TAS Corp Server

TAS Corp Server

Type
Server

Owner
TAS Corp.

Background information

First episode
"Firewall"

TAS Corp's server is, of course, TAS Corp's server. All of the competitions and showmatches hosted by TAS Corp. are held on this very server. It had been believed by MD-5 (and later Belle) that it contains evidence of Lucinia's presumed death.
If entered by an A.I. such as Theo, it will appear as an open world with ground that becomes visible as it's stepped on and contains giant floating blocks that seem to be in charge of managing save data. Damaging these blocks can result in save data being erased. Corrupted data in a video game connected to the server can rip holes in the game's background, allowing data to leak in an out.

History
At some point, Lucks went to investigate the explosion that occurred in Sheridan's lab. There, he discovered what had happened to Lucinia and decided to keep the incident a secret, so they kept the security camera footage a secret and hid it in the server. Unbeknownst to them, something else had gotten into the server...

One Shot/Shutdown
A game of Tempest was being held on the server. MD-5's plan was to sneak in, crash the game with Tari's help, and while the server's security is down, Sofia Porter would hijack the server and steal its data and release it to the public. When Tari entered the game, however, something strange happened. Instead of immediately waking up in the match, she was initially treated to a vision of a purple haired girl facing the opposite direction. The girl dropped out of sight when Tari attempted to interact with her. After waking up from the vision, Tari realized that her team was in the middle of chaos.
After Tari managed to execute the glitch, she was treated to another vision instead of immediately being ejected from the game. The girl, who she realized was Lucinia, finally turned around and flickered into a different form, revealing that she was severely damaged and her Meta Runner arm was blown off. When Tari woke up and the MD-5 attempted to escape, TAS Corp. managed to corner them. Lucks threatened to shoot Masa dead if Sofia didn't show up, and even shot off Masa's Meta Runner arm to prove that he wasn't bluffing. Sofia gave in and surrendered her laptop to Lucks, who didn't hesitate to have the stolen data wiped from it. In the stinger, Belle found Sofia's phone in the garbage, which revealed that it contained a backup of the data. Belle decided to keep the phone to herself, a she had become suspicious of Lucks herself after he almost killed Masa and destroyed Theo's game cartridge.

Hard Reset
Lamar and Sofia tracked down Masa after he disappeared and revealed to him that they had a backup of the server on Sofia's phone, but confessed that the phone was with Belle. Cut to Belle, who was attempting to unlock the phone to find the data but couldn't get past the security.

Firewall
The server makes its first "physical" appearance in this episode. After Theo managed to clip out of his cell using a stool glitch, he found himself in the server. Lucks activated a quarantine program to catch Theo, and Theo was blown to a screen that Belle was standing next to. Theo awkwardly asked her for help getting around, as he was having trouble navigating the huge server, shocking Belle upon hearing that Theo was in the server. While Theo attempts to explain how he managed to escape into the server, the quarantine bots abduct him and locked him back into his room. Lucks deleted the stool so that Theo wouldn't be able to escape again.

Transfer Student
Belle sneaks into a locked room (thanks to months of practice trying to hack Sofia's phone) and contacts Theo. She makes a deal with Theo to have him find a file related to Project Blue and claimed that it will help Tari. She takes control of Theo and performs an "infinite spin-clip" to bust Theo into the server. While looking through several nonsensical files in an attempt to find a Project Blue related file, a strange purple glitter appeared and delivered a file that read "projectblue\_cleanup\_lucinia". Theo began the file upload, then realized that he was being attacked by the quarantine program. After Belle helped Theo bust apart several of the quarantine robots, the file finished uploading. Belle ended up ditching Theo when the TAS Corp. employees came in to see if anything was going on.

Heart to Heart
Belle watches the file that Theo gave her and found out that Lucks had been lying to her for two years about Lucinia. She then went to Tari, who was currently talking to MD-5 via dating sim, and pulled her out to apologize to her for blaming her for killing Lucinia. She then tells Tari to tell the MD-5 to let her join the MD-5's plan to release the server.

Hack and Slash/Friendly Fire
The MD-5 secretly swaps the Hidden Heroes cartridge with a modified version designed to download the server data from the phone. Meanwhile, Belle Fontiere snuck into the same room where she contacted Theo earlier. At this point, Theo is stuck in a corrupted version of his home world. Belle explains that the only way to free him from the game is by beating it. Belle then takes control due to Theo's lack of experience with glitches. In the volcano world, Theo notices that pieces of the server started to leak into the game. Soon, the same purple glitter from the server reappeared and taught Theo how glitch through a wall that Belle couldn't get him past. Theo pulled off the glitch perfectly, much to Belle's amazement and she was presumably reminded of Lucinia.

Soft Lock
In Hidden Heroes, Tari as one of the two heroes, and Lamar one of the enemies, struggle to keep each other alive, since the transfer will fail if the game ends. Evelyn Claythorne, the other hero, destroys all of the enemies except for Lamar and has Tari at her mercy. Evelyn was about to defeat Tari, but then suddenly, the purple glitter from the server merged with Tari, making her skilled enough to turn the tables and eliminate Evelyn. This gave Sofia enough time to complete the transfer. After Sofia commanded a fake emergency evacuation, Tari managed to reach the cartridge with the server (after getting past Evelyn) but then realized that Theo didn't make it. She was forced to take the cartridge regardless because TAS Corp. employees were coming. When Tari and MD-5 regrouped, Tari explained that they can't release the server data because Lucks still has Theo and he'll kill the game character if they released the data right away. Fortunately, Tari had a plan.

Nightmare Mode
Lucks captured Sofia and took the cartridge to wipe the server data again, only to figure out that it wasn't the right cartridge... and Tari used the decoy as a Trojan Horse to enter the server. Tari entered Ultra Jump Mania, saved Theo, repelled the quarantine program, then explained to Theo that they need to beat the game before Lucks reboots the server. They were doing fine until Lucks sent Evelyn as a custom boss to stop them.

Fatal Error
Down to their last lives, Tari and Theo manage to get past Evelyn and beat the game. With the game cache reset, Tari was able to free Theo from the game. Before she left, the purple glitter reappeared. This time, it revealed itself to be Lucinia, who told Tari what happened on the day of the accident.
While trying to save their friends, Lucks threatened to shoot Masa if they didn't give him the cartridge with the server, only to realize that they already released the data, which reveals to the public that Lucks was responsible for Lucinia's death. The only problem is that Lucinia wasn't dead. Turns out that Lucinia's body was healed, but her consciousness was blown to pieces. Part of it went into Tari, who was revealed to be an A.I., while the rest of it went into the server.