Here's Part Two of FNG I! With M1911 and Grizzly in trouble, it's up to Echelon One's other members to save them.
Between SAO or GFL, I don't know which one to settle on, so I guess I'll keep doing both stories, like I have been for months. Also, I want to finish Origin Story before the new year, so I can get to the death game and see just how the canon divergent events of Orrigin Story affect Aincrad's events.
For here, it's gonna suck to have to watch YouTube videos on the in-game chapters to adapt them here, but I'm gonna have to anyways. At least Poincare Recurrence is here, so I'll have a bit more motivation to write GFL. In terms of the usage of foreign words in my stories, languages like Russian or Japanese are romanized, so English-speaking readers can know how to pronounce them.
And to Paranoid Android 64, I appreciate that you like my interpretation of GFL's story, and I'll try my best to keep the train rolling.
Anyways, let's get straight into this.
Station 794, Sector 09
Ukraine, Neo-Soviet Union
July 10, 2062
Tactical Doll Howa Type 64
Things had gone from mellow and friendly to FUBAR the instant AK-47 was called on for backup. Snatching up her rifle from the seat beside her, she immediately loaded a magazine into it and stood up, leaving her vodka bottle behind as she pulled Howa 64 out of her chair and ran out of the Café.
"All Echelon One members, 1911's in danger at the old outpost!" she barked into the comms. "Get geared up and meet me in Garage 04 as fast as you can."
"Jawhol!"
"Understood!"
"I'll be right there!"
"Oh, and bring some of the rookie's ammo with you."
Soon, they were in the lobby again, and Howa 64 watched as the human workers cleared a path for the pair, the look on her new coworker's face enough incentive for them to get out the way.
"Ey, ty, skazhi voditelyu Garazha 05, chtoby on vklyuchil peredachu." the blonde told a radio-wielding man in Russian, prompting him to relay her message to the driver in question as she pulled the Japanese Doll through the decontamination hall, her pace five times quicker than the Commander's as they left the ultraviolet-lit room and into the yard.
Covering her eyes from the invading sunlight, she wss hurriedly dragged along towards a garage building with the numbers 05 stenciled onto its outer wall. Upon closer observation, a single man stood in it, wearing a ballistic vest over his camo shirt and pants as well as a ballistic helmet.
"Got your message, AK. What's the emergency?" the driver said, the lack of an accent indicating his nationality as American.
"Our mutual friend bit off more than she could chew." AK-47 briefly explained as a set of footsteps alerted them to a trio of Dolls heading their way, the brown-haired early-twenties-looking one carrying a bag with what Howa 64 guessed was her other gear in it.
"Here, take this." she told her as she dropped the bag off at her feet, getting into the Humvee the driver was working on.
Opening the bag, she was pleased to find about seven magazines of her ammo, three M67 frag grenades, and a black chest rig to hold her magazines. On top of that, several magazines of .45 ACP and .50 AE each were present as well, as well as smoke grenades and EMP grenades. Sat in the bag was a note from a woman named Kalina, saying "Hope you like the new toys. Be careful not to fry yourself with them, of course."
"You can gear up on the way there, kiddo." the driver told her, patting her on the back as the other Dolls got into the vehicle. "Name's Chester Johnson."
"Chester?" the black-haired Doll asked as she got in the Humvee, faintly remembering the name from somewhere.
"Yeah, the boys always called me 'Cheeto' because Chester's the name of the mascot." the man joked, getting into the driver's seat. "Anyways, we don't have time to waste, girls, so buckle up and let's roll out!"
With a turn of the ignition the vehicle roared to life, startling Howa 64 as he drove out of the garage, the gate already open for them as they "rolled out" of the base, as Chester put it.
She hoped they'd get there in time.
After about a twenty-minute drive, she'd at least gotten to know the accompanying team of Dolls better.
Their leader, who was currently in danger, was hard-working and responsible, as well as experienced, although this was what the others had told her. She had already talked to AK-47 back in the Café, so she knew of her infamous alcoholism and tomboyish, confident demeanor, but that carefree attitude was now replaced with an iron resolve to not let her leader die, her face set and her rifle in hand. The childlike one with white hair was MP5, who was nicknamed "Milk" due to how much milk she drank, and as far as she could tell, she was determined to prove herself to her peers in battle. The British one, Sten, was a stray the team had found the previous week, and was apparently a skilled baker, and FN-49 (the young "in-her-twenties" woman) was a lot like her, freshly produced last week and once completely unfamiliar with her surroundings.
Concerning herself, her chest rig was full of spare mags and secured tightly on her chest, ensuring it wouldn't slip off in the heat of battle, but to her embarrassment, it somewhat made her bosom a bit more prominent with how the rig was strapped on.
The others weren't so bothered by their harnesses or bandoilers, though, simply waiting to enter the combat zone so they could "kick Sangvis ass," as AK-47 oh-so-eloquently put it. Either way, as an old, destroyed military building came into view, along with a mass of Sangvis Ferri units, the aforementioned Russian Doll turned on the comms and told her leader their status.
"1911, if you can hear this, we're less than two minutes out and we can see the fighting from here." she reported.
"Oh, thank God!" a somewhat higher-pitched voice replied. "Grizzly's out of ammo and I'm on my last mags, and I'm not sure how long we'll last!"
"Just hang in there, we're almost there!"
Soon, the drive ended with an explosion rocking the Humvee around, but fortunately, minimal damage was inflicted to the vehicle, and the Dolls (including Howa 64) quickly left the vehicle as Chester drove off, getting a safer distance away from the fighting so he wasn't killed.
"Welcome to the show, kiddos." a voluptuous Doll with honey brown hair told them as they approached, using a Vespid as a Doll shield. As it was thouroughly riddled with bullets, Howa 64 immediately activated her "Forewarning" module, which allowed her to both perform a quick scan to detect all hostiles within a 125 meter range and predict attacks before they happen. Scanning the environment with it, she was a bit distressed to find twenty-six threats on the field, including two quad-legged drones with what looked to be mortars built into them.
"AK-san, they've got mortars!" she reported as another explosion rocked the earth, this time knocking MP5 off of her feet. "That's what nearly destroyed Chester-san's Humvee!"
"That explains things." AK-47 growled, pulling the tiny Doll to safety as Howa 64 took cover behind a thick tree, wincing as several plasma bolts struck it or flew past it.
However, she wasn't as helpless as she seemed back at base, and she chose to prove it by popping out of cover and firing off a couple bursts, destroying a Jaeger unit before she moved to new cover as her vision flared gold and a ball of white-hot energy impacted it and blew it out, showing her with splinters as she rolled behind a destroyed wall.
"Can someone get those damned Jaguars scrapped already?!" an impatient blonde girl who Howa 64 assumed was M1911 yelled, pulling a smoke grenade from her bag and pulling the pin, throwing it towards the congregation of hostiles built up around the wrecked building she was holed up in.
As a Molotov Cocktail lit a pair of Rippers on fire, a thick layer of smoke quickly obscured the area and the Japanese Doll scanned the area again, pleased to find that there were seven less hostiles on the playing field— only for the right side of her vision to flare yellow, warning of a hostile targeting her.
Deftly evading the burst of predicted plasma fire, she dropped the Vespid firing on her with three bullets to the head and pulled a grenade from her harness, arming it and tossing it at the smoked-out crowd surrounding M1911.
A few seconds later, an explosion rocked the grounds and broken pieces of Sangvis rained down from the heavens, saving one of the two rescuees from encirclement.
Based on her last scan, the "Jaguar" mortars hadn't moved, but were guarded by two pairs of Vespids, which didn't seem too big thanks to the virtual adrenaline and excitement thundering through her Neural Cloud.
"AK-san, Shikikan, I'm going for the Jaguars!" she reported as another mortar round struck, nearly knocking her down in the process.
"Take MP5 with you, and use the bushes leading up to that hill they're on to flank them." the Commander told her rather calmly. "Everyone else, cover them and keep your heads down."
"Yes, sir!"
With the route in question being highlighted for her by Zener, she directed the Doll in question to her, then proceeded with the objective, staying crouched in the bushes as the fighting continued mere feet away from them. Thankfully, the Sangvis Dolls weren't using thermal vision, which kept them concealed from their eyes as they went up the hill and found themselves only a couple of meters away from the crew.
Pulling the pin on her second grenade, she let it cook for three seconds before thtowing it, allowing it to roll under the Jaguars and detonate immediately after, the debris created by the explosion causing MP5 to activate an energy-based shield to protect them from it. A third scan revealed that the Jaguars were indeed destroyed, along with two of four Vespids, and her vision flared gold again as MP5's shield faltered and the survivors opened fire.
Rolling out of the way, Howa 64 quickly killed them with two well-placed bursts to the head, and with the mortars destroyed, there was nothing stopping Echelon One from mopping up the remaining Sangvis, clearing the area with ease.
"Commander, the area's secure and we're fine, but it looks like Sangvis was trying to rebuild the old outpost." M1911 reported, indicating multiple crates of construction materials and reconnisance gear.
"Course they were. Speaking of, they established a new Command Post near your position a couple days ago, so if you still have enough ammo left, I want you to steal whatever intel it has and destroy it."
The coordinates soon appeared in the corner of Howa 64's vision, and M1911 told the Commander they had the ammo. Then again, Howa hadn't even used used a full magazine of ammo (somehow,) so she certainly had ammo.
"Good. Commander out."
With the area clear and their new objective in mind, Howa 64 called Chester back in and provided him with the coordinates after he arrived again, taking her seat in the now-cramped Humvee.
"Hang on, some of you might need to share seats so it doesn't get cramped back there." he suggested.
After that suggestion, the Doll was essentially used as a chair by Sten, who was just as embarrassed as she was by the prospect, and a similar situation occured with M1911 and Grizzly, but they weren't bothered by it.
"So uh, good to see you again, Cheeto." the honey brown-haired Doll greeted.
"Same to you. You doing good back at HQ?" the man asked, starting the vehicle up and rolling out of the outpost.
"Yeah, it's good work. I might come back here, though, if I feel like it."
"I'd like that."
As the two eventually fell into a friendly conversation, Howa 64 simply tuned it out, instead looking out the window and avoiding putting any thought to the British girl in her lap.
As it turned out, the outpost was in a location the older Dolls called the "old city," which was once a wondrous place before the Sangvis war machine tore through it, rendering it both a ghost town and a hotbed of hostile activity. Even worse, the sun was completely blotted out with clouds, and small droplets of rainfall were impacting the Humvee's windows.
"This place kind of scares me..." the black-haired Doll confessed.
"Don't worry about it, kid." Chester told her. "The city's got some pretty nasty shit in it, from bandits and their traps or the never-ending Sangvis units infesting it, not to mention the fact that you can either see or smell death and destruction no matter where you go."
"Yup. We've carried out ops here before, but they were only in small parts of the city, and on top of that, some of our last casualties were in the city." M1911 told her, rubbing her shoulder subconsciously.
At least she wasn't alone in the thought that the city was scary.
"Alright, the outpost's less than two hundred meters away, and the terrain here's too treacherous to get the Humvee through, so let's continue on foot. Communicate with the Zener Network or hand signals only."
Leaving the Humvee at once, Howa 64 was glad to have the weight on her lap lifted, letting her stand up and stretch out before grabbing her rifle and shutting the door behind her, wincing slightly as the cold raindrops impacted her cheeks.
With a diamond-shaped marker placed on the Command Post, the Dolls soon proceeded, with the newbie immediately scanning the area for hostiles. To her annoyance, she found five human scavengers camping out an intersection with, to her surprise, old NATO weapons in hand.
"I'm reading five hostile contacts with NATO rifles up ahead. I recommend that we take an alternate route to avoid them." she replied, more in her element now that she was on the field.
"Got it. The Commander says we ought to use the building to the right to pass through them, but he also said hostiles were on patrol past that point." M1911 informed over Zener.
"Understood."
Seeing an open door on one of the highlighted buildings, the team approached it and crouched, with the leader looking inside.
"AK, MP5, Sten, you three take point. Howa, FN-49, and Grizzly, stay here and watch for trouble." M1911 told her, pulling a tablet-sized scanner out of a bag and putting it to use, entering the building to check it out.
With the first three Dolls mentioned following her into the building, Howa 64 and the other two staying behind took positions around the door, with the rookie scanning for hostiles again and coming up with a Sangvis patrol headed towards the building, made up of a Vespid and four Rippers.
"1911-san, you've got Sangvis heading your way, hide!"
"Thanks for the heads-up. We found a couple tripmines between the aisles, so be careful if you have to go inside."
"Understood."
Looking into the building, she saw the Griffin Dolls within hidden in whatever they could find, as well as a Ripper on the other side, looking into the store and doon strpping inside.
"One of the Sangvis just went inside!" she warned.
"Crap."
Holding her breath, the Doll watched as the Ripper entered the building and began investigating, noticing the first tripmine right before she tripped it, crouching under it and standing back up— only to be grabbed and impaled by a knife, a white-gloved hand muffling her yelp of surprise and grunt of pain as she was killed.
"Nicely done, my friend." M1911 approvingly told AK-47, who set the body down quietly before she disabled the tripmine with care, pocketing the grenade soon after.
"Spasibo."
Scanning again, the Sangvis signatures were now further away than they were at first, having apparently not noticed their loss yet.
"They didn't hear you. I think it's safe to go forth."
"I hear ya."
"Hate stealth, but yeah, we heard you. Follow us and bring up our rear."
"I'll take point." Grizzly told them as she entered the building, crouched low as to avoid detection by the admittedly patient insurgents. As she defused another tripwire, the other followed her inside in a similar fashion, with Sten regretting wearing her bright red uniform Howa 64 being glad that most of her uniform was made up of darker colors as she snuck through the building, keeping her eyes off of Grizzly and on her surroundings.
After about two tense minutes, they made it on the other side, directly behind the human insurgents. Before they could move further, though, a multitude of plasma bolts tore through a pair of the hostiles and caused the rest to start firing at what a scan revealed was the same Sangvis patrol AK-47 killed a member of.
"Okay, let's go."
With the two hostile groups fighting, it was trivially easy to get past them and get through the rest of the way to the enemy outpost, omly a couple of patrols impeding them as they traversed the old city.
"There's the prize. This is actually the first time I've seen Sangvis use its own structures in a while."
The building in question was admittedly small, but its sleek, metallic walls and stylized atenna gave it away as a structure of Sangvis Ferri construction, not to mention the automated turrets guarding it.
"They're getting smarter, placing sentries to keep us out." M1911 mused. "Either way, if we take one out, we'll be able to slip by it and rig the place to blow."
Relaying the info to the Commander, Howa 64 soon performed a scan while he brought up the building's schematics, having seemingly seen such outposts in use during the war.
"The best one to disable would be the one east of the building. There's a lot of wrecked cars there to provide cover and its power source is in plain view." he told them, highlighting the area in question.
To her relief, only two Sangvis Dolls were shown inside the building, both Vespids, but another patrol was also detected.
But if we're quick enough, they won't be a problem.
With that in mind, M1911 dragged both Howa 64 and AK-47 with her to the east side of the building, where a line of wrecked cars blocked them from the view of a triple-barreled turret, said barrels glowing menacingly as if it was ready to fire at the slightest hint of an intruder.
And right under its base was a small power box, that was unfortunately heavily armored. However, it wasn't hardened against EMPs, which was a silver lining.
"Alright, it's not hardwired." the Echelon One leader told them, holding her hand out for an EMP grenade. After recieving one from AK-47, she carefully predicted the trajectory, pulled the pin, and threw the electronic-frying grenade, the distance it had to cover enough so that the Griffin Dolls weren't disabled.
A few seconds later, a blueish flash filled the air and the turret stopped turning, its barrels drooping down as its internals were fried.
"Alright, let's go." was all she said before the three went ahead into the building, the two Vespids inside on high alert as they poked their heads out— only for AK-47 and M1911 to get behind them and impale their Cores with their knives. Now, all there was to it was to secure whatever intel they had on a small computer in the corner and destroy the bulky Command Module that sat next to the computer.
After their leader hooked herself up to the computer and transfered the files to her Neural Cloud, the three Dolls immediately raised their weapons and unloaded them into the Command Module, scrapping it ridiculoudly fast with their heavy volume of fire. After a moment, Howa 64 performed another scan, revealing that the Sangvis Dolls had been disabled— but also that a group of insurgents had chosen to attack their allies outside, and that they had a numerical advantage.
"Our allies are under attack! We have to go help them!"
"Salvage-addicted assholes." M1911 groaned as she ran out of the Command Post, tossing a smoke grenade at the hostile forces as she took cover. While AK-47 followed suit, Howa 64 instead hung back, taking aim at a hostile using an XM-250 machine gun to pin down her allies and firing, her weapon jumping only slightly thanks to her enhanced strength and her weapon's reduced-powder ammo as the man's ski-masked head was punctured, blood spraying from the wound.
If it were another time, then the idea of killing a human would have disgusted her, but right now, her new allies were in danger of being captured and scrapped for salvage, and the rundown of Station 794's rules of engagement were very clear about hostile human combatants not being valid of Protocol 2, the hard-wired code that prohibited Dolls from harming humans.
"Fucking Doll killed our MG!"
As it was, the other nine salvagers had immediately noticed her and focused fire on her, causing her to duck into cover to avoid their fire. Reloading, she waited for their attention to be taken off of her and when her next scan showed that Grizzly was drawing their fire, she quickly left the building and crouched behind the EMP'd turret, due to its base's heavy armor.
Popping up from cover again, she immediately fired on the other salvagers, dropping one straightaway and causing the other ones to disperse, one of them dropping down to carry their wounded to safety and getting shot by FN-49 in the process.
After firing off a couple more shots to force the hostiles into cover and wounding one, Howa 64 relocated to behind an old truck, reloading her weapon as she heard a bottle breaking, then smelled burning flesh as what she assumed were multiple hostiles got burned alive.
"Deploying drones!"
"You are really lucky that the Geneva Convention's not a thing anymore." M1911 dryly commented, confirming the Japanese Doll's suspicions.
"Yeah— shit, they've got bomber drones!"
No sooner did the words leave AK-47's mouth did a small quad-copter drone carrying explosives appear right over the rookie's head, causing her to roll out of the way before it abruptly exploded, slightly scorching her clothes but not harming her too badly as she rolled away.
"Someone get that drone operator!" she barked, coughing the dirt out of her system.
Scanning again, she was relieved to find that only four hostiles were left, including a man with a mobile drone station and a controller in his hands as he deployed another pair of drones.
From where she was she couldn't shoot him thanks to his position behind a ckbcrete barrier, so she instead pulled the pin on her grenade, cooked it for a couple of seconds, and threw it, watching it disappear behind the barrier then explode violently, causing the drone operator's ordnance to detonate at the same time and reduce him— and another guy— into red paste.
And of course at the same time one of the survivors decided it was the best idea to shoot her in her moment of revelry, the yellow flash coming in too late to prevent her from getting caught unaware.
Grunting in pain as she took the hits, she rolled out of the way and shot her attacker in the torso, thankful that he had a chest rig like hers instead of a ballistic vest when he dropped dead, firing off a couple shots into the air out of reflex as he died.
Scanning yet again, a wave of relief washed over her when no hostiles were present, the survivors having been wiped out by her teammates, and a diagnostics scan revealed that only minor damage was done to her.
"Commander, we've got the intel and the Command Post is disabled. On top of that, a group of salvagers have been neutralized." M1911 reported, covered in soot and bleeding slightly but otherwise fine.
"Good. You said they had NATO weapons, right?"
"Yeah. You want us to recover them?"
"Yup. I'd also like it if you'd recover any stolen military gear you find from here on out, NATO or Warsaw Pact. Anyways, I just highlighted the quickest route to Cheeto's Humvee, and I don't know how long it'll be clear, so you better get there ASAP."
"Understood. M1911 out."
Picking up a rucksack one of the salvagers had, the HG then gave it to Howa 64.
"Everyone, let's recover the salvagers' gear and get out of here. The Commander found a route for us to use."
"Yes, ma'am!"
Commander Ian Becker
Watching as his troops recovered the bandits' weapons, Ian stood with his arms crossed as he took in the scene, Hopefully, this operation would help weaken Sangvis Ferri's hold on the old city, even if it was only by a little bit. In terms of his forces' performance...
Despite her initial unease around others in the base, Howa 64 had kicked ass against both Sangvis and the human salvagers the Echelon encountered, which despite her high star rating, he had doubts about.
Just need to get her properly assigned to a team, and she'll be set... he surmised.
"Alright, we've recovered the weapons and ammo." M1911 reported. "They had an XM-250, two XM5s, a Mikor M32 MGL, although they never had the chance to use it, a P90, three M4A1s, an MTAR, an MP5, and a SCAR-H."
"That's good to hear. Think the Soviets'll let us keep the grenade launcher?"
"Maybe. I've seen other PMCs with Mikor MGLs, but if it was a rocket launcher or any kind of heavy artillery, then those are illegal."
"Good to know. Kalina, when they get back, I want that gear put in the armory. Also, pull their combat data and get to work on it." the Commander ordered.
"Yes, sir!"
As the ginger left the office, he looked back at the holographic display again with a neutral expression on his face. Faintly, he wondered if the intel his girls just recovered had any inkling of a clue to where the AR Team was, but he soon dispelled the notion, reminding himself that he had no obligation to help with that mission anymore.
Even then, if I get the chance to deny Sangvis a powerful asset, I'm taking it, regulations be damned. he decided, opening a comms channel to his logistics officer.
"Kalina, after you store the new gear in the armory, take the intel from 1911 and meet me in the Data Room so we can look through it and file a report."
"Yes, sir."
Shutting off the comms, he simply sighed as he looked at the map, seeing the Humvee leaving the old city and head to his base again.
"I sincerely hope this isn't completely pointless." the man exhaled quietly.
There you go... I don't know how long this chapter took to complete, but it was thankfully less than a month. Anyways, concerning the story, I'm writers' blocked kn SAO again, because of course I had to try to write romance shit. If you have any advice for me, then a PM would be appreciated.
As for GFL, I decided to give the support staff names and stuff, so that the story's a bit more lifelike with everyone beimg represented. In terms of the combat, I focused heavily on Howa 64 since I wanted to show that while she was out of touch in social situations, she was perfectly fine in combat. Also, Forewarning is essentially the Division's Pulse skill mixed with the High Alert perk, which would be a deadly combination in Warzone.
Speaking of Warzone, there's nothing better than kicking the asses of cursed gun-wielding tryhards using both the "Cinnamon Roll" M4A1 configuration and the un-cursed Mosin Nagant/Tokarev combo, although I need the Lightweight trigger for the Tokarev to have its proper trigger.
Anyways, I'll see you next chapter!