Chapter 1 - Into the Unknown

A girl with long dark brown hair slowly woke up as the red hot blazing noon sky stung her eyes a bit. She stood up and began looking around.

"Where am I?" She wondered. "How did I end up in a desert?"

She suddenly recalled what happened, about the events that happened before she woke up. She and her comrades were preparing for a mission at first, but suddenly–

Their base was under attack.

It wasn't the Sangvis Ferri nor the KCCO. It was just one person. This one person is covered in tattered clothing, but its body was made out of "mechanical cogs". It seemed invulnerable to any kind of attack, that even the Heavy Ordnance Corps weren't able to stop it from advancing. The only thing we managed to do was damage its already tattered clothing, which only enraged it. Its first chance of retaliation was with raising its arm up into the sky, collecting energy as a glowing dark purple orb formed over its hand. Reaching its intended limit, it then hurled that orb towards the HOC BGM-71 and violently exploded on contact. BGM-71 was decommissioned instantly. Only ashes remain of them. A commander ordered a retreat as the other T-dolls defended the personnel of the base.

It then swiftly waved its left arm horizontally, cleaving the air in front of it. In the lapse of a second, a lot of T-Dolls and personnel were cleaved in half right after. Their dismembered bodies drench the ground with both blood and oil. All I was able to do was watch as it happened.

Our commander and logistics officer, Kalina, was horrified by the stranger's gruesome display of brutality. We were ordered to run towards the hidden escape tunnel in their base as I (M4A1), ST AR-15, M4 SOPMOD II, R0635, and M16A1 made our retreat while exchanging fire with the stranger. The strange creature slowly lifted its arm and pointed at them. The tip of its finger began to glow and a bright purple light blinded them as they all eventually lost consciousness. When I woke up, all I knew was now… I was in an unknown desert.

She tried to contact anyone to no avail until she noticed her comrades were all lying near her. She woke them up immediately. All were in the same boat, confused as to why they ended up in the middle of nowhere.

"Hey guys...", said M16A1, "Maybe we have fallen asleep for over a millennia and humanity is long gone by now, hence why we are in a desert..."

She let out a burst of faint but also a half-worried laughter.

"D-don't say that!" M4A1 shouted.

"Sheesh, no need to shout, Lil Sis."

M16A1 stood up and removed the sand that accumulated on her thighs.

"I need to go to a higher location and see if I can contact anyone..."

"Ack-!"

"Eep!" M4A1 squealed upon realizing that she accidentally stepped on the head of someone.

"Ugh..." A girl with long white hair wearing a dark violet jacket slowly stood up. It was HK 416.

"... what the..." That same girl looked around after sitting up immediately. "Where the hell am I?!"

"416!" M4A1 helped 416 stand up.

"How did you end up here?" M4A1 asked.

"Ugh... We were heading towards a mission when we suddenly got attacked by something with a body made out of cogs...." 416 answered.

"Just like us..." She replied softly.

"Ugh, my head hurts!" 416 complained. "It's like… something stepped on my head!"

"I-it's probably that person who attacked you!" M4A1 stuttered.

"Hrng…" Something made mumbling sounds besides the two, freaking them all out.

Turns out, it was UMP9 alongside UMP45 and G11.

As the two groups calmed themselves down, they carefully thought of what to do next. They proceed towards an unknown direction, hoping to get connected to a neural network.

"I hope we find some sort of civilization in this desert! I don't want to run out of batteries in the middle of nowhere!" M16A1 complained.

The girls are called Tactical Doll, or T-Doll (as mentioned previously) for short. They are AI-piloted androids originally designed to serve as an easily expendable fire platform for military operations. Early generation dolls were unmistakably robots, but the standard form of Tactical Dolls came to be that of women as the need for easier human-machine interaction appeared.

"Shhhh!" R0635 shushed them. "You hear that?"

A faint noise can be heard from a distance; it was a vehicle!

M16A1 told the others to prepare themselves at the ready in case the people driving the vehicle showed them hostility.

An APC-looking vehicle armed with a 20mm cannon appeared at the ridge in front of them. It stopped at the moment they spotted the girls, 2 men hopped off from the vehicle and pointed their guns at them.

"Friendlies?" The man on the left asked.

"Uhhhh..." UMP45 hesitated to answer.

"Y-yeah! We're friendlies!" M16A1 answered as she dropped her weapon immediately and raised her hands in the air.

"Just do what I'm doing! We won't survive out here if that APC starts shooting at us!" She whispered (though still in a shouting manner) to the others.

All the girls reluctantly dropped their weapons and raised their hands in the air.

"You bunch also got attacked by those hordes of zombies… or are you the lot who'll send them towards us?!" The guy shouted as he kept the aim of his gun towards them, ready to pull the trigger at any moment.

"I have no idea what you're talking about...", said M16A1, "We just suddenly got teleported into the middle of the desert."

"Huh?" The guy asked in reply.

"Wait..." The other guy at the right side of the APC lowered his gun and signaled his colleague on the left to come towards him. He faced the girls for a moment, ordering:

"You can lower your hands but don't grab your weapons, otherwise we will fire at will."

After mentioning it, the two guys started talking to each other. After a few minutes, that same guy who ordered them to be at ease approached them.

"So… I assume you all suddenly got teleported to this desert, and are not from this world, yeah?"

M4A1 flinched at the sudden question with it being conveniently lined with their situation. M16A1 just nodded.

"Pick up your firearms and get on the APC. We'll be bringing you to our base. You might find some answers… to your confusion, there. I'm Captain Patrick James," He pointed to himself "and this is Sergeant Larry Lou." then stuck a thumb to point to the other guy beside him.

"Are you sure about this?" Larry asked Patrick.

"I trust my intuition." Patrick replied. "And besides. We've yet to meet any hostiles with the same foreign conditions."

As instructed, they picked up their guns and entered the APC. It started driving after everyone had been seated.

"Are we gonna trust them?" HK416 whispered to M16A1 exclusively.

"It's better than going offline in the middle of the desert." M16A1 replied.

"They trusted us first. I'd say that's trustworthy enough." M4A1 interjected.

A huge structure slowly appeared over the horizon in their general direction; it looked more like a ship than a building. Multiple aircraft hovered around the ship, this aircraft looks like a V-22 Osprey but uses a jet engine instead of a tiltrotor. The surrounding area of the ship is filled with craters, and some of the sands have turned into glass.

The APC stopped at a nearby tent, there's a 2 huge 10-meter tall mecha suit kneeling beside it. Patrick rushed towards this certain man and saluted at him. From the looks of it, this man seemed to be the Commanding Officer. He tried to explain the situation. As he tried to explain the situation, M16A1 walked forward.

"Errr…" She paused to think about formalities. "I'm M16A1, the leader of the Anti-Rain Team" She saluted the Commander.

The commander saluted back at her with a bit of confusion on his face.

"Come on everyone, introduce yourselves!" M16A1 whispered.

"Oh! Umm, I'm M4A1." she saluted.

"ST AR-15"

"M4 SOPMOD II"

"RO635"

"UMP45"

"I'm UMP9!"

"HK416…"

"... HK… G11... Zzzz [falls right back to sleep] …"

"I'm Commander Royce Wilson" He saluted back as he stared at sleeping G11 with concern.

"Err… something wrong with her?" Commander Wilson worriedly asked.

"Just ignore her…. please…." HK416 answered after a sigh.

"Commander Wilson, may I ask if you have any sort of recharging station? We are running low on power..." M16A1 stated.

"Oh, so you bunch are androids, huh? That explains the names..." He commented.

"MEI-417, come here!" Commander Wilson shouted.

A girl with blue hair sporting a ponytail comes out of the ship.

"How can I help you, Commander?" She bowed down.

From the looks of it, this girl was the same as them– an android.

"These girls need recharging. Take them to the charging room." He ordered.

"Yes sir" MEI-417 twirled her footing to face the group of T-Dolls. "Follow me please." She said as she led the way towards the ship she came from.

Upon entering, they took a left turn in the hallway and entered a room after walking a couple of minutes. There were two android girls also recharging; one of the girls with black shoulder-length bob hair seemed to be sleeping while the other one with the green twin-tails was preoccupied with using a mobile device.

"Oh! Who are these fellas?" The twin-tail girl asked at first notice.

"Captain Patrick James and Sergeant Larry Lou found them in the middle of nowhere, so they brought them here." MEI-417 answered.

"Are they a native of this planet?? Sounds fishy that they brought some native girls back to base and the Commander allowed them~" The twin-tail girl sneered as she grinned.

"I don't think they are from this world…" MEI-417 guessed as she put on a thinking posture. "Each of their weapons look… familiar..."

She raised her hands and a holograph display appeared at the top of her palm. She then begins searching for something in the interface provided.

"Oh right! I haven't introduced myself to you all." She turned around and faced them, "I am MEI-417, but for convenience sake, you can call me Pancakes." She slightly bowed at them.

"I'm AEL-443! My nickname is Green Tea!", said the twin-tail girl who then stood up gleefully and struck a peace sign pose at them. "And that one is ECS-654, her nickname is Silent." Green Tea pointed to the girl sleeping in the corner.

"Well. You are silent when you're asleep." SOPMOD shrugged as she remarked.

"And when you're asleep, you're not." RO635 scoffed.

"H-HEY!" SOPMOD immediately flustered.

M16A1 silently gestured for Pancakes to continue on, keeping her face straight and formal to take one for the team.

"We are an Artificial Human Intelligence, basically an android with human-like intelligence." Pancakes explained.

"I wanna ask, are those names your actual name, or is it a serial number? If you ask me, it's a bit– meh." Green Tea blurted as she innocently stared at them.

"Hey! Don't ask rude questions!" Pancakes fret as she smacked Green Tea on the head. "Please, forgive her attitude."

"It's okay. Someone ought to give a brief explanation on them anyway. Long story short, our names are based on the firearms we individually carry." M16A1 replied, raising her rifle.

"Firearms, firearms… Oh! Give me a moment!" Pancakes open up her holographic display.

"I found it! The firearms they carry came from Earth!" Pancakes noted.

"Earth? You mean the Capital planet of the United Earth Federation located in the Milky Way Galaxy? That Earth???" Green Tea guessed.

"Yes, our forerunner was born on Earth." Pancakes answered. "Her maker loves to collect old firearms."

"Oohhhhh!" Green Tea exclaimed. "So, how did you guys manage to end up in this universe? Last I checked, we're the only ones who have the capability to travel to different universes safely."

"We don't know… Our base just got attacked suddenly by that… thing." M16A1 sighed as she went to charge herself at the nearest station.

"What exactly is this 'thing' that attacked you?" Pancakes asked, pulling the same thinking pose.

"I… have no idea." M16A1 shrugged as she shook her head.

"Can you describe what that thing looks like, at least?" Pancakes continued asking.

"It looks humanoid enough, and its body looked like it was made up of mechanical cogs. All sorts of purple light flashed at its fingertips." She answered.

"Could it be?..."

"Yes, no doubt about it. A Kronosapien! I need to report this to the Commander!" Pancakes hurriedly left the room.

"What's this… Kronosapien?" M4A1 asked.

Right when Green Tea was just about to answer her question, the whole ship suddenly started shaking.

"Whoa! What's happening?!" UMP45 panicked.

It woke up HK G11 and made her sit up.

"Oh no! The ship is shaking…!"

Then her eyelids fell along with herself as she fell back asleep.

"Oh, they're finally here!" Green Tea replied calmly as she casually peeked outside the window.

Outside, there's a huge portal that appeared in the sky. A warship suddenly came out of it!

"Oh no…" Her expression breaks and adds concern to what she said.

M4A1 stared at the flying warship, it seems to have been damaged.

The newly arrived warship slowly descended and landed right beside the ship they were on. The repair response crew hurriedly moves in to repair the damage that the warship sustained.

"What happened??" M4A1 asked.

"Seems like the enemy managed to invade our rifts from the other side." Green Tea answered.

"Rift?" M4A1 asked another thing

"Ummmm. A Rift is a dimension that stabilizes the passage of time, it also acts as the first line of defense against invaders from another reality. Passage of time is basically a tunnel that allows us to travel to another universe and reality but it requires us to connect to a rift in order to stabilize it. Without the rift, it can destabilize and slowly deteriorate the connected reality to an extent that it destroys one another." Green Tea explained.

"Isn't Reality different from a universe??" UMP9 asked.

"Well, Reality contains a lot of universes and multiverses. Each reality has its unique laws of nature. They might look similar at the first glance but they have a lot of differences, especially from each history of every living civilization in that universe." Green Tea explained, "Wanna know more??" she asked.

"Ugh, no more... I can't keep up with all of this info." UMP9 shook her head as she carried it with one hand.

"We're done charging now." M4A1 unplugged the charging cable behind her back.

"What are you guys gonna do then?" Green Tea stood up and also unplugged the charging cable behind her back.

"We want to talk to Commander Wilson." said M4A1.

"Okay then! I'll guide you to his office!"

Without any other plans in mind, they all left the room soon after.

M16A1 and UMP45 entered the commander's office while the others waited outside. Inside the office were the Commander and Pancakes.

"According to MEI-417, you lot got transported into this world by a Kronosapien…", said Commander Wilson, "If you're here to ask about home, I'll just let you know now that we don't have any means to return all of you just yet."

"Affirmative." M16A1 nodded. "But in the meantime, we shall follow your orders and help you the best we can!" She saluted.

"Did your comrades also agree to this?" Commander Wilson questioned her.

"Yes sir!" She exclaimed.

"Very well then." Commander Wilson stood up and handed a tablet to M16A1. "Welcome to the Special Intervention Corps Genesis. As we speak, we're tasked to investigate this newly formed Reality while locating the culprit who tried to attack our world. Last night, around midnight, we received a distress signal from one of our reconnaissance teams requesting immediate reinforcements coming from this location."

The tablet shows a satellite image of a city.

"Here's the thing– we just made landfall in this world and there's zero sign of civilization in this world. We are baffled by how a city suddenly appeared out of nowhere. We tried making contact but it would seem like they didn't have any means to respond." He said, sitting himself down.

"I'll be assigning you all to rescue our men and any survivors out there. If it's possible, also find out why there's a city in the middle of nowhere. We are currently preparing to relocate because our quantum radar picked up an unknown warship approaching our location. MEI-417 and some of my men will guide you towards the city." Commander Wilson concluded as the three saluted back at him and left the office.

M16A1 explained the current situation and the acquired assignment to the others.

"There's one problem." M4A1 sighed "We are running low on ammunition."

"Don't worry! We have a lot of weaponry in the armory!" Pancakes exclaimed.

"Another problem: we have some sort of lock that prevents us from using another weapon except the one given to us…" RO635 added.

"I think know what to do about that." M16A1 exclaimed. "Hey HK416!"

"Huh?"

"You know what I'm talking about! Share it!"

"I don't even know what you're talking about…"

"The weapon governor unlock code! I know you have one!" M16A1 bawled.

"Like I said…"

"HK416…" UMP45 grabbed HK416's by her left shoulder and interrupted. "Share it with them."

"But!"

"They would more than likely kick us out to fend for ourselves if we don't offer our help."

"… Fine…"

HK416 shared the weapon governor unlock code with the others. With this, they can use any kind of weapon without any restriction this time.

Pancakes then guided them to the armory and began preparing for their mission. They entered the APC while some rode the variable transport craft that looks like a V-22 Osprey.

The surroundings easily got covered by a thick layer of fog as they approached the city. As they turned on the fog light, the land they were driving on slowly changed from sand to soil; soil that was immediately covered with greenery. Soon afterward, they ended up on an asphalt road in a forest.

At the side of the road, they all noticed a hard-to-miss sign saying:

WELCOME TO RACCOON CITY