The Real MVP (Final Rose)
Deep within Averia’s Semblance, in the alternate universe that served as a mental representation of Saviour, were countless mini-Dianas. Each was hard at work on a task of utmost importance.
There was Mad Scientist Mini-Diana who could be recognised by her lab coat, safety goggles, and maniacal cackling. It was she who was tasked with overseeing the various processes responsible for Saviour’s never-ending quest for perfection. Whether it was developing a process for transmuting water into napalm or creating a subroutine for chopping people’s heads off in a musical manner, she would stop at nothing to succeed.
There was Romantic Mini-Diana who was responsible for turning Saviour’s essentially limitless processing power toward romantic endeavours. Whether it was how best to woo someone or how to unleash the most smouldering of smoulders, she had a whole slew of processes ready to go. Sadly, despite her winning smile and romantic reservation of a table beside one of the many, many seas of multidimensional... stuff that dotted Saviour’s realm, she was horribly underemployed.
But not all Mini-Dianas had such illustrious purposes. Most of them dealt with much more mundane matters. There was the Mini-Diana who ran the trash disposal subroutine, which let Saviour dump garbage in other dimensions. There was the Mini-Diana who kept Saviour’s armour looking nice and spiffy. It wouldn’t do for the Semblance to look bad in battle.
And then there was a certain Mini-Diana who was one of countless Mini-Dianas that served as janitors. Given all of the amazing stuff that Saviour could do, it made sense that random crap had a tendency to accumulate. It was their job to keep the Semblance’s mental representation free of garbage, so the Semblance could function at full efficiency. It wasn’t the most awe-inspiring job, but it was honest work, and the Mini-Dianas who did it could honestly say that without them, the whole thing wouldn’t work nearly as well as it did. Why, there was a whole branch of the janitor Mini-Dianas responsible for keeping Saviour’s realm free of anything Gary-related.
Of course, since Averia was a softie when it came to her sister, anything Gary-related wasn’t actually thrown away. Instead, it was painstakingly processed, catalogued, and then stored away in case it was ever needed. It wasn’t like they could run out of space. Saviour’s realm was as big or as small as it needed to be.
This particular Mini-Diana, however, wasn’t part of the Gary patrol. Instead, her task was very simple. There were a whole host of mental switches and triggers associated with the various subroutines, processes, and commands that helped govern Saviour. Her task was to check up on things. It wouldn’t do for any of the switches to get stuck, and with how Averia had a tendency to just layer new orders on top of older orders, someone had to go in and make sure that there weren’t too many conflicts. She wasn’t the only one responsible for checking, but she liked to think she was the best at it.
It was usually boring work, but this Mini-Diana went about it with a smile and a skip in her step. Most of the time, all she had to do was some dusting and testing before she went on her way. The only complication was how many places there were for her to check, some of which hadn’t been checked in years. It was a sad fact, but Saviour tended to prioritise combat over everything else. Oh well. It wasn’t her job to question why things were the way they were. She was a janitor. She’d leave that sort of thing up to the higher-ranking Mini-Dianas. Staffing issues were for other Mini-Dianas to handle.
On this day, however, she noticed something odd. It had been ages since anyone had come down to check on the Friend-Foe Identification System because, quite frankly, there had been no indications whatsoever that it was malfunctioning. The reports from upstairs had all been good. Whenever they encountered an enemy, it either died, was captured, or otherwise dealt with. Likewise, their friends and family were all protected. There had been zero reports of the system malfunctioning.
But this Mini-Diana noticed something. Amidst all of the switches that governed the classification system, one of them seemed to be stuck. She frowned. That didn’t make much sense. If a switch was stuck, they should have noticed something weird by now. At the very least, there should have been some aberrant behaviour.
Mopping the floor on her way to the switch and doing some dusting, the Mini-Diana opened up her scroll and peered at the map. According to the map, the switch that was stuck was related to friend classification. Frowning, she opened up the file on the switch and read more.
Apparently, the switch wasn’t just some random switch. It was actually quite important. It was the switch that allowed people to be moved from ‘friend’ to ‘potential romantic partner’. For a moment, all the Mini-Diana could do was stare at the stuck switch in disbelief.
What the? How had no one noticed this was stuck earlier? This wasn’t like the time the switch governing whether or not Averia liked pickles got stuck. That could be overlooked, and it wasn’t like Averia’s preference for pickles was a big deal, the occasional burger at Gary Burger aside. Besides, that switch had only gotten stuck for about a month before one of the others had noticed it.
This switch... this was a big deal. As long as it was stuck, it wouldn’t matter what someone did. If Averia had already classified them as a friend, they’d be stuck there forever. They could crawl into her bed naked with rose petals scattered everywhere and...
The Mini-Diana hastily pulled up a series of memories on her scroll. Since Saviour had perfect recall, it was a simple matter of requesting clearance. Since the memories in question weren’t considered particularly dangerous, she was able to get clearance from one of the other Mini-Dianas without any fuss.
Elsa had once crawled into Averia’s bed naked with rose petals... and Averia had just stared at her, asked if she was cold and then wondered if someone had tried to shove a rose bush through her window.
That wasn’t just oblivious. That was... yeah. The Mini-Diana immediately sent queries over to the Mini-Dianas in other departments and sighed at the response she received. Apparently, they’d just been following orders. After all, the Friend-Foe Identification System was a pretty powerful system. It wasn’t like they could just ignore it and do whatever they wanted.
The Mini-Diana looked at the switch. It looked like it had been stuck for years. How could no one have noticed? It was probably because of how well the system had been performing in most other respects. Out of the countless switches in this area, it was the only one that was stuck. In every other circumstance, the system was performing precisely as it should.
The Mini-Diana squared her shoulders. She might be a humble janitor, but she took pride in her job. She’d get this switch unstuck, so the system could perform properly!
Yet multiple efforts failed to so much as move it. Nothing she tried worked. In the end, she decided to do the only thing she could think of. She walked back to the end of the corridor and then turned before breaking into a sprint. With a mighty cry, the Mini-Diana through herself at the switch. She slammed into it and bounced off, and for a moment, she thought she’d failed.
And then the switch gave a loud clank and moved into its proper position.
“Averia?” Elsa asked. “Are you okay? You kind of just... twitched.”
“It’s nothing.” Averia shook herself. “You know,” she said. “That dress looks good on you.”
Elsa blinked. “What? I mean... it does?”
“Yes.” Averia nodded. “It matches your eyes.”
That is the story of the MVP Mini-Diana. She would later receive a promotion to admiral and get a spiffy hat. As to why she was promoted to admiral, it was because she thought the rank sounded cool. She now runs the maintenance department.
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