Girls' Frontline Fanfiction: Tsar of the Mountain

Factory of Oxidized Dreams

"Team One, entering the compound," A-545 declared over her radio as her team crossed the rail yard and entered the factory through a blown open loading bay door. They hadn't blown it open, it was an old scar from the Butterfly Incident; one of many that stained the facility.

"I still think we should have a team name," MDR idly complained as she helped Mondragon and her dummy links up the steep step into the loading bay. "Team One is so boring."

"The Commander said he was still considering a name," A-545 replied as she flicked on her flashlight and scanned the room. "We also still need a fifth member for a full echelon, so we'll likely get our name when he finds our final member."

"But, that could take ages!" MDR, and the rest of the team, flicked on their own flashlights and followed after their leader.

"Complaints don't make things come any faster, MDR," Mondragon chastised.

"...It might," MDR quietly muttered as she lazily looked around the room they were in. "Man, this place got trashed." There were bodies littering the floor around them and the catwalks above; both dolls and humans. Bullet holes and plasma burns scared the walls and floors telling the story of a fierce battle that continued past the doors they were headed to and into the rest of the factory. Some forklifts that were nothing more than burnt-out husks sat with their cargo still on their lifts. Freight cranes mounted to ceiling tracks hung eerily above the factory's floor. No fires burned as they had long since been snuffed out. Only the dark, and silence were left. MDR took out her phone and started taking pictures.

"Is now the time for that?" A-545 questioned. She wasn't chastising MDR but sounded genuinely curious.

"Duh," MDR replied as she took some shots of one of the burned-out forklifts, "Gotta capture the memories of our first mission; even if it's a boring one."

"Hmm." A-545 didn't think of that. Many of the other dolls back at base had hobbies they enjoyed, but A-545 couldn't think of one she had. She decided to look for one when this was over. But, the mission came first. She approached and opened a door that led into a dark hallway. This one only had a few bodies in it, so a marginal improvement from the factory floor. "Let's move." A-545 motioned forwards and her team fell in with lights trained down the hall.

***

"It hasn't even been a minute and they've already found proof," Horris bitterly chuckled to himself as he and Zeldri watched the team through their optic cameras that were displayed on one of the monitors that lined the wall. When Zeldri didn't respond, Horris continued, "Don't act like you don't see it, too." He rewound the footage of MDR since she was the one looking closely at their surroundings. "These people weren't all killed by plasma."

"..." Zeldri continued to keep his silence as the footage played again. Some of the dead human staff had clear conventional bullet wounds. And, what was even stranger, so did most of the doll bodies. Sangvis Ferri was a company that pushed for plasma-based weapons and all their dolls were equipped with such. So, if no Sangvis doll had conventional bullets and these dolls were seemingly killed by conventional bullets then that only led to one conclusion.

"Sangvis didn't do this, they killed each other," Horris spoke Zeldri's thoughts. He heavily leaned on the table as he stared at Zeldri. "Didn't that official report say Sangvis were the ones who cleaned house?" While he was enjoying discovering the conspiracy, Horris left it at that since the look on Zeldri's face was enough to scare even him.

"...Drag me all the way here for this?" Zeldri bitterly muttered as he continued to watch his team's movements and scanned the photos MDR was taking. "Блядь (Fuck)."