Like performers in a play, everyone took their places for the show. The church bell tolled for a sermon with no preacher, the only attendants rejected by faith. Lights flashed overhead, accompanied by their very own thunderous applause. The rain cheered as it fell from the sky, enjoying the performance despite this being the opening act. Tactical Dolls and military machines took their positions, ready to play their part as the hapless fools. The noble heroes, played by the Dolls of the Iron Cross Brigade, took to the stage under the noble actions of their great leader Kar98k. The battlefield, an old abandoned town that still had residual traces of collapse radiation, was the perfect setting for this great battle in an even greater war. From the safety of the cupboard below the kitchen sink, MP41 could see it all in its glory.
Electric warfare to dolls was akin to chemical warfare for humans. The idea that something you couldn't see and most likely couldn't fight taking over your body or deleting your neural cloud was scarier than even the largest Manticore. Few dolls were trained to be able to handle electronic warfare, and fewer still were built specifically for that purpose. MP41 was not built from the ground up to be a walking transmitter of death for machines, but she could certainly become one while cowering under a shelf or behind a couch. This made her indispensable to the Commandant, and she was more than happy to perform her duty. Having accessed the local Sangvis Ferri mainframe, she not only stole the necessary files to complete her mission, but she also did a little digging in the mainframe for any information that could be useful.
Firstly, she was more than excited to have the personal logs of the previous SF ringleader in the area. No doubt this journal of sorts contained some important information that could give the Brigade the upper hand in the future. More important than that, however, was the information MP41 needed to be able to force a shutdown of all SF Tactical Dolls in the local area. One by one, every Ripper, Vespid, and Jaeger model came to grinding halt as they went into hard lockdown. Watching through the eyes of one of the SF scout drones, the Manticore that was barreling down on the Commandant stopped its menacing advance. Being a tank, its simple neural cloud mind wasn't able to process so much at once, a fact that MP41 intended to exploit. The Manticore was attempting to reset its allies, counter hacking into their simple neural clouds in an attempt to rest their functions. Unfortunately, this would be a mistake.
MP41 used the deactivated T-Dolls as a trap, waiting for it to log in and leave its much more vulnerable side open for attack. Sensing its own mind was threatened, it assumed the attack was coming from the Commandant on the water tower and opened fire with its grenade barrage launcher. The rain made it difficult to get a good lock ,however, and the grenades blew the support legs of the tower. As the structure fell down to the ground, MP41 halted her assault to assess the Commandant's safety. Something, perhaps the Commandant, jumped from their perch on the tower shortly before it slammed into the ground. Following the destruction of the tower was a thunderclap and a transmission on the secure Brigade communications. "Church team, I need you to open fire, now!"
Hell erupted from the church tower, machine gun fire ripping through the rain to suppress what was left of the SF forces that were operable. Needing to work fast, MP41 cut the Manticore's advanced scanning systems. Stumbling blind, it was forced to use its allies' to be able to see. Without targeting it wouldn't be able to properly target with its main gun or its grenades. Now that the Manticore was reduced to nothing more than a glorified battering ram, it was time to deal with the two Aegis guards in the mainframe room MP41 was hiding in. Having already hacked their vision to give her free access into and out of the room, it would still be a waste to let two perfectly good soldier dolls stand around doing nothing.
Breaking past the Manticores command directives was simple; it was too busy trying to retain order amongst so many fronts that it was struggling to accomplish anything. Now friendly, one of the Aegis approached MP41 as she hid under the sink. In order to devote all of her power to her electronic assault, she was forced to shut down almost all of her motor functions. Unable to move, she was going to rely upon the Aegis to sling her over its armored shoulder and carry her to safety. Her small size meant it would still be able to fight and defend itself if it needed to as well. The second Aegis, now pinging the rest of the Brigade as friendly, made its way to the ground floor, securing the location for the group. G43, who had been ordered by the Commandant to redirect to this location, was much less pleased to see the now friendly SF dolls. She was more upset about how slow they moved when compared to herself.
Despite the added protection, MP41 would still be a huge target on the shoulders of the Aegis, unable to defend herself as she lay draped over its shoulders. With G43 being too clumsy on her own to safely evacuate with both of them, the plan had hit a slight inconvenience. "Commandant," G43 called on the comms, "MP41, er, wolf puppy is locked down in EW and needs assistance."
"She can't just force some SF dolls to do that for her?"
"Negative on that Commandant," MG34 cut into the comms, reloading her machine gun, "it looks like she's keeping them locked down so we only have to deal with the stupider machines."
In the distance, the sound of the Manticore haphazardly firing its grenades reminded everyone of the severity of keeping the enemy distracted. The Commandant sighed into the comms, "I'm on my way to your position, church team give me cover then get back to the helicopter."
G43 and the second Aegis threw themselves into battle. Taking cover behind a wall, G43 safely fired her rifle at the Sangvis machines that were still pouring in from the rest of the town. While the ground floor wasn't the best position for her rifle, it was the deactivated SF Dolls that were really breaking her line of sight. Any enemy units
that avoided the hail of bullets from the machine gun nest in the church were soon met with the energy mace of the Aegis. Swinging like an old European knight as it waded through the streets, it crushed its former companions beneath its power with incredible ease. While cumbersome and slow moving, the bullets coming down with the rain fall more than made up the difference for the valiant soldier as MP41 did her best to keep the enemy from targeting the church tower or the others.
The Commandant flung herself through one of the broken windows of the old cafe, breathing heavily as her body tried to stay cool. A ping of concern rang in the back of MP41s neural cloud as she noticed this. The cold and rainy night should be more than enough to help them remain cool, making the Commandant's current state a major concern for the team right now. The Commandant reloaded a clip into her rifle and jogged over to the Aegis holding MP41. Slinging the rifle over her shoulders, she held MP41 in both arms and let the Aegis join its companion in the street. The machine gun fire stopped as the two sisters made their way back into the forest outside town. G43 waited a moment for an opportunity and vaulted through one of the windows to make her escape.
With their companions gone, MP41 was able to really focus herself on disabling the enemy and doing everything she could to keep that Manticore out of the fight. This kind of combat was starting to wear on her, however, and there was no way she'd be able to do this forever. They needed to leave soon or MP41 would start to lose control as she began to overheat and overtax her neural cloud. If the situation was allowed to continue for too long, it was entirely possible that the Manticore might attempt to hack and control her instead.
The Commandant watched the carnage unfolded outside for a moment before she dove into the line of fire. The two Aegis were trying their best to hold down the Sangvis line of machines, but without fire support their armor was failing them. While more than equipped to be able to handle bullets fired by hundred year old rifles, the light energy weapons that the SF machines used were wearing down on the heavily armored dolls. Eventually they would fall, and MP41 could only maintain this sort of combat for so long. As fewer SF units remained alive, the Manticore was able to dedicate more power to reestablishing control. Unfortunately for MP41, the Manticore also had a lot more power to spare as well.
Recognizing the dangerous situation, the Commandant tried to run as fast as she could with MP41 in her arms. Her particular doll model wasn't very fast, and the added weight of carrying another doll was not going to do her any favors. Trying to make up for it, MP41 struggled to maintain electronic supremacy over the SF forces, jamming their targeting to hopefully safeguard the two dolls in their escape. Energy weapons filled the night air, burning through raindrops as the projectiles flew around them. A hail of Manticore grenades exploded nearby, leveling an already crumbling building and causing the Commandant to stumble to her knees. She struggled to stand again, unable to use her hands to steady herself as she tried to carry MP41. As she stood, there was a distinct sound of something breaking. No doubt a stress fracture of sorts finally gave into the heat and pressure and snapped. Still, the Commandant ran, undoubtedly making the injury worse by forcing it.
Again, the Commandant tried her best to run into the forest, breathing heavily to try and cool herself down as she limped. MP41 could practically feel the heat radiating off of her, and if it wasn't for her clothes and skin the rain would be sizzling on her body. The cover provided by the trees and the forest bought the Commandant time to slow down and try to take it easy, her leg clearly broken. Running was making things worse, no doubt it was grinding against itself or worse. As she limped into the clearing, the helicopter began spinning its blades. Rain was flung far and wide as the rotors spun around in the night air, the big engines whining as they prepared to take off. MG34 had already mounted her machine gun on the side door, ready to cover their take off. The Commandant practically fell into the helicopter, collapsing onto the floor deck with MP41. "C96," she huffed, "get us the hell out of here."
The helicopter began to rise as the SF broke the tree line into the clearing. They tried to fire, but MP41 kept up her electronic assault on their targeting to cover their escape. MG34 opened fire in return, racking up her mission kill count even higher. In the distance. The Manticore could only watch as the helicopter made off with its prey, unable to feel fear at the retribution its creators would rain down upon it for failure as well as being unable to force its way through the forest. Thunder rumbled in the distance as MP41 retook control over her own body. She looked around at everyone as they all tried to relax and relieve their tension. The Commandant crawled over to a seat and rested her broken leg on the seat next to her, trying desperately to cool down before she went into an emergency shutdown mode. Even with the sound of the helicopter chopping through the air, MP41 could hear how heavily the commandant was breathing. Opening a water canteen, she drank its contents and laid across another seat, trying to force her body to rest.
Looking at the others, MP41 assessed their status. G43 was covered in mud, having slipped and fell while she tried to make her retreat. MG34 had taken off her soaking wet uniform coat and offered it to the Commandant to help her cool down. MG42 kept watching for trouble with the other door gun, making sure if anything showed up in the air it would run into trouble. Reaching for her camera, MP41 realized the Commandant must have confiscated it while they were running away. Apparently, she was so focused on distracting the enemy she never noticed the subtle slight of hand. No end of mission commemorative photos it seems. With a sigh, she made her way up to the cockpit of the helicopter to spend the rest of the ride with C96. "How was the wait?" She asked the doll pilot.
"A lot better than what I was expecting." C96 answered. She had only recently been given training to be a helicopter pilot, and all of this was brand new to her. Luckily, a doll could learn a new job faster than any human could hope. While mastery came with experience, at least they wouldn't need to hire a veteran pilot. And considering how easy her job was going to be for infiltration and exfiltration, most of the time she wouldn't have to do much work at all."I wanted to see a little action, but considering how hot it got for you guys I think I'm better off up here."
"It certainly got pretty hot all right." MP41 looked back at the Commandant. "More so for others than myself."
C96 gave a slight nod. "I'm trying to have us back as soon as possible, but this rain isn't helping."
MP41 smiled, "Take your time, nobody is dying yet." Looking back, the Commandant had removed her coat and most of her dress uniform top. Laying across multiple seats, she had mostly cooled herself down now. She had taken a huge risk for MP41 to get back safely, or perhaps she just wanted the mission objective completed in full. No doubt this information would be invaluable, but a human commander might simply just have the data transmitted to avoid this sort of situation from ever happening. In a way, the other dolls in the Brigade respected the Commandant for taking a personal interest not just in the mission, but in their safety as well. Despite having more faith in the Commandant now more than ever, MP41 couldn't shake the idea of just what kind of person she would become as her new upgrades made her drift further and further into becoming human. Would Kar98k be the same doll she is now, or would she become some distant, human commander watching her soldiers die en masse on satellite feed?
