A/N:The chapter will be rewritten,as part of the rewriting project

The Ether Conflict

Chapter 11: Questions and Answers

Thursday

25th of May, 2 Y.A.

Kumamoto perfecture

12:40 pm

En route to Nishizumi estate, ETA: 5 minutes

A lone BH-FI helicopter can be seen flying in the sunny sky, a fair distance from the forested ground. Inside its cabin sit four people, two men and two women, all members of the Black Mambas, the special operations team of Blackout. Everyone is sitting in silence, checking their equipment and weapons.

"So, John kicked the bucket huh?", a woman says while checking her new vest and pistols she is carrying with her. She had green eyes and red hair, though the tone of her hair color was darker than Annabelle's. She was about half a head shorter than Vin. She sported four USP 45s', along with a Steyr Aug which had an ACOG scope. The pistols had extended magazines and were painted red.

"Yep, Vin said when their helicopter crashed, one of the rotor blades cut through the cabin and cut him in two.", Luminous answers back, inspecting her empty TLRR sniper rifle, before inserting the magazine, that seemed like a revolver's chamber, holding three .60 Cal bullets. Despite that, it was relatively light, clocking at about 6 kg when loaded. Due to the bullet's caliber, the sniper should always be fired from a stationary position while having TLRR's special bipod deployed.

"Vin, you never told me that you where in a helicopter crash!?", the red haired woman says in genuine worry.

"And that's why I didn't tell you Rika, because you always overreact when I get hurt.", Vin answers while looking out of the cabin's small window, having finished with equipment checking.

"Come on Vin, don't be like that on Rika, you know why she is always worried.", Theodore piped up, holding his HAWKS light machine gun that featured an ammunition box with electronic counting.

"Yeah, yeah I know, but it was pure luck that I found her. Should I have decided not to take the patrol mission, she wouldn't be here with us now.", Vin answers back.

"But you did and here we are. Anyway, how was your mission Rika?", Luminous says, wanting to know how her friend is doing.

"It was really easy, just your normal bandit base. Though I have to say, it would be nice if I had these new suits and vests they gave us.", Rika says, looking at her new uniform and vest.

"They said that only we and the Anglerfish team got these, since they are pretty pricey to make them.", Theodore says, having also finished with equipment checking.

"Oh, the Black Wolves, huh? How are they? Last time I checked they had just returned from that set up. Heard they brought down a whole base of trained soldiers and even killed the enemy commander in a really gruesome way."

"We met them during the first phase of operation Downfall, so we don't know, but they seemed like someone who could pull it. Even the Antelope team seemed like they could be on par with the Black Wolves.", Luminous says.

"Actually, they should be on phase three of operation Downfall now, either moving out or fighting. I just hope these idiots don't have to dig graves for the dead.", Vin says in a sad tone, knowing full well that this is a dream that will probably get flushed down the drain pretty soon.

"Really? Well, I'm sure they will be just fine, they are not one of the elites for no reason", Rika says with a smile.

"They are not alone Rika, there are girls from the school ships participating", Luminous says in a grim tone. Rika's smile vanishes instantly, replaced by a sad expression.

"Twenty seconds to touchdown!", the helicopter pilot yells from the cockpit, opening the cabin door remotely. The beating of rotor blades can be heard, as the occupants gaze at the ground below them where a walled off estate sits, the Nishizumi house. Near the sea the ruined city of Kumamoto sits, half of it below sea level. Clicking the weapon safeties off, the moment the helicopter touches down all of its occupants get out and with guns raised on their shoulders, they start scanning the surrounding area. Not seeing anything, they lower their weapons so that the barrels point on the ground. "We will be two clicks to the North, when you are finished just call us and we will come, our call sign is Cobra.", the pilot yells before the helicopter starts lifting itself in the air and start heading North.

"So, what are we looking for again?", Vin asks the rest of the squad.

"You idiot, we are looking for anything related to Nishizumi Shiho and her daughters or related to a secret experiment the government had. Though I'd like to know what kind of experiment was.", Rika answers to Vin, being used to his selective memory.

"Anyway, let's just go in.", Theodore said, lifting his light machine gun and proceeding to bust down the front door with a kick.

"Careful there Theodore, I don't want to be paying any fine for property damage", Luminous joked, entering the house with the rest of the squad. They were in a small hallway, where you would obviously remove your shoes. "Won't remove your heels princess?", Vin said with a smirk to Rika,who in response punched him lightly on the back of his head.

"Shut up and go explode in a corner or something.", Rika says with a pouting face. Walking the small hallway, they come in a huge open space, possibly the living room. Everywhere they could see were expensive furniture. Even the television was one of those experimental ones with integrated holographic capabilities.

"Damn, these girls sure had an easy life.", Luminous remarks, picking a vase that probably costs more than her yearly income.

"I wouldn't be so sure about it. Since I was really interested in Shenshadou, I did some research before coming in Japan. There are two main styles of Senshadou. The Nishizumi style and the Shimada style. Both of them are brutal in my opinion. And I've heard that Shiho was raising her daughters solely for the purpose of inheriting the style. I'm sure she cared for them but forcing her ideals on them was a mistake. So I can tell you with confidence that they had it rougher than everyone thinks.",Vin responds, opening drawers to see if there is anything of importance.

"Poor girls. It's like they were trapped inside a golden cage. Beautiful from outside, hellish from the inside.", Rika comments sadly, opening a cabinet and withdrawing a couple of games for the Playstation DVR(Diving Virtual Reality). "Oh my God, they have the Playstation DVR?!", Rika screams like a true fangirl, prompting Vin to put his hand over her mouth to silence her.

"Don't scream you idiot, there might be enemies nearby!", Vin hisses in a low voice, looking around for any suspicious movement. Rika nods slowly and so Vin removes his hand. Going through the titles, Rika finds mainly action games such as 'Panzer Battalion', 'Blitzkrieg Zero' and even a physical copy of 'World of Tanks Commanders', the DVR release of the popular free to play game.

"I remember this, I tried it in a friend once.", Rika murmured to herself. Looking a bit better at the cabinet, she withdraws the console and two DVR helmets. "Everyone thought that we would need at least 50 more years for the technology but the guys at Sony somehow managed to make the impossible possible. I'll take them with me to give them to the girls." Grabbing the console and helmet, she stuffs them in her backpack, before stuffing all the games the cabinet had.

Luminous was looking at some paintings that depicted various tanks, mainly German ones. They look really expensive, she thought while putting them down in case there is something behind them.

Theodore on the other hand kept overwatch, his gun pointing its barrel on the ground, but his finger tapping slowly on the trigger guard. After searching the whole living room, the squad decided to separate and search the house.

Luminous checked the rooms in the east. Entering the room at the end of a long hallway, she finds it to be the room of a normal teenage girl. It's not too big, yet not too small, just the right size. On a basket in the corner of the room sits a Paunzerfaust rocket with a ribbon on its shaft, it's launching module sitting on the other side of the room. Above the bed sits a shelf filled with Boko dolls. Grabbing one of the dolls, she hits it lightly so the dust would get off it, before starting to inspect it. I have heard about these dolls. They are pretty popular here in Japan. And it seems like this is the fully-bandaged limited edition one. Might as well take it back. Putting the stuffed animal in her backpack, she starts searching the drawers for anything useful, but the only thing she finds is a photograph. It depicts Miho sitting on the shoulders of a woman dressed in business clothing, presumably her mother. Miho has an expression of amazement, looking at the left of the camera, while her mother looks up to her in amusement. Maho is on the left of Shiho, looking at the camera with her signature stoic expression, holding her mother's skirt. The girls look to be at the most 7 years old. They look so happy, yet Vin has the exact opposite opinion. Just what happened to the family? With that question on her mind, she flips the photograph and behind is written with black ink, To my most beloved daughters, Miho and Maho. Shiho. With even more questions on her mind, she puts the photograph in one of the vest's empty pockets, before continuing to search the room.

Rika had somehow managed to find herself in the kitchen. All the previous rooms she had searched had nothing of importance, most of them being just big empty spaces. Opening the cabinets, the only thing she finds is spoiled food, the smell being quite repulsive, especially when she opens the fridge. Opening one particular cabinet though, she finds lots of canned food, especially canned food for dogs. OK, that's definitely weird. What is dog food doing here? Maybe they had a dog or something. As to answer her question, she hears something growling behind her. Her whole body tensing, she slowly turns around, only to see a really slim Shiba Inu looking at her, its black pointed ears lowered and showing its teeth. Getting an idea, she slowly takes hold one of the cans of dog food, she slowly lowly opens it and places it in front of her. The dog immediately stops growling and carefully approaches Rika and the food. Seeing that she is not a threat, the black haired Shiba Inu starts eating the canned food fast, a sign that it hadn't eat for at least two days.

"Poor thing, you were just hungry", Rika says, caressing it's short black fur. Picking the tag on its collar, it reads Kuro. Matches with the color of its fur. Now for the most important question...is it a boy or a girl? Blushing so hard that her face could be mistaken for a traffic light, she lifts the small dog and looks between its legs.

"So you are a girl, huh? Well Kuro, want to come with me back at my base? We might find your master", she says, looking at Kuro's little black eyes. Kuro just barks twice and proceeds to lick Rika all over the face. "Stop it, you are tickling me!", she laughs, holding the small dog with her hands.

Theodore was searching the rooms that where North, finding a lot of guest rooms. Opening the room in a particular room, he enters before closing the door. It is a very simple room, having only a few things. In one of the room's walls stands a bookshelf, filled with books about strategy and tactics and various battles of WW2, such as the battle of Stalingrand or the Ardennes Assault. It also had an encyclopedia of German tanks and even an autobiography of Erwin Rommel, also known as the desert fox. At the nearby desk sits a picture of two girls on top of a Panzer II, the younger one visibly tugging the shirt of the older. They look to be in elementary school. He keeps searching the rest of the room, but finds nothing of value so he grabs the picture and puts it inside his backpack,before exiting the room to continue his search

Vin finds himself in an office looking room. There are various cabinets filled with lots of files and documents. There is a big desk in the center of the room. I'm sure there's bound to be something of importance in here, he quietly hums in his mind, starting opening the cabinets and going through the documents. But most of the documents are Shenshadou related, either related to official matches or bureaucratic things. Looking at the desk, an idea comes to his mind. Looking down from the desk, he finds a small switch. Jackpot! I knew movies had a grain of truth!, he victoriously claims in his mind as he flips the switch. A small panel in the floor next to the desk moves sideways, revealing a small empty space. Inside it resides a small blue box, some documents that have the words confidential and blacklisted all over the them. On top of the documents sits a small USB stick. Grinning, he picks the items and puts them inside his backpack.

Tapping his earpiece to speak, he says to the rest of the squad, "Guys, meet me at the living room, I found some pretty important stuff".

After five minutes, they all converge in the leaving room, though Rika and Luminous are holding something with their arms.

" Okay, first of all, Rika...where in the name of C4 and binary explosives did you find a dog?", Vin says, pointing at the small dog Rika is carrying.

"I found her in the kitchen and she looked so hungry, I couldn't leave her alone! And her name is Kuro by the way.", Rika says and Kuro barks once.

"OK, I'll not ask how you know the dog's gender but whatever. Now, Luminous, where did you find a Panzerfaust with ammunition?!", Vin says incredulously, pointing at the shoulder mounted rocket launcher she is holding.

"I found it in Miho's room, at least I think it's her room.", Luminous says nonchalantly.

"Pretty hardcore family huh?", Theodore comments.

"You don't say, anyway, let's call the helicopter and get out of here. I'll tell you what I found while on our way back to base". Vin proceeds to call the helicopter, telling them to land in the garden behind the house. Exiting to the garden, the huge open space before them was littered with boulders big enough to cover them whole. There was even a small river passing, cutting the garden in two, with a really small wooden bridge connecting the sides.

"It's nice, isn't it Kuro?", Rika says while looking at Kuro. But the black Shiba Inu is looking at the wall at the limits of the garden in front of them, growling and showing her teeth. "What's wrong girl?"

Suddenly a section of the wall explodes and in come men dressed in uniforms that are white and have red tron-like lines all over them. They wear metal helmets that resemble the ones from Killzone. Crouching on one knee, they immediately start firing at the squad, who dive behind the boulders for cover in response. Lifting his LMG, Theodore mows down the enemy soldiers who stand in the open, like they think they are invisible. But more and more uniformed men enter, slowly but steadily overwhelming the spec ops team. Vin is firing his SCAR-H at semi-automatic, spending two to three bullets for each enemy. Rika is using her Steyr Aug to go for either headshots or heartshots, sometimes hitting the mark, sometimes missing. Luminous is laying prone next to a boulder, having set up her sniper rifle. As one of the enemies tries to rush through the bullet exchange, Luminous aims for his head and fires. A sound that resembles more a small cannon firing than a gun is heard and the huge .60 Cal bullet splits the target's head in two, resembling more a watermelon that has exploded and the enemy actually does a backflip from the sheer power of the round. Luminous shields her face from the heat the weapon produces, the air near it visibly refracting the light. She pulls down manually the bolt to cycle the revolver like magazine,waiting for a small led light in the scope to turn green, indicating the temperature has fallen enough to be fired again. Vin just casually throws one of his bombs to an enemy, getting stuck on his chest, but instead of panicking, the enemy starts running towards them.

"Shit, enemy suicide bomber!", Vin screams, trying to gun down the running soldier. Luminous fires her sniper bullet, cutting in half the soldier's left leg. But instead of crying in pain, the soldier just keeps crawling to them. Vin detonates the explosive and the enemy, along with two others that were near him all explode in pieces, like a morbid jigsaw puzzle. "The fuck is wrong with these guys?!", Vin exclaims, reloading his now empty assault rifle.

"Don't know and don't wanna know", Luminous yells, firing the last bullet that rips through the abdomen of an enemy, the force enough to drag the intestines with it and forcing them out of his lower back. Kuro is as close to Rika as she can, covering her eyes with her paws and whimpering.

"Guys, we have a problem!", Theodore yells, finishing reloading his HAWKS light machinegun. Everyone looks at the destroyed part of the garden wall and sees a man clad in a white suit with red tron-like lines. The suit seems to be made of steel or another metal as it shines under the sunny midday sun. In his hands, an XM134 "Minigun", with a backpack on his back full of ammunition for this hungry monster.

"Holy nitroglycerin, we are going to die!", Vin exclaims and dives behind the boulder he has been using as cover, like the others do. The minigun spools and starts firing, the bullets hitting the boulders and his allies, the deafening sound echoing through the whole estate. Stopping its fire to cool down the barrels, everyone picks out from their respective cover and starts firing at the enemy. The bullets hit and bounce, with only the huge .60 Cal bullets denting it a little.

"We can't even scratch him! What's this, the fucking final boss of a game?!", Rika yells.

"If he is the boss, he is broken as fuck!", Vin answers back, raining bullets everywhere as the minigun spews death from its barrels.

"Then lets patch him! Vin, when he stops firing, throw all your explosives on him but do not detonate them!", Luminous yells to her earpiece. Doing as he is told, the moment the suppressive fire stops, Vin throws all of his explosives on top of the two-meter tall man, sticking to his body, arms and weapon. The man does not make any move to remove them and calmly waits for the minigun to cool down enough so he can start firing it again. Hearing the minigun spooling, Luminous exit her cover, shouldering the Panzerfaust and aiming it at the man's chest. "Special delivery straight from the Reichstag you bastard!", she yells, her German accent finally surfacing. Firing, the rocket propels itself straight for the enemy, passing between some bullets that have started exiting the barrels of the minigun and colliding with the metal, the rocket explodes, causing Vin's explosives to detonate in response. The only thing that remains is a crater and burning bits of metal.

"Maybe we went a bit overboard", she comments, looking at where the man was standing, still keeping her German accent.

"So, how's the weather back in Berlin?", Vin teases Luminous, noticing her accent has changed.

"Go explode bomb nerd", she says, having switched languages to German. Getting near one of the bodies, she removes the helmet and lets it fall to the ground from what she sees. "Guys, you need to see this", Luminous says in a trembling voice.

"What is wr-", Vin doesn't finish his sentence, squinting his eyes at what he sees. The face of the soldier is anything but normal. There is no mouth on his face, only skin covering the area of where it would be, his eyelids seem to be cut and the eyes to be cybernetic implants.

"That's...very disturbing", Rika adds.

"Who can do something like that?", Luminous says, averting her gaze as it seems to be too much for her.

"Who knows, but let's just leave it at that. Anyway, let's get some photos and show them at command.", Vin says and retrieves a small camera, taking some pictures of the dead soldiers and grabbing one of their helmets to take it back at base.

"The helicopter arrived", Theodore interrupts, seeing the BH-FI landing in front of them. Everyone gets in and closing the cabin door, the helicopter takes off and starts heading back to base, Vin showing the rest what he found in the house.

At the nearby forest, a man is seen on top of a branch of a tree, looking at the helicopter while the barrel of his weapon, a MK-14, slowly exhales gunpowder smoke. On the ground beneath him are soldiers like the ones the team just fought, all with a single bullet hole in their heads. I finally found you, he thinks, a grin forming on his face. Getting down from the tree, he starts walking deeper in the forest, eventually disappearing.

A/N: And mission completed! Answering some questions and raising even more, the spec ops team found some interesting things. Next chapter will be the meeting of Blackout and the commanders and maybe learn something about the secret government project. Anyway, as always, suggestions, questions, corrections, reviews or PMs are greatly appreciated. Also, English isn't my native tongue, so expect some grammatical errors here and there. If you found the story interesting and had a great time, favorite and follow. Have a nice day/night and until the next chapter, stay safe!

Explanations:

BH-FI:Stands for Blackout Helicopter Fast Insertion. It's a military helicopter, developed by Blackout for fast insertions and extractions. Though lightly armored, it makes up for it by having extreme agility and speed. It is also equipped with an EMP system, though pilots receive special training first in order to use it. It is also equipped with an advanced optical camouflage that makes it immune to lock-on systems and laser guided ones.

TLRR: Stands for Tactical Long Range Rifle. It fires .60 Cal bullets from a revolver like magazine. Maximum capacity is three bullets on the magazine. Has a special built-in bipod that absorbs most of the recoil.

HAWKS: A light machine gun that has a good balance between fire rate and accuracy. The ammunition box features an electronic counting screen.

All of the original weapons are being produced by Blackout.