#grounded!au

So it's known that there's several corpses in the game— most of which come from Ominent workers!

The Biomedical Engineer (Name: E. Ferrier) — Who was found in the Sandbox, chasing Tully. "The blundering scientist flees across the desert, and the rasined engineer follows!"

The Entomologist (Name: J.K.) — Found under the grill, and had been planning to bring fire back to the group.

The Compliance Officer (Name: A. Miller) — Found near a power outlet, and had been keeping track of the illegal things Ominent had been doing. She died climbing to see something closer.

The Intern (Name: Exhaulted Nugget B. Stava) The intern is known to have been sharing lunches with ants, and then slowly claiming himself to be the Ant King, and later on the Creator. This is actually my favorite corpse, as he seemingly knew he was going to pass away in his sleep. His last notes are pondering what the reader is doing, why they're small, and if things are any better in the tiny world. It's the only death to have made me and my friend actually think "Oh.. That's sad.." when we read the notes.

Special Forces Officer (Name: D. Reid) — was there to help protect the others and keep them alive in the yard while laying down the groundwork for Project O.R.C.

Toxicologist (Name: D. Spencer) — Died in a pond lab collapse, and hat deemed the Koi fish less dangerous than the intern for some reason.

Health And Safety Officer (Name: R. Weiner) — Died being stabbed in the neck by the Wasp Queen after attempting to chip her with an O.R.C. Receiver. They state that the bugs REALLY hate being chipped as well.

It's worth noting that few of them specifically died alone (the compliance officer, health and safety officer, the entomologist, the biomedical engineer, and the intern respectively) but some of them died in labs (specifically the Toxicologist and Special Forces Officer.) This is important because for the Toxicologist it's safe to assume other people were in the lab too, but couldn't be recovered amongst the wreckage. The others died on missions from Ominent, which typically related to stalking Wendell Tully or working on Project O.R.C. with the exception of the Intern, who they just abandoned and left to the ants. (Side note, the Entomologist had similar ideals to the Intern and disliked them splitting up!)

These are the known people who died. There are more deaths that are caused by Ominent. This is canon. They include an unknown number of missing teenagers— at least four. This is stated in the beginning of the game, but reinforced later on with the Milk Carton that shows the photos of four other, missing and presumably dead, teenagers.

They talk about how the enbiggening process is more dangerous and complicated then they realized, well, they had to find out somehow. They have to have experimented on someone. And do you know what happens when you do the enbiggening process wrong? You explode.

There's no direct body count for Ominent, though the count has to be over eleven (the amount of Ominent corpses, plus the known other missing teens) It's also worth noting that there are three unnamed corpses in the Red Ant Hill which could be the other missing teens— they have no Ominent items, but have Rotten Bee Armor instead. They could also be random shrunken people too.

There's also another corpse, or... corpses— if you count the many, many bugs, which is found near an Intern Note. In a cave, known as the Ant Totem Cave. This cave is full of ant heads stuck on sticks, an abandoned back pack, and one human skeleton stuck to a wall and arranged into a disgusting amalgamation combined with any parts. The ground is also covered in ant blood. It's safe to assume this is a teen, as they have an abandoned back pack.

This adds up to anywhere from eleven to fifteen known deaths caused by Ominent in some way, shape or form. This doesn't include the bugs that Ominent experimented on and killed as well. Or the fact that Ominent was going to terminate the main four kids in the game Grounded too, only for one scientist to throw them into the yard before they could.

You may ask: How does this play into the Grounded!AU?

Oh boy it. It doesn't go well for poor KO, TKO, Rad, Enid and Dendy. These corpses are still there, though due to being in a different universe their locations may be different! I haven't worked out where all the labs are exactly yet, as Boxmore isn't exactly the same as Tully's house (side note: I am thinking of having a Sewer Lab (maybe in place of the Pond Lab?) and still having a Haze and Hedge Labs somewhere else)

But during their adventures traversing the terrifying backyard / parking lot of Boxmore, and the various labs all suspiciously labeled POINT and POINTINENT, they come across the various corpses— taking their badges, notes and photos for clues as to what happened, and what led to them being small. This.. This really just becomes a normal thing for them, and they're mostly unfazed by the skeletal remains. At first it's shocking, but when you stumble upon your fifth corpse, most shock has already gone away— especially when you've killed things yourself.

Either way, they manage to use these to piece together that Pointinent is stalking Professor Venomous, as well as bits and pieces of what Project G.L.O.R.B. is and some of the experiments that had been performed on Ants, Spiders, Bombardier Beetles, Ladybirds etc. They learn what the G.L.O.R.B. Bugs are weak to, which helps them later on with the G.L.O.R.B. Soldiers... Maybe a little too well.

So: You may ask, what is Project G.L.O.R.B.? Well, it's a lot of things!

It starts with them experimenting on bugs, trying to figure out a G.L.O.R.B. receiver that actually works without killing the bug. It takes them a while, and many bugs die terrible deaths due to the experiments! Similar to the games Project O.R.C., the receiver is placed on the bugs heads. They noticeably have lightning, similar to that of TKO's, but green.

They are incredibly strong, and should be avoided at all costs— as fighting them has proven to be.. deadly. (Thankfully, they all know how to revive each other!) They're significantly faster, stronger, harder to kill and overall have given the entire crew a hard time.

This however, is only the beginning. The bugs are just the start. Once they figure the receivers with the bugs, they move on to people. They start experimenting on ways to use the receivers on their own soldiers, this.. doesn't go well at first. But eventually, they figure out a way to incorporate a functional receiver into the helmets of some soldiers— G.L.O.R.B. Soldiers.

Similar to the bugs, these soldiers are stronger, faster and better than pretty much any other soldier, but most importantly— they are completely under POINTINENTS control. They have no control.

A majority of G.L.O.R.B. Soldiers are either low ranking soldiers. Other glorb soldiers are usually anyone who poses a threat to POINTINENTS goals, such as any scientist, hero or sold soldier who starts showing doubt, and, captured resistance members (such as Red Action.)

These soldiers are usually used to help fight off villains, or do any of the work that the higher ups don't really want to do— like fighting a bunch of freshly enbiggened children. Unfortunately, these soldiers are still weak to the same things that G.L.O.R.B. bugs are— including the G.L.O.R.B. Disrupter Bomb.

okay some elaboration on her cause I do need to think about her more— her goals are, quite literally, a mix of Ominents *and* canon Foxtails

Ominents goals, in canon, are the following:

—To stalk Tully and learn what he's doing— literally chasing after him to figure out how his SPAC.R and Enbiggening Cocktail work!

—> This, on it's own, is bad enough as they are trying to steal his work (the SPAC.R and the cocktail) while convincing him that he's a failure and an idiot (they are convinced of this as well, with Schmector saying "How did Dr.Wendell Tully out smart the brigest minds at Ominent?" at one point.)

—>They want this to do so much, between making the economy better with shipping being easier to military gain etc.

—Figure it out themselves

—>Eventually, they give up. Tully goes into hiding— as far as they're aware, he's supposed to be dead anyway. So they start trying themselves. This leads to the child experimentation.

—Project O.R.C. (which isn't really elaborated on that much) is stated to be meant for military use later on, and they are seen mentioning that they're meeting with the Head of Defense or whoever of the country to talk about it

—Kill the kids

—>Simply put, they know too much and are a risk to their business. Also, there's no way for Ominent to safely enbiggen them anyway, so, in their situation, with the knowledge that at that point Tully is probably dead— *it would actually be the most ethical choice.*

We already have Foxtails whole thinning the show trying to get better heroes but not doing it in a good way etc. So Grounded!Foxtails are kind of a mix. They're, for the most part, the same as Ominents, but not.

She stalks PV to try getting him back and try getting his cocktail too, like Ominent and Tully. This fails, because her crew dies to the rasining and other chaotic events of the backyard— the labs are poorly built and already falling apart by the time they get to them, and no one anticipated how dangerous the yard(/parking lot) really is. They knew the risks at this point.

The experimentation begins as that plan fails, and this would've started more ethically than it is at the point of the au! but over time, I imagine she kinda grew numb to it? (definitely trying to keep the thought that this is for the greater good in mind)

—>They might've even had willing participants! Regardless, it ends up with child experiments. Not easy to get those. The termination would be for similar reasons.

Shadowy interferes at some point, helping with Project G.L.O.R.B. and supplying those glorbs and helping with the experiments for this. He's also probably the reason KO, Rad, Enid and Dendy are kidnapped tbh, considering that's such a risky move to kidnap Carol's son. He assists in the experimenting on them quite a bit— helping with the chip and the mutations etc. He's not aware of the planned murder.

Project G.L.O.R.B. is a way to help strengthen *and* control the heroes. (Similar to the shows thing with chip damage yk) I've talked about this one a bit anyway donddojddikd