Sorry for not updating this story for a long time. I'll try to write chapter 4 as fast as I can. Also, I'll try to make all my chapters at least 3-5k. By the way, for all those readers who wonder about Project: Reconstruct, here's a bit about it.

Project: RECONSTRUCT:

During a press conference in 2016, a project was put into action. This was preparation for any apocalypse scenario that could possibly happen sometime in the future of the US. Across the 50 states of America around 4-7 Lead and steel bunkers were set up along with 50 Captains chosen through the military system. Inside these bunkers contained highly valuable resources such as Food, weapons, medicine, and water. These bunker can only be accessed by a GPS device that the captains had on them. Knowing these bunkers are highly valuable, the government protected them with electric fences, and a ton of hidden traps that only the captain would be able to turn off.

Project reconstruct was set up in early 2020, as a new virus emerged from the depths of Earth. All 50 captains nation wide were to be put into hiding inside one of these bunkers as America was being Ravaged by anarchy and terror. They were given 1-2 special weapons (Tank girls) to command and help rid of any hostiles they encounter or help out along the way. Inside the first bunker that the captains stayed in was a black box telling them about what to expect in these scenarios and what to expect in the apocalypse. The main focus of Project: Reconstruct is to help bring back civilization throughout the states and try to repel the amounts of Infected trying to take over that state.

Ship girls and tank girls were created in the winter of 2008 by America, Japan, Germany, Britain, and Russian scientists and engineers who had planned to push back terrorist forces. Ship girls were kept a secret because of their soul nature of being revived from a ship to a human. Their firepower alone could bring down entire villages. Any kinds of these girls were dangerous if they fell into the wrong hands, so they decided to keep them a secret. Tank girl prototypes were used in the middle east early on, so they were more known to the world, but people still didn't quite know about them. Eventually, they, just like the Ship girls, stopped their appearances and were hidden away from the world, and eventually forgotten.

So that is it for Project: Reconstruct and a bit of background of ship girls and tank girls in this alternate world. Have fun reading.

-Lenju II

Chapter 3: Memories meant to be forgotten

"Leon, wake up. It's 556 hours." Tomlin says as he shakes Leon. Opening his eyes, Leon notices the sky slowly brightening up.

"Dude, Tomlin, I thought I told you to wake me at 200 hours." Leon asks. Tomlin laughs.

"After you went to sleep, Valeriya and your girls summoned infantry units. I forgot to tell you that they had this ability." he says as he points near the helicopter. Leon looks closely and notices three squads of german soldiers. Turning around, he sees a group of Russian soldiers. In total, he counts up to 30 infantry soldiers patrolling the area. Leon chuckles a bit.

"Looks like the girls found a simple way of helping us out and letting us do less work." Leon says as he gets up and grabs his M4 and heads out on the south side of the area and finds that there is another patrol of Russian soldiers.

"Uhh… Do you guys speak english?" Leon asks as he walks up to the small platoon. The 'apparent' leader of the small group looks up at Leon and smiles, his teeth looking a bit yellow.

"Da, comrade, we do indeed speak your language." The soldier says to Leon, his accent a bit heavy. "Our high command told us that we should go on a patrol to protect our comrades for any dangers. I have already seen some pictures of them, so we are a bit familiar to what they should look like. Am I right?" The rest of the platoon nod in agreement.

Now that Leon is closer to them, he notices that they all have mosin nagant rifles.

"So, do you guys mind if I join you on the patrol?" Leon asks. The Russian soldiers shake their head. "No, comrade. You can join us if you'd like, but I'm not quite sure if you understand Russian my friend." The soldier says, the rest of the platoon nods with him.

"I do understand Russian, comrade. I was sent to Russia for training 6 years ago." Leon says in russian. The russians look at each other, and soon smile a wide grin.

"Ah, well, if you know Russian, then that saves us a lot of time trying to translate our conversations to English." The soldier smiles as he pats Leon's back.

Leon smiles, and opens his mouth to speak, but suddenly he hears german shouts and the

sounds of guns clattering. Looking over, he sees a platoon of German soldiers, pointing at a passing group of deer, shouting in excitement as some point their Karabiner 98 kurz rifles at it.

Leon facepalms. The Russians stare awkwardly at the excited Germans as all three platoons of 12 men start to merge into a large group of 36 excited men. The Russians snort with amusement as they watch their german comrades.

"Germans would always stay germans… They get excited over animals, or specifically things to catch and eat." A soldier laughs in Russian. Then with a mocking tone, he yells over in very bad german, "Hans, I don't quite see an organized platoon of yours! I guess that boot camp 'booted' you all out instead!"

The Russian platoon starts laughing, and the germans look over at them, trying to think of an insult to throw back at them.

Leon walks away from the growing argument between the two sides. Walking over to the helicopter, he sees two guards, one german and one russian, talking silently to each other. The two guards see him, and salute him in two different ways. The german infantryman raised his arms up into the air with a stern face. The russian guardsman stood up and saluted him.

"Gud morning, Reichsführer." The german soldier greets with heavily accented english. Nodding, Leon silently greets them and enter the helicopter.

Inside the helicopter, he sees Yuudachi snoring on two seats, mumbling about how she wants more praise from him. Harusame and Valeriya are silently talking to each other in the back presumably something about WWII. Erwin is brushing Noel's grey hair lightly with a small comb talking about what they might be doing during the day.

Noel was the first to notice Leon standing near the entrance of the back, so she gets up, off Erwin's lap and walks over to him. Lazily saluting him, she says, "Good morning, Commander… I hope my unit isn't causing any trouble…" Yawning, she takes a look outside to view a large group of arguing men. She nods, her dull blue eyes stare at the scene as if it happens often.

"Just another normal day for me…" she sighed. Leon sweatdropped. "Does this happen often?" he asks Noel. Erwin walks up to them and answer his question. "Yup! Back in the war, the wehrmacht would always bicker around with the Schutzstaffel if they disagreed with each other. Trust me, I heard plenty of arguments through radio transmissions between the army panzers and the SS panzers!" Erwin says as she watches the arguments in humor.

"This isn't even that bad!" she smiles and exclaims. Suddenly, Leon hears someone shout. "POIIII!" and finds himself flung outside of the door with an excited blond on top of him, crushing him with a bear hug. "Good morning admiral, poi!" Yuudachi exclaims as she tightens the already bone crushing hug.

"Yuu..dachi… Please c-can't…. Breath...need...a-air" Leon gasps out as he feels his lungs panicking, inhaling and exhaling rapidly.

"Oops.. sorry, poi." Yuudachi says as she lets go of him. Leon lays on the ground, gasping like a fish out of water for a full two minutes. After recovering, he walks back into the crew compartment.

"From what I'm guessing, there should be some large survivor camp somewhere south, and our helicopter probably could take us down the coast, and we'll see what we could do from there," Leon says, still wincing at some sudden pains at his sides. Valeriya raises her hand.

"Sir, how are you going to be so sure that there would be a survivor camp down in the south? No matter how much I want to believe that, I don't quite think that it is a possibility…" she says, not so clear as for what to expect.

"As I said, we still don't quite know about anything, so it's better to believe that there are survivors than to believe in a completely dead state." Leon says facepalming. A loud cheering could be heard outside. Leon feels an anger vein popping out of his head.

"Please unsummon those idiots, they're getting on my nerves right now…" Leon hisses. The tank girls nod and go outside. He suddenly hears the sounds of steam and a great woosh could be heard. Then quiet hung in the air. Leon smiles and sighs. "Much better… I don't want to be attracting any attention."

"Get ready, guys. We're leaving in thirty minutes." Leon shouts at the crew. "Tomlin, do you want to pilot the Black Hawk?"

"Leon, you seriously look tired… Try to get some sleep right now. I'll wake ya up when we're near the coast or when something happens." Tomlin says as he looks over at a dazed Leon. Leon nods. "Sure, I guess… I feel tired trying to keep awake. These few days, It's been really hard to sleep these past few days." He turns over and laid back against the seat. He closes his eyes and almost immediately goes into the dreamworld. Tomlin looks at the fuel gauge, which is at full, and estimates the amount would last them around 6 to 8 hours in the air.

Leon awoke in his parent's house. He blinked, looking around confusedly.

"Mom! Mom! Look what I found!" he heard a kid yelling excitedly. Leon looked over to find a younger version of himself crouched over, staring at a bird's nest. His younger self was up in the old oak tree.

"Okay, Leo, you could get down now. It's dangerous up there." he heard his mother say calmly. Leon looked over at his mother. Small glimmers of tears ran down his eyes as he stared at her.

"Mom…" he whispered. "Why am I being shown this? You've been dead for 24 years now…"

"You know, Leo, you should sleep earlier today! It's going to be your birthday tomorrow!" she said with a casual smile. The little Leon smiled at his mother. "Yes mother!" he said excitedly. Leon's eyes suddenly went wide.

"Wait, don't tell me…. Please don't do this to me…" Leon shouted as he ran into his old house. The calendar read August 12, 1991. The day his mother was murdered. The day his house was burned. The day that he felt an irreplaceable gap in his heart forever. The memories were being replayed again in his head.

He watched as his younger self ran into the house. Leon walked in with them. Being in a dream, he had no need to be afraid, because he could walk through doors. Walking into his room, he looked at his old room. Models were placed on his shelf neatly, the collection of old WWII maps hung around his walls. His small collection of tanks sat on his desk along with books about the Civil War. His dad had fought in WWII, and has been severely injured in Korea, so he was still hospitalized somewhere in South Korea. The small child Leon had accidentally found his dad's M1 garand in his room, one that his dad had taken back home 6 years before he was born.

As he exited his room, he witnessed himself happily eating a homemade burger that his mother had made for him that night.

He suddenly felt timeshift forward. He then watched in his younger self laying in his bed asleep. There was a sudden crash and a loud scream. Leon's eyes suddenly blazed with rage. Running to his mother, he saw the same 5 masked men who had broke into his house. They had grabbed his mother and forced her downstairs, most of them holding rifles or pistols.

"NO!" he shouted as he drew his own MK-23 from his pants holster. He screamed as he watched the scene unfold, trying to shoot the these phantom bullets only passed through the bandits. Leon hears his younger self suddenly screams and runs into the living room holding the Garand, the sound of the belt clicks in place. "Kill both of them." One of the men says as they aim their revolver at the small Leon. Leon remembers this scene in first person, angrily enraged. But now in third person, he could see that his mother is crying begging not to harm him. He didn't know much back then.

Leon then watches as he screams and pulls the trigger of the Garand, firing one shot at the first bandit closes to him who was holding a .44 caliber revolver. The .30 caliber bullet flies into the bandit's skull, fracturing it instantly. Then he fires at another man holding a M16 assault rifle, hitting the man straight through the chest, impaling near the right atrium of the heart. The last three men knowing that they are going to need to escape, shoots his mother at her stomach, gut shooting her. Before they run, they take out a couple of glass bottles, molotovs, and toss them at the house.

Leon kneels down, tears streaming down his face as he watches his own self dragging his dying mother out onto the front yard. "L...Leon, let me see that gun for a sec..ond." she says. She fumbles with the garand and finally is able to steady it at the bandits running towards the car. The gun lets out three puffs, and then the magazine flies out of the gun with a loud CLANG! As well as the thumping of three bodies. Little Leon kneels down next to his mother, who gasping and wheezing.

"L...Leo" she says as she weakly looks up at him. She smiles weakly, coughing blood out of her mouth.

"I...I knew this day would come… I want to give you this, f..for your" she smiles as she gives him a small wrapped up package. Leon stares at his own little self sobbing as he opens the wrapped package. It was a pocket watch with a picture of his grandfather, his dad, and his mother all standing there smiling in the picture. The little note read, 'Returning home from Europe'.

"I...I hope y..you like it, Leo." His mother smiled. She took one last pained deep breath. "Goodbye my child. I… I hope I can see you soon, dear…" she said looking up into the sky. Her hands tensed for a moment and then it loosened. Little Leon cried out for his mother, but sadly she never responded. Leon felt tears streaming down his face as he watched this too familiar scene unfolding in front of him.

Then the scene changed and he awoke in a grassy meadow. Birds flew around him chirping as they searched for food.

"Where is this? I don't remember being in Kentucky." Leon wonders out loud. A familiar voice respond to him.

"What your seeing is part of my memories. It's a country side of an old 1944 countryside in France." a voice said behind him. Leon turns around to see who it is. He gasps as he sees who they are.

"D..Dad? Is t..that you?" he says as he sees his father standing in front of him. His father smiles at him.

"Hey son, how are you? It's been awhile haven't it." Leon's father says. Leon shakes his head slightly.

"About 15 years now. But my question is why are you here?" he asks. His father laughs and takes a step forward. A squishy sound could be heard. They both look down and see a pile of horse dung on the ground.

"Literally, shit. This happened while I was with your grandpa four weeks after we broke through the beaches of Normandy." His father laughs.

After laughing for a while, Leon's father looks up.

"Just remember, Leon. Even if we're not there with you any more, I'll always be here watching over you." He says. Picking up his garand, Leon's father starts to walk away from him. Leon looks up and waves goodbye to his father.

"I hope to see you soon, dad." he says.

"Yeah. I'll see ya soon too, my boy." Leon's father waves.

"Oh yeah, by the way, there's a sniper in that tower, Leon. You still need to focus on your surroundings and keep your guard up." he smiled as the shot rang out.

"...on… LEON GET THE FUCK UP!" someone shouted at him. HIs eyes cleared and he saw Tomlin shaking him while keeping his other hand on the controls.

"Ugh… Tomlin, what happened?" Leon asks, rubbing his eyes as he sat up against the seat. His back hurt from sleeping in an uncomfortable position. Tomlin looked half pissed off and half worried for his friend.

"You started off just mumbling about something and shifted around a little, which was fine with me. Then you started to breath rapidly, which worried me that you were hyperventilating. Just as you stopped to a point that I thought you were ok, you started to scream." Tomlin sighs as he looks back at the cockpit view.

"That reminds me… Where are we? I was out for a while."

"Umm…. you were out for around two hours so I guess we're probably around the edge of Los Angeles." The radio suddenly starts to buzz, surprising both of them.

"Who the..? Did we run into Civilization?" Leon and Tomlin both blurt out at once. Leon takes the radio and answers the transmission. "Hello?"

"Unidentified Aircraft, please report who you are, or we'll be forced to fire upon you."

"Wait...What is this place? Where are we anyways?"

"You're in the territory of the San Diego Pub. Please state your name or we'll be forced to fire upon you."

"Leon Henderson, Captain of the DELTA and apart of a special project."

"One moment…"

Voices could be heard in the background and soon the voice comes back.

"Well, Mr. Henderson, you're access has been granted. You can enter the territory, but don't do anything stupid. I'm warning you." the voice says.

"Uhh...Where do I land?" he asks

A slap could be heard in the coms, possibly the person facepalming him/herself.

"I now question if you've ever heard of California in your life… Ever heard of San Diego Airport? It's the closest one to you, so go land there, there's some space." the voice cuts out

"Hey girls, We found civilization. We'll be landing anyways, so the ride could get a bit rough… Please bear with us…" Leon said. Tomlin smiles a huge smile. "I love landing choppers." Leon's face went from a wide smile to a sudden look of terror as flashbacks came back to him. Tomlin smiles at Leon's expression as he starts doing a death spiral down to the earth.

"HERE WE GO!" he shouts as the helicopter starts a rapid descent down towards the airport. Leon saw some ground crew with mops cleaning the area. When they saw the falling helicopter, Leon guessed they might have shit their pants, because they started running, dropping their mops, and shouting something, presumably 'I DON'T GET PAID ENOUGH FOR THIS SHIT'. At the last moment, Tomlin pulls up the helicopter, and it lands perfectly on the runway.

"So, how was that?" Tomlin smiles as he looks over at Leon. "huh?" Leon looked sickly pale and was reaching out for the door. Leon grasps onto the handle, but falls out face first onto the concrete.

"Ground…. I miss you a lot." he said as his head still spun around. The girls were no different. When Tomlin opened the back door, only Valeriya seemed ok.

Leon got up off the ground and looked around. For an apocalypse ridden world, San Diego seemed to be a really nice place.

"Ahh… You must be the Captain that Base 1 was talking about." A female voice came up behind him. Leon turned around to greet them.

"Yes, my name is Leon Henderson, and this is my…" he cuts off as he notices who this mysterious girl is. Her hazel brown hair goes down to her shoulders and her blue eyes kind of shimmer a bit. She had a bright smile, but that was replaced by a look of shock. They both looked at each other, mouth open wide as they spoke in shock

"No way… You can't be" They say at once, still looking at eachother like they knew eachother.

"Cousin Leon?"

"Younger cousin Phoebe?"

A/N: So this chapter is wrapped up for right now… I hope you all enjoy it. I'm trying to update as fast as I can, but summer school and laziness don't usually play a good part in writing stories. I'll try to update as soon as I can, but bear with me, it'll be a while. Also, please review! I know I sound guilty, but please do! I could use some criticism, some ideas for the next chapter, or anything (just don't put OMG! A NEW CHAPTER! or something like that…). Thanks for reading.