A lone helicopter flies through the night sky, the continuous beating of its rotors echoing throughout the skies and vast forest underneath it. Inside the chopper is the 25th Special Operations Echelon, a newly formed spec ops squadron by the private military company, Griffin Kryuger. The squad, composed of three Tactical Dolls and their commander, is currently en route to their first assignment: to investigate an allied forward base, which went dark a few weeks ago.

GK, or Griffin Kryuger, is one of the biggest and most powerful PMCs around. It is owned by Berezovich Kryuger, a war veteran. After Sangvis Ferri's dolls went rogue, GK was tasked to fight them.

The main source of manpower of GK are Tactical Dolls. They are basically civillian model dolls fitted with fire control cores and given weapons to fight with. Most of these dolls are produced by the I.O.P Manufacturing Company. The company also handles upgrades and repairs for the T-Dolls. They currently serve as the main manufacturer of T-Dolls for GK.

In GK, T-Dolls are assigned to echelons. Each echelon is composed of a maximum of five T-Doll units of any kind. Normal GK commanders command a handful of echelons, ranging from two to a maximum of ten. But that isn't the case for the 25th - they were spec ops.

Or at least, they were supposed to.

Right now, the 25th only has three T-Dolls, not even enough for a full echelon. They weren't even recognized as an active echelon yet; they're pretty much a reserve force right now.

Rezae Ilnori, 25th Echelon's commander, has already asked about this. Apparently, a few of I.O.P.'s facilities- their production facilities, to be exact, were destroyed. Less production facilities means slower production of T-Dolls, the main source of manpower for PMCs like GK. Slower production means less dolls, and less dolls meant less manpower.

Rezae understood that, but he couldn't help but be annoyed. Seriously, only three dolls? Where's he going to find two more T-Dolls?

Oh wait. Helian, GK's senior officer, mentioned something about recovering abandoned dolls from the battlefield. If they're still operational, they can be an addition to the team.

That's basically treasure hunting, he thinks. The idea of being some sort of post-apocalyptic pirate doesn't sound too well to him.

Rezae sighs. He'll worry about that another time. Right now, they have a mission to do. He goes over their objectives for the mission in his mind.

Their squad will head over to Area S02 to investigate a GK controlled forward base there that went dark around three weeks ago. GK believes that it was overran by Sangvis Ferri forces.

They were tasked to investigate the area, clear it from possible hostiles and recover useful supplies if possible. He didn't expect much; looters may have already taken the useful stuff. But it's still worth a try to look around. Hopefully they'll find something good. Reconnaissance showed a little hostile activity, but it's nothing that they can't manage.

Rezae glances at the dolls under his command. Due to lack of manpower, GK wasn't able to give him a full echelon. As of now, he only had three T-Dolls under his command: OTs-12 "Tiss", an Assault Rifle model, SV-98, a Rifle model, and Vector, a Submachine Gun model doll.

They all looked like young girls. Not even close to looking like soldiers, even with all the guns and tactical gear they're carrying. They're repurposed civillian dolls, after all. At least they can handle themselves in the battlefield, going off the combat simulations they had a few days ago.

To Rezae, it feels somewhat wrong to send girls like them to do the dirty work for them. Yeah, they might be androids and all, but still.

"We'll be arriving at the drop point soon. ETA five minutes."

The pilot's announcement jolts Rezae from his thoughts. He glances outside, but he only sees the same forest he's been seeing for the past thirty minutes. He turns towards the cockpit.

"Hey, how far is our landing zone from the forward base?" he asks the pilot.

"It's not too far, don't worry!" the pilot chuckles. "It'll only take you a few minutes of walking to get there."

"That's good to hear," Rezae nods, satisfied. If all goes well, this should be a cakewalk. He turns back his squad.

"Alright girls, listen up," he announces, getting the attention of his squad. "Once we get off the chopper, we'll head over to the forward base. Recon shows a few enemy units, but I'm pretty sure we can handle them. We'll wipe them out, and then we'll search the base for usable stuff. This should be easy," Rezae explains.

The dolls all nod at him.

"Got it? Good." Rez grins, pulling back the charging handle on his SCAR-H battle rifle.

The helicopter slows down, tilting backwards a bit before slowly descending. The side doors slide open.

"We've arrived! I'll be dropping you guys off here, then I'll return to pick you up after I deliver some supplies." The pilot's cheery voice sounds through the comms as the chopper hovers a few feet above the ground. The T-Dolls jump out of the open side door, their weapons in hand.

"You'll come back to pick us up?" Rezae looks at the pilot.

"Well yeah, how else are y'all gonna get outta there?" the pilot grins at him. "I'll wait for you guys here at this clearing. Don't take too long, though."

"We'll make it quick, don't worry."

"Right. Oh, and you might wanna take this," the pilot grabs a piece of paper from the empty passenger seat and hands it to Rezae.

Rezae takes the piece of paper, which seems to be some sort of map. The pilot answers him before he can ask about it.

"That's a map of the forward base. Apparently there's an underground storage facility there, use that to find it."

"Thanks." Rezae slips the map into one of his pockets, giving the pilot a two finger salute. The pilot returns the gesture, and Rezae jumps out of the helicopter to follow the rest of his squad.

He regroups with his squad as the helicopter ascends, rotating westward before flying off into the night sky.

"Well, let's move, shall we?"

A series of nods come from the dolls, and the 25th Echelon disappears into the forest.


A/N:

Greetings! Welcome to From the Shadows, my first ever fanfic! I've been working on this for a while, and I decided that it's time to publicize this. Hope you all enjoyed reading the first chapter! I'll try to update this at least once per week or every two weeks.

Just a little note, English isn't my first language, so I might have made a few mistakes in grammar that I didn't notice. Feel free to inform me.