It was early in the afternoon when the sun began to set upon Griffin. Somewhere on the battlefield, there was a desperate hold out of a few elite dolls working for G&K, struggling against all odds as they waited for backup. Despite all odds, the end finally came for them; but it was not Sangvis Ferri that delivered the final killing blow. As the might of the military crashed down upon what remained of the star tactical dolls of the Team Anti-Rain, the automated units of the military began to run amok all across the battlefield. No longer being directed by humans, they opened fire on Sangvis and Griffin alike, turning the entire region into a scrap heap of dolls. Both victims began to fall back to their respective leaders, neither able to effectively communicate across long distances. Griffin's supply lines were severed, unable to effectively coordinate a retreat while their were so many missing and dead. While the dolls could be restored from backups after the battle, their human field commanders could never be replaced. As the bulk of the military circled around the Sangvis Ferri's Mastermind, lured out of hiding by dolls that were now presumed dead, Griffin could only muster whatever strength they had left to weather the storm that was no doubt going to roll over them next.
Unfortunately for Kar98k, the military was not going to give her the luxury of a fight to death. Due to her and her team's actions during the Midnight Butterfly Incident, they were being suspected of inciting the entire event. It was even suspected that she had cooperated with Sangvis Ferri, seeing as during their previous operation Scarecrow had taken a vested interest in a peaceful conversation. The investigation even went so far as to confiscate her neural cloud scans from that event and use them as evidence of her being a suspected traitor. The two human soldiers confiscated her weapons, asking her to place her hands on the wall of the bunker while they searched her for anything else that could be used against her. They were not gentle, making sure they didn't miss anything that she could use to fight back. Stripped of her weapons, she watched as the rest of her Brigade was marched out by the military Aegis dolls. Each one of them were similarly unarmed, hands held on the back of their heads. She had given them strict orders to not resist, letting them know that she'd want them getting out of here alive even if she couldn't.
This, of course, didn't stop MG42 and MG34 from spouting off expletives and threats to the human soldiers. The two men did their best to ignore the idle insults as they discussed what to do. At this moment, Kar98k realized that one of her group was missing. FG42 must have activated her electronic cloaking system to hide from the Aegis, knowing that only the humans would have been able to see her. That explained the sister's confidence, they knew something that the military didn't. If anything they were probably trying to distract the men to give FG42 a chance to figure out a plan. "And another thing," MG42 yelled, kicking snow and mud, "if you're going to try her like a human, then she should have human rights as well!"
One of the men, the younger corporal, took the bait. "No lawyer would ever represent a modified toaster."
"Toaster?" MG34 feigned a furious attitude. "How dare you speak to us that way? We are highly advanced tactical dolls!"
The corporal pointed to the Hydra and it's massive energy weapons. "That is highly advanced," he pointed back at the girls, "you are just toasters. A bunch of little girls playing pretend."
"You just wish your tanks looked as good as this." MG42 puffed out her chest as a taunt.
The corporal took a step forward, "what the fuck do you mean by that."
"Are you having fun?" The sergeant asked, shaking his head in disappointment. "Go shut those two down if they're a hassle and stop wasting your time."
The corporal put his hand in his sidearm and marched through the mud and snow over to the girls. He had his sights set on MG42, turning off the safety as he drew his pistol. "What are you gonna do, shoot me?" The smug smile faded from MG42's lips as the man put the pistol to her forehead and pulled the trigger.
Silence followed as the body fell to the mud, the echoes of combat drowned out by the levity of what happened. MG34 stared in horror at her sister's body, the only thing keeping her from moving being the threat of utter annihilation from the military's armored units. The sergeant was less than pleased, cursing out his subordinate. "I didn't tell you to kill her!"
"You said shut her down," the corporal defended himself, "we still have the others."
The corporal kept his pistol trained on the other girls, who tried to shift away from his loose trigger as best they could. Synthetic blood and coolant mixed with melting snow at their feet, no attempt made to remove their fallen comrade. "So that's how they're going to treat us?" Kar98k asked, disgusted at the casual murder of one of her own.
"Our orders were to deny your recovery and to take the others back for questioning." The sergeant took his helmet off, showing a face that had seen many battle before. "Your charges are absolute, and your immediate termination was deemed necessary while we had the chance."
"I don't get a chance to defend myself?" Kar98k asked while the man was being open.
"I'm going against orders by speaking to you." Something told her that while the man didn't like his orders, he was going to carry them out no matter what. No doubt there was a firm commitment to his commanding officer, a shame he was their enemy now.
"So that's it then." Kar98k sighed and accepted her fate. There was no trace of FG42, if she had ever planned to help them in the first place. She found it better to accept the fate that life was handing her. She didn't have many regrets, only that she wished she wore her nicer uniform to her firing squad. The mechanized soldiers moved forward and stood in formation, standing at the ready for the order to fire. The sergeant produced a pack of cigarettes and offered one to her. Usually, she would decline this offer considering how much internal smoke played hell with a dolls cooling system. However, if she was going to die it didn't matter, and she took the paper roll, but did her best to not breathe in any of the acrid smoke. The sergeant lit one for himself as he took position to prepare for the final order.
Kar98k stood boldly in the face of a death that never came. MP41 collapsed onto the ground as she kept the military units from receiving orders. The machines were still active, but could only stand and watch the next few minutes unfold. The corporal, realizing what was happening, took aim at MP41 to execute her as well, but was met by a screaming MG34 who had every intent to punish the man for killing her sister. She tackled him to the ground, wailing as she kneeled over him and kept delivering blows. He tried to stop her by grabbing her head and pushing his thumbs into her eyes, but the tactic failed to work as intended on the doll. MG34 simply grabbed his wrists and squeezed, her hands becoming vice grips with every intent to break them off. He tried to rock her off of him, but she had firmly planted herself with no intent to let him free. She had the stability to hip fire a machine gun, she could easily resist his attempts to shake her off.
The sound of cracking bones bounced around Kar98k's head as the sergeant prepared to help the corporal. As he took aim at the doll, something jumped down from the roof of the bunker and landed in the mud. Its invisible feet squelched and splashed as it charged at the sergeant, who turned to meet it right as a blade was driven between the plates of his armored front side. FG42 revealed herself to everyone, pulling her knife out and giving the man another stab, in the stomach region. The man slumped onto the ground, clutching his bleeding wounds. He looked over to the corporal, who had given up fighting back and tried to defend his face from MG34 as she kept crashing blows down upon him. The angry doll settled for grabbing him by the throat, wrapping her hands around his neck and gritting her teeth.
Kar98k approached the sergeant, spitting out the cigarette he had given her. He was trying to give himself some form of first aid despite the severity of the blows he had received. Kneeling besides him, she undid some of the connections for his body armor, removing the plates and allowing his labored breathing to ease itself. No longer compressed by the body armor, blood flowed more freely from the man's wounds. Deciding to show the dying man some act of compassion, she grabbed his pistol to try and put him down easily. Despite his state, he still grabbed her wrist and squeezed, trying to prevent her putting him down. Taking the hint, she let go of the weapon. He continued to hold her until he finally died, his bloody grip loosening around her arm as he passed.
With a sigh, Kar98k stood and looked back at MG34. She was sobbing over the man she had killed, MP40 walking over to console her. MG34 reached out and threw her arms around the captain, crying into the other doll as she processed her actions. Kar98k looked at the man's blood that now stained her sleeve, realizing what it meant. MG42 could be restored from backup and given new life, losing only her memories of what had happened since then. These men were dead, and nothing could ever bring them back. They had friends and families that cared about them, yet it was the machines that stood up for themselves first. Kar98k, in a similar manner, had accepted the inevitability of her death as well. Despite knowing that a firing squad would be the end of her, she did not resist. Was death some sort of gift that dolls had been denied, was it really not something to be feared? Or was its presence something that changes how one accepts or denies life? Does the nihilist or the optimist accept their end? More so, which one was she?
Kar98k looked to FG42, who was nonchalantly wiping the blood off of her knife before putting it back in her boot. She was taken aback at how casually her gunner could just kill a man and pretend like it was nothing. "See something you like?" FG42 asked as she noticed Kar98k watching her.
"You killed that man." Was all she could muster in response.
FG42 sighed. "Yes, and I'm sure I'll have to kill quite a few more considering how badly they're mopping up everyone else."
Kar98k looked at the dead man before her. "More humans to kill."
"What's up with you, did something go haywire in your neural cloud or something?" FG42 asked. "We're soldiers, we kill each other."
"I've just never seen a man die so," Kar98k paused to think of the proper word to use, "painfully."
"Well it was either you or him," FG42 explained, "and I didn't like the way he was talking about keeping the others. Something tells me that it might have had something to do with everyone's fucked up neural clouds."
"Maybe you're right." Kar98k walked over to her girls, putting a hand on MG34's shoulder before picking up MP41. "We need to regroup with the rest of Griffin before the military comes to finish us off."
Everyone retrieved their weapons, taking care to avoid the hacked Military units. MP41 was heating up just trying to keep them all contained for so long, forcing Kar98k to shove some snow down her shirt in an attempt to keep her cool. They had to move fast, once they were far enough away the automated units would go berserk and fire at anything that wasn't army green. Everyone made their way back down the hill, bailing into the wooded slopes of the hill as they made their retreat. Within time, MP41 returned back to consciousness, but was still too exhausted to run for herself. MG34 opted to carry her sister's body, hoping there would be some way to restore her once they got back to the G&K camp. While there was a chance to retrieve her neural cloud and place her in a new body, the odds were slim considering how slow they'd have to move to avoid detection.
Surrounded on all sides, they could no longer afford to be reckless or carefree. MP41 confirmed that almost all long range communications were being jammed by the military, while most short range transmissions were running into issues from Sangvis Ferri interference. The only constant was a general distress order for all G&K dolls and commanders to return back to their encampment. An attempt at an exodus from the region was already underway, but it would take time to coordinate due to the military's control over the region. Harassment from all enemies was a reoccurring issue, and it would only become more difficult as night began to fall.
The sight of Griffin's ragtag assortment of dolls was a welcome sight after slogging through bushes and snow to avoid detection. The camp was a mess of panicked defenders as everyone prepared to evacuate. The Chief Commander was holding off the retreat long enough to allow any stragglers to arrive, prioritizing nonessential personnel or non-combatant humans. Some of the commanders were staying to help head the defense, but others were being withdrawn while command over their dolls was passed over to the Chief. The injured were a higher priority, especially those that needed immediate medical attention that wasn't from a triage tent. Blood, human and synthetic, stained the flaps of the medical tent as Kar98k watched one of the human commanders stumble inside while clutching a wound on his side. Griffin and Kruyger had been fighting with Sangvis Ferri for a handful of years now, and the military rolled in and nearly wiped both out in a single afternoon.
Reporting back to the command tent, Kar98k found the Chief Commander all alone, shifting between multiple remote command monitors trying to aid several groups with their return back to the encampment. Too many field commanders were killed by the military and SF, a lack of command structure throwing the Griffin dolls into disarray. She watched as the Chief helped them avoid obvious traps and patrolling enemies, glad to see that at least someone was doing something. She considered leaving them to it before deciding it would be best to offer some assistance. They flinched before giving her a quick hug. "I'm glad you're one of the few that made it." The Chief said, genuinely relieved at this good news before them.
"Wish I could say the same for a lot of the others." They both took a moment to remember the gravity of their situation. "Is there anything you'd like me to do to help?" She asked, trying to relieve some of the burden.
"I'd like you to get together with Thompson to organize our defensive lines." The Chief pointed back to the holographic table, displaying the last recorded battlefield layout before Griffin was jammed. "You don't mind being on one of the last rides out with me, do you?"
She gave them a smile. "I'm a good shot, but I can't make a shot all the way from my office."
A doll entered the tent, moving with the authority of a veteran, toting her submachine gun in a casual manner. She tipped her hat to Kar98k and then addressed the Chief, "Boss, I've got a list so far of some of the girls I'd like heading out to check for wounded."
"Good work Thompson," he gave the doll a nod and put a hand on Kar98k's shoulder, "good timing as well; I'd like you to take Commander Kar98k and get her on top of organizing our dolls to hold a defensive line while we begin the evacuation."
Thompson looked Kar98k up and down, then nodded as she motioned for her to follow. Her gaze was piercing and analytical, as if she didn't believe that this is who she had to deal with. But despite her casual and unkempt appearance, she most certainly carried herself like an expert in the field of battle. Kar98k gave a quick salute to the Chief, then left to follow the doll. "If you can give me a position, I can have my team-"
"Sorry Toots, but your team is going to have to change for now." Thompson interrupted her, taking charge of the conversation. "I need your machine guns and rifles on the forefront making up the line. The rest will have to be running logistics for our teams still operating out there. Your second has a command chip which means she won't be completely useless out in the field if they get caught in a pinch. You need to stay here and help us hold out, we have too many dolls and not enough commanders to lead them. There's a lot more riff raff here than you're probably use to, so get used to it."
"Toots?" Kar98k raised an eyebrow at the casual address from Thompson.
"If that's all you're objecting to, then go tell your girls where to go and come find me." Kar98k felt a mild refreshment that she didn't need to lead this entire operation, but she did feel a ping of disappointment about being away from her team. While she still trusted them to do their job effectively, she didn't like the idea of being in command of dolls she didn't know. "You have a rifle, and you can tell your ass from a hole in the ground; that'll make our lives easier and longer once the commanders start to bail out."
Humans were such fragile things, and Griffin was never prepared to deal with two foes of superior fire power like this. It wouldn't be long before combat found it's way to this camp, and the human commanders and adjutants wouldn't last long in the heat of it. More so, it was a well known fact that humans had only one life to live and needed to be kept safe during combat. Nobody on the frontline could afford to waste their time keeping humans alive, many of them being nothing more than millstones on a dolls neck once the shooting started. Kar98k would have enough of a hard time trying to keep this rabble in line long enough to hold the evacuation.
Various trenches were dug along the outer perimeter of the camp, covering the most likely directions of attack. Most every doll manning the trenches was accompanied but their own small squad of dummies. While not as capable of independent thought and action as the controlling doll was, dummies were more than capable of filling out a small force when needed. This allows for a single doll to become a vastly superior threat on the battlefield. Of course, dummies were useless if the doll controlling them was killed first. Kar98k opted out of her own offered dummies, deciding that they'd be more effective if given to some of the machine gun dolls along the line. Resources were going to be scarce enough as it is in the following hours, and time was not on their side.
Darkness began to descend on the dolls as the sun began its own retreat from this world, the chill of a late winter night returning to the air. Evergreen bushes and trees lined the forests, a fact that seemed less than coincidental now that weapons were watching them every second. While a Manticore could easily be spotted, most every other Sangvis Ferri product could easily sneak up to the clearing line and open fire without being detected. Under the cover of darkness, this was the perfect time to attack.
Kar98k walked through the trenches, hunched over to avoid sticking her head out. As she made her way through, she checked out each of the dolls in the trench to make sure they were ready for an incoming attack. Dolls in the field reported and unusually large SF force nearby, a sign that the military was still dealing with other things. It wouldn't be long before someone made a move on Griffin, the PMC serving as a dangerous wildcard if left unprovoked. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that Sangvis Ferri knows how to deal with Griffin and would rather not wind up with a knife in their back if they could avoid it. What was most surprising was the fact that they still haven't made any moves to retreat from the area. Any and all scout reports seem to claim that SF was still quite active in the region and that Mastermind was no doubt still here. The question of the day was what could compel them to remain under constant threat rather than evacuate?
"Uh, Commander, can you check something?" One of the dolls, Garand, flagged her over.
Kar98k sidled up in the trench next to the doll, putting a hand on the other doll's shoulder as she settled into the position. "What do you have for me?" She asked, readying her own rifle just in case.
"I think I see someone out in the woods, so I figured I'd tell you." She explained as an offer to share her visual feed pinged for Kar98k. Accepting the offer, she blinked and was now staring down the scope of this doll's weapon. It took a moment to focus, but she could clearly see something moving in the dark forest. The shape was hard to identify in the woods, but it seemed to be a doll of sorts. Cutting the feed, Kar98k tried to sight in on it with her own rifle. Still, the vaguely doll or human shaped object was just barely visible.
"Well, you're not going crazy." Kar98k concluded, a slight reassurance for Garand. "I think it might help to have someone get a closer look-"
The dull thudding on mortars in the distance interrupted any thought Kar98k had. Projectiles arced over the trees and towards Griffin's defensive line, forcing everyone to throw their heads down and hope the trench gives them necessary cover. Sangvis Ferri must have snuck in some of their Jaguar mortar drones, and whomever was in the tree line was sighting targets for them to rain explosives. It was a sound tactic to soften the line for a follow up offensive, limiting the amount of guns facing down their attack. "I want everyone ready for an incoming charge." She yelled, forgetting that it would have been more efficient to simply broadcast it.
As the mortars died down, rifles and guns found themselves back over the top of the trench in time for various Sangvis Ferri troops to make their way out of the trees and into the open. Despite Griffin's opening fire, the hail of bullets did nothing to stop the advance as the mortars opened back up again. This time they landed closer, causing the trenches to shake and collapse as the explosions threw dirt all over them. More importantly was the fact that they seemed to be landing towards their back line, forcing them to remain in their current positions. In an attempt to get reinforcements, Kar98k tried to hail the Chief Commander to no avail. As the shadow of a ringleader moved through the woods from tree to tree, she realized she needed help and she needed it now. Something was causing a local communications breakdown, and word needed to get through soon. Kar98k realized that as the only doll on the line without a dummy linked to her, she was probably the weakest one on the line. There were more than enough dolls with command chips installed that she could leave them to their devices while she braved the explosions to get help.
Passing along command privileges to the necessary dolls, she took a deep breath and charged into the hellfire. Her damaged core began to run hot as she ran a serpentine pattern through the explosions, trying her best to predict where they might land next. Dirt and rocks peppered her from the impacts nearby, but she struggled to maintain footing as she approached the camp. Surprisingly, there was no one ready in the camp to reinforce their position. In fact, the camp seemed empty almost at first. Breathing heavily to cool down her core, Kar98k looked around as she tried to figure out why the camp was a ghost town on this side.
The answer hit her as soon as she felt it in her neural cloud. It began as an immense pressure, similar to a human getting a migraine. As her firewall collapsed it brought with it an even greater feeling of lightheadedness, her world spinning like an amusement park ride. Before she could collapse, she felt a great internal coolness as she lost all sense of her body, her parts becoming phantom limbs to her. Still, she continued to receive numerous notifications as her core began to reach dangerous levels, redlining as it overheated. The sound of someone approaching behind her made her want to spin around, but she no longer controlled her motions.
"So this is the Doll Commander?" The voice cooed as its speaker circled around to face her. The doll was dressed like a maid, but carried herself with an air of supremacy that made Kar98k feel small. "I figured you would have put up more of a fight."
Kar98k couldn't speak, all she could do was watch as her core continued to warn her to cease all actions and cool off. Unfortunately, she could no longer hyperventilate to keep cool, and there was no doubt that the maid had hacked her and was forcing her to overheat. In fact, she was willing to guess that this maid doll was the reason that this section of the camp was so empty. The real question was how did she manage to sneak around the defensive line; they had the entire perimeter covered. While Sangvis Ferri was quite resourceful in their preparations to defend this area, there's no way this doll could have managed to get around them. Unless, of course, this doll was a Ringleader well beyond that of the average elite model. It was entirely possible that whoever this was stood entire echelons above even Scarecrow. Whoever she was, she now had Kar98k at her complete mercy. The maid reached onto Kar98k's side and pulled out her knife, inspecting the blade. She ran her fingers over the edge, poking the top to test its sharpness. "It appears you're having a ventilation issue," she said with a cruel smile, "please allow me to assist you with that."
The maid drove the blade straight into Kar98k, the tip of the knife driving into her core and causing it to crack and burst. A pinging noise echoed through her body as the popped piece of her core banged around inside of her. The amount of desperate notifications going off in her neural cloud were electronically deafening. The maid simple laughed to herself as she withdrew the blade and dropped it to the ground. "Nothing more but a desperate attempt to imitate a Sangvis Ferri elite model," the maid said, "and I took you down like any other Griffin trash."
The maid retreated into the shadows of the camp as she withdrew from Kar98k's neural cloud. Free from control, she collapsed onto the ground, clutching the wound in her chest as it leaked coolant in a similar shade of blood. The ground beneath her stained red as she gasped for air like a fish out of water, multiple emergency functions trying to override each other to keep her alive. Her core was burning out of control, forcing itself to shut down and cutting power to the rest of her body. In an attempt to keep her neural cloud from burning out without power, Kar98k locked herself in an emergency black box power mode. All of her nonessential functions were deactivated, an emergency battery keeping her neural cloud running. While she'll be locked to her deep level III consciousness until she can be adequately reactivated, so long as she can be recovered in time before the battery runs dry. Unfortunately, with that Sangvis Ferri Ringleader maid entering the camp, it was entirely likely that nobody would be able to rescue her in time.
All Kar98k could hope to do was close her eyes and let the darkness embrace her, praying to whatever god there was that she wouldn't have to wait for long.
