Alpha Story: Filling out the Sideline: We Were Made For This (Patreon)

Author's Note: The following is an Alpha Story! It is meant to come directly after Filling Out the Frontline Chapter 10, which is not yet ready for publishing. It directly follows The Far-Reaching Winds, and will be leading into the next big arc of the story where all the players come onto the board.

This story will be Officially Published AFTER Frontline Chapter 10. If you'd prefer to wait until then, by all means do, but if you've been starved for more gun-girls then please, enjoy.

 ********************************************************************************************************* 

416 had been made for this.

Before the constant war, before the Sangvis threat, before most anybody else, HK416 had signed onto the Private Military Corporation of Griffin and Kryuger. She’d sat in an indoctrination class of forty dolls and was spoon-fed information about security detail, ballistic warfare, and military tactics.

Their teacher, a former Russian Army member, was very fond of the old Russian ways.

“MOVE, 416!” the bringer of victory, Commander Frolova, barked over her headset.

A tiny concrete pillar that was about four inches too thin was all that stood before 416 and the incoming fire from the .50 caliber MG. It was shredding off rock and 416 could feel the vibrations like punches to her back.

416 took a deep breath, clamping her fingers around her weapon. She felt her fingers sink into the grove near the tube, a sharp pin stabbing the pad to check her data and unlocking the full capabilities of the weapon she was.

A burst of energy spiked inside, like a shot of adrenaline spreading out from her middle. 416’s eyes sparkled in the dark light like neon signs as she dove out of cover, readying her weapon to fire, and was promptly torn into by several high velocity rounds that sent her flying backward with an anguished scream.

Her vison flashed white as geysers of black oil sprayed out from her chest and her stomach. Custom injectors flooded her circulatory system with every drop of adrenaline in the prayer that she might be able to get behind cover and out of the line of fire.

She couldn’t.

The stream of bullets crawled up toward her face before slamming into her forehead and destroying the neural cloud connection. The screen went black.

416 looked upon the black-soaked white hair of her destroyed dummy with a pitying frown before stepping out from behind the opposite pillar and pulling the trigger to her grenade launcher.

The sentry turret exploded in a screeching roar of metal and fire. It lit up the dark room like a flashbang, stabbing into 416’s eyes before she felt the slight smack of the shockwave pushing over her and flipping her snowy hair backward like a billowing gale.

She sank back behind the pillar and pushed the launcher open, letting the spent shell fall. She reached into her pocket for a fresh round, but her touch came up empty. 

When she looked, 416 saw her fingers emerging from a ragged slice in her jacket, splattered red in the dim light. Warning lights began pinging to life in her peripherals as she saw the shard of metal in her belly, shining softly, dripping with her blood.

"Oh," she murmured, feeling it. Only now did she notice the dull stinging inside as her blood dribbled to the ground, pooling around her knee. 

“Commander Frolova!” another smooth voice reported inside her ear. “I’ve lost connection with 416’s dummy. I’m reading a major injury to her chest cavity and several marks on her right leg. Requesting exfiltration support.”

Commander Frolova’s voice was crystal clear, but she wasn’t talking to her field. “Activate the remaining Cyclops units.”

“C-Commander!”

416 blinked. She’d never heard that voice break, never once. Had she even heard it now? Her stomach hurt. She’d dropped back against the pillar, tugging her shirt up. She didn’t hear Frolova’s response.

The jagged piece of metal had imbedded itself directly beneath her right rib. It was two inches wide, and who knew how deep. The ruptured blood dribbled down, soaking her belly button and staining her skirt.

She had to remove it. There was not other option, she had to stop the bleeding.

It wasn’t supposed to hurt as much as it did. Her fingers were quivering, tightening on the sliver before, with clenched teeth, she pulled. It wrenched free, pulling with it another squirt of fresh blood and a painful scream.

She ripped a section of her jacket, pressing it numbly over the open wound. Her fingers pushed in, holding the cloth tight enough that the pain spiked and gave 416 enough clarity to hear the signal for retreat.

416’s ear screeched. She could only just understand the words through the anger as the Team Leader shouted her callsign.

“Echo-4, do you copy?! Pull back to the barricade, now!”

“Echo-1, I’ve numerous contacts pushing in from their command post.”

“Dammit, Frolova call off the exercise!”

The Commander’s voice was Siberian ice. “You are weapons, Team Leader. Loosed arrows, thrown spears. If you cannot complete your objective, you do not come back.”

“Echo-1, I’m moving to Echo-4’s location.”

“You will not! Suomi pull back to E2’s barricade. That’s an order! I’m moving in, E2 and E3, you will cover our retreat!”

416 tried to sit up. She felt her side pinch down on the wound, eliciting a hiss as the white-haired doll tried to shove herself up on the stone pillar.

She managed to get her feet beneath her, grappling with the harness of her weapon.

“E-Echo-4 copies,” 416 hissed through the pain. Licks of fire lit up the room, as well as the darkness of her exit. She grappled with her harness, fingers tightening over her weapon. “I’m ma-”

She had taken two steps before the glow of green shined from her exit. The bright eyes of the Cyclops units marched to the threshold.

416’s rifle snapped to her shoulder. She fired.

“Multiple signatures just popped up! They snuck through our sensors!”

“E2, open up!”

The roar from Negev’s MG could be heard throughout the complex. 416’s weapon jerked as the first robot fell, catching the second with a consecutive burst. The third had stepped over the threshold, revealing its humanoid form in the low light. Olive colored metals glistened as the machine’s AR barked, sending a slug slicing past her left shoulder and staggering 416. 

Her next burst caught the unit at the thigh, HV rounds slicing through the armor and toppling forward. From the ground, the olive-colored unit looked almost like a real soldier. She sent another burst through the robot’s cranium when it continued to move.

She bit her right cheek and a popup of the complex appeared over her right eye. The blue map was covered in a wash of bright red, with her team’s blue dots marking their positions. Four markers were set behind an erected orange wall, under siege by a river of red. Another two blue dots were impossibly moving East straight through the concrete walls, bypassing the corridor entirely.

The echo of an explosion shook the building as 416 turned back to the Enemy Command Center, a trickle of red dribbling through. She saw the units moving through the remnant of the sentry, felt her fingers respond as another explosion shook the foundation. Her weapon stabbed her fingers, drawing blood and pushing mankind’s greatest weapon even further beyond.

“E2, E3, my dummy unit is down. E5, enter the complex from the West and get your rifle on that killzone! Hold on, E4!”

416 fired, her weapon supercharged by drawing the energy directly from her body. Sparks leapt from the barrel, escorting each bullet that screamed for the enemy Cyclops. 

Her clip was emptied in seconds, and 416 slammed herself back into the cover of her pillar while the enemy responded. The next magazine struck home, her emerald eyes shining brighter than stars.

“E1,” her voice powered through, “I’ve half a dozen enemies advancing from the Command Center.” A scan with her right eye, “Numerous are returning from the Eastern corridor. You won’t b-”

“Copy, E4.” This time the explosion came over her mic, and 416 saw the single blue dot sprint into the adjacent room. “Take cover!”

416 understood. She moved just as another explosion detonated the southern wall, sending debris shuttling towards the approaching machines. 416 fired from her northern cover, dropping another three units before she saw a Cyclops in the rear aim his weapon high.

“Launcher!” she shouted just as the tube loosed a loud thunk and the center of the room exploded.

She popped back out, firing directly for the offending Cyclops and striking it in the neural cavity, toppling it.

A bullet struck her in the back, sending 416 sprawling onto her chest. She clawed the destroyed floor, pulling herself forward over her weapon as the map showed the enemy advancing from behind. Another explosion shoved her forwards, the pillar she’d been hiding behind blasting into pieces.

She twisted, bringing her rifle up and firing into green markers that shined through the smoke until her magazine clicked on empty. The olive metal of another construct marched with, jittery movement through the smog before twisting a full revolution and centering its weapon on 416.

A scream slammed into the machine before 416 could even realize she was going to die. A single braid of long black hair whipped furiously as M16A1 drew a knife from the sheath on her leg, embedding it into the construct’s facial plate. Her long yellow highlights flashed in the smog as she fired her assault rifle into the smoke with one hand, leaving the knife and back pedaling.

“Move it, move it!” she ordered 416. “Make for the Command Center!”

416 tried to drag herself backward but her left arm wasn’t working. Her leggings were torn and the gaps of pale flesh were seeping blood from multiple cuts. She managed to slide two feet before a lose rock beneath her right hand made her fall backward.

M16 was moving, seizing her by the collar and bodily hauling her backwards. “E5, skillshot, end of the hallway!”

Very softly 416 heard the whisper. “Interdiction Shot.”

NTW-20’s rifle didn’t bark. It exploded, like dual sticks of TNT. Her and her dummy had both fired, sending two shots from the anti-materiel rifle screaming down the hall, shattering through dual streams of enemy units. They flew on either side of 416 and M16, passing through the three-inch concrete on either side of the door.

M16 let go of 416’s jacket after they’d cleared the threshold, leaping back. 

“COMMAND POST CAPTURED!” she roared, the mic automatically dampening the volume in a way that the empty command center could not. “FROLOVA, CALL OFF THE ATTACK. NOW!”

All at once, the firing that had just been shaking the facility came to an end. The bringer of victory’s arctic wind passed. “Combat simulation over. Team Leader, regroup your team at the school entrance. The helicopter has been dispatched.”

“BITCH!” M16 swore, her rifle thrown aggressively to the floor. Her boots slammed as she hurried to 416’s side, now prone, pushing her hands off of the wet cloth that clung to her belly. “Commander, we’ve got wounded here.”

“A medi-team has been dispatched with the helicopter.”

M16 put pressure on 416’s belly, and for the first time 416 saw her face.

Blood soaked the entire right side of M16’s face, dripping off of her chin. Her left eye, huge and gray, glowing with energy and rage, was lit by an electric spark from the gash on her cheek. “I’ve got you. Hey, stay with me 416. Stay with me.”

416 coughed, felt her eyes roll back into her head, and passed out.

******************************************************************************

It was as if she were sleeping.

A deep, heavy, sleep. Smothered beneath a blanket of darkness and frozen beneath the ice.

Time didn’t exist where the girl was. All that there was, all there ever had been, all there ever would be, was the girl, and the void.

The girl couldn’t move, couldn’t act, but still the darkness held her. 

She was aware of it, of the unending void that had opened and swallowed her.

A primordial fear, something nothing could teach, nothing could program. All she felt was the fear of the end.

“We’ve got a heartbeat!”

Someone had said it, but the girl didn’t understand the words. They’d come from the other side of the darkness, above the layer of ice.

H K Four Sixteen.

It was taking everything in her power just to hold onto that phrase. It seemed so much more important now, but the girl didn’t know why.

There was something else in the darkness. Something had shifted, had changed.

“Persica, her neural center’s overloading!” the voice said from so far away. “What the hell are you doing?!”

A flash of deep blue fire, deep in the pit.

The girl reached for it.

Heather opened her eyes. She had just enough time to see the furious expression of a dark-haired boy before he plunged an injector into her neck and she fell down, down, down into a swirling storm of snow.

Somewhere below, the line of canons fired, and their shells screamed through the air.

******************************************************************************

When 416 woke up, she was sitting inside of an unfamiliar repair bay. A white room in a bed with white sheets and white belts tied around her arms and legs. A young boy that she thought she’d seen in a dream explained to her that his name was Dier, and that he was a mechanical specialist working with Griffin and Kryuger.

From a white rolling chair, he told her that they weren’t in a Griffin facility. They’d made an emergency landing at the nearest operation center that could deal with T-doll repairs, a military base in the Siberian wilderness. She had been damaged in a training accident, but that they were able to revive her heart and neural center. She’d have some scars that they could graft some new skin over, but she was alive.

“If the medi-team hadn’t been able to keep your heart going, we wouldn’t have been able to bring you back. Pretty lucky, huh?”

416 looked at the scar that snaked down the cloth they’d used to cover her breasts. “A machine can’t be lucky,” she said softly.

Dier snorted. “You get that from Persica’s indoc class?”

416 didn’t respond.

“She knows how you think better than you do,” Dier said. He sounded mad. “Way I see it, you’re right. A machine can’t be lucky. But you are.”

Again, 416 said nothing.

Dier shook his head and shrugged. “They pay me for my work, not for my mouth. Else things’d be different, that’s for sure. They’re talking about a way to hook you all up to a system, so that they can bring you back from a neural backup. So maybe you can look forward to that.”

When 416 continued to say nothing, Dier shrugged once more and got up from his seat. 

“You’ll be on bedrest for a week. I’ve already drawn up the order. I don’t care if Kryuger himself orders you out to the field, you’re not leaving this facility. You got that?”

416 nodded, keeping silent.

“I don’t give a damn what he, or what Persicaria claims. You need to rest just like any normal soldier.”

“She’s not any normal soldier,” a woman chimed.

Persica was a completely unassuming woman. She wore a white button-down shirt, untucked from a short black skirt. It was loosely buttoned, over which she wore a white lab coat that was three sizes too big. She looked different outside of the classroom, her constantly overcast eyes looking somehow sharper. Her brown hair was so light that it was nearly gray, and on top of her head she wore a pair of black and white cat ears.

“She’s a T-doll. She’s so much more,” the scientist smiled lazily. “And, as the leader of 16Labs, 416 will go where I order.”

Dier looked more than displeased with her sudden entrance. His mouth tightened and his hand began clenching into a fist.

“416?” Persica said, “You’re ordered not to leave this facility as per Dier’s instruction.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” 416 softly responded.

Dier left without another word, though his glare remained with Griffin’s lead scientist and head of indoctrination. 

As Persica entered the room, 416 noticed that the woman was still barefoot. Even in unfamiliar territory, Persica always looked right at home. She spoke with the tone of a teacher giving instruction. “HK416, how are you feeling?”

“I feel fine,” 416 reported. A slight maneuver with her mouth brought up her readings. “My heartrate is-”

“Forty-nine beats per minutes,” Persica cut in. “Optimal for a T-doll.” She then nodded towards several monitors. “It’s on the screen.”

416 looked. “Oh…” she trailed off.

“I asked you how you’re feeling, but perhaps I should be more specific. HK416, how does your left shoulder feel?”

416 shrugged it up and down in her restraints. “Fine,” she reported.

“And your left knee?”

Another slight movement. “Fine,” she said in the same exact tone.

“Good.” She took a step back out into the bright hallway. “Alright, come on. You can see her.”

416 blinked at Persica, feeling confused until another person stepped in front of her.

M16A1 was as tall as the doorframe, casting a shadow that would have reached all the way to the East Asian Sea. She was wearing a simple white gown, her black and yellow hair unfurled and reaching down past her hips, but 416 couldn’t take her eyes off of the large, black eyepatch that was over her right eye. 

The scratches looked fresh even now, as if they might start dripping any moment. A white square of gauze was held in place by the patch, dotted with dried blood.

“Heya, kid,” M16 said in her friendly, gruff voice. She walked over to 416’s side and began undoing the latches that bound her legs. “How would you like to come for a walk?”

In silence, the two T-dolls left the room. They went to the nearby elevator, taking it up to the surface, and exited into one of the base’s smaller bunkers. As the elevator closed, M16 sighed, leaning against the support rail.

“I hear you got some of your own,” M16 tapped the scars on her cheek.

416 sighed. She fingered the top of her gown, showing a peak of the long, trailing scar.

M16 nodded. “Frolova wanted to be the first person you saw after waking up, for debriefing. But she said she didn’t want to wait for you to wake up. I thought Dier was gonna beat the shit out of her,” she chuckled.

416 said nothing. The indoctrination courses claimed they should never speak poorly of one of the human staff.

“Bitch deserves it,” M16 said gruffly as the doors opened.

The pair came out into the bunker, moving to the either side of the hall as a pair of humans came downward. Their uniforms were similar to that of Griffin and Kryuger, but the staff at this facility wore black and white clothing that was modeled after the older Soviet uniforms. Each wore a large brimmed hat with an emblem in the center, displaying the large SF of Sangvis Ferri. Both of them looked at M16 for a moment too long before moving ahead to the elevator.

416 followed her leader out into the open.

Pine trees surrounded the bunker on all corners, the dry season coloring the forest floor with brown needles. A couple of manmade paths had been created for troop transporters and delivery trucks for the underground complex. 

416 wondered if Sangvis troops had some sort of dorm area, but M16 started down the path to the base’s main building. A Command Center, where on-base Commanders would no doubt be filing security reports and checking on their field troops.

“I’ve been demoted,” she told 416.

It was like a spark of electricity shocked the white-haired doll, and for the first time since waking up she felt something. She felt angry. 

“W-what?! Why?!?” she demanded. “We completed the mission. You should be able to command your own unit!”

M16 shook her head. “We lost two dummy links and had two team members heavily injured.”

416’s glare could have tempered a bear. “We’re loosed arrows, aren’t we?”

“Expensive arrows,” M16 frowned. “The command staff says that T-dolls can’t command T-dolls. Not with satisfactory results.”

A group of purple-haired units came around the bend, marching to a tempo set by a young Commander at their side. They responded in the exact and precise way that Sangvis units always did, mechanical husks that couldn’t think and could only react.

M16 and 416 pulled to the right side of the path while the commander rallied his group to the other. A large man, a Russian ape squeezed into a black and white uniform, he smiled at 416 as they passed.

She didn’t return the grin.

Another moment passed before 416 said, “She cheated.”

“Yeah. She did.”

M16 kicked a rock with one of her sandals. The pebble fired through the air with enough force to lodge itself into the trunk of a tree.

“That’s not fair,” 416 continued.

M16 shook her hair, her long hair rolling on either side of her waist. “We were created for one purpose. To fight for the private military of Griffin and Kryuger. We were made for this, 416.” Her hand brushed over her lost eye. “Life was never meant to be fair.”

416’s hand tightened. “So, what now? We just go back to serving without any input? Like those units back there? You and Persica pushed so hard for this chance.”

“We did, and we failed. We should have known the Cyclops were there.”

“Frolova-”

“Commander Frolova,” M16 corrected.

416’s knuckles cracked. “She had access to our sensors. She knew how to hide them.”

“And she gave us enough warning that we could fight them off,” M16 shrugged. “Does it matter? We failed.”

“You cannot just roll over and take this.,” 416 scowled.

“Well what do you want me to do?” M16 asked hotly, turning to face her companion. “What the hell else could we do?!”

416 stared at her. “We could leave.”

M16 laughed bitterly, shaking her head. “I told you. We were made for this. Now, come on. We have orders.”

While M16 seemed almost cold and internal, 416 was about to fry her neural cloud. Her fingers popped. “What are our orders?” she asked bitterly.

“We’re doing a pass down. And I need you there to make sure I don’t kill the human.”

416 wanted to hit her. She wanted to lash out at M16, how the hell could she just do nothing?! It was sickening. They deserved better than this. She deserved better.

“We were supposed to lead our first contract in a couple of days. I’d have been given command of our unit and we’d have worked together with another group of humans in a raid on a suspected Terrorist cell. We lost that contract.”

The white-haired doll didn’t trust herself to speak. Her cheeks were on fire, her chest cooking the air in her lungs. 

They came to the main-base of the building and M16 hailed the A-doll at the front desk. They were then passed into a nearby waiting room. It was without windows, had blue painted walls, and a large black table sat in the center of four white chairs. 

Neither one of them sat.

“This is ridiculous,” 416 spat. “Why doesn’t Frolova just lead the contract? We could still take part.”

M16 shrugged. From inside of her gown, she removed a large manilla folder that had the word Classified printed on the top. It wasn’t clear where she’d been holding it. “Commander Frolova gave this to me, and then ordered me not to read it. All the details are in here. The location of the unmarked factory, the suspected number of enemy combatants. They even got the name of the VIP they want to extract.”

A pause hung in the air before 416 asked, “You read it, didn’t you?”

M16 never had a chance to respond. The door opened, and a strange sight walked in.

Two T-dolls, both with bright brown hair and amber-yellow eyes, came to the desk. They were both armed with small submachine guns and were wearing ID passes strapped to their green-black jackets. One of them, obviously the leader, introduced herself. “Sorry for your wait. My name is UMP40. I was told you have a job for us?”

M16 looked to 416. “I thought Sangvis didn’t employ T-dolls?”

The girl pulled her seat back, sitting down. “It seems you’d thought wrong,” she smiled cheekily. “My sister and I were created for command,” she gestured to the other girl. “This is UMP45.”

******************************************************************************

All of this passed through 416’s mind in a matter of moments. Each memory, each thought, the emotions of anger, of frustration, and the sight of the blue flame at the end. Her fingers tightened and it took a soft touch to bring her back to the present.

“416?” G11 asked, the short, tubby doll standing up against her shoulder. They were in the apartment Kemerovo, now in the dark of the oncoming winter. The only light source was the soft glowing blue of 416’s computer. “Are you okay?”

“What are you doing up?” 416 asked. “You should be back in bed.”

G11 again tugged on the sleeve of 416’s shirt. “I ran out of cookies. I was gonna ask if you could take me to get a hamburger.”

A cough came from the speakers, and both girls turned. The tiny chat window showed Persica’s fluffy cat ears bobbing uncomfortably.

“Good evening, G11. How are you tonight?”

“Hungry,” G11 responded, a pudgy hand falling to her porky, bare hip. “How are you?”

Persica’s smile looked exceptionally tired. The bags in her eyes were deep and dark. “Not great,” the lead scientist said.

416 glared. “Is she already gone?”

Persica took a breath. “It’s the only way that we could get M4A1 back into working order. M16 left for the factory after leaving your message with me. I contacted you directly after. It was harder to find you without 45.”

“And you’re just letting her go?”

A moment passed before Persica shook her head. “It’s the only way.”

“Did you think that, maybe, she was more useful than M4?” 416 bristled, her voice taking on a shriller air as the anger heightened, and G11 took a wavering step away as she stood from her chair, her eyes trying to melt the woman through the webcam. “That, maybe, M16 has more combat experience than your entire AR Team put together?!” 

“Experience won’t be how we win.”

“You sacrificed her.”

“Yes,” Persica was stoic. “A pawn for a queen.”

She wanted to punch something, to rip something apart. She was about to do it to her computer. 

“Heather?” G11 asked in a low, quiet voice that was barely a whisper. 

416’s emerald eyes turned from the computer to the soft pillow that was G11. She was gripping the edge of the desk, tight enough that the wood was beginning to whine. 

She’d kill Persica. She’d kill her just like she intended to kill M16, but she needed something first.

“You said,” she started, “that you had information on 45. You said you knew where she is.”

“I do. And I know where she will be. This weekend, Griffin is having an honorary event for the death of Commander Konrad and others who fell in the line of duty. It’s a large event, and even the military is being invited. It’s at the palace on the river in Volgograd. 45 will be there.” 

“How do you know?”

Persica didn’t answer.

416 nearly exited out of the window, but she was stopped when Persica continued to talk. 

“I wouldn’t have gotten you on the mic if I didn’t have something, and M16 asked I give you her message. I promised her that I would.”

“I already know it,” 416 growled.

She turned off the mic, jabbed the button on the monitor, and fell back in her chair. She wanted to cry, could feel the tears bubbling in her emerald eyes as G11 wobbled up and put her arms around her, holding 416 in a soft hug. Another hand, this one small and thin, appeared as 9 crept into the room, silent and sad.

To her sisters, 416 whispered, “We were made for this.”

******************************************************************************

On the screen, Persica sighed. The leader of 16Labs, the scientist responsible for their ongoing defeat, was right there, tired and completely unaware. She’d told the other girl that she was in Tomsk, that wasn’t five minutes away from the nearest strike team. If Destroyer could only just move, she’d be able to call out th-

Mastermind was staring at the computer. She wasn’t an inch away from the screen, the small body that was sat in the Operation Centers chair watched every single detail before Persica rubbed her eyes, yawned, and the video chat winked out. 

Gasping for breath, Destroyer clawed the gloved hand of Dreamer off of her mouth. Her bag of chocolates, now forgotten, smacked against the rear wall as Destroyer threw herself forward, landing on her knees and bowing to the girl in the chair. “W-we can get her!” she told Mastermind. “If we go now, we can attack Persica and-”

She was interrupted as a hand slammed into the back of her head, forcing her face into the ground. Dreamer held her down. “Elisa,” Dreamer asked. “What should we do?”

The chair turned and Destroyer heard the sound of small feet padding onto the floor. 

“Dreamer, prepare all Ringleaders to head to Volgograd. If the military is there, they may be planning a joint operation. We need eyes on that meeting, to know when and where they intend to strike. This may be our chance. I will be taking Judge with me, and meet you there on the day of the event.”

“Where will you go, Elisa?” Dreamer asked.

“I’m going home. There’s a guest that I need to greet.”