Safehouse Charlie, Berlin Suburbs, A few days after the Avernus incident...
"Come on, RO. That guy just called you poor, are you just going to take that from him?" The Commander egged the T-Doll on.
With nothing better to do, he had found himself sitting next to his adjutant on the couch as she played one of her RPGs. With both the Paradeus and KCCO threat effectively crippled and Sangvis Ferri assimilated into Griffin & Kryuger, it was as good of a time as any to take some leave. Of course, he was still on-call, and that meant the Commander couldn't go too far. He had resigned himself to just hanging loose around the safehouse, as did the rest of the AR Team.
"I can't just murder someone in broad daylight, Commander!" RO retorted.
"It's a video game, of course you can!" The Commander shot back.
RO sighed. "My character's a lawful good Paladin, she wouldn't just kill someone on the spot for disrespecting her!"
"Why would you gimp yourself like that?" The Commander huffed and shook his head. "Come on, I play video games to blow these people up with rocket launchers, not subject myself to the same frustrations I deal with in reality."
"This is my 'good' character, I'll blow him up with my evil character."
"You never make an evil character. You always flake the moment you so much as have to be mean to somebody. Come on, take care of this loser! Show him who's the boss!"
"No! He's not worth-" RO was cut off by the Commander grabbing the controller. "Hey!"
"Here, watch." Cackling manically to himself, the Commander opened up the spellbook. "Great, you already have the relentless impact power...Let's put these elemental runes to good use as well..."
"Oh, Jesus..." RO sighed as she saw the Quicksaving... notification appear on the screen.
"What hast thou spoke to me, thou miserable wretch?" The Commander challenged as he walked the protagonist up to the NPC before casting a lightning rune a distance away. "Defend thyself!"
With a loud roar, the NPC was blown off his feet and sent careening down the road - straight into the lightning rune that had been casted earlier. A storm of electricity burst from the rune, frying him in an instant with a bolt of lightning.
"Ah-haha!" The Commander laughed in amusement.
"Hey! I just saw what you did, I'm going to tell the guards!" A bystander brazenly proclaimed as he pointed to the protagonist.
FWOOM
With a single flick of the wrist, the bystander was immediately engulfed in flames, sending him running in circles as he let out a blood-curdling scream and flailed his arms wildly.
RO shook her head as she grabbed the controller back. "You are worse than SOP-II sometimes..."
"Speaking of SOP-II, where even is she? I thought she'd be right here next to you." The Commander asked.
"The garage, probably. Either helping Fifteen or pestering her."
"Figures...I haven't seen Star poke her head out of there in days..."
It was the bike. The Commander swore it had to be cursed by this point; ST AR-15 had been building it for as long as the two had known each other. She didn't get very far along until the Parapluie incident occurred, along with what followed in Sector 08. So, there it sat for almost two years, through the counter-offensive into Sangvis Territory, through KCCO raiding and seizing the base after declaring G&K terrorists, through the Commander and his comrades being snatched up by Statesec and used as "deniable assets" while they dangled their freedom before them like a carrot on a string. Finally, the Commander had been permitted to return to Sector 09, and the bike was reunited with its owner, who wasted no time jumping right back onto the project as a way to decompress.
Of course, it wasn't long before they found themselves called out to Germany, and not long after that, KCCO decided to roll up in some BM-21s and give Sector 09's Command Post a little quid-pro-quo for foiling their plans at Paldiski. By some miracle, the bike not only survived the shelling, but was dug out of the rubble by AR-57 as opposed to someone like Kalina or Px4 - the likes of which would have most definitely charged a finder's fee, if not outright stripped it for parts and sold it off. The Commander couldn't recall ever seeing STAR ready to jump for joy before she had learned that her project had survived and was on its way back to her.
And that was where she had been since - throwing it together piece by piece. Every time she had started working on it, some grandiose succession of fuckery always followed, the Commander could only pray that it would hold off until the end of his "vacation"...
"I wonder if she's almost done...I haven't heard her curse in a while now." The Commander pondered out loud.
"Not only her, but you too. It's been oddly peaceful around here." RO remarked.
"Don't jinx it, M16 went out pub-crawling earlier. Even with M4 keeping an eye on her, I'm not putting any money on the idea that I won't have to go bail them out of jail before the night is out."
"Yeah... Well, I'm at least glad we don't have to be the ones dealing with that mess G36 made during her undercover work."
The Commander sighed and shook his head. "Seriously, who the fuck tries to tie up a military-grade T-Doll with a piece of fabric? And then thinks they can get away with trying to do that to them?"
"Someone who still believes in Asimov's laws, I'd reckon..." RO surmised.
"Well, there's a few less of those now...I'd hate to have been the poor bastard that had to clean that restroom, that place got turned into a bloodbath in every sense of the word."
"I hope the police aren't giving her too much trouble..."
"I'm sure they're just going through the standard procedure for finding a woman covered in someone else's blood surrounded by half a dozen guys with smashed-in heads. It was clear-cut self-defense when you look at the Zener footage, and once the Stasi clears things up with the local authorities, she'll be out in no time...I'm glad we made ourselves scarce as soon as our leave request got granted though, I did not want to run into Helian on the way out of the temp office with that kind of mess looming over her, not to mention all those Svarog Aid Commissions going missing."
"Oh, yeah - speaking of work, wasn't there something about a backup restore that needed to be done while we were here?" RO asked suddenly.
"Shit, I almost forgot. SOP finally managed to install the new core this morning, her Neural Cloud's being uploaded to it as we speak. Team Puzzle's going to drop by later to pick her up and take her to the temp base."
"Has it really been giving us that much trouble? I wouldn't think a standard A-Doll would be this much of a headache."
"Her model is ancient, it pre-dates World War III and was only in production for a short time before being discontinued. On top of that, a lot of the parts had been jury-rigged. It's a miracle she made it as long as she did before she crashed. SOP-II did what she could, but Persica's going to need to do some serious overhauls before we can put her to work...Still, a deal's a deal, even if we didn't have to even use the damned package she helped deliver."
"That whole mess with Aliana too..." RO recalled dejectedly. "I feel kind of bad that we went and reactivated her, only for the job we brought her on for to end before we needed her."
"She's a former Ranger, RO. That girl's going to be driving a Porsche before the year is out if she sticks to the PMC route, we don't need to worry about her."
It was then that a notification sounded on the Commander's phone. After pulling it out to check, the Commander breathed a sigh of relief.
"Good news?" RO asked curiously.
"My claim with the bank was approved and the chargeback went through."
"This is from OBR's incident?"
"Yeah. She's damned lucky they let her use a credit card and didn't demand cash...or try to sell her off. It's pretty bold of a scam operation to take credit cards in this day and age, I guess they thought the kind of Doll that would get wrapped up in this wasn't smart enough to know how to file a dispute. Still, I gave her the card so that I'd get an idea of where all her money was going, I didn't expect her to get wrapped up in something this egregious overnight..."
"They were just doing this right out in the open too...I knew that we were stretched thin when I was working at the station, but..."
"Well, whoever's behind it is about to have a really bad day. Hope they enjoyed it while it lasted."
A knock in the rhythm of the password suddenly sounded at the door. The Commander immediately got up to answer.
"Hey- Commander!" RO shouted after him, but the Commander had already made his way to the door.
"Liu, VHS...you're early." The Commander remarked after opening the door.
RO sighed angrily as she caught up to him. "Commander, please have one of us answer the door next time!"
General Liu bowed apologetically "Sorry, Commander...things are still disorganized back at Griffin, not to mention Miss Kalina is still out sick..."
"SL8 is also being a motormouth again..." VHS added in.
"The upload's probably about done anyways, come on in." The Commander invited as RO huffed in the background about being ignored.
After they had entered, the group descended down to the basement level of the safehouse.
"Any trouble on the way here?" The Commander asked.
"Not really...Couple of guys tried to hit on us, but VHS just stared at them and they excused themselves pretty quickly." Liu answered.
"Always the 'people-person', aren't you VHS?" The Commander cracked.
"Tch." VHS scoffed.
"Come on, VHS, laugh a little."
"It would help if you were funny." VHS deadpanned.
"Now that's just cold..."
A short while later, they arrived at the makeshift repair bay where Maggie's body lay on a small table; a large cable ran from her neural core and connected to a small toaster nearby. As RO got a good look at the soon-to-be-revived doll for the first time, a sense of Deja Vu suddenly washed over her. She couldn't quite make out her features in this lighting, but she could swear that she knew her from somewhere...
Oddly enough, General Liu happened to also be thinking the exact same thing...
The Commander made his way to the terminal nearby. "Ninety-nine percent...Looks like we're right on cue."
It wasn't long afterwards before the body on the table began to stir.
"Urrrgghhhh." The A-Doll groaned as she slowly opened her eyes.
The first thing she did was lift her arms, breathing a sigh of relief that this time she had woken up in a body that was humanoid.
The Commander stepped back from the terminal. "Looks like you're back up and running. How are you feeling?"
Maggie let out another groan as she slowly sat up and clasped her head. "Like I've been hit by a freight train..." She said as she swung her legs over the side and sat on the edge of the table, leaning her head into her hands. "Listen - I have one very important question for you: Do you have any tequila?"
The Commander gave his head a half-shake. "I've got bourbon." He offered.
"Good enough..."
"Wait a minute...I know you..." Liu suddenly spoke up as she stepped into view, her eyes narrowing as she glared at the familiar figure. "The hotel...you're that concierge!"
"Now come on, Miss~ You shouldn't be throwing such accusations out at people you've just met. Maybe she just looked like me?" Maggie cracked her signature businesslike smile
"Really?! That's the one you're going with?!" Liu snapped, the anger in her voice manifesting as her hands balled into fists.
"Come now~ We're getting off on the wrong foot. I don't know who it was that scammed you, but I certainly wouldn't stoop to such-"
"Scam?" Liu interjected. "I didn't say anything about a scam. It was you!"
"Ehe..." Maggie felt a cold sweat break out as she felt her mistake hit her like a truck. "Now that's just unfair...you don't even know me!"
"That's just the thing, Maggie - I do know you." RO declared.
Maggie's smile wavered as she saw the familiar T-Doll step into view. "Officer...RO?..." She uttered as she began to panic internally. "Damn it, are you turning me over to the cops?! That wasn't the deal!"
"RO?" The Commander asked.
RO turned to the Commander. "Her name is Maggie Ponzi. She's a lowly con-artist and racketeer working for the Russian Mob."
"Now, now, RO, those accusations are baseless and slanderous - even your superiors agreed." Maggie smugly interjected.
RO sighed. "She was in and out of the station constantly. Every time we snatched her up on something, someone above us would get a call telling us to let her go within the hour."
"So it's definitely her, then..." Liu affirmed.
The Commander stepped closer to Maggie and crossed his arms. "Alright, Maggie Ponzi...you think it is okay to scam my subordinates?"
"Whoa! Hey, look, I didn't even know who any of you were at the time!" Maggie replied defensively.
"Evidently not. If you did, that would have been very, very stupid of you."
"Look, I'm not about that life anymore, okay? That business on the train? That was my last job, I've cut all my old ties, I damned near got killed in the process!"
"Then you won't have a problem telling us who was running that little 'resort', will you?" RO added.
"I'm getting there! I got screwed over too, alright? I don't owe that bitch any loyalty."
"'That bitch' isn't narrowing it down." The Commander pressed.
"Ngh...She never told me her name. It was some Slavic woman...strawberry blonde hair, blue eyes, wore these red ribbons on her...Had this strange look to her, like when she'd look at you, she wasn't looking at you, you know? Like she was staring into your soul and seeing...money...Yes, it was like there were dollar signs in her eyes or something! Freaked me the hell out, you'd know what I was talking about if you'd seen it!" Maggie recalled frantically.
As Maggie was talking, the tension slowly faded from the Commander, RO, and Liu as Maggie's description painted the image of the exact same person in their minds.
RO's eyes widened slowly. "Wait...is she talking about..."
RO turned to the Commander to find him frozen stiff as the realization washed over him.
"Mother...Fucker."
"Alright, well, Miss Kalina. Just keep taking it one step at a time, and be sure to do everything the doctors tell you to. All of us at Griffin are praying for your recovery, be sure to let us know if you need anything from us." Miss Helian's voice sounded from over the phone.
Cough "Of course, Miss Helian...I'm getting plenty of rest, Px4 is taking good care of me...I'm getting better, but I still feel terrible...not just physically, but about all the work I've been missing too..." Kalina groggily replied.
"Worry about yourself first, Miss Kalina. ELID is no small matter."
"Right...Hopefully I'll be well enough to come back to work some time soon, but right now, I need to rest..."
"Of course, Miss Kalina. You sound like you need it, I'll let you get back to it now."
After the call concluded, Kalina's sickly demeanor vanished the moment she hung up the phone. "Ehehehe! Time for some Star-Rim!"
Today was the day, the last of the parts she needed for the computer had arrived- the computer that would be capable of playing Star-Rim 2: Special Anniversary Edition Remastered. Everything was in place now, all she needed to do was start it up.
Making her way to her setup, she passed her shrine to Rod Broward, the offering box overflowing with Gems beneath the large portrait of the notorious developer. She took a moment to admire her new system; the massive PC tower was covered in fans and had a mess of cables running out of it every which way to every electrical outlet in the room, as well as a large tank of liquid nitrogen fixed to the back.
"It's showtime!" Kalina gleefully declared as she hit the power button.
The lights in the room dimmed and flickered as the machine whirred to life, growing louder and louder until the room sounded like the inside of a wind-tunnel. It was finally time to experience the game the way it was meant to be played. After booting up the game, she made sure all of the settings were set to maximum before loading into the game.
However, Kalina's eye twitched when her gaze fell upon the FPS counter on the top corner of the screen: 59 FPS.
To make matters worse, it was then that her phone bleeped with a notification from the bank...
Kalina scrambled frantically into the small closet, she fumbled for the switch to turn on the lights before dropping to the floor and scampering for the handle to the trapdoor, throwing it open before dropping into the crawlspace below. Not even waiting for her eyes to adjust, she tore straight to the duffel bag that had been stuffed under a tarp, nearly yanking the zipper straight off the teeth.
Kalina could feel her heart pounding as rifled through the bags contents, only managing to find a few bundles of money inside. "Nonononono! It's not enough!"
She could feel the panic setting in.
"It's not enough...it's not enough!"
Kalina desperately turned the bag inside out, then resorted to scrambling around the crawlspace. Did she separate them into multiple bags? Maybe she hid some in the dirt? She didn't remember, but surely it was one of those things...
"Kalina?..." A voice sounded from the room above.
"Down here!" Kalina replied as she made her way back to the opening.
Px4 Storm looked down into the crawlspace as Kalina came into view, holding the few bundles of money she could find. "Kalina...what did that notification mean?"
"Where is it?..." Kalina breathed out. "Where's the rest?..."
Px4 raised a brow. "W-What?..."
"The money from the resort scam, Px4! Where is the rest?!" Kalina pressed, her desperation manifesting in her voice.
Px4 could only silently stare in response, she had no idea how to deal with this.
"Px4! WHERE IS THE MONEY?!" Kalina finally screamed out.
"Y-you spent it already..." Px4 finally answered, her voice trembling in fear at her C.O.'s outburst.
Kalina could feel her heart pounding in her throat as the realization hit her, her temples seared as the blood rushed to her head. "W-what?...I did what?..."
"The Star-Rim 2 Collector's Edition...that Computer...the offerings to Rod Broward..." Her adjutant continued.
"I gave my money...to Rod Broward?!" Kalina uttered out before beginning to hyperventilate, her face contorting.
"K-Kalina...please just-"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Kalina threw her head back into the dirt and screamed at the top of her lungs.
A chill ran down her adjutant's spine as she watched her thrash around in the dirt, breaking out into a series of loud, frantic sobs. "Kalina?..."
The money she now owed was all gone...she'd have to dip into her savings to get out of this one...the Commander had gotten her good...
Yes, her Commander had done this to her...Not only that, but the chargeback had meant that he was now out of debt...He wouldn't have to work at Griffin & Kryuger forever in order to buy his life back...He would be free to leave the company at any point...Free to leave her.
As the realization hit her, something inside Kalina snapped, the neurons in her brain began going wild.
"Hahahahaha...Ah-hahahaha!" Kalina began cackling between sobs.
"K-Kalina?..." Px4 uttered out, becoming progressively more and more unnerved by Kalina's behavior.
"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Kalina let out an unsettling mixture of screaming and laughter as she opened her eyes.
Px4 felt the coolant inside her freeze solid as she looked into Kalina's eyes, it was as if she was staring straight through her as she continued to laugh wildly. All she could manage to do at this point was start slowly backing away...
"Ahahahahaha! HAHAHAHAHAHA! You got me good, Commander!...Ehehehehehehe! Yes you did!...But don't think you've escaped...No..."
Kalina continued to laugh as all of her intrusive thoughts were brought to the forefront - she no longer fought them, she would let them say their part. Slowly but surely, a diabolical scheme began to manifest in her mind, a devious smile began to crack through the tears as her laughter continued.
"Hehehehe! HAHAHAHAHAHA! You will be mine...I will make you mine forever! My. Little. Debt. Slave!"
Back at the Safehouse, the Commander and RO still found themselves reeling from the revelation.
"So...Miss Kalina planned this from the start? Why on earth would she do that?!" RO asked in bewilderment.
The Commander scratched his chin as he recalled. "You know...now that you mention it, when she told me what had happened to OBR and her group, she did mention something about not being able to leave G&K for a long time with all of the fees I'd been hit with..."
"But...would she really do something so egregious over something so petty?"
"She hasn't been the same since the Green Zone Card incident...I think when I joked about quitting, I rattled her more than I realized..."
"...You have my condolences, Commander." Maggie remarked with sympathy that felt oddly genuine.
Liu's gaze turned back to Maggie. "What about her, Commander? What are we going to do with her?"
"Nothing's changed - we made a deal with Erma, she goes back with you. We'll put her to work." The Commander replied.
"Great..." Liu grumbled.
Maggie cracked her signature smirk. "Don't be like that, Liu, we may have gotten off on the wrong foot, but it's all water under the bridge now. Who knows, we may even become friends."
"We will not get along." VHS remarked bluntly.
Maggie turned to VHS "And look at you - all stone faced and serious. I think it would do well for you to loosen up a little."
"Jedi govna." VHS hissed venomously.
"I'm going with them." RO suddenly spoke up.
"Oh? Coming to keep me company? Maybe reminisce about the good old days?" Maggie smugly remarked.
"Shut it. You're a silver-tongued snake, I'm keeping an eye on you until Griffin takes custody of you." RO said, crossing her arms.
"Aw, how cold of you. Here I thought you were going to make sure these two didn't make it so I have an 'accident' on the way over."
Ignoring her, RO turned to the Commander. "Commander, she's a slippery one. Please let me oversee her transport."
The Commander scratched his chin. "You'd need to take SOP with you too, you know how she gets when you and M4 aren't around to watch over her...And that thing on your bag would start snapping you if you didn't."
RO sighed. "Damn it, alright. You stick with Fifteen then while I'm gone, don't get up to any nonsense."
"Don't worry, Star's not moving from the garage until she can get that bike to start, and I'll be in a nursing home by the time that day comes."
"Well, stay there with her so she can keep an eye on you."
"Come on, RO, I haven't pissed off any ninja dojos lately." The Commander retorted.
"No - just teleporting supersoldiers powered by alien technology." RO shot back.
"Still, you guys don't need to supervise me like I'm some kind of child."
"Ahem." Maggie cleared her throat assertively. "When you two are done with your little lovers' quarrel, I've had my fair share of sitting in dark basements surrounded by armed henchmen."
"We'll continue this conversation later, Commander. Stay by AR-15 until I get back." RO asserted before turning to VHS. "Let's get going before it starts getting dark out."
"Alright..." The Commander resigned. "Feels more like a house-arrest than a vacation..." He added under his breath.
The sound of tools rattling resonated through the garage as the Commander stepped inside, unsurprised to see ST AR-15 rifling through her tool cabinet, her tool apron set aside as she put away the last of her tools. Her pink hair was tied into a ponytail under a plain white ball cap, her signature jacket was nowhere to be seen, instead she wore little else than a sports-bra and a pair of short cut-off jean-shorts. The Commander hoped she hadn't been welding wearing that...Though he supposed with a T-Doll, it wouldn't really matter. It did resurface memories of the time that STAR scorched her hand when she held her gun by the suppressor, however. She might not have ever lived that one down if she didn't go MIA for several months.
"Huh...it actually looks like a bike now." The Commander remarked as he turned his attention to the sport-bike in the middle.
He had to admit, it had come a long way from the scrap-heap it used to be. The mangled frame had been pieced back together, the rusted wreck of an engine had been practically rebuilt from the ground-up and polished to a mirror-sheen. It now sported a new fuel tank and windshield, colored a sporty pink and decked out in an assortment of stickers and racing decals, including the number "15".
"I remember when this thing used to be a heap of parts on the floor." He added.
"Yeah..." STAR exhaled as she wiped the sweat off her forehead, making her way to the minifridge in the corner. "Feels like a lifetime ago, doesn't it?"
"Yeah...it does."
STAR didn't get sentimental often, at least she didn't used to. It had been a long journey, though, and the Commander couldn't recall her ever having a moment of genuine reprieve since this whole thing had started. With that in mind, it was hard not to.
The doll emerged from the minifridge with two coke cans, one of which she flung towards the Commander, who caught it in his hand.
"A lot's happened since..." STAR continued.
"Hm...you didn't used to get so sentimental." The Commander remarked.
"And you used to not talk much." STAR said as she made her way over to him, leaning on the counter next to him as she popped the tab on the can and admired her handiwork.
The Commander shook his head as he recalled. "That damned frog in my throat took forever to go away."
"So...We going for a ride?" STAR asked.
"Wait, that thing's done? For real?"
STAR nodded. "That was the last of it, she's all together now." The doll declared triumphantly.
"Have you started it?"
STAR smirked. "Think it won't?"
"Not with you tempting fate like you are now." The Commander replied bluntly.
STAR set the coke can on the counter and briskly made her way to the bike, before she hit the ignition switch.
With a soft rumble, the engine came to life. STAR's face lit up at the sound of it, letting out an excited laugh before she revved the throttle. A series of roars resonated through the garage as the needle bounced up and down the bike's tachometer.
"Nine-hundred and ninety-nine ccs, two hundred and fourteen horsepower!" STAR chirped out like a child who had just opened their Christmas present.
STAR switched off the ignition and quickly made her way to the rack where her jacket was hanging.
"Wait, you're going now?" The Commander asked.
"Mhm, soon as I finish this coke and get dressed. Coming?"
The Commander looked down indecisively. "...I think I'll wait until after the first trial run, in case this thing blows up in your face."
"Tch, wuss." STAR challenged.
"Yeah, yeah." The Commander deflected. "Go put her through her paces without having to worry about G-LOC'ing the meatbag on the backseat. I know how you're going to drive this thing."
"Fine, your loss" STAR shrugged and threw her jacket over her shoulder, stepping out of the garage.
It wasn't long before she remerged, back to wearing her combat gear. The doll press-checked her PDW before shoving it in the holster under her arm and brushing her jacket over it. "Last chance, Commander."
The Commander shook his head. "Someone's gotta scrape you off the ground and give you the honor of being G&K's first MOD-four doll."
"Fuck you." STAR scoffed as she hit the garage remote and sat herself on the bike.
The Commander lightly punched her on the shoulder. "Stay safe out there, Star."
The doll nodded. "Right, I'll be back in a bit, don't go getting kidnapped by ninjas or something."
With that, the bike's engine started up. After giving it a couple of revs, STAR kicked it into gear and tore off onto the street.
The sun was about to set, traffic was clearing off of the roads as most people wrapped up their business for the day and retreated into their homes - the perfect time for her to do some riding.
The doll raced down the mostly desolate roads as the evening sun saturated the tops of the trees and buildings with an orange glow, the brisk air hitting her like a wall as she picked up speed. It wasn't long before she was going full-throttle down every straight she could find, her heart jumping with joy at how fast her project was running. It was everything that she had hoped for, and she was going to enjoy it for as long as she could...
It had been a while now since the last of his Dolls had departed...How long had it been? One, maybe two hours? The Commander didn't bother paying attention to the time, or perhaps he just didn't want to. Every minute that had passed meant that he was now one minute closer to the moment his leave would end and he'd have to go back to the base, and deal with whatever chaos had ensued in his absence...
So much energy had been sucked out of him in the days prior that all he found himself wanting to do was zone out on the couch, the news reports coming from the TV serving as background noise.
Suddenly, a knock in the rhythm of the password sounded at the door. At least someone made it back, whether it was RO and SOP having successfully delivered the package to the office, STAR making it back from her joyride in one piece, or M16 and M4A1 having come home in the back of a taxi as opposed to the back of a cop car.
The Commander made his way to the front door, but the moment he turned the knob to open it, a black bag was suddenly thrown over his head from behind him.
"Oh, shit!" The Commander cried out as he was violently shoved forward, and then felt a forceful blow on the back of his leg, knocking him to his knees.
Before he could even react, another blow struck him on the back of the head and sent him slamming face-first onto the porch. Pairs of arms on either side of him pinned his shoulders to the floor as a relentless barrage of punches bounced his head off the floor, powerful kicks slammed into his abdomen and knocked the wind out of him, leaving him helplessly gasping for breath as he was beaten to the brink of consciousness.
The Commander groaned helplessly as every inch of his body flared with excruciating pain, his muscles refusing to respond.
"Alright - that's enough. Get him out of here." A voice sounded, one that was without a doubt being filtered through some kind of gas mask or full-face helmet.
The Commander felt himself being picked up by his arms and legs, and carried swiftly down the drive before being haphazardly tossed forward, landing onto a metal floor - undoubtedly inside some kind of van or truck. The suspension bounced as more occupants filed inside, and then a door slammed behind him.
"It seems your hunch was right, Ange...Our little birdie's gotten himself caught in a net." AK-12 said over the comms as she lowered her binoculars.
"What have you got, Paradeus? Spetsnaz?"
"Their gear doesn't match either of them...Though with William and Rudolph out of the picture, they may well be resorting to procuring whatever they can get a hold of..."
"Tail them, find out where they're taking him and who we're dealing with." Ange ordered.
"On it."
It was time to put those MOD III upgrades to work. AK-12 hit the ignition switch of the BMW she was "borrowing" and discreetly rolled out of her parking space. She discreetly followed the van, keeping her distance, but also taking care not to lose sight of it.
After a short period, the van came up to an intersection and turned the corner. Not wanting to arouse any suspicion, 12 hit the BMW's turn signal as she rolled up to the corner.
"ERROR: USER AUTHENTICATION FAILED. ACTIVATING SECURITY MEASURES." The car's virtual assistant suddenly blared out.
"H-huh?!" 12 exclaimed as the roof of the car was suddenly launched into the air and sent careening behind the car.
Then, the driver's seat suddenly detached from its mountings, and was shot straight up with the doll strapped to it.
ST AR-15 watched the Statesec doll shriek as she was launched out the roof of the car and into the air, flying several dozen meters away before a parachute was automatically deployed, sending the seat slowly floating to the ground.
"Amateur." STAR scoffed as she passed the now abandoned car, keeping pace with the van that had made off with her Commander. "Everyone knows a real BMW driver wouldn't use their turn-signal..."
