Codename: Ghost - An Arknights OC Fanfiction.

Something Amiss

Around 40 minutes have passed since the briefing and all the concerned operators have started to steadily make their way to group up at the vehicle depot of the landship, all of them lock and loaded for the upcoming operation.

"Is this everyone you picked, dokutah?" Dobermann asks. Her being the disciplined officer she is was one of the first few people to arrive at the depot. 

"Yeah.... almost everyone." Dokutah replies back after a quick survey of faces already present there.

"Almost?"Dobermann asked again, to which Dokutah merely raised his arm and pointed his index finger towards a direction behind her. Curiously Dobermann's gaze followed the tip of his finger, and not for the first time today, her face quickly met with her palm, seeing once again a pair of idiots walking towards the group. One of them was pulling the other, and as they got closer, a snippet of their conversation could quite clearly be heard,

"No!! Don't drag me away from my apple pie! It's going to burn! lemme go!"
"I told you there wasn't enough time to bake an apple pie right now. You should've done that earlier, you had it coming to yourself."

And as so, the red haired angel pouted as Ghost kept on dragging her along the floor until they finally arrived at the group,

"I'm sorry we're late. Thi-"
"I don't want to hear your excuse. I've seen and heard enough to understand, not that I like what I heard." Dobermann cut into him as Ghost tried to explain their slight delay in reporting themselves.

"Anyways, now that everyone's here, let's hit the road. We'll be moving in 2 two armored transport, one full squad in each. Everyone can start moving to their respective vehicles. Let's go!" With their arrival completing the list of operators involved, Dobermann instructs in a commanding tone that was all too familiar with everyone there. With swift and efficient movements, they'd already found themselves driving on the road and moving to their given coordinates for the operation.

".....Hey, Ghost--" Exusiai tried to talk to Ghost during the journey as they were conveniently seated in the vehicle but every time she attempted to do so, she would receive next to no response as Ghost would already be fast asleep in the seat also conveniently behind hers. 

"Maybe I was a little too energetic for him to handle?" Exusiai started thinking up reasons for his tiredness, but her slow mutter of the question was overheard by Dobermann herself, who sat not far, only just in the seat in front of her,

"He always looks like he's full of energy, ready to give his all for a mission. In a way, he's kind of like you, just more disciplined (thank goodness), but lately he's really been pushing himself a lot these days during and even after operations. So I think you should leave him be for now, he really deserves the sleep."

"...I see.."  And so Exusiai stopped trying to disturb him for the rest of the whole journey. She'd still sometimes look back though to see if he was finally awake, but her hopes were rather disappointed as Ghost kept sleeping like a log throughout their travel.

But her boredom of nothingness to do wouldn't last so long, as Dobermann suddenly utters to her,

"Still, thanks to you, he's changed quite a lot."

"No, no... not really. I just did what anyone would've done for a buddy."

"I'm being serious here. He really took what you said to heart, you know. You told him to protect everyone else? He really does that. He's been going to long lengths to ensure everyone's safety, even if the situation didn't even really call for it. He's great, really."

"....he...has always been protecting others...." A slow response whispered itself from Exusiai. A short pause came from Exusiai as her head turned and faced the out the window besides her, her arm moving to hold up her chin up as she did. Though her eyes were really peeking over behind her to the sleeping person in topic, before she continued,