The Scouts, a favored unit for advanced reconnaissance deployed from the Ark, trudged through the rough terrain that was a massive swamp just beyond the limits of a ruined city on the Surface. They'd been testing the Sensor Station within the Outpost for the past day before they received a signal here, from a wounded Mass Production Nikke, as it seemed. Mass Production Nikke models were never supposed to openly be recovered if lost. They were mass-producible for a reason, but something compelled the shooter to go in and try and save her.
Pushing through the thick shrubs in a different outfit than her normal, sleeveless top, cammie shorts and boots, a young woman with short brown hair and the build of an athlete pushed through the water, her heavy-duty marksman rifle shouldered as she peered through the top-mounted red dot attachment that sat on the high-zoom scope. She checked her magazine almost compulsively every three minutes, peering into the opaque brown plastic to see if any rounds had magically disappeared.
She wore a longer-sleeved green camouflage gear set this time, with even her vest replaced by something to more-so fit the place, her rifle wrapped with OD Green tape to make sure it blended in as well. Her fingerless combat gloves screeched a bit as she gripped tightly into the form-fit plastic grip of the tactical DMR. Bringing her left hand back to her chest, she radioed, "SCOUT-2, this is One... Nearing target area..." as her helmet's HUD flashed with a navigation point.
"C-Copy..." The younger, shy member of the Scout team replied. She was using higher ground to traverse the place, due to her smaller stature, "SCOUT-2 is nearly in position as well. Radio contact with the Outpost is three-by-five, but I have confirmed status reports that all is in order... Alva Particles are also slightly heavier in this general area, so expect some of our coms to fail..."
"It'll have to do. Stand by for CASEVAC call... Thanks, Signal," She offered as she walked forward, the dirty, murky water below her stirring, rippling as she pushed through it. Her HUD soon picked up a friendly IFF dead ahead, on a rise of dirt, stone and greenery. Slinging her rifle onto her back and making sure the barrel pointed upward, the woman drew her sidearm, a tactical pistol, from its sealed holster and started climbing while peering through its red dot.
She saw the figure of the war machine Nikke. She missed a leg and half her arm. Her helmet had broken, a chunk missing near where her eye used to be. Her Machine Gun, a heavy-duty weapon, lay beside her, still working and stabilized on its bipod. The ammo backpack had been set aside, feeding tube snaking between the rocks behind the broken doll's cover. Expended casings surrounded her, some still warm.
A Product 12, her brownish armor melding with the dirt. She breathed heavily, a hole drilled square in the left of her chest plate seeping scarlet coolant onto the dirt. One of her lungs was collapsed. Her sole good eye and sensors were locked, gazing down the iron sights of the weapon, barrel barely cooling after sustained fire underneath the heat shroud.
The Sniper of the Scouts whistled, garnering the Doll's attention. Through the heavy panting, the girl coughed out an, "Delta..."
Delta, commander of the Scouts, crouched and slowly moved toward the Product, patting her on the shoulder and stating, "It's fine, Twelve-Oh-Niner. You'll live..." a lie as both knew, but a comforting one nonetheless. She asked her, "How many are we looking at...?" before lifting her rifle, extending the bipod and peering through the larger scope out into the treeline. She saw the half-sunken corpses of half-a-dozen Raptures of various sizes... And the corpses of a platoon of Mass Production patrol Nikkes... iDolls and Products, dead side by side.
"Ten platoOnS..." 12-09's vocoder glitched, pitch changing randomly. She scratched her throat and swallowed, wincing lightly in pain, before murmuring, "Damage hEAVY... WINCXCAHG..." The audible glitch echoed, making the Product 12 variation wince. Her mechanical heart seemed to sink as she spoke, voice low, "WINCHESTER Ammo... I'm not making it out of this whole, Delta..."
"Copy... And you will if I can help it," She nodded, eyeing the moving silhouettes in the distance, then radioing, "SCOUT-2, get down here. Priority message to be delivered by Actual..." and watching as the petite Nikke with silver hair and glasses slid down, hugging the backpack that contained the sole piece of communication equipment capable of breaching through the Alva Particle interference. She set it down in cover and extended its antennae, then carefully joined the broken Product and her friend in cover, black, stockless SMG at the ready as she trembled. She wore standard green BDU cammies as well.
Delta leaned toward the radio and picked up the transmitter, linking part of her communication array with it and radioed, "Outpost, this is The Scouts. Located damaged Product 12-09, requesting CASEVAC ASAP. Be advised, perhaps two hundred Rapture units of unknown type may be surrounding us as we speak. Rest of allied Patrol is KIA, but we might be able to find..." She then paused as she saw a human corpse, desiccated and clad in a whitening brown uniform, laying among the dead Nikkes.
"... Oh..." Delta looked to her, feeling a lump in her throat.
12-09er nodded, "They'll take my brain, scour it for info and kill me. Some other 12 will take my place... And frankly? I failed to spot the aMBuSh..." She coughed and slammed her fist into her throat. Delta now noticed the smaller hole that was drilled near where normal human vocal cords would be. The Product continued speaking, "At least I won't have to deal with so many of me anymore..."
Delta and Signal both wanted to say something to comfort her, but the thunder of armored legs pounding the ground ahead, alongside the whirr of antigravity systems of the enemy's flying units took their attention. Delta pressed her lips together 'till they were razor-thin, before sighing, "Confirming Commander of squad KIA... Deploy reinforcements as you see fit. Over."
She set the transmitter-receiver of the radio aside, then hefted her rifle and scoped in the first glimmering scarlet light of an enemy's Oculus. 12-09 blinked, eye wide, then told them, "You should leave... I'm a dEaaewqe... Dead model anyhow. The least I can do is..." She shouldered her GPMG, thumbing the safety off, "Die protecting one of the most important squads the Outpost has..."
"Honorable, but fruitless. This is our Hill," Delta responded, then racked the bolt of her rifle, chambering one of the high-velocity Nikke-standard .308 rounds that her rifle fired, before shouldering it again and wrapping her finger around the trigger. She told her, "We all go home today..." then gave a nod to Signal. The young woman put some distance between herself, Delta and 12-09.
12-09 looked upon the Elysion military Nikke with a weak smile, then sighed and aimed, "They warned us you Elysion dolls are stubborn..."
Delta didn't deign to respond for now. Clear challenges from Missilis units were not uncommon, considering Syuen's prerogative and views on Nikke, but they were all still Nikke, all still humanity's unaccepted, unloved warriors. Delta cared deeply for all of her supposed sisters in suffering, so she didn't care for any preconceived notions of their human masters at some moments.
When the first Rapture frame appeared and exposed not just its weapons, but it scarlet Occulus, the rifle wielded by the Scout leader thundered, bullet screaming through the air, between the trees and over the swampy area ahead, before nailing the core and cracking its outer shell. Two more shots left the barrel of the rifle, staggering the beast, before the fourth and final round struck and destroyed the core, sending the machine tumbling head-first into the swamp.
Delta adjusted her aim as more small-fry appeared. She didn't bother with them, however, as the infernal scream of the machine gun in 12-09er's hands filled their ears. The tracers, one after five bullets, lit the area between them and their enemies like a laser beam, the Product firing 'till her weapon's barrel began to warp and the ammunition counter rapidly collapsed from the thousand rounds it still had in its hold.
Delta's aim locked onto shield units in the rear. The four-legged Raptures were dangerous, because they could easily provide an overwhelming layered phalanx to allow their smaller siblings to advance. As the enemy's smaller units came into range and Signal opened fire with her own SMG, Delta focused on the shielders. She shot the lead with all the left-over ammo in her rifle, causing its core to heavily crack, then dropped her empty magazine and pulled a fresh one out of her vest pouch and slammed it home, hitting the bolt release only to hear the satisfying click of a round being fed.
Two more times did the rifle crack in the air and the leading enemy shield unit collapsed in the swamp, sending a splashing wave into the backs of several of the smaller units that were aiming for them. Said units' aim went wide, bullets and neutron beams slashing wildly across the wind, missiles missing their intended targets and hitting water or soil and the beams themselves melting through organic matter with little regard for its type.
12-09 shifted her LMG fire toward the ground, toward the ones that were aiming at them, the weapon spewing out casings at an alarming rate. She only could see her ammo counter with the corner of her eye. With only one good vision hole, she had to focus on aiming. Thankfully, these assholes were thick enough that she didn't need to worry about one of her bullets missing.
Wherever she swept, bullets struck. Whether they hit plating or biomechanical components, or even the core, was entirely up to chance. Her ammo supply still dwindled quickly, but the barrel was the biggest worry. It glowed a burning scarlet, slowly going onto orange as it warped. She wasn't sure what would go first:her full ammo supply, or the barrel bending and exploding the moment one round went through it.
She'd fire until the gun detonated in her good hand if she could help it. The sole thing that needed to be whole was her mass-produced artificial brain. They could pull the information out of it like that. She watched, however, with muted awe as Delta seemed to enter a sort of 'Zone', her sniping incredibly proficient. She also saw two magazines with blue tape around their base. One of them was loaded by the Elysion sniper immediately, snapping into place with a satisfying click.
The rifle thundered, its muzzle-flash thoroughly blinding for a moment. The armor-piercing round struck the core of a heavy-duty enemy hexapedal unit, shattering the Occulus core and causing a mass detonation of its ammunition. The spent casing fell to the dirt alongside 12-09's own spent rounds, while Signal's own SMG continued chattering. The girl yelped and ducked as a bolt of energy snapped over her head.
"The round worked!" Signal almost jumped to cheer. She ducked back into cover as three shots hit her cover and lit a bit of the trunk on fire. She poked the gun over her cover and fired wild bursts, before whining and dropping the empty banana magazine of what was really an upgraded, Nikke-standard MP5k SMG. She slapped the bolt home, then opened fire again, controlled bursts striking the smaller enemy units.
The sniper rifle rumbled twice more, spent casings dropping onto the floor with some weight behind them. Two more enemy units exploded while more of their heavier-duty brethren, namely Thermite-class Legion Lords, stomped their way forward, their magnetic rifle arms aiming for the group and charging. All three women were forced to dip, 12-09 expending the last of her ammunition.
Her bolt slammed home and the gun clicked shut, the barrel snapping with the heat. She looked at the weapon and swore to herself quietly, then ducked into cover and said, "I'm out..." only to see Delta handing her her pistol, grip first. She blinked, then took the weapon and did a quick one-handed press-check, pulling back the slide and examining the chamber, before letting it slam home.
"Not yet," Delta quipped, then hummed and straightened back up, firing another couple shots from her rifle that seemed to stagger the Thermites. The quadrupedal, heavily-armored biomechs, however, stomped their way forward, firing bursts of missiles from the top turret. The rounds hit home before she could take cover, one of them striking her arm and wounding her. She maintained composure and fired the last rounds in her mag, dropping into cover to reload it with the second AP mag.
The expense in ammo was felt even with the extra guns. The trio of Nikke engaged the enemy as they drew closer and closer, to the point Delta had had to switch over to the red dot on top of her scope to engage them properly, while Signal didn't really need to aim anymore. Once the pistol clicked empty for 12-9, she handed it back to Delta, who still had two mags of non-AP Ammunition left. She murmured to herself, "That CASEVAC could do us some good right no-"
She froze, however, as a distant snap echoed and, like a whip's crack, a bullet whizzed in, striking the thinner side armor of the occulus containment belonging to the Rapture, shattering its core in one direct hit. Three more such shots rang out and the four Lord Raptures broke, collapsed and detonated, their several hundred minions collapsing along with them.
The three Nikke stared, dumbfound, at their destroyed enemies, before 12-09 asked, "What just... Happened...?" with one wide eye. She removed the remnants of her helmet, revealing dark-brown hair the same color as her armor, then looked around, following a rapidly-dissipating contrail toward where the shot had come form. A distant tree with a thick, straight trunk.
"High-caliber rifle, anti-materiel probably..." Delta noted, then scanned the place, following 12-09er's gaze toward the tree, then looking up it. She saw a faint figure, stating, "What do you think, Signal? 14,5mm?"
"A-a bit too fast... Velocity seemed almost twice that of a normal 14,5mm round..." Signal replied warily, her voice shaky as she slung her SMG over her shoulder and walked up next to the radio pack. Delta affirmed her suspicions as her own mind had quickly made the calculations. About 700 meters from that tree, looked like almost zero bullet drop and all four shots hit very quick after the snaps.
Squinting, the Nikke noticed a humanoid figure sat atop the tree, but couldn't quite make them out. She stated, "I see our shooter..." before pulling her rifle off her back and removing its scope. She looked through the scope at the armored figure, noting that, yes, in fact, it might've very well been humanoid, but the armor itself looked like something straight out of sci-fi. And the rifle, too.
"What are they...?" Signal inquired, worried.
"Whatever they are..." Delta hummed, then gave a quick wave. The figure waved back, then Delta turned to Signal and told her, "They're friendly..." only to look back and to see... "And they're gone... Curious..." before humming and lowering the scope. She stuck it back to the rifle, made sure it was zeroed, then said to them, "Let's hope that CASEVAC gets here soon."
And just as she said that, the rippling clap of helicopter blades filled the air, sending dust and debris flying up and around them and causing ripples in the marshy water. The group watched the Chief descend first, landing with a heavy thump onto the floor and moving out to secure the place. Behind him, three Nikkes dropped out, alongside a new commander. Rapi stepped up and lowered her rifle, then said, "Oh. Good afternoon, Delta."
"Rapi, ma'am," She greeted with a nod.
"We got a wounded Missilis Product 14," Anis quipped as she walked up to the doll, "Good lord, girl, you look worse for wear..."
Product 12-09 gave an agreeing nod, before Delta stated, "She needs immediate repair. Requesting permission to take her with us to the Outpost to do that. Liter and Mighty Tools might be able to assist... Why were you out here in the first place, Oh-Niner?"
"Intel gathering with our Commander..." She murmured, "DAAAAAAAAA-..." She swore to herself, then cleared her throat, "Data retrieval... Seeing enemy movement, mapping it... Intel."
Delta looked over to the Commander and the Chief, noting, "That is... One big soldier, sir..." As the Commander stepped beside him. He chuckled and nodded.
"He's friendly, though. C'mon, let's get Oh-Niner and you and Signal out of here, Delta," The man ordered, before he motioned to his team to gather them all up. Chief walked up to Oh-Niner and picked her up in a bridal carry, her weapon retrieved by Anis. They clipped themselves onto the ropes dropped by the chopper and were brought aboard, only for the transport to depart. Delta wanted to comment that, due to Oh-Niner's failure, she would probably be decommissioned, even if repaired... She chose to save that for herself, noting the look of guilt in the woman's eyes as the dead Commander's corpse was brought aboard. Alyosha Harris, the Outpost's commander, sighed and gave a quick goodbye to a fellow Commander, before covering him up with a tarp as he helicopter departed.
Long, long day, Delta thought warily, sighing deeply and leaning back.