Somewhat inspired by Max Payne 3 on this. And a bit of John Wick.

The club music and the flashing lights in the dark, neon-lit, cyberpunk-inspired nightclub disoriented the T-Doll as she shielded her visual sensors from the blinding sight, despite her being away from most of the action as they were staying in the VIP lounge. Humans partied hard, as they say, though the lounge was more calmer in comparison, being on the third floor overlooking the main party hall. She was standing near the large window wall, which gave a good view of the hullabaloo three floors down.

"Heeey! I got us some drinks!" a cheerful voice spoke loudly amongst the sounds of the party as another T-Doll approached. She was wearing a frilly black dress, holding a tray with four drinks. Three of them were cocktails, one was a simple bottle of root beer.

The other Doll set the tray on the bar counter beside the first as a third approached, wearing a similar dress but in dark blue. A fourth was sitting on a neo-Tokyo-style lounge chair drinking a cocktail already, presumably taken from the second's tray. She was dressed in a sleek, form-fitting tube dress with a bolero jacket instead.

"Alriiiight, it's about time all of us get smashed," the third said with a chuckle as the second handed her a glass. "Awwww...I was expecting something a bit stronger..." she said after taking a lengthy sip.

"You are aware that we're here on a mission, right? This isn't any time to lay around getting plastered," the first one said as the third leaned back on the counter.

"It's an important mission, alright. Soooooo important that our client paid extra to have his kids in some godforsaken bar guarded by a group of T-Dolls suited for special forces work. Important indeed..." she said before taking another lengthy sip of the cocktail. "Aw shit, it's almost finished... Hey sis?"

"Yes?" the third replied, after taking sip of her Pina Colada.

"Get me something more stronger, a'ight?"

"Sure! But don't be sorry if we have to drag you out of here!"

The third chuckled. "I'd like that, actually..." she said as she finished the cocktail and put the glass on the tray.

"Hope that money's worth the trouble. Greedy corporates..."

The first one rolled her eyes as she looked down at her drink, the root beer. She took a small sip, with her eyes lighting up at the taste.

"Well at least it's not actual beer..." she thought as she went over to sit next to the fourth.

"Enjoying the party?" the fourth asked as the first sat down on a similar seat beside her.

"Barely. I can't wait to leave, actually..." the first trailed off as she fiddled with her dress. "Ugh, it feels like this thing's gonna slide off any minute..."

"Well that's because you chose to have your 'assets-'"

"Hey!" the first one snapped. The third laughed it off in response.

"You know, it's not every day that we're outfitted with biofuel converters to eat and go to parties like this. Why not enjoy yourself for now at least?" the first said as the club music shifted to a more softer song as the party downstairs died down a little.

"Somebody's gotta stay sober for the operation. It looks like nobody's up for that except me," the third replied as she drank the softdrink in a confident manner.

A group of four men in suits entered the VIP lounge and sat at the bar stools near the other two before ordering drinks. The second T-Doll noticed that they all fit the profile of veteran army soldiers. Mostly because of their haircuts.

"Nothing like some vodka after a week of hell, eh brat'ya?" the oldest-looking man asked as the others chuckled. Their speech was conveniently translated by their translation software.

"Would've been better if we had the vodka during the week, Yeveginy."

"Damned regulations, y'know? Even after the Union fell you'd think the Westerners'd be more lax!"

The man closest to the second took notice of her and winked at her, eliciting a giggle and blush from her. The third noticed and glanced at the man while making it look as if she wasn't.

"Have you noticed how much finer the women are up here? Thank goodness for your connections, eh?" he said to the other three after turning his head to them.

"I'd bet a hundred euros that most of them aren't even real women at all. You know how popular those bodyguard Dolls are with the bourgeoisie?" one of them replied.

"So hard to tell! Well, that's until you find like a barcode or something right before you get into action with one..."

"That is if that ever happens!"

The four Dolls glanced at each other as the men laughed. The second scratched her head awkwardly. The first rolled her eyes as the fourth just laughed it off. The third was busy downing a bottle of vodka.

"So how's things going with your sector, Viktor? I've heard that some shit has gone down over there."

"Oh you've heard about what the troops keep on talking about, huh?" the man who was apparently "Viktor" responded.

"Denis from Sixth Group mentioned that to me a day ago... Some of our guys keep talking 'bout some Dolls with no identification lurking around in your sector. The guys from the old divisions're calling them 'Baba Yagas', heh," one of them said before taking a sip of vodka that was just served.

"T-Dolls with no identification?" Yeveginy asked aloud. "That sounds very familiar, now that you mention it..."

The first Doll overheard the exchange as she walked over to the third to try and stop her from ordering another bottle.

"Hey 45, can you cut that out? You're no good to me wasted!"

"...lightweight..." UMP45 muttered as she struggled to prop herself up.

"Jeez 9... Why is she like this?" the first quietly said as she sat next to UMP9, who just shrugged. "If you ask me, I'd say depression," she replied in her usual happy tone.

"How the hell do combat robots get depression?" the first muttered under her breath exasperatedly.

"...There was talk back during the old days when the Union was still alive..." Yeveginy's voice interjected. "...my God this is starting to sound like a scary campfire story."

The men laughed again before continuing.

"Anyway, back then, I was still just a regular infantryman. Of course, the Combat Dolls did most of the heavy lifting while we mostly just stayed in reserve. We were stationed in supply bases and stuff as security and all that. Of course, shit was boring..."

"I see we're gathered here now, huh? What's up?" the fourth Doll asked as she approached, holding an empty cocktail glass which she set on the counter.

"Oh, uhhh, nothing. Those suits over there are just sharing some urban legends and stuff..." the first replied.

"Ooooh! Well that's something interesting! Eavesdropping to sate your curiosity, One-Six?"

HK416 blushed in embarrassment as she looked aside awkwardly.

"It's kinda boring right now, okay 40? Gotta do something to pass the time..." she said before frowning. "...unlike 45 over here."

The two looked at UMP45, who was doing her ultimate G11 impression beside them.

"...we're gonna have to carry her out of here, aren't we?" 416 muttered as she facepalmed, to UMP40's amusement.

"Now the base that I was stationed to was not as ordinary as the others. It was one of the main operation centers of the Special Operations Forces in the region. Me and my comrades were there since it was a joint base between them and regular army..."

"Special Operations Forces...why does that name sound familiar..." HK416 thought as she discreetly watched the men talk. UMP40 and UMP9 were just beside her, talking about things unrelated such as hoping for a beach trip if they would ever get employed again for something like their current job.

"...so things went on as usual, you see. The regular shit. We did our drills, patrols, inspections and all that. It was starting to feel boring, despite how apparently important the base was... But something happened one day."

"Huh. We've heard of that base, but nothing about an attack. I remember hearing that they decided to close it down and move their op center somewhere more secure or something," one of the men said.

"Well, obviously. KCCO wouldn't want everyone to know that they were attacked. They had reputation to keep," Yeveginy said before continuing.

"We had the base alarms blaring at around midnight and the loudspeakers were shouting 'Enemy attack! Enemy attack! Unidentified hostiles have breached KCCO sector security!' and I was like 'What?! Blyat, who is attacking us?!'"

The other three men visibly moved a little closer to Yeveginy as he spoke, 416 noticed. She herself, also unknowingly leaned a little closer to them, despite having her aural sensors focused on eavesdropping on them.

"Are you sure we should be talking about this? This sounds like the kind of classified shit the FSB would send a hit squad for..." one of them worriedly said as he looked around suspiciously. 416 asked the bartender for another root beer and some munchables, both to blend in and for her own personal enjoyment.

"I wouldn't worry about that. Both the KCCO and FSB are long gone and I don't think the mudaks at EUINTCEN give a shit about something that happened around 40 years ago that only one guy knows about..." Yeveginy said, chuckling before taking a shot of vodka.

"Barmen. Another one, please. So me and my unit had to get suited up and shit. Meanwhile we were all wondering if it was a Sangvis attack or something since we were closest to the main conflict zone. We ran from the barracks to the 'more secure' part of the base. You know, the KCCO sector? Most of the night shift guys were laying about everywhere, shot in the head or Mozambique'd. Looked like they weren't able to fire a shot until the alarm got tripped," Yeveginy grimly spoke.

The three men where frozen in shock, awe and horror, judging from their body language and mutters of "My God...", "Chyort..." and "Der'mo...", 416 observed as she ate a potato chip. Whoever stormed that base was impressive, but she was confident that her squad wouldn't have tripped that alarm if they did something similar.

"Such a simple mistake..." she thought as she took another sip of root beer while Yeveginy continued.

"The main forward HQ building was relatively untouched, though judging by the trail of bodies we knew that the enemy force was probably inside. Three of the Hinds we had - originals, not those shitty copies made by Airbus that we use nowadays - were carrying troops to cover the roof when suddenly one of them just crashed. Radios reported a figure on the roof and that the pilot and gunner were shot through the bulletproof glass."

"Pilot snipe, huh...not too hard, in my opinion. But an original Hind? Those bullets should at least be HVAPs..."

"The other two just started strafing the roof, but then both just spiraled to their deaths. Then I saw five guys drop dead after their heads suddenly blew. Most of us just started firing at every window or door, open or closed, hoping to get at least one of the bastards. But then our gunfire started to lessen one by one..."

"So...what happened?"

"I crawled under one of the Urals. After awhile, the gunfire stopped completely. I remember hearing some guys run away, only for the running to stop after a few shots rang. I stayed there for so long..."

Yeveginy's voice trailed off as he took a shot of vodka.

"...I waited. Turned off my radio, just in case they had electronic espionage modules. Attackers couldn'tve been Sangvis. Base was too far from the front for them to launch an attack like this. Their control signals didn't reach this far."

"Who did it then?"

"At the front entrance, I saw a humanoid-shaped shimmer..."

"S-Stealth camouflage!?" 416 thought, almost spitting out her drink. The other men gasped, muttering the same thing, being just as surprised as her.

"This only got perfected a few years ago! How did they...?"

"...couldn't believe my eyes! Only experimental test T-Dolls were outfitted with the stealth tech back then! I was scared for my life under that truck. I feared that the SF managed to steal and reverse-engineer it! Then I saw the shimmer fade away..."

"So was it a Sangvis Doll?"

"Nyet. Didn't look Sangvis at all. It looked like...well, some T-Doll wearing paramilitary gear. Was too far away to make out any defining details, though what I could make out was that they had long white hair."

416's eyebrow shot up in surprise.

"Long white hair? You mean like her over there?" one of them said softly as he pointed to 416.

"Exactly like hers," Yeveginy replied in a serious tone, causing the four of them to look at each other.

Then they all laughed. 416 rolled her eyes.

"Are you sure this isn't just one of your bullshit stories you made up for your grandchildren?" Viktor asked as he giggled.

"No, no. It's a true story, I swear! Just trying to lighten the mood here! What're we attending, a Halloween party?" Yeveginy said as they settled down.

"But seriously, it had white hair and it was holding a rifle. Then it just went back inside. I stayed put for God-knows-how-long until reinforcements arrived,but by then it seemed that the attackers had left. I was shocked when I found out that I was the only guy who survived the whole thing."

"No wonder they didn't make mention of any of this. So what did they do at the KCCO HQ?"

"We found out that they probably stole, or erased almost all their operational plans and intel. The tech teams couldn't recover anything. It was pretty much 404s on every single screen in the data room. The even erased the security footage."

"All that for a data wipe? My God that's just insane," Viktor commented before sipping some vodka.

"I know. Maybe all the carnage wouldn'tve happened if that alarm hadn't gone off..." one of the men added.

"Afterwards I had a debriefing. Told them what I saw. Apparently, 'White-Hair' vaguely matched the description of some rogue T-Doll who was part of some renegade T-Doll group the higher-ups unofficially referred to as...fittingly enough...'Team 404'. Kinda like that G&K echelon named 'Acid Rain' who works with Vik."

"A team of rogue T-Dolls? As if we didn't have enough problems already..." one of them muttered.

"Imagine if those Frankensteins went rogue! Thank goodness for that new control system they're using, eh?" another said.

416 felt like something was coming back to her upon hearing the words "Team 404".

"Team...404...where...have I heard that...before..."

"Hey, One-Six!" the voice of UMP40 interrupted. "You okay? Seems like that little storytime got you scared, huh?"

"Seriousrrryy...*hic*...rightweight? I neveeer thought...*hic*...that you'd be thaaaaat kinda Dollllll..." UMP45 slurred. The SMG was pretty much draped on UMP9's back.

416 rolled her eyes at both statements.

"Ugh. So what? We going already?" she irritably asked.

"Uh huh. Just spoke with Hugh. Says we're leaving in about five minutes or so," UMP40 replied.

"Finally... A'ight. Let's get our gun cases, everyone," the AR ordered as she got off the chair. They went over to the baggage cabinet near the door, which held four instrument cases: for three violins and one guitar. UMP9 had to carry both hers and her sister's however, not that she minded.

The four were met by a young man in a suit. He had Germanic features, and was a bit handsome. His suit was only slightly disheveled, ad he had at least two (human) girls on each arm. Following him was a beautiful girl who looked like a female version of him, who was wearing a simple red and orange turtleneck dress and glasses. She looked somewhat embarrassed by her brother.

"Mr. Hugh. Ms. Muiren," 416 said, acknowledging her client's children.

"Heeeey, 416! Wow, that dress really fits you," Hugh said to her as he eyed her up and down. The T-Doll rolled her eyes.

"Whatever. Are we leaving?"

"Ummm...yes..." Muiren answered, trailing off as she noticed UMP45. "Father just called me, saying we have to go since we've got classes and all tomorrow."

"Acknowledged. Let's go, Ma'am. Sir."

The group left the lounge for the parking lot, leaving the four men behind as another song started playing downstairs.

"Aren't those two Hugh and Muiren Ninhert? The kids of the owner of Hephaestus Arms?" one of them asked.

"The Gerhardt and Krieger subsidiary?" another followed.

"Yeah they are, Boris! I didn't know they had personal musicians," Yeveginy muttered. "is that a bourgeoise thing nowadays?"

"Those four girls are their bodyguard Dolls," Viktor said as he sipped some vodka.

"Huh? How do you know that?" Boris asked.

"I recognize them. See that white-haired one? She had a barcode on her back, just like the ones with that G&K Commander I work with..." he said before he finished the glass.