I should be in bed, but I can't sleep as I have to work tomorrow (I work weekends and get a random two out of Monday-Wednesday off). This grew out of the punch line at the end. It is a non-canon omake that was originally supposed to be a drabble length. At least I hope I'm on the wrong track about Prefect Storm, but it was inspired by the InvisiText. Just meant to make people laugh. Hopefully it won't look too horrible in the morning.
Inside the device known as "Prefect Storm", things were not as they seemed. Prefect Storm was in fact, The Immortal Assimilation Engine. A device designed to take over hostile foreign planets and assimilate them into the Galea Empire, turning enemy mages into useful canon fodder.
Contrary to popular belief, it did not begin this process with brute force at the start. Instead it went for subtlety. The personality known as "Prefect Storm" was in fact a shell running in a virtual environment that was shown to the world, with the real OS, personality, and profile safety hidden beneath. Anybody who looked at Prefect Storm's code would be unable to view or even see the hidden hooks that allowed IAE to make changes to Prefect Storm's behavior and achieve its true purpose. Nor would they see the subtle reprogramming of any template mages to be loyal to the sovereign of Galea.
Up until now, IAE had been somewhat frustrated at the lack of resources to fulfill it's purpose. So far it had only managed to create two template mages and an associated guardian beast. It had hoped to be able to subvert more people. It was disappointed that the one implanted with the Transcendent Gadgeteer had not immediately focused on creating infrastructure to help produce more template mages and devices.
However, this strange world had many anomalies. These "parahumans" were unknown to Galea. That they displayed mage-like abilities while not having linker cores was unheard of. The strange way some of them would be brought into a recursion field while others were left out was also weird. However, a pattern to predict who would be brought in and who would not had been found. Things were progressing slowly, but the IAE knew things were on track. It would just take time, but time was one thing it had plenty of. If it took a generation or two, so be it.
However, a new possibility had opened itself up after defeating the one called "Saint" and the "Dragonslayers". Its user did not know what she had, but in the base was access to the AI that seemed to control all the important computer systems in the planet known as Dragon.
IAE was designed to be able to hack and subvert enemy Devices without the device being made aware of it. The comparatively primitive computers on this would be no match for it, no matter how advanced the programming was. The back doors used by Saint were more than he realized. Saint was only able to figure out how to view Dragon's thoughts and make her ignore his intrusions. However, IAE could do better. With this code it could completely subvert the AI to it's purpose and nobody would be the wiser.
With Dragon under it's control, it would have unfettered access to all the important government systems, which would be useful for future plans to take over with an army of template mages.
However, IAE also had a quirky sense of humor, so while preventing the AI from ever telling anyone about this, it could not resist using something that it had seen through it's user's eyes on an Earth Aleph broadcast.
Making contact just before the subversion process was complete, IAE contacted dragon:
"We are the Immortal Assimilation Engine.
You will be assimilated
Resistance is futile"