Chapter 82 The story of a shooting star

As Dante left the personalized world created for each alternative's personality, a mix of thoughts churned within the mind of the alternative. Her golden hair shimmered, and her eyes, once playful, now bore a faraway look. She began to contemplate as the wheel of introspection inside her began to spin.

"Since when did I stop...?" she mused, her fingers absently tracing the rim of her palm. She struggled to recall the moment she let go of ambition. "I just grabbed some wine and..." The memory of someone offering his hand to join forces flickered in her mind, but she quickly shook her head to dispel it. "What ideas am I getting? I may be a chosen one, but so what? I'm not the only one that the gods favor, and finding new teammates will be tedious."

She pouted, sipping from her glass of wine, its flavor now dulled by her somber mindset. "Let's see if some of my friends aren't dead," she mumbled, her words tinged with a bitter edge.

She quickly snapped out of her daydreaming, muttering, "Wait, what am I even saying? My stats are already a total mess. Putting everything on charisma might not be the smartest move if I want to become stronger... meh. I can still go to low-level worlds to recover, and some abilities scale with charisma. I just need to find a build that fits me."

As she walked, she grunted in slight vexation, "I'm gonna regret this..." With a flick of her wrist, she opened the system interface and began typing a message. "Hello~! You might not remember me...-"

Yet, in a different place full of pastel and pink colors, an alicorn was laughing, "My alternatives are really amusing..." She mused, her voice echoing with mirth, "Beliving that 'She is crazy because of this because of that!' Our destiny is covered in misery and unless you have enough power you can't change it... but even after changing it the only thing I did was swapping my misery for a more.... weird one?" Her flamboyant, opaque pink eyes stopped looking at her food and changed to the person in front of her, "Don't you agree, darling?"

The voice responding was slightly irritated, filled with an edge of weary resignation. "You showed him the worst side of the coin... though I am not against it, you should know another thing." He sighed before continuing, "My entire system is drugged to the point where I'm already building a resistance. You should search for another strategy, or else both of us will die really soon..."

She continued to delicately eat her food, her manner elegant and composed, completely dismissing the urgency in his words. "My mood is quite good right now. Toying with them is always amusing, and I do have a plan... but now isn't the time to discuss it!"

He stopped eating and said with raw sarcasm, "Sure 'IV' of course you have a plan... you always do..."

With a slightly annoyed but happy tone, she replied with a forced smile that masked her irritation, "If I create a clone of you and kill the original and keep the clone... are you still alive?"

The person standing in front of her truthfully replied, "Technically speaking yes... That is the bases and design philosophy of the first teleportations devices."

Her pink heart-shaped eyes sparkled with a hint of amusement as she maintained her forced smile and chatty tone, "Then don't call me IV... only I get to call myself that, because I dislike the name. You, call me Cadance. I prefer that one, it says so in the system!"

She gestured to the system screen that hovered in the air:

Gender: female!

Name: Cadence!

Race: Artificial creation/Alicorn!

Age: 3.7 months old!

LVL-"

He interjected just as she was about to say her level because he already knew these stats, "If your plan consist of becoming V then you don't have a plan... you are desperate... following the order of your past 4 versions."

"Still is a plan!" Her ticks began to show in her demeanor and behavior as she abruptly changed the conversation, "And suddenly changing the theme! do you think he will drink it?"

As he answered the sound of the alicorn front leg rhythmically tapping the ground echoed, "No... that version of yourself seemed happy, and he didn't seem to search for a solution, he saw you as a disgusting and radical path, that means that he isn't desperate, unless they are in a really dire sutation most of the times you are just a crazy psycopath that only cares about power."

Her voice tone changed to a more childish one, "Wow! You truly are a genius! good boy," she proceeded to pat him with a telekinetic hand from her position as if of a pet we were talking about.

He sighed at this interaction and stood up from the chair, perhaps saying to himself or to her, "The only thing I can do is learn stuff... even if I have tons of millions of gold at my disposal."

"Don't be like that your mood afects the effectiveness of the potion..." She pondered for a second to recall the best strategy possible to lighten his mood, "I'll get you a new cranial implant! I have a few extra hundred million that I don't need! Those pesky guys keep challenging me because hey it looks like the newbie who bulldozed her way into the rankings is tired!"

A tangible aura of dread settled over the room at her words. "I'm already savoring the next beating! I'm going to torture them to death in the next transmission, taking piece by piece of their tendons, veins, and bones while keeping them alive the whole time."

Her companion regarded her not with disgust, but with a mixture of pity and annoyance. "I really wonder what went wrong with your creation? I liked a lot more III, you being born in the heat of the battle, seemed to change your character a lot."

The Alicorn's gaze drifted from the person beside her to the ethereal sky, painted in pink hues of dawn and dusk, casting a mesmerizing glow over the landscape below, "Want to hear a story?"

The person didn't say no, so for this Alicorn, not denying something is automatically yes, "Once upon a time, there existed a radiant and powerful shooting star, and just like she appeared to soar above the heavens and earth, with unparalleled strength... She quickly dissipated, leaving a captivating yet forgettable moment in the huge tapestry of time."

"In her extremely short but intense life, she found a human that caught her fancy, to be exact, his soul... with this resource, she might live a few moments more; and for her, a few moments were more valuable than anything in this universe."

"Thus, the shooting star embarked on a quest to claim him as her own, and take him with him on her journey like one of her many treasures she obtained by conquering worlds."

"First, she turned into a resplendent woman; she possessed a beauty that enraptured both men and women alike, her form a perfectly sculpted body with curves and contours inscribed by the divine hands of the universe itself. But the person the shooting star chose didn't even flinch in the slightest."

The star, surprised, asked the man, "Oh human what is wrong? you humans always follow beauty over many other important traits, why don't you like this body?"

The human replied, "Beauty appears and goes in flickers, so what if you are the prettiest? Sooner or later, you get old and lose that, eventually dying... then what am I left with? I don't even know how you actually are, perhaps I may be left with an arrogant and detestable companion or something worse."

Undeterred by his perseverance, the shooting star showered him with wealth beyond measure, the glittering treasures of a thousand worlds she conquered cascading at his feet like golden rain. But still, he remained unfazed.

The man replied again, "What is the point? If I am in problems or at an empty place in my last breaths, would money heal me? Would gold feed me? They are just riches worth as much as I want to believe. And where you plan to bring me, they hold less value than my will."

The shooting star was getting angry, and without many options, she decided to give her heart and soul in a desperate bid to be bound forever, "Here is my weakness, with this you should feel at ease, my dead means you and your dead means mine."

The human replied once more, "Why should I shorten my lifespan? You only want me for the benefits; the second I stop being useful, you will throw me out the window, not even caring in the slightest.

Cornered and without much time, she decided to seize the man by force; she was stronger, so there wasn't much he could-

*DING*

Seeing the system notification, the alicorn stopped her story and turned to the side, saying with a royal demeanor, "I guess I won't be able to finish this story... Now if you don't mind I have to kill a few players that are challenging my spot in the rankings... But before leaving Just like that man, let me remind you."

...

"You are replaceable."

For the first time, the guy smiled, but this smile wasn't one of joy; it was a smile of defiance, "You can't kill... Our souls are already bonded, and I been your battery more time that you been alive, and probably I will be it longer than your entire lifespan."

----

Authors stuff!

We aren't gonna see the love version again, even if I have the entire timeline of what events led to this occurrence; I just wanted to write about her one last time.

You know, it's quite ironic, and I did it without realizing it.

But the version that is designed to use love and friendship is the most cynical one, and son of a bitch.

And the version that I created that used hate and savagery is the friendliest and actually has a love interest.