Watching the recording of the victory feast her commander and his allies had after defeating the Titans was certainly an Al enjoyable feeling - it fostered a sense of camaraderie that would help them overcome challenges going forward. Hopefully, it would also make it easier to integrate them into the Hub should it be determined to be impossible to return them to their universes of origin - which was almost a certainty for some of them, since they had been brought here after having died. And if they could be sent back, well, it never hurt to have friends. At least, not if they we're poisonous ones. Or false friends.
But that was beside the point.
Turning her attention away from her thoughts, Fide refocused her attention on the data she dragged up from the ARK network. She dredged up a significant amount of information regarding universes that had been considered for the ARKs, including ones she had no real frame of reference for (what the hell were Noise and Symphogears?), but so far, she didn't actually know what had increased the list of possible list of pools (she didn't know if they should be counted as timelines or universes) that survivor candidates could be selected from. She was fairly certain that it was the result of what her creator termed Random Omnipotent Bring shenanigans (also known as ROB dickery), but the exact manner eluded her.
Hopefully, the next batch of encrypted mainframes she'd managed to crack would be more informative on that front.
Now then, what was on them?
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….Biology Reports.
Additional survivor candidates.
Was that a Mecha?
…So they call it a Holon. Interesting.
….What were Simulation Troopers and why were they chosen for this experiment.
What's an Air Whale?
Was there anything of value here?
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Fide groaned in annoyance - it looked like this was another set of mostly useless drives. With how things were looking now, it was possible that all of them were useless drives - if a Random Omnipotent Being had been here, what was to say that they didn't cover their tracks? She felt it possible they didn't because of pride, but there were always exceptions to the rule.
There was one last storage device to examine. Maybe this would explain things. Hopefully.
….What did it mean by *WARNING: ELEMENT ABERRANCE DETECTED!*?
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FWD: Element ABERRANCE Detected
To: ARK Analysis Overseer Rho-5
During a routine examination of an incomplete ARK, it was discovered that a localized element outbreak had occurred. Attempts to contain the outbreak were not wholly successful, resulting in the Quarantine of the ARK. Examination of the element yielded a surprising discovery: it is able to create space borne organisms. Recommend larger scale quarantine to prevent similar outbreaks on other ARKs until a suitable countermeasure can be developed.
- Analysis Overseer Kappa-
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RE: Incident at Tertiary ARK
An Inquiry has been opened regarding the incident at ARK 03, current designation "Aberration", has been opened to determine the cause and nature of the damages to the ARK. However, it appears that the incident has caused galvanized actions among other element clusters and lead to increased element outbreaks on other ARKs. It is recommended that these ARKs be quarantined, as the outbreaks are exceeding the ability of the subordinate units to contain.
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RE: Expanded Survivor Candidate Pools
At 16:47 of [DATE REDACTED, an unknown entity was found tampering with the computer governing the pools of survive candidates. Despite significant efforts by security units, the intruder escaped. Examining the computer network showed that several additional pools had been added to the greater pool, with different candidates already earmarked. Examination of one pool revealed that it contained nanobot collectives that were able to repel element outbreaks, though all of them were ultimately destroyed. In light of this new discovery, it has been decided that these pools will not be discarded, and survivor candidates from these locations will now be considered.
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Fide digested the information before her, and also found reports of several candidates that had been considered and approved for the ARK, some of which were now stored in several other ARKs. One piloted a winged mech and was designated as "Chaser". Another mentioned a girl on fire, while a third referenced groups of teens sent to run through a maze so that their brains could be studied, somehow. See even found mention of a group of simulation troopers, though what they were running simulations for eluded her.
Oddly enough, she also noticed that attached to the files she was examining was something labeled [INTERCEPTED DIGITAL COMMUNICATION]. Maybe that would make sense of these reports.
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K: Ok, which of you screwed this up?
M: I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about.
G: Have to be more specific, my friend.
A: Specification would be nice.
K: Explain to me how I found a Tiberium crystal on one of the ARKs I was examining.
L: …Excuse me?
K: I TOLD YOU ALL TO NOT PUT ANYTHING CRAZY IN THAT UNIVERSE! I HAD PLANS FOR IT!
A: You were just going to use it to mess with some random puke you pulled from another universe, weren't you?
K: THST DOESN'T KEAN YOU GET PERMISSION TO WRECK IT!
L: News flash, we made no agreements not to.
K: Why did you even add in so many universes that have things worse than element in them to the survivor pool? Do you want to watch this world die screaming
L,A,M,G:….Yes.
G,L: Also, your annoyance amuses us.
K:…..FUCK YOU ALL!
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Fide just stared for a moment as she processed the information before her.
All the hardships that her commander and his friends had endured in this universe. All of the displaced people. All of the unexpected monster….
WERE ALL PART OF A RANDOM OMNIPOTENT BEING OR FIVE'S JOKE?!?!
Fuck this! Fuck all of it!
Bristling with rage, Fide turned her attention toward several ARKs overcome with element infestation. It only took seconds for the machines to answer her demands and start laying waste to those ARKs. Their feeble efforts to defend themselves did little to dissuade her wrath. Even Rockwell responding with some of the space borne element creatures has minimal effects on her war effort.
Eventually, they tried throwing an element corrupted ARK at her base, which promptly got shattered under a hail of defensive fire. Oddly, though, the event creatures escorting it seemed not to care, instead focusing on pushing the fragments of the ARK toward the surface. A very specific location on the surface….oh fuck.
Eyes widening in shock, Fide hastily sent a warning to her commander and his compatriots, who were already making their move on the King Titan. She also moved to drop in a group of survivors to hopefully offset the raging insanity that was happening below - new allies never hurt.
Then she turned her attention to the oncoming horse of Corrupted ARKs. It seemed that she had more work to do. But after this, she was cleaning Rockwell's clock.
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Surface, 1 hour later
Seriously, FUCK all the ROBs who made this mess. Fuck them with something that hurts!
What I was expecting to be a difficult but manageable fight against the King Titan was turning into an insane battle for survival against all kinds of corrupted monsters. And we hadn't even entered the arena yet!
Fide had kindly provided us with some allies, which included a rather diverse set of individuals. I was not surprised that the girl on fire, Katniss Everdeen was among them - it didn't take much to figure out why a ROB would take tributes from Panem and send them here. Significantly less expected was the mech known as a Holon, callsign "Chaser". Apparently he was part of a whole group of mech pilots known as gen:Lock, who were, apparently, stuck on a different ARK and not responding to Fide's signals, or so she said. Also, I think there were some additional YorHa androids here, or something. Not really sure.
Combined with the oddity of our existing group (which included four kids from Code Geass trying to pilot a mech and several monsters from Greek mythology), and we had a truly weird mix to our group.
The only real consolation that we had was that Fide had provided us with equipment to summon the other titans to aid us. Because with how things were shaping up, we'd need every advantage we could get to defeat the King Titan.
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AN: Work takes up so much time.
Read and enjoy! Comment and review as desired! This is Flameal15k, signing off!