The shadows of the strelets plastering the adjacent wall grew larger as they neared the T junction of the corridor, M4A1 tensely gripped her rifle and gave it a quick press-check before bringing it to a ready.
ST AR-15 pulled her PDW out of her "holster" and followed suit. "Commander, stay behind me - I mean it."
The Dolls anticipatingly trained their weapons on the corner, ready to fire on whoever dared stick their head around it, but what they saw caught them completely off-guard.
"Who are we?!" A high-pitched, squeaky voice chanted from around the corner.
"XS Units!" A group of similar sounding voices chanted in response.
"What do we want?!"
"Echelon assignments!"
"When do we want them?!"
"Now!"
A group of miniature strelets, no bigger than the size of large mice, rounded the corner, holding picket signs and chanting in unison. The Commander, M4, and STAR exchanged bewildered looks as the group steadily marched down the corridor to the door to William's Office.
"Paradeus has these too? What's next, are we going to have mini-Russians piloting toy-tanks?" The Commander uttered.
"Don't tell me you're planning on recruiting them..." STAR sighed out.
"No way, I already have to worry about SOP Junior swallowing the SF ones and choking on them."
After eyeing the entrance, the leader of the group turned up to the Commander. "Hey, you! Move that boulder and step aside, we want to talk to the boss man!" The leader squeaked.
"Uh, I don't think you want to go on there...your boss is in a bit of a bad mood today." The Commander rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.
"Did it sound like I was asking for permission?! Move aside and let us in you scab!"
"Calm down there, you little munchkin. I think it's past your bedtime, you seem like you're getting cranky." The Commander replied dismissively.
"YOU WANT SOME OF ME?! BRING IT ON, BITCH!" The leader squealed as he suddenly jumped up and slammed the tip of his boot directly into the Commander's shin.
"Ow!" The Commander cried out in pain, grasping his shin as he hobbled around on one foot.
"LIGHT 'EM UP, BOYS!" The leader screamed out, and the swarm of mini strelets immediately raised their weapons and began firing.
"AAARRRGGGGHHH!" The Commander cried out as he shielded his face with his arms as a relentless barrage of miniature bullets pelted him and his dolls, bouncing impotently off of them (but still managing to sting quite a bit).
"JESUS CHRIST, THIS IS WORSE THAN AIRSOFT!" The Commander yelled as the trio quickly stumbled past their assailants and charged down the corridor, a hailstorm of pellets bombarding them from behind.
"Ngh! What's the plan, Commander?" M4 cried out.
"Plan?! I was just following you!" The Commander yelled in reply.
"What?! You're the Commander, think of something!"
"Okay, the plan is...For you to come up with a plan!"
"Wha?! You-...Damn it, AR-15, think of something!"
"Just shut up and keep running!" STAR yelled.
The trio continued running down the corridor as the barrage continued, "bullets" ricocheted off of the walls and rattled on the floor like a swarm of marbles. Eventually, they reached a large set of double doors, and they quickly burst through them. They quickly slammed the doors behind them, locked them, and pushed a nearby table in front of them. After taking a moment to catch their breath, the group turned to face the inside of the room they had entered.
They had found themselves in a large hall, a grand staircase leading up to a second floor overlooking the hall stood in front of them, there were doors on both sides of the hall as well. It looked as if it was the foyer of some kind of mansion...
STAR finally broke the silence. "What is this place?..."
The Commander stepped forward as he looked around the room. "It's definitely not an ordinary house, that's for sure..."
"So what do we do now?"
M4 turned to the entrance behind them, where a group of squeaky voices squealed as they pounded on the doors. "Well, we can't go out the way we came in. We'll have to find a way through."
"We're stranded behind enemy lines, we have no idea where we are, and there's a crazed superhuman mutant with an army of cyborg abominations hunting us down...I think now would be a good time to split up and start searching separately." The Commander suggested.
"Commander!" M4 snapped.
"Relax - I'm kidding. Let's search the first floor, and if we don't find a way out, we move up to the second level and see what we can find."
The two dolls nodded affirmatively and they set off to the door on the left side of the hall, cautiously entering with their weapons raised. A large, lengthy table stood in front of them adorned with ornate plates and vases, a grandfather clock clicked incessantly on the side of the room, echoing throughout the spacious room.
"A dining room?" The Commander uttered as they cautiously made their way down to the other end of the room.
Suddenly, something caught the Commander's attention...
"Guys...you might want to take a look at this."
"Huh?" M4 briskly walked to the Commander's side and instantly saw it...An empty bottle of Jack sat spilled over in front of the fireplace. "Jack Daniels...Could it be...?"
"There's only two people on this side of the Atlantic that I've seen drinking that shit, and Star's right here."
"I thought you liked bourbon?"
"Jack Daniels is the McDonald's of bourbon, you have it when you're broke, it's too late at night to find anything else, and you hate yourself."
"So, it's yours, then?" STAR chimed in.
"Fuck you, Star. Anyways, this is the stuff people buy for underage people that won't stop bugging them to get them some hard stuff, because it's cheap and they know it's just going to wind up all over the bathroom floor with their buddy laying face-first in it in the end. Nobody else drinks this shit willingly after their first close call with alcohol poisoning if there is literally anything else around, Star here only has Sixteen's old stash to work with."
"Wait, AR-15's been drinking M16's whiskey?" M4 asked.
"And I'm counting the days until I get woken up at 0300 to go bail her ass out of jail..." The Commander affirmed.
"Fifteen..." M4 shook her head disapprovingly at STAR, who ashamedly turned her eyes downwards.
Suddenly, a low groan sounded from one of the adjacent rooms. Immediately killing the chatter, the team exchanged acknowledging looks and readied their weapons, slowly approaching the door leading to the room.
Training her PDW on the door, Star cautiously made entry. As soon as she entered the room, the sound of glass ratting at her foot immediately sparked her attention...
Another empty Jack Bottle... As she looked up from it, she quickly realized that there was a trail of empty bottles leading down the hallway and continuing around the corner.
Another low groan...
The group slowly, carefully continued down the hall, the wooden floorboards creaking and groaning with every step, until they reached the corner. STAR trained her aimpoint on the corner as she shifted to the opposite wall, and began to slowly edge forward. As she rounded the corner, the source of the noises slowly came into view...
A woman with silver, orange-streaked hair tied into a long braid hanging over a black trenchcoat sat crouched on a rug around the corner, A bottle of Jack Daniels wedged in her mouth. The cracking of glass suddenly sounded before the whole bottle shattered in the one-eyed doll's mouth, the contents dumping into her mouth in an instant.
Repulsed by the sight, STAR groaned in disgust as the Commander peaked his head to see the source.
"Sixteen?..." The Commander uttered out.
M16's head slowly began to turn over her shoulder as she let out a low, sickly groan, before she slowly stood up, turned towards the group, and began to walk forward...
STAR's eyes widened as she felt herself leaning back. "Hey...Sixteen?..."
Sixteen only groaned in response as she continued to shamble forward, the trio began slowly stepping backwards as she drew closer.
"Sixteen, it's us! It's the Commander and the AR Team! Snap out of it!" M4 cried out, but M16 only continued her approach.
"Alright, that's far enough!...Damn it, what's gotten into you?!" The Commander began to feel a sense of panic creeping in as his old friend refused to listen to reason.
Finally, M16 managed to groan out something coherent. "Waa...teeeerr..."
Just then, the sound of a door opening behind them caused M4 to let out an alarmed gasp as she immediately turned with her weapon raised, but the sight of the culprit caused her to instantly lower it...
"M-M4?...Commander?..." The dark haired, heterochromic doll uttered in surprise as she nearly dropped the glass of water and aspirin tablet she had been holding in her hand.
"M4! Commander! AR-15!" The blonde, crimson eyed doll standing behind her cried out with childish glee.
"RO? SOP-II?..." The Commander was caught completely off-guard. Ever since he had lost contact with Aeneas, the Commander had been a nervous wreck over RO635 and SOPMOD-II's uncertain fate, but in a bizarre shift of his luck, here they were right in front of him. The Commander sighed in relief at the sight of them alive and relatively unharmed.
"H-How did...What is...When did you get here?!" RO stuttered out.
The Commander awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. "William somehow managed to harness the power of relic technology to teleport me and every member of the AR Team outside of the Avernus onto the base, and then he started screaming something about continuing his bloodline, injected himself with some kind of roids or something, and then started punching boulders at us...We narrowly escaped with our lives and now we're here."
RO raised her eyebrow as the Commander recounted the events of the past several minutes, and it became clear that she had given up trying to make any sense of it around the half-way point as she simply nodded along. "Oh...That explains it."
"I'm glad you're okay, RO." M4 spoke up.
"Yeah, I was worried that I was going to have to ask Scarecrow for another dinerga-OOF!" The Commander was cut off by RO forcefully jabbing him in the stomach with her elbow, knocking the wind out of him and leaving him sucking air as she walked up to M16, water and aspirin in hand.
"Here, this is what I could find." RO said as she handed M16 the glass and the small tablet, which she immediately ripped out of her hands and guzzled down in an instant.
"Urrgghhhh..." M16 groaned out.
"Better?" RO asked.
"...A little...God, my head..."
RO sighed. "First, SOP-II kills Statesec's contact, and now you go and get yourself trashed the moment we stumble across a bar in this place...What am I going to do with you people?"
"Wait...She got all of that from the bar in this place?" The Commander gestured to the trail of JD bottles littering the hall.
"Yeah, the entire shelf behind the bar was lined with it. I tried to hold her back, but the moment she laid her eye on it it's like she was possessed by a demon or something, SOP-II is easier to reel in most days than she was." RO affirmed with another sigh as she motioned to the door she came out of.
Inside the dimly lit room, a lavish grand-piano sat on a checkered tile floor surrounded by dust-covered tables, at the far end of the room sat a modest bar, its shelves cleaned out and destroyed by M16's binge and subsequent rampage.
"...Well, at least we're all here now. Let's get out of this hall and try to get our bearings." The Commander suggested.
Meanwhile...
"I need to hand it to you, Twelve...This is a dumber idea than I could have ever come up with..." Ange grumbled as she slipped on the cloak - the same cloak that the Black Nytos wore as their uniform, and let her hair down, doing her best to cover her scars.
"It's the best I can do, alright? You're in no shape to be creeping around in the dark like a Voron operative, let alone shooting your way out, and forgive me for not having complete confidence in your friend's invention that looks something someone who's watched too much 'Inspector Gadget' would make." AK-12 replied.
"For all of the trouble you seemed to have gone through to get that body of yours and get inside this place, I was expecting something that would at least feel like we weren't winging it..."
"Really? Since when were we not winging it Ange? We've done nothing but wing it and hope our luck holds out for as long as I've known you." 12 shot back.
"I think our luck's just about run out, Twelve..." Ange sighed in resignation
"Okay, how about I go find a real Nyto body for you then? Or how about I just upload your brain into my neural cloud, we leave in the same body, then when we get out of here I'll put you in a Dinergate while I find someone to grow you a new one...Or I maybe I can upload my neural cloud into your brain, go through all your embarrassing memories, learn how to think like you, and then come up with a better plan? Maybe I can just take over your body entirely and make an ass out of you in front of all of your friends after this is done?" 12 sarcastically suggested.
Ange shook her head. "Now that's just stupid..."
"That's what I thought, now come on."
Ange let out a resigned exhale. "...You know this isn't going to work, right?"
"Just follow my lead, don't smile, and leave the talking to me."
Elsewhere...
A few minutes later, the Commander and the AR Team lounged in the room as RO recounted the events of the last few hours. The Commander leaned on a wall near the bar, RO sitting on the barstool closest to him as she talked, SOP-II sitting next to her, while M16 sat slumped over at the far-end of the bar. Meanwhile, M4A1 sat at the piano, lost in thought as she aimlessly tapped on the keys. ST AR-15 sat next to her, facing RO and the Commander as they brought each other up to speed.
"So, Gray and Bramedb are history, SOP had a 'friendly fire' incident with RPK-16, there's been no word from Architect or Mona's teams, and Ange's still in captivity...But AK-12 and her have some kind of plan..."
"Paradeus is probably turning this base inside out looking for us, too. There's no telling how long we'll be safe here, they're definitely not going to let the deaths of three of their elites go unanswered." RO affirmed.
The Commander let out a sharp exhale as he braced himself against the wall, turning his eyes to the floor. "Alright...Lemme think, lemme think...Well, we need to get the hell out of here, that much is certain...And obviously, that means finding a way out - preferably one where we won't get shot to pieces."
"RPK might have had some kind of plan to smuggle us off of the base unnoticed, but someone tore off her arms and beat her to death with them." RO huffed accusingly as she turned to SOP-II.
"Hey, come on now, she was some kind of triple-agent, you know I have a hard time following these kinds of things." SOP-II replied defensively, before she turned to the Commander and looked at him with sad puppy-eyes. "...Am I in trouble, Commander?"
"We'll figure it out, SOP-II. This can't be any harder to cover up than that time K11 chlorine-gassed that furry convention." The Commander replied.
RO sighed yet again. "Well, with the Commander here, it's probably redundant anyways. We don't have a whole lot of options..."
"Right, the black zone..." The Commander replied dejectedly, still half in thought.
"Before it comes up - No, we are not leaving you, Commander." RO sternly said.
STAR nodded in approval. "If you're staying - I'm staying. That isn't up for debate...And what about that Relic teleporting bullshit? Couldn't William just teleport us back once we get far enough away anyways?"
A silence filled the room as the atmosphere grew heavy.
"...It looks like running isn't an option, then." The Commander spoke after a silence.
RO's eyes shifted nervously. "Wait...you aren't suggesting that..."
The Commander nodded. "William...We're going to kill him."
RO massaged her throbbing temples. "There's six of us and who knows how many of them...And they'll protect their 'Father' with everything they have."
"I'm not going to just sit here and wait to die, RO. If this is where it's going to end, I'm going to make these fuckers pay for it." STAR said with determination before turning to the Commander. "I'm with you, Commander."
M4 finally appeared to snap out of her thoughts and stood to her feet. "AR-15 and the Commander are right...We can't run, not anymore."
"M4?..." RO uttered, taken aback by M4's sudden resolution.
M4 walked up to the Commander and stood by him. "Everyone...I know I've been...gone...for a while, and I know that I probably seem...different to you now..."
The Commander nodded. "Does this mean you're ready to tell us what the hell is going on now?"
M4 exhaled and nodded. "It's because...for you guys, I've only been gone for a few weeks...but for me, I've been gone...longer...I've seen things, Commander...Things that I don't know how to describe to you, things that...I don't want to remember...I can't let these things happen, not here, and not to you...Listen to me - William, this base, everybody who follows him, anybody that could continue what he is doing...We need to destroy it - all of it, everything. Nothing can survive, and it needs to happen now. We can't wait a moment longer. If anybody gets their hands on William or the things in this base...I don't know if we'll have another chance to stop it..."
"Hold on a minute, are you saying that you've seen...?" STAR asked.
M4 nodded again. "It was...a long journey back here...I spent much of it thinking that I would never see any of you again...that there was no going back...But that doesn't matter now - I found a way, and now we're here, and if we move now, we can stop what's coming." M4 turned back to the Commander. "Just promise me one thing Commander - Promise me you'll kill him, no matter what he tells you, no matter what he offers you, no matter what he threatens you or anybody else with. He needs to die, nothing less is acceptable."
The Commander nodded. "...Then let's do it."
"I guess there's no other way, is there?" RO resigned. "But, how are we going to pull this off?"
"We can start by finding our way out of this house." The Commander replied.
"And then?..." RO pressed.
"And then...we improvise."
RO groaned audibly in response, meanwhile, M16 shakily stood from her barstool and stumbled over to the Commander, wrapping her arm around his shoulder.
"Itsh okayy, RORO! The gangshj'all here now!" M16 slurred out, shaking the Commander with her arm. "Don'tcha worry, Commander! I won't let anything happen to my best buddyyyy!"
"And Sixteen's still drunk..." RO groaned once again.
"God, your breath smells like the glue I used to sniff when I was a kid..." The Commander uttered as he tried to recoil back from M16's advance.
"You know, a lot of things are starting to make sense now..." STAR remarked.
"I can't tell if you're joking, and I really don't know what to make of that..." RO added.
"I was...but, you know, now that you mention it...there was this one place in Mexico that I was deployed at where all of the water smelled like Fabuloso...I don't think I ever got the smell out of my canteen...I wonder sometimes what that did to me..."
The AR team exchanged briefly exchanged looks of concern.
"...No wonder you're resistant to ELID..." RO uttered after a short silence.
"Between that, the black mold in my old barracks, all of the times I ate at Waffle House... It probably shouldn't be so surprising..."
"Guys...our way out?" M4 tried to bring everyone back on topic.
"Right...The front entrance is a no-go, but there must be a back door somewhere...Let's try to find it first, shall we?" The Commander surmised.
M4 nodded. "We'll search this wing of the house first, then spread our search to the rest of the first floor. Should our efforts on this floor not yield anything, we will work our way up the floors above until we find a way out or something we can use to make one. Any questions?"
A moment of silence followed as the team exchanged determined looks.
"Then let's move it out."
Back in the hallway once again, the team stacked themselves on the next door down. STAR trained her PDW on the door as M4 kneeled down and slid a snake camera underneath.
"Got a hallway, one door on the left, hallway entrance on the right, another door further down on the right. No contacts visible." M4 relayed over her Zener. "RO, SOP, take the door on the left. 15, 16, check the right hallway. Commander, you're with me, we'll push past the junction and check the door at the end."
After the team nodded in acknowledgement, M4 gently tried the doorknob. Upon verification that it was unlocked, she pushed the door open and the team quickly filed in. STAR trained her gun on the corner as they she shifted forward, M16 awkwardly stumbling behind her.
"Right hallway's clear. Got a door on the left side." STAR affirmed as she posted up at the junction and covered the hallway, internally rolling her eyes at M16's impaired movements.
"Move up and check the door, RO, SOP-II, stack up and try the door ahead." M4 ordered.
RO nodded and moved up to the door, quickly snaking an optic cable underneath. "Small room, nobody visible."
"Clear it."
RO quietly tried the knob, then pushed the door open. SOP-II quickly moved inside, RO filing in after her.
"Clear, we're coming out." RO confirmed after a couple seconds.
"Commander." M4 motioned with her head to follow her.
The Commander shifted behind the lead doll, training his USP on the corridor ahead. "At your back."
The Commander and M4 cautiously pushed up to the end of the Corridor, RO and SOP-II following close behind.
"Looks like some kind of...greenhouse. I don't see anybody from here, but be ready for anything..." M4 relayed.
The Commander nodded. "With the way things have been going lately, I wouldn't be surprised if the plants tried to fucking eat us..."
"Commander, police the noise...respectfully." M4 sighed out and motioned for SOP-II to get into position.
After SOP-II gave an affirmative nod, M4 briskly shoved the door open, and SOP-II made her entry, the rest of the team behind her.
"Look gang! We have visitors!" Something cheerfully called out
The sudden noise nearly caused M4 to jump out of her boots and fire into the middle of the room.
"What the-?! W-Who said that?!" RO's heart raced as she trained her submachine gun to the source of the noise, but there was nobody in sight...
"We're down here! Everybody smile for our visitors!" The voice replied.
Everybody turned their gaze downwards to the bed of sunflowers in the middle of the greenhouse, who were smiling cheerfully at them and waving their leaves at them.
"What...the..." The Commander uttered.
"A-are you...going to try to eat us?" RO asked.
"We would do no such thing! We wish for nothing more than peace and happiness!" The flowers called out.
Seeing the flowers smiling and waving elicited a certain sense of...tranquility out of M4. She even found herself smiling slightly watching them, feeling a sense of comfort that she hadn't felt in a long while. "Heh...even in a place like this, good things can still exist..."
Meanwhile, the Commander's eyes fell on a switch labeled 'Love and Hope Dispenser'. "Hey, what's this do?"
Not even waiting for anybody to finish processing his question, let alone give an answer, the Commander pressed the button. Suddenly, a spew of fire shot out of a nozzle above the sunflowers, engulfing them in flames immediately.
"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH! OOOOHHHH GOD IT BURNS! BURNIIIIIIINNNNNGGGGG! WHHHHYYYYY?!" The flowers screamed out in agony as the AR Team gasped in horror.
"COMMANDER, WHAT DID YOU DO?!" M4 shrieked in shock and terror.
"IT SAID WOULD GIVE THEM LOVE AND HOPE! THAT'S NOT LOVE AND HOPE! THAT'S NOT LOVE AND HOPE AT ALL!" The Commander cried out.
"Oh my God!...Water! Here's some water!" RO frantically ran to a bucket of clear fluid and threw it over them flames.
The flames dissipated immediately...but the flowers continued screaming as an unsettling crackling noise resounded as steam began to rise from their petals and their stems began to turn a sickly purple.
"That wasn't water! That was Mountain Dew V-JOLT!" The Commander cried.
"MOUNTAIN DEW V-JOLT?! NOOOOOOOOOOO!" The flowers continued screaming in agony as they slowly melted down, one by one their screams were silenced, their futile thrashes against the inevitable growing weaker and weaker until they eventually resigned themselves.
"I only wanted...to be loved..." The last flower gasped out as it joined its brethren, melting down into a sickly amorphous sludge.
M4 and RO could only watch in horror, their eyes frozen wide open as they whimpered in shock, while SOP-II merely observed in morbid curiosity as the flowers dissolved in front of her.
"Uh...whoops..." The Commander uttered apologetically.
M4 glared at the Commander and huffed. "I can't believe you sometimes..."
"It said it would dispense love and hope! What kind of sick bastard considers this to be 'love and hope'?!"
M4 grumbled. "Let's just get the hell out of here..."
M4 made her way to the other end of the room, over to a door clearly marked 'Exit'. She gave the door a quick shove only to feel the resistance of a sturdy deadbolt. "Locked...figures."
The doll's eyes turned to a mechanism on the wall beside it, which appeared to be some kind of scrambled up picture, and the sign above it: "In case of emergency: Solve puzzle to unlock emergency exit"
"He locked the emergency exit? What a dick..." The Commander said after following M4's gaze.
Meanwhile...
As the door burst open, STAR quickly rounded the corner with her PDW raised, M16 stumbling in behind her.
"Clear." STAR affirmed.
The room was small, barely bigger than a walk-in-closet would be. There was only two things of note: Some kind of statue of a Tiger built into the wall, and a mechanism with a square indentation next to it.
"The hell is this thing doing here?" M16 asked curiously, staring at the statue.
"Who knows? It's a big dumb statue." STAR replied dismissively.
"Yeah but why? This room is so small and out of the way, nobody would see it unless they were looking for it, and it's built into the wall, so it's not like it's been moved into storage...What's the point of having a display piece like this if this is what you're going to do with it?"
"He's a narcissistic weirdo with 'fuck-you-money', who knows what goes through his head? Let's just go find the others before the Commander gets himself into more trouble."
"I don't know...I just feel like this is important somehow...and what's this here?" M16 turned to the mechanism next to it.
STAR stared silently at the mechanism for a few moments before speaking again. "I think I've seen something like this before...In a game once...It might be a slot for some kind of crank..."
"Like, a hand-crank?"
"No - the Jason Statham movie." STAR replied sarcastically.
"You know, I think you've been spending too much time around the Commander. You're turning into a real smart-ass..."
"Well, you and M4 keep going MIA every five minutes, SOP-II has the attention span of a coked-up squirrel, and RO can only do so much with that pea-shooter of hers, so it's been down to me to watch his ass."
As STAR was speaking, M16 pulled out another bottle of JD from what seemed like thin-air.
STAR scoffed. "Another one?! Really?!"
"Ya' know what they say the best cure to a hangover is." 16 jovially replied as she popped the cork off the bottle.
As STAR watched she noticed a similarity between the base of the bottle and the indentation in the mechanism...
"Hey, what are you doing?!" 16 cried out as STAR seized the bottle out of her hand and jammed its square base into the indentation.
Before the alcoholic could say anything else, STAR grabbed her by the hair and jammed her mouth onto the top. As M16 happily drained the bottle's contents, STAR grabbed her by the legs and started turning her clockwise by the ankles. As the mechanism creaked, the sound of stone grinding against wood reverberated through the room as the statue began revolving, revealing a small hidey-hole in the side which contained but a small tablet.
M16's legs thudded to the floor as STAR haphazardly released her, the alcoholic still contently gulping from the bottle as STAR made her way to the secret compartment. "What's this? Some kind of puzzle piece?"
She was about to shrug the whole ordeal off as a waste of time, but STAR suddenly got a feeling that if it was hidden in there, it had to have some importance, and opted to hold onto it instead at the last moment.
"Ahhh~ ehehehe" M16 let out a refreshed sigh as released herself from the bottle and thudded to the floor, feeling as if she was on cloud nine.
STAR grumbled in frustration. "Come on Sixteen, get your ass up. I swear to god, if you make me drag you..."
Meanwhile...
"Come on, M4...I thought your AI was supposed to be good at this kind of thing..." The Commander sighed as the elite Doll's attempts to solve the puzzle were proven unsuccessful.
"I'm doing the best I can, did you want to try it?" M4 snapped as she made yet another unsuccessful attempt.
The Commander grumbled. "Seriously, who the hell locks a door like this?"
"Didn't Mister Griffin make you solve a puzzle to open the door to our base in Berlin?" RO recalled.
"Yeah...and he'll get his for that soon enough..."
London, England, At the same time...
The sounds of busy traffic filled the air outside of the train station as the plum-haired doll stepped out of the station and onto the sidewalk with her suitcase in hand, straightening her crimson tie with her free hand. She had made it to the city without incident, now she just had to get to her destination and find a way in. It didn't take long for her to find a cab, and within a few moments she was on her way.
The cab driver couldn't help but catch his eyes wandering to his rearview mirror as his mysterious and attractive passenger sat in the back, silently gazing out the window while she rested her chin on her hand.
"So...you came from the train station, I'd take it you aren't from around here?" The driver asked.
"No, I'm not." The woman replied.
"I see, is this your first time in London, then?"
The woman simply nodded, her eyes still fixed out the window.
"Right, well, if I may ask, what brings you to our great city, Miss...?"
The woman's eyes turned towards the rearview mirror, returning the driver's gaze with a cold glare. "Names are for friends, so I don't need one..."
Back on the Avernus...
"Are you sure we're not just missing something about the puzzle?" The Commander asked.
"No, I'm telling you, there's got to be a piece missing! There is no other reason why this wouldn't work!" M4 replied defensively.
"Ugh...What is that smell? It smells worse than the café did after that time K11 and WA2000 were on kitchen duty..." STAR gagged as she entered the greenhouse, M16 tipsily following behind her.
"You guys find anything? We've got a door here, but it's locked with some kind of puzzle, and M4 swears that it's missing a piece." The Commander informed.
STAR pulled out the small piece she found earlier. "Would it look something like this?"
M4 grabbed the piece. "Let's see...Yes! This is it!"
The lead doll eagerly dropped the missing piece into its slot, and the door clicked open.
"Alright, let's get out of this place and see if we can find another way to the boss man's office." The Commander said.
As soon as M4 touched the door, something sounded from the mechanism besides it, and the group saw the puzzle begin re-scrambling itself.
"Great...hope we didn't miss anything here..." RO commented.
The group exited out the door, and as soon as the door shut behind them, a guttural click sounded behind them, undoubtedly the door locking itself.
"I hope the rest of this place isn't like this, I'm going to be pissed if we spend the whole day running around solving puzzles..." STAR spoke as the group began to move forward.
"At least the puzzles don't shoot at us, Fifteen. I'm just glad we haven't run into any of those Elite Ny-" RO was cut off by a series of sparks racing down the dark corridor directly at her, and only managed to dodge the blade that was swung at her by mere inches.
After jumping backwards, RO joined the rest of the group in encircling the Commander and raising their weapons at the silver-haired woman with steel legs, her golden irises with blaze-orange outlines glowing menacingly in the dark as she brandished her katana. "Me and my big mouth..."
Grig growled in rage as she faced the group, her breathing heavy and ragged as she bared her teeth.
"You! This is your fault! Gray is dead, because of you!...MURDERERS!" The Nyto cried out in raw fury.
"Well well, if it isn't sword-bitch..." STAR muttered, unfazed by Grig's outburst as she readied her SPR.
RO however, grew deeply uneasy. "This corridor's too tight...and she has us cornered...this could get bad..."
"Come on! Who wants to take the first shot?! Shoot me! I dare you!" Grig cried out as she began to encroach upon the group.
STAR was happy to oblige her, and no sooner did Grig finish her challenge than a shot from STAR's rifle resonated through the hall...But Grig vanished as quick as the flash from the rifle's brake. Her sixth sense suddenly firing on all cylinders, STAR immediately turned behind her...Only to see the door that she had her back to.
"No! NO DAMN IT!" Grig's muffled cries sounded from the other side of the door, along with a series of frantic pounding and banging.
"Well, that buys us some time at least...Let's go!" The Commander ordered, and the group immediately took off down the hall as Grig continued slamming on the door.
"DAMN IT! GET BACK HEEEERRREEEEE!" The Nyto screamed before she quickly rushed to the mechanism on the side, cursing under her breath as she tried to solve the puzzle. "Damn it! Damn it! I'm no good at these things! I cut things apart, not put them together! I couldn't even put together that Lego set Gray got me for Christmas last year, even with the instructions! Why did I have to teleport myself in here?! Wait...teleport..." Suddenly, an obvious realization hit Grig and she smacked her palm against her head in response.
Meanwhile, the AR Team and their Commander continued to rush down the corridor under the assumption that their pursuer could catch up to them at any moment. Suddenly, the hallway opened up into a small room containing the door to an elevator, which the group quickly rushed to and hit the call button. Right after doing so, however, their eyes simultaneously fell upon a notice above the button.
Notice: If user is in imminent mortal danger, the elevator will travel between floors very slowly.
"Oh come on!" The group exclaimed simultaneously before turning to face the corridor, where they found Grig menacingly encroaching upon them, angrier than ever.
"M4...got any more tricks up your sleeve?" The Commander asked.
M4 exhaled. "Morridow found the loophole my OGAS was exploiting in her neural cloud and patched it up, with a nasty counter-measure to boot...No doubt she's extended it to the others now...there's only one thing I can try now..."
"And that's?..." The Commander asked.
"Just...let me concentrate..." M4 said as she closed her eyes and focused as best as she could...
...There was a relic in this base somewhere...she could feel it...She just had to focus a little more...
"Whatever you're going to do, M4, do it fast!" RO cried out as Grig encroached closer and closer.
Finally, after what seemed like the longest couple of seconds of their lives, the group finally heard M4 call out. "Everyone, hold on!"
The Commander looked around frantically "Hold on to wha-"