead to nothing, but instead you can see a new road behind each one.
However, the majority of your focus is on the feeling that permeates the surrounding environment. Grief.
The entire area feels practically made up of negative emotions. The floor, the signs, the flowers, all of them are practically screaming at you…Well. Screaming in slow motion anyway.
'So, this is how Angela felt…strangely enough…I can somewhat understand what they are saying.'
It wasn't a difficult task to sort through the various voices and examine them as you also examine the area around you. They were something along the lines of "Leave! Go away!", they would be overwhelming if they weren't so slow.
The area around you, now that you looked at it closer and with more critical eyes, appears to be artificial. Everything has a dreamlike aspect to it as if someone was trying to recreate a location from memory and getting the details mixed up. Holding your hand up to one of the flowers for comparison, you can see that the edges are fuzzy and not quite there.
Objects made from human emotions…no…an entire world made from sorrow.
It would be strange if you weren't who you are. 'An Abnormality? Some weird art project?' You mused to yourself as your mind began to go through the possibilities with what you have from your own experience with the former, and Ayin's memories with the City.
However, your focus is split again for a moment, as you noticed one of the puffballs within the scenery jiggles as it appears to turn around slowly. It was only then that you were able to see that it has a…mustache, though you quickly deduced that the thing was a danger when it stood up alongside a massive pair of pruning shears held in stick-like arms.
Alongside its slow movement, the little thing would seem quite ridiculous, if not for the realization that there are also a lot of other little shrubbery puffballs, all moving as they too join with the one you noticed.
It's still somewhat ridiculous your mind told you, but you are currently focusing on figuring out a way to deal with this. You don't really want to test how durable your copy of Angela's body is just quite yet.
As your body began to listen and move backward, a tug from the back of your mind as you instinctively knew what to do. You reached backward, noting how the motes of light around you swirl and you closed your hands around a newly appeared-yet familiar pitch-black rapier.
'A Sword Sharpened With Tear?' Hm. How strange, your mind is already documenting everything even as your body moves into a combat position.
From the movement of the light motes around you, this probably came from them. How convenient that you would obtain the ability to create E.G.O. The humming in the back of your mind confirms the theory that this particular one is the pure version of the refined ones you usually assign your agents to.
Nonetheless, defending yourself comes first, you can deal with the mind contamination and questions later.
The E.G.O's instinct guide your hands and body. Lunging towards the opposing puffballs in a trail of starlight darkness. Your advanced mind lets you understand the capabilities of your weapon far faster than you ever thought you would as a normal human.
For every real second, 100 has already passed in your mind. Every action is planned. The sluggishness of the anomalies allows you to think with relative calm and immerse yourself into the dance your E.G.O guide you in.
Your first swing was that of a novice's first time with E.G.O equipment unused to the rapier. Your second blow was similar to most of your advanced agents who are allowed to handle WAW class E.G.O in the first place knowing the advantages of your weapon using the tip of your rapier and making sure to note your distance. In your third swing, you realized that these Anthonys are rather tough yet fragile, not needing the tip in the first place, though they do not die from your bashes, they are completely incapacitated once you do so. With your fourth blow, you realized that this particular E.G.O gives you abilities that the EGO extracted in the past never did. 'This would've been real convenient back in the Facility.' You thought to yourself as you lunged through the Anthony in front of you while the 3 behind you are skewered with swords.
The conjured blades are longer and sharper than the one you held in your hand, flinging themselves through the Anthonys, similar to the way the Knight herself would attack, rare to breach as she is.
'Do these do the same amount of pale damage too? What more can this particular E.G.O do? Can I conjure the entire E.G.O set of the Knight of Despair? Can I teleport as she does? What of her blessing?' Your mind questioned as you fight through the horde of enemies.
From your point of view, a rather long time has already passed. But to an outsider, the fight ended in a blink of an eye. All the Anthonys who attempted to attack you are now dead, dispersing into shadows.
Job well done. You sheathed your blade in a sheath that appeared at your side back when you first pulled the blade out. You also noticed that you aren't as tired as you should be. 'An aspect of Angela's body perhaps?'
You decided to save that thought for later and began moving through the feverish dreamlike landscape around you.
There was some encounter with more Anthonys, but with the knowledge that you have now, getting rid of them was child's play. Your high-speed mind, combined with the floating swords, made for a deadly combination as you sniped these things with pinpoint accuracy while continuing as if they didn't exist in the first place. Some testing was done with the E.G.O as you moved.
'I don't think I can teleport for now…but I will admit these blades are really great.'
Not as convenient as you'd hoped, but your agents would be jealous of you, you thought to yourself as you arrived at a new location.
The entrance is a good way off from the ground, so you can see the whole room even over the piles of dying plants. Failed attempts at gardening aside, the room is a circular field of evenly cut grass in the center of the stadium of sorts. An outer wall made of stacked reels covered in images of butterflies.
Your attention notes that as one travels further toward the ceiling, the structure becomes less and less put together. At a certain point, it's impossible to distinguish any shapes. The sense of grief is overwhelmingly strong here, but it's nothing you can't ignore. There is essentially no substance to be had in this place.
Most of your attention is focused on the source of the sensation. A towering creature shambling across the field. By appearance alone, it would fit right in with the Abnormalities in the facility. Tarnished butterfly wings stretch from a slug-like body the color of sickly flesh. At the head, a mass of rose bushes sags toward the ground under its weight.
It isn't anything special. But you feel a sense of immense disgust within you at the sight of it.
'From me, my E.G.O, or is it a natural ability of this creature?' You have a feeling you will find out soon enough. From where you are, you can see a mall girl, probably not even a teenager, with pink hair wearing a formal uniform. Probably a Nest resident, or at least the equivalent. She's fallen onto her back and is crawling away from the creature that now leans over her. You don't need your emotion-detecting ability to know she's terrified of the thing pulling itself toward her.
The monster, Gertrud, appears to be in the process of pulling out its own pair of gigantic shears in what you assume is for cutting the girls' heads off.
'Hm…' You have already launched the blades toward the beast to draw its attention. However, you aren't exactly sure whether it's safe for a child to be so close to the massive thing. Well, it would be irresponsible of you to let another soul be harmed in front of you when you have the strength to protect them after all.
A glimmering shield emblem appeared above the head of the crying girl, right as your four blades slammed into the back of Gertrud. Two through its wings, two through its body. The force pinned the body of the creature to the ground as the girl stared in shock.
Angela's body is strong, but she's not as quick as you wanted. You couldn't attack the monster at the same time as your swords. And in that snap of time, the beast began to thrash about beneath the blades.
"Get back!" The girl snapped out of her shock with a quiet and squeaky "Okay!" and quickly scurry backward as the beast thrash about.
Gertrud was still in the process of thrashing about when you finally fell upon it. In a flurry of calculated thrusts, dotting holes in the monster's body until it was like that of a sponge. This continued until it stopped struggling against its binding and collapsed before dispersing into flickering shadows.
The girl, who has stood up by now, began to approach you but stopped as the whole world blurs and shifted. The nonsensical scenery rushes past you and converges at the place of Gertrud's death, coalescing into a single point. After a short moment, a tiny piece of jewelry drops to the ground, a tiny metal thing with a glass center half-filled with a black sludge that oozes Grief.
Hmm, strange.
It reminded you of the heavy mental pull whenever one of Apocalypse Bird's eggs is broken, but to a much lesser degree.
Nonetheless, it is something to worry about later as you turned your attention back onto the girl. All while noting your surroundings. With the scaffolding around you, this is probably a construction area of some sort. Though given the strewn-about rubble, perhaps repairs. And except for sunlight streaming in through a hole in the ceiling, there isn't much light.
'Hm…, at least this isn't somewhere out in the wilderness. Though given the City it isn't as safe as it sounds.'
Looking at the girl that has now reached you. "Thank you so much for saving my life!" She expresses her gratitude to you with a slow bow, though again, everything is slow to you.
'She seems uninjured at all…Good.' It appears that giving people the knight's blessing is within your capabilities. 'Perhaps teleportation isn't off the table.'
Finished with her gratitude, she stands up and with some hesitation, but still wrecked with panic, starts talking. "What- What was that?! I was running alongside Sayaka with an animal, a-, and Homura was there too! W- Wait, Sayaka might still be in danger with those monsters back then! Can you please help her?"
By the time she finished talking, you are already planning on what to do next.
There were some footsteps nearby earlier when you two were one-sidedly talking. Although difficult to discern, you have some idea of its direction.
'Hm, apart from that…she seems honest enough.' And besides, you are finally away from the Facility. Let's go and exercise your ability to freely help people for now. You'll deal with it if any problems come up.
Of course, knowing of those footsteps nearby, it would probably be for the better that the girl sticks with you until you know what your unknown stalker plans.
"Sure, I'll help you and your friend out, just stick close to me. Though I don't think you need to worry too much. These creatures aren't too overwhelmingly strong. The one you faced was an exception, not the rule. Your friend should be fine." You assured the still clearly on the verge-of-panic girl as she began to walk beside you. Remarkably calm for a little kid who got separated from her friend, and then nearly got killed by a monster, though.
Hm. Maybe you can calm her down more if she knows your name. Angela certainly did so when you first woke up in that chair.
"By the way. Before I forget. My name is X. And before you ask. Yes. It is indeed just one single letter. My parents were weird like that."
Your attempt at calming down the girl yields…mixed results. While it seems like she has stopped panicking about the current situation. It appears that she has switched to a new topic to worry about, as she snapped out of whatever she was thinking before scrambling for a response.
"Oh! Right. I'm sorry for not introducing myself earlier. My name is Kaname Madoka, pleased to meet you!"
She appears to have regained some composure once she finishes. Though her disposition was still that of someone who either wishes for any sort of appreciation or is afraid of offending people. She seems to act like a co-worker you know, who has long since grown past that phase.
'Malkuth…'
"By the way are you aware of where your friend is?" It would be problematic to search for her when you aren't aware of where she could be. Wandering aimlessly with lives at stake is foolish.
"I'm sorry, I'm not sure. I lost track of where I was back in that strange place." Madoka seems ashamed of her answer.
'Hm…Perhaps…'
"No worries then. We should keep moving until you spot something you are familiar with." It would do you no good if she is also aware of your lack of direction. That never goes well with your employees back in Lobotomy Corporation.
Though hopefully, the other kid is truly all right.
And with that, both you and Madoka start to quicken the pace. Hoping that the two of you would eventually find this Sayaka.
End.
AN: So to explain this sudden Omake dump. I will admit. With the recent chapter, and now with how X officially considers Angela her sister. I wanted to try and see how different things would have been had we gone with Angela's body from the start.
And I realize. Angela's body is actually beyond busted for fewer write-in options.
Mainly because Angela's body upgrades X's autopilot ability through the roof. While losing not a lot of the capabilities of Kali's body, (Angela herself is still pretty strong). Certain things would have still been lost of course, if we went with things the same way we did in the official Quest. But looking through things more with hindsight in mind.
An autopiloting X with Angela's body...will probably perform better than the X we currently have now in terms of E.G.O combat. Mainly because she would have A LOT more time (100x times at most to think and sort through things) to research the abilities she has at her disposal and push for more options regarding her E.G.O testing.
Don't get me wrong though. X (A) is a lot more vulnerable in fighting against opponents who are stronger than her. For example. Against some of the opponents X (K) managed to overpower, X (A) would have to pursue an entirely different avenue to attack, such as Blue Star.
X (A) would struggle really hard against Blue Star, even though her 100x reaction speed would have weakened its mental effects greatly.
However, once she obtains Army in Pinks, her efficiency would actually be comparable to X (K) in combat somewhat. Due to her being more capable of micromanaging multiple tools at once.
Honestly, X (A) is actually a lot closer to the Manager than X (K) is. She basically has a weaker TT2 on at all times.
Basically, in terms of a long-distance combatant, X (A) is by far superior to X (K). But in the close quarter department, X (K) wins.
As for personality.
You probably noticed some differences in comparison to X's old lines. It's mainly because X (A) is always calm and in control. 100x speed will do that to you. (But OOC, I changed some of the lines to fit more with what we know about X as she is right now.)
