The Mobile Task Force - Chapter 4: Press the Advantage!

"Kia, they're falling back!" Castle reported over the radio. The intense firefight that erupted at the beginning of the counterattack was beginning to calm down as Griffin forces peeled back to their secondary defensive line. In less than twenty minutes, the Mobile Task Force managed to achieve all of their objectives, securing the centre of the village.

"Yeah, I see!" Kia replied, "It seems to be a withdraw across the entire line. Any idea why?"

"Unsure, could be they're consolidating their defensive perimeter," Castle guessed, "In any case, I don't think they'll be coming back here in the near future."

"They're scared!" Katana 2-Charlie jeered as she repositioned in her building to a better firing spot, "Looks like we've really hit them hard!"

"We sure did!" Kia smiled, "Alright, let's dig in and entrench our positions so-"

"Are you kidding me?" Katana 2-Charlie interrupted, high off of the victory. "Griffin forces are in disarray, now's the time to press the advantage!"

"We have to conserve our strength, Katana 2-Charlie," Kia told the eager rookie, "Remember that we're still fighting a defensive battle here."

"Who cares what our original intentions were?" Katana 2-Charlie retorted, "We can catch some of those Griffin fuckers in their retreat, we can cripple their hold on the entire village!"

"You're getting a bit ahead of yourself," Castle warned Katana 2-Charlie, "We risk overextending and exposing ourselves to the hill if we go any further. It's better to stop while you're still ahead."

"What the hell is wrong with you two?" Katana 2-Charlie angrily questioned, "We can't just let Griffin get away like this!"

"Well, why can't we?" Kia rebutted, growing more irritated by the minute. "Our task is simply to hold the village until Archangel gets here. We don't have to take fights if we can help it."

"Well, I want to!" Katana 2-Charlie adamantly snarled, "I'd happily kill every single Griffin doll in this village with my bare hands if I had to!"

"Katana 2-Charlie!" Kia gasped, "What's gotten into you?"

"Nothing," Katana 2-Charlie growled, "And I would question your and Castle's judgement if you didn't think the same too. We are all tactical dolls; what else is there for us to do but to fight and destroy the enemy?"

"There's more to life than that!" Kia exclaimed, "We may be T-dolls, but we don't have to let that define our entire existence!"

"Castle!" Katana 2-Charlie shouted, "Do you believe all this shit?"

"Kia's right," Castle sighed, "You gotta calm down here…"

"Calm down my ass!" Katana 2-Charlie scowled, "If you two aren't going to press the attack, then I'll do so myself! I'm going to go kill so many of those Griffin bitches, they'll have nothing left to throw at you afterwards!"

"Wait!" Kia protested, "That's suicide!"

"So what if it's suicide?" Katana 2-Charlie questioned, "I'm a doll, I don't care if I die."

"I care!" Kia pleaded, "Please! You don't have to do this to yourself!"

"Maybe," Katana 2-Charlie sneered as she checked her equipment, "But I want to. I'm not afraid of Griffin."

"Shit, Kia, what do we do?" Castle asked as Katana 2-Charlie's group began advancing towards the Griffin lines once more. "Katana 2-Charlie! You know you could get court-martialed for this!"

There was no reply.

"Agh, damn it!" Kia snapped, "Castle, prepare to advance! We can't abandon her like this!"

"L85 to JS 9, we have contact!" a voice rang out over the Griffin radio channel, "We have a section-sized infantry force assaulting our position! We-"

"L85?" JS 9 responded, "L85, report in!"

Katana 2-Charlie raised her head from her rifle scope, staring at the position where a Griffin doll once stood. All around her, fodder units exchanged intense fire with Griffin forces, the two sides separated by a residential street. On the other side of the street was a concrete house fortified by sandbags which housed a machine gun on it second floor. With it's window barricaded to form a narrow firing slit, the machine gun stonewalled the Sangvis advance while shrugging off the returning small-arms fire.

"God damn it!" Katana 2-Charlie cursed as one of her Rippers took a hit from the machine gun. She tried to swing out from her cover and place a shot into the firing slit, but was immediately forced back by a flurry of suppressive fire. Suddenly, an explosion erupted at the nest, blasting a hole in the building's wall and annihilating the Griffin doll behind it.

"Direct hit!" Kia triumphantly cheered as she loaded a smoke grenade into her underbarrel grenade launcher.

"Kia!" Katana 2-Charlie exclaimed in surprise as a plume of smoke appeared on the far side of the road. "What are you doing here?"

"We couldn't leave you to fight all by your lonesome," Kia smiled, "No hard feelings?"

"Not anymore!" Katana 2-Charlie grinned, "This is where the fun begins!"

"Jesus Christ!" Sten Mk. II exclaimed as a volley of bullets flew past her face. "They're on us already, they sure are persistent!"

"Sten, how long until you can make it to the secondary line?" JS 9 queried.

"Uh- Not sure!" Sten replied, sending a blind volley around the corner. "Give us a few more minutes, we're almost there!"

"Understood, stay alive," JS 9 acknowledged, "Make sure you don't get cut off from the rest of us!"

As Sten's team desperately tried to fight their way towards friendly lines, the Sangvis forces on the other side were firing on all cylinders, now spearheaded by the spirited assault of Katana 2-Charlie. Although they've taken moderate casualties in terms of their fodder units, the momentum of the battle was firmly in their favour.

"Katana 2-Charlie, slow down!" Castle reminded, ducking her head as a stray bullet hit the window frame to her right. "Stay close enough for us to support you!"

"One of the Griffin groups has lagged behind!" Katana 2-Charlie shouted back, "I'm going to finish them off!"

"Come back, that's too far!" Castle ordered, "We need to wait for Kia's team to catch up, we're getting too spread out!"

"Don't worry, I'll be fine!" Katana 2-Charlie confidently declared as she swung out from behind a corner, suppressing a convenience store at the edge of a street block as her fodder made a charge towards it.

"Damn it, Katana 2-Charlie, I said stop!" Castle ordered again to no avail. By now, the entirety of Katana 2-Charlie's team was on the other side of the street, clearing the convenience store of enemy presence.

"Hey, what the hell?!" Kia angrily shouted, "Where the hell do you think you're going?"

"What do you mean?" Katana 2-Charlie shouted over the sound of an intense gunfight.

"You're in the middle of Griffin lines!" Kia exasperatedly replied.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, don't worry!" Katana 2-Charlie dismissed, "We're gonna hunker down and stop here, alright? So stop complaining and come help us out already, we have the Griffin defense split!"

"Damn it!" Castle growled as she reloaded her weapon, "The kid is right. As reckless as it might've been, she's completely neutered Griffin's defensive strategy."

"As much as I hate to admit it, I have to agree," Kia sighed, making an advance towards the enemy lines. "We're definitely not going any further after this though!"

"We won't need to!" Katana 2-Charlie smiled as her team entrenched themselves in the shop. The intense fighting had died down as Griffin scrambled to reposition themselves to accommodate the breach in their defense. "Once we take this street, Griffin will be forced into the narrow tail of the village. See? I told you it was a good idea to push on ahead!"

Soon after Katana 2-Charlie finished her sentence, the interior of the shop exploded into a flurry of destruction as a hail of bullets tore through its insides. Clouds of dust and debris erupted from the floor and shelves as bullets indiscriminately shredded the Sangvis forces and building alike. Several fodder units were instantly hit and collapse while Katana 2-Charlie and the others instantly pressed themselves against the windowless back wall.

Without even a moment of respite, however, a Vespid suddenly fell forward from the wall, a large bullet wound visible on her back. Katana 2-Charlie's eyes widened as she noticed the bullet hole in the concrete wall where the Vespid once leaned, only now did she realise that the bullets were coming from the other side of the concrete wall, passing it like a hot knife through butter, ravaging anything in their path on the other side. A bullet exploded from the wall, passing so close to Katana 2-Charlie's face she could even feel the wake of the bullet blowing on her cheek. Instinctively, she fell back, her body hitting the corner of the store and sliding down onto the floor.

Katana 2-Charlie sat in the corner dazed, surveying the shop's interior as toppled shelves and mutilated fodder units littered the floor. The stream of bullets continued pouring into the beaten room, tracing lines of death through the thick dust. Katana 2-Charlie put a hand to her mouth, absolutely shocked at how quickly her team was demolished by an unknown force. Another bullet tore through the wall beside her, clipping the hair off her right bang and forcing herself to re-press her body tight against the corner, unable to move.

Countless thoughts raced through Katana 2-Charlie's head. She knew she had to escape the machine gun's beaten zone as soon as possible, but when she tried to force herself to move, she couldn't do so for some reason. It was almost as if she was no longer in control over her body. Throughout it all, an overpowering strange feeling gripped her mind, crushing any attempt at rational thought. The feeling felt strangely familiar, but Katana 2-Charlie couldn't figure out where she experienced it before. It certainly wasn't during the battle—she had been full of conviction and confidence all up until now.

Suddenly, Katana 2-Charlie remembered. Visions of a dimly lit training room and a condescending voice raced through her mind. She had only felt like this once before, a feeling she experienced when she first stepped foot in this world. Doll as she may be, the feeling she was feeling at that moment was definitely very human.

That feeling, Katana 2-Charlie now recognised, was terror.