[Somewhere in Russia. Time:1345]

'Endless hallways', that's what it feels like running through the forest is what M4 would have described the situation, although she can do much better than a regular Human or TDoll, it's still difficult for her to traverse through this wooden maze, after an infiltration going haywire due to false information, her and the whole Anti-Rain are running for their life right now.

"How long will it take before we reach the LZ?" M4 asked her sisters, looking behind them and firing another suppressed shot behind them.

"Depends, if we keep going in this pace, we should be arriving at roughly 8 minutes or so." M16 answered her question,also firing behind them.

"We gotta move faster, they're coming faster." ST AR-15 reminded, just ahead of them with SOPMOD II not too far from her.

"I'd like to kill more of them! if it wasn't for that stupid intel-!" SOPMOD ranted, although quite unusual, she's really pissed right now due to almost getting her sisters killed.

"Then we have to move faster! I'll cover you two, SOPMOD, STAR. Go ahead and prepare for cover for us. M16-nee, get to the other side and ready a frag." M4 cutted off SOPMOD's rant and got behind a rock cover.

"Make sure you two comeback!" SOPMOD shouted as she and STAR sprinted ahead.

"Ahaha! That's the spirit! Keep going, I'm making sure M4 will!" M16 said, already behind another rock cover. she turned her attention to M4 "Ready?"

"Mhm... 3...2...1... Go!" M4 counted and M16 tossed a frag at the SF's that was close to their trail.

Boom!*


[A Few minutes later.]

"Aghh! Dammit! There's no ending of them!" M16 shouted as she fired another round to a Reaper's head.

"Just keep firing for a bit more, we'll disengage soon!" M4 shouted as she accurately fired a well-grouped shots towards a farther enemy.

*Ratatatata!*

*Fwoosh! Fwoosh!*

"Alright! Let's go! go first M16-nee!" M16 runs ahead while M4 starts to cover fire for M16.

M16 keeps going, keeping an eye out for any exposed root or any viable cover.

'There! ' she sprinted behind a very large tree.

"M4! I'm in position! Go!" she shouted through the radio, M4 receiving it, tossed a decoy before heading down the path to the LZ. several bangs from M16's namesake rifle echoed through the forest, and then—

"Ooof!" she was tackled by something from her sides.

M4 immediately removed her shock to see another Reaper, gun already ready to blow of M4's head.

"M4!!" M16 shouted as she took aim.

Plop!

The Reaper's body dropped dead to it's side, a bullet hole through it's head. But M16 haven't fired a shot yet! Who could have shot the damm Sangvis?

"Get up, Team leader." A voice came from the side of the forest, a female one. "It's not the time for a fucking nap. Get out of here, I'll cover you two." her voice seemingly resembles SOPMOD's albeit more rough.

"Huh?" M4 is confused, what is SOPMOD(?) doing here?! "SOPMOD, what are you doi-?" she was cutted off by SOPMOD(?) shout

"I SAID GO! THEY'RE COMING!" the voice finally came out, revealing another girl, who vaguely resembles SOPMOD herself without the robotic arm, carrying a MK18 carbine with an underbarrel shotgun, a M32 Rotary Grenade Launcher is hanging by her shoulder via a strap. "YOU GOTTA GET OUT OF HERE, NOW!" she shouted once again, shaking the two out of their shock.

She began shooting through the forest, where the ARTEAM came from earlier.

"Who are you!?" M16 asked, her rifle trained towards the unknown TDoll, although her striking resemblance to SOPMOD makes her hesitate, but a nagging feeling in her digimind seems to also scream that she's a ally. A quick check gives her the result, a 16LAB IFF, not Griffin or IOP.

"It doesn't matter right now, M16! GET TEAM LEADER OUT OF HERE! THAT DAMM CATWOMAN ASKED ME TO PRIORITIZE YOU 4 TO GET OUT OF HERE!" She shouted as she switched to her M32 and fired a volley of explosive upwards.

"M16-nee... Let's go.." M4 softly said, picking up her rifle and looking at the girl again. "Please, don't sacrifice yourself just for this, we can go together!" she begged.

The MK18 wielding woman just laughed. "Don't worry, I'm not gonna die just yet! Now, GO! Keep going! the Transport Heli should be ahead!"

M4 and M16 hurried, still unsure about the mysterious girl.

"Oh, and one more thing! Please Keep my Little sister Soppy safe, alright!?" she shouted when they were far enough to not reach her, but enough to hear her shout. M4 AND M16 almost stopped there before a sudden large explosion went off far behind them.

"No!" M4 mouthed before being dragged by M16 down the path, as they reached the EXFIL site, STAR and SOPMOD in high-alert.

"M4! M16!" SOPMOD greeted them with a tackle. "You're back! Was that explosion you're doing!? that was cool!" she gushed as she gets a head pat from M16

"That's not a explosion these two can make with their loadout. How?" STAR asked, noticing that M4 feels abit down.

"A long story, is the transport near?" M16 deflected and changed the subject.

"4 minutes, they're at the ridge over there." STAR pointed out at a direction.

M16 looked back up the forest, eyeing the place where the explosion occured. Her digimind replayed the meeting with the doll earlier, and she realized something.

'She have a Anti-Rain patch at her coat...!' M16 thoughts raced, at the familiarity with the unknown woman earlier...


The Transport arrived and they boarded it.

As the Helo starts to rise up, the radio comes back to life.

"...ait!...Mark...!—" the pilot immediately adjusted the signal and they can finally hear it clearly, the same voice of the doll that helped the M4-M16 duo.

"I SAID WAIT, YOU FLESHBAGS! I'm not dead yet!" she screamed to the radio.

Outside the girl came into view our of the forest, her MK18 and M32 slung at her back as she waved, M4 finally have chance to observe her properly, White Haired with a red streak at the left side wearing black headphones, red eyes, and a black overall jacket similar to M16, she's also wearing a black skirt too with a gray-ish leg stockings. Although what's notible is the Exoskeleton at her left leg.

The Helo lowered abit before opening the door, 4 set of eyes eyed the white-haired woman who only smiled warmly at them. she climbed on board before setting down besides Sopmod, who is looking at her with wide-eyes.

"You four seems to have seen a ghost, what's with the stares~?" she asked. "Hey Fleshbag, we're good to go!" She said politely as possible to the pilot, who only grunted as they finally took off.

"So...?" STAR looked at her suspiciously, although her eyes wander to SOPMOD then back to her, she's not ignorant enough to not notice the striking resemblance.

The woman chuckled as she realized what's wrong.

"Right... Anti-Rain SpecOPS, MK18 Mod 0, but Persica calls me "W"." she looked at M16. "Doesn't ring a bell, M16?"

M16 shook her head. 'So she knew me during the time my memories were still all intact.'

W nodded somberly. "I guess Persica still haven't figured out why your memories dissapeared during that time... she muttered.

"Waitwaitwait! Anti-Rain!?" Sopmod wondered out loud with childish innocence that caused W to laugh

"Looks like Persica really didn't informed the 5 of you my existence. Understandable, but still vexing. To answer you're question, Yes, I WAS part of the Anti-Rain, but got moved to SpecOPS due to something that I'm in no way allowed to say. Ask the catwoman at the lab for more info." she wagged her eyebrow.

The 5 continued to talk about things as they made their way back to the 16Lab's safehouse, although it seems like a dream, the 6th (2nd) member of Anti-Rain is finally back on the field.

RO635 was suprised the next day she saw a white-haired Sopmod. She did not expect for Sopmod to also appear behind her holding a plate of spaghetti.


and there's that

a discord conversation about MK18's existence led me back into my reddit comment from a writing prompt in GFL sub-reddit years ago.

This is mostly One-shot based on Arknights W and GFL's concept art of MK18 as the "6th member".

now back to darkness.