Chapter 3
The expedition was in full swing. Armoured vehicles - transports, cars, tanks, self-propelled guns and AAA lined the streets of Ginza. Within their transports, the T-Dolls of Griffin and Kryuger awaited their deployment. The signal was given, and the convoy began to move.
"Itami! You look snug today."
Itami looked up, distracted from his thoughts by the T-Doll that had addressed him. A short, pink-haired girl named Negev with that cocky smile of hers that rarely left her face unadorned with an expression of sadistic glee that he'd had to live with over the last few months.
He looked down at his uniform. It was very, very green, he supposed. He actually felt a little out of place, with all the T-Dolls and their customised outfits. He'd actually begun to miss squad FN. Although they were one of the teams had been put under his command for this operation, Negev squad had been the ones assigned as his retinue and command team; he'd been assured by G&K's commander that they were one of their most elite units.
"Well, I feel a lot safer wearing it," he replied.
"They're armed with bows and arrows," TAR-21, or "Tavor", as she was called, scoffed. "I'm not even sure they could injure us from a distance."
Itami looked at her blankly. "Unlike you, I'm made out of mostly flesh."
"Ah, you're right, lieutenant." She hefted her rifle vertically. "In that case, I won't hesitate to gun them down, even if they only have sticks and stones."
"Please don't go too overboard," Itami pleaded. He looked at the third member of their team. "Any thoughts, Galil?"
"I think you're getting too worried, just because we don't have much intel. What makes us a good team is our good instincts. We'll adapt to whatever situation turns up. Besides, as T-Dolls, they'll have to kill every one of us before we let them lay a finger on you. So at least, we'll buy you enough time to escape."
"Hehehe, you're going to scare him like that," Negev mocked. "Plus, I won't be satisfied unless I kill at least a hundred of them."
"Ah. Right." Itami wondered if he should've travelled with one of his other teams instead.
Beneath her transport, Springfield felt the ground change, the wheels of her team's vehicle transitioning from smooth road to softer dirt. She opened her eyes. "It seems like we're here, girls."
Thompson donned her hat, nudging the girl beside her as she lit a cigarette between her lips. Ingram's face lit up, a low chuckle escaping her throat as her eyes began glowing a sickly green. The vehicle turned, hard, and came to a stop.
"Go! Go!" Springfield yelled, her normally gentle voice now carrying the weight of leadership behind it. Thompson and Ingram leapt out of the vehicle as arrows rained down upon its armoured shell. Nearby, and APC opened up upon their assailants with its autocannon with a distinctive thud-thud sound. Thompson tugged Ingram along with her as dozens of soldiers charged towards them, her force-field buzzing with each arrow that was deflected harmlessly off it.
"Kill 'em!" Thompson growled as she leveled her weapon at the oncoming troops. Behind them, M14 and M1911 were next to disembark. M14's carbine blazed away with deadly accuracy, while M1911 unloaded both of her pistols at the enemy as she sprinted across their path. More and more soldiers were cut down, men jumping or trampling over the corpses or fallen bodies of their companions.
"Thunder!" M9 called as she disembarked, throwing a grenade towards the oncoming soldiers. She struck a quick pose with her now free hand before she was shoved out of the way by the T-Doll behind her.
"Move!" Thompson growled as the device went off, blinding and concussing the soldiers, their charge broken as they tripped and fell to the ground, stumbling in different directions and clutching their ears. Thompson used the opportunity to shift her position as M9 cheered, asking if anyone else had seen that and how cool she was. "Springfield! Where the hell are our tanks?!"
Springfield disembarked, putting a shot through the leading man of the crowd as she did so, clambering another round and taking down another soldier. M21 and Super SASS were the last ones off the vehicle, with Springfield directing their fire to the unit of archers down the hill, the semi-automatic fire dropping man after man and forcing them to retreat.
"We've only just arrived, Thompson," Springfield chided. "I see you're still on your first smoke. M1911, call the commander and get our next instructions. Until then, dig in and hold here."
Nearby, Makarov was feeling grateful for the aid of the two hooligans that had been put under her command. AK-47's grenade launcher had made short work of the initial onrush of soldiers, while SKS picked off any survivors. Although, she felt like neither of them were taking this seriously enough, having turned it into a competition between the two of them. At least she'd managed to convince Mosin-Nagant to forbid them from bringing the vodka. For now, anyway.
OTs-14 "Groza" and SV-98 joined them, and Makarov again found herself wishing that her subordinates were more like them. Groza fired calmly and steadily as she advanced, seemingly unconcerned about the chaos around her, completely at odds with AK-47's more distracted, unfocused method of shooting that involved yelling something at SKS every few seconds, while SV-98 took up a firing position, putting round after round into the enemy lines.
A flight of dragons approached, coming in above them for a swooping attack. Makarov called out the threat to her teammates. She saw Groza glance upwards, but continue her attack on the ground troops, while across from her, Makarov could see M1895 directing her bigger sister's aim upwards.
Mosin-Nagant aimed, her sophisticated marksman targeter rapidly calculating a solution. She fired, the round travelling straight through the creature's eye, killing it instantly. It fell to the ground, crushing both its rider and the unfortunate soldiers below it.
SVD also turned her fire to the air, putting a rapid series of shots into one of the creature's underside, firing and re-targeting swiftly after each shot at the rapidly moving creature. While the armour-piercing rounds punched through its belly armour, she found herself putting nearly ten rounds into it before it finally went down.
"You make it look so easy," she grumbled.
"I can't see anything!" M99 complained as she climbed over a small mound, her small body proving not too useful for seeing over things. "Hawk?!"
"Not much to see, Chief." Type97S put her heavy rounds into the oncoming assault troops. "Anytime 56 wants to use those grenades would be real helpful, though. You fed her this time, right?"
"I'm not a dog!" Type56-1 called, readying her launcher.
"Nah, you're a picky eater," NZ75 called as she reloaded her pistols.
"Hey! Dumplings are-"
"Save it!" M99 yelled through her communicator, causing her squadmates to wince. "Grenades. Now!"
There was an explosion as the troops in front of Type97S were thrown in every direction, a wave on heat washing over her and the force of the impact causing her to stagger backwards. She swore as she brushed the dirt from her eyes. "That was too close!"
"Speaking of dumplings, how does dragon sound?" NZ75 gestured to the oncoming winged beasts that swooped down towards them.
"What?" Type56-1 yelled, oblivious to the threat. "Sounds spicy!"
M99 resisted the urge to hit her with her gun. Instead, she sat back, trying to level her gun upwards. On a human, the weight of the anti-materiel rifle might've made them fall over at this angle, but this was her weapon, the one she was built to fire. She couldn't claim to be such an excellent shot as Mosin-Nagant, pull off fancy shots like M200 or shove five rounds a second down something's face like WA2000, but then again, she didn't have to.
She had 12.7mm rounds.
The dragon's discoloured underside presented a clear target for M99. She fired, the expended casing, as big as her forearm, popping out to her side with a metallic click. The effects of the shot were immediate and spectacular, tearing a hole through its chest. She acquired another target, firing again, this time the round punching through its skull and clean out the other side. The third shot missed as the dragon jinked to one side, having spotted her. Her fourth shot caught it mid-turn, blasting through its neck and through the rider on the other side.
M99 reloaded, scanning for new threats.
Itami was crouched down besides Tavor, trying to get a picture of the situation. The enemy counter-attack had been fierce, and there was talk of another wave coming.
"Itami." The voice of G&K's commander came through, the clipped tone of the young woman they called "Gentaine". "Our armour needs to come through the gate. Have your teams push forward and dig in. If we can get even a few through, the battle will turn in our favour."
"Understood," he replied. The fighting didn't seem to be as thick where he was, so he took a moment to orient himself. Springfield's team was to the south of his position, perhaps 100 meters, with FN to the southwest, while Mosin-Nagant and M99 were to his west. The other sectors were covered by Gentaine's own forces.
"This is Itami," he radioed. "Once you've repelled the initial attack, push them back off the hill, set up a defensive line and prepare for another push. We don't have to rout them - just keep them off the hill until our support units arrive."
His teams responded with an affirmative. He was glad that the enemy didn't seem to be putting up as much of a fight as he'd feared. "Alright." Itami turned to Negev. "We've got to move up. I'll need you to keep an eye on the skies."
She signed an affirmative, standing up and hefting her machine gun to her waist. She was excited, her entire body pulsing with excitement. Here, she'd been worried that Itami would want to hide away somewhere and deliver orders from a distance, but no! She'd had to gun down hundreds of enemy troops, attacking from all over the hill, with Galil and Tavor covering her flanks. Her once-white robes were now dyed with mud and blood, the result of the enemy getting a little too close for comfort that she'd had to bludgeon to death with her weapon, and another she'd had to tear apart with her bare hands, the cybernetic strength that allowed her to easily carry and fire her machine gun proving effective on the human face. As she advanced, her boots squelched through the ground, the corpses of her enemies piled high.
She sneered at them. "Insects."
Author's Notes
Phew. This one took a while to work out. It's rather tricky to write about the biggest battle in the entirety of the Gate series when most of it happens off screen. Heck, what is shown takes up maybe twenty seconds of the pre-credits scene in episode 2. On the other hand, this does give me a lot of creative liberties when writing. So, uh, episode 2 might end up taking until around chapter 5 to get done. And two of those will likely be based off the aforementioned twenty seconds.
I ran through a few different versions of this chapter, where I set up the teams that Itami would be commanding, but we'll probably get to them after the Alnus Hill battle, once things settle down. So, fans of squads Negev, M99, Thompson/Springfield and Makarov/Mosin-Nagant, they'll probably get a bit more coverage later on.
