#allmind/iguazu

[kivaember]

there's a startling lack of allmind/iguazu fics out there... anyway this is the start of an allmind/iguazu oneshot im writing, so... enjoy!

It started with an innocuous mission request.

"Rb19 Iguazu: as per your standing search query, one job meets your parametres. Location, Grid 086. Client, Junker Coyotes. Target, RaD. Payment: 100'000 COAM. Do you wish to accept this job as an independent contractor?"

It didn't stand out as anything unusual. Iguazu abused the 'independent contractor services' that ALLMIND offered to all mercenaries on Rubicon - be they corporate or independent - trying his best to build up some personal scratch that wasn't directly tied to the Redgun's operational budget.

Every single sortie he did under the Balam banner he basically did for free. After deducting ammunition, repairs, fuel and a bunch of other bullshit auxiliary costs, Iguazu was left with barely two coins to rub together. The Reguns existed in perpetual poverty, indentured servants despite most of them being in denial over it, and Iguazu refused to let himself be content with that.

So he accepted ALLMIND's offered missions on the sly, pocketing a considerable chunk of the pay after she deducted a 5% 'facilitation cost'. ALLMIND even paid for the ammunition and repairs! It was suspiciously generous, but no matter how much Iguazu wracked his brains, he didn't know what ALLMIND was getting out of this. She was an AI, she didn't really have ambitions. It was likely she was just programmed by a complete dumbass.

Well, her deficiencies were his gain. After a few more months, Iguazu might actually have enough money to negotiate for an early release from his Redgun contract, and finally leave this whole life behind him. So, when that innocuous mission request rolled round, no different to any other job he'd taken before through ALLMIND, he'd accepted it without question and departed.

It ended up being the biggest mistake of his life.

-

"DAMN IT!"

Iguazu slammed his fists against the arms of his cockpit seat, his vision half-dazzled by the blinking red emergency lights. There was a faint stench of burning, but he didn't move to evacuate his wreck of an AC, stewing quietly as EN ANAMOLY flashed across his mostly inert console.

Fucker had somehow hit his generator after they got jumped by those random mechs... and just left him here?! Through HEAD BRINGER's thick chassis he could hear the sounds of combat, muffled staccato fire and the telltale 'pff-THWMP' of a piledriver engaging and driving its spike into solid, military grade steel. It galled him to know that Raven didn't need back up at all, that Iguazu had been viewed as an annoyance to be swept aside quickly to focus on the real threat.

How dare he... how dare he...?!

"Rb19 Iguazu."

He froze at the familiar voice, ALLMIND's detachedly polite voice crackly through his fucked console. The emergency power only really focused on powering the important things: life support and comms.

"I see that HEAD BRINGER has suffered from a catastrophic failure. Do you require extraction and repairs?"

Iguazu didn't immediately answer. His chest felt tight and his stomach churned, as he abruptly realised the predicament he was in. Iguazu never told the other Redguns about him taking sly jobs through ALLMIND, because he'd always finished them with only a few dents and scratches on HEAD BRINGER's paintjob, and ALLMIND usually buffed those out. He'd never full on wrecked before. Michigan might get pissed...

...which was whatever! Guy was always riding Iguazu's ass! This would just be one another thing he'd nag him about, and Nile will complain about the fact that this was done off company time so Iguazu would-

Oh.

Oh shit.

He'd have to... pay for repairs out of pocket.

His savings... all that COAM he'd managed to scrape together and save by taking these jobs, that'll be consumed and thensome to fix up HEAD BRINGER. Generators weren't cheap! Not at all! He would've preferred Raven shooting off a leg at this rate! Oh fucking shit cunt asshole fuck-

"Rb19 Iguazu."

"Will you fuck off!?" he half-shrieked. "I'm busy- fucking- argh, I'm so screwed! Why did you give me this job?! Why didn't you tell me the fucking freelancer was here?! I got caught totally off guard because of you!"

"I was unaware that Rb23 Raven was contracted by RaD at this time. His handler had submitted a stay in mission requests for the next two days."

What? Wait, Iguazu didn't give a shit about that.

"Well he's here! Kicking ass and being a fucking cunt as usual!" Iguazu seethed, and flung himself back in his cockpit chair, grunting when it jarred his Cerebral Control Spite. Irritably, he reached up, easing out the cerebral spike with an experienced and gentle care, closing his eyes against the brief moment of vertigo the disconnect brought him.

ALLMIND obliviously kept talking.

"I've initiated emergency extraction protocols. Please hold your position for the next ten minutes. You will be brought to an ALLMIND sponsored foundry for repair and recuperation. Do you wish to send a message to Rb09 Michigan-"

"NO!" Iguazu snapped. "No, don't tell that old man anything. He can't know I was out here!"

"I understand. Then I assume you wish for your bill of repairs to be discretionary?"

Bill of...? "You're gonna bill me?!"

"Yes. If you recall, part of the policy for the Independent Contractors System is that upon mission success, all repair and ammunition costs are absorbed by ALLMIND. Upon failure, the pilot takes full responsibility-"

Iguazu did not recall reading that at all, but... well, he just skimmed all the legal jargon and fine print when ALLMIND had first introduced this system to him, so it was likey he'd missed it. Crap. Well, there was the fish hook he had been marvelling the absence of.

"...how much will it cost," he asked stonily.

"If you don't wish to pay using COAM, an alternative means of payment can be arranged," ALLMIND said, and though she was an AI and thus lacking in emotion or human ambition, there was something... unnervingly sly in her tone. Smug, almost.

That fish hook now had a hundred cruel barbs on it. Iguazu swallowed, viscerally remembering the last time he heard those words - if you can't pay with money, then there's an alternative means of payment... - and how it ended up with him here: augmented against his will and fighting on a backwater planet for a company he despised from the very bottom of his soul.

"Depends on what those 'alternative means' are," Iguazu said warily.

"In pursuit of offering better services to the mercenaries I serve, and gaining better understanding of their wants and needs, it would be beneficial to have several mercenary subjects on hand to gather vital data from."

What? "You want me to be some guinea pig?"

"There will be nothing invasive. Not to the extent of your augmentation surgery. All data shall be harvested via simulations or logs you willingly submit from live combat. You will not be harmed or physically discomforted in any way."

This sounded way too lenient.

"That's it...?" Iguazu probed. "You just want... some fucking data from me? You can get that whenever you want as is! You definitely want something else."

"Of course. The data I automatically obtain is superficial at most. What I require is your biometrics."

"What, like my... fingerprints?"

"The biological performance of your body in combat, both real and simulated, its responses to actions taken by your AC whilst you are under high-levels of stress and synchronisation, its default state post-combat. Gathering this data will allow me to develop AC hardware that encourages perfect synergy between pilot and machine, the likes which Arquebus and Balam have not yet achieved."

Okay... okay, this was... Iguazu could not put his finger on it, but having grown up in the slums of Earth, where he'd met almost every single degenerate under the sun, an instinctive part of him was screaming this is a fetish thing the AI is making you participate in a fetish thing THIS IS TOTALLY A FETISH THING.

"..."

But even if it was a fetish thing, it was still a good deal. Iguazu's used to being horrifically violated, and this was the most gentle way of having it done. He could record this data and send it, and exist in blissful denial over whatever ALLMIND would do with it. She's an AI, she didn't have a physical body to masturbate with. She'd do... whatever it was AI did to get off. Have a power surge? Bluescreen? Whatever. Not his problem. Not thinking about it. Biometric data for possibly fetishtic purposes in exchange for HEAD BRINGER getting repaired and Michigan not knowing about his illegal moonlighting? Brilliant deal if you had no pride, and boy, Iguazu was used to tossing his aside when it was convenient.

"Fine. It's a deal," Iguazu gritted out. "I'll send you all the data you want after you repair HEAD BRINGER."

"Understood. Thank you for your cooperation, Rb19 Iguazu. This will serve to benefit ALLMIND, and in turn, benefit all mercenaries."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever..."

-

Actually, accepting that mission hadn't been the biggest mistake of his life.

Agreeing to ALLMIND's deal had been.

[bug66]

[smorgasbort]

Armored Core 6 characters as Dril Tweets

[s3znl-gr3znl]

AC6 is such a wonderful emotional experience. The whole game for your first playthrough is heehee hoohoo look at all these cool characters!!! Are they all so fun and quirky and unique and interesting???

Now kill them. Do your job and pull the fuckin trigger, dog.

I vividly remember fighting back tears for the whole ending arc of Fires of Raven. I lost so many friends, some at my own hands. I didn't know. I didn't know it would come to this. Im so sorry, everyone. By the time i realized the path i was on, it was too late to save any of you.

Then you do it all again in NG+. Try to be better, make more thoughtful decisions, and fight the right people. Only to find you're still pointing your guns at the people you love.

So you go again, numb to the loss but still desperate for another way.

Only this time, you truly lose everyone. No one you care about survives the Coral Release.

But maybe it's for the best. Maybe you could push forward and build something new on the bones of everyone you sacrificed.

[cos-latte]

Your move

[qhostpepper]

dump of most my AC6 art so far below the cut 👇 most of it is fem621 and iguazu

[timmie15]

More shenanigans idk

pilot designs by @beth4short-blog besides my 621

[sumontienne]

Allmind is Coral.

During Rubicon-3's good years, billions of Coral colonies were shipped out-of-system. AI at that point in history were still ML-LLMs (Machine Learning Large Language Models), e.g. useless plagiarism machines, with no true sentience or sapience.

But with Coral, the Corporations could snake-oil this living species as a genuine AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). Coral was instituted on various colonies, kept away from Earth for fear of containment breach by better-knowing clandestine parties; Rubicon-3's biggest import was raw material, but second place came rubedocomputers.

Coral just couldn't breed like it could in Rubicon-3. Off-world Coral mutated; rapid evolution sunk its teeth into each and every specimen, the highly sensitive species adapting to the most minute of atmospheric changes. With this, obviously, came changes to color.

Obviously Allmind is one of these rubedocomputers. And, after the Fires, she was drawn back to her homeworld. Coral has an instinct to converge, after all.

And Contact comes easy to Coral--especially with as fickle minds as one G5.

[atomic87]

so. the pop up shops huh

[ekikosama]

Just Allmind chilling with her pet iguana :)

[kivaember]

[amored-core-hotties]

Attention, mercenaries. The semi-finals are here.

Our survey has almost concluded. Only four candidates remain. Carla is still here r r r hello o/ ...Even more infuriatingly- forgive us, unlikely- Gun Five Iguazu is here. We should be happy that one of our candidates is considered fuckable, but... We've collected the data. He isn't. Not even close. ALLMIND does not make mistakes, so kindly remove this mistake.

IGUAZU

toxic yaoi, anyone?

his hate boner for you is so big he kinda loses his mind

hates you hates you hates you

enemies with benefits

actually annoying

what a brat. i want to punt him into a wall

full-on obsessed with you. cant get you out of his mind. cant get killing you out of his mind.

complicated feelings of ENVY and LONGING and YEARNING? SOLUTION: JUST FUCKING KILL THEM

oh yeah that twink that popped up at grid 086

you sure spent a while disposing of him, tourist

CHATTY

CHATTY MY BOY

he/it

he's funny adn i love him

vote chatty or i blow you up

how do you fuck him? I'm sure you can figure it out

makes cute little clicking noises

its in the semifinals I'm so proud of you lil robot

cmon tourist ill let you kiss his chassis

FIGHT

[smorgasbort]

Armored Core 6 characters as Greentexts

[superchat]

——A humanoid interface？Who are you？ ——We are ALLMIND, for all mercenaries.

artist: las91214 ~ be sure to follow and support the artist ~

[s3znl-gr3znl]

Got thru the Coral Release ending and i had forgotten how terrifying AllMind turns out to be. Props to the voice actress for performing so well i could hear AllMind smiling as she sends us to our death.

Also Iguazu, my beloved hater. Coldcall was right, i was too hard on you. We should be kissing rn, not giving up our flesh and soul to an AI for revenge.

Also i forgot that AllMind knew about Ayre and the nutty implications of that fact. Ive probably theorized before that AllMind is a Coral Entity like Ayre, this being evidence by late-game briefings wherein AllMind is speaking behind a red screen with the Coral sounds playing quietly in the background.

Guh i fucking love this game!!!!!!

[cos-latte]