The Ether Conflict Redux
Chapter 0: The Day Everything Began
The feel of cold metal. So familiar. So welcoming.
She has felt it so many times.
When wielding her weapon against her enemies, when manning her team's old and trusty tank in the winter, when training in the shooting range of her home.
Yet right now, the feeling of the cold, metal grates scraping against the back of her head as she gets dragged around is anything but welcoming.
She can barely see and hear, all the fatigue and tiredness from being abused daily and given barely any food and water having drained her body of most of its strength and dulled most of her senses almost completely.
Hearing the sound of an automatic door opening, the woman squints her light brown eyes as she's dragged inside a very bright and white room, the sensation on the back of her head changing from metal to ceramic.
"Nngh…" she groans as she turns her head away from the ceiling and the ceiling lights that are almost blinding her.
"Put her in the chair."
Feeling two arms under her armpits, the woman finds herself being lifted up and dragged somewhere, before being pushed roughly down on a metal chair and having her hands handcuffed behind its back.
"Miss Nishizumi Miho, welcome to the interrogation room once again. I hope this time you'll cooperate with us."
Slowly raising her head, she squints slightly as she tries to make out the things in front of her, though her vision is too blurry to discern more than the basic outlines of the table in front of her and the person that sits opposite from her.
"I won't… tell you… where it is…" Miho croaks at the person directly in front of her, a middle-aged woman that wears a lab coat and a pair of glasses with a black frame.
"Would you look at that, still as strong-willed as ever," the woman muses, then looks at one of the two guards flanking her. "Do it."
Without saying a word, the guard grabs Miho by the back of her head and slams her face on the table, the sensation of metal spreading throughout her face as everything blacks out for a moment before the pain kicks in.
"Ghk…! Aaah…" she weakly groans, a burning sensation spreading throughout her face as blood starts seeping from one of her her nostrils down her lips. The guard then raises her head up and lets go, Miho silently grimacing in pain.
"Miss Nishizumi, the Institute is willing to cooperate with you, but only if you cooperate with us as well."
"I won't… tell you… where it is…" Miho repeats and the woman sighs.
"So stubborn…"
Nodding to the guard, he hits Miho's face on the table again.
"If you don't tell us where the artifact is, we will be forced to take drastic measures, and then I won't be able to guarantee your friends' safety," she says to Miho, adjusting her glasses a little.
"If you… hurt them… I'll kill you all…" Miho growls quietly, her eyes flashing red for a moment.
"Then answer me the question. Where is the artifact?"
Miho stays silent for a few moments, before sighing through her nose and averting her gaze on her thighs.
"Fine… I will tell you…"
"Excellent!" the woman says happily.
"But on one condition…"
The woman's happy expression falters for a second, before she chuckles amused.
"Miss Nishizumi, you aren't exactly in a position to-"
"Either this, Miss Yoko… or we can continue our current… cycle… until I break… or die…" Miho cuts off Yoko, raising her head to look at the woman with a severe, albeit bloody, expression. "And you don't… exactly… have the luxury… of time.. on your side…"
"...Very well. And what's this condition?" Yoko asks with a serious expression, not happy a girl almost half her age is basically making demands in the current situation, but really running out of time as her superiors are pressuring her more and more for results.
"That you… let me begin… from the start… from the mission… that started everything…"
"I don't see how this will be helpful to you, but I'll allow it. Though, if I recognize you are simply wasting my time, you'll receive more than a simple beating this time," Yoko warns Miho.
Sighing one more time, Miho slowly lowers her head so that she's gazing at the top of the table.
"...Everything began… a few months ago… We got a… mission… to retrieve… a downed… JSDF drone… that had fallen… at the outskirts… of the terraformed zone…"
A few months ago
Outskirts of Matsumoto, Japan
Inside the dorm room of a small, military-looking base that settles at the outskirts of Matsumoto, a certain brown-haired woman soundly sleeps in her bed, comfily tucked under the bedsheets.
beep… beep… beep…
"Mmm…" the woman stirs a little as her alarm clock, which sits on top of a small bedstand next to the bed, starts beeping slowly, though she doesn't seem to be waking up from it.
beep… beep… beep. beep. beep.
As the beeping starts intensifying, the woman starts stirring more and more, until she finally opens her eyes and turns around to look at the alarm clock, then presses its top with her hand to make it stop.
"Mmm… already seven…" she murmurs aloud, then slowly sits up and rubs her eyes, then stretches her arms.
"Nnngh~! Let's get ready for today."
Opening the curtains that hang behind her bed to let the morning sunlight enter the room through, she then gets out of the bed and makes her way towards the wardrobe that settles at the wall opposite from where the bed is. Opening it, she retrieves from inside a pair of black pants, a short-sleeved, black T-shirt with a small insignia that resembles the head of a wolf with red eyes on the right sleeve, a pair of black socks and her combat boots, then closes it and goes back to her bed.
Let's turn on the TV to hear the news, she thinks as she puts her clothes on the bed, then grabs a remote that's on her bedstand and points it towards the nearby TV.
click
"...-a total of thirty-five dead and several dozen injured. JSDF cleaning units immediately rushed on the site and the situation was put under control, with no reports of contamination or poisoning having been reported yet. This marks the third suicide bombing in a major city this month, but the JSDF assures everyone they have already located the ones responsible for these acts of terror and will soon be bringing them to justice."
The woman looks at the TV as she puts on her socks and pants, the image of an area somewhere in Tokyo, a purple dust covering it and men in hazmat suits going around and spraying some kind of light blue liquid all around the affected area.
"They used Ether? These attacks are seriously getting out of hand…"
"In other news, peace negotiations with China have broken down yet again, with Beijing demanding the cessation of both the occupied lands and the terraformed zone, with the JSDF leadership curtly rejecting them."
Shaking her head slightly, the woman puts on her shirt, then sits on the bed to put on her boots.
"This concludes the morning news. Next up is the documentary "The Six Great Spires: How the world changed after their appearance" and after that the documentary "Ether and the weapons of the future"."
How long has it been since they appeared? Eight? Ten years? she ponders as she finishes tying her boots' laces, then grabs the remote to turn off the TV.
knock knock
"Miss Nishizumi! Are you still sleeping?"
"Ah! Coming!" the woman calls out. Putting down the remote and standing up, she quickly makes her way towards the room's door and opens it, finding a woman around her height with chin-length, dark brown curly hair and dark brown eyes standing in front of it, as well a tall woman with long black hair that go till her waist and a pair of dark grey eyes.
"Good morning, Yukari, Hana!" she says to the two women respectively, who are wearing the same clothes as her.
"Good morning, Miho," Hana says with a smile as Miho exits her room and closes the door.
"Did you have a good sleep, Miss Nishizumi?" Yukari asks and Miho nods.
"Yes, I slept fine. Though, where is Saori and Mako?" Miho asks as the three of them start walking down the hallway and towards the mess hall of the base.
"Saori had to carry Mako again, so she took her straight to the mess hall," Hana responds, with Miho chuckling a little at this.
"Hehe, some things never change!" Miho chuckles. "Ah, that reminds me! How did the installation of the new upgrades go, Yukari?"
"Everything's working as expected, Miss Nishizumi! The new laser rangefinder can accurately detect the distance to a target with a margin of error +/- two meters for distances over two kilometers."
"Good. What about the new shells?"
"I've loaded some for field testing, but I've kept most of the normal loadout."
"Great. Next time we need to use the tank for a mission, we'll test the shells," Miho glances at Yukari and nods.
"These new shells should be able to help us deal with most threats we may encounter, save for a main battle tank or a fortification," Hana comments as the girls start descending the stairs that lead from the first floor to the ground floor.
"They better be, or Blackout spent a few million yen for nothing."
Stopping their descent and looking back, the girls find a middle-aged woman with light brown hair that reach just above her shoulders and brown eyes standing at the top of the stairs, wearing a black shirt with a black, unbuttoned coat over it, a black pencil skirt and white Mary Jane shoes. The woman adjusts her glasses slightly, then slowly approaches the girls.
"Miss Misako, good morning!" Miho greets, Haana and Yukari doing the same as the woman stops a step before them.
"Almost a decade, and you still refer to me as a Miss," Misako chuckles for a moment, before raising a manila folder in front of Miho. "Your next assignment."
"Our next assignment? Didn't the Director say we'd not have any work for the rest of the week?" Miho asks as she takes the folder, but does not open it.
"It's an urgent request from the JSDF. A UAV of theirs fell a few kilometers from the outskirts of the terraformed zone, and they asked us to go and retrieve its black box. A JSDF helicopter will be here in an hour and a half to pick you up and transport you at the insertion point, so you better grab breakfast while you can," Misako explains. "And since this is an emergency assignment, your pay will be doubled."
Miho opens the folder and quickly scans its contents, then closes it and looks up to Misako.
"I understand. Then, if you'll excuse us, Miss Misako," Miho says and bows slightly, with Misako nodding in response.
"Stay safe out there," the woman says, before turning around and ascending the stairs, making her way towards the second floor. The girls continue making their way towards the mess hall, though they now walk a bit faster since they don't have all that much time.
"I always wondered why the JSDF employs PMCs for zone-related incidents. Do you think it's because of the bureaucracy?" Yukari wonders aloud as the girls step on the ground floor, then make their way towards the mess hall.
"Most likely they don't want to aggravate the already fragile relationship with China. Using mercenaries means they can freely engage Chinese troops within the zone without fearing repercussions. Or they simply see us as expendables, since many dangers are hidden in there, especially the closer you are to the zone's center," Hana offers an explanation.
"Most likely both," Miho comments as the girls step on the ground floor and take a right turn. "Peace negotiations between Japan and China are quickly failing, and the ceasefire doesn't seem like it will remain for long."
"So much for a peaceful solution… that means we'll have a lot of work again," Yukari sighs, not very fond of their time during the third Sino-Japanese War, when China invaded South Japan amidst the world crisis that was happening.
"If war breaks again, it'll most likely be small skirmishes within the terraformed zone, until one of the sides manages to secure a safe corridor through it to funnel troops on the other side," Miho says as she stops in front of a set of large doors. "Either that, or they try to paradrop troops at the other side of the zone and establish a foothold to bring in soldiers and equipment via air."
Miho then pushes one of the doors open and enters inside the mess hall, which consists of a fairly spacious room that has two long, rectangular, mess hall tables that have a sitting bench on each side, and a counter at the left side of the opposite wall which is where the food is served. In one of the mess hall tables Miho finds two women sitting and eating their breakfast, one with long, ginger-colored hair that go just past her shoulders and a pair of light brown eyes, as well a woman that has thick black hair that go till her waist, and a pair of hazel eyes that are currently looking sleepily at her bowl of rice.
"Saori, Mako, good morning," Miho greets respectively the girls, as she, Hana and Yukari make their way towards the table.
"Ah, Miporin! Good morning!" Saori says as she stops eating for a second, while Mako looks up from her food.
"Morning… uwaa," Mako yawns, then fixes the bangs that cover her forehead and readjusts her white headband a little, then notices the folder Miho is holding with her left hand. "New mission…?" she asks, which gets Saori's attention and looks at the folder as well.
"An urgent one from the JSDF. We'll go over it during breakfast," Miho says and places the file on top of the table, then turns to Hana and Yukari. "I'll go get us food, you can take a seat."
"Alright, Miss Nishizumi!" Yukari says as she and Hana take a seat, Mako already having opened the manila folder and reading the documents it has inside, Saori leaning a bit closer to her to read as well.
"Ask for a bit extra~!" Hana says to Miho, who chuckles a little in response but does turn her head to look at her and nod. Making her way in front of the counter where the food is served, she finds an old man sitting behind it, wearing a white apron and chef's hat, currently reading a newspaper.
"Good morning, Mr. Nagumo," Miho greets the old man, who turns his head to look up at Miho, then closes his newspaper and puts it under the counter.
"Ah, good morning Miho," he says with a gentle smile as he stands up. "Here to eat breakfast?"
"Yes. Hana and Yukari have come as well."
"Ah, I see. I imagine Hana asked for extras?" he chuckles as he glances at the table where everyone has sat.
"Yes," Miho chuckles along. "Is that alright?"
"Of course, but I'm afraid I can only offer you rice," the man sighs, scratching his head a little. "Food shortages have been increasing as of lately, and I'm afraid water shortages might appear as well too…"
"Are things getting that bad?" Miho asks the old man, who has turned around and is going further inside the kitchen to retrieve a few bowls and fill them with rice.
"I'm afraid so. The other day I went in Matsumoto for some business I had and… things are really bad. People in the streets starving and fighting over a few scraps of food, the military issuing ration tickets… and the people just get more and more restless with each passing day." Grabbing five bowls, Nagumo takes them on one of the kitchen counters and sets them on it, next to the rice cooker. "Martial law doesn't help at all, and the posted patrols only worsen the situation. If the Chinese don't get us first, we'll eventually destroy ourselves from inside out…" Filling the first bowl, he sets it down and grabs another empty one.
"But don't let the words of an old man dampen your mood. A young woman like you should always have a bright smile on your face," he says after glancing at Miho and noticing a sad expression forming on her face. "And while things here are bad, the further North you go, the better they become. I went in Sendai a week ago and living conditions there are leagues better. Laughing people going around, plenty of food to go, and even the military's presence is minimal." Filling two more bowls with rice, he starts filling the last two, a gentle smile slowly forming on his face. "I'm sure that with patience and honest work, we'll be able to restore Japan to the country it once was. We simply need to bide our time and wait for the perfect time."
Having filled up all the bowls with rice, Nagumo retrieves a large tray from a nearby counter, then puts on it the bowls and move it back to the counter where Miho is waiting.
"Here you go, Miho. One for you, one for Yukari, and a little extra for Hana," he chuckles as he hands her the tray, then retrieves three pairs of disposable chopsticks from under the counter and puts them on the tray.
"Thank you very much, Mr. Nagumo," Miho bows her head slightly, then turns around and starts walking back to where the rest are sitting. Reaching the table, she sets the tray on it, then takes a seat next to Hana.
"What does the mission briefing say?" Miho asks Mako as she grabs one of the bowls and a pair of chopsticks, then breaks them seperate and starts eating some of the rice. In the meantime, Yukari grabs a bowl and a pair of chopsticks as well, while Hana drags the tray with the three remaining bowls in front of her.
"The mission seems simple enough. We need to find the crashed UAV, retrieve the black box, then destroy the drone and exfiltrate," Mako says as she sets down the folder and fully opens it, then turns it around so that Miho can see everything properly. "This is the map area. The drone has crashed right here." Mako taps at a picture that shows the map area of central Japan, a zone that extends from Kanazawa, Takayama, Iida and Shizuoka all the way to Tsuruga, Nagahama and Yokkaichi being colored purple, then at the picture next to it, which shows the local topography around the area where the drone crashed. "It's only a few kilometers from the northern borders of the zone, so we shouldn't encounter any trouble or Ether concentration over 2 Azarin."
"I see. Still, just to be safe, we'll take gas masks and a few extra filters. Also, it's better if we insert from here. It's a bit further from the original insertion point, but we can use the forest to reach the crash site pretty much undetected," Miho comments as she taps the picture with the local topology a few times, the rest of her team giving their utmost attention at what she's saying. "Also, we have this as well."
Miho taps at a sticky note that has been stuck at the bottom of the folder, the message "Copy everything from the back box, and you'll get a bonus. - Director" written with red ink, then looks at Mako. "You think you can do it?"
Mako nods. "Copying the data should be simple enough, but it'll most likely be encrypted," she says and slightly scratches her head. "I don't really know if I can crack the military's encryption…"
"It's alright, Mako. We only need to copy the data, not decrypt it as well," Miho says, then closes the file and goes back at eating her breakfast.
beeep… beeep…
Feeling her phone vibrating, Saori quickly retrieves it from one of her pants' pockets and unlocks it to see who is calling her.
"Oh shoot, it's Tyler! I had completely forgotten about it. Really sorry, but I told him I'd call when I'd wake up…" she says as she stands up from her chair.
"It's fine, Saori, just don't take too long. The JSDF helicopter will be here to get us in an hour and we need to prepare for the mission," Miho says to Saori, who in response nods, then answers the call.
"Yes, Tyler? Good morning! Sorry I didn't call, we got an urgent job and we were going over the mission briefing. Eh? No no, you don't need to hang up, we just finished with it. Anyway, how have you been? Ah, I see…"
As Saori exits the mess hall to talk on the phone, Miho finishes her bowl of rice, so she puts her chopsticks on it and stands up.
"We better start getting ready for the mission," Miho says as she grabs the folder. "I'll get the folder back to Miss Misako. Meet me at the armory in ten minutes."
"Yes, Miss Nishizumi!" Yukari salutes, then quickly finishes her breakfast.
"See you at the armory, Miho," Hana says, already having finished her third bowl of rice.
"Bye," Mako says sleepily, and so Miho turns around to exit the mess hall and go towards the Director's office to hand the folder back to Misako, then make her way to the armory to get ready for their mission.
A/N: After almost a year of minimal activity I've finally written and released the first chapter of the Ether Conflict rewrite! I'll release a few more chapters and based on the people's reception I'll either continue with this alternate universe, or I'll continue the original one. Anyways, I hope you liked this first chapter/prologue. Follow and favorite if you are interested on how the story will progress, throw a review if you have any comments to make about it, and send a PM if you have any questions. English isn't my main language, so expect mistakes and awkward grammar here and there. Thank you very much for reading the chapter, have a good day/night and stay safe!
Also special thanks to people like SeekerMeeker, Mika68, and Bukkake (yes that's their username) for sticking around despite my lazy ass, as well everyone else that came here from the original story. I hope you'll like this story as much as the original.