At long last, the day had come to take down the Overseer. The final challenge for my time on the ARK had come. Once this machine was defeated, well, I was gonna kick canon to the curb. Figuring out why people from so many other fictional universes I was familiar with were on this ARK would certainly be on the docket, along with permanently dealing with Rockwell, but at the moment, my eyes were set on defeating the Overseer and ascending off of this ARK. The time for action was now, and what happened here would make for a *good* song at the very least. Today we would make history!
Somewhat regrettably, this was a time where we had to have all hands on deck - even the kids. I wasn't making any plans to turn back after this, and we had nowhere to go back to. All of the other tribes on the island had joined ours for this momentus occasion, so we were really going all in here. While some of our aquatic beasts were forced to stay behind, as were the most titanic ones on land and in the skies, everything else that could come with us was going to. This was really it - the end of our stay on the island.
And so, when we placed all of the tribute at the entrance and readied our weapons, we knew that only one path remained - we had to push forward, to slay all that was in our path.
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The giant convoy passing through the caves was in no way stealthy. The sheer number of titanic creatures passing through the underground cavern was enough to easily awaken any creature within the cave, and maybe even raise the dead. But did they pose a challenge to the invaders?
No. Not really.
Anything that approached the horde heading toward the heart of the cave died within seconds. Some were all but vaporized under a constant hail of tech rifle shots. Others suffered annihilation at the hands of innumberable rocket propelled grenades. A few purlovia ended up jumping straight into the maws of hungry rexs and gigas, resulting in them being devoured in an instant. Many beasts were literally torn to shreds at the hands and blades of the survivors and their minions. Many others wre pushed into the lava and incinerated. And some really unlucky beasts were trampled to death by the advancing giants. It really didn't matter how they died, the point being that they all died. In droves. It would be fairly accurate to state that there were enough corpses created that if all were made intact, you could probably feed a small village for a year off the meat, assuming none of it spoiled, of course.
The group only took a small amount of time to process all of their kills, heal up, and keep on moving, though - the greatest challenge was still yet to come. Only when they had defeated the ruler of this island could they finally know peace.
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I will admit that my visit to the Hall of History left me breathless in shock. Seeing a room that allowed me to observe all the boss arenas we had fought in, as well as the history of Earth as the element crisis had persisted on. So much devastation, wrought at the hands of this crystal. And going off the reactions of my fellow survivors, none of them had a clue that this had happened. All of them were totally in the dark over how this world had ended. The didn't even know that the world had ended. And hopefully, I could keep them from finding out that was the case.
As we walked further through the Hall of History, I found evidence of survivors from yet more universes: a mask that could shield you from any attack you saw coming. Multi-colored crystals stored in containers that had a stylized snowflake on them. A poster for a restaurant known as the maw. Sigils for the Assassins, the Templars, the Survey Corps, the Night's Watch, and so many others. At this point, I was starting to get numb to all of the surprises. Though I had to wonder, how had they all gotten here? And where had the survivors who had brought them gone? Those were questions I would likely soon have the answer to, but they still occupied my mind.
For now, though, they would have to go unanswered - I had a final challenge to overtake.
Pressing on, we arrived at a room that peered into the infinite vastness of space. Among the visible sights were other ARKs, floating peacefully around the Earth, alongisde a holographic map of the island we had been staying on. The shocked looks and exclamations my fellow 'tribesmen' and 'tribeswomen' gave were understandable, but elicited no reaction from myself or Vivian. We already knew what we were getting into when we came here.
Once everyone got over the shock, pushed forward, causing the map to change into a moving orb of light, which soon settled upon a form that resembled a giant ARK implant - the Overseer. Within moments, the machine activated a shield, before getting to work summonining a whole horde of robots - attack drones and defnese units. The number it spawned bordered on absurd, though given that we had brought so many creatures with us, it actually came off as being just barely enough, and maybe not even that. After all, we had massacred another horde of creatures when we entered this cave, including several robotic dinosaurs. I really doubted these would be enough to halt our advance. Still, there was no turning back now.
Loading up my tek rifle, I immediately started barking out orders. You I may have appeared to my compatriots, but I was battle hardened. I had lead them to many victories, and none were willing to question my prowess.
And now, it was time for the battle to be joined.
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The battle commenced with unprecedented fury. Hordes of animals charged right into the defense drones, some weaving carefully to avoid the Overseer's lasers. Others stayed in the backline, using sniper rifles and rockets to help thin out the enemy herd.
SDS took aim at one of the flying drones and managed to shoot it down with one well placed bullet. Barely missing a beat, she moved on to another, and then another, but before she could take down the fourth one, one of her allies managed to beat her to the punch.
"Yes!"
Glancing to her right, SRS found that it had been the princeling Lelouch who had felled the drone. Impressive, for a child. Perhaps he could go further with training? After all, martial skill was expected of royalty, so while child soldiers were still a big no-no among the T-Dolls, perhaps the boy could be trained once he was a teenager. Nearby, his sister was helping keep a herd of entelodonts well fed, so that they could keep healing their allies. With how brutal this fight was going to be, everyone needed to be kept in tip-top shape.
A group of horses charged past the doll and her companions, each carrying a rider who looked like they had come straight out of the wild west, and to be for, they all had. Armed with shotguns, they went to work cleaning the skies of attack drones, firing off shell after shell until the empty casings literred the ground. Each shot managed to send a machine hurtling to the ground, and soon they were piling up in heaps. Said heaps only lasted so long, though - when close enough to a survivor with tech armor or a tek rifle, the machines disintegrated as their components were absorbed to rearm the guns and refuel the suits. The suits had to work overtime to keep their wearers warm, while those who didn't have the proper attire were only kept safe from the cold by the hordes of sail-backed synapsids they had brought with them. Still, it was ultimately a negligible problem compared to the machine onslaught - and even that was starting to abate.
Of course, the Overseer was not going to take that lying down - having taken a fair amount of damage already, the machine responded by transforming itself until it looked like a creature the tribes were already familiar with - the broodmother. Said creature promptly roared and started trying to tear apart the intruders with its claws.
The first one to defy it was Sir Vincent atop his Yutyrannus, which let out a might roar as Vincent threw a spear at it. Then Carol arrived atop a Carnotaur, followed by a whole pack of the beasts, each with a rider. Some carried tek rifles, others shotguns, others still had rocket lauchers, and one even carried a sword. Together, they charged the beast and forced it back. Under a vicious onslaught of both these attacks and giant milipede acid, the spider form of the machine could not stand, forcing it to revert back into its true form.
One third of the battle was finished. The remainder, though, would still prove difficult.
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Atop the form of the mighty Diplodocus, Eyeshine, Grease Rag, and Livewire held down the triggers of their turrets so hard that their hands would probably start bleeding soon. It didn't matter - with the amount of carnage going on around them, they needed to keep on their feet and kill every machine that they could.
And also watch the little red head named Kallen who was holding onto a rocket turret for dear life while firing off salvo after salvo upon the Overseer, which responded by firing off lasers of its own. Itwas also deploying yet more drones, and after a bit more punishment, transformed into the Megapithecus, intent on taking the fight to its assailannts. To its credit, the machine faired far better in this form than it in earlier ones. Several unlucky carnotaurs were thrown into the pillars supporting the room, their backs breaking in an instant. One riderless giga tried to charge the false ape, only to have its jaws broken and neck snapped for its trouble. A few fliers ended up swatted out of the sky as well. But those were only fleeting victories, especially in the face of all the diplodocus running circles around it. These things were part troop carrier, part weapons platform, part cuddle bug, and they were slwoly seeing the ape-imitation disintegrating under a massive amount of gun and plasma fire. Even wrose, some fliers were dropping the machine's own attack drones on top of it.
Eventually, the machine was once more forced to revert to its true form, now reduced to only a third of its strength. The time of victory was near.
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Philocrates hurled another spear into one of the defense units while Nysa loosed an arrow, downing yet another of the attack drones. Nearby, the giants and cyclopes utterly smashed their opposition aside, their brute strength being more than enough to compensate for their lack of advnaced equipment. In fact, the ape form of the Overseer had tried to beat a cyclops aside, only to actually have its blow caught and then countered by its opponent.
The fight was becoming more erratic, especially with how the Commander and Vivian were fighting. The two actually jumped from pillar to pillar, occasionally landing on the Overseer and unloading whole magazines of their tek rifles point blank, before leaping away to avoid its wrath. Desperately, the machine tried to shoot them down, pulling out new methods of attack to try and kill them, but they were just proving to be too much of a hassle to deal with.
Finally realizing what it would need to do to win, the Overseer transformed, becoming the spitting image of the dragon the tribe had slain. This time, it put up a genuine fight. First, it relaesed its flaming breath, incinerating a horde of creatures that had been trying to bite it to death. Taking to the skies, it got to work chasing down the various fliers hovering above it, and actually managed to sned a few hurtling down, though thanks to parachutes and/or Archaeopteryxs that the riders had with them, no humans lost their lives. Furthermore, it had only minorly reduced the amount of gunfire headed its way, and that still took a toll on the machine, until eventually, it reverted back to its original form.
And after taking a bunch more fire (including kunai thrown by a ninja maid, of all people, the machine's body finally gave out. Wiht a final, metallic roar, the Overseer went offline.
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We had done it - we had defeated the Overseer.
That had taken frigging forever.
But it was worth it, for Ascension was...well, it was...
Okay, honestly, there is no way I can describe to you how ascension feels. It's amazing - to float above the ARK and bear witness to all of its kin. To witness Earth in all its majesty from space. It was...breathtaking.
And given what ended up happening when we ended up on Scorched Earth (which pretty much ruined my plans ot kick canon to the curb), it was a nice consolation prize.
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AN: Read and Review! This is Flameal15k, signing off!