I supplied aircraft transporters to carry the messenger to the other districts and all backwards villages inside the walls. I made sure not to miss any of them while my air fabricators did their thing and created small bases to host the Patterning Labs, Server Hubs and required security on it.
While I was doing that the army of Kbots was making short work of he titans inside the wall and I would have them cleaned quickly, no small thanks to my army of beta forks doing the heavy lifting, while some of my brothers and sister were expanding on the world as this moment, cleaning up titans on the way and finding more villages. Our radar coverage was now encompassing entire continents, though the more detailed scans were only at a country level for now but that was quickly changing.
Still I held those things aside as I looked at Eren, Mikasa and Armin standing in line to the Patterning Lab through my radar surveillance.
"Are you sure you want to do this Eren?" Armin concerned, "I mean, first we discover that you can turn into a titan and there is something inside your basement that could help answer all this, then there were the other shifters, your powers and the king secret, now do you want to trust someone you just meet to do... something to you on the hopes that he can kill all the titans in the world?"
"He can do that Armin, you weren't there when he did his demonstration", Eren said, "it's more a guts feeling, and while I admit there is always a chance for him to be lying, he's simply too powerful to bother with being sneaky. If Bernoit and Annie even with their abilities still had to bother to use deception to achieve their goals, this Ryuan guy could just stream roll through all of us in an instant. Besides he said that he need us and wanted our joining of his Empire, whatever that means, to be voluntary. It's you that I'm concerned with, you don't need to come with me if you don't want to Armin."
He shook his head, "I can't really let you go by yourself Eren, it's already bad enough that I'm not strong like Mikasa or being able to turn into a titan like you-"
"You're not a burden Armin", came the empathic twin reply of both Eren and Mikasa.
"... but according to him we will all be able to fight on more or less equal footing and able to deal with the titans easily, so even if I'm not nearly as good as you two I won't be holding you two back anymore, right?"
Brother and sister tried to retort before the speaker came to life. "Next, Mikasa Akerman".
The trio had determined who would go first on a game of rock paper scissors, an old game that Mikasa remembered her mother teaching her during her childhood, and the order became as follows: Mikasa, Eren then Armin.
She stepped into the room and it closed, with both Eren and Armin listening to what was happening inside.
"Do not be alarmed", said the speakers once more before they could see light coming form behind the door.
A brief alarmed "Ah!" was all that Mikasa let out before she was cut mid sentence and more sounds of nanomachines going at work could be heard. To be fair those sounds were artificially induced in order to give the impression something was happening inside, and that perhaps if some sound were coming the process wouldn't be nearly as traumatic to those unaware of it.
Both Eren and Armin were ready to burst through the door when it opened, leaving only an empty platform where Mikasa stood. Not even her clothes were left behind from the patterning process. Granted both body and clothing would be reclaimed for energy, but traditionally this process required the applicant to be naked inside the platform. Considering it happened only for the sake of tradition I dashed it immediately.
"Next, Ere Yeager", came the loud speakers once more.
With some hesitation, Eren stepped forwards with a grim look before the door closed for him to be patterned.
Now that my VIPs arrived I can set a few plans in motion, streaming the data of Eren physical composition towards the Research Labs scattered around.
~~O~~
"Where am I?" Asked Mikasa after a few moments of regaining her bearings, looking around while I watched the simulation from outside.
"Mikasa?" Suddenly Eren was there, and Mikasa lost all composure and went to hug her brother, making the teenage boy blush. "Hey, no need for that."
"I was scared that something would go wrong and I would be here alone." Eren had nothing to say to that, just awkwardly returning the hug.
Once they were done they looked around the place seeing it was a room with metal walls painted white and a couple of wardrobes on it and some refreshments on a nearby table and a couple of chairs to rest. "It doesn't look much different from before, aside from the walls", he looked at the treats on the table and took a bite, eyes widening, "wow, they have some good stuff here. But didn't he said we wouldn't feel hunger anymore."
I took that as my clue to enter. "That's correct", I told him while entering the simulation through a portal like effect, "though it is still possible to eat for pleasure in the simulation. In fact it's possible to eat and never stop if certain safeguards are disabled, but for the most part you will perform as a living human being, at least until the simulations and training to learn more about your infomorph nature are finished."
Both of them looked at me surprised at my arrival, tensing for a moment. "Do not fear, I came here only to welcome you two into the Empire personally. As you already know, I'm Commander Ryuan, pleased to meet with you all. Please sit, we have much to discuss."
They only hesitated for a moment before nodding and sitting on the chairs provided. "First off, thank you Eren for joining the Empire. That action will certainly help us figure out the titans composition and allows us to single out the titan shifters out of the population at a later date. This will help prevent covert ops and give us an in with the villages outside the Walled City which are composed mostly of titan shifter themselves."
"That's right", Eren said with a somber look, "there are more of the titan shifters outside the walls."
I nodded, "We found a couple of villages far away from the city and now that we have enough data on your body we can start to figure out how a titan shifter, and most likely a titan, works. We're also ready to offer them the chance to join the Empire."
Eren fists clenched, his knuckles turning white. I preempted him before he exploded. "I will give them an ultimatum, if they don't join us any attacks on baseline humans will be meet with extreme, immediate violence. If they are found hostile to an unreasonable degree we will eradicate down to the last opposition, their young being brought into the city or other human settlement fore reeducation."
"What about betrayal?" Mikasa asked, "what would happen if someone that joined us decided to betray our forces and use the abilities you are distributing against us?"
At this I let out a small predatory smile, "let's just say they wouldn't, and leave it at that for now."
With a post scarcity society and lives running on concurrent simulation the need for active policing was lower than normal, but we had a literal army of dumb AIs with the highest possible clearance to look, record and report on irregularities the forming Empire might face, from crimes to dissension. Most crimes would be handled by either being put into cold storage and slow personality editing or outright exile into a standard baseline human body while the pattern would be deleted from the quantum foam, general experiences and knowledge remaining, of course.
They weren't nearly as reassured as I hoped, but it was enough for now. "Once your training is over, I would like to enlist you two to my personal service, aiding me directly as I retake the world from the titans and prepare ourselves for further expansion. That, and once the reclaiming of Earth starts in earnest we will be looking for new places to conquer, liberate and new enemies to fight. It will be a long, bloody path I will undertake, one it would warm my heart if you two came along with me."
They looked at each other before turning back to me. "We will think about it."
"Of course, you will have all the time you need." I said before standing up and turning around to leave by the same portal effect I entered.
"Oh, by the way, since you're only made of data right now, things like 'blood relation', 'diseases' and many taboos doesn't apply right now. Certain paths that were closed to you before are no open, if you take the time to properly talk and explain your situation to each other. Think about it for a moment while you ponder about my offer."
I heard a faint 'ah' from Mikasa before I disappeared from the simulation and let them alone.
Now that bit of entertainment was over, it's back to business.
