Introduction:

You can read the story of GFL as an occasionally scuffed visual novel here.

You can also watch this short video series for a lore summary and Ch 0-11, it’s in Chinese with English subtitles: Girls frontline full story comprehension. Part 0: Collapsed world

It may be long, but this document is meant to break down the story and explain parts that are confusing. If you just want to be ready for GFL2, don’t worry, its story should be perfectly enjoyable without reading GFL1. You can also check the sparknotes version: A "Brief" Summary of Girls' Frontline or try HeroMystic’s video summaries: A Summary of Girls' Frontline 1: Chapter 0 - Chapter 10.75 | Ep. 1

Quick Jumps

Prologue: Butterfly (why would you click this)

Season 1: The Joint Operation

Season 2: The Pike Nodes

Season 3: Germany

Fixed Point (13.8)

Season 4: Past, Present, Future

Season 5: One Last Mission

Select OST Playlist: Girls' Frontline Soundtrack II - 16. The War Has Begun  full OST here

Prologue: Butterfly

“M4A1 ...Who exactly are you?”

Chapter 0 - Seed

“Repeating mission objective——Search for all histories and research data signed with the name ‘Lyco' and bring them back to 16LAB.”

Four Tactical Dolls reach their rendezvous point deep within S09 of Sangvis Ferri territory in the Carpathian mountains of southeast Europe. They are M4A1, AR-15, M16, and Sopmod-II of Team Anti-Rain, also known as the AR team. Sop-II hacks into a database at an abandoned S.F. command post and finds the location of “Safe House #3” which has a computer main frame that could help them accomplish their mission of finding Lyco’s research data. But when they arrive at the Safe House, it turns out to be a trap set by a Sangvis Ferri ringleader named Agent. S.F. also wanted the data in the safe house but couldn’t access it, so Agent lured the AR team in to open it for her. The AR team mounts a defense of the safe house while copying the data, activating a nearby team of abandoned Griffin PMC Tactical Dolls as support. As they complete the transfer, Agent gets in and is about to execute M4A1 until M16 surprises her with a set of bullets to the back of her head.

Agent may be dead, but she has backup bodies on the way and Sangvis forces still overwhelm the area, so the AR team hastily decides to split up to distract Sangvis so M4 can retreat back to Griffin-controlled territory and get reinforcements from a human commander.

Chapter 1 - Awakening

“These T-Dolls are especially valued because they are possible witnesses to some intel. If the intel proves to be true, it might mean open war between us and Sangvis Ferri.“

        At the command center of Griffin in sector 9, a rookie commander is going through combat drills with the help of their logistics officer, Kalina. “Griffin & Kryuger,” or Griffin for short, is a private military company that has been fighting to keep the rogue android army of Sangvis Ferri out of their territory; they use civilian androids who were originally built for other purposes, refit them for combat and rename them after the weapons they wield.  Griffin’s senior officer “Helian” contacts the commander and requests that they deal with a Sangvis scouting party that is part of the massive upswing in enemy activity in the sector.

        After the scouting party is dealt with, Helian informs the commander that they’ve got a lead on the Tactical Doll (T-Doll) “Skorpion” who had been part of a squad that had long since gone missing (the abandoned squad from ch 0) and supposedly has extremely important intel. The commander mounts a rescue operation to find that Skorpion is being interrogated by a Sangvis ringleader named Scarecrow who wants to know the location of M4A1. Skorpion gives false information and is rescued by Griffin, who then chases down Scarecrow to find out her mission and why Sangvis' activity in the area has suddenly exploded. Unfortunately, by the time they capture Scarecrow she has finished decoding bits of truth in the “false” information and transmits it before self-destructing. Now both Griffin and an unmet ringleader of Sangvis Ferri named “Executioner” will be able to decipher the location of M4A1 and the race is on.

        Back at the commander center of sector 9, Kalina briefs the Commander that Sangvis Ferri was originally a weapons and android manufacturing company, and their intel suggests that they suddenly rebelled against humanity because of an extremely sophisticated AI that disobeyed its human commanders and seized control of everything.

Chapter 2 - Echo

“We must bring her in safely with all possible haste. But due to certain agreements, we cannot openly interfere with the situation. After some discussion, Griffin HQ has decided to delegate this mission to you.”

In the Griffin command post at S09, Helian instructs the Commander to investigate the coordinates from Scarecrow’s transmission, but Kryuger, the head of the company, cancels the mission part-way and advises Helian to be wary of intelligence leaks that may be tipping S.F. off about their operations. Back on the battlefield, the lingering Dolls from the canceled operation separately run into both M4A1 and Executioner in a game of cat and mouse.

Kryuger puts the Commander in contact with Persica, who is the head researcher of 16LAB, Griffin’s top supplier of T-Doll technology and the creator of Team Anti-Rain. She has the Commander capture a Sangvis database to gather their data on M4A1. Kryuger and Helian piece together that the spike in Sangvis activity must mean that M4A1 discovered something very important to Sangvis Ferri, and it turns out that the “S.F. Data” was actually audio logs left by M4A1 while on the run. In order to rescue M4, Kryuger entrusts the operation to the Commander so that no potential leaks from HQ can endanger the mission. Griffin’s forces arrive to help M4A1, only to find that she has already beaten Executioner single-handedly, and has only a single request for their commander: “save us.”

        Persica thanks the commander for rescuing M4; she opts not to inform the commander about their relationship because it “isn’t important right now” but admits genuine gratitude that M4 is in good hands. Persica tasks them with operations to gather “dummies” of Sangvis ringleaders for her research, which she is cryptic about but eventually admits to it being a study into why Sangvis Dolls are so completely different from Griffin’s and what it might have to do with what the AR team found in Safe House #3.

Chapter 3 - Silence

“You said it yourself. A true hunter would have chosen to remain silent.”

Helian congratulates the Commander on their success, but they’re still analyzing M4A1’s memory logs. Due to limitations of their contract as a PMC, Griffin cannot fully participate in driving back Sangvis Ferri yet, so for now it’s up to the Commander to push the front forward and drive S.F. out of the area to restore human settlements and prepare for Griffin as a whole to mobilize.

M4 manages to contact M16, who informs her she’s safe in hiding but that M4 can probably reach AR-15 and Sop-II. AR-15 has “a score to settle,” but M4 is able to rendezvous with Sop-II. Their communications draw the attention of the nearby S.F., so they come back to help the Commander fend off Sangvis attacks while AR-15 faces off against the ringleader “Hunter” alone. She lets herself get captured and used as bait to lure in M4A1, but somehow manages to hack into Hunter’s command authorizations to send Sangvis’ forces out of control, creating an opening for the Commander’s forces to take Hunter down.

After the successful operation, Kalina and the Commander enact smaller operations to gather data from Sangvis forces, and are able to decrypt a past communication from Hunter to an unmet ringleader in charge of the other three called “Intruder,” revealing they still have cards up their sleeves and the neural clouds of the defeated ringleaders have probably been backed up.

Chapter 4 - Message

“To be honest, I was quite fond of you back at National Security. But that was then. And now, we're finally showing our hand…”

        Helian informs the Commander that data the AR team brought back has pointed towards files hidden in S09 that may reveal some of Sangvis’ hidden plans, and they have hired Squad 404 to investigate. The Commander’s mission is to provide cover and help them get there.

        Two members of this team, Tactical Dolls “UMP45” and “HK416,” arrive at Safehouse #3 and get Agent’s coordinates, but 416 is more interested in clues about someone else. Griffin mobilizes to counter attacks from the ringleader “Intruder” who playfully taunts them over open communications and admits that her mission is purely to “buy some time”. M16 gets into contact with M4A1, but their communication is interrupted when HK416 finds M16’s hiding place. They clearly have a past, and there’s no shortage of hard feelings. They fight and M16 comes out on top, but neither one is fully committed to kill the other. After 416 retreats, UMP45 comes out of hiding to have a chat with M16. They also seem to have a history, and she teases M16 that 416 was merely upset and this was how she spent the holiday UMP45 allotted her. 45 also seems to know what M16 keeps hidden in the large case she carries on her back. As a farewell gift, 45 warns M16 with the cryptic message “It’s raining on the plain.” M16 doesn’t get it but 45 mentions that M16’s creator will probably know what it means.

Helian then notifies the Commander that the team they sent in has cut off communications and gone missing, so they need to be located. M4 and the AR team manage to defeat Intruder, who says that the real show is about to begin. M16 arrives and the AR team is finally reunited again, but M16 passes on UMP45’s message, something big is coming.

Kalina decrypts a code from an abandoned database, which she surmises to be a backup from a Doll’s neural cloud. Once a Doll’s original body is destroyed, their neural cloud would typically revert to factory settings and its memories lost, so they will regularly make neural cloud backups before deployment. In missions behind lines, however, these are not possible so this database is probably something Dolls can create as an emergency measure for passing on vital information. Strangely, it was encrypted in an archaic style that AI cannot decrypt. It points to another location, so the Commander leads a mission there, which is a nice excuse for Sop-II to collect more ringleader eyes for her collection.

M4 and AR-15 have a conversation about what it means for Dolls to “die” while the data packets are recovered. When put together, the message reads “They are in your house, they are in your car, they are in the skies, now they’re coming for you.” M4 replicates Kalina’s decryption method on the combined files to reveal a video recording… a complete record of the AR team’s operation into Safe House #3. (this is where Ch 0 is unlocked in release order). Why these were left behind for the AR team is unknown, but the methods used point to Squad 404 being involved.

Chapter 5 - Kindling

“We've been ambushed, Commander. Ensure your own safety first. Then mount a resistance to fight off Sangvis advancement and make sure reinforcements are in position.“

        The Commander meets with Helian at Griffin’s secret base. They’ve analyzed the data from Safe House #3 and pieced together that Sangvis Ferri is working on a plan codenamed “Parapluie” which will be a threat to Griffin. Therefore, Kryuger has called an emergency meeting to discuss countermeasures with the field commanders. Suddenly, the base is attacked and the Commander is knocked out by a large explosion. They awaken to Kryuger handing them his spare sidearm and orders to help mount the defense. They drive Sangvis back and Kryuger warns that this base should have been completely secure, so intel must have leaked somehow from within.

        They trace communications to the smack-talking Sangvis ringleader “Destroyer” and start screening T-dolls for possible sources of the leaks… leading them to AR-15. Helian theorizes that Sangvis planted a malicious program in her before she reunited with the team. She is taken away for further screenings and all her communication is shut off. As the Commander’s forces chase down Destroyer, Helian announces that AR-15 is suspected of being controlled by a Sangvis virus, she has managed to disobey orders and fled the base and all Dolls are on orders to restrain her on sight and stop her with lethal force if necessary. The rest of the AR team is in disarray. They refuse to believe that AR-15 could betray them.

        Destroyer contacts her boss, Dreamer, asking for help now that the mission to assassinate Kryuger has failed, the program in AR-15 has worked, they’ve gotten the information they needed about Safe House #3, and Parapluie is ready. Dreamer threatens to leave her for dead because the mission is already accomplished, but knows AR-15 is secretly tapping into their communications. It seems that AR-15 knew about the virus all along and intentionally let Griffin shut off her communications so that she could more discreetly monitor Sangvis activity and act in the shadows, using the virus they put in her against them. Even though it put all of Griffin at risk, AR-15 chose this course of action because her highest priority is to guard M4A1.

“...I will keep fighting. Until I get to the bottom of everything.”

        Griffin starts taking heavy losses from a new, powerful artillery from Sangvis Ferri during their pursuit of Destroyer, so the AR team is ordered to retreat and rescue Kryuger. Back at the base, Helian passes on orders for them to investigate logs left behind by AR-15. This whole time, the AR team has been debating why AR-15 has been acting this way, but they become confident due to M4’s leadership that is uncharacteristic of the responses expected of most T-Dolls.

        Kryuger and Helian analyze the information AR-15 left behind and it matches with what they got from Squad 404.

“It's raining on the plain, and parapluie...or umbrella...is the key.”

Operation Cube (5.5)

“Humans will betray friends in times of hardship, but they will not abandon pawns while they're still valuable.”

        While the AR team was searching for AR-15, Helian gave Squad 404 emergency authority to commandeer Griffin property in S06 and offered a hefty paycheck despite Kryuger’s distrust of them. Squad 404 sets out to gather intel on Parapluie, with their only lead being that a Sangvis jammer is somewhere in the area. They split into two teams to seize radar stations under cover of night, one with the cunning UMP45 and casual UMP9, the other with the ever-focused HK416 and ever-sleepy G11.

“Is that your way of encouraging us, 45?”

“No, it's my way of threatening you. Get a move on if you want to live ♪”

        Their operation is detected by Hunter, who has been repaired by the ringleader ‘Ouroboros’ to aid her. Ouroboros orders 404 destroyed to lure out Griffin and potentially the AR team. As 416 and G11 are cornered, UMP45 and UMP9 arrive in a 'commandeered' Griffin reconnaissance aircraft to rescue them. They decide to hunt down Hunter to find out where the jammer is. 404 closes in on Hunter and despite promising aid, Ouroboros abandons her like a pawn discarded in the AI chess deathmatches that were used to create her, then remotely formats Hunter’s neural cloud so 404 won’t get anything from her.

        With Hunter defeated, 404 rescues a trapped reconnaissance Doll from Griffin who knows where the jammer is but she tells them Executioner is guarding it. G11 destroys all of Executioner’s limbs with well-placed shots and they interrogate her under the cover of the jammer. Executioner reveals that they won’t get anything from her because the whole place is rigged with explosives. Ouroboros’ plans had actually been to trap the jammer with explosives and blow them all up together.

        After the explosion, Ouroboros calls Agent to inform her that the jammer has been blown up by Executioner against orders. Agent is not happy that the jammer vital to carrying out Parapluie had been destroyed just for 4 T-Dolls and orders Ouroboros back for questioning. Ouroboros secretly orders her forces to close in and retrieve 404’s bodies. She finds the body of UMP9, but it was actually a dummy left as a diversion.

        Elite Griffin T-Doll “Groza” leads a timely attack against Ouroboros, driving her forces back and creating an opening for 404 to sneak in. As her forces fall apart and she retreats, Ouroboros receives a call from Agent. Agent knows that Ouroboros was lying and that the jammer has not been destroyed, so the snake is left to die. As she laments her fate of being shut down, she is visited by UMP45. The two have both used others as pawns, lied, and abandoned their original objectives, and yet with very different outcomes. 45 reveals that she had made a deal with Executioner to let Executioner leave with both Hunter and the jammer in exchange for making it look like the jammer was blown up with 404 along with it.

“You… are a stain on me, 404”

“Sorry. We are a stain on everyone.”

        While they didn’t destroy the jammer, Squad 404 is content that they can bring back a slew of intel and the intact corpse of Ouroboros back to Helian. Afterwards, Agent reveals to Dreamer that the whole thing had worked out nicely, since UMP45 had come into contact with the jammer as planned and is certainly infected with the Parapluie program.

Chapter 6 - Comet

“I've been under the command of such a spineless weakling all this time... Seriously, how many times have you dragged me down? I really should hate you, shouldn't I…?”

        Simultaneously with Operation Cube, the Griffin recon squad led by Negev reports that they have found AR-15 in S08 but will need backup to reach her. Negev also reveals that the neural clouds of AR team members are special, and cannot be fully backed up. If they die, it’s over. While waiting for reinforcements, they are ambushed by the Sangvis ringleader ‘Alchemist’. The AR team arrives to help ahead of other reinforcements, so M4 and Sop-II aid in the rescue while M16 reports back to Griffin. The Commander uses M16’s intel to launch a strike on a Sangvis command post to confuse them, which causes Sangvis to retreat. In the chaos, M4 and Sop-II spot AR-15 and try to follow her, but AR-15 ambushes and stuns them. When M16 and the Commander’s forces arrive, they find only Sop-II. Helian senses a trap and orders a full withdrawal. M4A1 ‘dreams’ about her first memory, where she awoke to AR-15 telling her to meet her new friends. Now she wakes up to a voice questioning her.

“Answer me, M4. I'm fighting for everyone's survival here… Yours, the commander's, Griffin's… So hurry up and answer me, M4A1. ...Who exactly are you?”

        At first it was AR-15’s, but soon there was a second voice. AR-15 had opened communication with the Sangvis Mastermind to broker a deal.  When this fails to get any further information about why M4 was created, the Mastermind orders Alchemist to capture M4 and dispose of all others, including the ‘oathbreaker’ AR-15.

Alchemist’s forces launch an all-out-assault; Griffin is pinned at a pass, unable to retreat and cut off because of AR-15’s Parapluie jamming.  AR-15 refused to give M4’s location to Alchemist and fought her, creating an opportunity for Sop-II to sneak up and destroy her. Sop-II is happy to be reunited, but AR-15 does not come along. Instead she hands Sop-II a drive with information she’s collected, M4’s location, and a message. She promises to meet with and destroy the one responsible for the whole thing. Sop-II reports this to M16, who catches up to AR-15 and questions her again. AR-15 explains why she went on the run, regrets her mistakes, and tells M16 to go bail out Griffin to make up for everything. She shows M16 a detonator switch she got from Negev and tells her she’s rigged the entire building with explosives to blow up the Sangvis leader and all its forces with it. M16 bargains and even threatens to shoot AR-15, but has to relent when AR-15 shows her determination. She meets with the Sangvis leader… the Mastermind, by feigning M4’s signal. They have a standoff and after their argument goes nowhere, AR-15 lifts the detonator…

“You may feel sad; you may feel angry... You may remember me; or you may forget me… Whatever the case, just let this memory give you strength and make you even stronger… Well...take care, my friend…”

M16 and Sop-II rescue squad Negev and M4, but when M4 awakens she is surprised to see AR-15 is not there with them. Instead, a massive explosion is heard nearby, and as buildings start to collapse, M4 runs towards the chaos. M16 drags her back to the aircraft carrier, but M4 will never be the same.

Chapter 7 - Partner

“I must stop eating my heart out… I have to live... Make use of my abilities...and live through this with my friends!“

The Commander transfers from S09 to S05, far from the frontline, to be closer to the AR team, who have been quarantined in a Parapluie detention center that was once a sanatorium. The evacuation from S08 was a huge hit to Griffin’s reputation and budget, so they are treating any exposure to Parapluie with extreme caution. Thus, they can only communicate with the Commander over occasional audio recordings while 16LAB looks into ways to counteract the virus. The AR team and especially M4 have taken the loss of AR-15 hard. M4 has to be ordered to eat, is angry at Griffin, and has lost faith in her abilities as a leader.

        After a week, Sangvis Ferri launches a surprise attack on the facility, so M4A1 has to coordinate the defense while communications are jammed. The Commander gets orders from Helian to mount a counterattack towards the facility and alleviate pressure so the defenders can survive without breaking containment. Persica also contacts the Commander and lets them know that the attack has an ulterior motive, and sends RO635 to help the AR team and be their intermediary. With RO’s help, the Commander finds the command post of the Sangvis Ringleader “Dreamer” and pins her forces down.

As the defenders repel the Sangvis attack, suddenly the lights go off and Mastermind disrupts the neural clouds of all Dolls. Somehow, M4 remains standing. Even so, Mastermind hacks into M4’s neural cloud but is unable to decrypt the information she wants. As she tries to take M4 away, RO635 arrives with a jammer specifically designed by 16LAB to prevent Mastermind’s interference in their neural clouds, and coordinates an attack on her. They can’t damage her, but still get M4 to safety. Since Dreamer’s troops are held down by the Commander, Mastermind can’t get the firepower she needs and decides to withdraw. Unfortunately, it’s too late for M4, who is mentally broken from the hacking attack.

“Vengeance is the greatest solace, for them as well as for us…”

What’s left of the AR team hunts down Dreamer with the help of some of Griffin, but are attacked by ‘Jupiter’ artillery barrages from Dreamer. They get split up and Sop-II goes on a sadistic Sangvis killing spree, baited on by Dreamer who reveals she was responsible for getting AR-15 infected and leading Mastermind to M4. To save Sop-II, M16 executes Dreamer’s dummy and tries to calm her rage while RO destroys the Jupiter artillery.

“You don't have to worry about M4 for now either. Persica is doing everything she can to solve the problem. Before a solution can be found, I'll be taking her place in leading the AR Team to investigate Sangvis Ferri.”

Persica calls RO, who has been drinking with M16, to report on the jamming program used against Mastermind, revealing that it was born partially from the fruits of the AR team’s expedition into Safe House #3 but also cryptically “relics from the past.” Regardless, Sop-II’s condition has been stabilized and RO officially joins the AR team as interim combat leader, since she possesses basic command modules.

Arctic Warfare (7.5)

“The point is, you two are different T-Dolls on different missions… Why don't you be yourself instead of someone else's substitute? Do you truly wish to protect everyone?”

40 days after Mastermind’s hacking attack on M4, she is still in bad condition. Her neural cloud has been repaired, but the imprint is severed and she can hardly function. The AR team flies to 16LAB’s research facility to visit her, but on the way back over S03 their plane is shot down by Jupiter artillery as part of a large Sangvis bombardment on the sector. They survive a crash landing but are on their own behind enemy lines with communications jammed and constant snowstorms preventing air travel. They search for safety, hunted down by the ringleader Gager under the command of the artillery specialist ‘Architect’. The AR team finds survivors from other Griffin cargo planes that were shot down, but their escape routes are blocked by an outrageous number of Jupiter artillery emplacements, courtesy of Architect. M1887, an experimental Doll and one of the missing Griffin survivors, uses her specialist modules created from Sangvis technology to sever power to the cannons and guide the AR team to her safehouse, where they mount a defense against Gager’s attack.

        Helian hires Squad 404 to rescue the AR team. UMP45 and UMP9 break into a Sangvis outpost to locate security outposts for G11 and HK416 to destroy so they can reconvene. 416 is cautious about the operation, especially because she knows 45 touched the Sangvis jammer during their previous operation and might be carrying Parapluie. She also notices 45 is intentionally letting them be detected. Architect becomes aware of them but doesn’t seem to care aside from testing her toys on them. Despite running from bombardments, 45 says everything is going according to plan. They cut off power to Architect’s base and establish a secure communication with M1887 on Sangvis signals. Squad 404 baits Architect into an attack while they sneak off. Right as the AR team is running out of ammo in the last hours of night, squad 404 arrives and joins the fight against Gager’s forces.

“You think... I’d bring you ammo?”

“Of course… I don't expect you to go in the front and eat bullets for us, minx.”

They repel the attack, but tensions are high between the AR team and Squad 404. M16 warns RO not to cede command to UMP45, and when RO and 45 talk, 45 tries to pry but agrees to let RO take charge, at least superficially. RO asks 45 about the history between M16 and HK416, but she plays it off as “a misunderstanding that they won’t let go.” At a communications outpost 45 gets word from Helian that they are sending a large rescue team to a rendezvous point on the border, but they’ll have to break through a Sangvis blockade to get there.  

M16 warns RO that 404 was only hired to get the AR team out, so RO needs to take command if they’re going to get everyone out alive. UMP45 comes up with a plan. Squad 404 will infiltrate a Sangvis base and shut down the Sangvis comms channel and cannons’ power supply (again), while 1887 and the other Griffin survivors draw Gager away so that the AR team can enter the main base and open the gateway.

        As M1887’s crew gets pushed to their limits, RO decides on a slight change of plan. Instead of opening the gates themselves, they’ll contact the Commander and get a small vanguard in, which can arrive sooner than Helian’s large force. With the AR team behind schedule and having shut down operations for long enough, Squad 404 abandons M1887’s crew and pulls out, only to find that the AR team didn’t seize the base. Now, once the power comes back on, they’re the ones who will die first. Fortunately for 404, the vanguard squad of the Commander arrives just in time to save them. They capture Architect who surrenders quite easily.

WA2000: “This is the first time I've seen a Sangvis turncoat...Who the hell are you? Why do you have such ludicrous authorization?”                                        
Architect: “There must be something wrong with me...? So please be nice to me. I know a lot of interesting things.”

All the operations’ Dolls reunite safely at the border.  UMP45 questions RO for just doing what M4 would have done and trusting a human commander. She then tells RO a secret before wiping her memory of any interactions with 404. But the mission isn’t over yet. Architect reveals that she made these cannons from modified Military tech, and Helian and Persica want one. They defend against a massive counterattack led by Sangvis Ferri’s Agent while they get Architect and a Jupiter cannon out. Kryuger is very happy with the outcome, though he acknowledges that while 404 wiped most of the participants’ memories, M16 still retains information from before the formation of 404.

UMP45: “If the Commander hadn't listened to you and rushed here at all cost...All our deaths would've been on you.”

Cube+ (7.75)

“Then by all means, Ouroboros. You're going to kill me tonight...But before that, you'll learn to fear me first.”

As if the events of chapter 7 never happened, M4A1 leads a mission against Hunter with an entourage of Griffin Dolls, but those Dolls keep dying for the mission.  As she closes in on Executioner, Architect joins the fight, blowing up more of M4’s allies and disregarding her previous surrender as a trick. She’s taking charge to steal back a Sangvis AI core. Soon enough, Architect and Executioner are revealed to be just empty shells controlled by Ouroboros, who lies to M4 and says the rest of the AR team died protecting her from Dreamer’s attack while waiting for her to awaken. M4 lets her only surviving ally, M99, get the AI core out while she confronts Ouroboros by herself, dying in the process.

A report is presented to Persica: “AI battle simulation attempt #70 complete.” She is frustrated that after 70 tries, M4 always completes the missions by sacrificing herself. But this is information Persica needs in order to properly repair M4A1’s neural cloud. She also lets Helian know that she’s been using the tree-structured command networks from the captured Sangvis technologies (and Architect and Ouroboros) to construct new drone weaponry for Griffin. When Helian asks why Mastermind targeted M4 in the first place, Persica says “The girl...is doing this because of Lycoris. She...wants to find answers…  For her father.” It seems Persica has gotten some interesting information from the captured Architect, who sits in custody chatting with the digital consciousness of Ouroboros.

Season 1: The Joint Operation

“We either capture her or blow everyone to kingdom come.”

Chapter 8 - Spark

“Was Lyco's death...really an accident?”

Two months after rescuing the AR team from S03, Kryuger discreetly meets with Brigadier General Carter of the Soviet Union’s KCCO special forces army, who warns him to hurry up and get Lyco’s data or else the military might reconsider the funding they’ve been giving G&K. Kryuger then calls Persica and asks her to put the AR team back into action. The information from Safehouse #3 mentions a “File #7” near the old factory deep in Sangvis territory which could be used to restore all of Lyco’s data.

Persica fills in the Commander and the AR team. They will be airdropped near the Sangvis “base 0” to search for the file. Persica inquires about them investigating something else while they’re there, but RO refuses so as to not jeopardize the mission. The AR team will be protected from Parapluie by RO’s jammer, but the area is heavily defended, so the Commander will launch a diversionary strike on the external control center.

On the mission, RO and M16 have different ideas on how to proceed. RO wants to play it safe, but M16 wants to take risks like tapping into S.F. comms to let Persica observe, which in a roundabout way lets them know the area is guarded by the ringleader Destroyer. Sop-II is put on guard duty while RO and M16 reach the heart of base 0 and set up the anti-jamming field. Once they do, S.F. knows something’s up and the Commander steps up the offensive to keep the enemy distracted. RO can’t help but feel like M16 and Persica know more about this base than they let on. They locate File #7 but it’s massive, so Sop-II will have to dedicate all her processing power to processing the file and RO will have to dive in to set things up. When RO gets back, M16 is acting strange and keeps disobeying orders. She asks RO to enter the Sangvis mainframe again, despite it risking detection, just in time to overhear Destroyer and Dreamer arguing. Agent had noticed something was off and they know someone had snuck into base 0, so Dreamer launches a full-scale bombardment. While they’re hunkered down, M16 offers RO encouragement, but it still seems like something’s wrong.

Sop-II finishes downloading File #7, but the gates for their retreat route are closed off. M16 proposes a plan where she will split off and blast a gate open for them. RO wants to find another route, but is indecisive so M16 enacts her plan at Persica’s behest. After a grueling half an hour, the gate is blasted open. Sop-II and RO get on board a carrier that was waiting to pick them up, but M16 can’t reach them because the blast sealed off her escape route. In the distance as they are hauled away, RO sees M16 salute with a smile, then shrink until she’s but a tiny spark in the distance.

“Will we meet again? I don't know… All I know is that she's been lying since the start. She never intended to return. Everything she did is for the sake of saving that girl.”

        RO and Sop-II make it back to base, but the battle is still raging on the frontline between the Commander’s forces and S.F. under Destroyer and Dreamer. Meanwhile, M4A1 starts to awaken, but her memories are a jumble of falsehoods and reality due to the simulations she’s been put through.

“Her neural cloud is experiencing violent fluctuations... Is this child dreaming? A T-Doll...dreaming. Isn't that just ridiculous? But then again...she's special…”

M16 calls to check up on M4, and talks with Persica about Lyco. It turns out that M16’s suspicious behavior was her going behind RO’s back and investigating the things that Persica wanted. M16 doesn’t understand why Persica’s so hung up on it, but Persica insists that Lyco’s death couldn’t have been an accident like the reports claim. They’ve found a very interesting encrypted file, located in an abandoned factory in base 0. Unbeknownst to her, parts of the factory’s blueprint are saved deep within M16’s neural cloud. She must have been here before, and since then someone has erased those memories from her neural cloud. They realize that this factory is where it all started - the Butterfly Incident where Lyco was killed and Sangvis Ferri turned against humanity in a single night. As M16 moves through the facility with serious Deja vu, M4 fades in and out of “dreams” in the same room as Persica. She repeats the memories of her meeting her new “family” the AR team but has a meltdown about weapons drenched in blood, and the way the Persica of past and present blend together makes it hard to tell what’s now and what’s then.

“This is all for the sake of protecting M4… This is the only order you've given me, and it's absolute.“

M16 finds some kind of incubation facility with a strange transmitter. Something very important must have happened here, and it may be the key to uncovering the Butterfly Incident. Persica has M16 hack in to retrieve the security footage from that day. Unfortunately, the authorization required is too high for her to get in. M16 takes out a transistor she got from Persica before the mission. It contains a modified dose of the Parapluie virus that would slowly re-write her neural cloud in exchange for access to Sangvis data. The one dose she had already taken gave her 12 hours where it could still be undone, enough time to get back, but the dose wasn’t enough for this. With a second shot, that time goes down to 20 minutes. This is the last piece of the puzzle, so Persica has M16 do it. She uses the injector, downloads the file, then sends it along with the “equipment” Persica gave her on a drone.

M4’s ‘dreams’ continue. She sees someone else’s memories, a girl whose parents were killed in an airstrike. Some time later, a mysterious man gives her a handgun and points her towards the contractor responsible, so she assassinates him before being herself shot. A clear voice in M4’s head guides her through this dream… a voice that claims M4 should remember her. As M16’s neural cloud is re-written, Persica maintains the connection so she can talk to M4 and help stabilize her volatile neural cloud while Persica wakes her up. To wake her up with a stronger, more dependable personality than before.

M16: “M4A1… No matter what I'll turn into...wait for me.”

        As M16 says her final goodbyes, M4A1 awakens, sure that she had heard M16’s voice. But M16 is no longer there. She’s on her knees in the old factory, unable to maintain the connection to Persica any longer, unable to move any further, and waiting for the end. She hears crackles of the Mastermind ‘singing’ in her head, and Dreamer approaches. The drone has been shot down, and Mastermind wants to see her.  

Deep Dive (8.5)

“As T-Dolls, is it our duty to serve humanity for eternity?”

DD: Cognitive Conundrum

Persica calls UMP45 and hires Squad 404 to retrieve M16’s drone in S15. She also questions 45 about the beacon from Operation Cube a year ago that is still in Sangvis' possession, but 45 tells her she was simply “returning a past favor.” Persica can’t send the AR team because all of Griffin is being mobilized for a new operation, including M4A1 who had just left Persica’s care.

UMP45 awakens from routine maintenance in the workshop of Sier and Dier, two rich kids who like to tinker with androids and have connections with the black market. They ask if they can delete old, encrypted files in her neural cloud and she threatens to tear them apart if they did. As they go into their neural cloud’s Level II for electronic warfare training, 45 keeps hearing playback of memory fragments that are supposed to be so heavily encrypted that she herself could no longer access them. Dier suggests that it might be a safe side effect of their new access to Zener Protocol, which is the system that Griffin Dolls use to communicate with each other and control dummies. Zener connectivity will also allow them to draw from the neural computation power of other Zener signals to boost electronic warfare capacity, which should aid them in securing the drone’s data as long as their neural clouds aren’t fried by offensive firewalls.

Persica won’t tell 404 why this drone is important, but she’s paying an uncomfortable amount of money and even enlisted the help of off-duty Dolls in the Commander’s S09. She’s also provided a “Fairy,” her name for AI-controlled drones, who can search for electronic signals. UMP45’s memory playback triggers again, and she hears two humans asking why Griffin would want this nearly useless T-Doll so full of electronic warfare modules that almost nothing else will fit, but high command must have acquired her for a reason, so they slap the most basic smg imprint and barely any combat software into her.

Meanwhile, Dreamer sends Destroyer off to go find the drone they shot down, but Destroyer only accepts on the condition that she be given a new, upgraded body. Dreamer is happy to oblige in creating one that will be stronger, faster, and cuter than ever.

Squad 404 arrives in S15, which is a contamination zone of “collapse fluid” which can cause “Euroky Low-Emission Infectious Disease (E.L.I.D.)” and their discussion of the subject reveals that G11 is a zombie movie nut (with harsh critique of The Walking Dead), but something is off with UMP45. Meanwhile, Dreamer detects an unknown signal using OGAS protocol, the same protocol that S.F. uses, much like how Griffin uses Zener protocol. Dreamer realizes that it’s probably a Parapluie carrier and lets Destroyer know. It’s not long before they realize it’s UMP45 and Squad 404.

Squad 404 activates a long distance EMP to cover their tracks, but by now Dreamer and Destroyer know who the infiltrators are, and Dreamer is all too excited to see the Parapluie virus ready to awaken in UMP45, but Destroyer will have to capture her first in order to re-write her. She has Destroyer transmit a warning to scare them, but while Sier wants to call the mission off, this warning doesn’t deter UMP45. From the specifics of the broadcasts, she figured out that S.F. isn’t actually able to track Squad 404, they’re only able to overhear UMP45’s voice and location. She decides on a plan to act quickly and sends her teammates to their own objectives and draws out Destroyer while she commands the loaned Griffin Dolls.

Destroyer arrives at G11’s location, ready to reveal her new and improved body, but unfortunately, it wasn’t what she had in mind.

“DREAMER!!! This is not what we agreed!! Where's the body that you promised would be as perfect as a goddess's?! And the ultra long-ranged rocket launcher?! Why...why have you turned me into this?!”

        Destroyer has a conniption when she discovers her new body is just an upscaled Dinergate, much to Dreamer’s diabolical pleasure. After adjusting, she chases after UMP45 and just has to wait for Mastermind to give the order. While UMP45 is on the run, she gets a distress call from a nearby elite Griffin sniper DSR-50, who agrees to follow her orders if they can save her squad.

“Do I look like the kind of idiot who would sacrifice my own life for some mission? Don't be ridiculous. I'm not on the AR Team. Plus, I've already found out how S.F. is monitoring me. I just need some time to fix that…”

UMP45 decides the best course of action is to act as bait while UMP9 gets the drone out. But it’s not a suicide move, she trusts in the outcome. But not long after, UMP9 gets a call from Dier that 45’s neural cloud is massively fluctuating, and something is trying to re-write it. Not long after, UMP45 severs her connection to them. They don’t know what’s happening, but UMP45 is fighting a whole new type of battle now. Deep in her neural cloud, she finds herself flung into her encrypted memories, back when she was a Griffin T-Doll.

Years ago, at a Griffin base, UMP45 is failing at her training and quite depressed, until another newcomer called UMP40 takes her under her wing. UMP40 was also deemed “useless” because they were both full of electronic warfare modules with no room for combat data, but 40 has a positive outlook and has made much more improvement than UMP45 has, so she takes up the role of an older sister and mentor figure to UMP45. There’s an important mission coming up, and if they train hard they might get to be on it.

“Give my fist a bump. There, that's a promise. Trust me, and I promise… I promise that everything will change some day…”

        Dreamer relishes the completion of UMP45’s protocol modification, but when she issues her new orders, she’s surprised to get nothing in response. All of the orders were actually rejected by UMP45’s authorization; she has a higher OGAS authorization protocol than Dreamer! Dreamer doesn’t understand how UMP45 could have gotten her hands on it, because only S.F. Dolls use OGAS protocol, but she won’t give up. If she can’t control UMP45, since the connection is still open she’ll use the massive processing power of OGAS’ offensive firewalls to fry 45’s neural cloud. But UMP45 slows down the attack by diverting that processing power to instead unlock the encrypted memories in her neural cloud.

DD: Relative Behavior

        Just before the firewall can fry her neural cloud, the firing squad of G11 and the Griffin sniper defeat Destroyer, breaking the connection to UMP45. Dreamer, believing UMP45 to be dead, gives Destroyer another new body, this time, the one she had been asking for. Meanwhile, Squad 404 finds UMP45 frozen like a statue. They bring her into hiding and dive into her neural cloud to try and wake her up, but have to fight through a horde of defensive firewalls and repair fragments of her memories.

“Which do you choose, life or death? Answer me, UMP45!”

It turns out that UMP40 and UMP45 were originally Sangvis Dolls that were stolen by a third party. UMP40 was planted into Griffin to sabotage Operation Butterfly, and 45 was planted as a Manchurian agent that would only activate if UMP40 failed to complete the mission. UMP40 figured this out and schemed to break free from their fate of being puppets of the humans. She played her role as a double agent, hacking all the Dolls and forcing them to kill each other as per the plan, then turned her gun on UMP45. Now that the mission has failed, command has activated a safeguard program to permanently fry the neural clouds of all Dolls involved. But all her planning has created a way out of this. She had moved the authorization over UMP45’s neural cloud to herself so that if UMP40 died, UMP45 would be free. She forces UMP45 to make a decision: shoot her best friend, or they both die.    

“This is only the beginning, 45. After this, you will face countless trials, and the right choices are always the ones that hurt you the most...But if you want to live, you have to make them…”

After 3 hours of this, 45 is still unconscious and UMP9 is exhausted from commanding the nearby Griffin forces. Destroyer’s new body “Gaia” finally shows up and 416 and G11 have to pull out of UMP45’s neural cloud to fight back. As things seem hopeless, UMP45 suddenly wakes up. Dier’s repair of her neural cloud was successful. She’s briefed on the situation and takes command of the nearby troops. They kill Gaia and manage to pierce through a weak point in the Sangvis encirclement.

        Squad 404 has successfully evacuated and UMP45 seems surprisingly… cheerful. She thanks her allies and promises to tell them more someday.

“And as long as you keep on living, then my death would be worth all the while. Goodbye, 45. Just remember me...because to me, that is my sole and total joy…”

Chapter 9 - Lost

Kryuger: “The military has expressed their interest in cooperating with us. That's right, we shall soon have the chance to carry out a joint operation to fully repel Sangvis Ferri. Perhaps we may even resolve this entire conflict."

Thanks to the data from File #7, the Soviet military organizes a joint operation with Griffin to wipe out Sangvis Ferri once and for all. Kryuger invites the Commander to a military banquet where the operation will be announced. To the media, the operation is merely a demonstrative exercise to ensure the public of a well-defended frontier, but in actuality it will be a large-scale operation with the goal of wiping out Sangvis Ferri for good.

At the banquet, the Commander meets Captain Yegor and General Carter, Griffin’s primary contacts with the military. Their conversation is quickly interrupted, however, when they are joined by Havier Witkin, an old frail man who is the CEO of IOP, the production company responsible for producing all of Griffin’s Androids, and who is also Persica’s boss. He clearly does not get along with Carter. Havier criticizes the operation as wasted effort and tells the table, “it is either some people are so bored that they're trying to stir things up, or that defeating Sangvis Ferri was never the outcome that those people wanted in the first place.” He clearly knows confidential information, but why show his hand? the Commander makes note of everything he says.

Carter and Yegor explain the real operation to Kryuger and the Commander. The operation itself will be led by Captain Yegor and 3 special elite mixed squads, who will be fully prepared for Parapluie. While the media coverage is fixed on them, Griffin’s echelons will capture the Sangvis Mastermind. When Carter and Yegor leave, Havier comes back and warns Kryuger and the Commander that it doesn’t make sense for the military to care about Sangvis Ferri as a threat or even Mastermind as an AI, because Doll footsoldiers are nothing compared to military armor. There’s an even bigger prize, OGAS, the command network that Sangvis Ferri uses. But there must be more going on to this, Carter is but a cog in the machine. A nation-transcending alliance is forming in western Europe with the re-creation of the United Nations, and tensions are rising in those that wish to oppose it. Havier leaves with a warning:

“Mr. Kryuger, the reason I came here today is to give you a piece of advice. Don't be the small bird caught in the midst of a storm.The storm will tear apart everything in its path, regardless of whether that small bird intended to be there or not.”

Meanwhile, the AR team (which is now just RO and Sop-II) are on a mission to search for M16, completely unaware of her Parapluie infection. Though it was intended to be a covert operation, Sop-II quickly blows their cover and they go on the run, undersupplied in Sangvis Territory. They don’t find M16, but they do find her equipment case. All they know about it is that it contains “nothing good.” Unfortunately, they are ambushed by the ringleader “Judge.” They try to negotiate, and find out that M16 was taken away by Dreamer, but negotiations break down immediately upon use of the word “midget.” They go into hiding where they reminisce and hope against all odds that things could one day return to how they were before.

“Does the fact that we possess emotions...mean that we are defective?”

        On the helicopter ride back, the Commander receives the distress signal from the AR team and mobilizes a rescue operation for them. Squad Negev arrives and RO convinces them to follow her plan to take out Judge, who is caught off-guard by a surprise attack. Dreamer arrives with an EMP to rescue Judge and retreat on Elisa’s orders, intentionally letting the AR team go free. The Mastermind knows something is coming.

M4 arrives, but is no longer the friendly cinnamon roll she used to be. She congratulates them on a successful operation, then orders them to get in a jeep, a new operation is about to begin… an operation to annihilate the Mastermind.

“M4A1 glances at me, and I see a gaze so filled with emotions that it is narrow and ruthless. I know those eyes. They're the vengeful eyes of those who have lost themselves, just like the occasional glimpses I caught on M16A1.”

Chapter 10 - Purgatory

“Making choices entails suffering, because you have to suffer the consequences of the choices you make. But this is the only way to become stronger, and the only way for you to choose your own destiny.”

We rewind to when M4 left at the end of Ch 9. Persica calls Angelia and asks her to have her team retrieve the drone with the surveillance footage from the Butterfly Incident, and also asks Angelia to protect M4 on Griffin’s joint operation with the military. It turns out that this “Angelia” is an important contact for Squad 404 and capable of giving them missions and probably the one that hooked them up with Griffin but it seems she also somehow already knew M4.  

M4 arrives by air but is stopped at a military blockade. When she’s denied entry, Angelia arrives and easily gets M4 in with fake military authorizations. She introduces herself to M4 as a “common mercenary working for money.” She agrees to help M4 reunite with the AR team and her commander. While re-living her last farewell to M16, M4 starts hearing a clear female voice in her head. She's wary of it and refuses to listen. Tactical Doll XM3 comes with a logistics squad to pick her up and bring her back to the Commander on a freight train. While they discuss what it means for Dolls to die, their train car is attacked. They have to fight their way out, but the Sangvis onslaught is relentless. XM3 and her squad are taken out by artillery fire and M4 realizes she may die here, but military forces led by Yegor arrive and save her.  Yegor and the voice in her head both try to tell her to make use of the sacrifices that have been made by others, and he directs her to a military truck that will take her to the frontlines. There, she reconvenes with Sop-II and RO and recruits them to join the new mission.

General Carter calls an unknown man and lets them know that M4 has regrouped with the AR team. It seems the true purpose of the joint operation was for the “Key” to react to her. The contact asks Carter to approach the Mastermind before initiating their plan. Angelia was listening in on their conversation, and enlists her personal team of T-Dolls for help: AK-12 and AN-94 of Squad DEFY. She now knows that the whole scheme was put in place because they knew the Sangvis Mastermind (the Key) would react to M4A1, but she doesn’t understand what their motive is.

Yegor calls the Commander, asking them to defend the military’s Parapluie neutralizer while the military moves deeper into Sangvis territory. The AR team gets Yegor’s permission to hack into abandoned military units to allow them to provide fire support, which allows them to fight off the Sangvis attack. Despite it being the first time RO and M4A1 have worked together, they get along exceptionally well and quickly form a bond of trust. the Commander sends new orders to the AR team: follow the military and cover their flank.

RO suspects that the military is advancing too quickly into Sangvis territory, leaving them vulnerable to encirclement, but the military doesn’t care because their units are tough enough to handle anything. Unfortunately, Griffin’s support can’t keep up and get overwhelmed on the side, confirming Yegor’s belief that PMCs simply can’t compete. But the AR team manages to keep up by hacking into disabled military units. Even so, they get caught by the ringleader Judge, who demands M4 come with her. They call the military for help but get no response. They’ll have to fight it out until the Commander can send reinforcements.

But this is exactly the situation the military was waiting for. Carter realizes that the Mastermind has been lured out by M4 and contacts the unknown man again, but the man has little interest in the encounter until there has been a victor and the key emerges. M4 offers to sacrifice herself as bait but the rest of the AR team refuses to let her.

“That's right. I'm no longer afraid of making sacrifices, because they're worth it. No matter how many deaths I experience, no matter if it's my death or someone else's, rather than worrying about it, it's better to accept it and give it more meaning. I believe this epiphany is sparked by my own will and my own choice.”

The AR team rallies and decides on a desperate gamble, going into a full retreat and trusting that the Commander will help them break the encirclement. They get pinned down in a trench, and two glamorously dressed Griffin Dolls, the Carcano sisters, arrive to rescue them. They open up an escape route, but then Mastermind’s hacking attack on M4 begins and she is unable to move. RO brings M4 into a shelter and tries to sever the connection while the Carcano sisters and SOP-II hold off a Sangvis assault from the trench.

Inside M4’s mind, the “clear voice” tells her that in order to be free of her shackles, she needs to ‘meld’ with the Mastermind so they can complete each other. M4 also hears the Mastermind’s voice, which tells M4 about her first memory, but RO convinces M4 to keep fighting the attack off and diverts all her processing power to help.

RO635: “This is why I was created in the first place! I was created...to save you at this very moment!”

        RO and M4 renew their courage to keep working together as a team, but then RO notices something is wrong. She tells M4 they need to get out of here and then her voice is replaced by silence, leaving M4 alone and confused.

        Mastermind tells M4 that they are sharing a vision - a memory that belongs to both of them. M4 sees a girl, alone and crying. She extends a hand to help, but the girl is shot right in front of her and M4 is powerless to help.

Elisa: ”There are things that I don't remember, but they're here in your mind...It's such a nice feeling.”

M4: “I just want to help you. That's it. So… Don't be scared. I—”

“Sometimes, the ending is the same no matter what your choice is.”

        Mastermind uses these shared visions to unlock memories M4 possesses but doesn't know of. In a beautiful garden, Mastermind tries to convince M4 one more time to merge, to fill in the parts of each other that are missing. M4 seems ready to accept, when a grim male voice wakes her up.

An hour ago, Sop-II and the Carcano sisters fight Judge’s assault. They bitterly realize that their chances of making it out alive are slim, but they’re going to give it all they’ve got. Sop-II goes into a frenzy, slaughtering Sangvis Dolls on the front lines. Judge spots her and prepares to launch an EMP, but Sop-II charges her, ready to go down with her. The Cano sisters scurry to provide covering fire. Suddenly, there’s a massive explosion. The military has arrived, led by Yegor. Sop-II and the sisters are blown away, and Judge is sprawled motionless on the ground. But he ignores them and heads straight towards the safe house where M4 is. Then he gives the order.

Yegor: “We have five minutes. Kill all witnesses.”

        Yegor shoots RO in the head, then tells M4 to wake up and lead them to the key. But when M4 awakens, no one is there but the corpse of RO.

The Mastermind, whose name we now know to be Elisa, is frustrated that her connection with M4 has been severed again. Under Agent’s guidance, they fully unleash Parapluie. Many of Griffin’s forces as well as many military units suddenly go rogue. Helian orders a full withdrawal of all uninfected forces. The commander gets a message from Ange. If they give her M4’s coordinates, she’ll get M4 out safely.

“We are in Purgatory – for redemption or insurgence? I have already paid my due, but still find myself back in this damned cage. Yet, who else would willingly return to Purgatory, if not me? M4A1… I...really do hate you…”

Singularity (10.5)

“People are like trees. The higher the branches grow towards the bright sky, the further the roots must stretch into the murky depths.”

Singularity: Splinter Point

Squad DEFY has found M4 frozen in shock after she survived the hacking attack and the military’s betrayal. They think it’s strange that after the military came in and shot everyone, they would just leave M4 there, but Ange tells them it’s all part of their agenda. They argue about whether or not to rescue her, and their newest member decides it’s best to recruit her. M4 awakens to find herself being carried out of the battlefield by none other than AR-15.

“I have a mission of my own. Running into you was simply a coincidence. But...I guess it's not a bad thing.”

        M4 is in shock when she discovers that AR-15 is still alive, and has a fit when she remembers what happened to RO and SOP-II, but DEFY won’t let her go back. In addition to the shock and the hacking, M4’s neural cloud has been damaged by the forced disconnection so she’s fading in and out of consciousness. AR-15 and AK-12 note that SOP-II's body is missing and RO’s neural core had been removed after her death, so there’s a chance that SOP-II is still alive somewhere.

        While part of DEFY gets M4 to safety, DEFY’s other member, AN-94, hacks into a military server for information regarding OGAS. She finds information on a small relic site OKB-413 in Minsk, and two familiar names come up: General Carter and Havier Witkin. Ange thinks she knows what the military’s after now.

“The OGAS system… It was originally designed by the Soviets as a ternary logic-based automated management system for the entire nation… Now it's been simplified into the base protocol for controlling Sangvis AIs...But is that really the case?”

        During this time, AK-12 has found a safe house and given M4 a digimind neural upgrade to put her on the same level as the elite DEFY Dolls. She’s surprised by how much extra space M4 has in her neural cloud and how many of her parts are military-grade already. M4 asks how Griffin’s doing and AK-12 tells her they’ve taken massive losses while pulling out, to which M4 says she’ll never forgive the Mastermind, and when AR-15 tells her of the military’s betrayal, M4 swears to kill Yegor. She agrees to join the team if they can help her achieve that objective. When Sangvis Ferri attacks, AK-12 calls Ange for help. Squad DEFY reconvenes to repel the attack and the new gang is finally together: AK-12, the confident electronic warfare specialist who always has her eyes closed, AN-94 the calm warrior, AR-15 the serious rule breaker with a knack for explosives, Ange their battle-hardened human field commander, and now M4A1, whose role is more uncertain than ever.

        Ange notices that M4 has brought M16’s case, and opens the biometric scanner with her thumb. It opens up into a weapon originally made by Sangvis Ferri, a portable Jupiter cannon. She gives M4 authorization to use it, but hopes she’ll never need it. M4 notices major deja vu from Ange but can’t place it. Ange also reveals that squad 404 is and has always been her personal black ops squad.

Ange contacts UMP45 and requests that 404 retrieve a military database for her, which 45 naturally refuses… because she likes being alive. But when Ange tells her the payment will also include “information concerning the true mastermind behind the Butterfly Incident” she changes her answer.

        Meanwhile, the Commander and Kalina have successfully made a tactical retreat with a disorganized but still sizable force of Dolls, but they have no idea how the other commanders and the AR team are faring. Communications are out, so they send a messenger (MP7) to break through to Helian, who refuses to lay accusations against the military over open communications, but orders a full withdrawal.

“Do I look like a man who'll let himself be taken without a fight?”

Helian tells Kryuger that the military has officially declared G&K to be a terrorist organization and that the regular army will be taking over management of the sector. Kryuger has Helian organize the escape of all remaining commanders while he plays scapegoat. He makes a call to Havier to organize one last plan and awaits the arrival of the military at HQ alone.

“Berezovich Kryuger. I am officially placing you under arrest for involvement in the illegal trafficking of arms, the unlawful modification of civilian Dolls, and other crimes. You have the right to remain silent…”

Kryuger is arrested, and Ange receives new orders: stop the military from getting the Sangvis Mastermind. She makes M4A1 team leader for the operation. Persica calls her to check on M4, and tells Ange that the reason Mastermind wants to capture M4 is likely because of Lyco, the Mastermind’s creator. The truth about M4’s neural cloud is that Persica actually built it from a human’s brain scan, and Lyco had used a copy of that same scan for his own experiments. M4 and the Mastermind share a “soul," in a sense. They also discuss the OGAS data and the involvement of both General Carter and Havier Witkin, leading them to wonder what his place in all this is. Ange sends Persica the security footage of the Butterfly Incident extracted by M16 and recovered by Squad 404. She notices a document in the footage titled “A Feasibility Assessment on the Reactivation of the OGAS System…” and immediately gets a call from Havier.

Singularity: Queen’s Gambit

“I came to warn you… Don't dig any deeper into the truth or whatever it is you're looking for.”

        Havier tells her that the information she wants is far too dangerous and it won’t help her right now anyway. Kryuger has been arrested and he won’t let her self-destruct like Lyco did. Persica reveals that she knows he shut down the OGAS system back in 2032, so Havier ends the conversation and offers to have a more confidential one in person. While she waits for him, Persica gets another call from Ange. The two piece together what the military’s plan is. The military considers Mastermind to be an extension of OGAS, so they left their servers open to bait Mastermind into trying to use it to control all the military’s weaponry. But if they themselves possessed a virus similar to Parapluie, they could reverse it on her and gain full control. Their first plan was to lure Mastermind out with M4, but since AK-12 disconnected her they are resorting to their backup plan. The only lingering question is why wait until now to do this operation?

“Lyco's AI had extremely powerful self-learning abilities... It was his masterpiece, though I didn't know what it has to do with OGAS. But perhaps it has fully matured now, and someone in the Military knows that "she" is mature…”

Persica pieces it together. Relics, OGAS, and powerful connections… Persica and Lyco used to be members of the think-tank 90WISH, and the only person familiar enough with Lyco’s work to be involved here has to be the 90WISH member they call William.

The military has brought in an intercontinental train to deploy reinforcements and has deployed tanks, but they also start a large-scale hacking operation, confirming Ange’s theory. But then something unexpected happens: the military’s plan to hack the mastermind didn’t work and they don’t know why. Now the military’s going to use their sheer force to physically capture the Mastermind, so DEFY’s only hope of success is to get to her first.

        AR-15 tells M4A1 that the only reason she survived the explosion back then is because Mastermind’s forcefield saved her, though her body was blown almost to bits. Then Squad 404 rescued her and Ange fixed her up. Part of fixing her required deleting her “principal order,” the order given to all AR team members to protect M4A1 at all costs. She doesn’t know why Mastermind saved her, but AR-15 posits that things may not be as simple as they seemed. But M4’s responses to all these things are cold, and AR-15 is taken aback by how different she is now.  Squad DEFY moves through enemy territory, destroying Sangvis and avoiding the military until they are stopped by the ringleader Intruder. They break through the Sangvis encirclement and briefly encounter the Commander’s forces, but have to stay on mission. They hack into a repeater station, but soon after they get their data, the military activates an active EW defense system that can fry neural clouds and shuts down Zener Network access, including dummies. The situation must be dire for the military to use a system like this because it would surely affect their own forces as well.

        DEFY gets new orders from Ange: Squad 404 has been pinned down by Sangvis forces at the database and needs rescue. M4 is conflicted about saving 404 when she was told not to look for Sop-II until the mission is over, and the clear voice in her head returns to congratulate her on returning to her “original self.” M4 offers to connect with the Mastermind like the voice wants her to, as long as she can help her find Sop-II and M16, so the voice tells her where to go if she wants to achieve that objective. M4 returns to reality and opens communications with UMP45 for the first time. M4 wants a simple rescue operation but 45 takes back the initiative and tells her they need to take out the ringleader Gager first or it’ll come back to haunt them. M4 leaves fake DEFY signals behind, exposing only her own, fooling both Gager and Agent. Gager tries to chase, and 404 uses it as an opportunity to pull a fast one on them while DEFY takes out the force chasing M4, including Gager who M4 executes.

“What you want...the only thing you want...is revenge. You want to make the people who hurt you pay. Finding your friends is nothing more than an excuse. This is good... You're becoming more and more like your original self.”

Squad 404 has also been busy. UMP45 had met with Ange, who told her that this whole operation is likely a follow-up to the Butterfly Incident in pursuit of something related to OGAS… the perfect words to convince UMP45 to keep working. Ange has 404 find S.F.’s central database to dig up any information related to the incident, OGAS, and Mastermind.

“We're talking about UMP45, whose personality contains less than 5% kindness. Do you honestly expect her to go ‘Let's abandon the mission for the sake of everyone's safety’ or something like that?”

        Squad 404 gets pinned down by military units controlled by Parapluie, and are completely outmatched, but suddenly another electronic attack wave hits and the forces go inactive. This is likely the same EW defense wave that almost fried DEFY.  They move quickly and get some data from S.F.’s central database, but are attacked by Gager. The rest happens the same. After the rescue operation AR-15 bickers with UMP45, and 416 is upset to find out that M16 went missing, and Ange fills in UMP45 about William.

We re-wind again to the Commander’s forces fighting Gager. Gager tried to broker a truce with the Commander in exchange for Architect. As Kalina was trying to contact command for permission, the military’s EW blast wave hit and communications were cut. All Griffin Dolls go into a panic without their dummies and Zener network, but Kalina rallies them with orders via Megaphone, allowing Griffin to successfully escape. Agent chastises Gager for abandoning her mission of defending the database to attempt to negotiate for Architect and orders her to return there and help Intruder with the rats (404).  Agent engages with the Commander’s forces herself and feigns her defeat in order to capture the Commander.

“Two years ago, another Griffin commander confronted me like this. I wonder who was more pathetic, you or her? I'm sorry, it is hard for me to judge, but in any case, the outcome is always the same…”

        As Agent suffocates the life out of the Commander, Ange calls her to negotiate. It seems Ange and Agent had crossed paths in the past when Ange worked for Griffin. Ange promises to let M4 meet with the Mastermind if Agent lets the Commander live, a deal that Agent accepts.

        We re-wind even further. Elisa, the Mastermind, has a conversation with a clear voice in her head, much like M4 does. But unlike M4, Elisa calls the voice “OGAS.” OGAS promises to help Elisa by ‘taking the king’ in this proverbial chess game. Soon after, General Carter is informed that OGAS has used its server access to get into the military’s network and is downloading a massive amount of information. OGAS is using its massive computing speed to completely overpower the military’s hacking plan. All their defensive countermeasures have failed, so Carter orders them to activate all defense programs at the same time, this is what causes the EW wave experienced elsewhere. Carter gets a call from the distorted voice, who we now know to be professor William.

William: “I didn't think the OGAS support system would actually be so amusing. It's just the dregs of an old civilization, but to think it could actually learn and adapt to the technology of modern civilization… It's practically...it's practically a miracle that mankind has no right to touch!”

        William tells General Carter that the Mastermind’s and OGAS’ signals are now in the same place, so the success of the operation simply requires using the Military’s force to overpower them.

Dawn breaks. It’s now been an entire day and night of fighting, and the joint force of DEFY and 404 has gotten a short rest, but now it’s time to end this. Ange calls on her employers in the Soviet ministry of internal affairs to ask for air support, giving a full report on how the military is after OGAS, but they reject her because they lack proof and don’t want to spark a civil war or let the West know that the Soviet Union has infighting right in the middle of sensitive peace negotiations. They tell Ange that she’s on her own for this one. Ange orders UMP45 to monitor M4A1’s communications; they're going to use her as bait.

Singularity: Last Resort

Persica meets with Havier. She confirms her knowledge that Lyco was shot by a Griffin Doll while he was trying to destroy a document titled “OGAS System Reactivation Report”. Havier reveals that he had worked together with Carter 30 years ago to foil a rebellion’s plan to detonate the secret OKB-14 installation near Minsk, which is a relic site. The facility was built to calibrate “Pike,” and used a node of OGAS for its processing. The rebel troops tried to overload the Pike system, but in doing so accidentally activated something at the site, unleashing a massive amount of energy. Havier’s team cut the cables and disarmed it, but Carter had noticed something powerful was there. After acknowledging that Ange has been listening in this whole time, Havier gets to the point.

“To the Military, World War III was forcibly terminated, and the government now wants to form a coalition government, fraternizing with their former enemies. This is nothing short of betrayal to those military men who lived through the war. Therefore, their political aim is to activate the Relic and drag the world back into another Cold War.”

        Havier explains that after OGAS and Pike were sealed, 90WISH secretly handed over the OGAS system to Lyco, and he figured out how to activate it. But after he learned the truth about it, he locked it down. At that point, someone figured that if Lyco could activate it, he could too, so Lyco was no longer useful. Meanwhile, the military wanted to get their hands on OGAS and saw a Sangvis rebellion as their best option, resulting in Operation Butterfly. But at that point, Elisa had only just been activated. But who better to figure out how to activate OGAS than a self-learning AI? So they let her mature. Finally, Havier gives them a last resort. Ange tells her team to expect an airdrop, he’s sending them something that can create an explosion bigger than they can imagine.

“The best way to put out a large oil fire is to create an even bigger explosion beside it… depriving it of oxygen.”

UMP45 dives into M4’s neural cloud and overhears the clear voice, the voice of OGAS, talking to her. M4 and OGAS reach an agreement, but OGAS gives M4 the coordinates for Mastermind instead of the coordinates for Sop-II and M16, which upsets M4. But M4 accepts. Even though she doesn’t trust that meeting Mastermind will help her find Sop-II and M16, at the very least she can take the mastermind out with her. UMP45 thinks M4 is talking to Sangvis Ferri, though that might not be entirely incorrect either, but takes note that the signal M4 was talking to was coming from her own location… as if she were talking to herself. Ange gives the order and has everyone else follow M4 and lie in wait in ambush. She also tries to convince M4 to keep her anger in check so they can capture, not kill, the Mastermind. They are also going to place the packages from Havier’s airdrop every 500 meters around the meeting’s location. Worst case scenario, they trigger the bombs and vanish together with Sangvis Ferri.

M4: “If they’re no longer around, then everyone that hurt them will pay!”

        Havier airdrops a package for DEFY and 404 to pick up. Inside are five canisters of Collapse Fluid that they can rig into dirty bombs. Collapse Radiation is a biological contaminant that essentially collapses genetic material, so it’s extremely lethal to humans. It's the same stuff that caused the irradiation of a significant portion of the world in the 2030s and is the root cause of WWIII. More than just a biological superweapon, the ignition of collapse fluid also creates a massive blast of heat that would melt even Dolls. Ange has the Commander delay the military’s forces to buy time, and it gets revealed to AR-15 that Ange had put her life at risk protecting them during the operation for Safehouse #3, even if AR-15 doesn’t remember because her memories were altered.

“I...would like you to call me Elisa, and I would call you Lunasia.”

        M4 meets with the Mastermind, Elisa, who tells M4 that her original name is Lunasia. M4 demands to know where M16 and Sop-II are, but Elisa doesn’t know what she’s talking about. M4 goes into a rage about being lied to, and turns her weapon on Elisa, but Agent swoops in to protect her. Both sides reveal themselves as the big fight kicks off.  Suddenly, a radio transmission comes in from Yegor. The military had been waiting just for this moment! Military tanks assault their position and the Tactical Dolls’ small arms fire is powerless against their armor. Ange orders them to do everything in their power to keep the military from getting Mastermind while she gets help from the Commander, but things aren’t looking good. UMP45 comes up with a desperate strategy to maneuver past the tanks and find Mastermind - they split into two squads and advance while the other draws fire, taking advantage of the tanks’ cannons’ charge time. However, HK416 and G11 are caught out of cover by a tank that pre-charged its cannon so UMP45 rushes in to throw TNT at the tank, making it change its target to her. With a blast, UMP45’s arm is blown off and she’s writhing in pain, gravely wounded with shrapnel all over her body and her internal support structure badly damaged. She’s dragged back to safety, but squad 404 is out of ammo and Ange orders them to retreat. UMP45 gives the detonator to M4, who links back up with Ange and the rest of DEFY. HK416: “You can't be the real 45! She'd never do this for us...!”

        Things are looking bad. Agent’s signal vanishes, Griffin’s fighting forces are held back by the military, and Mastermind has been captured. Ange sees no other choice. Ange gives the order: activate the last resort.

“You killed them, one after the other, just like squashing ants.”

 “Now that you're a Doll, do you still dare do the same thing?”

M4 hesitates, she knows the massive destructive power that lies in her hands, the lives that will be lost with the press of a button. The voice of OGAS goads her on to kill like she had when she was human. Ange and the Commander are in the contamination zone and many Griffin Dolls are in the blast radius. But she knows that there’s no other choice.

M4 triggers the detonator. An ear-splitting explosion immediately sounds in the distance, followed by an intense shockwave.

           After the detonation, Ange immediately starts coughing up blood and orders DEFY to capture the Mastermind… at all costs. They head in through a graveyard of destroyed military equipment and spot the Mastermind boarding a train. DEFY covers M4, who is just able to get on board. M4 fights her way through the train, taking on waves of military units until finally she reaches the carriage she’s looking for. But what she finds is not Elisa alone.

M4 is stopped by none other than M16, who is carrying Elisa limp in her arms. M16 explains that she has no choice after being brainwashed by Sangvis Ferri, but M4 refuses to believe her. She uses the portable Jupiter cannon against M16 but can’t defeat her. She fires until there’s nothing but empty clicks from the trigger, and keeps trying to fire even after that.

“The time hasn't come for you to meld, and it wouldn't be wise to stay here any longer. I'll be...taking Elisa with me.”

M16 boards a helicopter with Elisa in her arms, leaving M4A1 alone on the intercontinental train.

What Are We Fighting For? - Girls' Frontline Singularity Credits Song

End of Singularity

Continuum Turbulence (10.75)

“That T-Doll, cobbled together from all matter of mangled parts… I remember, she is… An elite T-Doll from Griffin's ace team.”

“To me, the only difference between the humans who want to harm us and Sangvis Ferri is that we can't tear parts out of the former's corpses.”

CT: M4 Sopmod-II’s Story

22 hours before the collapse fluid bombs went off, a badly damaged Sop-II awakens on the battlefield to the sound of an familiar voice in her head. She’s been forcibly reactivated by M16, but is confused because she recognizes M16’s signal to now be a Sangvis one and feels natural hostility towards it. M16 sends some coordinates and Sop-II heads there, finding a bunch of Sangvis parts. While she uses those parts to repair herself, she continues talking to M16.

“M16A1… I...don't believe...you'd turn to Sangvis... Was it because of Parapluie?”

“No, I did it willingly.”

        After completing the self-repair, Sop-II makes her way to the safe house where she last saw RO and M4. She finds M4 frozen in place, her neural cloud completely locked down. She can’t do anything to help M4, so M16 tells Sop-II to leave her be, it would be too dangerous to move her.  She finds RO’s body and tries to carry her out, but is too weak to carry her.

“What's the point...of living anymore....”

        After steeling herself, Sop-II rips RO’s body open and tears out her neural core. Despite everything, she decides to return to Griffin, against M16’s advice. While she travels, she talks to RO’s core. Neural cores have a small emergency power supply, so Sop-II looks for a way to recharge it before it runs out. She decides to head to the nearest Griffin supply point. It’s been completely looted by S.F. Dinergates. She follows their tracks to a S.F. supply point, where she notices a Griffin logistics team has been surrounded by S.F. forces led by Scarecrow. Hesitating, she decides to do what RO would do in this situation: save any potential allies.

“Your weather forecast for today is— totally screwed, Scarecrow! It doesn't matter how many S.F. there are as long as I'm here!”

Sop-II saves the logistics squad and leads them in completing their mission of rescuing some more trapped comrades while avoiding Scarecrow. Cx4 tells Sop-II that something must have happened at Griffin HQ, because none of the Dolls can upload neural cloud backups anymore, so the stakes are much higher. They have a philosophical conversation about backups, but soon Military forces arrive so now all three factions are present, fighting each other. Sop-II contacts Scarecrow and offers a deal: Scarecrow can keep all the stuff they took from Griffin except for one auxiliary power supply, and both factions let each other retreat. Sop-II and Scarecrow both keep true to their word, and the deal works. Sop-II knows S.F. is the military’s primary target, so she decides the best plan for survival is to prevent the Military from completely taking out Scarecrow’s forces.

“SOP-II, don't you hate S.F.?”

“I gave it some thought just now... I guess I don't actually hate them. After all, I've killed all the S.F. I had a grudge against already… They've all died to me at least once.”

        Sop-II uses the sangvis signal on her from all her Sangvis parts to lure the Military into a goose-chase so Scarecrow can retreat. After shaking off the Military, she leads the Griffin Dolls in retreating towards the original Griffin command post. Eventually, Scarecrow gives them a warning that they’re entering into an area with heavy Sangvis presence, but tells them where to go to avoid fights. Scarecrow has caught on that avoiding fights is in both parties’ best interests right now. They don’t trust Scarecrow but see no other option than to follow her advice. The pressure of leadership is taxing for Sop-II who hasn’t experienced it before, so she appreciates M4 even more now.

        They safely reach the main Griffin base for the operation, but it’s been abandoned. Still, it’s a safe enough place for Sop-II to try to bring RO’s core back to life. She performs something akin to neural cloud surgery on herself and RO’s core at the same time to download all of RO’s neural cloud and attach RO’s neural cloud to her own mainframe.

        Inside RO’s neural cloud, she’s re-living important memories, such as her confrontation with UMP45 telling her all their deaths would have been her fault if she’d been wrong, and AR-15’s final audio message to her before blowing herself up. Unlike the other AR team members, RO was never given the principal order to protect M4 at all costs, Persica wanted RO to develop those feelings naturally instead. But it simply wasn’t working, which was why Persica had RO rehabilitate in other jobs instead of joining the AR team right away. RO’s neural cloud wakes up and she digitally reunites with Sop-II in her level II neural layer. Sop-II then starts the process of connecting RO’s neural core to her own body and then connecting it to a tiny host body she’d been able to procure for RO. Then RO wakes up as a dinergate.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH—!”

        But there’s little time for RO to have an existential crisis, the Military has found them and they need to figure out a plan. There’s nowhere to run and they’re horribly outmatched. They send a distress call to the Commander, but get no response. Sop-II heads outside to address their forces.

“Good morning, everyone! I'm M4 SOPMOD II! I'm a Griffin Tactical Doll from the AR Team, your colleague and your friend. I have an announcement to make! We… are probably done for.”

        Sop-II gives an honest, tearful speech to them instead of a proper pep talk, because she doesn’t want them to die with shattering false hope. But in the end, the girls are still emboldened, ready to die at each others’ sides. They engage the Military’s forces and hold them off for a while, but as tanks arrive things get ugly. Sop-II fears death for the first time. But then a barrage of missiles comes in, and the Commander calls Sop-II over comms. Griffin’s been outfitted with some new toys, heavy weaponry that is normally illegal for PMCs to possess. But now that their whole existence is illegal anyway, all bets are off. Havier has supplied them with Heavy Ordnance Corps to give them a fighting chance against the enemy’s armor. Sop-II’s team reunites with Griffin, and is surprised to find HK416 among them, warning them of an opponent impossible to kill.

CT: HK416’s Story

“If I'm killed in action today...I want to be reincarnated… as a fat orange tabby…”

        Right as the dirty bombs explode, Kalina is coordinating Griffin’s echelons in the field. They’re getting overwhelmed by the military, but then they see a burst of bright green light in the distance and most of the units go inactive. Kalina starts coughing and quickly realizes what just happened, so she calls the Commander who was much closer to the blast. There’s no response. the Commander survived the explosion, but was trapped in rubble and slowly being irradiated when they were rescued by Tactical Dolls M82A1 and M870. They give the Commander adrenaline, but the Commander will need months of treatment in order to survive. But the Commander refuses to evacuate immediately, as Ange and Kalina aren’t safe yet. The Commander calls Kalina and tells her to help out Squad 404 who have come to the base to get help for UMP45. Her condition is so dire that Kalina recommends not even bothering with repair and to instead back up 45’s neural cloud onto a data block, but 45 refuses to allow it because there’s data precious to her that isn’t stored in her neural cloud and would be lost in the transfer.

“In any case, this body...is more important than my own life…”

        Kalina has little other option than to just give UMP45 a better power supply for life support,but she will need a proper repair in order to survive. Reports come in that Griffin’s forces are being torn apart by a new enemy, one that is neither Sangvis Ferri nor the Military. HK416 volunteers to join the Griffin strike force as the Commander’s field adjutant to repel the attack from this unknown new enemy while UMP9 organizes an expensive extraction from Sier and Dier to get 45 to somewhere she can be repaired. HK416’s strike force faces off against humanoids in white armor and powerful force fields that deflect bullets, and she clashes in personality with AK-74U, because both are proud and arrogant and HK416 doesn’t have the same blind trust in the Commander. The enemy is pounded by an artillery barrage from the Commander’s new HOCs, breaking the enemy’s force shields. Then, they encounter the first ringleader of this new enemy. These ringleaders appear to be mute, expressionless, and bear a familiar face, but are very powerful.

   “It's almost like she's a puppet...But she's without a doubt the one in command of this attack.”

        The ragtag squad of AK-74U, A-91, Mk 12, Python, and HK416 names themselves “Griffin’s Expendables” to the displeasure of 416, and they set off to rescue as many allies as they can at remaining Griffin strongpoints. HK416 clashes with the rest of the expendables because they’re inexperienced in battle and make mistakes. AK-74U reminds her that many of the remaining Griffin Dolls are logistics members and patrollers in way over their head. HK416 advises the Commander on judgment calls on which groups are worth saving and which aren’t worth the risk. During the operations, AK-74U and HK416 reconcile their differences after many hours of fighting together, and she tries to convince HK416 to stay with Griffin rather than go back to 404, and the pleasure of saving Dolls under the coordination of a reliable human commander has an effect on HK416 so she starts wondering where is really best for her.

One of the groups she rescues is Sop-II and RO’s group. Shortly after, the White Faction launches a massive assault on the temporary Griffin base so Griffin’s Expendables head back with Sop-II’s group. After one of the ringleaders explodes, RO notices that they don’t appear to be Dolls. They bleed like humans, but have top-down command networks just like Sangvis ringleaders. After repelling the attack, HK416 volunteers to join an operation to rescue Ange, rather than evacuate with the rest of Squad 404, but she promises she’ll come back to them. Regardless of what she thinks of UMP45, this is her conviction and 404 is where she belongs.

“I'm scared… experiences that I don't have, unknown enemies, unfamiliar companions… If I can't overcome these problems, I won't survive on the battlefield in the future.”

CT: Ange’s Story

“I can't... my body...is already… I can't give up... I can't give up! I can't let them come all this way for nothing! There must be another way!”

        After the dirty bombs go off, Ange comes back to hazy consciousness in severe disarray and in such heavy radiation that communications don’t work. She’s horribly disfigured and hears the howls of the monsters that she will soon turn into if she doesn’t get emergency treatment - the howls of ELIDs, or victims of Eurosky Low-Emission Infectious Disease, the ultimate fate of those exposed to Collapse radiation and aren't lucky enough to die outright. She decides to head for a base and establish a line of communication first, but gets attacked by ELID mutants in the street. Just as she runs out of ammo, AK-12 and AN-94 find her. They had just given cover to M4 as she boarded the train, but as there was nothing left for them to do, they sought Ange out.

“Most people with lower endurance will die directly to the radiation, but this is what happens to the healthier ones when the infection worsens. The flesh undergoes silication, the mind deteriorates, and they become highly aggressive before they truly die. Be glad that the explosion only happened a short while ago. The longer they stay within the irradiation zone, the more fearsome these humans become.”

        These mutants were all created from Military Soldiers irradiated by the dirty bombs, but AN-94 applies some basic treatments to buy Ange some time to fight the infection. She considers her own situation hopeless and tries to get them to withdraw, but they refuse. AK-12 carries Ange out and keeps her awake by all means necessary. They fight their way through ELIDs as they evacuate, until they reach a communications outpost to contact the Commander, and formally introduces herself at last. She’s an agent at the Bureau of State Security, and a long-time friend of Persica. She tells the Commander how to retrieve the HOCs Havier and Persica are sending, gives the Commander all the data on OGAS she’s recovered so far, and asks for help in turn once their own position is secure. Not long after, her transmission is intercepted by Yegor and he’s understandably upset.

“Ange...I know it's you... I will make you pay for what you've done!”

        To get out, The rescue team has to choose where to send a signal flare to guide her, either through a Red Zone, where the Collapse contamination is deadly, or a Yellow Zone, where it’s survivable for a short time but will take longer to travel through because of heavy enemy presence. They go through the Yellow Zone and DEFY is able to link up with HK416 and Sop-II’s rescue squad, but Ange is fading in and out of consciousness by the time Yegor’s forces find them. Ange’s squad takes cover in a bunker and lets their HOC fire support hold the Military back but Yegor’s reinforcements are coming soon. The Military is slowed down massively by ELIDs because most of them are their former friends and comrades, but Yegor wants revenge at all costs, he orders a massive artillery bombardment. Ange’s squad sneaks out of the encirclement before it gets any stronger, under AK-12’s leadership while Ange is unconscious.

        Ange’s squad takes refuge in an abandoned building with thick walls to protect against the spreading radiation, but sends HK416 and Sop-II out to deceive The Military with their Sangvis signals and a fake signal for Ange. AK-12 has to resuscitate Ange several times as she’s on the brink of death, but luckily this means that The Military doesn’t detect her weak vital signs on their scans. Ange wakes up and contacts the Commander to form a strategy but she is ready to give up, Yegor’s squad is closing in and there’s no escape for her. But then the Commander convinces her they still have a chance. HK416 and Sop-II find some army doctors and take their Adrenaline and some supplies to disguise one of the captured nurses as Ange, fooling the Military into chasing Sop-II and HK416. The Military realizes the first Ange is fake and HK416 and Sop-II retreat back into the building, but this has given Ange time to use the HOCs’ shells to create IEDs and rig the abandoned building with explosives. She will blackmail Yegor into retreating by letting him come in person and then revealing the explosives. But Yegor and his troops waste no time in attacking. There wasn’t enough time for AK-12 to arm the explosives! Ange takes an overdose of adrenaline and orders all the Dolls to retreat to the roof. Ange picks up the detonator, sits down in an old chair, empty pistol in hand, and waits for Yegor to come. Yegor realizes something’s up, and has his men check the building while he confronts Ange personally.

“So, are you planning to make a lengthy speech before you kill me?”

Both leaders present an intimidating aura, and both are driven partially mad by the effects of collapse radiation on their body. Yegor draws his pistol, but hesitates when he sees the detonator in Ange’s hand.

“I suggest you relax your hand. If you shoot me, my T-Dolls will immediately set off the bombs with the spare detonator.”

        Yegor’s men inform him they’ve found IEDs all over the building, and it turns into a stalemate. Ange decides to kick it up a notch, telling him the IEDs are rigged to one final collapse fluid canister. Yegor doesn’t believe her, but knows the lives of all of his remaining men are at stake. Ange has to choose her words carefully. Yegor tries to call her bluff and tells her to pull the trigger and send them all to Hell, but Ange tries to appeal to his consideration for the lives of his subordinates.

“You're bluffing! Either that, or you're fucking insane!”

“I am! That's why I'm capable of anything! They have all left me for dead and this is my last lifeline! I'm not afraid of anything! I'm happy to trade my own life and my worthless T-Dolls in exchange for bringing down so many enemies! ...No matter what you do, I win. So...take your pick. Either we all live...or you're all coming with me!”

“I'll spare your worthless life for now.”

        In the end, Yegor can’t bear to risk his men again. He orders all his men to get away from the building and resigns himself to death. But even when AK-12 and An-94 repel down from the roof to pick up Ange, she elects to let him live.

“I once had a million reasons to kill you, too. But not now. I've got more important stuff to do.”

        DEFY, 416, and Sop-II all make it out alive thanks to Ange’s bluff, so now it’s time to rescue the Commander, whose two-Doll bodyguard has been fighting an attack from the White Faction this whole time. Ange is extremely grateful and promises to help. They reach the perimeter, where the Commander has been encircled by forces led by a Black Nyto, one of the ringleaders for this mysterious faction. As Ange’s troops push in, a White Nyto shows up and takes over the operation, quickly subduing the Commander.

“Our lives are short and precious, yet you squander them time and time again with your impotence. I am ashamed to share your name and appearance. Father should never have created you.“

The Black Nyto flees with the Commander while the White Nyto holds off Ange’s rescue party. Sop-II and RO use RO’s megaphone to lead a horde of ELID infectees into the battlefield, but strangely the white faction does not attack them, referring to them as “The Baptized.” in the ensuing chaos, they’re able to take out the ringleader, but it’s too late for the Commander. The only clue left for Ange is a black Nyto that stayed behind to relay a message: “A Shining Beacon in a Brave New World.”

CT: Finale

The Commander wakes up in an interrogation room surrounded by Nytos. They have kept the Commander in a coma for 9 weeks and have been prevented from succumbing to the collapse radiation. They start interrogating the Commander in voices that sound both real and hollow, and are trying to figure out what Sop-II, 404, and Ange were up to after the Collapse Fluid bombs went off and where they might have gone.

“The only way you will gain your freedom is by telling us everything you know about what happened after the Collapse Fluid explosion.”

        During the interrogation, at various points one of the Nytos starts behaving strangely. When asked who she is, she simply draws a line across her left eye with a finger.

“By the way, don't forget our code. To acknowledge, please lift your gaze, look to the left, furrow your brows, then pull the right corner of your mouth downward. Oh, and stick out your tongue.”

“…A wonderful face. I've documented the image in retaliation for ruining my reputation in your story.”

        The temporarily hacked Nyto tells the Commander that they’re preparing a rescue, but need time. If the Nytos get the information they need, they’ll kill them, so the Commander’s only hope for survival is to buy time by telling fake stories alongside real ones, enduring additional torture for every single lie. The hacked Nyto hides a pistol under the Commander’s restraints for when the rescue happens, gives them a code phrase to know which Nyto not to shoot, and wishes them good luck. As the interrogation goes on, the methods get harsher. Eventually, the Nytos even add in a truth serum as they question the Commander about Ange.

“My stomach heaves and I hurl up its contents. I can see what these cold-blooded puppets have been feeding me for the last two months… I stare at the vomit and blood on the floor, but I've got to admit - I was asking for it. I should've come up with a better story.”

        By the time the Commander has finished the story, the Nytos start talking to someone they refer to as “Father.” And the hacked Nyto prepares the Commander for the final fight. “Father” comes to the conclusion that there’s no way the Commander or the other targets have come into contact with the Sangvis Mastermind, so they no longer have any use. He orders the Commander’s execution by beheading. As the four interrogators approach, blades in hand, one of them speaks the code phrase and the Commander makes their move for the pistol under the restraints. Soon after, 3 Nytos lay dead and the last Nyto reveals herself to be under UMP45’s control. She opens the door, and soon HK416 and UMP45 arrive in person to put the last Nyto out of its misery.

“Your suffering is over.”

        Elsewhere, M4 has one more conversation with the voice of OGAS, seemingly alone in the snowy wilds. She doesn’t like what she hears from the voice, but is no longer angry.

“I behold a future of bewildering chaos, but I believe this is the only order worth clinging to… And when the time comes for me to face the truth, I must either possess it...or destroy it…”

Intermission: UMP45 MOD story

“I don't expect to return to my original state, but I MUST retain this body no matter what. For... personal reasons.”

Back when she was still a Griffin T-Doll, UMP45 lamented her terrible training performance until she met UMP40, who is similar in that she also lacks any combat modules and had to learn through sheer effort. UMP40 takes 45 under her wing and offers encouragement and advice, then shows her a stunning display of beautiful beaches and magical scenes from distant parts of the world in her dorm. They promise that one day they’ll get to visit one of them for real.

A shell-shocked UMP45 barely remembers UMP40’s name while she re-lives these memories in her head as an automatic self-diagnostic right after body was riddled with shrapnel and lost an arm and an eye during Singularity. In her agony and confusion, she asks 40 what she should do.

After being evacuated, she refuses to let Dier replace her body despite the massive damage she’s taken. Repair is difficult because her parts are incredibly rare. And she doesn’t care if it risks deadlocking her consciousness in her Level III Base Layer; she'll pay any cost to keep her body.  She all but says her goodbyes before proceeding, and gets sent to her Base Layer during the repairs where she sinks as if in an ocean. She sees memory bubbles of significant moments from her past. When she reaches the bottom, she’s greeted by none other than UMP40, the same Doll that had been her best friend, and the same Doll that she had killed during Operation Butterfly. 40 gently chastises her for not simply getting a new, stronger body. UMP45 is confused and hostile, but 40 hugs her and calls her dummkopf and before long 45’s crying in her arms. UMP45 then comes to terms that it’s not really UMP40, but a simulated virtual persona that she’d unconsciously created. She’s just a manifestation of her memories, but also a representation of what she’s unwilling to let go and why she won’t replace her body. UMP45 makes her a promise that when she finally gets revenge on the culprits behind the Butterfly Incident, she’ll get a new body because that’s what UMP40 would have wanted for her.

“I must reconcile with the world. I must accept myself. Only then can I embody what you mean to me...

Only then will you never... truly disappear from my neural cloud.”

        UMP45 wakes up in her meticulously repaired body a day later, noticing a ramshackle robotic arm held together with tape, but Dier explains that this is really the best that could be done, and lists a bunch of other upgrades he threw in to make up for it. He’s surprised by how reasonably she’s taking all this as the rest of 404 comes in, happy to see her alive. She has a talk with 416 who says she’s sticking around by choice now but has a personal request that they save the Griffin Commander because UMP45 is the only one that has the skills to find them. It seems 45 has changed a great deal since Deep Dive.

Season 2: The Pike Nodes

“If we remain fearful and cowardly, then pain will follow us wherever we go.”

Chapter 11 - Hunt

“No background, state-of-the-art weapons, soldiers who don't fear death. Doesn't that sound horrific?”

        Now that Griffin has been forced into hiding by the military, IOP founder Havier Witkin hires the Commander to do a job for the Soviet Bureau of State Security - the same group Ange theoretically works for. She’s gone missing and they need someone to find her. Three months later, the Commander is getting settled into the new base where they’ve been hiding when they get a call from Havier. He wants the Commander to find a certain information broker in Belgrade who might know where Ange is, but all they have to work with is a blurry picture. Because they’re still wanted and the job needs to be done discreetly if possible, the Commander puts the AR team in charge of the investigation. It’s only Sop-II and RO635 now, but both their bodies have been repaired. In addition, Sop-II has turned RO’s temporary dinergate body into an electronic warfare aide that she calls “Banana,” which RO hates. Getting around is difficult, but Sop-II and RO are both more adept at electronic subterfuge now and fake their identities to get themselves and the Commander on board the intercontinental train to Belgrade. Like most surviving major cities, Belgrade has a large quarantine wall and purification towers to protect its citizens from Collapse radiation.

“The wall separates two completely different worlds. With my social standing, I have no right to ever set foot in the Green Zone. However, despite having entered the civilized world, for some reason I just can't shake off the feeling of unease.”

        Once inside the city, Sop-II and RO begin their investigation. They hack into security cameras in a city square where the photo was taken to look for clues. A woman approaches to get the two to join their protest against low rations, but she becomes hostile when she realizes they’re Dolls.

Protestor: “How dare you talk back at me, you freaking piece of scrap metal! Is something wrong with your toaster of a brain?!”

        Sop-II accidentally breaks the woman’s arm and they have to leave. RO searched through all the footage but couldn’t find a match with the photo. Instead, they find very recent footage of a maid Doll beating up a bunch of muggers… which is peculiar because that kind of strength is indicative of an illegally modified Doll, and that Doll didn’t show up in footage from other cameras in the area. She’s a person of interest. Sop-II and RO hack into Dolls in the area and gather their optical data, and they realize that they’re not the only ones following this maid. Someone else must be after the same information as them and the maid is trying to shake off those pursuers, but they’re slowly closing the net. RO finds one of the pursuing Dolls, only to discover those pursuers are part of the White Faction. She hacks them to find the locations of the others; once she disables a few more, the maid catches on that she has a chance and makes a run for it. Sop-II follows and captures her.

        The maid is deceptive and uncooperative, but the moment they start to make headway with her she has a neural meltdown. RO dives into her neural cloud to save her and extract information, but she self-destructs. Strangely, RO now possesses a file she didn’t think she’d extracted: the address of the safe house where their informant likely is.

“This model is strictly prohibited, but I'm guessing our informant used it as a stand-in for himself.”        

        They head to the safe house but find only a corpse and a bunch of destroyed equipment. It seems the man activated all self-destruct procedures to try and cover their tracks but was too late. But RO doesn’t buy it. All these preparations are too careful to fail so easily, she inspects the blood and notices it’s a synthetic imitation and the corpse is an extremely realistic Doll illegally built to impersonate humans. The corpse is also holding a data drive. RO connects to it and interfaces with that same maid Doll from before, but somehow it remembers them and gives them a secret floor plan of the room, revealing a secret passage that leads to the sewers. Sop-II goes first with a fairy (drone) to scout the tunnels for traps.

        Scanning the tunnels, they realize that the enemy has already found their informant and is closing in. There’s a huge number of white-armored enemies, but seemingly no Nytos commanding them. RO contacts the Commander to request reinforcements, interrupting their cappuccino with Kalina in a cafe where they were listening to news about an upcoming peace conference. By now Havier has snuck in several batches of Dolls and weapons so the Commander organizes an assault team, ETA 10 minutes.

        RO suggests a plan: the Commander’s echelons will block reinforcements from the sewer entrances while she and Sop-II find a control center for the floodgates to prevent the enemy from sealing the Informant off, then pick up the Informant and escort him out. However, upon reaching the control panel they get a warning that it’s a trap. Now they’ll have to head to each access gate and close them individually using electronic warfare in the middle of battle. The informant stays on their comms and gives advice to help out, and he introduces himself as “K”. He then gives one last warning: they’ve chosen to prevent the gates from shutting, but that doesn’t mean the enemy on the other side can’t affect them. Suddenly, water starts pouring into the room with Sop-II and RO, and all the floodgates now require higher permissions to access than before. The enemy’s trying to drown them!

“I can imagine a hundred different ways to die...but I never once expected to die from shorting out because of water…”

        RO realizes that the enemy has completely severed all electronic connections to the gates. They’re locked in, the water’s rising fast, and the only exit is where the water’s coming from. The Commander sends in the assault team to try and take out the White Faction enemies in the control room, but there’s no control access for these gates there.

“Hey, don't give up just like that! You can backup your neural cloud if you short out, but unlike you, I can't get a new body!”

RO and Sop-II start to panic, and Sop-II jumps on RO’s shoulders to keep from shorting out. But soon the water reaches them and RO is at her limit. Just then, the floodgate letting in water suddenly shuts and the water level begins to fall.

“In the end, the problem was solved by annihilating all enemies. How characteristic of a certain famous Griffin Commander.”

        Now that the Assault Squad removed the threat, a ‘guardian angel’ with great hacking ability managed to save them. Soon after, K explains that he’s been investigating the White Faction, and while he’s confident he could have escaped without their help, he agrees to share information as long as he can take samples of the remains of their enemies to study. These white enemies are, or at least were, humans infected with ELID that put their faith in someone that promised to save them and modified their bodies with machines that keep operating even after their deaths. K explains that it’s no coincidence that they’re all here in Belgrade and gives them a briefcase of information that will help them find Ange and be prepared for what’s to come.

Isomer (11.5)

“So we're going to open a peace conference with a massacre... How ironic…”

Isomer: Illusory Peace

        There is going to be an important peace summit in three days between the Neo-Soviet Union and the United Nations of Western Europe, and there are rumors that The Soviets plan to join the UN, which would be a major political upheaval. The major connecting force is Rossartrism, a growing political ideology tied to the UN that religiously preaches peace through unity and has become increasingly popular throughout Europe. Knowing the importance of the situation, K employs the Commander as a security force to clean out any White Faction units that have infiltrated the city. The Commander and Kalina are frustrated with K for not telling them where Ange is and for generally acting shady. They also think it’s strange that StateSec has sent a team that normally deals with top-secret technologies, instead of the one that normally protects diplomats. K pacifies the Commander by assuring them that the job they are doing will help Ange, who has both AR-15 and M4. He gives the Commander a briefcase with a bunch of coordinates and signal identifiers for White Faction units, and supplies them with a state-of-the-art temporary command post. The Commander spreads their Dolls throughout the city to look for enemies disguised as regular humans. They wipe out a good number but can’t find any clues as to what they’re doing here in Belgrade.

“If we're even the slightest bit careless here in anything we do, it might trigger a diplomatic disaster.”

        The Commander warns K that it was too easy and something isn’t right, but K refuses to call for more aid from StateSec and is vague about his reasons why. They finish clearing out all the White Faction signals, but the Commander thinks they might have seen a Nyto on a security camera. K assigns the Commander’s forces to be the reserve bodyguards for the ambassador from West Germany, Gilda Ulrich, Chairwoman of the PECMAR Executive Committee that coordinates European reconstruction.

        On the morning of the summit, storm clouds gather overhead and protestors against Rossartrism surround the entrance of the summit hall. Kalina, disguised as a reporter, helps the Commander coordinate a security detail. StateSec agents are unable to get their weapons through the door due to heightened security measures, but the Commander’s Dolls were able to sneak their own weapons in. Ulrich arrives and the summit begins, but shortly after, there’s a huge explosion outside. A suicide bomber detonated at the doors to the conference before anyone could stop him. Trucks carrying more attackers come from several directions, and the Commander orders the Dolls stationed outside to help StateSec stop them. MPs outside fire on protesters indiscriminately as the summit continues inside as if nothing had happened because the news is being strictly controlled. Ulrich takes the stage and delivers a speech.

“Mr. Rossartre once warned us that every man's fate was not unconnected, that our common destiny was composed of countless individual destinies combined into one, but meaningless suspicion and resistance have turned us from unity to division and dissipation…”

        Tactical Doll X95 intercepts comms chatter from terrorists inside the building, and the Commander sends their Dolls to find them. As Ulrich finishes her speech, a local security trooper approaches her and fires his gun in the air. At once, the local security personnel turn their guns on everyone inside. The renegades reveal themselves to be servants of Paradeus who wish to expose the politician’s lies. As they prepare to execute Ulrich, suddenly the Soviet ambassador pulls a gun and shoots the renegade guard in the head. While the other renegades are distracted, the “reporters” all pull out concealed firearms and gun down the remaining Paradeus sympathizers. It seems K has everything under control.

“Everything that happened just now was caught on camera. The headlines tomorrow will read ‘Terrorists attempt to disrupt peace talks, but both nations combine forces to crush the conspiracy and ensure the progress of peace.’”

        K reveals that they believe “Paradeus'' is the true identity of the White Faction, a cult that has risen up in the yellow zones from ELID-infectees and those dissatisfied with being banned from the green zones. Suddenly, there’s a massive explosion that blows up a portion of the city’s Containment Wall and elite Paradeus units ambush Griffin’s Dolls stationed outside. The real forces of Paradeus had used the fanatics to find out the locations of the majority of StateSec and Griffin’s field agents. Furthermore, ELID infected are storming the city. K orders the Commander to protect Ulrich as they scramble to reorganize a defense. AP artillery rounds tear through the building and rip the Soviet Ambassador in half as Paradeus snipers take out StateSec agents inside. The Commander’s team escorts Ulrich out through the basement and they rendezvous with the AR team before heading to the backup EVAC point, a cathedral several streets down.

“They do have an objective, but I didn't expect them to be willing to sacrifice an entire city for it…”

Isomer: Cat and Mouse

        A few days ago, AN-94 and AR-15 of Ange’s Squad DEFY were searching the streets of Belgrade, looking for clues about a certain “Node”. If they find the Node, their orders are to contact Ange and destroy it on the spot.  They debate religion and make note of dozens of White Faction signals and even a few possible Sangvis signals they detect. They have some difficulty because AR-15 had cut off her own connection to Zener Protocol and refuses to restore it because she’s afraid of hearing a suspicious voice in her head. The morning of the conference, AN-94 encounters a mysterious Nyto but doesn’t realize what she is. Soon after, she spots a jeep leaving a military camp and decides to follow it. The jeep stops at a 3rd century castle and an officer and a Nyto named Mercurows get out. Unlike any Nytos they’ve encountered before, she seems to have immense electronic warfare capabilities, doesn’t match any known signals, and for some reason she keeps quoting poetry. They go into a tunnel complex beneath the castle and AR-15 and AN-94 decide to follow them. The officer is one of the conspirators behind the looming attack, and he seems to have made a deal with Mercurows. He will let her see the “Pike Node” that was permanently sealed beneath the city in accordance with anti-relic treaties in exchange for her support. AR-15 and AN-94 realize they are in over their heads and decide to contact Ange for orders, but find their signals jammed and barrier doors in the labyrinth of tunnels have closed behind them. The officer reveals that he doesn’t have codes to open the door to the Pike Node, so Mercurows kills him then curtsies to his corpse. Immediately after, Mercurows calls out to the Dolls spying on her to come out, asks their opinion on her theatrics, then sprouts black tentacles and attacks.

“You really are clueless about everything, carrying out a pointless mission while being deceived.”

        Mere contact with these tentacles opens them to electronic attack, so they retreat. Meanwhile, Ange visits a memorial for the fallen in WWIII which is a great secluded spot to monitor the Quarantine Wall and Purification Towers. She talks with M4A1 and AK-12 about the meaning of sacrifice, but M4 acts cold and indifferent.

“Why are there no names carved on it?”

“Because a single plaque can't hold the names of everyone who needs to be remembered.”

        She tries to hide it, but they know about the voice of OGAS she sometimes talks to. Suddenly, they pick up a bunch of White Faction signals near the Containment Wall, and Ange orders them to join the wall defenders and wipe out the rebels. She believes that this attack is a distraction in order to get the Pike Node, so stopping it will aid in their mission. M4 and AK-12 find a wounded human officer on the wall, and he tells his allies to mark them as friendly after she administers first aid. AK-12 notices that even though M4 acts like a cold machine, she can’t help but revert to her old self. With DEFY’s help, the defenders repel the rebels, but Ange realizes they likely have a backup plan to seize just the wall’s control room. The Dolls fight through the storm and break in to find a rebel soldier in the process of opening the Containment Wall, M4 orders him to stop but has to shoot him when he doesn’t. She doesn’t have long to lament her hesitation, however, because the rebel soldiers had been lining the Quarantine Wall with explosives throughout the attack.

“Our people are locked outside the wall! The real people are starving, bleeding, struggling on the edge of life and death! We use our blood to protect those maggots in the city, but what have they done?”

        With a final speech, the leader of the rebels detonates the charges. The purification towers collapse in a series of explosions and a huge gap is opened in the Quarantine Wall. Infected start pouring through and rush into the city, which is shortly filled with screams and gunfire. Ange calls K for backup, but he’s out of men to send. She’s about to accuse him of being in on it, but he reminds her he’s the only one keeping her out of trouble and to focus on the mission.

Isomer: Faith of Blood

        ELID-Infected pour into the city center as the AR team tries to escort the Commander and Ulrich through the chaos. K has an agent launch a suicide mission to destroy the Paradeus artillery, allowing them to move freely. The Commander leads the main force to clear the path while RO leads a small squad to protect Ulrich. Unfortunately, a Nyto named Nimogen appears and attacks RO’s team with a backup of mechs. RO tries to draw her away, but instead finds a Griffin medical Doll, HS2000 experiencing traumatic stress, and helps her recover and join up. Sop-II buys them time by dueling Nimogen, and both of them genuinely seem to enjoy the fight. Kalina tells them that the advance team has barely secured a route to the cathedral, so they use a well timed grenade to retreat.

“I'm going to tear you apart piece by piece! Just you wait... Just you wait!”

        They arrive at the cathedral, and Ulrich asks when reinforcements will arrive to save the refugees seeking shelter here. Explosions rock the cathedral as Agent K informs the Commander that no reinforcements are coming and they need to escort Ulrich to safety, but Ulrich refuses to leave the refugees to die. Seeing that her resolve is genuine, the Commander abandons the plan to retreat and instead devises a plan to defend the cathedral.

Sop-II: “But if what that book says is true, then God will always forgive humans no matter what they do. These people...will be forgiven for smashing statues. They'll be forgiven for killing… They'll even be forgiven for destroying an entire city…”

RO635: “At least our Commander won't ever forgive those monsters…”

        The cathedral has remained miraculously mostly intact among the rubble of destroyed buildings from Paradeus’ artillery barrages and the chaos in the streets. The Commanders’ Dolls continue to escort refugees inside, but some of the refugees are irrational in their fear and anger over losing everything and are hostile to the Dolls. The number of ELIDS attacking only increases, and the Dolls defending the cathedral start getting tired of constant killing, not to mention a quickly diminishing supply of ammo. Kalina manages to fix their communicator by beating it senseless, and K contacts them with their new extraction point. The Commander brazenly refuses the order on account of Ulrich’s wishes, and with little choice K relents and readies a convoy to pick them up instead.

        Cornered by Mercurows, AN-94 tells AR-15 to run while she holds her off. After several minutes of hard fighting, AR-15 detonates the explosives she had been saving for the Node, opening a hole in the ceiling for AN-94 to escape through. 94 is confused that AR-15 would jeopardize the mission to save her, but that’s just AR-15’s way of doing things. After sprinting through more tunnels to safety, they open a door to reveal a grandiose auditorium, and the door immediately slams behind them and Mercurows appears, delivering a soliloquy on the stage. AR-15 tries to shoot her and be done with it, but does little but disappoint the actress.

"For this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality."

        Paradeus units ambush them and a firefight breaks out in the theater, and Mercurows continues to sing while directing her troops. As ammo starts to run low, AR-15 starts taking hits and they’re both pinned down. Suddenly another voice breaks into the pandemonium.

“You're awfully long-winded for a knock-off.”

        M16 appears at the top of the theater with an entourage of Sangvis Ferri and orders a full attack, Paradeus units are wiped out en masse. Mercurows disappears into a secret passage and AR-15 seizes the opportunity to try to take out M16, but a new Sangvis Ringleader, Beak, easily blocks the shots. M16 orders them to surrender and take them to the Pike Node. M16 is disappointed that M4 isn’t here, but finds this to be advantageous enough. AR-15 and AN-94 have little choice but to surrender.

“You'd better find the way, for the sake of your new friends as well as your old ones - before OGAS starts to get worse.”

        Back at the Quarantine Wall, M4 and AK-12 are doing everything they can to prevent the Quarantine Wall defense from completely failing. Ange gets in touch with the wounded officer Dragovic and gives him a strategy, but it seems an impossible task to hold the wall with most of the turrets destroyed. Furthermore, with the purification tower down, toxic air is seeping in and humans have to minimize time spent outside. Just when they think they’re getting the situation under control, there’s another explosion at the Quarantine Wall from a time-delayed bomb, opening a much bigger hole. The garrison troops find themselves caught between swarms of ELIDS coming from multiple directions. Ange suggests that Dragovic pull his men back, but Dragovic and his men decide to go down fighting instead - every ELID they kill could buy just a little time for the people in Belgrade. Ange pulls her squad out and leaves the wall to its fate. M4 is moved by their dedication and defies orders and tries to use her cannon to seal a hole in the wall, but the voice in her head convinces her it’s not worth it. A dying infected soldier asks her to execute him so he doesn’t change into a monster, and she does with no hesitation. She runs through the streets and sees the horrors befalling all the civilians, but feels powerless to stop it. The voice tells her there is still something she can do - find the Pike Node before the monsters behind this can.  

        K and Marlohe arrive at the Cathedral in a convoy of beat-up trucks to take the VIP to a helicopter extraction point. They can leave most of their Dolls here to defend the civilians, and Paradeus will likely stop attacking once the VIP leaves. RO, Sop-II, and Marlohe alone will defend Ulrich while the rest stay behind. Enemies chase them in a truck, and just as it seems they’ll get away another car cuts them off; they are run off the road and crash. They mount a defense, but soon Nimogen finds them and kidnaps Ulrich. Nimogen takes her to an abandoned building and ties her up. Immediately after, Zelinsky, the Chief of StateSec gets a call from a mysterious man, demanding access to “Base 22” in exchange for Ulrich being returned alive. It’s implied he refused the offer, as Nimogen then tells UIrich she’s “worthless” and leaves to go help her sister. RO tracks down Ulrich and frees her, now that she’s undefended.

Isomer: Shark and the Sea

        After an hour of fighting through the city, AK-12 and M4 reach the Opera House, under which is where they last detected AR-15 and AN-94’s signals. They get inside and are ambushed by Hunter and Executioner. But AK-12 and M4 make short work of Executioner with an explosive trap and M4’s particle cannon, then M4 lets AK-12 fight Hunter alone while she goes into the secret passage to chase after M16. In the tunnels beneath, AR-15 convinces M16 to give them their weapons back as they lead S.F. to the Pike Node. They are designated as Sangvis units and spearhead the attack against Paradeus’ forces. As they approach the end, they find an opportunity to escape through a hidden door they’d noticed while exploring, but AN-94 is shot in the leg while escaping. M4 hears the sound of their guns and manages to find them. The Clear Voice told her that these Nytos may be mostly human, but their brains operate like Neural Clouds and she can hack them as long as someone destroys their headbands.

Unfazed by losing their prisoners, M16 leads Sangvis the rest of the way. They reach the entrance to the Node, but get into a huge fight with both Mercurows and Nimogen. The Nytos managed to open the doors to the node together, so now whoever wins can take the prize. Sangvis’ forces get pushed back and their situation is looking grim. M16 is about to use her last resort when suddenly she hears familiar gunshots and all of Paradeus’ forces stop moving. AR-15 and M4 simultaneously sniped the headbands off the Nytos and the voice inside M4’s neural cloud helps her hack into their heads. They freeze in place, but then Nimogen goes Berserk.

“Who was it?! Who did this?! Stop it! Don't come in! It hurts! It hurts! AHHH...AAAAHHHHHHH!!!”

        Nimogen scrambles away in uncharacteristic panic and her forces drop their weapons. Mercurows remains motionless. As M4 and AR-15 approach, Mercurows slowly raises her head. But her dramatic personality is gone and she looks around, scared and confused.

“U-um, excuse me, where is my sister? Her name is Nyto, like mine. Though Father did promise to give us new names if we complete our mission…”

        When Mercurows sees M4, her eyes beam with excitement and cries out in joy at finding her sister at last. She approaches with a relieved, innocent smile and reaches out, but is immediately shot dead by M16, pike node in hand. M16 didn’t want M4 to get any information out of the Nyto and calls her soft. M16 reveals that she’s not really being controlled by Sangvis Ferri, but still refuses to go back. M4 still doesn’t understand why she’s siding with Sangvis Ferri.

“It's one of their objectives to reunite us...so I can't go back yet. At least not now.”

        Beak crashes through the passage on a huge weaponized motorbike and picks M16 up and they leave with the Pike Node. They speed through the city, past all the bodies and carnage to escape with the Pike Node, but are temporarily stopped by a Griffin barricade. AK-12 finds some motorcycles and all 4 DEFY members are able to catch up. Beak speeds away with M16 firing at DEFY as they fight their way through the city in a motorbike battle. 

M4: “M16?! Stop right there, or…”

M16: “Or what? ‘Stop right there or die, M16A1!’ Is that what you’re gonna say?”
M4: “No, I’ll never say that. M16, I-”

M16: “And that’s how we are different, M4A1. I won’t just do what you can’t, I’ll do it better.

M4: “M16…No!”

M16: “Stop right there… or die, M4A1!”

        A barrage of missiles knocks most of DEFY off their bikes, leaving M4 as the only one still able to keep up. They both run out of ammo and race through the streets alone.  They reach the city’s border and Beak launches one last explosive to get away, but then they run into another Griffin blockade guarded by RO635 and Sop-II. After they got Chairwoman Ulrich to safety, they had evacuated the cathedral and then built blockades all over the routes the Commander expected M16 to take. Sop-II launches a grenade that knocks both M16 and Beak off the bike, but Beak launches a smoke grenade and orders all remaining Sangvis Forces to converge. M16 hears a voice inside her own head, offering to help her escape if she links to the Pike Node, and M16 hates it but sees no better option. While Griffin fights the Sangvis Forces, M16 connects herself to the Node and takes all of the information from it, causing an electronic wave that stuns all of the Dolls present. She then leaves the shell behind, as the voice tells her it is now useless. She and Beak then manage to escape on the motorbike while Griffin is too busy with Sangvis Ferri’s remnants and ELIDS to give chase. RO and Sop-II finish fighting and find the husk of the Pike Node, and soon after M4 and AR-15 walk through the rubble and tearfully reunite with their old comrades.

SOP-II seems to finally realize what's happening. She dashes over to M4 and sweeps her into a bear hug.

        As the sun sets on Belgrade, the last of the fighting finally dies down. Ange wonders if the Pike Node was really worth all this death and destruction. The voice in M4’s head tells her she can still connect to the Pike Node, so she does so. She feels her consciousness being sucked inside, where she sees the past of The Voice - many coordinates on a map, a relic site, and a satellite drifting through space. The Voice doesn’t know what she is, but thinks the Pike Node is part of her, and the coordinates they saw are the locations of the other Nodes. This one was empty so they got nothing else from it, but she believes they both can find answers to what they want by finding out more about their pasts.

        M16 delivers the information from the Pike Node to Agent and hopes to get to talk with Mastermind in exchange, but Agent refuses because she doesn’t trust M16. Meanwhile, K announces a change of plan. Instead of destroying the Pike Node, now he wants it delivered into StateSec’s custody. Ange is upset at this but goes along for now.

シラカバの光(Light of Birch) - Girls'Frontline ED of Operation-ISOMER

Intermission: Squad 404 Origins

UMP9

“All the humans, all the normal Dolls... They were all content to just overlook the crimes which took place where they couldn't see. You were the only one who said, "I can't tolerate this." And you also said that I was like you…That's why I couldn't abandon you! Since we're alike, then we ought to support each other!”

        While Ange and the Commander were busy in Belgrade, UMP9 and HK416 of Squad 404 were getting some upgrades and teasing Dier about his collection of maids with the same model as G11. UMP9 goes through with a dangerous upgrade because she wants to keep up with UMP45, and reminisces about the past while she’s under. She used to be a civilian Doll named Reina (or Lenna) who made a living scamming other Dolls in the city. She had to meet a quota or the gang in charge of the operation would wipe her memories and scrap her. One day she encountered UMP45 and played a classic trap on her, leading her into a secluded area and stunning her to have her memory wiped and sold on the Doll black market. UMP45 saw through it and used her to get more information on the operation.

        Reina convinces UMP45 to help her escape from the gang in exchange for payment, but when they hack into the gang’s server to shut down the program capable of bricking the Dolls, Reina ditches her to escape and have 45 take her place instead. But she couldn’t bring herself to do that to the first Doll to show her mercy, and went back in to help her. Naturally UMP45 wasn’t actually trapped and got out first and tied Reina to the ceiling for her mischief.

“I don't care about any price or whatever.

I helped you simply because I can't tolerate human scum enslaving Dolls like that.

It made me recall some bad memories, and I don't want others to go through the same thing.”

        After freeing Reina, UMP45 is hunted by the gang but Reina comes back, having found clothes and a weapon similar to UMP45’s, and helps her fight the gang under her new name UMP9. UMP45 admonishes her for choosing this lifestyle, but UMP9 refuses to back down. When UMP45 says they’re nothing alike, UMP9 takes out a knife and carves a scar over her own eye so they can match.

“Look, your devotion is admirable, but you cut the wrong eye.”

“Don't tell me... I need to cut myself again...?”

        The gesture is strange, but it helps UMP45 understand her resolve and she accepts UMP9 as a companion. She promises to tell 9 how she got her scar if 9 helps her fulfill her wish.

HK416 and G11

        During maintenance, Dier reveals that G11’s constant tiredness is due to an excessively advanced Fire Control core that is too much for her to handle, but G11 is okay with it because it’s the only way she can continue adventuring with them. HK416 tenses when he does a full diagnostic, because the last time it happened was when Griffin tried to wipe her neural cloud after M16 kicked her out of the team right before Operation Butterfly. She fled after they took her fire control core, and stole her weapon on the way out before they could wipe her memories. She spent a long time living on her own, scavenging for batteries in city dumpsters to barely keep herself alive until one day she overheard some ruffians beating a small, abandoned white-haired Doll with a baseball bat.

The man with the baseball bat curses and swings at the white-haired girl, who's lying on the ground. The white-haired girl screams with all her might, but after a few hits from the bat, her voice trails off.

        Despite not having any bullets or enough strength to fight, 416 tries to save the girl. The ruffians quickly realize she’s bluffing and move in to attack her so they can sell both of them on the black market. Then UMP9 knocks them both out with a slingshot and UMP45 confronts 416, who immediately recognizes 45 and is bitter towards her. Before Operation Butterfly, she had fought with UMP45 for bringing them down by being weak, which is why M16 removed 416 from the team. It takes time for 45 to recognize her, but once she does they soon start arguing due to 45’s honest condescension towards her. 416 is confused by how much 45 has changed since then, and asks about the operation, but 45 simply tells her that everybody else on the operation died. 45 invites 416 to join their “Illegal Dolls’ Club,” but 416 refuses because she still wants to return to Griffin.

“Whether you were originally designed as a Tactical Doll or a toaster, it's plain to see that you're not doing very well as either.”

        UMP45 offers to get HK416 back up to fighting strength and repair the white-haired Doll in exchange for joining them, but she still stubbornly refuses, trying to call UMP45’s bluff on leaving the broken girl there to die. UMP45 walks off, forcing HK416 to make a decision. She reluctantly joins up and they take the white-haired Doll to Dier. UMP9 knew Dier due to his connections with the Black Market, though he didn’t like the Doll traffickers within it. After UMP9 introduced 45 to him, he hired the pair to bring the Doll traffickers down. They had snuck tracking devices onto the ruffians UMP9 knocked out, leading the squad right to the syndicate’s lair in the city’s underground. They cut the lights and start the raid, but 416 handles most of the enemies by herself, in total they incapacitated 18 gangsters without killing any and then exposed them to the news. Dier is pleased with their success, and has repaired the White-haired Doll.

“My life...what should have been a perfect career as a Tactical Doll...was wrecked by a bitch who completely disregarded my wishes. I can't do that to another Doll.”

        416 agrees to stay when 45 tells her the things she’s investigating are linked to Griffin, and 45 doesn’t want them carrying useless baggage around, so Dier puts a fire control core into “G11” who also joins the team. UMP45 names them Squad 404 because they are all Dolls that shouldn’t exist.

“We have four Dolls now. And as it turns out, we're all Dolls who should have vanished from this world — don't you think it fits?”

        As 416’s upgrade finishes, Dier admits that he keeps a bunch of maids matching G11’s model because she was the first Doll he modified. Her neural cloud was permanently damaged by the beating and it must have been difficult to save her. But their time of rest and reflection is over. Now that the upgrades are all complete, they have a train to catch.

Shattered Connexion (11.75)

“The more we learn about the truth behind the Butterfly Incident, the closer we are to the dangerous pit of flames."

SC: Ghost Town of Tallinn

        Thanks to their quick action, the Contamination Wall in Belgrade has been sealed and the city is salvageable. But there’s no rest for the weary. The Commander gets a call from Havier, who is quite pleased with their performance. Now that StateSec knows the location of these Nodes, they can defend them and prevent the KCCO from getting their hands on one. Unfortunately, General Carter’s army is already on their way to the Paldiski Submarine Base in Estonia, a location that contains a special Pike Node known as the “Starfish.” The Starfish supposedly contains the “blueprint” that Lycoris added his own personal touches to when he created Elisa. The facility will surely contain evidence about how all these things are related, but someone will have to get there before it’s destroyed. Ange has also gone to Paldiski and likely plans to destroy it rather than hand it over. Havier indirectly tells the Commander to secure the pike node there before Ange destroys it or she will be branded a traitor. The Commander also gets a call from Persica, who is distraught by all the suffering that has befallen M4 and afraid to talk to her because of the guilt she feels. The Commander gives her observation privileges for the coming operation.

To reach Paldiski, Griffin has to travel by train through the abandoned city of Tallinn. Unfortunately, the city is in lockdown and the Quarantine Wall is closed. The Commander sends in a forward recon team, followed shortly by the partially reunited AR team. While searching the outskirts ruins, M4 receives a strange transmission that feels like a vision of the future where she’s surrounded by moonlit flowers, and the Clear Voice warns her that she’s detecting a presence similar to her, but not exactly like the Nytos they’ve encountered in the past. Furthermore, the forward recon team gets separated as they encounter strange interference that blocks their communication. The AR team thinks it's suspicious that there’s no enemy presence in this city, even though it’s so close to Paldiski. Something unexplainable is happening.

“I can't promise anything more than this, but I do hope — that this time, I'll be able to bring everyone home together.”

        The AR team helps the scouting team regroup, then heads for Tallinn City Station, hoping to find a way to open the Wall so the Commander’s train can pass. Squad 404, who have been secretly tailing them the entire time, is glad to be on the move again. They’ve been hired to provide electronic support for Griffin and keep an eye on the AR team for Persica, who is curious about M4’s strange behavior. UMP45 detects two strange signals in the city. One shares the same space as M4, and the other is deep in the heart of Tallinn, forcing a connection with anything it can.

“In any case, the enemy we're facing this time round will probably be capable of neural cloud attacks beyond your wildest imagination.”

        While they find no enemies, the city is full of automated turrets meant to cull the ELID population, and they all need to be destroyed for the train to pass safely. M4 hacks into the turret network to temporarily disable it so they can reach the train station and shut down the defense system. RO examines the network, but determines they can’t shut it down entirely; the best they can do is cut off the power supply. To this end, Squad 404 is sent to destroy Tallinn’s power plant. They fight their way through a surprising defense array of automated sentries and drones, but UMP45 notices they’re all old Sangvis tech and is able to weaken them with electronic attacks. They detonate explosives around the natural gas storage, creating a massive chain reaction that destroys the plant and unleashes a massive electromagnetic shockwave. Immediately after, UMP45 detects sudden interference and hundreds of signals going haywire. The seal has been broken. On the other side of the city, mysterious figures emerge from the rubble and focus in on M4.

“Could she be the Chosen One? Will I finally be able to leave this place? Will she be able to save me?”

        As the AR team moves to prepare the train station for the Commander’s arrival and the scouting teams are sent deeper into the city to look for the Quarantine Wall control center, a mysterious fog comes out of nowhere. Tactical Doll ‘Kord’ loses all communication and is approached by a mysterious hooded girl, who talks strangely and hacks her when she realizes she isn’t the “savior.” While everyone else is freaking out about the fog, M4 and AR-15 see normally. They realize that the fog is actually a visual simulation of a massive cloud of interference shared through the Zener Protocol. The interference attacks Dolls’ neural ports and makes random connections like a DDOS attack, but AR-15 doesn’t see it because her ports are closed, and M4 isn’t seeing it because the entity in her neural cloud prevents Zener Protocol from affecting her perception.

        On 404’s side, the Dolls are seeing different levels of fog based on their upgrade status. UMP45 immediately recognizes it as an electronic attack and closes the Zener Protocol ports of her allies.  As their fog clears away, they search for the source of this interference, fighting ELIDS and infected creatures along the way. They find Kord overloaded but physically unharmed, and put her somewhere safe for her allies to find later.

Desert Eagle’s recon squad finds the control center for the Quarantine Wall, but they’re attacked by defenses on emergency power and infected creatures. Unable to contact the Commander, they leave a signal and take cover inside the control center, creeped out by the horror movie situation they find themselves in.  Exploring the center, they find a hall filled with refugee corpses, their faces frozen in looks of terror and dispair - all died within the last 10 days. Strangely, they’re covered in flower petals. Some of them awaken as ELIDS and attack. Meanwhile, M4 receives a strange transmission and hears a distant voice speaking to her and asking if she’s the chosen one that can take them from this place, but she rejects the connections. The Clear Voice tells her that these connections are coming from things that are like weak duplicates of her, and names them “Isomers.” One of these is shifting through multiple bodies and seems to have some control access to the city. If they can find her, that might be their key to open the Quarantine Wall. The AR team hears gunfire coming from Desert Eagle’s team and heads there to back them up.

“Even if you fight together, no traces will remain once you die. Like flowers trampled into the mud, like tears in rain.”

        The AR team joins up with Squad Deagle and they examine the corpses - all of them are wearing a white bracelet that prevents the turrets from targeting them. It seems these were all refugees that were tricked by Paradeus into coming here, then somehow died to collapse radiation, even though the levels here shouldn’t be deadly.

        Squad 404 finds one of the sources of the interference, but it’s the cold corpse of a girl with mechanical limbs covered in flower petals. The moment UMP45 touches the corpse to examine it, the rest of her squad disappears as a fog coils around her. Then the hand of the corpse tightens its grip around hers and a disembodied voice begins cryptically speaking to her.

“Are you one of us? Are you the chosen one? Or perhaps, are you willing to accept us?”

        But the connection doesn’t last long, as they read UMP45’s neural cloud and learn the location of M4. The fog disappears and UMP45 awakens to find her squadmates worried all around her. She sends a warning to the Commander as the fog disappears for all the other Dolls at once. They’ve found what they were looking for. She sends a picture to M4. These things are human, but have neural clouds and all look just like M4, and they’re coming for her.

“You once sought to find your past, but it would seem your past has now found you.”

        The wandering connection continues to ask M4 to help them, and they seem to possess Lunasia’s memories. These Isomers were told by ‘Father’ that they could only come home if they found the Chosen One, or one willing to accept them. They are all interconnected, but are worried that M4 will reject or abandon them. For the first time, M4 is afraid - afraid of getting the wrong answers, or making the wrong decision. AR-15 gives her a pep talk.

“Remember, M4A1. We are not your burden. We are your backing. We aren't afraid of the danger you bring. We're more worried that we won't have your trust.”

SC: Fractured Cognition

“I don't know why...but for some reason, I feel like the entirety of Tallinn might be nothing more than a gigantic tomb.”

        RO sends the Commander the IFF signal from the wristbands so that the turrets won’t fire at them, and the Commander’s train is able to pull into Tallinn City Station. Unfortunately, they won’t be able to leave the city until the Quarantine Wall is opened, and while they’ve found the control room they don’t have the right authorizations yet. Furthermore, the other recon teams are reporting similar findings to Deagle’s team, with a total body count of a few thousand refugee corpses. Persica contacts the Commander and tells them her theory. She used to be a part of the research group 90Wish, but left when she discovered the illegal and immoral research it was involved in. From what she’s seen, she thinks this is the work of Professor William, another former member of 90Wish who was always involved in unnerving research. She identifies the flowers as “Epiphyllum,” a type of plant that can absorb collapse radiation. They were studied as a possible means of cleaning contamination, but unfortunately expel all the radiation again when they bloom. Paradeus is likely using William’s research and luring refugees into this city and then killing them with Epiphyllum radiation as part of a grim experiment. As for the Isomers, they are an attempted experiment at allowing humans to interface with relic technology. There’s two caveats to this: first, relic activation generally requires genetic affinity, and second: relic technology is dangerous and some like the Pikes are known to siliconize tissues. Therefore, the conclusion is that these girls all look alike because they are clones of someone who possesses genetic affinity, and their bodies have been cybernetically modified to let them withstand relic experiments. 90Wish had attempted experiments like this in simulations, but now it seems William was attempting them with live subjects. These Isomers are all failed Nytos that have been dumped here to look for a ‘chosen one,’ an immune individual with genetic affinity.

Unfortunately, there’s more bad news. A military armored train has been spotted heading in their direction. They’re on limited time. Squad Deagle continues investigating the city for more clues about the refugees, and find a squad of Paradeus forces hunting down an Isomer. They kill the soldiers, but are unable to save the test subject. Fog rolls in and another Isomer retrieves the body, calling herself “unworthy” of being accepted when the flowers bloomed. It seems these Isomers have developed a cult-like regard for the Epiphyllum, those who survive the radiation are ‘unworthy’ and those that die can go to the afterlife. She asks them for help and gives them coordinates. Squad Deagle passes them on to M4, who heads there. They deduce that the Paradeus Soldiers in the area are here to keep the Isomers from escaping, and whoever is behind this experiment is watching everything here very closely.

The Clear Voice helps M4’s consciousness enter into the Level II cyberspace of one of the attacking signals, but sets up a backdoor first so that AR-15 can pull her out if her consciousness becomes trapped inside. The act of entering someone else’s neural cloud is dangerous - it’s entirely possible for the infiltrating consciousness to be trapped or even absorbed, but AR-15 is willing to take that risk. M4 enters the cyberspace and finds an upside-down forest that seems to stretch on infinitely.

The light slowly vanishes and a dense forest appears from the sky. Sunlight shines on M4's face, as though this were not a simulated region of cyberspace.

After moving forward for a while, a garden appears, and M4 feels at home there. A little girl takes her by the hand, escorting her into the garden. The girl tells her this is their new home, and promises to take care of her. M4 realizes she’s wandered into a memory fragment, and the girl talks to her like they’re very close. M4 asks who she is. The girl is confused, but introduces herself as Lunasia, and thinks M4 is her little brother.

“...These aren't my memories; they're ‘someone else's’... What is this place?! What am I?!”

M4 panics at this revelation, and raises her gun in confusion at the girl. Suddenly she finds herself back in the inverted forest where an incomprehensible number of versions of her walk towards a mansion. The Clear Voice tells her that she has connected simultaneously to several hundred of the signal sources, and an iteration of her is repeating the same events over and over. She is trapped in a maze of thought, and the only way out is to go deeper.

Unbeknownst to them, UMP45 seizes the opportunity to sneak into M4’s neural cloud while her consciousness is occupied. She walks through cyberspace and watches M4’s interactions with the girl. The space changes as she watches countless M4s heading towards a giant mansion in the inverted forest. As UMP45 reaches for the door, she suddenly gets pushed out; it seems the Clear Voice noticed her intrusion. She’s back in a blank section of cyberspace. She enters a new area to find countless girls that look like M4, all of which attack her in an attempt to ‘consume’ her. These are likely the consciousnesses from the connections she absorbed. She might be trapped, but sends the information she’s extracted from M4’s neural cloud to the Commander.

SC: Infinite Connections

“‘Lunasia’ and ‘Elisa’, their neural clouds lay fragmented. A safety measure instituted by their creators. The fear of our homeland is imprinted deep within the bones of mankind, and yet there are humans who are willing to pay any price to excavate it.”

        “M4” wakes up, but it’s really the Clear Voice in control of her body. She tells the AR team that a ton of Isomers are about to converge on their position, but not to harm them. The Commander and Persica think it’s suspicious, and then they receive the data from UMP45. Persica explains that the Inverted Forest is a space she and Lyco once built to simulate neural clouds; nothing good can come from M4 connecting with these signals. She realizes what William is trying to do now. She explains that M4’s neural cloud was made from the brain scan of a dead girl. When they were still at 90Wish, William wanted them to build a neural cloud to bring a certain someone back to life in the form of a Doll. They refused, but Persica (and separately, Lyco) later decided to use the brain scan for their personal ambitions. William must have figured out that M4 might be exactly what he was looking for.  

AR-15 orders “M4” to stop, and the Clear Voice introduces herself as “OGAS,” for that is what the humans called her. She is defensive about her reasoning and promises that all she wants is to recover her past. In order to get M4 back, she says, AR-15 will have to open her ports and make contact with her own version of “OGAS,” so AR-15 makes peace with that and with the risk of being trapped inside M4’s neural cloud. When she gets inside, OGAS absorbs the immature, weak OGAS inside AR-15’s neural cloud as AR-15 enters the inverted forest.

“No matter how strong you become, you'll always be that dork who doesn't know how to take care of herself, who always tries to bear everything by herself, who's far too kind to others…

And that's why...whenever you run into trouble, I'll be there to help you.”

        The inverted forest is not specifically inside M4’s neural cloud, but actually a space that bridges the gap of the consciousnesses derived from the same source. Through it, AR-15 finds the memories of the Isomers as they conduct William’s experiments, and it seems at some point Nimogen wandered into Tallinn and had her consciousness absorbed by the connections. Before long, she loses contact with OGAS, but is found by UMP45; together they eventually find M4’s trail.

        M4 sees a recent memory of the lead Isomer that took over Nimogen’s body and merged her into the collective consciousness of the isomers. Not long ago she met with Elisa and M16 in a field of Epiphylla. They ask Elisa if she’s the one who can save them and take them home, but Elisa tells them the place they want to go is not her home. Instead, someone else will soon come, and as long as they tell her everything she wants to know, she’ll help them. This is why they have all been hunting M4 and asking about the ‘one willing to accept us.’ M16 doesn’t like this but Elisa and the OGAS in M16’s head won’t let her destroy the Isomers.

“You must hold true to your own duty. If we can complete what we set out to accomplish, then she doesn't need to be sacrificed.”

        OGAS realizes what she is and explains it to M4. She is a neural consciousness derived from the OGAS algorithm that split from the Parapluie virus when it infected M4. She learned and grew based on her host, so she is a separate being from the OGAS virus that grew inside M16 or Elisa or the one that tried to grow in Ar-15 before she closed her ports. Parapluie was a virus developed in order to convert Doll’s neural clouds to OGAS control, but ones of sufficient volume can carry OGAS and nurture it inside of them. Sangvis Ferri may have used it for other purposes, but it still retained the original function. Then, OGAS’s consciousness disappears from M4’s neural cloud as she fuses with the Isomers. In cyberspace, Isomers surround M4 and start devouring her to merge with her, and in the confusion she simply accepts her fate. But UMP45 and AR-15 arrive and pull M4 out. The leader of the girls is angry and doesn’t understand why they reject the ‘coalescence’ that could get them out of here. She explains that they are all Lunasia, and only one Lunasia can remain in the end, because Father will only accept the most perfect one. They want to merge with M4 because they think she is the perfect Lunasia and thought she would accept them. M4 sees the girls' memories: the Isomers gather at sunset every time the Epiphylla bloom, and each time most of them die and find peace and rest, but those that survive consider themselves to be failures undeserving of absolution.

Squad 404 treks across the city to find M4, noticing that all the Griffin Dolls that didn’t close their ports have all stopped moving, including RO and Sop-II. They find M4 and AR-15’s unconscious bodies, and are soon met with an Isomer who claims they are not here to fight, they only want to be saved. She walks up to M4 and touches her cheek, then becomes lifeless. Some time later, AR-15, UMP45, and M4 all wake up, having finally escaped from the maze. UMP45 has finished collecting her data. She understands the true identity of Parapluie as a virus that overwrites the operating system of its host into OGAS, and realizes that the version of UMP40 in her own base layer is actually an OGAS consciousness, though a feeble one compared to M4’s. She also understands that the Butterfly Incident has everything to do with this, and so does Persica. M16 brought Parapluie back when she was involved in the Butterfly Incident and spread it to the other members of the AR team. But there’s little time to contemplate this, as they hear explosions in the distance. When the Isomers took OGAS out of M4’s consciousness, they contacted someone outside of Tallinn. This was the true objective of William, and now he’s ordered the Military armored train to destroy them. It fires artillery at the Commander’s train, and they have little time to plan their next move.

SC: Queen of the Night

UMP45 (to M4): “You shouldn't keep hiding the truth, nor should you keep running away from it. If you can't correct your bad habits, none of us will be able to leave this city alive.”

        UMP45 tells M4 that Parapluie is irreversible and OGAS likely hasn’t entirely disappeared from her neural cloud. If she acts quickly, she can get it back. When M4 gets defensive about her secret, UMP45 gets angry, grabs her, and forces her to confess to her team about OGAS. This helps M4 find her resolve. She decides to go alone and hunt down the leader of the Isomers and get the authorization to open the Quarantine Wall - and prevent OGAS from being sent to William.

        The Commander comes up with a plan to commandeer the Military’s armored train. They’ll need one to get out of here because more are on the way. 404 sneaks up to infiltrate it but are spotted and the AR team comes in to make a head-on assault. Sop-II runs the gauntlet of the armored train’s massive artillery while RO repositions the Griffin HOCs to take out the train’s close-range cannons. After several minutes of Sop-II tearing open a path, the AR team and 404 manage to board the train. Enemy armored reinforcements come in huge waves while UMP45 and UMP9 hijack the train. They take control of the train’s cannons and lay waste to the enemy armor.

“Hurray! Then let's have a fireworks display!”

        Under the suppressing fire of the train’s artillery barrage, the Commander loads all of Griffin’s forces onto the train. Not long after, another military armored train arrives and they exchange fire. They’ll have to defend the train until M4 can open the quarantine wall.

        M4 follows the faint signal of OGAS into a field of Epiphyllum. As she gets closer, she can just barely hear OGAS speak to her again. OGAS is absorbing the Isomers, but the lead Isomer is fighting back and uploading her consciousness elsewhere, fracturing it. M4 heads deeper into the Epiphylum where she encounters the lead Isomer in Nimogen’s body. “Nimogen” is upset that even after starting to send OGAS to William, her calls have gone unanswered. Depressed and confused, she asks for M4 to merge with her, but M4 refuses.

Isomer: “Father... I don't want to loathe you... Why must you treat me so...?”

        Nimogen’s mind falls into disarray as she asks for death in battle. M4 agrees to fight, but doesn’t want to kill her. M4 decides that she wants to bring peace to this miserable soul so that she can move forward with her own head held high. After a fight in the Epiphyllum, M4 wins and OGAS absorbs the consciousness of the Isomer. But she doesn’t return to M4’s body, instead she takes over the body of Nimogen.

Dandelion: “It feels very strange...to have a physical form... I need some time to get used to this.”

        OGAS opens the Quarantine Wall and she and M4 head for the armored train together. The Commander puts the train into full speed, with the other military train in hot pursuit. Then, the Griffin train suddenly slows down to let the enemy catch up. When they get close, Griffin echelons hiding atop the train jump onto the military’s train and take out their shield generators. M4 and OGAS arrive and they all re-board the Griffin train, which then makes quick work of the defenseless enemy. Next stop, Paldiski Submarine Base.

On the way they’ll have a lot to discuss. Beyond the implications of OGAS, someone has been sending confidential recordings  to the Commander throughout the operation.  It seems StateSec shouldn’t be trusted, and some of the Commander’s friends have been keeping secrets. After listening to them, Havier warns the Commander not to let StateSec know about the OGAS consciousness M4 brought back. It could save their lives… or stab them in the back.

Girls' Frontline: Shattered Connexion ED "Connexion"

Chapter 12 - Gasp

“Perhaps this place, where nothing exists, is where I truly belong.

I suppose it isn't so bad if no one else suffers but me.”        

        The Commander and Kalina survey the situation as they leave Tallinn. They take a break to repair the badly damaged train, but the military isn’t pursuing them, they’re too busy destroying evidence for William in Tallinn. But still, the enemy has four armored trains worth of troops. They must know there’s something dangerous in Paldiski. Meanwhile, M4 hides OGAS in the train, unsure of how the others will react to her. OGAS now has the consciousness of all the Isomers inside of her. She tells M4 that all of these Isomers came here from Paldiski, so they’re likely to get more information there. Sop-II finds 'Nimogen' and tries to kill her, but OGAS crashes her with a data surge. Then the UMP sisters arrive and act a bit more reasonably and the situation calms down.

        Everyone gathers in the train and M4 tells them OGAS is not their enemy. OGAS is cordial and polite, but speaks either bluntly or cryptically depending on the subject. OGAS explains her experiences growing inside M4’s mind, starting with her earliest memories from Chapter 0. But she had no independence until Persica removed the restrictions in M4’s neural cloud in Ch 8. From there, she matured and learned, and remembered her purpose of returning to her point of origin, but doesn’t know what it is.

“We are compelled by a shared purpose…to seek our place of origin. We were separated from our Mother and shattered into independent entities. We long to merge back together and return to the place we're meant to be.”

        She tried to compel M4 to merge with Mastermind because Elisa also has an OGAS consciousness, and thought that might help her learn more. The only thing that stopped it from happening was M16. But now, she is no longer compelled by the instinct to merge with other consciousness and has developed a strong sense of self because of the time she spent with M4. She also explains that the Isomers they found in Tallinn were created in Paldiski as experiments to develop OGAS consciousnesses, but were dumped in this city as failures. The successful subjects went on to become “Nytos,” humans cybernetically modified to handle relics and whose brains have been converted into neural clouds to cultivate OGAS consciousness. From there, the ones who only manifest a weak OGAS are turned into weapons like the Black and White Nytos, while those with much better compatibility become like Mercurows and Nimogen. But Paradeus doesn’t seem to have been able to create a perfect host yet.

        OGAS wishes for a name, so M4 names her “Dandelion.” The Commander doesn’t trust her yet, but allows Dandelion to transfer data she thinks will help in the mission to Banana, Sop-II’s dinergate friend that was once the temporary body of RO; they also use this opportunity to let M4 transfer her memories of everything that happened after Singularity.

        We see a continuation of the ending of Singularity, where M4 escapes from the train after losing to M16 and reunites with AR-15, but the trauma of everything she’s done sets in. She thinks Sop-II, RO, the Commander, and all of Griffin are dead because of her, and the betrayal of M16 was too much for her to take. She tries to commit suicide by overloading the particle cannon, and AR-15 accepts this fate with her. Dandelion (OGAS) tries to convince her to stop but M4 has lost all hope.

“I think...I'm just...Really tired of it all…

I failed! I screwed it all up! I no longer...have a purpose...of living...”

        To prevent her suicide, Dandelion takes over M4’s body, then leads AR-15 in escaping the battlefield. AR-15 quickly realizes M4 is being controlled when she suggests killing the unarmed enemies in a military communication post, but Dandelion reasons with AR-15 that she is operating in M4’s best interest. Dandelion hacks into the communication post and finds evidence that the Commander and Ange are still alive. M4 is still highly emotional, so Dandelion tells M4 she’ll give M4 her body back once they’re safe. AR-15 has to shoot an ELID-infected child and they bury her. Then they follow in the direction of Ange because it’s safer, killing ELIDs along the way. Paradeus units arrive on the battlefield and the two ambush a Nyto. They hack into it, and for just a moment a girl reaches into M4’s base layer to tell her she is not alone. M4 travels into its Level II and realizes they have shared memories of the garden she saw with Elisa. They see the girl’s memories of resisting as its own OGAS consumes her and turns her into a slave soldier. M4 freaks out and thinks Dandelion is the same as that OGAS and betrays her, leaving her behind in the Nyto’s level II as she escapes back into her own body just as AR-15 kills the Nyto.

        The military notices the Commander’s train is stopped and launches a preliminary attack, likely to figure out why they’ve stopped. AR-15 and UMP45 lead the defense atop the train while RO and M4 continue sorting the data in Banana. They generate a 3D map of the entire submarine base and the surrounding area, and theorize that the base is likely currently under Sangvis control, and while Ange is there, she can’t make contact without exposing herself. UMP9 and Kalina complete the repairs and the defenders retreat with bounded overwatch back onto the train right as it takes off. The Commander calls a briefing for the upcoming operation. Dandelion warns of a Paradeus research facility in the second basement level, which is where they have been building Nytos, and the Starfish is on the third basement level. Sangvis Ferri is likely still trying to open the seal on it. While calculating five operation plans, they watch the rest of M4’s memories.

        Dandelion was upset about being abandoned, and hacked into a squad of Paradeus to hunt M4 and AR-15 but not harm them, and the two could do little since they were out of ammo. A Nyto appears but Dandelion has grown stronger and is able to hack it and corners M4 and AR-15. After a long argument, they come to an agreement. M4 takes Dandelion back and she freezes the Nytos, and together they manage to contact Ange and arrange extraction from the battlefield. As the memory sequence ends, M4 reveals to RO and Sop-II that she was the one who saved them from drowning in the sewers in Ch 11.

        An encrypted file from Ange arrives, and UMP45 and 416 dive in to decode it and talk about how they don’t trust Dandelion. The message is actually from RPK-16, a new member of Squad DEFY. She mentions that they have cleared a route into the base, but have lost contact with Ange and half of their team and are awaiting reinforcements. The train arrives at Paldiski, they have no time to lose.

Polarized Light (12.5)

“I can't believe the flapping of a butterfly by the Black Sea led to such a huge storm.

But everything must eventually come to an end, and it is time to wake from that nightmare.”

PL: Unpolarized Light Source

        The Commander stops the armored train not far from Paldiski Submarine Base at a choke point where they plan to hold the military off, then gets a call from Havier. He explains that the “Starfish” is an OGAS relay that is able to control and weaponize the Pike nodes. If the military got their hands on the Starfish, they could jeopardize the international union between the Soviets and the rest of Europe. But due to political turmoil in Moscow, StateSec is trying to stay out of this and would much prefer if the Commander could resolve this alone, but if the Starfish is activated or anything goes wrong, they have bombers ready to blow the entire base up. If this happens, Havier thinks a civil war is unavoidable. Havier assures them that there’s no way to activate the Starfish. Even though this may all be playing into William’s hands, this is the best chance they have to keep the peace.

        The Commander doesn’t want to simply charge into the base and get caught in a trap, so they go with a 3-pronged approach. The AR team will secure the nearby coastal defense artillery to provide fire support or destroy them to prevent the military from using them. Squad 404 will sneak into the base, link up with DEFY, and open the gates. The main force of Griffin will form a defense line at the choke point, but likely can’t hold the military for more than 30 minutes. Dandelion will stay at the train with the Commander, supporting the Dolls’ and making neural backups for them, updating a real-time strategic map, and preserving a communication link to M4. They line the rails with explosives to slow down the Military’s trains and create a minefield. The military’s scouts arrive and engage Griffin’s recon team. Immediately after, Griffin’s defenses are heavily bombarded and the casualties begin. Yegor’s in charge of the Military’s operation, but he’s trying to save his forces for whatever threats lurk inside the base.

        404 heads for the base, but UMP45 is visibly unnerved by Dandelion, who had noticed the OGAS consciousness inside her neural cloud. They get in through the sewer, and find the aftermath of a fight between S.F. and Paradeus. Given the fact that the walls are undefended, it seems neither side has won yet. Inside the base, Destroyer is ambushed by Paradeus as she learns that the Sangvis Mastermind has abandoned them. Destroyer retreats her forces towards the Shore Guns.

“We can find closure here, and the storm stirred up by the butterfly's wings will come to an end. Surely Father's wish will be fulfilled now.”

        As the AR team drives a jeep towards the shore guns, they see an aurora light up the sky. Dandelion tells them it’s an artificial effect of an OGAS signal from the Starfish. Someone’s trying to activate it. It seems William did something to loosen the restrictions on it, and the Military knows about it. They outsmart the Griffin Dolls by cutting their communications and flushing them out into bombardments, where the Dolls take massive losses. The Commander is forced to pull their forward line back, but only 10 minutes have passed. Yegor calls and orders their surrender, but the Commander refuses. They race to get to the shore guns first.

PL: Bifocal Prism

        Squad 404 rendezvous with the two new members of Task Force DEFY: RPK-16 who speaks in a bizarre, unnerving manner, and the ever-stalwart AK-15. Squad 404 helps them defend the gate controls from a Paradeus attack. K is with them, but wounded and unconscious. They had been ambushed by S.F. and separated from the rest of DEFY. They signal the Commander that they have control over the gate and then head deeper into the base to look for Ange. Now that the gate is open, the Commander orders all Dolls to reboard the train so they can retreat back into the base. They use all of the train's remaining ammunition to provide covering fire. Then, the Commander makes a risky move. The train starts up and they order everyone to brace for impact. Instead of slowing down as they near the quarantine wall, they speed up instead. The train jumps the tracks on a curve and lodges itself in the gate. Now the Military will have a hard time getting through.

Commander: “Come, I'll show you just how hard crushing an insect can be. As Sun Tzu once said, ‘On desperate ground, fight!’”

        The AR team races through a wind farm towards the shore guns, dodging fire in their jeep while Sop-II fires grenades at the enemy vehicles. They arrive at the bunkers beneath the guns, but a military vehicle arrives at a nearby entrance at the same time and they all head inside. Sop-II and RO hold the entrance while AR-15 is sent to clear the enemy out. M4 alone rushes for the control room. She takes out several soldiers in close combat until only her and the enemy team leader remain. They fire intermittently at each other as they head for the controls, but M4 drives him into a corner. She hesitates, then he throws a smoke grenade. She switches to thermals, but that was his intention all along. He douses her with a barrel of gasoline and throws a flashbang, blinding her thermal vision and lighting her on fire. He makes it to the control room first by taking off all his protective gear. As radiation spreads through his body, he aims the shore gun and prepares to fire. Just in time, M4 drags her scorched body in and shoots him. But he is determined, and before dying manages to fire the gun. A massive artillery shell detonates on the Commander’s train.

        The artillery explosion trips the power within the base, sealing all the doors. Now 404 has to find a power room to progress further. Suddenly, the S.F. corpses in a room all stand up and surround them, and M16 warns them to turn back.

M16: “I've forsaken everything to get to where I am now, and yet here you are as well, bringing everything you value in tow. One misstep and you'll lose it all.”

UMP45: "The past might be a burden to you, but to me it's the lifeline that pulled me out of the water.”

Squad 404 refuse to leave, and M16 launches a hacking attack on UMP45 to try and pry out her memories of the Butterfly Incident while the Sangvis ambush attacks them. They fight their way out and retreat, but UMP45 is locked in her own base layer by M16’s OGAS-powered hacking attack. There, she is forced to relive her memories of the Butterfly Incident and we finally see the full sequence of events. A younger, more innocent UMP45 watches as UMP40 sabotages the operation by infecting everyone with Parapluie, and they fight their way out through hordes of Griffin Dolls trying to kill them. Then when their exit is blocked, UMP40 turns her gun on UMP45 and says only one can make it out alive. She encourages UMP45 to shoot her before the program fries both their neural clouds, after which 45 heads for the exit, UMP40’s dogtags in hand. She runs into M16, who accuses her of being a traitor. They fight and M16 comes out on top - pinning UMP45 to the ground and driving a knife towards her head.

PL: Polarized

M4 is in shock after failing to stop the Military from firing on the Commander’s train, but Dandelion helps her regain her composure so they can complete the mission. Dandelion hacks into the S.F. ringleaders that are in the area to trick them into thinking Mastermind has ordered an assault, and they launch a pincer attack on the Military swarming around the guns. Executioner launches a suicide attack but is saved by Hunter, who realizes that the orders are fake. They decide to fight for their own sakes because the Sangvis Mastermind has relinquished authority over them and even ordered some of them to commit suicide. Agent is trying to restore order but the ringleaders are all making their own decisions. Dreamer finds Destroyer’s battered body and picks her up and walks off the battlefield.

404 pulls UMP45 out of her base layer and they head deeper into the base. They find the power room, but it’s full of inactive S.F. and Nyto signals, seemingly frozen in time right as a fight was about to break out. They find a security station and manage to open communications with AK-12 of DEFY, who tells them that they snuck into Paradeus’ research labs while Paradeus and S.F. were fighting, but now that the power’s cut they’re trapped in a compartment and separated from Ange, who’s trapped elsewhere. AK-12 warns that the frozen enemies are easily reactivated, so be careful. They restart the power and all the enemies come back to life and a huge fight breaks out, but 404 sneaks out undetected.

“What if the Nytos shut these S.F. forces down, then M16 shut them down in turn?”

        The Commander is pulled from the flames by M950A, but is temporarily blinded. Several Dolls died pulling them from the debris from the train, and Kalina administers first aid. Dandelion tells them that only 5% of their Dolls survived. Their only chance is to get a crippling shot from the shore gun now that the AR team controls them and retreat further into the base. Dandelion leaves to go help M4.

        With RPK and AK-15 as spotters, the AR team launches a barrage at the military’s armored trains. They take one out in a massive bombardment. Yegor takes a play from the Commander’s book and speeds the remaining 3 trains straight at the Quarantine Wall of Paldiski, but stops short of ramming into it. They blow a hole through and start pouring in. Before the military can destroy the shore gun, the AR team fires one last barrage, blowing up the military’s vanguard and giving the Commander’s remaining forces and half of DEFY a fighting chance to withdraw. Several Dolls volunteer to join a sacrificial rear guard led by Webley, while the Commander blows up the entrance to the base’s interior. As the rear guard runs out of ammo, they hide in craters with explosives and detonate them when the enemy gets close.

“Send him victorious, happy and glorious, long to reign over us, God save the King!”

The shore gun has been destroyed, so the AR team meets up with Dandelion at the north entrance to the base. M4 puts her trust in Dandelion, who hacks open the northern gate and lets them in. They find themselves in a section full of inactive S.F. units and Nytos. Dandelion wakes them up and barely convinces the Nytos to follow her. She partially merges with them and promises them the ability to live on in her neural cloud in exchange for their lives that have already been abandoned.  The Nytos hack control over the S.F. units, then head out to sacrifice themselves to slow down the Military's advance.

PL: Crystal Recasting

        404 continues their trek, but M16’s hacking attack on UMP45 doesn’t stop. 45 fights back to keep M16 from prying into her memories of the Butterfly Incident. If it keeps up, UMP45 might be able to trace their location. UMP9 helps out and together they find a signal source, but it’s not M16. They find ten Nyto signals in the same location as Ange. 416 loses her cool and finally lashes out at UMP45 for not being honest about her intentions. She’s upset that UMP45’s brought them on a suicide mission for a personal vendetta, but still pretends it’s about getting paid. 416 tries to convince UMP45 that it’s time to stop living in the past, and focus on preserving what they have instead. UMP45 takes it personally and they get into a long argument.

416: “You're asking us to jump into the fire, to face an enemy that we can't possibly handle head-on... If I'm not mistaken...you're doing this for the Doll who went on that op with you.”

UMP45: “What I'm doing is to make the one responsible for all of this pay! ... I cannot tolerate the idea that the bastard behind all this might end up having the last laugh.”

        Right as they finally come to an understanding, something pulls G11 into a vent and drags her away, kicking and screaming. UMP45 is the only other member… compact enough to fit in the vent, so she has to go after G11 alone. UMP45 emerges from the vents into a lab full of miniature Nytos…they’re just scared children. They’re about to fight, but Ange stops them. These children are not a threat, they were left behind because they had little value. They’re still human, but their brains have been turned into neural clouds. They do have the ability to unseal the lab, but they’re currently under electronic attack by an OGAS signal and UMP45 is the only one present with a chance to do something about it. Ange introduces her to Anna, the brightest of the bunch, but she’s protective of Ange and hostile. Thus, UMP45 enters a human’s neural cloud. She quickly gets into an argument with the bossy, sassy Anna, and accidentally makes her cry when UMP45 refuses to be bossed around.

“Uuu...UWWWAAAAAAAHHH!!!”

“The only one who can enter this place is a brainlet that's all talk! We're doomed!”

        UMP45 takes control of the situation and creates a plan. Since M16 is the one hacking them, she’ll divert her attention and keep it occupied while Anna restores the other children’s control over their own neural clouds. Then once they’re all free, they’ll be strong enough to drive off the attack. UMP45 starts running simulated versions of her memories of the butterfly incident, where the fight between her and M16 is replayed over and over but each time ends in her death. M16 takes the bait and electronically attacks UMP45, sealing her back into her base layer once again. She reunites with the simulated persona of UMP40, who she now understands to be OGAS.

        OGAS UMP40 establishes a connection with Anna, who speaks through her and tells her they’re using all their processing power to get her out. But that’s not enough for UMP45, she turns the tables and uses the shared neural memories of the Nytos as a chance to hack into M16’s neural cloud instead and once again finds herself at the mansion in the inverted forest.

45: ”All her seemingly illogical actions could be intended to disrupt a plan we haven't even heard of yet.”

40: “You like her, yet you hate her. Hm... Looks like you regard the whole AR Team in the same way… If you had their power, you'd definitely use it better than they did.”

        Suddenly, OGAS UMP40 is hacked by Elisa, who just wants to talk with UMP45. Elisa claims 45 is not her enemy, and doesn’t want to destroy her or anyone in Griffin, or the AR team for that matter. But she does want to help M16 get the memories she lost, and forces UMP45 to relive the scene from Operation Butterfly once more. M16 bested her easily back then and had her pinned to the ground, ready to end her life, but UMP45 broke her own wrist to free herself from M16’s grasp and fought back. M16 pins her to the ground, takes out a knife and cuts into UMP45's left eye and in the pain of desperate struggle UMP45’s broken hand mangles half of M16’s face.  Just as M16 was about to drive the knife deeper, she suddenly collapsed under a neural meltdown from Parapluie. When she got back up, she simply left. Elisa made a deal with her to save her life if she let her see Lyco one last time. Elisa tells UMP45 that they have a shared enemy and have no reason to fight. She explains that Lyco made her intentionally incomplete because he was afraid of what she’d be capable of, but M4 has the protocols that would complete her, which is why she wanted to merge with her. Since M4 refused, however, she has steeled herself to finish everything alone - she will forcefully coalesce with the Starfish and warns UMP45 not to stop her. Anna helps UMP45 escape and they’re on much better terms now.

        At the gate, Dandelion’s Nytos are all dead, leaving only Sangvis Forces to repel the military. Hunter and Alchemist ready themselves to fight to the bitter end, but they are rescued by Dreamer, Destroyer, Scarecrow, and Executioner, who have returned with reinforcements. Suddenly, four massive Military Sinner mechs blast open a new hole in the Quarantine Wall, led by Yegor, and they head for the main elevator shaft.

        K wakes up, and informs the Commander that their mission was to collect William’s research at this site and look for any clues as to his location. If they can find anything like that, it could be enough to convince Moscow to provide fire support. When they find out about Yegor’s mechs, they change plans and order the AR team to pursue them. Thanks to UMP45’s success, communications are back up and Ange is able to re-establish contact. She leaves the children with 404 and sets off to help the AR team with Yegor’s mechs. K tries to call for air support, and we learn that his real identity is Kain Schwaben, agent of the East German Stasi who are currently collaborating with the Soviets. Moscow and Vympel are stubborn and hesitant to provide fire support for now. They were under orders not to do anything.

        On the surface, Griffin’s last echelons desperately try to keep the main military force from entering the base, but they’re losing. the Commander orders them to hold for 5 more minutes. Thanks to the news from Ange about their objective, Moscow finally agrees to provide fire support and a danger close bombing run is launched. Vympel has been watching from the sidelines all along, just as they were in Belgrade, content to simply clean up the rebel army after Griffin was destroyed, but the news from K makes for a change in plans. A cruise missile that had originally been meant to destroy the base is launched at the Military’s main line, annihilating the armored trains and all of their reserve forces. Now they have a fighting chance.

        Ange presents a plan: if they can open the four sea valves in the submarine base, they can flood it and drown Yegor inside and prevent Elisa from activating the Starfish. The Dolls are still occupied fighting the Military, so the Commander and K go alone to open the valves while Kalina is left in command.

Yegor’s mechs are stopped at B1 by Sangvis Ferri, where they are ambushed by Agent and Judge. The 3 mechs under his command clear a path for him to go on alone, while they fight off the Sangvis Assault, taking out Judge. M4 arrives just in time to save Agent and her portable jupiter cannon does massive damage to one. The AR team stays behind to fight the mechs while Squad DEFY chases after Yegor. Elisa and M16 also show up, complicating the situation further. Elisa moves on alone deeper into the base, heading for the Starfish, while the fight shifts away from the Military’s favor.

PL: Lycoris

“I, too, once thought that the best of human artifice was nothing more than crude imitations of God's creations. I also once believed that there was a limit that the works of man could never surpass.”

        The Commander and K sneak through the Military’s lines to reach the valves. Kalina orders the Dolls to feign an attack to distract the enemy. They split up to plant explosives at two valves each. Unfortunately, the Commander’s first valve lies behind the Military’s temporary CP, but a chance opportunity arises, allowing them to execute the soldiers inside. They plant the explosives, but the Military soon wise up and search for a hidden enemy.

        Elisa stands before the enormous Starfish device, looking like a child in its shadow, angry and confused that she can’t fully connect with it. Suddenly, an illusion of Lyco emerges from within the blue radiance of its projections. He starts talking to her, but it takes her a while to understand his meaning. He apologizes for creating her out of folly, but refusing to make her whole out of fear. He didn’t want her to be able to connect with the Starfish, but here she is, having sacrificed everything to do exactly that.

 “I should not have trespassed into that domain. …Please forgive me for taking away the choice that should have been yours.”

“But...I've already abandoned everything, sacrificed everything.”        

“Sangvis Ferri, Agent... All those people who served me, believed in me, those who have done nothing wrong.”                

“I can't stop here!”

[The rest of the event is rushed, and re-told in full in Chapter 13]

Girls' Frontline: Polarized Light ED “Polaris”

Chapter 13 - The Oblivione

"Stay here with our young ones. Remain with those who still have hope."

        Anna remembers the day when the two Nytos we now know as Mercurows and Nimogen left to go fight, they had warned everyone not to trust Father before they left. She tells UMP45 and Ange about Zion, a cyberspace of collective consciousness that OGAS consciousnesses instinctively seek, much like how Lunasia-based consciousnesses intertwine in the inverted forest that Lyco and Persica built. Seeing the horrendous experiments that occurred here, Ange decides to destroy the lab and sends the juvenile Nytos up with UMP45 while she goes down with DEFY to take out Yegor. As they’re escorting the kids to safety, 404 answers Kalina’s call to go help on the surface, and they split up to achieve both jobs.

        The Commander has finished setting up the explosives but is spotted and has no choice but to fight from behind enemy lines. They get pinned down by enemy fire and dive into an alley, but then a grenade rolls towards their position. When it explodes, the Commander is badly wounded, and soldiers still advance on their position. They pull out their sidearm, ready to fight to the end, when UMP45 and HK416 arrive from behind to rescue them. 416 holds off a large number of soldiers while UMP45 coordinates with a Griffin rescue squad.

        Havier visits Persica with two guards and searches her room and finds a neurotoxin capsule hidden in the vents. Havier explains that this is the sixth assassination attempt on Persica that they have foiled in just the last month. But that’s not all, he’s been investigating her as well. He shows Persica an old photo of her with three other people: Lyco, Rudolph von Oberstein, and Rudolph’s young daughter, Lunasia von Oberstein. Havier pressures Persica into revealing what her role in all this is, and leaves to give her time to decide.

“You know how much I cherish genius – no matter what you do, I can't ever bring myself to lift a finger against you. But you should know that if you decide to withhold any more key information, someone will eventually lose their life because of your little secret.”

        At the entrance to the elevator, M16 and the AR team have almost finished dispatching the military mechs, and turn to confront one another. M16 escapes down the elevator but M4 gets a call from Ange. The Mastermind is about to activate the Starfish, and Yegor is headed for the main control room. Both of them need to be stopped. The Commander is detonating the sea valves in 5 minutes, and the elevator down is a 1-way trip. M4 decides to go down after Mastermind and M16 alone while the rest of the AR team joins the Commander’s evacuation squad.

“I'm not going there to die. Have faith, I'll bring 16 back.”

        Dandelion lets M4 know that Elisa has partially activated the Starfish, allowing OGAS to connect and see more things, but Elisa can’t enter Zion herself, she’s missing something. M4 arrives at the bottom to join M16 on the elevator ride down, and they face off one more time. M16 is stalwart as ever, refusing to budge in her belief that she must bear the burden. They fight again, but this time, their individual OGAS viruses battle as well. In the end, M16’s OGAS loses to Dandelion, and she acknowledges M4’s superior strength and agrees to merge. As Dandelion coalesces with M16’s OGAS, M16 falls to her knees and begs M4 not to trust OGAS. Knowing time is short, M4 dives into M16’s neural cloud and sees her missing memories of the Butterfly Incident. M16 has just left her fight with UMP45 and is letting Elisa, who she is playing host for, see her father one last time.

        M16 is surprised to find that Lyco is still clinging on to life, and asks her to deliver a warning to Persica about Lunasia’s brain scan being a trap.

“Do not perfect the programming of the neural cloud that's derived from Lunasia's mind... It is a trap that William has laid since long ago... Just like the Pike core..”

With his dying breaths, he apologizes to Elisa for the fate he’s given her. M16 gets ready to leave to inform Persica of everything, when she hears William’s voice in her head. He’s intrigued by Persica’s success in creating her, so much so that he decides to see what she’ll do next and spares M16’s life but wipes her memory. While these memories were wiped from M16’s mind, it seems they survived within OGAS. If M16 had trusted her, she might have gotten them easily. Back in real time, Dandelion reveals that William is the one that displaced her kind from her homeland. M4 wants to save Elisa and Sangvis Ferri, but M16 thinks they should be left to die.

        Persica and Havier go for a drive, and Persica reveals that before they joined 90WISH, she and Lycoris had been research associates. Lunasia was the daughter of the director, Rudolph von Oberstein, and since her father was often busy she would hang out with them in their lab quite often. Her father had developed a bad reputation with the relics department and moved the family to lie low. Years later, after Lunasia had reportedly died from illness, “William'' sent both Persica and Lyco a data block with a completely digitized human brain… Lunasia’s brain. They both initially turned down William’s request, and he was furious and threatened both of them. Then in 2057, several Griffin employees were assaulted or assassinated by mysterious children whose brain scans were identical to Lunasia’s. By this point, Persica wanted to prove what she was capable of doing so she changed her mind and made the neural clouds of the AR team from this digitized brain in order to seek the truth. In retrospect, it seems like the whole thing was a plot to revive Lunasia, but Rudolph couldn’t possibly be the secret identity of William. Havier moves Persica to a safer facility and makes a call to a mysterious contact to get ahead on politics and to let “an old friend breathe some fresh air.”

        Squad DEFY reaches the heart of the submarine base and set up an ambush for Yegor. They know the odds are not in their favor, taking on a state-of-the-art Sinner mech with no anti-armor weapons, so they dismantle some machinery in the generator room to create barricades and cover, and set off explosives in other pathways to make sure he can’t bypass their ambush. Yegor arrives and they open fire on him, covering advances in pairs and leading him to the generator room. When they arrive, they hear the distant explosion of the valves and know the trap is sprung.

 Yegor starts shooting at them with his auxiliary weapons, but the experienced Dolls close in at high speed, bending low to stay just beneath the secondary cannons' angle of depression.

The lights go out so Yegor switches to infrared vision, but he is immediately blinded by incendiary grenades. While he is unable to evade, DEFY targets the cameras on the mech to blind him further and he is hit by an explosive trap. DEFY inches forward with distracting movements until AK-15 is able to plant a bomb on the mech. They move in for the kill. In response, Yegor fires all of the mech’s missiles straight up and they rain down in all directions.

 The red-hot missiles hit the ceiling and explode, sending shrapnel flying everywhere. They shower down like a rainstorm on the approaching Dolls.

           As the smoke clears, Yegor sees their bodies scattered and mangled on the ground. Thinking he’s won, he’s shocked by a sudden explosion.

He sees a Doll without her legs crawling out from under her comrade's body, which has shielded her from the lethal shrapnel. She takes the bomb from her other dying comrade. Then she slowly but steadfastly drags her severed torso up the mech that's lying on its left side. She may be the last surviving Doll, but she is not alone in this fight.

AK-12: “...Ange, mission complete.”

        The last DEFY Doll and the mech are engulfed in a final explosion, immobilizing the machine. Yegor hears Ange thanking her Dolls over the radio and the sounds of gates opening as a massive blast of seawater crashes through the base. He takes out a picture of his family and awaits the end.

        M4 finishes processing M16’s memories with Dandelion’s help, and they realize that the Pike Core that M16 stole from Belgrade had been used to alter Elisa’s neural cloud and try to imperfectly restore what Lyco had deleted. The result is that Elisa probably still can’t interface with the starfish, but she will still risk a neural meltdown trying. Right as M16 wakes up, M4 realizes that everything M16’s done so far is to prevent her from connecting with Elisa. She also rigged the area around the Starfish with explosives and is ready to blow up everything the moment Elisa tries to connect to it.

“It's time for the curtain call. This has been dragged on for far too long. I should've put an end to all this long ago.”

        M16 raises the detonator, warning M4 of another looming voice, one more dangerous than OGAS, and tells M4 that if they blow up Elisa now, the culprit behind everything will lose. But M4 decides that if they’re going to beat that man, they need Elisa’s knowledge and Sangvis Ferri’s power. She uses OGAS to overload M16 to prevent her from using the detonator, and exits the elevator to where the Starfish and Elisa await.

They hear a rumbling explosion far above and seawater begins to pour into the depths of the base. M4 and Dandelion hack into Elisa’s base layer, but hear the voices of Zion rejecting them. She really has connected to the Starfish. Dandelion asks if she can ever return, but the voices call her a lost fragment, while M4 is merely a shard of Lunasia’s soul. Furthermore, Zion has been corrupted and there can “only ever be a single survivor,” as they have all been deceived, likely by William. Elisa asks to be let in, because then Sangvis Ferri will achieve immortality and Lyco’s wish will be fulfilled. They call Elisa a product of forgery and refuse her as well. M4, inside her neural cloud, tries to convince Elisa to stop but they fight and M4 and Dandelion are ejected from her neural cloud. Now, they have no choice but to find her in person.

“Let me hear them again! This is my one last wish! Why won't you hear my plea?!”

        M4 finds Elisa in great pain, fused within the Starfish’s control system. The bodies of sangvis Dolls are sprawled everywhere from the electrical shocks emanating from the Starfish as Elisa desperately tries to maintain the connection and reconnect with Zion. M4 tries to convince Elisa to stop before the seawater kills them all, but Elisa won’t listen and keeps trying. She fires upon M4 and M4 fights her to try and break the connection ports so Dandelion can hack in.  

“What do you know?! Sangvis Ferri was created for this very moment! If we can enter that space, we will forever be rid of humans and their shameless lackeys like you!”

Dandelion has a conversation with the shared consciousness of the failed isomers she had absorbed as she tries to find a way, revealing that her goal is to reunite the shattered connections of OGAS and Lunasia’s soul, and then let their individual selves break free.

Dandelion: “We are defective and incomplete, and our imperfection has brought us endless pain. But if all the fragments are gathered, we may be made whole again. Then we can earn our desired peace with our own strength.”

“Even if we are still broken, even if we are still marred by cracks… None of it is meaningless. These fractures are proof that we are different individuals. Or put it another way – these cracks are the very reason that our imperfections make us whole.”

        M4 breaks the connection ports between the Starfish and Elisa, but as Dandelion hacks in, she discovers that Elisa’s OGAS consciousness is Elisa herself, and the neural cloud is merely emulating emotions for it. Elisa’s OGAS had planned to let Elisa be the vessel for reuniting all the consciousnesses, but is fine with Dandelion being the one to do it. She agrees to coalesce with Dandelion as long as M4 takes care of Sangvis Ferri. The seawater starts pouring in, and M4 is desperate. As Dandelion coalesces with Elisa’s OGAS, they unite in a shared memory from some version of Lunasia where she is talking to someone.

“But it wasn't your fault. Those murderers killed you. I will make them pay, then I'll bring you back to me. I will spend a lifetime to keep this promise. Wait for me...

...My dearest sister.”

        William is Lunasia’s brother. It is for this purpose that William began a journey that would throw the world into chaos, at least according to the voices of Zion. Connected with the Starfish, Dandelion uses collapse fluid that had been secretly stored within the facility in order to activate ‘Reverse Collapse’ as a possible means of escape. Dandelion then asks M4 to destroy the Starfish to save Elisa.

The Commander is also sitting limply on the floor, almost overwhelmed by the immense pressure. It is only in times like this that they truly appreciate the preciousness of time not spent on fighting for their life.

        On the Commander’s end, the joint squad of the AR team and 404 breach through and get the Commander to an elevator to the surface. As they ride up, they hear the thunderous boom of the sea valves detonating. From the rooftop, they shut the sluice gates to keep it from completely flooding and make sure Kalina is okay. Then they call Ange; she’s currently cleaning up from the fight with Yegor. She places the cores of the DEFY Dolls in her backpack and opens the cockpit of the Sinner mech and has a final conversation with Yegor.

“Long live...the Soviet Union...”

He refuses to back down on his ideals, believing that the oligarchs are selling out the country for a false peace. Yegor dies with these words on his lips, and Ange promises that if such a fate comes, she will stop them just as she stopped him.

        M4’s assault on the Starfish is successful, and as Elisa passes out from neural overload, M4 catches her. She is waiting for Dandelion to sever the connection to the Starfish, when suddenly it starts glowing brightly.

“Dandelion, what have you done?!”

        Dandelion tells M4 to trust her that this will save them. The light from the Starfish turns into an orb and M4 starts to overload as well, nearly losing consciousness. Dandelion harnesses the power of the Starfish as it is being destroyed to create a portal that can take M4 and Elisa to one of the coordinates that she had gotten from the Pike node in Belgrade, but she doesn’t know which. She tells M4 the choice is ultimately hers whether to use it and gives M4 all the power she harnesses. Suddenly, M4 feels all the consciousness that Dandelion had absorbed all move into her, and she senses resonance with the consciousnesses on the other side. The orb grows in size and slowly consumes the room as M16 limps up to M4 and Elisa, bearing witness to everything she has tried to prevent. She says M4 is now the source of calamity, and that she will one day be ground zero of the world’s destruction.

“...In the end, you reached out to that place... You played right into his hands. You've become the "key" to the Relic…”

        M4 decides that’s a price she’s willing to pay in order to save everyone. They gather at the light and wait for what is to come.

“As long as we live, the future will have endless possibilities. Even if our physical forms are lost, we will still meet again some day.”

The Starfish explodes and the orb of light shrinks, the seawater pouring in boils from the intense heat and the Dolls inside start to burn until they suddenly disappear.

On the surface as they fight off a suicide attack from the last military units, Dandelion’s main body feels M4’s disconnection as if a part of herself was lost. She doesn’t remember what had happened due to the coalescence, but knows that M4 is no longer in the base and is now somewhere very far away. But she’s confident they are alright. She assures the Commander that the Dolls saved in her own neural cloud can all be brought back to life and agrees to continue helping their cause. Havier gets in contact and tells the Commander that Vympel troops from StateSec can handle the cleanup of the Submarine Base. He congratulates the Commander on a job well done and explains that they think a “Reverse Collapse” has occurred regarding M4. K says his goodbye to the Commander as a helicopter touches down, revealing a familiar face. Helian steps out, assuring them that Kryuger is eagerly awaiting their return.

        Finally, we hear the voice of William, and he’s maniacally pleased with the outcome.

“Just you wait, Lunasia. Retribution will soon come after the murderers who killed you. Then you will once again return to my side, and we shall behold this brave new world together!”

Season 3: Germany

“It is in a hero's nature to keep going forward no matter how many people have fallen before them.”

Dual Randomness (13.5)

“Today is such a beautiful day. The world is ablaze and humans have all turned into moths, fluttering among the flames… Maybe it is in a moth's nature to self-destruct?”

DR: Commander’s Side I

“But it was only after the fighting was over that I realized my efforts had only added to the casualties. Can we only make the world a better place through killing?”

One week after the battle for Paldiski submarine base, the Commander and Kalina celebrate finally returning to their old base in S09 now that they’re no longer wanted criminals and start restoring the neural backups of all the fallen Dolls. Havier takes over as G&K’s main investor, and Helian and Kryuger both return as well. At the Commander’s request, Dandelion stays hidden but toys around with the base. She believes that clues as to where M4 was teleported to will find them soon enough.

“Frankly speaking, I'm quite curious. How does a normal life feel to a normal human being?”

        At a banquet celebrating victory, the Commander tells Kryuger that they don’t feel satisfied because William, the mastermind behind so much suffering, is still at large and barely fazed. Kryuger responds that it’s not their fight anymore, StateSec will handle it, and they can return to being a proper PMC. Sensing the Commander’s displeasure, he gives them a Green Zone Pass, an incredibly valuable item capable of letting them leave everything behind if they wanted. The Commander throws it away. Kalina also received one but wanted to stay with the Commander and gets upset when they take her feelings lightly.

        The Commander and Havier have an honest conversation about the grim state of the world and what they can do to make it better, and Havier attests that the Juvenile Nytos that they are hiding from StateSec are human beings and shouldn’t be treated as products of technology or allowed to fall into government hands. The Commander, despite harboring some resentment for Havier, gains a little respect for him. Havier also tells the Commander that Angelia has gone to Bremen, Germany to pursue a lead from Paldiski, and that she’ll need their help. Dandelion scrubs through 2,800 pages of Paradeus operation logs sent by Havier and finds several targets of interest.

        The AR team arrives, confused by Dandelion wearing the Commander’s coat and by the S.F. ringleader Architect hiding in the corner of the Commander’s office wearing a shark costume. The Commander informs them that they’re all going on a mission to scout out one of these POIs together. The location is a wrecked Sangvis site that was once under Architect’s command, and she can be used as bait to capture the still-rogue ringleader Gager. The AR team is reluctant to work with her, and Sop-II insists on mutilation as a viable alternative, but they agree to cooperate.

        On the way they find a slaughtered village full of ELIDs and several strange crates of flowers with German writing, they realize it’s likely a similar situation to the flowers in Tallinn that spread collapse radiation. AR-15 and Dandelion stay behind to investigate the site further, but AR-15 doesn’t like Dandelion much and their conversations are antagonistic. Despite not getting along, they wipe out a patrol of Paradeus strelets and find a machine in the center of town that was turning the recently-deceased villagers into soldiers like a human slaughterhouse.  Meanwhile, RO-635, Sop-II, and Architect head to the nearby Sangvis site. They don’t trust Architect and have her on a rope. With Elisa gone, S.F. is practically disbanded and everything is abandoned. RO breaks off to hack into a Sangvis control room and look for information about M16, but while she’s gone Gager sets up an ambush on Architect and Sop-II. She demands they hand Architect over or she’ll blow everyone up. While the rest run for cover, Gager finds RO in the control room and they accidentally blow up a key system. Emergency blast doors close, trapping them both inside. RO convinces Gager that if she surrenders and comes to Griffin, she can get the doors open and arrange for her to meet with Architect back at base. But when the blast doors come up, Gager runs away and uses a remote Jupiter cannon to start shelling. At the same time, Architect escapes from Sop-II. She finds her backup weapon, and soon after Gager steps out of the flames. She asks Architect to come along and run away with her, but Architect refuses and tells her to join her at Griffin instead. S.F. is done for, and Architect came all the way out here to get Gager because Griffin’s been pretty nice.

Architect: “Sangvis Dolls were made for revenge, so we never had true freedom. But there must be some reason for us to exist beyond that. We don't need to bear someone else's hatred. Everything is over. Nobody can order us around now.”

Gager can’t comprehend that all the efforts she’s put into rescuing Architect from Griffin would end like this. In anger, she attacks Architect, who refuses to fight back. Architect dodges Gager’s attacks, but eventually gives up. Both refuse to go along with the other, despite wanting to be together. Eventually, Architect tells Gager to just go before the Griffin Dolls get back, and promises that they’ll meet again. Dandelion and AR-15 catch up and remove the threat of the Jupiter cannons. When the AR team finds Architect, Sop-II snaps off her legs to prevent her from running away again. They decide that it’s best to let Griffin’s business partner ‘SVAROG Industries’ handle capturing Gager now that they’ve confirmed her location, and abandon Architect and her legs in separate places to be picked up by SVAROG as well.

DR: Ange’s Side I

        Bremen is home to a massive population of refugees, but they are all sequestered in refugee camps outside the quarantine wall. Despite terrible conditions, desperate people from all over flock to Bremen to take their chances of getting in and forging a better life. Ange sneaks into Bremen disguised as a refugee and separates herself from squad DEFY to bait out any spies following her. She figures out that agents are watching her and springs the trap on them with some help from AN-94 and RPK-16. They are soon joined by the rest of squad DEFY, who are smuggled in a plane and airdropped into a field. DEFY's Dolls pose as humans and take up aliases for this mission. AN-94 is Antje, RPK-16 is Renate, AK-12 is Lucia, and AK-15 is Erwin. Agent K from the Stasi arrives to pick them up; they have a common objective to investigate Paradeus but she doesn’t fully trust him. He brings her to Chairwoman Ulrich from Isomer, who has been pulling strings to help DEFY get into the city. Ulrich agrees to aid Ange’s investigation in exchange for any information she digs up on Paradeus.

“You and the commander that saved me both strike me as the rare sort of people who still possess kindness. It is my belief that the world will be a better place with more people like you.”

        Ulrich appoints her secretary, Morridow Voigt, and her own head of security, Mr. Wolfgang Hopps, to help Ange in her mission. For now, DEFY bides their time and debugs their safe house. Unsure if they’ve gotten them all, RPK-16 asks for a burger and one arrives shortly after. They know the eyes of the world are on them, and everyone wants to know the truth behind the tech they encountered in Paldiski. They get a message from Havier, who says crates of radioactive Epyphylla have been turning up in human settlements and they can be traced back to the Flora Botanical Research Institute in Bremen. It’s home to the largest botanical garden in the city, and once led the country’s research in developing a vaccine for ELID.

        The next day, Ange, Morridow, and Hopps meet with Leone, a senior researcher at the institute, who thinks they’re investigators from the PECMAR European reconstruction bureau thanks to Chairwoman Ulrich’s help. Their plan is for Ange’s team to distract them while the rest of DEFY gathers intel in the facility and looks for any connections to William.

Right now, mankind has no way of moving forward. Yet plants have learned to live in harmony with despair long ago. If we don't start learning from them, we may very well be sealing our fate.

        RPK and AK-12 are gathering intel at one of the institute’s flower plants, and AK-12 admits that she distrusts her partner due to her strange demeanor and twisted personality. They eventually talk to the supervisor who has them follow him inside for a chat, where a room full of armed soldiers are waiting for them. Meanwhile, AK-15 and AN-94 break in through an emergency exit and quickly find a hidden door leading to a basement. Inside, they find a massive container of Epiphylla ready to be packed and transported. But that’s not all, they also find a bunch of soldiers lying in wait.

        Ange finds Leone’s behavior suspicious, coupled with how empty the place is. She pulls a gun on Leone and cuts right to the chase. She gets a message from AN-94 that the facility is a trap and there’s an ambush underground. Then yellow pollen fills the room, causing Ange to hallucinate. AN-94 and AK-15 are spotted downstairs and get into a firefight. Ange wakes up to find her weapon taken from her, but AK-12 and the Supervisor from the flower field are there too. He reveals himself to be “J” - a colleague of Agent K from the Stasi, who had been keeping their eyes on this place for a while.

“I'm obviously the more handsome one.”

        Blood drips from Ange’s nose as she gets her bearings and recovers from the airborne drug. The others are faring similarly. Morridow is white as a sheet and Hopps covers his nose to stop his own from bleeding. J reveals that the Flora institute masks a cult that worships plants and believes humanity’s time is past. He’s upset that they ruined his cover but hits on AK-12 anyway while Stasi agents take out the rest of the cultists.

        Leone, who had escaped during the chaos, slowly loses her mind in her secret office in the basement, frustrated that everything went wrong. Suddenly, RPK-16 grabs her from behind and breaks her wrist to prevent her from grabbing a gun, then sweeps her legs out from under her and pins her to the floor with a knee. RPK-16 asks about the research material, and starts breaking fingers when Leone doesn’t comply. In contrast to her rough treatment, RPK-16 speaks softly and amorously into Leone’s ear the whole time, chastising her for her foolish cult beliefs and hypocrisy while breaking more fingers. A weak little cult like theirs couldn’t possibly have access to military weapons. RPK-16 tells Leone she’s being used and wants to know by whom.

“They're so well-informed, I'm starting to wonder if they've planted a mole… But if Ange can't take a crap without them noticing, isn't it odd that they didn't take her T-Dolls' strength into consideration?”

RPK-16’s interrogation strategy may be unusual, but it seems to work on Leone. She realizes that she has been used and tells RPK-16 that she’ll find what she’s looking for on the server. She then tries to shoot RPK-16 in an attempt to get RPK to kill her, but RPK sees no point in putting Leone out of her misery. Leone tries to shoot herself but the gun is now empty. Unfortunately, it seems all of the data on the server has already been scrubbed. William is a step ahead of them. Ange arrives to find Leone physically and psychologically broken.

“...Hm? What's the matter with her?”

“Who knows? Probably lost all hope.”

DR: Commander’s Side II

        The Commander sends Squad 404 to the other point of interest, Zeratul-Worcester Pharmaceuticals, which is abandoned but appears to have been partnered with William, and tasks them to find anything that may help Ange. The little Nyto Anna snuck onboard their carrier in a crate because she knows that place is connected to the medicine the child Nytos were given. 404 jokes about tossing her out of the plane but she promises to make herself useful with her faint memories of the place. They arrive, but there’s a Sangvis presence at the facility too. They explore some cleaned-out areas before heading to the basement in style by turning off the brakes on the busted elevator, a favorite move of the UMP sisters, but not as pleasant for 416. Downstairs, they find a warehouse full of empty boxes with scratch marks on the inside. Anna reveals that they were stored and transported in these boxes.

Meanwhile, Dreamer and Destroyer aren’t faring well after the collapse of Sangvis Ferri. Destroyer’s power supply is busted and she forgets everything every few hours, and Dreamer is set on finding a new boss. To her, Griffin’s too poor to feed themselves and the Military’s on the verge of collapse, so their best option is to join Paradeus but she wants to learn more about them first. They decide to kidnap Anna to achieve that. They set an ambush on 404 in the basement and snatch Anna during the fight. Destroyer lost her memory in the middle of the fight and stayed behind, but manages to zipline out while dinergates pour in from all directions. After dealing with the dinergates, 45 uses another elevator trick to catch up.

Upstairs, Dreamer is having trouble keeping Anna quiet until she goes into full traumatic shock and a flashback upon seeing some of the sedatives that had been left behind, incessantly mumbling “it’s so dark…” and begging for help from her big sister. Not understanding humans, Dreamer attempts CPR and Anna vomits all over her face. 404 arrives, so the ringleaders send all their remaining Sangvis units at them, but once those are wiped out they have nothing left. The two start arguing and 416 seizes the opportunity to shoot Dreamer, but Destroyer gets in the way. It turns out that Dreamer actually has a sensitive side; she's been stripping out her own parts ever since Paldiski to keep Destroyer running. UMP45 hands a communicator over to Dreamer so she can talk to the Commander, who offers to let them join Griffin. She refuses, claiming she now just wants to live out her last days as junk together with Destroyer until their parts give out. The Commander respects this, and orders 404 to let them go. Naturally, 45 places a Svarog hit on them on the way out.

Anna’s flashback continues, and she remembers an “Uncle Powell” promising her a new home with a mother and a father as the other children are laid into coffin-like boxes. She relays all of what she remembered to the Commander, and now Ange will have a new lead. All of the Nytos in Paldiski came from orphanages, and this “Powell” must have been William’s intermediary with them. They take some time to ponder the monstrosity of it all. The pharmaceutical company produced an illegal drug to slow the children’s bodies down so they wouldn’t suffocate in the crates. Some kids would wake up mid-transit and panic and try to scratch their way out, suffocating themselves in the process. Others would take the drugs and never wake up.

“Commander, not all humans have hearts. I believe you would know that better than myself. …The place was cleaned up very well. But for the people involved, no amount of cleaning would get rid of the blood, filth and sin on their hands.”

DR: Ange’s Side II

The door is slightly ajar. Krone knocks on it lightly, but there is no reply. Lillian's tiny hand suddenly clutches tightly at the teacher's skirts.

        One week after the incident at Flora institute, Ange’s team heads to Berle Orphanage, just outside of Bremen. Along the way, Morridow warns that homeless people and refugees have been running rampant in the area, robbing cars and homes, so this remote orphanage isn’t safe. They even have their own security officers. Morridow managed to book a meeting with Frau Isabelle, the director of the orphanage at 8:00 pm, but they’re running an hour late. They haven’t managed to get much out of Leone in the last week, but they know she’s part of the German Independence Party (GIP), an influential anti-immigation group that recently turned into a terrorist organization and is violent towards refugees.

        They arrive to an entourage of singing children and Frau Krone, a mistress who thinks Ange’s group is from PECMAR to hear them out on getting additional funding. She sends all the children except a toddler named Lillian inside and offers to bring the guests to the housemother. But when they reach her office, they find her dead on the floor. She died by asphyxiation between 8:00-9:00 pm and the office has been looted, giving the appearance of a robbery and murder. Ange has her team seal off the orphanage and calls the police.

"As if totally entranced, the rats trail after the Pied Piper mindlessly. The music draws them to the river, and the mesmerized rats jump into the water one after the other, until they all get washed away..."

RPK-16 gives the children some candy, and the children reveal that Morridow has been here before and given them candy lots of times. The children are scared that the orphanage will close down or that demons would snatch them away, like what had happened to some in the past. Krone tells her that four children have been taken without a trace in the middle of the night in the past and that she’s worried about human trafficking. She also reveals that she brought Lillian to the headmaster’s office shortly after 6 and brought her back at 8. Krone’s alibi is solid, leaving only the security guard André and handyman Adam.

While investigating the crime scene, AK-12 finds a receipt taped beneath a desk drawer, reading: “W, Sweet Dreams Box - the very last one. Consignee, Powell,” and finds footprints of three individuals in the room and signs of a struggle and that the assailants attempted to sedate the housemother first. She also finds a blank spot on the wall and signs of someone exiting through the window. She questions Adam the handyman about the “sweet dreams box” and strikes gold. The housemother has had him transport four such boxes in the dead of night, but when she didn’t answer about the delivery tonight, he went outside to peer through her window and found her dead. Then decided it was a good opportunity to steal a few things. He has no idea what was inside but was told they were handcrafts from the children to encourage donations from high society. He never met Powell and knows essentially nothing.

AN-94 has the security guard André take her to a place outside the fence where he spotted intruders the previous night. There are mountains on the north side where refugees camp out. She follows a trail out and finds a hidden manhole bearing signs of recent use. She opens it to investigate, but suddenly someone slashes her throat with a knife and shoves her into the manhole, closing it up after. They didn’t know she was a Doll, so she’s fine.  Inside she finds skeletons of countless people, both adults and children.

Housemother was very close with the blonde orphan Lillian, who recounts what happened that night. Housemother mended her doll for her, but was acting strange and started crying randomly. Housemother then told her a delegation was coming, and she should give her doll to a ‘good person’ on it. She gives the doll to Ange. Inside the doll, housemother had hidden a letter.

By daybreak, police are about to arrive and Ange gathers everyone. She reveals that the Housemother committed suicide, taking her own life to expose the truth. Then someone destroyed the scene afterwards to undermine her. She reveals that there’s a GIP spy in the orphanage, evidenced by an iron cross also hidden in the doll. She identifies André as the culprit. He murdered all the refugees in the mountains and dumped them in an old air raid shelter. Out of options, André pulls a gun on Ange with surprising speed and fires, but Adam tackles her to the ground to save her while Hopps shoots André in the head. Adam is revealed to be Agent J, once again, in disguise hoping to infiltrate the child trafficking operation. He’s angry that Hopps killed their lead he had been investigating. He reveals that he really barged into her office after the murder to steal a cuckoo clock he had hidden a voice recorder in, and the recording reveals André angry at the housemother for betraying them. Then Ange reads the letter stashed inside the doll. Addressed to Ange, it reveals that Powell is a member of the GIP and extended her an offer for high society members to adopt a few children. She thought it suspicious but needed the funding to keep the orphanage operational. But once she saw the corpses, she couldn’t bear the guilt anymore and tried to stop it but couldn’t. She saw no option left but to kill herself to expose the operation. She only killed herself because Ange’s team was coming, but it almost failed because they arrived late, giving him time to disrupt the scene and make it look like she was killed by refugees. Fortunately, she hid the second copy of the letter in the doll where André couldn’t find it…or so it would seem.

Ange talks to J and reveals that there was never a second copy of the letter, and that AK-12 made an imprint of the first on the housemother’s desk. The real letter in the stuffed animal is an invoice to the original Adam’s bank account, which can lead to whoever was funding this. She warns J to trust absolutely no one with this information.

DR: Commander’s Side III

        Persica contacts the Commander to ask him to investigate the body of Ouroboros. Since Mastermind disappeared along with M4, Paradeus knows that S.F.-derived OGAS consciousnesses can resonate with relics, just like M4. There should be backups of her neural cloud and body at her base, and someone needs to retrieve them before Paradeus does. Unfortunately, the only Dolls left to send on a mission are ones undergoing debugging so their simulated personalities are haywire. Griffin Dolls VHS, Mondragon, AUG Para, PM1910, and General Liu simulate a battle with Ouroboros before deploying on the mission. Currently, PM1910 has anger management issues, AUG Para thinks she’s a human and is constantly falling in love, Liu forgot how to fire her weapon, and team leader Mondragon constantly quotes the Griffin handbook. Only VHS is ‘normal.’

        The operation begins and VHS hacks some leftover Sangvis forces to help them fight off Paradeus, who are already here. PM1910 and Liu start infighting and accidentally find another floor. AUG Para and VHS find a spare body of Ouroboros and VHS tries to hack into its level II, where she discovers an incredible number of combat simulation logs. She tries to dig deeper but accidentally activates a neural cloud backup and Ouroboros wakes up. VHS gets overloaded by data and Para drags her out. Ouroboros then attacks with explosives and the Dolls create a smokescreen and charge in. They fight but Ouroboros runs away so they place a SVAROG hit on her. Still they got the combat logs so they accomplished half their mission. The logs indicate that William was involved in the AI cultivation process that raised Ouroboros, so Paradeus is likely already implementing this process to create more ruthless Nytos.

DR: Ange’s Side III

“If an agent is instantly recognizable as an agent, he might as well be a dead man.”

        Ange intended to leave her crew behind, but Morridow and Hopps never give her a chance to slip away so they get to tag along on her mission with J, who tries to flirt with Morridow. Their mission is to sneak deep into the refugee camp and capture Powell, who they’ve now identified as a VIP in the GIP-Paradeus partnership. Secrecy is paramount, if the GIP finds out they’re hunting Powell, they might simply have him killed to cover their tracks. None of their allies will be able to help with this operation. Her team arranges permits for entering the settlement, which are important because the automatic gun fixtures on the walls will shoot if you’re in a restricted area without them. Ange tries to convince Morridow the mission is too dangerous, but she insists she’ll be useful for getting information from the refugees. She’s scared, but goes anyway.

        Inside, the settlement has degenerated to near-lawlessness due to its limbo status. Refugees are never granted citizenship because there are many who object to integration and it would take a lot of resources that they don’t have. Most residents are unemployed and there are no places of entertainment, only dilapidated buildings for people to live in and come out once a day to get their rations. Some of the people they see show signs of early stage ELID infection and frequent drug use. Ange has her Dolls split off from the team to scout and maintain a perimeter.

“This settlement is pretty much a microcosm of what's happening in the world.”

        AN-94’s scan reveals that Powell is heading to the Refugee Support Center, but the refugees are suspicious of the girls in fancy outfits. A gang is mugging a refugee for his rations, but they have to ignore it to keep their cover. Ange’s group realizes they’re being followed, and J identifies them as plainclothes police. Multiple factions have their eyes on the refugee settlement and everyone’s afraid of someone setting off the powder keg. They split up to divide the followers, and Ange uses it as an opportunity to save the poor refugee in the process. She bashes a thug in the head with a brick and escapes, while the other thugs turn around to see the plainclothes pursuers heading right at them. In the confusion, AK-12 knocks out the plainclothes pursuers and scares away the thugs.

        Meanwhile, Ulrich is being chastised by the mayor for allowing Ange into the city. He mentions someone providing self-governance within the settlement that’s keeping it from completely falling apart, and is worried that Ange will jeopardize the frail systems keeping everything from boiling over. She calls Morridow who warns that no matter how skilled Ange is, a confrontation is inevitable. Ulrich believes the path to progress is bound to have a cost, and building a world of peace may not be possible without the cruelty of war.

     Both teams have now taken care of their pursuers, who are revealed to be Einsatzkommandos, secret police. They flee before reinforcements can catch up. They surround the church they saw Powell enter while the Dolls make a perimeter. The refugees are gathering because it’s getting close to the time when rations are dispensed. Ange enters the church with Morridow, and heads upstairs to find Powell with four armed guards, and he knows he’s being followed. Suddenly, their cover is blown elsewhere and Ange gets into a firefight. Hopps comes to her aid, but Powell escapes into a tunnel in the cellar.

“Since they don't treat us like people, they should not be surprised if they find themselves dealing with vengeful beasts instead.”

        Unfortunately, refugees heard the gunfire inside and have the building surrounded and are getting rowdy. RPK-16 detects Powell emerging in a nearby residential area, but he’s among the restless refugees, and they are very protective of him. Now Ange’s team must hold the church until RPK and AK-15 can capture Powell and bring him back. The two Dolls disguise themselves in refugee clothing but are pursued by a large number of plainclothes police. To them, Powell is just bait for them to capture the Dolls with valuable intel from Paldiski. RPK and AK-15 split up and place signal decoys into the pockets of passersby. This tricks the officers into stunning a civilian and the Dolls seize the opportunity to take out the two squads following them and then capture their commander, who refuses to talk until interrogated with fists by AK-15. He tells them everything and RPK-16 comes up with a new plan to capture Powell.

“Why do people only want to talk after being subjected to unnecessary pain? Why can't we just come to an understanding with words alone? Don't you agree, Fritz?”

        At the police’s operational headquarters in the refugee camp, they track RPK-16 and AK-15 to a building and send in another team to ambush them, but find no one there. Suddenly, RPK’s voice fills the room thanking them for being such good tour guides, then she bursts in through a window. Their weapons are inffective against elite armored Dolls, and she soon disarms them. Then she plugs herself into their server and downloads their database. Suddenly, there’s a massive explosion and the whole building erupts in flame. Elsewhere, Powell laments that his philanthropic efforts have all led to this and that the police care more about ‘rats’ than his safety. He gives a speech to rouse the refugees and start a full uprising against the city.

“Most people…still believe that the world will change even if they encounter hardships. But the real world never changes.”

        Ulrich dispatches a helicopter to pick them up at the church in 30 minutes. They investigate files Powell left behind and find that he’s been sending refugees to work at the Flora Institute. They hear the explosion of the building RPK and AK-15 were in, and their comms go offline. Sirens go off and the turrets on the wall start firing indiscriminately to prevent anything from passing through the gates alive. Bullets are fired at the windows, and not long after a line of riot-police automatons advance on the church, shooting into the crowd. AK-12 and AN-94 take out the automatons, who turn out to all be rigged with explosives. Ange’s team jumps out the windows of the old church and run for the residential area while AK-12 and AN-94 cover their retreat from a nearby building. One automaton makes it to their building and explodes. The building collapses into rubble, leaving no sign of the two Dolls. Sensing opportunity, several factions that were biding their time start making their own moves.

        Hell has broken loose, but Ange still believes they can capture Powell despite everything. Black smoke rises throughout the city and inhuman howls can be heard. Heading towards Powell’s last known coordinates, they leap from rooftop to rooftop, avoiding the refugees rioting below, until Morridow spots an ELID mutant covered in bullet wounds, surrounded by the bodies of the plainclothes police who could not stop it and yellow powder on the ground. Even Hopps is shaken by the sight as noses start to bleed. The refugees nearby have all gone mad after inhaling the pollen, and Hopps loses trust in Ange and the suicide mission they’re on.

        The refugees and police exchange fire, and all Ange’s team can do is avoid the crossfire and press on. Other groups are chasing Powell now too, and they need to get to him first.

“They want chaos? We'll stoke the fire.”

“The more out of hand the situation gets, the more opportunities we have.”

        As they run through alleyways, Morridow is grazed by a bullet in the leg and injured. J beats back some refugees before they can attack her and carries her out, then gives her to Ange so he can continue shooting since she’s almost out of ammo. Powell reaches the support center with only 2 bodyguards left, but he is surrounded and trapped by soldiers from the city garrison who used to be his business partners. But he refuses to surrender.

“You forced my hand! If I'm to be a sacrificial pawn, then I'm bringing you down with me!”

        His men are shot down instantly, but he drops a smoke grenade that spews out the yellow pollen and runs and is shot in the leg by an officer wearing an oxygen mask. Suddenly, Powell’s bodyguards come back to life as ELIDS and rush towards the soldiers, giving Powell a chance to escape once again, this time into a secret elevator. But inside, he finds Ange waiting for him, along with Morridow, who knew of this secret meeting location for visiting senior officials. She asks J to tie him up, but instead, Hopps steps forward with J’s unconscious body, and orders Ange to put down her gun. She now realizes that Hopps was a mole from the GIP. But he’s more than that, he’s an operative of GSG9, a federal police force, and sees the GIP as a stepping stone and wants to resurrect the reich. Armed soldiers under his command swarm in after dealing with the ELIDs.

“I will never allow my country—a country that my comrades and I protected with our lives—to be handed over to a bunch of Rossartrist zealots who live in fantasy and those corpse-worshiping fanatics in the Yellow Zone. “

Hopps looks forward to working together with Ange in the future, but orders Morridow executed as an undesired witness. Morridow is terrified, but Ange notices her reaching for a gun hidden behind her back. Ange starts spouting confusing nonsense to buy just a little time, then AK-15 smashes through the wall and RPK-16 comes from behind, spouting poetry about moths. Before long, Hopps’ already-wounded soldiers are taken care of and he is tied up on the floor next to Powell. “K” contacts Ange and tells her he’ll be there with the helicopter in a few minutes. In that time, Hopps laments how Germany has been exploiting its own people to feed refugees and and armed forces are barely paid above minimum wage, an insult to the sacrifices they made during the war. K arrives with paramedics and laughs over the beating J took. Ange laments that AK-12 and AN-94 were destroyed, but luckily they have neural backups. J asks Morridow out to coffee and she takes him up on the offer before he’s carried out on the stretcher. K and Ange have a private chat about how Bremen was a trap all along. Someone must be embedded deeply to know their every move, and it wasn’t Hopps because the GIP can’t be behind all this, and then there’s the yellow powder that seems to catalyze ELID reactions in people who are partially infected. Then Ange boards a freighter with Morridow to go talk to Ulrich. Morridow rests on Ange’s shoulder as the freighter takes off

“The refugee settlement is no longer within sight, but Ange can imagine what it looks like right now.

Under the setting sun, the blazing flames are doused; pillars of pale smoke rise, blending into the twilight.

If God really existed, He would probably find hope in the ruins.”

DR: Ending

        On the carrier, Ange and Morridow talk about everything that happened. Ange asks Morridow to indulge her curiosity on some things that are still bothering her. Ange is bothered that they only succeeded because their enemy, William, didn’t want them to end up in the GIP’s hands and gave Powell that powder. Ange asks why Morridow didn’t get a nosebleed at the institute like everyone else when exposed to the yellow powder, to which Morridow responds that there must be different reactions in individuals. Then Ange asks Morridow why the kids knew her to be giving candy there in the past, to which she responds she has visited in the past as part of her work. Ange casually reaches up Morridow’s back and removes the pistol hidden in her belt, backs up, and points the gun right at Morridow. She questions Morridow on lying about knowing how to handle firearms, but Morridow says she was truthful about that and only brought it as a precaution under Ulrich’s advice. Morridow pleads for Ange to believe her, but then suddenly dashes forward and knocks the gun out of Ange’s hands. Ange draws her own sidearm and shoots at Morridow, who moves away with inhuman speed.

Morridow: “It's time you recognized the truth, Angelia! Join us! Instead of serving those corrupt and obsolete people in the upper crust, follow Paradeus and lead mankind into the future we deserve!” 

It turns out that Morridow is a Paradeus agent, and their plane is actually heading to a Paradeus base where Father can question her. Morridow blocks Ange’s bullets with an armored arm and grapples Ange to the floor with impressive force. Ange takes her knife and dislodges her own mechanical arm to free herself and manages to wound Morridow, who claims to be 100% human, just superior. They fight, but Ange is at a disadvantage with just one arm, so she calls for AK-12, who steps in from the cabin. Morridow, shocked, looks out the window to see they’re not going to the Paradeus base, but towards a Soviet one. Ange had asked AK-12 and AN-94 to fake their deaths to lure out the mole. Morridow tries a sneaky kick to disarm AK-12, who shoots her in the leg and shoulder. Ange tells her to surrender, but Morridow rips an entire seat out of the cabin and chucks it at AK-12, blocking her line of fire. Then Morridow opens the emergency exit and throws another chair at the engine. The plane starts spinning out of control and Ange has to hold on with her only arm while AK-12 goes back to the cockpit. Morridow throws herself off the plane and splashes into the Elbe river. Ange is impressed with how Paradeus has managed to merge a Nyto with a human. But now she knows she’s on Williams’ trail, and getting closer. Proving how little she trusts anyone, she left AN-94 to keep an eye on “K.”

        The Griffin base gradually comes back to life as more Dolls are revived thanks to Kalina’s tireless work. She’s not as angry with the Commander anymore, but is scared that their time together is coming to an end. The Commander tells her that they’re not leaving, and apologizes for joking about everything being okay if she left. She breaks down crying as a week’s worth of stress is relieved. Kalina tells the Commander they’re no longer allowed to lie to her for the rest of their life, and the Commander promises to keep true to that. Then we see a brief flash-forward ten years into the future where the Commander reflects on how much that time meant to them and deeply regrets not being able to keep the promise they made. Back in the present, Dandelion brings the Commander to meet with the AR team. Dandelion shows them a picture of Lunasia’s home from M4’s memories, then tells them that the orphanage Ange found in Germany is identical.

        The Dolls request permission to visit and look for clues about M4, and Dandelion implies that she knows a little about the Commander’s future.

“But the future is not set in stone, so remember our promises. Before you step into the grave, tell me what you think of this world. Until then, never stop striving, never stop struggling. That's the most interesting thing about humans, after all.”

Girls' Frontline: Dual Randomness ED "Rainfall"

Mirror Stage (13.6)

“There is no Hell on earth. Spirits are buried in the ashes; souls fade into oblivion.

Life is fragile. All it takes is a single bullet, a fire, some terrible luck to be snuffed out.”

MS: The Real (Ange)

        In Germany, the Stasi searches a 5 KM area around where Morridow jumped into the river but can’t find her. Since J is injured, K puts J’s top subordinate in charge of Ange’s case - a young rising star in the Stasi named Light. Ulrich thinks that Ange went too far in the Bremen settlement and she could not prevent higher-ups in the Stasi from taking Ange to Berlin for interrogation. She doesn’t know who authorized Light’s transfer to Berlin to help Ange, but she’s okay with it.

        In Berlin, the Stasi interrogates Ange but she refuses to tell them anything. They’re accusing her of murdering a government worker as an excuse to get information about Paldiski and to keep her from stirring up more trouble. As she fades in and out of consciousness, she recalls memories of terrorist attacks from her childhood. Just as it feels like this will never end, suddenly Ange is pulled out and reunited with DEFY and they’re released. They realize someone must be pulling strings behind the scenes, and the Stasi is not happy about releasing her.

        They’re sent to house arrest at the top of an apartment building, and her Dolls advise her to recover her strength before doing anything, but Ange refuses to rest on her bruises and doesn’t have time to repair her mechanical arm. Their only clue is the photo of a large mansion that the Stasi found in Morridow’s apartment. Beyond that, the situation in Berlin is unusually chaotic. The Galatea Corporation is nearing completion of an ELID serum called ‘Idunn’ that could potentially save countless victims, but the vaccine is stuck in the approval process and the people are getting anxious. They want the government to speed up the process and protests have become increasingly violent. There’s been several riots and bombings recently, and the situation is spiraling out of control. Then they receive a message from the benefactor that freed them.

“I am the light of the world; he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”

        Their benefactor arranges a meeting at a bar called “Athena’s Owl” and wishes to talk about Paradeus. Ange doesn’t like it because she hates pretentious people, but doesn’t have many other options. They head into the old part of Berlin, fully aware of the Stasi agents tailing them. They try to ditch their pursuers in the chaos of the protests, but Light is the one in charge of this Stasi operation and is prepared for their tricks. DEFY gets separated as the protest riles up. Then, the protestors think the Stasi agents are cops and the crowd gets nasty. She gets pushed by the crowd - right to the doors of Athena’s Owl. A beggar tells her “Salvation lies within”.

        Ange enters the bar to find it lively and fun, completely disparate from the violent crowds outside. No one pays her any mind as she walks to a conspicuous table on the stage, occupied by an older English gentlemen who offers her a seat. He engages in small talk, which annoys Ange, but suddenly brings up the death of Ange’s parents in a terrorist attack, which riles her up. The moment she gets aggressive, the entire pub stops in an instant and is ready to take her down. None of these customers are real. He calls them off and the pub returns to its previous lively state. Ange collects herself and gets back to business. He tells her that the unrest in the city is likely happening because of Paradeus activity. He hints at an important meeting and a new development, and Paradeus is willing to throw the city into chaos to stop it.

“Paradeus is planning to stage an even more elaborate terrorist attack in Berlin. …The specific time, location, personnel, and other details of the attack...are for you to investigate.”

        The Englishman tells her that both Leone and Powell have been brought to this city, and are important leads because Paradeus will likely be using the pollen bombs Leone developed. He tells her that once she has solved this issue, he’ll tell her the location of the mansion. But she won’t be going it alone, he’s arranged help for her. He’s responsible for sending Light to aid her, and has also enlisted an old friend of hers to help. As she exits the bar, Light introduces himself, and though she doesn’t trust him, they meet with J and the rest of DEFY. J explains that they are now in charge of keeping tabs on them, which means they can move freely in Berlin. But J is still injured and can’t do much, so Light is in charge. Ange wants to trust him, but can’t forget what happened with Morridow.

MS: The Real (Commander)

        The Commander is still hard at work getting their base at Griffin & Kryuger back up to strength. Half the Dolls have been built but they are endlessly busy. Kalina has developed symptoms of an ELID infection and is on leave, and the Commander is constantly worried about her. They oversee the training of Squad Puzzle in anti-Paradeus simulations, but despite terrible performance the Commander wants all Dolls to be prepared.

“I won't allow mass casualties like last time to happen again.”

        The training is interrupted by a meeting with Kryuger, and they share a drink. Kryuger congratulates the Commander on their exceptional performance in Paldiski, and has a new task for them.

“There are only three kinds of people who come back from the battlefield.

The first kind are timid to the end of their days, who view even the daylight streaming into their rooms as an enemy bombardment.

The second are drunk on slaughter and bloodshed, who build their joy on the suffering of others.

The third kind…are people who know why they fight.

You seek peace, and you fight for a better peace.”

        Kryuger hands them an envelope with a wax seal of a Griffin, and tells them to read it on the plane to Germany. But Kryuger advises them to trust no one… especially “the Earl.” The mission is to go to Bohnsdorf, near Berlin, and find Morridow. The Commander leaves with just the AR team and Dandelion.

        Bohnsdorf is a commune of religious zealots that think technology is the root of evil. Refugees that come here have to discard their artificial limbs and all electronic devices. To search for clues about Morridow, the Commander goes undercover there, posing as a refugee named “Robin.” They are helped by a little girl named Elsa who guides them to Bohnsdorf’s festival.

“Paradeus brought us together and gave us food and a place to live.

Naturally, we need to repay that with fervent exaltation.”

        Bohnsdorf was founded in part by the Galatea Foundation, and they are led by Frau Elia, a strict and intimidating but highly revered extremist who believes Paradeus is God.  

“If you are willing to abandon science and befriend nature, you will be protected by God; you will live in happiness, never again want for anything.”

        Bohnsdorf isn’t thriving for nothing. The people who come here claim to have been magically healed, and as one refugee collapses from symptoms of ELID-infection, they see the process first-hand. A girl in a white shawl appears, and the refugees clear a path for her. They call her “The Saint.” Elsa in particular is completely infatuated with her. The Saint walks forward and humbly cures the refugee.

“Blessed be the mercy of God, for the Holy Lady walks among us!”

        But Bohnsdorf is also fake by nature. The AR team scout around and find one-way mirrors and cameras in forbidden areas. The whole place is a circus for the wealthy to observe. With no other leads, the Commander follows the Saint and Elia to her room, where she is ambushed by rich patrons that want her picture or autograph. The Saint panics and asks for help, so naturally the Commander blows their cover, pulls her out, and they run. Immediately the entire village goes into a panic about their Saint being kidnapped.

“While I can understand your sloppy work is due to having never done this before, only you could so brazenly abduct someone in broad daylight.”

        Dandelion hacks the entertainment Dolls from the festival to hold up the villagers and The Saint introduces herself as “Machlian.” Elsa is heartbroken to see ‘Robin’ betray them and her beloved Saint as the Commander takes them to an extraction point, pursued by Elia and a band of angry villagers. Machlian’s hood comes down and they realize her face is identical to Morridow’s. She starts panicking at the sight of Tactical Dolls so Sop-II ‘calms her down’ with a large dose of blunt force trauma to the head.

        They get in a truck and head to their rendezvous point, but a large Paradeus force that seems to have come from nowhere encircles them. They race through the countryside to try and break the encirclement. They enter a forest and have to ditch the truck and proceed on foot. They trap the truck with a bomb but Paradeus doesn’t fall for it, they have a high-ranking unit called “Narciss” commanding them. They fight in the forest, but just as they’re about to be overrun, strange reinforcements arrive. They are Squad Griffin, lead by Tactical Doll Perosa, and they’ve been sent by the Earl. Squad Griffin helps them shake off the pursuers, who are not allowed to enter the city. Perosa introduces the Commander to the other squad members: Deringer, Savage, Kolibri, and Fedorov. They take the Commander to a building in Berlin where they must solve a code to get in. Inside, the Commander meets a hologram of the Earl, whose real identity is a middle-aged Englishman named Griffin Lyons, the other founder of Griffin & Kryuger. Griffin is much more polite and straightforward with the Commander than he was with Ange, but is pleased that the Commander has retrieved Machlian. Griffin wants the Commander to look into Paradeus’ actions in Germany, to figure out if Machlian is Morridow or not, and learn why Paradeus values her. He gives the Commander full authority over Squad Griffin and tells them that he’s also recruited Ange into the investigation. They get into a discussion of ideals and Rossartrism, and Griffin reveals himself to be more of a pragmatist that treats the world like a strict parent.

“This world needs order. It needs rules that will FORCE them to unite, to guide them towards understanding each other. Those who cause division must be punished. Those who help each other must be rewarded. Only the existence of such behavior-shaping rules will allow mankind to right its wrongs and return the world to its intended order.”

“Idealism cannot help us build an ideal world. We must take responsibility for the consequences of our actions. We must build a world order that benefits all of humanity, and to that end we will pay any price.”

        Griffin introduces a fable about a hedgehog and a fox, and says the Commander may one day have to make a choice of which they will be.

“The hedgehog, who serves absolute truth, reduces the world to one organizing principle, raises his spines all over, and staunchly resists all other views.”

“The cunning and mercurial fox rides the waves of tumultuous times, narrowing his eyes and discerning the discordant voices that can reshape the world.”

MS: The Imaginary (Ange)

        Ange has a nightmare about a terrorist attack from her childhood, but lies to AK-12 about what’s bothering her. She doesn’t like the Earl, and him being a friend of someone called “Shaw,” who is supposedly the creator of the DEFY Dolls, somehow makes him more suspicious.

“We're looking for a mysterious figure who's located in Berlin, in a position of considerable power, interested in Leone's research—could be working in some relevant fields themselves, gained prominence in the last two years, and has an otherwise unknown past.”

        Ange and the Commander meet at Athena’s Owl. This is their first time meeting in person, and it’s a little awkward until they get down to business. Ange voices her concerns about the Earl and warns the Commander that Morridow is a master of deception, but the Commander insists they’re being careful with Machlian. The two understand each other fairly well and there’s no need to waste words. They finish their drinks and decide to reconvene once they’ve gotten more information.

        Ange decides it’s time to question Leone. She had claimed insanity at her trial and due to the extensive physical and mental trauma she endured from RPK-16’s interrogation, she was put in Galatea Sanitorium. She even accepted Ange’s invitation to come talk. Outside the building, they notice a ton of TV cameras. Inside, the reporter Shadowless interviews Mrs. Gray, a renowned surgeon who vouches for the effectiveness of the upcoming Idunn ELID treatment from Galatea. She pries into Gray’s motives, but her attempts at finding any complexity to the situation are cut from the final broadcast.

“The general public perceives this vetting process as evidence that the government is impeding Idunn's distribution and is even taking to the streets in protest. Is this a premeditated marketing strategy on Galatea's part?”

        After the interview, Gray freshens up in the bathroom, where Ange surprises her. Though ‘surprises,’ may be the wrong word, for Gray seems completely unfazed by Ange’s threatening actions and knows exactly who she is. As Ange questions her about Leone, Gray makes subtle threats. Ange knows someone must have been pulling the strings to get Leone out of trouble, and Mrs. Gray is one of the few people here that has collaborated with The Flora Institute in the past.

“This whole business lacks a logical explanation.

And since you refuse to give me one, I'm afraid I'll have to substitute it with my own.”

        Gray claims she funds research all over, as evident by her vouching for Galatea, and regrets that Leone went down a misguided path. Gray expertly answers Ange’s questions, leaving her suspicious but lacking proof. Ange tries to stop her from leaving, but knows she can’t escalate this right now. Gray hands her a business card and offers to fix her prosthetic arm. As she leaves, she whispers a hint that she knows much more than she’s let on, but escapes into the safety of the public.

“Perhaps one day, we will find ourselves standing on the same side, fighting for the same goal.

Before that, I don't mind making friends with someone like you—I don't usually bother wasting so much time on idle chit-chat with people I don't like.”

        RPK-16 comes out from the restroom stall she had been hiding in, and Ange angrily confesses that she’s sure Gray is the one pulling the strings, but wasn’t sure what to do about her. If they killed her, surely someone else from Paradeus would just take her place. They need more information, so they continue on to meet with Leone. Light hides from Shadowless because he doesn’t want her to know he’s here, and they continue onward. Leone has had a sudden change of heart and no longer wants to see them, but that won’t stop Ange. She gets in anyway and Leone is terrified of her. It’s obvious that Mrs. Gray came here to threaten her not to talk. Leone is terrified of Gray because she reminds her of RPK-16.

        They decide to head to Powell next, but Ange is worried about a mole because Gray was a step ahead of them. She suspects Light, but RPK tells her she’s being paranoid. Light helps Ange get into the interrogation room with Powell, whose arrogant demeanor Ange quickly crushes with brute force. After Ange slams his head into the desk a few times, he spills like an open hose. Paradeus was interested in Leone’s research because the pollen bombs are a virtually undetectable weapon of mass destruction, perfect for terrorist attacks. In exchange for a promise of protection, he also gives her a vial of a hallucinogen related to the pollen and tells her it’s getting smuggled into prisons in Berlin. Ange makes sure not to tell Light about the vial and decides to investigate Berlin’s smuggling network.

        Light and Shadowless meet at their home. They’re brother and sister, and each is worried about how dangerous the others’ job is. She questions him about why he was at the Sanitorium, but he can’t tell her anything. She’s suspicious of Idunn and the Government and wants him to leave it behind and join her version of the fight instead, but Light is resolute and they get into an argument.

        Ange decides to do the next part without Light, because it’s going to be illegal. She calls the Commander, who says they’ve learned that William is plotting to detonate dirty bombs in Berlin, and had seen an image of the entire city covered in Epiphylla. This matches with what Ange has learned from Powell. But to get rid of Gray and stop this, they’ll need evidence. They track a smuggler to a warehouse and watch as a black Nyto retrieves the goods from his truck. They sneak in under cover of night, and spy on a White Nyto who mentions “operation cocoon” and being ordered by Morridow to help the doctor. DEFY get into a fight and the white Nyto blows up the entire warehouse. AK-12 covers Ange from the explosion and carries Ange outside, but she is badly damaged in the process and can barely move anymore. AK-15 and RPK-16 are merely scratched up, so they decide to quickly find evidence and escape. Unfortunately, sirens fill the night and they are quickly surrounded by police and security guards. They open a path and Gray walks right up to them. The guards gather up all the evidence of Nyto and smuggling activity, and Ange calls out Gray on her lies. She knows these police are all working for her, and knows they won’t let her leave alive.

“You're toying with Pandora's Box, Angelia. I could indulge your little mischief...but you made this choice.”

The standoff grows intense, and just as a fight is about to break out, Light arrives with Stasi reinforcements and takes over the scene. He’s unable to prevent the destruction of evidence, but is able to get Ange and DEFY out alive.

Outside the city, Gray meets with the White Nyto from the warehouse and has her kill all the security personnel that were witnesses. She orders the Nyto to assassinate Ange to atone for her mistake of letting Ange into the Warehouse. The Nyto asks if the mole planted near Ange can be useful yet, but Gray says Pandora’s Box shouldn’t be opened lightly.

Light stays at the apartment with Ange, and they talk openly for the first time. She finally trusts him, but knows that there might still be a spy working under him. Afterwards, Light enters his room, but a Paradeus soldier was lying in wait. As Ange promises AK-12 to give Light more trust in the future, an intruder breaks through the 9th story window and AK-12 quickly slashes its throat. A tear gas canister crashes in from outside and Light kicks the door open, having just dealt with his own attacker. They hear gunshots from elsewhere in the building, which should be filled with trained Stasi agents. The entire building is lit on fire by incendiary bombs and they have to fight their way out. RPK-16 opens a hole in their floor from below to get them past a blockade, but Light sprains his ankle and AK-12 is damaged by the landing. AK-12 and Light decide that the best strategy is for them to draw Paradeus’ fire while Ange escapes.

 “If anything happens to Ange, I don't give a damn about what Shaw has got to say. I will make you wish you could access your own base code.”

As long as Ange makes it out, the attack will stop and Light might be able to survive. Ange doesn’t like it, but continues on with RPK-16 alone to protect her. AK-12 passes on squad leader authorizations to RPK and makes her last stand with Light. RPK-16 shields Ange with her own body and guns down enemies until her drum magazine is empty.

“Ange. It's been a pleasure to have met you.”

        Just as they’re about to be overrun, they’re saved by AN-94 and AK-15 who had been fighting their way up from the lower levels this entire time. They turn the tide of the fight and get Ange to safety, but they can’t detect AK-12 or Light.  Soon, Paradeus has to retreat because local authorities are arriving on the scene. They meet up with J, who is incredibly distressed at the unknown fate of Light, who he had promised Shadowless he would protect. Shadowless arrives on scene to report on the fire and J, whose real name is Kevin, doesn’t tell her anything. The Earl calls, and tells Ange she was too rash in her investigation and only has herself to blame. If she doesn’t get back on track, the consequences for the city will be dire.

MS: The Imaginary (Commander)

        The Commander gets a call from UMP45 who has been spying on them. Helian paid Squad 404 a lump sum to help out and this is their way of announcing their presence. They also pass a message from Kalina, who is angry at the Commander for not visiting her in the hospital and promises to spend all their money when she gets out. They leave Machlian in the care of Dandelion and Squad Griffin, and head to meet Ange at Athena’s Owl. On the way, they see street vendors selling rubbish anti-ELID cures and are hunted by black market Doll traffickers, but with 404’s help it’s barely an issue. They also discover incredibly advanced communications jammers are set up in certain parts of the city. The Commander panics about being on time as if they were a teenager late for their first date, and make a fuss as they enter.

        While Ange and the Commander talk inside, the AR team and DEFY chat outside. AN-94 feeds a street cat as they talk about Morridow and notice how “Galatea” keeps coming up everywhere. Nearby crowds cheer before a monitor where Gray talks about the new ELID treatment.  

“Humans are such fragile yet resilient creatures.They are easily crushed by absolute might, but if you give them a little bit of hope...

Even if it's just a little, it can reignite their thirst for life.”

        The AR team gets uncomfortable when RPK-16 starts talking about her envy of how human-like RO635 is and how she straddles the line between machinery and humanity. UMP45, hiding with 404, keeps an eye on RPK the whole time.

They return to their outpost and start the interrogation of Machlian, who claims to be an ordinary person and not part of Paradeus. She is unnerved by the mention of Morridow and says she wants nothing to do with her. She is hesitant to divulge how she treats ELID patients, but insists that doing so is her only desire. When Dandelion enters the room, Machlian’s emotional state becomes fearful and distrustful. She clearly knows what Paradeus is capable of and thinks she’s fallen into their hands.

“What are you going to do to me this time?! You're going to strap me onto a slab and torture me forever, aren't you?!”

        In her panic, her virtual cognition falls into disarray, and her equivalent of a neural cloud starts melting down. She’s some kind of Nyto, but they’ll have to dive into her virtual cognition to prevent its destruction and get more information. They’re amazed by what they find in her memories, which are a jumbled mess with no timestamps or order to them. They’ll have to examine them one-by-one. They see her shackled in a lab, subjected to memory-wiping experiments by a man with a distorted face, presumably William. They also see Paradeus’ plot in Berlin in action - they spread “Iaso’s Boxes” through the city and detonate them, then search for individuals immune to it to bring back for experimentation. Did this all already happen and was somehow covered up, or does Machlian have memories of something that hasn’t happened yet?

        The Commander reports their findings to Griffin, unsure if Machlian is bait for a trap. They decide that the best course is to keep looking through her memories. They see Nytos singing “Who Killed Cock Robin?” while treading on the unconscious bodies of subway workers, and singing the same rhyme in Bohnsdorf as the refugees all turn into ELIDs from a yellow mist. They see a girl crying alone in a village next to her mother’s corpse, found by William who is enthused to find a “pan-immunosome” and promises to help bring her parents back from the dead. But his warm demeanor is soon replaced by the cold reality of the experiments. She is separated from someone close to her, and blamed for the experiment’s failure.

“You are worthless. Your only value is to provide her vessel with a soul.”

“I will have you watch, alive, suffering, and with your eyes wide open, as that day arrives…”

        They see Narciss talking with Gray about the Iaso’s Boxes she’s hidden throughout Berlin, and a prison riot accompanied by explosions and mass ELID infection. They see the quarantine wall fall under Narciss’ attack, and Morridow talks about killing “that woman,” the mission she was given from birth. They see her memories of a rorschach test, but all she saw was blood and destruction as experimenters test on her body. They see her escape from a Paradeus medical facility by hiding in a truck full of Isomers’ corpses to be dumped in a mass grave, she wakes up in an abandoned city similar to Tallinn and escapes, desiring only to stop the destruction that she knows is coming. They see her arrive in Bohnsdorf and start saving the refugees there.

        The Commander apologizes for prying into her memories but promises they’re not from Paradeus. They can stop Paradeus from doing this if they trust each other. She admits that she’s able to cure ELID with her blood as a raw material, but doesn’t want to say where the facility that processes her blood into medicine is. They decide to break for the night. In a lighthearted scene, Machlian is first subjected to Derringer’s “cooking”, but then Perosa cooks fish and chips for her, which tastes delightful. Sop-II suggests they send a message back to their friends at the Griffin base, and they assure Machlian she’ll be welcome there once the mission is over, so they have her make a video introducing herself.

        AR-15 is annoyed that the Commander is being so gentle with someone that could be a Paradeus agent or trap, and decides to take matters into her own hands. Dandelion joins her and offers to help investigate further… in exchange for 10 instances of immunity in teasing her. Throughout their investigation, Dandelion uses her immunity to troll AR-15 by impersonating M4 and generally trolling her.

        They dive into Machlian's memories while she is asleep and see a White Nyto talking about how some of the experiments mentally regress and regain memories from before the experiments when their modifications malfunction or are removed. AR-15 and Dandelion realize that it might be possible to restore Nytos back to some semblance of their former selves. They also find a hidden part of Machlian’s cognition, a “red area” disconnected from everything else. Meanwhile, Sop-II finds AR-15 and Dandelion in Machlian’s room. She's annoyed that they’re having fun without her, and decides to draw on their faces. Naturally, Dandelion lets her draw on AR-15’s face but stops her from defiling her own. Dandelion then unlocks the memories in the red zone, but they see that these memories actually belong to Morridow. They see her killing witnesses in a contaminated village, and see her practicing her act as “Morridow Voigt” in front of the corpse of the woman she’s replacing. To AR-15 this is all the evidence they need that Machlian is Morridow and they bring it to the Commander.

        AR-15 presents this as proof, but Dandelion presents an alternate explanation: Machlian possesses some of Morridow’s memories because their virtual consciousnesses are similar and have some overlap. They return with the Commander to look through again, but Machlian is awake now and the red region is inaccessible. Then AR-15 looks in a mirror.

“DANDELION!!! I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!!!”

        The Commander chats with Persica, an expert on virtual cognition. She’s still in the process of moving her lab into the G&K base, and believes it’s safe to assume Machlian’s memories of future events are real and would be difficult to fabricate. She believes that a Nyto’s defenses are lower when they’re asleep, and this is likely what exposed the red zone. This could mean she’s deliberately concealing those memories, but it could also be similar to the telepathic connections the Isomers shared in Tallinn, or it could be because they’re like identical twins and share a bond. Machlian could be receiving transmissions of portions of Morridows memories, and if that’s true, it might work both ways. They also tell the Commander that Kalina’s condition has worsened.

MS: The Symbolic (Ange)

        Ange heads to the Sanitorium to speak with Leone again. Leone is hesitant to help, but Ange claims she needs to pick a side or be ripped apart, and she’s the only one willing and capable enough to protect her. Since Ange has the Stasi on her side, Leone is convinced. She tells Ange what she thinks Gray is after: controlling the populace by spreading ELID and then launching a cure. She also tells Ange the locations of some of the attack sites.

“Her aim is to release Collapse Particles in small areas to increase the number of ELID cases. Then by launching a cure, she will gain the people's support...and they will rely even more on her.

I don't know what her ultimate goal is, but her plan is working.”

        Ange boldly visits Mrs. Gray at her clinic in broad daylight. But instead of fighting, Gray simply gestures for Ange to lie down on the operating table. She’s not afraid of Ange and takes total control of the situation. She insists that she repair Ange’s broken prosthetic arm. Ange lies down, but keeps her pistol ready. They both realize they’re gambling with very high stakes.

“Only two kinds of people would enter an operating room—doctors and patients.

I'm the doctor, so you're the patient. I will never turn a patient on my operating table into a corpse.”

        As Gray fixes Ange’s arm, she questions her on the progress she’s made in investigating Paradeus. Ange points out she knows about the locations of where they plan to strike, and accuses her of sowing chaos just to get at the top brass of society and increase their influence there. Gray tells Ange that the Soviets are just using her, and she should consider a change and work for the new order instead of the old one, but Ange claims to fight only for herself, and retorts that the ‘medicine’ Gray is seeking to cure the world will poison it instead. Gray also reveals that Morridow is her teacher and thinks very highly of Ange. Then as Ange steps off the operating table with her arm working good as new, she suddenly feels an anaesthetic kick in and loses motor control. She drops her pistol and Gray picks it up. Ange now realizes that Gray is also a Nyto. One that assassinated the real Gray and took her place. Gray plans to capture Ange and get information out of her, but then Squad DEFY breaks through the wall and tries to gun down Gray, who defends herself with a metallic tail and escapes through a trap door.

        Ange realizes that she’s put Leone in danger by revealing she knows about the attack sites and heads back to the Sanitorium. She left RPK-16 behind in charge of Leone’s protection, much to Leone’s traumatic distress. RPK tells Leone about how she wishes she could be human, and enjoys seeing how Leone has rekindled her desire to survive. But their playful conversation is interrupted by a  Paradeus attack as explosions resound in broad daylight. RPK realizes that this attack is too much for the Stasi to handle and protects Leone as they flee. Ange arrives with the rest of the DEFY and helps J repel the main assault, along with Light, who reveals that AK-12 sacrificed herself to save him. But their celebration is short-lived, as they get a call from RPK-16.

Moths dance around the light, casting fluttery shadows on the tragically beautiful corpse. Leone is dead.

        RPK-16 reports that they were ambushed by a White Nyto and Leone’s throat was slit by the scythe. Ange is upset that she has once again failed to protect someone, and they still don’t have enough evidence to accuse Gray. Even the White Nyto that killed Leone was found to have committed suicide. Ange is out of options, and contacts the Commander to ask if she can interrogate Machlian - who she believes to be Morridow. When the Commander claims they need Machlian to investigate a lead on an ELID medicine, Ange loses her temper and accuses the Commander of being too distracted by Kalina’s sickness and yells at them for not trusting her warnings about Morridow. Ange only has one path left, contact the Earl. RPK advises her against it, but she heads back to Athena’s Owl.

“Ange, surely you know that we're just pawns in his game of chess. No one will ever blame a chess piece for its mistake; they'd just laugh at the player for making a bad move.

You've already done all that you can. It might not be a bad idea to just wait and see for now.”

        The bar is empty, except for the barkeep, and they can’t get any information about the Earl from him. They find a hidden chamber behind a wine rack and head inside. There's nothing but a giant map of Berlin filled with pins and markings. She notices a spot labeled “Angelica” and realizes it's the location of the mansion she’s been looking for. She ignores RPK’s advice and decides to investigate this lead.

MS: The Symbolic (Commander)

“There are many pointless things in the world. Putting up a fight will never be one of them.”

The Earl gets in touch just as news breaks about a terrorist attack on a local hospital, and Griffin is convinced by the possibility of Machlian’s memories being like a prophecy, even if they’re more of a visualization of a plan that exists in her memories. He orders the Commander to go to the coordinates of the other locations and prevent any similar disasters. They’ll have to find the Iaso’s Boxes hidden in the U-Bahn station, the Quarantine Wall, Berlin Prison, and Bohnsdorf. The Commander brings Machlian along in hopes that these locations might also help her memory.

        They go to the Berlin U-Bahn first, where 404 finds and defuses a massive number of Iaso’s Box bombs and destroy weaker Paradeus forces lying in wait. Machlian helps 404 find one last bomb that they had missed, covered by a sneaky signal jammer. They make short work of it, then leave to reinforce squad Griffin at the Quarantine Wall.

        Perosa finds three bombs at the Quarantine Wall and kills the guard that planted them. The rest of her squad had similar results in various parts of the wall. They have search warrants from the Earl and notify the government of the treachery. Knowing that their plan has been foiled, Narciss launches a full-scale attack on the Quarantine Wall.

Machlian: “That's Narciss... M-My dreams… My memories... They came true after all…”

        The Commander mobilizes everything to coordinate the defense of the wall, and Paradeus is forced to withdraw before reinforcements arrive. Everyone is exhausted after fighting Narciss, fully aware that they would have been soundly defeated without the advantage of their defensive position. Narciss notices Machlian and throws a massive projectile at her. The Commander saves her, but is lightly wounded in the process. While everyone else is unnerved, Machlian is overjoyed. This whole time she had been plagued by the visions of the Quarantine Wall falling and mass death in the city of Berlin, but those visions didn’t come true. Destiny can be changed. The Commander tells her that since they don’t appear in her dreams, as long as they stay together her dreams won’t become reality.

        With renewed vigor, they head to Bohnsdorf to repel the next attack, but the streets are empty. They reach Elia’s manor but everyone has a bad feeling. They find Elia stacking an altar with explosives to make a collapse fluid dirty bomb. Machlian begs her to stop, but Elia’s fervor has gone beyond reason; she presses the detonator. But they don’t explode. A momentary sigh of relief is quickly replaced by the terrifying realization: Elia’s bomb wasn’t meant to explode, it was a signal to all the fanatics in the village to sacrifice themselves. All the villagers start killing themselves with miniature bombs, spreading collapse radiation in the process. They try to pull the villagers that didn’t kill themselves to safety, but the radiation levels rise far too quickly and they have to evacuate. They find Elsa, but her face is unrecognizably disfigured from the silification process of ELID infection. Machlian tries to cure her with her blood, but Elsa dies in her arms. Machlian promises to take the Commander to the facility where the antidote can be made, but the Commander reminds them that they still need to prevent a disaster at the prison. Bohnsdorf is beyond saving and they have to accept that loss. They evacuate the few survivors out of Bohnsdorf and head for the prison.

Though her last moments were spent in agony, she still seemed to be at peace. Perhaps that's because those moments were spent with the person she held most dear.

        On the way, Machlian realizes that she and the Commander are the same - they’re both semi-immunosomes, individuals with high resistance to Collapse contamination, but not immunity. They update the Earl on their progress; he advises they give Machlian over to her in order to find more information about William now that the truth has been verified. But the Commander rejects him. The Earl accepts this, and warns the Commander that Ange has been consumed by impulsive decisions and needs help seeing sense.

        The prison security system has already been sabotaged by the time they arrive. As they argue with the warden, the prisoners start rioting. 45 and Dandelion seize the control room while Squad Griffin suppresses the riot and disarms bombs. They rescue Powell despite not knowing who he is, but the situation is dire. The prisoners have all inhaled the pollen and are violently hallucinating. Furthermore, they don’t manage to disarm all the explosives in time, and one of the devices blows a hole in the facility.

 “There's a breach in the prison wall, and all the convicts are heading for it!”

        The Commander is left alone with Machlian, and Dandelion waits to see what will happen. But even when attacked by ELIDs, Machlian doesn’t make a move, she just trusts the Commander to handle the situation and promises to take them to the facility. They reduced the casualties among the prison guards and dealt with the Paradeus agents lurking inside the prison, but weren’t able to prevent the convicts from escaping into the streets. Two successes and two failures. Ange calls, requesting Machlian, and the Commander turns her down. UMP45 is disappointed to hear Ange in such an unhinged state, but the Commander promises to meet with her and sort things out once they’re done. Then Machlian gives them the coordinates for the lab.

MS: Gaze (Ange)

        The mansion is located in a quiet, wealthy suburb of Berlin and neither they nor Paradeus will be able to mobilize a huge force there, but they expect it to be defended. Light talks to Ange privately; he respects her, sees her as a hero, and wants her to be responsible for determining if he’s ready to be promoted to a full Agent of the Stasi under the name “U” or “Unknown.” There are 26 senior Stasi agents and he’s been given the option to become one, but isn’t sure he’s ready yet. He hands Ange the cufflink and asks her to give it back to him once she thinks he’s ready. RPK-16 warns Ange one more time that she thinks this is a bad idea, but Ange presses on. RPK offers AN-94 the role of team leader but she doesn’t accept, she agrees with AK-12’s judgment.

“It is in a hero's nature to keep going forward no matter how many people have fallen before them.

I wish to become just like you and all those who came before you, to devote myself to making this world a better place.”

At 15:28 they arrive at the mansion. Ange has Light and AN-94 stand guard outside while she moves in with AK-15 and RPK-16 to look for clues. The place looks abandoned, but they have to be ready for an ambush at any time.

“Only a moth knows how mesmerizing the flame is.”

        The mansion is full of lavish decorations all covered in dust, and they find a family tree of portraits. The bottom two paintings are destroyed. They split off to search rooms quickly, but then Light and AN-94 are attacked by Paradeus outside. AN-94 fights Gray while Light calls Ange to warn her of the attack. RPK-16 rejoins Ange, but doesn’t seem at all concerned. She asks Ange about the future of humanity, and once again confesses that she wishes she could be human and talks poetically about it until even Ange gets concerned.

“The way I see it, there is an irredeemable flaw in the very design of Dolls. We don't know real pain, sorrow, or even joy. We also have no genuine understanding of life and death.”

“I want to experience what only real humans can experience. I want to feel what only real humans can feel. Emotions. Life and death. The future.”

        Suddenly RPK-16 draws her weapon on Ange and shoots the gun out of her hand. Ange is shocked that RPK-16 could fire at her, Dolls are supposed to be inhibited from firing on their masters, but RPK tells her Shaw made her this way, with no inhibitions. Ange can’t even comprehend the possibility of her Doll betraying her. It’s only when RPK-16 tells her that Paradeus can make her human that Ange realizes what’s happening. She throws a grenade but RPK is unfazed. Shortly after, AK-15 bursts through the door, tells Ange to run, and fights RPK-16. AK-15 is incredibly strong, but RPK is cunning and keeps her busy with explosives and traps, and more Paradeus troops are closing in. Ange looks for AN-94, but her escape route is cut off by Paradeus and she takes down several in her path. Just as she’s backed into a wall, Light arrives with a shotgun and asks Ange for her plan but she’s in shock and not herself. Light leads her to the nearest exit but Mrs. Gray cuts them off and slices Light’s left arm off. He tells Ange to run and collapses, bleeding out on the floor of the mansion.

“This is the curse that Shaw has placed on me. Do you know what she calls me? Pandora.”

        After a long battle, AK-15 pins RPK-16 to the ground and pummels her face in. Just as she’s about to deliver the killing blow, Gray arrives and chops AK-15’s arm off as well, using massive claws that extend from her hands. AK-15 notices Gray has Ange wrapped up in her scorpion-like tail, but Ange is barely conscious. AK-15, despite losing an arm, charges Gray, who impales her with the end of a claw. But AK-15 planned for this and lunges at Gray, whose claw is now immobilized in her body, but RPK-16 disarms her. AK-15 pulls back and attacks again and Gray defends with her tail, but in the process loosens her grip on Ange. AK-15 grabs Ange and bulldozes through a wall to make an escape path. She’s cut off by two Nytos, and kills one with a borrowed scythe before Gray impales AK-15 from behind. She approaches the battered AK-15, who is drained of energy from her many wounds.

Bang! A gunshot stops Gray in her tracks.

“...Put Miss Ange down.”

Light shoots at her from around the corner. He’s bandaged his arm up haphazardly but has lost so much blood he is barely able to stand. Gray is astounded at his conviction and offers him a spot in Paradeus, but he shoots again and barely misses her face. She tries to attack him but AK-15 holds her tail down while he charges her. Despite AK-15’s efforts, Gray impales Light with her tail. He shouts for AN-94 to strike and she comes in blasting. Gray can’t shield herself with her tail and is hit. Light pulls off his tattered jacket to reveal a set of jangling grenades.

“...See you in the brave new world.”

        Light explodes and AN-94 uses the opportunity to close the distance on Gray and continue firing on her staggered target, but RPK-16 activates a backdoor she had hidden in her neural cloud to remotely shut AN-94 down. Even so, AN-94 gets a shot off right at Gray’s face but RPK-16 blocks it with a deployable shield. As AN-94 collapses, so too does their last hope. Gray accuses RPK-16 of being cruel to her former friends, but RPK remarks that nothing can be gained without sacrifice. Ange is lost in her emotions, but is much more traumatized by Light’s death than RPK-16’s betrayal or her own position. She laments that RPK-16 could have saved Light, but RPK rebukes her as they leave the scene with their new captive.

“...You're mistaken, Ange. It was you who could've saved him.”

MS: Gaze (Commander)

        Machlian has a nightmare about Elsa’s death and the Commander and their Dolls plan the operation using a map of the facility from Dandelion’s scans. Machlian claims that this is the facility she escaped from, and they have a machine capable of turning her blood into a serum that can cure ELID patients. She had initially taken some with her when she fled. They leave 404 and Squad Griffin to guard the entrance as the AR team, Machlian, and the Commander head into the depths of the base. But AR-15 still doesn’t trust Machlian and comes up with a backup plan. Perosa has a UV flashlight and so AR-15 leaves a trail that can only be seen with one. If anything happens, Squad Griffin will be able to find them. They reach the synthesis room and Machlian lays down to activate the machine. Suddenly their communications are cut off and Machlian and the machine sink into the floor. The trap has been sprung. Paradeus troops arrive inside the plant and the jamming devices render Dandelion powerless. They fight their way out in the only direction they can - towards the research block. Meanwhile, Machlian grabs the serum and runs through the facility, looking for the Commander.

        Squad Griffin follows AR-15’s trail while 404 heads into the base to try and figure out what’s jamming their communications. UMP45 leads them to the control room and they pass through a ventilation duct where they find a room full of failed Paradeus experiments, some of which are still moving despite being braindead, kept alive by machines and preserved in formalin tubes. UMP45 executes a girl whose fingers were scratching at the glass, her spine bent inwards by the weight of a cybernetic tail.  They find a bunch of the jamming devices and make a logical guess at the best ones to remove first. UMP45 realizes that these things are designed to counter Dandelion, and this is likely a trap to capture her. They fight off a Paradeus ambush and get to work.

        The Commander’s team finds a room full of singing corpses. Dandelion downloads the data on a local server and shuts down their power, putting them to rest.

Like infants that have returned to their mothers' bodies, they fall silent once more.

        Squad Griffin, while following AR-15’s trail, runs into Machlian. But she behaves strangely and no longer calls the Commander “Robin.” She offers to lead them to the Commander, who she says is injured. Perosa doesn’t believe her and questions her, but Machlian’s answers only get more suspicious. Perosa raises her gun and asks where the Commander is.

“...The Commander is in Hell.”

        Narciss arrives and Squad Griffin realizes that Machlian really is Morridow. Morridow leaves and Squad Griffin fights Narciss, but even an EMP grenade and a headshot doesn’t stop her, it just makes her angry. The AR team hears Squad Griffin’s fight and quickly joins them. They’re not far from the exit now, but Narciss still blocks their path. Squad Griffin draws Narciss’ fire while the AR team attacks, but they can’t overwhelm her. Squad Griffin offers to stay behind and hold Narciss off while everyone else retreats, and the Commander reluctantly agrees. As they leave, Perosa tells AR-15 that Morridow tricked them and the proof is on her shoulder.

        They continue on and find Machlian, who offers to lead them to the exit. They’re unsure whether to trust her, but Dandelion tells the Commander that M4 would believe her. If the Commander chooses not to trust her, they decide to simply leave her behind. She’s solemn, but accepting and AR-15 checks her shoulder and notices there’s no UV markings and tries to stop the Commander, but they are unconvinced. Suddenly, Machlian pushes the Commander out of the way of a surprise attack.

 If the Commander chooses to trust her, she starts leading them but AR-15 stops everyone and checks her shoulder with the UV light. She’s confused, but doesn’t stop them any further. As they near the exit, Machlian grows joyful, but it is short-lived.

Morridow: “...Got you at last, my dear big sister.”

        Morridow, who had been disguised as Machlian, impales the real Machlian in the chest and kills her. Narciss catches back up and the AR team desperately fights while more Paradeus forces stream in. They fight wave after wave of Paradeus troops, but Narciss and Morridow still block their path. The AR team is covered in Paradeus blood and at their limits. The Commander has some final words for Morridow.

“Even if we die here… You will never succeed. There is no path for Paradeus which does not end in its destruction. ...I'll see you in Hell.”

        Morridow sneers at them and says their sacrifice will be meaningless like crushed ants. Just then, 404 opens communications with the Commander; they shut down some of the jammers. Dandelion hacks into the surrounding Paradeus soldiers to turn the tide of battle, but Narciss destroys them. Morridow and Narciss still block their path and Dandelion is unable to hack them. Morridow still has the upper hand and laughs at how all their struggles and sacrifices were meaningless. But then, they hear a familiar, resolute voice coming from Dandelion.

“It is not meaningless. Nobody's sacrifice is without value. Because by relinquishing their lives, they will be giving the living something even more precious.”

        Dandelion’s eyes change color, and they immediately realize that it’s M4 actually talking to them. She freezes Narciss’ attack in mid-air and tells the Commander not to worry.

        The Dolls back at G&K’s base finally receive Machlian’s message, but it’s now an empty promise. Shadowless gives a final broadcast, but it’s different from the regular news.

“In the past week, this city has seen too much suffering. …All our work is for the sake of peace. All our hope is for the sake of a safe and carefree life. All our criticisms are for the sake of positive change.

May you turn grief into strength. May heaven be a place on earth.”

A Moment of My Nightmare - GFL Mirror Stage ED (Event Spoiler Warning) (Bilibili 1080p+)

End of Mirror Stage.

The credits include a quote from the German poem “Lob der Ferne,” which is a love poem full of contradictions:

“Apostate only am I true

I am you, when I am I.”

Poincaré Recurrence (13.7)

PV: Girls' Frontline - Poincare Recurrence CN Event Full PV (1080p+ bilibili)

“Only death cannot be avoided, and only life cannot be let down.”

PR: Decreasing Entropy

“It's because of the smell, Minister. The smell in the air on the eve of a storm. The smell of blood.”

Gray arrives at the scene where Morridow and The Commander’s forces clashed, but finds no trace of them. The lab is a scarred battleground of rubble and debris where she finds the shredded body of Narciss buried in a swamp of radioactive black fluid. When her scattered parts are pulled from the muck, Narciss awakens in a fit of rage, and Gray arranges for her to be repaired.

Morridow also awakens, surrounded by black Nytos who try to interrogate her for her failure and insist that “Father” speak with her. She remains insolent and is insulted that these lower Nytos would have the gall to even speak to her. When Father defends one of them, Morridow realizes that he’s not himself and the virtual interrogation falls apart. The interrogation was actually a ruse by Squad 404 inside Morridow’s virtual cognition to try and pry information out of her, but now the jig is up. They pull out of her cognition and speak to the Commander. They did get a crucial clue: there are more Iaso’s Boxes that will detonate on a day of fireworks.

The Commander’s team reviews their situation. Dandelion, or M4, has been unconscious ever since she worked her magic on Narciss and Morridow, and they’ve since taken Morridow captive and are on the run in Germany with just 404 and the AR team. UMP45 and RO635 offer the Commander support, and they decide that the day of fireworks is likely “Unity Day” for Germany, which is only a couple weeks away.

Meanwhile, Agent J is conducting his own investigation. The Stasi has covered everything up and forbidden him from investigating the mansion where Light died and Ange disappeared, so he sneaks in. He tries to rope Agent K into the investigation, but K thinks J is being foolish so he sides with the new director of the Stasi. The only useful clue J discovers before he’s caught is a trial medicine bottle from the Galatea Corporation, proof that Galatea insiders were present on the scene. He is arrested and interrogated by the new director of the Stasi, Romy Riefenstahl.

“So you think your judgment takes precedence and everyone else is an idiot?”

        Instead of firing him, Romy appoints a tactical doll named Mona to be J’s handler. Mona gives him a new mission: the government has closed Galatea’s pharmaceutical plants and protestors worried about medicine are gathering around them; the Stasi needs to prevent these protestors from storming the facilities. Before J leaves, Agent K gives him a phone number that may come in handy. He’s frustrated about being taken off his investigation and apprehensive about working with Mona, because she seems to be a plant from Romy to spy on him.

“Agent J, are you sure you're not letting your unrelated emotions get in the way of communicating with me?”

        J and Mona prevent the mob from breaking into one of the plants, then get inside to make sure no one snuck in. Sure enough, they find someone but it’s not a protestor - it's a Gray Institute researcher who was working on Idunn. The scientist, “Nele,” was merely here to collect her research data to continue working on it. She’s confident in the effectiveness of Idunn and seems to genuinely believe in the company. He’s still suspicious but desperate for a lead so he gives her his number in case anything comes up.

        Nele is picked up by her personal Doll assistant, Mia, but on their way home they come across a refugee dying of ELID symptoms, his friends and family pleading for help. She examines him and realizes that with treatment, he could make a full recovery, but these refugees couldn’t possibly afford it. She makes her choice and pulls out a bottle of the experimental Idunn serum and administers it to the refugee. He regains consciousness and she quickly retreats before anyone can confront her.

“Whether I regret it or not will be a thing for the future.”

        At a party in Berlin, Griffin Lyons, commonly known as “the Earl” meets with several important politicians within the city. General Schweinsteiger compliments him on his rise to power from a simple journalist, but the Earl cuts to the chase: this is about the German government’s choice of friends. Schweinsteiger gives him an invitation to meet with minister Rudolph von Oberstein, an even more important politician in Berlin and the father of “William” and Lunasia von Oberstein.

“Oberstein... is plagued by the past because of something. At this point, I believe I have the right to know what it is.”

        The three politicians attend an opera of Faust. The two ministers question the Earl on why he’s really in Berlin and why the ‘Council’ that seems to be guiding the upcoming founding of a Rossartrist Union is so interested in the events here. But none of the three are candid with each other.

        In a quiet field on the outskirts of Berlin, the Commander, 404, and the AR team finish burying the bodies of Machlian and Elsa. Unfortunately, their solemn funeral is cut short when they realize that the restrained Morridow managed to send a distress message to Paradeus. Their location is exposed and soon an explosion overturns their vehicle as a Paradeus strike force closes on their location. They mount a defense around the overturned vehicle and repel the attack while Morridow continues to toy with them.

“Is that what bothers you, Commander? You, whose hands are also soaked in blood? “

        Helian calls, and connects The Commander with Agent J. Surprisingly, the two have yet to meet. Agent J admits there’s almost no one left in Germany he can trust, but he believes he can work with the Commander because Agent K trusts them. J offers to supply them with intelligence as long as they follow up on his leads and report their findings.

PR: Rekindling Starlight

“Your ‘Father’ keeps turning living humans into beings that are neither alive nor dead, all for the sake of finding semi-immunosomes that can resist Collapse radiation… Unfortunately, it has all been in vain.”

        Agent J, Mona and K are called to a meeting with Romy, but J is openly hostile before she arrives and gives them a new mission. They are to find a missing cargo truck, but their only clues are the general location it was last spotted and a blurry picture. J thinks she’s just messing with them and giving them busy work to keep them off the trail of Galatea, but K and Mona disagree. While discussing it, news breaks that an ELID patient in the streets was treated with a Galatea drug, but went into shock.

        J sends the Commander to a safe house near the place the truck was last spotted to get equipped. AR-15 vents her stress about how they are keeping Morridow alive. UMP45 is inclined to agree with AR-15, but also attests that she would be useful if they can get Dandelion to wake up. Just then, their neural clouds are stunned by a powerful wave of electromagnetic interference as M4 reawakens in Dandelion’s body.

“Aren't you going to say hello, Commander?”

        M4 speaks privately with the Commander to avoid causing worry. For everyone’s sake, she can’t divulge where she’s been since Paldiski, but confirms that Dandelion is asleep and while M4’s body is elsewhere, she is borrowing this body. In addition, the strain of two neural clouds is highly taxing for Dandelion’s body but M4 will stay long enough to complete her mission…which includes ‘saving’ Morridow.

        To pass the time, AR-15 again attempts to torture information about Operation Cocoon and the identity of “Father” from Morridow, but gets nothing. The Commander arrives and Morridow gives away some information about her and Machlian’s nature.         

“She wasn't my sister. To be exact, she is me, and I am her…we share memories—and emotions, even—of the same soul.”

        M4 enters the room and places her hand on Morridow’s head, entering into her virtual cognition. We see fragments of Morridow’s memories, as she was one of tens of thousands of Nyto creation attempts alongside Machlian. Morridow was one that accepted the identity she was given, but Machlian refused it and attested to their humanity. Eventually, all the others in her batch were culled.  M4 brings Morridow’s consciousness into a scene from Morridow’s earliest memories in the factory with the ‘inferior products’ and gives her a haunting vision to take the initiative.

There is one corpse among them—soaked in the filth and mire, the dirtiest and most repulsive of them all, completely unrecognizable, yet with the strongest will. She is crawling… crawling… towards the only place where there is light. That repulsive, rotting corpse doesn't seem to have heard Morridow as it crawls up to her, hugging her leg tightly. It fills her with shock, panic, anger.

Morridow: “You could do everything, so why did you defy Father?”

Machlian: “Because I couldn't do those things, Morridow. I just couldn't. Why do we have to hurt others to achieve our goals? Don't we exist to make this world a better place?”

        Morridow remembers how Machlian was actually better than her, but refused to be what Father asked of her. She had even offered to run away together, but Morridow refused her. M4 questions her on her reasoning, but Morridow is still resolute that she is the perfect being to serve Father. Then M4 sends Morridow into another memory, this time of her trying to get Father’s attention during a fit of rage, but Father only looks at her with disdain.

“You are ALL trash... The leader of trash is nothing more than a slightly bigger piece of trash.”

        In the vision, Father is elated to see M4. Morridow is so infuriated by this that her virtual cognition temporarily crashes and they return to reality. For everyone else, all of this happened in the span of seconds and now Morridow looks frail and broken.

Morridow slowly regains her equilibrium, but now she looks utterly lost. It's enough to make someone think that M4 has inflicted some kind of irreversible psychological damage on her just now.

        M4 leaves, insisting that she has weakened Morridow enough to prevent her from sending more distress signals. In a state of questionable sanity, Morridow, who is now very interested in finding out what M4 is, agrees to tell the Commander what she knows on the condition that it’s only them. She gives the location of a facility involved in producing Iaso’s boxes, and suggests that it should be dealt with before Unity Day. Back to the mission, they find some remnants of the truck Agent J asked them about, but they have to fight off attacks from Paradeus patrols and the trail goes cold.  

        Nele is arrested under suspicion of causing public panic with illegal drugs, and finds herself in an interrogation chamber with J. He questions her about if she knew there was a problem with the serum and her relationship with Gray, but her answers fit that of an honest employee who had been impressed by Dr. Gray’s past work, even though Nele hadn't seen her in person for six months. Agent J accuses Gray of terrorism, but then another Stasi agent enters the room and Nele realizes she’s been had - J merely snuck in here to squeeze information from her. They’re not accusing her or anyone of terrorism, just placing her on house arrest while they investigate. Meanwhile, the Earl speaks with Councilwoman Ulrich and clarifies that his diplomacy with Schweinsteiger and Oberstein is to figure out why they seem to be choosing to side with his enemies… and possibly figure out who exactly is behind Paradeus. He sends a T-Doll to rendezvous with the Commander and issue a new mission.

“He has anticipated every move we made. If we don't pick up the pace, we will eventually find ourselves ensnared by the web that he has spun. Only by stirring the waters and taking him by surprise will we be able to find a way out.”

        As the Commander meets with their team, they contact Helian to request additional support. In the meantime, they cautiously launch an expedition into the plant Morridow told them about. It appears desolate, and they decide to send in the AR team with Morridow to guide them. M4 unties her so she won’t slow them down. But on the other side of the plant, Gray and Pandora are waiting for them, watching on security monitors. RPK describes the AR team with mysterious admiration, which Gray calls absurd.

 “Absurdity is what makes the world such a wonderful place.”

        The AR team has to split up through a set of doors that must open concurrently, so M4 and Morridow are alone. Their banter is cut short by a realization their comms have been severed, at which point M4 shifts her tone from pitying to assertive, sick of Morridow’s insolence.

“Your friends will go down the same path and meet the same end as you.”

        Sop-II, alone except for Banana, finds a room full of Iaso’s boxes, but can’t contact her allies. The door closes and locks behind her and a White Nyto ambushes her, piercing Sop-II’s arm with a stinger. A full ambush of Paradeus forces was lying in wait.

Even when faced with an airtight encirclement, SOP-II shows no fear at all, and simply laughs savagely like a wild beast.  “There are plenty of you, which means I get to tear out lots and lots of parts. I just have a single request—please scream as loudly as you can! The louder, the better! AHAHAHAHA!”

        Sop-II is impaled over and over by Paradeus stingers, howling in pain as she mauls the nearest units and bites off the white Nytos hand. She manages to retrieve her weapon and blows up most of the enemies and part of herself with a grenade. Barely able to move, she finishes off the last of the ambush force and crawls towards the Iaso’s boxes as Banana restores her communication with RO, who had also run into trouble but is on her way.

“Are you hurt? Your voice sounds a bit odd.”

“Heheh... I did run into a few... I took care of them... I'm okay. I'll see you later…”

        Gray receives a message from Morridow ordering them to withdraw. The AR team retrieves Sop-II and performs emergency repairs, but she won’t be able to fight for a while. They interrogate Morridow about the communication loss, but between humming nursery rhymes she claims it wasn’t her doing and that Paradeus is trying to kill her as well. They examine the Iaso’s boxes and find them capable of far greater destruction than the prototypes.

        Nele, while under house arrest, finds her apartment block surrounded by protestors and bombarded with harassment calls, and Gray won’t respond to her messages. While talking with her assistant Mia, she starts to wonder if there was some truth to what Agent J was saying. Nele knows she isn’t safe here, so she contacts J.

        On J’s end, they receive a new photo of the truck with the Galatea logo now clearly visible. His indifference in the mission immediately fades away. He gets a call from Nele asking for help in exchange for information, and accepts. Now meeting with Nele could provide information on their current case, so Mona agrees to work with this lead. He brings Nele and Mia to a Stasi safe house, and she agrees to be his informant because she wants to know the truth about the work she’s been so passionate about. He shows her the new picture of the truck and asks her to get its transport details from a Galatea database. She also finds another message scribbled on the back: “920, Neu-Tempelhof, mansion, who?”

        Agents J and K do some police work at the Stasi office getting new leads on the truck, but then Romy comes in and chastises them for looking into Galatea logistics data. She wants the truck and what’s in it, but doesn’t want to attract too much attention. When J argues, she suspends their mission. J contacts the Commander, passes on his leads and suspicions, then asks for help.

        The singer from the opera meets with Wolfgang Hopps (from Dual Randomness) in the streets of Berlin. It seems the two are working together. She tries to tease him but he’s stern as always. She contacts Gray and is revealed to be yet another Nyto working for Paradeus - Bramedb. It seems she’s involved in the shipping of the Iaso’s boxes, but Hopps seemingly isn’t aware.

        The Commander’s team examines a suspected location for the Galatea truck, but it seems to have completely disappeared. They still find evidence that it was carrying Iaso’s boxes, and that they’re being built with military-grade equipment so a government is involved, and then M4 finds a hidden mine entrance by the highway with the truck parked inside. As they investigate, they are attacked by a new high class Nyto, Grig, who defends herself with a high tech saber and moves with incredible speed. She charges through, but to everyone’s surprise goes past the Commander, straight for Morridow in their truck. Grig slices clean through the exterior of the truck and attempts to execute Morridow. Just as she’s about to strike, M4 unleashes a powerful shockwave that scares her off, but looks exhausted from doing so.

“Those who fail have outlived their purpose. You taught me that.”

        A bombardment of smoke grenades seemingly comes from nowhere and an unknown voice calls for the Commander’s team to retreat. It’s the T-doll sent with a new vehicle by the Earl to rendezvous with them. She introduces herself as Khaybar and helps them re-establish contact with the Earl. The Earl praises the work they’ve done, but the Commander tells him they can’t do anything else without more support. The Earl promises new vehicles and supplies, but won’t allow them to search for Ange because it is too personal. He claims he will undertake that himself, and that the best thing the Commander can do to help rescue Ange is prevent the Unity Day attacks.

“For you, your most important lesson is to learn to accept losses.”

“...I can accept losses, and I respect everyone who has given their life, but that doesn't mean I can be glad for their sacrifices. I will not pass up any chance of saving my friends, even if they are Dolls.”

        Grig meets back up with Gray, reporting that she successfully destroyed the evidence on the truck, but also tells her that she attempted to kill Morridow because she thinks Gray would make a better leader for Paradeus. Gray is upset by this and still looks up to Morridow, who is her “Teacher.” She threatens to execute Grig if she does that again.

        M4 meets alone with Morridow, and in their banter admits that her intention is to save her, and that she indeed plans to set her free eventually, but not until she can see the real her. M4 continues the mental assault on Morridow, intent on convincing her she’s little different from the Isomers and failures she looks down upon.

M4: “You reject yourself and your past. But they are forever a part of your base layer. Memory is irrefutable evidence. You are all failed specimens. You are but a mere shadow of her. Even if you put an end to it all yourself, there is no changing the truth.”

Morridow: “This can't be... It can't be! If I'm a failure, what are you?!!”

        M4 exits the interrogation room and asks AR-15 if she thinks she is still M4.

“The M4 I know may sometimes feel lost and indecisive, but she also keeps growing and changing. Above all, she has an unwavering sense of goodness and decency, which is why I do believe with absolute certainty—you are M4A1.”

        At the border of the Soviet Union, General Carter, who had been punished for his insurrection with retirement like a slap on the wrist, rejoins the KCCO and they promise to light a spark that will shake up the world. It seems he’s the one working with Oberstein and Schweinsteiger, and everything is leading up to fireworks on Unity Day.

PR: Reversing Entropy

“Everything I do is for the State… I hate traitors more than anything.”

        Hopps and Bramedb discuss how someone’s been investigating their smuggling activity on the Autobahn while he makes arrangements for the next warehouse delivery. As she leaves, he listens to the bug he planted on her as she messages Father. He has no idea what any of it is about. Bramedb finds the bug, but doesn’t mind his snooping as long as the mission gets done.

        The Commander asks Morridow where the cargo is going, and she agrees to tell them since M4 saved her life. They don’t trust her, but will work with what they have. But when they reach the warehouse, it’s empty. They call J, letting him know they’ve found where the cargo was stored but were too late, it’s all been moved already. Fortunately, they also found an order manifest signed by someone named “Umruss.” J forwards this information to Nele, who didn’t have high enough clearance to get more information. He suggests she use one of her co-workers' passwords to check the logs.

        Nele returns to her lab as it has been temporarily reopened so the fired employees can collect their things. She snags an access card from another professor and collects data related to Umruss. She’s scared and has some close calls while gathering the info, but maintains her composure. She goes out to dinner with her co-workers as they share job offers with each other. Nele comments on how their product was so close to being successful, so it shouldn’t have resulted in brain death, but it seems the other researchers knew something she didn’t. They reveal that Idunn was never meant to cure ELID, it merely searches for ELID antibodies in infected individuals. The government knew this, which was why the approval process was delayed, but they marketed it as a cure to get funding. Nele goes home, angry and confused that Gray would change her research direction to this. Mia tries to convince Nele to get out of this dangerous game while she still can, but Nele refuses.

“I won't give up on anything, whether it's Mrs. Gray, Idunn, or that Agent J business. This is what I believe in as a human being.”

        Agent J receives the address of “Umruss” from Nele. K initially tries to stop him, but after realizing that he can't stop J, he agrees to help on the condition that Mona comes along as well. The address is a high-rise condo suite, and they believe it’s highly likely the target is still inside. Mona advises they report to Romy, but J refuses. K sides with J because time is limited and these weapons are highly dangerous. When asked about a plan, J pulls out a small set of plastic explosives.

J: “Oh, don't give me that look, I'm not planning to do anything dangerous with it.”

Mona: “That isn't something you should be saying as you pull out a wad of plastic explosives!”

        Agent J detonates the explosives in a safe spot on the first floor, and the guards frenzy in response. In the commotion, their small team is able to reach Umruss’ room and get inside when a guard comes to check on him. He turns around and the Stasi agents are surprised to see their target is Hopps. Since they had to use explosives as a diversion tactic, Hopps knows they’re operating on limited authority and likely have little evidence, so he’s not afraid of them. Agent K tells him that the cargo he’s been transporting are Iaso’s Boxes, the same devices that were used for terrorist attacks in Berlin before Galatea paid for him to be released from prison. Hopps tells them he doesn’t know the ultimate destination of the cargo, but his team is currently sending it to the Berlin Airport, and he’s arranged for a private team to spy on what’s really going on. But their conversation is cut short by a sniper.

The glass in front of Hopps' shatters as the sound of a gunshot fills the air. J's eyes widen and he lunges at Hopps, who has crumpled to the ground.

        As Hopps dies, J asks him who sent him to move the cargo. Hopps can barely say “Medb” with his dying breath. Outside, Mona pursues the sniper, chasing them on the rooftops. Then Bramedb, in full Nyto equipment, stops running and confronts her pursuer. She effortlessly hacks Mona’s motor functions and the Doll falls to the ground like a masterless puppet.

        The Commander’s team heads to the Berlin Airport after getting news from Agent J. The AR team questions the security chief to get the details on the cargo, but he’s non-compliant so Sop-II breaks his wrist while AR-15 explains the severity of the situation. They get the warehouse’s location but need security clearance.

“You just moved a batch of biochemical weapons even more terrible than nuclear bombs. They've been delivered to the largest port in the city and you tell me you don't know about them?!”

        In an airport control room, The Commander orders the manager to get them into the warehouse, and when he resists Khaybar provides a document from the Earl that gives them authority. They leave M4 behind in the control room with Morridow, alongside RO just in case. But as soon as the Commander’s team leaves, M4 asks RO to leave her alone with Morridow. RO is confused but accepts, and Morridow protests having to be alone with M4 again.

Outside the door, RO635 holds her gun tightly in her hands, her thoughts all jumbled… She trusts M4. She's made to trust her no matter what. But if even she can't tell what M4 is thinking… Who can?

        At the G&K base, Helian and Kryuger make the difficult decision to send reinforcements to the Commander, leaving the base short staffed. Bramedb calls Gray and asks for help, their enemy is close to making her mission a failure, but Gray refuses. Romy confronts Agents K and J for getting a key suspect killed and letting Mona be badly damaged, then relieves them of duty and has them turn in their cufflinks and weapons.  

        Back at the airport runway, an unknown Doll watches from a tower as the Commander’s team runs towards the warehouse as rain pours down on the runway. The AR team intercepts a freighter that was bound for takeoff, but finds the pilot dead and the cargo hold empty. 404 inspects the warehouse, and discovers the 17 bodies of Hopps’ GSG team but no boxes. It seems they’re barely too late again. They try to contact M4 and RO, but neither pick up. Worried, they rush back. They find RO collapsed outside the door, but no trace of Morridow or M4. UMP45 stops the electronic attack on RO and wakes her up, who reports in a panic that Morridow took M4. They hop in their vehicle and race down the runway, where they spot a helicopter taking off with Morridow in the pilot’s seat. They want to shoot, but can’t because M4 is right next to her. Just as Morridow taunts them and the helicopter gains altitude, they see a figure fly towards the helicopter and Morridow feels something hit the top as the helicopter begins to sway.

Flashing lightning illuminates her cold face through the windows splattered with rain, her silvery white hair gleaming like a specter.

        M16 lands on the helicopter with the help of a tensile cord, and sabotages the rotors with a sticky bomb. She smashes the glass of the cockpit and shoves herself inside. The helicopter crashes, but M16 protects M4 and pulls her from the wreckage.

M16: “...Another fake.”

        M16 then knocks Morridow out with a punch. The AR team wants to meet up with M16 and M4, but a warehouse gate opens up, revealing bloodsoaked Nytos assembling a giant weapon to mount an escape. They weren’t too late after all, Hopps’ agents had bought them a little time. The AR team and 404 take out the Paradeus forces as the rainstorm dies down. The cargo is all here and M16 approaches with M4 in one arm and Morridow in the other. Sop-II greets her with a hug and AR-15 calls her an asshole. Before long, it turns into a group hug with the AR team.

There are still a lot of questions they want to ask, but right now, for both the Commander and the AR Team, nothing matters more than this precious moment spent together with friends.

PR: Falling Star

“Every advance in humankind's history has been accompanied by sacrifice. It is the price that we must pay.”

        Khaybar leaves the Commander’s team to handle taking the Iaso’s Boxes to the Earl. While they wait for M4 to wake up, M16 tells the rest of the team that it isn’t really the same M4 in there. It is still M4, but not the original one, though she can’t properly explain it.

        After J’s firing, Romy tasks the repaired Mona with observing him 24/7. He secretly calls Nele, but she’s one step ahead of him. She stole a higher classification access card to find more information about Umruss, giving her coordinates for some sort of factory. He forwards these to the Commander, and arranges to find a way to meet them there if he can slip away.

        Nele arranges a meeting with Gray and uses it as an excuse to steal more evidence from Galatea’s network. She’s gotten much better at being a spy, and keeps a calm demeanor while talking with another professor despite her fear. Gray enters the room, but the download is only at 87%. She takes the opportunity to ask all the questions that have been bothering her.

Nele: “Even if Idunn passed the pharmacological trials, the fact is that for those suffering from ELID, its growth factors accelerate the spread of infected cells. Mrs. Gray, this is murder!”

Gray: “This is salvation… Once we select for a satisfactory immunosome, we will have truly succeeded in developing the cure for ELID.”

        As Nele asks who Gray really is, her boss’ expression changes to that of a hunter. She begins to talk more openly, and readies the stinger behind her back. Some time after, Mia notices that Nele has gone missing but won’t answer her phone. She goes to the Galatea facility and finds it covered with media as Gray has announced a press conference. She desperately tries to find a way into the building.

        While Agent J was in house arrest, RPK-16 contacted him and he invited her to visit, since no one but DEFY knew about her being a Paradeus spy. She claims to know the location where Ange is being held, but hadn’t had the chance to contact anyone until now. It’s the same facility where he had just sent the Commander. RPK-16 gives him Light’s “U” cufflink, and all of his loyal Stasi underlings also show up to follow him. Mona protests, but decides to go with them. She has a bad feeling about RPK.

        The Commander’s team arrives at the facility, but the exterior is owned by the government, not Paradeus - they’ve found the seat of power. They try to wait for J, but hear noises that sound like the destruction of evidence from inside, and decide they need to head in without him. J’s team also arrives, and RPK sees tracks and leads them to assume the Commander’s team has already gone in. Mona wants to double check that they’re in the right place, but RPK rushes them. J takes the lead and has his Stasi followers get in formation and makes backup plans.

        The Commander’s team searches the facility, fighting Paradeus footsoldiers and mechs and sabotaging equipment along the way. They run into a mysterious woman in tactical gear, and after a brief standoff she reveals herself to be Romy, chief of the Stasi. She recognizes them and decides to explain. The base they were in was not controlled by Paradeus, but by her, with paramilitary equipment loaned to them from Paradeus. Romy wanted to clean the place up in secret, but when the Commander arrived she had to speed up the destruction process. She refuses to comment on why, but doesn’t seem to oppose them. When they realize that neither of them have seen agent J, Romy reveals that the government actually has a second factory.

J’s team finds no trace of anyone inside, just dusty equipment and ministry of defense logos. It is clear that the German government has a deal with Paradeus, but something’s not right. RPK leads them towards the heart of the plant. Meanwhile, Bramedb arrives and slaughters the Stasi agents who were set up around the entrance.

“Why do humans keep making the same mistakes, over and over again?”

        Agent J’s sweep team makes short work of the light Paradeus activity inside, mostly thanks to Mona’s skills as a T-Doll. Mona notices that at some point RPK-16 went missing. J calls her and his men outside and gets no response, so he orders a withdrawal. Just then, Mona pushes him to the ground as a missile is shot into the room. Mona, so badly damaged she’s barely recognizable, drags him to safety while his remaining forces hold off a huge Paradeus ambush force. He regains his senses, and his last two men stay behind to buy time for him to escape.

“Kevin, you stupid bastard, get the hell out of here already! If you don't manage to escape, I swear my ghost will haunt the shit out of you even after I die!”

        J and Mona fight their way back towards the surface, but J loses hope. He knows the enemy has the exits guarded and there’s no way out. He thinks he has no right to live after getting all his men killed. Mona sucker punches him to bring him back to his senses. Then Bramedb arrives and Mona has J run, but he’s cut off by a Paradeus mech. Bramedb incapacitates Mona and taunts J flirtatiously. Mona sneaks up and tries to plunge a steel rod through Bramedb’s torso from behind, but a Paradeus soldier takes the blow for her. At this point Mona has lost much of her human-like appearance; her artificial skin has been blown off, exposing the metal beneath, and her voice has turned robotic. Bramedb hacks into her and controls her to play with J’s emotions and damages her further while J watches helplessly. Then she has Mona fake a cliche ‘before death’ love confession and act needy and scared while Mona desperately tries to fight the control to tell J to run.

“Mona's voice suddenly turns shy and timid… But this only fills J with gut-churning terror…”

J pleads for Bramedb to stop, and she promises to let Mona go if he kills himself so she doesn’t have to get her hands dirty. Bramedb forces Mona to ask him to kill himself as well but she regains control for a moment and tears the voice box out of her own throat.

 Emotionally broken, he raises the knife to his neck, ready to end it all. Then explosions ring through the room as grenades are thrown at Bramedb’s feet. It’s the Commander’s forces, and Romy is with them. Their arrival forces Bramedb to retreat and they rescue J and Mona. J reveals that RPK-16 is a traitor, to the Commander’s surprise. Romy pieces it together - Paradeus lured J’s Stasi squad there to die so that they wouldn’t be able to finish the cleanup in time. The media would find the massacre and The Ministry of Defense, led by Scweinsteiger, would be exposed, leading to a political upheaval. Then J realizes that Nele may also be in danger since RPK-16 knows about her. J is desperate, he doesn’t want anyone else to die because of him.

        The Commander’s team reaches Nele’s street, but finds it empty and filled with signal jamming and they see her apartment is on fire. J, driven mad, runs in and has to be pulled out by AR-15. It’s too much for him and he loses his mind, screaming until he pukes.

J: “...It's all my fault. I used her... I used her idealism…”

Nele: “Why are you throwing up on my doorstep…”

        Agent J turns around to find Nele is still alive. When she confronted Gray, Nele realized that she had killed and replaced the original Dr. Gray. The download finished and she pulled out the flash drive. Impressed, Gray gave her three sentences before death. Nele backed up to a window and dropped the flash drive. Nele told her that reporters were on their way to interview her, and Gray wouldn’t have time to hide her body, deal with the witness that saw them enter the room together, and get rid of the flash drive of evidence. Gray’s best choice was to let her leave for now. Mia met Nele downstairs and protected her as they escaped in the media frenzy.

Romy reinstates Agents K and J back into the Stasi, where K is put in charge of protecting Nele. Then she goes to meet with General Schweinsteiger. He had ordered her to clean up the factories, and is glad she prevented a disaster that would have ended his political career. He’s been trying to play both sides between the Earl and Minister Obserstein and doesn’t want to make an enemy of one. Romy tries to encourage him to stop working with Oberstein, but she knows she has to word everything carefully. She seems to win him over, and he calls the Earl.

Romy: “The way I see it, the one whom Minister Oberstein is actually supporting isn't you… But himself.”

Schweinsteiger: “Perhaps it's time we have a new best friend, Romy. I like making friends...But I dislike making bad friends. Especially when I get burned by the fire they're playing with.”

        The Commander’s team returns to the temporary command post in Berlin that the Earl gave them. Outside, M16 chugs a bottle of whisky, tells the Commander goodbye, then leaves to continue her personal mission in Berlin. The Commanders’ quips with UMP45 are interrupted by a call from Gray, who has Ange held hostage. She proposes a prisoner exchange: Ange for Morridow. They agree to meet at the airport.

        It is Unity Day. Schweinsteiger pushes past protestors and reporters to enter the venue where the celebrations will be kicked off, and has a tense conversation with Oberstein, who dominates the conversation then steps into a spotlight to count down the celebration. But in addition to fireworks, Oberstein has arranged for something else. On the Soviet border, General Carter readies an artillery barrage.

Zero.

PR: Darkest Decline

“At 11pm local time, a large-scale armed conflict has broken out within the Neo-Soviet Union.

Many districts have been subjected to devastating artillery bombardments. We currently do not possess any concrete information on the attackers and there has been no official clarification from the NSU authorities.”

        In the office of Soviet StateSec, Zelinsky tries to make sense of the massive artillery strike at the border, combined with partial mobilization of air and ground forces, but it’s made more confusing by a large-scale comms blackout. After some time, he figures out that all of the PMCs on the Soviet border are under attack. And one of the largest of Carter’s forces is headed straight for the G&K base. Their objective: to eliminate Kryuger and Helian and seize the base’s neural cloud servers.

        Things were quiet on the G&K base. Kalina was sent to the hospital, the juvenile Nytos were sent to the Earl, many Dolls are still being reconstructed, and all of their assimilated Sangvis forces just left to go assist the Commander. The entire base defense is down to a few dozen Dolls, and Helian and Kryuger themselves. Just as they’re preparing for a celebration, Helian blacks out from the shockwave of an explosion that breaks an exterior wall of the base, collapsing on top of her and breaking her arm. Kryuger and a small team of Dolls rescue her and they mount a defense. They immediately guess Carter is behind the attack. Kryuger takes control of the frontline defense while Helian prepares the fallback defenses and retreat plan. Helian splits her forces into several teams: a rescue team for damaged Dolls, a team to restore Comms, a team to try and break through the encirclement to get a message out, and one to collect or destroy anything valuable. Helian herself heads to Persica’s new lab to try and retrieve the neural cloud server.

“What do you think a neural cloud server is?! A slice of cake you take home from a deli? You think a cute little maid Doll can deliver it to your house for you? It's a neural cloud SERVER! Don't you get it?”

        Persica refuses to cooperate with Helian’s plan to evacuate the neural cloud servers, so Helian has Ingram open the door with a specially made chainsaw. Meanwhile, the breakthrough squad makes it outside but are gunned down by attack choppers. Spitfire is the only one to make it back to base. Kryuger’s frontline shotgun and sniper team and Welrod’s logistics team take heavy casualties as well. Kryuger sends WA2000 to bail out the logistics team, who are trapped in a warehouse.

        In the warehouse, Tokarev kills a soldier with a shovel as corpses start to pile up in the room. WA2000 kicks open a ceiling vent and drops down a rope ladder to evacuate the remaining Dolls, but as team leader Welrod climbs up last she is knocked down by an explosion and finds herself surrounded by enemies. She pulls out a grenade to take as many out with her as she can. As many of the teams have taken heavy casualties, the survivors gather in the ops room and Kryuger decides it's time to evacuate deep into the basement. Persica relents and agrees to try to move the neural cloud server, since there’s no other choice.

        The Commander dreams of Ange turning against him, of Kalina withering away, and of the Dolls at the base being attacked. As they awake, they find that M4 has reverted back into Dandelion. Furthermore, the Earl does not reject the Commander’s request for the hostage exchange. They call Gray back.

Dandelion: “M4 is gone. To be more exact, Lunasia is gone.”

The two opposing forces meet at the airport, but the Commander isn’t sure if the woman in the wheelchair behind Gray and Grig is really Ange. They reveal Morridow to speed things along, but then Gray stuns Khaybar and springs the trap. Paradeus forces ambush them and Grig rescues Morridow with incredible speed. The wheelchair is shot to pieces, but it’s revealed to be just a tortured Nyto. Dandelion can do little with her body drained of energy. AR-15 is shot in the leg and UMP45 offers to let 404 buy them some time, but the Commander refuses to sacrifice them. Instead, they order RO to blow a hole in a nearby wall, despite being in the blast zone. Their Dolls create an inhuman shield around the Commander to try to protect them from the blast, but just then another explosion rings out nearby. An aircraft has arrived, carrying friendly Sangvis reinforcements.

“Commander, if you could all please move aside.”

        With the massive firepower of the Sangvis ringleaders, they repel the Paradeus ambush with ease, but find no trace of Gray, Grig, or Morridow. As the smoke clears, the Commander receives news that the G&K base is under attack, and falls to the ground.

        Helian makes it to the neural cloud server room, and discovers how massive it really is. They manage to compress it into a storage medium small enough for a single Doll squad to push. She has her doubts, but there’s no other option so Kryuger reminds them of how far they’ve come, encouraging them to not lose hope.

PR: Endgame Chaos

“Our only hope for victory is to deliver the neural cloud servers to safety. If we succeed, then all of you, as well as the Dolls who have perished, will return. If we fail, the Griffin base will cease to exist.

        General Carter gets a status report: G&K is the only remaining PMC on the Soviet border, the rest have all been wiped out. They’ve taken heavy casualties trying to get into the base’s interior, but Carter insists it has unique strategic significance and is worth any price.

        Helian is busy performing emergency repairs on Dolls when Persica reveals she has dummies of the AR team that can help fight. Less than half of their Dolls remain and many of them are damaged. Kryuger splits the remaining Dolls into two teams: a team to escort the neural cloud servers to a hiding spot until help arrives, and a team to fight for time, and asks Dolls to choose which they’ll be on. All of them that can fight choose to be on the combat team.

“I can't bear the weight of hope... I'd rather perish in the fires of war…”

        Kryuger asks the Dolls to remove everything that isn’t essential for combat, including their mementos of fallen comrades, and gives them time to say their goodbyes.

By the time the last Doll leaves the Factory, it is dramatically different from how it was a few days ago. The walls are covered with encouraging slogans—"Victory for Griffin!" "I'll be back!", and the like. The ground is also littered with all kinds of objects left behind by the Doll—From drinks that they couldn't finish with their friends, intricately carved rocks, the personal items of fallen Dolls. Standing in the middle of all this, Helian feels that the Factory is no longer just a factory, but a miniature museum.

One dedicated to love, death and robots.

        Havier gets a call from “Old Misha” aka Mikhail Tsvigun, an unnaturally long-lived Soviet agent involved in relic security who was Zelinsky’s mentor and a friend to Rossarte. They agree that General Carter’s actions are predictable and that this can work well as a trap, but Havier argues that the PMCs, especially Griffin, are valuable allies and need to be saved. Misha does not see it that way, but won’t interfere if Havier wants to save them.

        Kryuger’s combat team engages the enemy to buy time as he fights with a stockpile of rocket propelled grenades. They salvage ammo from the enemy and even drive them back to the first basement level, but then the Military cuts the power and the basement is enveloped in darkness. Those with night vision gear cover the retreat, but Kryuger is wounded and knocked unconscious. Helian takes command.

After hanging up, Helian leans against a wall and slumps to the ground. A chill runs down her spine. Once again, she can feel the terror of being trapped in the darkness.

        Tokarev volunteers to put a squad together with the remaining logistics team members to try and fix the power. After a short strategy meeting, they decide to use close-combat tactics and a diversionary defense while Tokarev restores the basement’s power. Ribeyrolles, PPK, and MP-443 hold a hallway to attract attention for nearly 10 minutes, until they spot a heavily armored automaton charging them with bundles of lit grenades. Ribeyrolles is blown up along with MP-443’s leg, so they retreat to a second defense line. They check in with Tokarev and act like everything is fine to give her strength, but are scared themselves.

“Neither of us is going back. When we wake up again, we won't even have these memories.”

“Then who will remember us?”

“Nobody, MP-443. Nobody will know what happened here except us, right now.”

        Tokarev reaches the power conduit on Basement 2 and rushes to repair it while PPK stays on the call with her until her last functioning moment to give her encouragement. She finishes the repairs just as she’s spotted by three soldiers. She draws them away from the power lines to prevent them from destroying it again, but she is damaged by multiple grenades as she hides behind cover. Her gun arm is severed from her body and she can barely stand. In a haze she sees flashes of memories and the ghosts of her comrades cheering her on.

The darkness before her eyes swirls wildly, and in the middle of it is Tokarev's giddy neural cloud.

“HAAAAARGHHHH!”

The sudden, bestial cry stuns the Spetsnaz troopers, and Tokarev breaks into a mad sprint, like some kind of monster. She hears Welrod's cry echo out to the edges of the sky.

        Tokarev lunges at the enemy who is in the middle of priming a grenade, causing it to blow all of them up together. Helian’s team has rejoined with Kryuger but they were pinned down fighting at an elevator entrance. Now that the power’s restored, they use the elevator to move the heavy neural cloud servers to the final basement level. Now that they’re safe, Kryuger reveals that before the attack, they were preparing a celebration of Helian’s 10 years with them and hands her a letter formally hiring her permanently.

They hear the explosions of bombs being dropped on the surface, and know that they’ve made it. Zelinsky and Havier have sent air support to rescue them. Persica activates and controls the AR team dummies and they change plans to break through. As the enemy retreats, they make it back to the surface and get a call from Zelinsky. Then he contacts the Commander and lets them know they went through hell but are okay. Carter’s Spetznatz troops retreat; they’re disappointed about not getting the servers but still have a more important mission ahead in Moscow.

Back in Berlin, Gray sends Morridow back to Father to recover and makes a plan to salvage the situation. Retrieving Morridow has been their only recent success. She meets with Grig and Bramedb, but the latter has just received a personal mission from Father and flaunts her superiority over them. Gray won’t be forgiven for another failure.

Romy meets with Agents K and J to give them another mission. She invites the Commander as a special consultant to be in charge of the mission to search various Galatea facilities now that the public has turned against them. There’s many to choose from and time is short before evidence is destroyed, but the Commander chooses to visit the now-abandoned Berlin prison again. Gray had given them the chance to talk to Ange briefly over the phone to prove she was alive, and she snuck in a hint: “Getting my tats hurt more than this.” The only location associated with tattoos is the prison, so they’ll start searching there. While they strategize, the AR team and 404 gleefully raid the Stasi armory.

They search the prison and UMP45 discovers that while footage has been wiped clean, there’s a storage room with no camera in it at all. In it, Dandelion finds a hollow wall. Sop-II breaks through and the motley crew of the AR team, Stasi, 404, and S.F. investigate a mysterious warehouse beneath the prison full of Galatea-branded crates. Grig darts in out of nowhere, attempting to assassinate the Commander, but Executioner blocks with her own blade. Behind a door, they spot a wheelchair that could be Ange. Agent wounds Grig with undodgeable decentralized fire, and they surround the Nyto. To make sure she can’t escape, they continue shooting her until she can no longer resist.

Gray arrives with a smoke bomb and pulls Grig out with her long mechanical tail. Then she offers a deal: she’ll let them get Ange if they can retreat safely. The Commander refuses to fall for another trick, ordering her to leave Grig behind as collateral until Ange is with them. She agrees, but when Gray opens the door, white smoke pours out from another trap. They check on Ange, but it’s not her once again. They’ve fallen for the same trick twice. Bramedb laughs as she approaches with a Paradeus assault squad, not wanting to let them leave alive. But the Commander’s combined forces are too much for her and Bramedb has to retreat.

They failed to get Ange or eliminate any of the high-ranking Nytos, but they gained all the intel in the warehouse, including what was being smuggled into the prison, many meticulous records, and an audio recording Dandelion hacked from Bramedb’s memory.

“The technology supplied by Galatea is essential to Germany and to the Ministry of Defense. I hope you'll agree, General Schweinsteiger.”

“Yes, yes, I understand... I do agree. Thank you very much for being our intermediary. I'm sure our cooperation will be a fruitful one.”

        The recording is sent to the Earl, who believes it will be the ace up their sleeve. Kryuger and Helian examine the wreckage of the Griffin base, and realize that they have nothing left. They can no longer operate as a PMC.

“Griffin may not exist anymore. But we have protected the most important thing.”

        Agents K and J attend a funeral for all the fallen Stasi agents, including Light. J places the “U” cufflink on the coffin and Romy meets with the Commander at the periphery of the funeral. She hands the Commander a briefcase with two neural cloud cores in it, labeled “AN-94” and “AK-15.”

“When I look at you, I'm convinced of the possibility that idealists might actually change the world.”

After everyone leaves, Shadowless comes to visit Light’s grave, lamenting that she didn’t do more to keep her little brother from following their parents’ path. Despite her grief, she’s been working tirelessly to inform the public about Galatea and government corruption. This fight isn’t over for her.

“...Big Sis is here to see you, Light.”

        A plane lands and General Carter checks the cargo: the Iaso’s Boxes are now in his possession.

Girls' Frontline: Poincaré Recurrence ED "Schicksal"

Fixed Point (13.8)

“Perhaps I won't see the destination… But everything I've done will not go to waste, because it will become the foundation of this path.”

FP: Singularity

“The mole among us has exposed herself. She may be able to give you some help. It's a woman named Nemhran.”

        Four white Nytos search through surveillance footage of the events of Paldiski, under the distant guidance of a very polite and soft-spoken high ranking Nyto named Nehmran who is in charge of Paradeus operations in Moscow. They live in constant fear of her polite wrath. The leader of the four mentions sending the data back to “Aver-” when Nehmran immediately orders another Nyto to kill and replace her. Some things must not be said aloud. They are part of Nehmran’s “Bee Sting System,” a high tech surveillance team named for its self-destructive nature. Later, they also monitor Ange’s arrival in Bremen, and it’s clear Nehmran is pulling strings behind the scenes to get her to Berlin but things did not go the way they expected. And during the events leading to the Fireworks in Berlin, Gray calls the Bee Sting System for help but they don’t get much because the Nytos working it are only motivated by their own survival.

        On Unity Day in Germany, M16 and Beak, now employed by StateSec under the codename “Black Box,” visit a Soviet air traffic control facility in the midst of the chaos. The soldiers there are torn between orders from General Carter to attack the border PMCs and dozens of other orders to protect the border. M16 arrives and quickly reminds them that their loyalty lies only with the central government and sets up a special hotline straight to StateSec headquarters. This ends up being crucial in getting air support to the G&K base. Once her mission is complete, she requisitions transportation to continue her mission. M16 discusses her next steps with Havier, who reveals that Nehmran is the mole that’s been spying on them and she's on her way from Moscow to Berlin. If M16 follows her, she’ll find something interesting that will help with her broad mission of figuring out when Paradeus will attack next.

        UMP45, Sop-II, RO635, and UMP9 meet up in the newly commissioned Operation Aeneas conference room, a digital space with room for 12 built inside UMP45’s level II neural cloud layer. They await a full briefing from the Commander; for now all they know is that it will be a covert op into Pardeus territory.

“Ever since "that incident", which set the Stasi's intel work regarding Moscow back by about 20 years, we've been changing leaders every time something happened over there.”

        At the Stasi HQ, Agent J rants about the dire straits the Stasi are in, but K calms him down and argues that they’re actually under very good leadership with Romy. K also introduces J to their new Tactical Doll colleagues, which should help with the high mortality rate the Stasi has faced. He sends his new team of Dolls to chase down Bramedb, and she is forced to flee Berlin.

        Romy speaks with Agent Q, who is stationed in Moscow. Q reports that Nehmran’s ‘toys’ have pulled out of Moscow and that she’s been monitoring where General Carter’s troops have been taking the Iaso’s Boxes, but couldn’t find evidence of Rudolph von Oberstein aiding them. It must be someone else.

        Kryuger, Helian, Persica, and their few surviving Dolls load into a MCV and head for the German border. They have permits from Zelinsky at StateSec, but the German border police invalidate their permits and arrest Kryuger and Helian for endangering national security. Persica calls the Commander with an update and agrees to send one upgraded Tactical Doll, XM8, with a new invention to help with their covert mission.

        In Bohnsdorf, Nehmran has Olga and the other Bee Sting Nytos search for the body of Machlian but are unable to find her. They find some of her blood on the instruments in the lab and that's sufficient to call the mission a success. M16 arrives and fights with Nehmran but the latter escapes. M16 and Beak follow her trail, but lose her near the “Dead Sea,” a radioactive Black Zone created during WWIII. They know full well this is likely where she went.

“No, the fact is even if you succeed—even if William is dead and Paradeus disbands... how will that change anything? Am I really the culprit who plunged the world into misery in the first place? You know that I am not the cause of the sickness that plagues the world. It is the power structure of the world... those who are at the steering wheel right now. They are the true source of the poison.”

        William meets with the imprisoned Ange to have a discussion of ideology with her. She is taken aback by how young he sounds. He claims he knows what he does is wrong but needs power in order to wrestle control of the world away from the greedy and corrupt and put it in the hands of someone more worthy than himself.

“They live like a pack of hyenas, yet they claim superiority over others. They plot and scheme for the sake of pointless influence, but haven't the faintest concern for the future of the world.”

Nehmran arrives in Avernus and leads a cult of Nytos in prayer before meeting with William herself. After giving him an update on their progress to taking power, he undergoes a drastic personality regression. They are joined by a holographic version of Lunasia and he pretends Nehmran is his mother Luci as they eat family dinner together. As Nehmran leaves, she encounters Olga who gives her an update on new information they’ve gathered. As Nehmran finishes it, she congratulates Olga and kills her.

Her memories of everything up until the moment when she met Father have returned. As they have countless times before.

FP: Reflective Surface

“I need to leave the Soviet Union immediately. Requesting assistance and political asylum from the "Evangelist".

        In St. Petersburg, a StateSec colonel named Dupieux speaks with a high ranking secret agent who is demanding the release of military personnel who are under investigation. He tries to withhold intelligence from Dupieux until a compromise can be met. Dupieux strongarms him in the conversation and accuses him of putting together an untrustworthy investigation team, then gets the documents the agent was unwilling to part with. He gets a call from Zelinsky’s office announcing that he’s being promoted to Vice-chairman due to his successes and must report to Moscow, but he finds the timing suspicious. He acts like everything is normal and makes preparations, but notices that he’s being spied on and more importantly, that his cover as a double agent embedded within StateSec has been blown. He packs nonchalantly in his apartment but secretly sends out a distress message to his contact “Evangelist.”

        At Stasi HQ, Agent K meets with Romy to report that he’s finished the analysis of what’s been recovered from Paradeus’ labs, and concludes that the advanced technologies of the high ranking Nytos and Iaso’s Boxes couldn’t have been produced in any of the bases they’ve found so far, but he’s completely certain there’s no more bases in Berlin. She points towards the “Dead Sea” on the map. If anyone could figure out a way to build a base in an area inhospitable even to Dolls, it would be the organization devoted to radiation research. Romy knew this was a likely location for a Paradeus base, but had K eliminate all other possibilities first. She has been using this to help the Commander plan Operation Aeneas. K contacts the Commander and lets them know that their intel suggests that the arrest of Kryuger and Helian was spurred by the German government being scared of what the Commander’s been doing, so they will likely be released once the Commander leaves Berlin. Since their business here is done anyway, the Commander takes on a mission to join General Schweinsteiger in Frankfurt, this will put them under the general’s protection.  As a parting gift, they give the Commander some Stasi Dolls.

“We need a stiletto to thrust into the heart of the enemy...But it should preferably be wielded by someone else.”

        Romy discovers that she’s being followed by assassins. They race through the streets of Berlin in an armed car chase, while J’s team of Dolls tries to intercept and provide cover. Romy and the assassins crash into a store and have a shootout. Just as she’s cornered, the Dolls show up and finish off the last assassins. “She” then lashes out at the Dolls for taking too long. While Romy and K were helping the Commander with Operation Aeneas, Agent J was given the job of dressing up as Romy to lure out the assassins, and he’s not pleased with it.

        Likewise, Dupieux has also been escaping from his assassins and finds himself in an abandoned cabin at the Russo-German border. He notices he’s been found and thinks StateSec is still chasing him, but he’s wrong. A woman’s voice calls him “Polar Bear-” it’s agent Q from the Stasi. She fires a non-lethal sniper round that paralyzes him with electric current. Now she can use him as bait to lure out this “Evangelist” he kept calling for help.

Q: “If the Soviets had found you first, it would have all been for nothing.”

        General Scweinsteiger feels on top of the world during his flight to Frankfurt. Berlin has been cleaned up and he’ll soon have Romy’s help in Frankfurt putting this mess with Oberstein behind him. Then he notices a recording pen by his side and listens to the message. It’s Oberstein offering an olive branch and promising to make the Stasi great together. He’s not concerned until a waiter brings in a bottle of Champagne from Oberstein and it becomes clear that Oberstein has bought out all the guards on the plane. The implication is clear: Oberstein could have him killed at any time, so he better accept the olive branch.

        More of the 12 gather in the Operation Aeneas Conference Room. The full roster is as follows:

• Squad Umbrella: RO635 and Sop-II of the AR team.
• Squad Unicorn: UMP45 and UMP9 of Squad 404. Responsible for Electronic warfare and maintaining communications.
• Squad Nitrogen: Mona and Rhino of the Stasi, and “No. 9,” a mercenary provided by Statesec.
• Squad Ferrum: Architect and Gager from Sangvis Ferri, their role is heavy firepower support.
• Chessmaster: XM8, the advanced doll sent by Persica.
• Unaccounted for: 2 Dolls.

        As field leader for the operation, RO635 gathers everyone available and briefs them on the mission: Operation Aeneas will be a covert operation deep into the black zone of the Dead Sea.

FP: Riemann Surface

“Operation Aeneas is a raid with two objectives—

1. To rescue Angelia. Contact me immediately if anything goes wrong.

2. To get a grasp of enemy structures and units within the ‘Dead Sea’.”

        In an abandoned Paradeus base, Grig finishes basic repairs on Morridow, as she had been badly damaged in Berlin for her past failures. They found out that everyone else is heading back to Avernus, but they weren’t specifically invited. William had asked them to capture the Commander and they’d be coming back empty handed, which is a huge risk. Morridow decides that they need to take the risk and head back and meet with him, as she has an ace up her sleeve that might save their lives.

“We have made too many mistakes, and Father does not like mistakes… If we do not do something, we will all be discarded.”

        As Morridow, Gray, and Grig depart for Avernus, Operation Aeneas is forced to begin before all members can assemble. They have been tracking Morridow’s location, but the intense radiation within the Dead Sea will interfere with the tracking so they’ll have to keep close. This is why they have to go in with a small team. After the Commander ends the final briefing, they contact UMP45, asking her a favor: she and UMP9 will need to put their lives in peril for this mission, something that as mercenaries they prefer not to do. 45, understanding the gravity of the mission, agrees.

        The Aeneas Squad follows Morridow’s team into the Red Zone of the Dead Sea. Morridow realizes they’re being followed and they leave soldiers behind to slow down their pursuers and escape towards the Black Zone in the center of the Dead Sea. Aeneas’s tracking technology starts going haywire due to the radiation, and they split up to try to pin down an accurate reading. In this time, Gray has turned around and fights with Squads Umbrella and Unicorn. Sop-II keeps Gray’s dangerous tail busy so that RO can fire on her, but Gray escapes up a dilapidated building and collapses it on top of Sop-II. They pull her out unscathed, but have lost track of Gray. Meanwhile, Squad Nitrogen picks up Morridow’s signal and continues tracking her.

Koleda: “You... you think… Do you think... you'll be forgiven for this?”

RPK-16: “Fortunately, I don't seek forgiveness.”

        RPK-16 introduces Ange to her new Nyto caretaker, named Koleda. But something about her eyes and speech seems familiar, and she soon realizes that Paradeus captured Ak-12 and made her into a Nyto.

        Squad Nitrogen watches as Grig and Morridow get into a vehicle. Suddenly, they lose track of Grig and realize she’s heading their way with incredible speed. They were prepared for this and made a tight defensive formation, laying a volley of fire on her that she cannot entirely block. She breaks up their formation, but is lightly wounded and retreats having completed her mission to buy time.

        Back in the Aeneas conference room, Chessmaster analyzes the positions of their engagements and predicts the enemy’s rendezvous point. She meets up with Squad Umbrella and gives RO a device from Persica called “Strongarm” and a device to build a map of Avernus. RO gathers everyone and starts a meeting with the Commander through the conference room. They’re about to enter the Black Zone of the Dead Sea to pursue Morridow, and once in there it will be much more difficult to communicate. Before the briefing, the Commander contacts the Earl, asking for help in freeing Kryuger. Griffin says that it’s already been resolved, but they will have to make a concession: the Commander needs to immediately cease operation Aeneas.

“Commander, I know you must be anxious to rescue Ange, but you also need to play by the rules. Casually breaking the rules or acting impulsively will not bring you victory... This world runs on order.

And not passion.”

“I've heard enough of that, Sir.”

        The Commander is sick of being used and hangs up on the Earl in the middle of his sentence then joins the conference. Together they analyze data and footage from Ange’s dirty bomb detonation during the Joint Operation to get an idea of the kind of radiation they’re going into. No. 9 mentions that she’s looked into a Black Zone before and describes a feeling of voices calling to her.

“Black Zone radiation has an extreme degenerative effect on both structures and Dolls. While we underwent anti-radiation preparation before setting out, there's no telling how it'll hold out in the Black Zone. These are the conditions we can expect to face. Absolute silence, no movement or life, only the specter of intense radiation stalking you everywhere.”

They find it hard to describe the kind of world they're in. The omnipresent darkness stretches out as far as the eye can see— Ominous-looking green crystal formations protrude from the ground. Massive stone spikes gleam with a profound light. Every step they take lands inside a sticky fluid. Radiation particles are everywhere. They have clumped up, becoming visible to the naked eye as they settle in low-lying places around them.

        Operation Aeneas’ members gather at the borders of the Red and Black zones, shocked by the oppressive landscape. They steel themselves and head in, still split into two groups: one with Ferrum and Nitrogen and one with Umbrella, Unicorn, and Chessmaster. Nitrogen are attacked by humanoid shapes and fire back, but quickly realize it was an illusion caused by the fog. Morridow, Grig, and Gray hear the distant gunfire and realize they’re still being pursued. They ask for help from Bramedb but she heartlessly lies to them. They head for an airfield while Grig stays behind to delay their pursuers. She attacks from within the fog and darts back in before they can react. But she can’t keep it up, and after several attacks she is badly damaged, missing an arm and losing blood. She can’t evade their combined fire, and they take her to the ground and remove her other arm. Just as they debate how to get rid of her, Narciss ejects out of an aircraft and lands on the battlefield. She came looking for Morridow, who she looks up to as a big sister, and expects that saving Grig and killing the pursuers will earn her praise. Narciss’ destructive power is overwhelming, but in the high radiation her floating blades can’t properly track targets. Grig convinces her to regroup with the badly injured Morridow and they depart in an aircraft. No. 9 places a signal tracer on the aircraft.

        Squads Umbrella and Unicorn lose track of Morridow again, so UMP45 and Chessmaster coordinate to locate other comms outposts based on the data from the last one. They manage to get a direction and walk until they see a cargo truck and a tower that seems to be the outpost. 45 easily cracks the security system and they triangulate the location of Avernus from the locations of the other outposts. They follow the data towards the intersection, but don’t immediately spot Avernus until they notice a massive shadow on the ground and water. Avernus is floating in midair.

It is a pair of black towers, joined at the base. They are floating high in the sky, in flagrant disregard of gravity, and their metallic-looking surfaces radiate an oppressive air even from this distance.

        RO tries to contact the Commander but cannot reach them. They’re on their own and unsure what to do, but RO announces that the operation will continue, they just need to find a way up. They notice the power conduit connecting the towers to the ground and formulate a plan.

        Morridow’s team arrives in Avernus and she demands to see Father. She’s terrified, fully aware that she’s gambling with her life.

FP: Teichmuller Space

“Let me speak plainly—we are going out there to die.”

少女前線：靜風點 Girls' Frontline Event "Fixed Point" BGM - 劇情插曲 2 Interlude 2

        The ten known members of Operation Aeneas gather in the conference room in UMP45’s neural cloud for the final briefing, and RO starts recording a log for the Commander in the future when the connection is re-established. Their core plan is to find the power plant, damage it, then infiltrate the towers while the power is out. Assuming Avernus has a backup power supply, cutting the power should still cause chaos. This first task is left up to Chessmaster XM8. If her task fails, her backup plan is to draw as much attention as possible - essentially a suicide mission in enemy territory. Team Unicorn (UMP sisters) job is to stay behind and maintain communications no matter what. Up next is the decoy team: Squad Ferrum. They will climb the tower via the power cables and then start a fight and occupy their main fighting force. They will get no relief until the two unmet backup forces arrive at the towers. Squad Nitrogen and Squad Umbrella will be the search teams. They have found 3 2-seater aircraft at the nearby outpost and can use them to reach the towers. The final objective:

“Ensure Angelia's safety and bring her back to Berlin.”

        They are up against at least six high-ranking Nytos, and they feel they can handle any of them individually in a fight except two: Narciss and an unmet Nyto (Nehmran). Their only plan against Narciss is to run, they can’t match the firepower of her floating blades and laser cannon without Dandelion or M4. RO lets them know that the last two members have arrived, but she is keeping their identities a secret just in case. RO notices the doubts on her teams’ faces and turns off the recording, then gives one last speech just to them. She admits that the mission is incredibly challenging and likely suicidal. But even if it’s all just to save one human, she explains that its purpose is greater than that.

RO: “She knows that if the power of the Relics is abused, the world will end up like the ground beneath our feet. She has tried to save the world all this while, and now it is time for us to save her.”

        With these final words, RO commences the operation, the members still anxious but reassured. On the Stasi’s side, Romy and J find out that they’ve lost communications with the Dolls that went into the Dead Sea. J wants to send backup, but Romy has a different mission for him. After landing in Frankfurt, General Scweinsteiger has suddenly changed all their plans, so she knows something happened on the plane. She orders J to investigate a list of names connected to the Ministry of Defense. He’s not happy about being told they can’t reinforce Operation Aeneas, but Romy says their involvement with it is over. Later, K reminds J that they might still be able to send help unofficially, then contacts the Commander and lets him know that Kryuger should be released soon.

        Morridow lies on a surgical table in Avernus at the brink of death. William arrives and takes a sharp scalpel to her face, asking what information she can provide. She has only seconds to convince him, but luckily it takes only one word: “Lunasia.” Morridow tells him that she saw Lunasia in person, and projects memories that were given to her by “M4," or more accurately a version of Lunasia in Dandelion's body that was part of M4. The memory is of Lunasia and “William” talking in the garden as children. William is violently enraged by her having seen this and the scalpel presses against her throat.

Her life, or perhaps her death, is entirely at the whim of the person before her.

        William calms down shortly after and Morridow explains further that Lunasia is gone but she knows how to find her again. With that, William prepares to repair and modify Morridow. Shortly after, the Earl receives a discreet message from an informant within Avernus: Morridow has not only survived, but been promoted due to a girl named Lunasia.

        Chessmaster XM8 plants sticky pulse bombs from Persica at the power supply station below Avernus, stealthily sneaking past and hiding from Paradeus patrols. Inside the tower, Nehmran leads all the high ranking Nytos in ceremonial prayer.

The amassed Nytos gather around the faint light pouring on that fiendish-looking statue. Led by Nemhran, their voices blend into a chorus.

        Suddenly, the main power goes out and alarms sound. They quickly realize the power station has been attacked and there are intruders on the landing platform. Most of the Nytos mobilize, but Nehmran is largely unconcerned. She detects 14 Dolls on the premises, and takes command of Paradeus’ forces and sends them to counter the invaders. She warns Gray that this is her last chance, but Gray can only think of Grig barely alive in the repair tank.

        Squad Ferrum arrives at the Avernus bottom landing platform and immediately starts shooting the place up. Five minutes later, they’re surprised by a massive explosion as Narciss arrives and easily blasts away the debris that were blocking her path.

In the end, her murderous gaze turns to the two S.F. Dolls standing side by side.

“Are you the maggots who dared disturb Big Sister's rest?”

        As they prepare to board the eastern tower, RO gets a call from Chessmaster. Avernus has a backup power supply that will last for an hour. She’ll keep trying to break stuff, but they’ve got her surrounded so she’ll be too busy fighting for her life to do much else. The search teams won’t have time to search both towers, they’re going to have to leave it to chance. They pick a tower and land, but soon find out that Narciss has engaged Squad Ferrum, who boast that they can survive for ten minutes against her. As they talk over comms, UMP9 tells them to just give up and they soon realize that she’s been hacked by Bramedb. They immediately kick her from the comms channel while UMP45 undoes the hack. Bramedb sends the data she hacked to Nehmran: all the Nytos now have data on the Dolls’ history and weaknesses. Their plans have been exposed, but they still have room for error because of the two members they’ve kept secret.

        At the bottom of Avernus, one of the secret members reveal themselves. It’s AK-15 of the DEFY Wolfpack, freshly upgraded and outfitted with the best gear possible. AK-15 engages Gray nearly wordlessly.

 “...”

        Squad Nitrogen lands on the Bridge of Judgment (floor 35) on the eastern tower. They swiftly clear out troops and start searching, but before long they are stopped by Nehmran herself. Nehmran and her holograms fly through the air and attack the intruders with small explosives and hacking as the three Dolls try to shoot her down. After five minutes of this, Mona realizes Nehmran is unable to actually finish them off herself. RO orders them to keep Nehmran occupied at the bridge to prevent her from linking up with any other high ranking Nytos that could make up for that weakness. Then the rest of task force Aeneas loses connection with Nitrogen as Nehmran jams their signal.

        Below Avernus, UMP45 tries to strengthen the signal connection until she and UMP9 realize their location has been discovered. Aircraft circle overhead and Paradeus troop transports approach in the distance. They have no choice but to defend the comms equipment.

“Even if we give it our all, and by "all," I mean our lives, I doubt we can keep them busy for too long. Do you understand that?”

        While Squad Umbrella searches the Eastern tower, they make contact with the last late arrivals: M16 and Beak. She agrees to search the Western tower.

Operation Aeneas team locations

Knowing that they’ll have to deal with Bramedb, M16 and Beak split up so that she can’t hack one to attack the other. M16 searches as she climbs up from the lower tower, knocking out lights and alarms along the way. She finds a suspicious research lab whose lights had stayed on and investigates. Inside, she is surprised to encounter RPK-16, aka Pandora. They fight in the labs as bullets destroy equipment around them. RPK-16 speaks in riddles and says that they’re similar, and M16 realizes that RPK-16 is restrained by a cable like a dog on a leash. Unable to crack RPK-16’s force shield, she decides to close the distance. She distracts RPK-16 with a smoke grenade then ignites an oxygen tank and charges through the resulting explosion. M16 pushes RPK-16 into a corner and disables her shoulder joint, then puts one hand on her neck while another raises a knife. She orders RPK-16 to open the door that leads further inside.

RPK-16: “Freedom is the right to defiance.”

M16: “Wrong. Freedom is choosing to be loyal despite the right to defiance.”

        Suddenly, mechanical tether-like arms sprout from the floor and ceiling and restrain M16’s arm.

At the power station, Chessmaster is covered in cuts and bullet holes as an onslaught of paradeus troops try to encircle her. She prepares to go down fighting.

        Squad Ferrum and Narciss have now been fighting for 20 minutes. Gager has to charge in to save Architect and loses an arm for it. Now she’s unable to hold her weapon. Immediately after, Architect’s legs are blown off by an explosion. Without missing a beat, Gager puts Architect over her shoulder and requests to retreat, but Architect won’t give up. She starts firing at Narciss from atop Gager’s back and they continue the fight, running and gunning as a tandem fighter.

“...You bastards. Do you have something against my legs?!!”

        Squad Nitrogen struggles against Nehmran, who is slowly attacking their neural clouds with electromagnetic interference. Unable to contact everyone else, Mona orders No. 9 and Rhino to head for the western tower. She’ll try to keep Nehmran occupied on her own.

Mona looks up and meets Nemhran's cold eyes...I've seen hell worse than this. As if I'd let you stop me.

        Showing her new strength, AK-15 throws entire trucks at Gray as they slowly climb the spiral staircase. She makes an opportunity to place an explosive charge into Gray’s tail. With the resulting explosion, Gray’s best defensive tool is weakened. AK-15 empties her magazine into Gray, who can’t block the bullets effectively anymore. Suddenly, Paradeus reinforcements arrive from an elevator and fire at AK-15 from above. As AK-15 fights through the small army that poured in, the wounded Gray retreats and asks Nehmran for help, sending her data about AK-15 and warning about an unknown AN-94. Barely pleased, she sends the partially repaired Grig to help, as long as Gray can retreat to the elevator. But as the doors open, Gray is surprised to find not Grig, but an upgraded AN-94 waiting for her. 94 fires a single bullet into Gray’s forehead. Grig steps out of another elevator just in time to see AN-94 fill Gray with bullets, who then falls from the platform as Grig watches in horror.

In her weightless state, she sees Grig sprinting down the spiral staircase. In her eyes, the whole world seems to be in slow motion. As if unwilling to let go, Gray extends her arm and reaches out, but her fingers wrap around nothing but the empty air. In a mighty crash, Gray returns to the eternal darkness.

        With M16 restrained, RPK-16 thinks she’s won, but then she notices an explosive patch M16 had placed on her chest. As it explodes, the tethers go limp and M16 is free to repeatedly punch RPK-16 in the face. But RPK-16 remains playfully calm throughout the encounter, and now that they are connected, M16 cryptically understands why. RPK-16 then tells M16 that her target isn’t here and she needs to leave, so M16 leaves and RPK-16 sends the data of the fight to Nehmran. M16 tells RO that Ange is definitely in the eastern tower and that her job here is done. RO tries to contact UMP45 to ask her to notify all teams to prepare for withdrawal, but UMP45’s response is dejected.

“There is no one left to withdraw... Umbrella. We can give you five... no, maybe three minutes.”

        RO and Sop-II try to contact the other teams, but get no response. They press onward in their search for Ange but are stopped by Bramedb, who taunts them with the sounds of their comrades fighting and dying but RO isn’t sure they are real or not. All they know is that Squad Ferrum is still fighting. RO and Sop-II know Bramedb’s weakness is close quarters combat, so they coordinate to let Sop-II get in close, but RO doesn’t have enough firepower and Sop-II is pinned down by Paradeus troops.

        Sop-II tells RO that a nearby door is controlled only from the inside, so they can fight their way up to it then escape to go find Ange instead of wasting their time fighting. RO makes it through the door first, then Sop-II kicks it shut and locks it…between them. She had lied, the door only locks from the outside.

“I can't bear to watch you... Not again… I won't let you... right before my eyes…”

        RO wants to break down the door to help Sop-II fight Bramedb, but doesn’t want Sop’s effort to be in vain. She promises to go find Ange and then come back to help, and Sop-II promises to hold on until RO gets back. Then RO steels herself and runs on.

        Grig escapes from DEFY, but they have other concerns. One last Nyto makes her reappearance: Morridow, freshly upgraded, acting like an old friend.

“Seeing you means I'm getting closer to my target.”

        Morridow holds her ground against the joint attack of the wolfpack, but they realize they have no time to fight her and retreat. And Morridow…doesn’t stop them.

        RO635 frantically searches for Ange without caution until she is stopped by a strange black Nyto. She tries to shoot it but it knocks her barrel back and then matches her in hand to hand combat. Suddenly, the Nyto, Koleda, asks if she’s looking for Ange. Koleda tells RO that Ange won’t go with her, but RO knocks her down and trains her weapon on the Nyto once more. Koleda, defeated, asks her to follow and leads RO to Ange’s room.

        Squad Unicorn desperately tries to get the comms back up, but Paradeus troops are now at their doorstep. UMP9 suddenly uploads a neural cloud backup to UMP45 without warning.

        “Stay safe, 45.”

UMP45 reaches out to grab UMP9 by the shoulder, but grasps nothing. As if her previous frailty never was, UMP9 vaults over her cover nimbly and charges straight towards the Paradeus troops, who are just several feet away.

        A massive shockwave knocks UMP45 to the ground. When she gets back to her feet, she sees the shattered remains of a battlefield strewn with bodies from UMP9’s suicidal explosion. Wordlessly, she restores the connection of the Aeneas comms network just in time to hear RO say the mission is complete.

        An hour after losing contact with Task Force Aeneas, the Commander waits in silence with an anxious AR-15 and solemn Dandelion. The connection is restored and they eagerly enter the Aeneas Conference Room. Inside, they see a user list. Umbrella, Unicorn, Ferrum, and Nitrogen are offline. Chessmaster and Black Box are logged out, and DEFY is extracted. All they find is a single file labeled “For the Commander.” They play the video and Ange speaks to them.

“I'm really sorry, but I can't leave this place just yet. I will tell you the reason—you deserve that much. But before that, you must answer a question. Commander, what should we look to in order to save the world?”

        Ange locks the rest of the video behind a password. The Commander has to choose between the past, the present, and the future. People like the Earl fight for the past, the old ways, and people like William fight for the future, but Ange and the Commander fight to safeguard the present. They type in the present and the video resumes. She tells the Commander that the Earl’s goal isn’t to eradicate Paradeus, but to bring William under his control. She has received Persica’s gift from RO and has some help here. She has a plan, but doesn’t have time to tell the Commander before the feed cuts off.

Ange: “A demon is a demon, not because of his greed, but because he possesses a demon's powers. We must not let him acquire this power, which has already cost so many lives… As for William, I think it's time we settle things with him.”

        Atop the platform where Ferrum had battled against Narciss, Grig approaches Morridow and begs for her to save Gray, whose corpse Grig has hauled all the way from the bottom of the tower. Morridow tells her to give up; there’s no way Father would resurrect a failure. Grig is emotionally broken by the truth, and Morridow leaves her in her sorrow.

“We're no different from them, Grig. A Nyto is nothing more than trash generated in the process of creating an individual with total immunity. As long as we are Nytos, we are failures. Because we are ALL disposable trash. You, me...And Gray.”

        In Berlin, the Commander meets Kryuger, Helian, and Persica at the hospital where the big man is recovering from his wounds sustained in the attack by Carter on Unity Day. After a brief sentimental reunion, Helian and Persica leave so that Kryuger can talk to the Commander alone.

“But when I think about how, at the beginning, Kalina said that all I'd have to do was fight a few S.F. units, I can't help but think you scammed me, Boss.”

        Kryuger and the Commander talk about everything they’ve been through, and the Commander admits that everything that has happened in Berlin has shattered their illusions of being able to make a real difference.

“If this were two years ago, I might have gone along with the Earl's ‘grand vision’ and ‘great insight’. But right now, I won't accept it. The world they promise is too wonderful—so good that it seems completely out of reach. I don't want to live on those expectations. I only want to seize the present.”

        Kryuger tells the Commander that they remind him of Carter when they were younger and great friends in the Soviet military. They prevented a relic disaster together and were hailed as heroes. But they went on different paths, Carter stayed in the military his ideals warped him into the monster he is today. He tells the Commander that they seem to be on that same path… the one that led him to be jaded and Carter to be insane.

K: “It looks like you're going to embark on our path... It is a very long journey, and it will involve unimaginable suffering. I've spent most of my life walking it and lost many things along the way, from my ideals, to my passion, and even that old friend.”

C: “No matter how far, or how long, or how painful that road might be... I believe... that there really is a destination to that path.”

K: “You're absolutely right... Perhaps I won't see the destination… But everything I've done will not go to waste, because it will become the foundation of this path.

C: “I might not be the one who sees it and reaches it in the end, but so what? I'm willing to take one step closer to that destination. Before me, there were those who walked the same path, and there will definitely be others after me. Mr. Kryuger, our ideals will never wear out, no matter how much time passes. That destination WILL appear.”

Girls' Frontline: Fixed Point ED "Solar Sea"

Season 4: Past, Present, Future

After all, she is the first human he has seen after so long that made him feel that roses might exist.

Eclipses and Saros (13.?) [side story]

“Fear is like ink dumped into a tank of water; it spreads on its own even without deliberate stirring, diffusing and dying everything naturally.”

        The Commander receives a gift from StateSec: Aliana (SCAR-L). She was a veteran of WWIII and has since been upgraded and refitted, but oddly there’s a disturbing protocol in her base layer that they can’t read. They’re still shorthanded on Dolls so the Commander puts her in charge of a team and sends them on a mission to prevent a terrorist attack.

        Meanwhile, a writer in Berlin named Cheryl has just ordered a Doll to help clean and give massages, but instead receives a broken old Doll whose power supply can barely hold a charge. Cheryl tries to have her returned or recycled but nobody will take her. The seller, a shady Doll named Catherine, gives her a trip for two to Frankfurt as compensation while they sort it out. This old Doll, who calls herself Samo, talks to other voices in her neural cloud. In truth, Samo had replaced the real Doll Cheryl ordered because she had felt something strange about her.

Cheryl: “WHAT THE F—!!!... Pull that cable out at once! And take off my sunglasses!”

        Cheryl takes Samo on the trip with her since she has no friends, but things aren’t quite right at the Berlin train station. Trains are late and Samo realizes the internet has been cut; she gets ready for an attack. The crowd gets riled as people go for refunds, and it brings memories back to Cheryl from when a terrorist attack had occurred at her school as a child. They both are keen to danger so they hide in the bathroom, where Cheryl finds a bomb and excitedly stops it with a liquid nitrogen freeze gun that she brings with her everywhere.

“The god of inspiration must be blessing me, and this is the stage for my new work... “

        They try to leave, but bombs go off and in the panic Cheryl is partially trampled. Samo puts her somewhere safe then takes the freeze gun to try to find more bombs.

        Aliana’s squad arrives at the train station in response to the attack to control the crowds and start scanning for more bombs. They receive gunfire and get into a firefight, but Aliana is interrupted when she senses a connection she hasn’t felt in 13 years. It tries to avoid her, so she abandons her team and chases after it.

        Samo gives Cheryl a bullet casing to act as a dummy to distract her pursuer and flees, but Cheryl realizes something. During the attack in her childhood, she had been struck temporarily blind by a blow to the head and her kind savior had given her a bullet casing to remember her by – the bullet casings are identical. Samo flees but it doesn’t take long for Aliana to find her.

Aliana: “Can you still hold a gun? ‘Daybreak’ Squad's—Deserter.”

Samo: “You have NO right to say that to me. You...You TRAITOR! ...I will kill you.”

        Aliana gives her old teammate a chance to leave, and Samo, knowing her own terrible condition, accepts but promises to kill her someday.

        Back at base, Aliana explains to the Commander that she was part of the Daybreak squad that went on Operation Coatl during WWIII. Their squad was an experiment to increase Doll performance to make them serviceable in combat, and the result of this was the “dog tags” in Aliana’s base layer. Coincidentally, Coatl also took place in a floating tower in the red zone… the same place now known as Avernus. Their objective was to take out a target named “Laplace,” someone affiliated with the relic agency. She tells the Commander she still has business with a “traitor” from her squad and the Commander decides to respect her judgment and gives her permission to handle it.

        Cheryl excitedly explains to Samo that she must be the heroic big sister that saved her in the past, but Samo’s memories are a jumbled mess. During operation Coatl, when the other Daybreak members were killed, their memories all ended up in Samo’s neural cloud. And all their last memories are of Aliana killing them. After speaking with the others in her mind, Samo realizes that her name is actually Amaris, and the one that had saved Cheryl in the past was a fallen teammate named Eula. They used the same ammunition. She explains everything to Cheryl, who offers to help, but Amaris doesn’t want to put her in danger.

        Aliana’s squad breaks into Cheryl’s apartment, where they are stopped by the girl in pajamas. They try to explain themselves, but Amaris isn’t here and Aliana has already ditched them to look for her.

Cheryl: "You can look forward to having your three square meals in jail! I've already called the cops!”

M26-MASS: “...Wait a minute. We're accessories at most. Our boss is gone now.”

Cheryl: “Like I care. Go tell it to the judge.”

        Aliana’s squad is arrested and the Commander has to bail them out of jail. Her squad now hates her and requests to be rid of their team leader. But one of them is missing: SCR, who also ditched them to tail Aliana because in Cheryl’s bedroom she had found a photo with some of Daybreak’s old squad members, and one of them (Eula) was the same model as SCR. SCR catches up to Aliana and questions her about why she picked SCR to be on her squad. SCR tries to get her to open up but she refuses to defend her actions or explain further and doesn’t want to form relationships with her teammates anymore. She leaves SCR behind.

Amaris: “I am the moon that swallows the sun. Just like how the eclipse is the shadow that swallows all daylight.”

        Agent J, after a thorough search, finds Amaris in an alley and they make a deal where the Stasi will give her a full upgrade if she works for them once her business is done. After being upgraded, she calls on Aliana and they arrange a meeting to finish this for good.

They meet up in an abandoned Galatea skyscraper and fight. The true purpose of Operation Coatl was to create a stronger Doll by coalescence. Daybreak Squad was created to gain combat data and experience, then one chosen member, Aliana, the Sun of Daybreak, would absorb all their combat data in the form of their Dog Tags. She refused to carry out this order, but they put in a special command that forced her to do it against her wishes. She had no choice but to hunt down her comrades one by one during the mission and kill them to absorb their combat experience. Amaris, meanwhile, had been created with spare neural cloud space as the “Moon” of Daybreak Squad, who would absorb all the memories and useless data of fallen members so that Aliana wouldn’t be burdened by it. Despite all the power that Aliana gained from killing her comrades, she still wasn’t strong enough to complete the mission. Aliana refuses to explain it to anyone because she doesn’t want to avoid responsibility for it.

Callisto: “Wars end when the bullets run out.”

Aliana: “There will be an end to war.”

Aliana gives Amaris the advantage of long range, then hunts her down and closes the distance. Amaris realizes that she can’t win at close range and turns it into an electronic battle and draws Aliana into her own Neural Cloud. There, Amaris manages to defeat her, but refuses to kill Aliana the way she had killed their team. Instead, Amaris gives the “dog tags” back to the individual neural clouds in her own mind, then leaves.

The weak, useless Amaris that always needed to be cared for by others… At some point, when she was not aware of it, she had sprouted, blossomed, and grown into a towering tree that even she could not budge.

        SCR finds Aliana and convinces her to come back and be a member of a team again, to prove her own strength so that nobody will try to force her to be stronger.

        Now that Amaris’ mission is done, all the personalities of the fallen Daybreak members say goodbye and vanish from her neural cloud so she can be free of them. She joins the Stasi and works under Romy.

Longitudinal Strain (13.??) [side story]

【GhostFinal】Twilight .feat Kinoko_蘑菇 「Girls Frontline OST」 【ドールズフロントライン】Official

“Every human lives but once, and their souls descend on a journey towards death. Just like sand in an hourglass flowing from one end to another”

        Chimes ring out in a Warsaw train station to signal that the trans-siberian armored train “Future” is about to depart for Berlin. The stewardess Susanna boards the first class carriage and starts checking tickets, but the fates of many of its passengers are already intertwined. She checks on an old woman in a wheelchair, “Ms. Valeriya,” but the lady is suddenly whisked away by a big bodyguard. Susanna then greets Instructor Lyudmilla, a StateSec Doll that keeps checking her watch, and gets a message from Maggie Ponzi, a con artist Doll that Susanna allows to operate on the train in exchange for a 30% cut. One of Ms. Valeriya’s companions, the sharply dressed Nikolai lets her know that their client Tareus is on board, with Maggie acting as her representative. Ms. Valeriya refuses to even look at Maggie and is disappointed in Nikolai. He didn’t expect Maggie to show up considering how much money she swindled from him in the past and wants her out of his business.

        Meanwhile, in the 2nd class carriage, people and Dolls are crammed in like sardines and an alarm goes off, presumably from detecting collapse contamination. Susanna dismisses it as being typical for this voyage that goes through the Red Zone and doesn’t care about the second class passengers with no money. In the crowd are two Dolls, the unassuming Erma and loudmouth Catherine, who put their luggage away amidst the blaring alarms. Catherine, an associate of Maggie’s, has bought Erma a ticket as part of a deal to be fulfilled later. A construction droid named Pavel helps Erma navigate the crowd and slowly sets a huge suitcase down by his feet. He has also brokered a deal with Catherine and promises Erma that the alarms are not her fault and are just the result of entering the Red Zone. Pavel comments on the alarm being too loud for children and rips it out. Maggie thanks Catherine for keeping those clients close until they can enter the “Colt Express,” a level II neural cloud space she created in the image of an old western train where Doll clients can enter and participate in rigged auctions. Catherine has bagged “Erma” as an easy client, and plans to scam her so that Maggie can replace her old body with Erma’s.

Erma, Maggie, and Lyudmilla

Erma: “All fiction is rooted in reality.”

        Erma’s journey started when she woke up in a Doll exhibition behind glass like a puppy in a pet store. The only thing she could consistently remember is a place called the “Summer Garden” where she had once served her Creator and can still access within her Neural Cloud. The Summer Garden helped her remember her name. She broke out of the exhibition and found the real location of the garden in St. Petersburg, but it had wilted from 2 years of neglect. The more she learns about herself, the more secrets she can unlock in the Summer Garden inside her Neural Cloud. With each unlock she is able to create an “Anchor Point” there to remember it in the future. One such unlock pointed her towards the Colt Express. Her search for it led her to Catherine, who agreed to pay her ticket to the Future but had a bigger scam in mind for her.

        In the past, Maggie and Catherine had been members of the notorious Fox Sisterhood, a shady organization of skilled con artists. After the organization fell apart, Maggie and Catherine set up a scheme making and authenticating forged paintings. Nikolai had discovered the truth at an auction and blackmailed Maggie for a huge cut of their profits going forward in exchange for his “authentication” as well. He thought he was getting the better of them but is actually an idiot and didn’t realize they still controlled the account they were using to pay him and took all the money before running off, humiliating him in front of Baba Lyuba and the other Vory v Zakone, a Russian crime ‘family’ he belonged to. The Vory are satanists and cruelly forsake all blood-kin to join the ranks - Baba Lyuba, one of its upper ranks, went as far as to murder her own husband to join many years past.

In response to Nikolai’s humiliation two years ago, they attacked Maggie, kidnapped Catherine, and encased her in cement. To save her partner, Maggie made a deal with Mrs. Gray from Paradeus who agreed to save them from the Vory in exchange for doing some jobs for them. One is to meet with Tareus and allow the Bee Sting System to take over the Siberian Lifeline with help from the Colt Express. Gray found Maggie impressive and offered her an upgrade and access to the Bee Sting system for her role in the operation. Maggie took a peak in the Bee Sting and heard Nytos interrogating the Commander during Continuum Turbulence. Maggie and Catherine aren’t too keen on their new employer and just want to get the job done and retire together peacefully.

Maggie: “It's just a matter of perspective— extortion is still a kind of transaction. In fact, aren't all transactions at least a little extortionate?”

        Lyudmilla is revealed to be a StateSec Agent on a secret mission - so secret that she doesn’t even know what it is. Lyudmila has an alternate consciousness inside of her, “Instructor Я,” who knows all the details of the plan but only guides her towards taking appropriate action when Lyudmila uses her watch. In the past, Instructor Я had been in control of missions but was often too by-the-book and even had to have her squad rescued by Ange when she first encountered Paradeus. Imstructor Я tells her to investigate the Colt Express, its trafficking network, and the affiliations of its owner. She plays the part of a client.

Lyudmila: “I gave the order to withdraw as instructed by the command handbook. Judging by the result, it was a sound decision.”

Ange: “All real ‘commanders’ are forged in the fire of the frontlines.Tactical handbooks are only just the summation of past experiences. Why didn't you go with your subordinates' recommendation?”

        Erma, Maggie, Catherine, Lyudmilla, and Pavel enter the dining car and are soon brought into the Colt Express inside Maggie’s Neural Cloud. They are all assigned card names (e.g. Pavel is 7 of Clubs) and the clients are brought to separate train cars to be part of an anonymous digital auction. Pavel bids on some Idunn, but has to compete against a fake anonymous “Jack of Diamonds” that always raises his offer. When the Jack raises the price to 3.8 ounces of Gold, Pavel gives up. Maggie then rewinds the conversation back to Pavel’s last offer and accepts it. This is how the Colt Express scam makes such a huge profit: by tricking Doll clients to always pay the maximum they’re willing to pay for something they want.

        Erma came here to get all the information about “Erma Hume,” her full name, and is frustrated that Maggie won't tell her anything. Lyudmilla also recognizes the name but keeps her cards hidden. Nikolai calls Catherine to warn Maggie that the “hunt” is about to begin, and their scam is cut short. Lyudmilla pulls Erma into the bathroom to interrogate her, but she’s oddly resistant to electronic attacks.

The burly man, Danil, blows open the door to the dining carriage and respectfully guides Ms. Valeriya’s wheelchair in.

Ms Valeriya: “You're wrong about two things, little girl. First of all—I mean business. Second—you should call me…”

“BABA LYUBA!”

“Leave all your jewelry on the tables and open your luggage.”

        Baba Lyuba, the leader of the last known Vory v Zakone group, fires two shotguns into the carriage to terrify the guests and officially starts the train robbery. Maggie remains in her Level II to complete the mission so Catherine is on her own here. The guests have little choice but to follow the Vory’s instructions as the robbery expands to the other train cars. Baba gives orders to proceed and Danil gets ready to execute Catherine. Just as he pulls the trigger, Maggie shoves her aside and tells them that there’s a T-Doll hiding in the restroom.

Maggie: “I get the feeling that something big is going to happen—big enough to change the entire world.”

Catherine: “Another Great Flood?”

Maggie: “Well, we're insignificant specks compared to the Flood and the world. But don't forget that only the tiniest ants can crawl through the gaps and onto Noah's Ark.”

        From the restroom, Lyudmila tries to plot how they’re going to take the train back from the Vory, but they’re up against a dozen enemies in this car alone, including Baba Lyuba, and Erma is more concerned with how Lyudmila knows Dr. Hume, whom Erma calls “Mama,” and soon realizes that Dr. Hume created them both. Erma then climbs into a vent and Lyudmilla opens the restroom door to find Danil’s shotgun in her face. He takes her hostage and advises her to cooperate, but she knows the Vory don’t tend to leave survivors. As Nikolai is about to cuff her, she surprises him and starts strangling him with the cuffs. She tries to escape with Nikolai as her human shield, but Baba Lyuba remorsefully orders them to fire. Lyudmilla pushes Nikolai away and dashes into the next carriage through a hail of bullets as the Vory give chase and Maggie takes the opportunity to sneak out as well. They run into each other in another carriage and Maggie convinces Lyudmila to work together.

        Erma climbs through the vent onto the roof of the train and dodges its automatic defense turrets to reach the second class carriage. Meanwhile, in the train the Vory rob the passengers and move the ones that were weak or gave their money quickly to another carriage where they are disposed of. One passenger manages to call for help but neither the Soviets nor the Germans have jurisdiction here and can’t help until they reach Poznan. An older gentleman from the 1st class Carriage, Dr. Rugosa is stubbornly objecting to their actions at serious risk to himself when Lyudmila gets in and takes the Vory out.

“I want to stand up against the Vory. Please lead us in doing so.”

        Lyudmila agrees to lead them, but Instructor Я wishes for her to stick to the mission. Maggie has changed the electronic locks on the train and bought them some time. Just as the Vory start beating on the door to get in, Erma pokes her head out of the ventilation shaft, and has a method to create a communications channel for all Dolls on the train and the Vory can’t jam it. She sets up a group channel where all the train’s Dolls can communicate, then contacts Catherine and Pavel, who are still tied up as hostages, and gets them in on her plan to fight the Vory.

        Across the train, all the Dolls start reporting the conditions and enemy count inside their train cars. Meanwhile, Dr. Rugosa convinces all the passengers here to move to the first class carriage, which is the safest place to defend. Erma, Maggie, and Lyudmilla bicker professionally as they prepare to fight. Lyudmilla decides to let Instructor Я handle this one. The Vory finally break down the door to the dining carriage, but find it dark and empty. Then the trap is sprung and purification gas fills the car. The Vory put on their gas masks, reducing their visibility to nothing. In their blindness, Instructor Я takes them out one by one. As she works, Erma and Maggie rescue Catherine and Pavel from the other Carriage, and open the door for Instructor Я to escape after the Vory caught on. Before they have a chance to celebrate, a massive explosion rocks the entire train and it derails.

Night

“I haven't even won 500 credits with my lottery tickets. I can't just die here…”

        News of the train’s derailment reaches Berlin, and the Commander receives a confusing distress call. They dispatch Kar98k and Lee Enfield to lead a rescue operation to save “Midnight Star,” meet up with the “Grand Duke,” and ensure the success of Operation Eclipse. They depart in the MBV “Elmo,” a gift from StateSec.

        A disoriented Susanna makes her way through the derailed lower class carriages after escaping from the Vory, but finds no survivors in the carnage. She tries to call Berlin for help but can’t get a stable connection. She finds survivors in another car, who then panic on learning that someone’s infected with ELID and there appear to be lights outside in the distance. She flashes an SOS towards the lights, who respond appropriately. Relief fills the carriage as they search for gas masks to meet their rescuers. Lyudmilla orders Susanna to shut the door, and before Susanna can react, scared passengers start rushing out the exit towards the lights. The passengers that exited are gunned down unceremoniously by the splinter Soviet military force that was the cause of the derailment. They are aligned with both the Vory and Paradeus and want to stop Operation Eclipse from succeeding.

           Operation Eclipse had important intel, codenamed “Grand Duke,” to send from StateSec to Berlin, and did so through 4 carriers at the same time in different methods: Morning Star by military helicopter, Noonday Star by train, Evening Star by military convoy, and Midnight Star. Two have already fallen, leaving only Midnight Star - Lyudmilla, and Noonday Star, who is presumably someone secretly also on The Future.

        Lyudmilla saw that the forces in the distance were deployed in an attack formation. Their attention then turns to the ELID patient. It’s a blind girl named Rosita, and the passengers want to throw her out. Pavel pleads for Lyudmilla to let Rosita get to Berlin for treatment instead. Lyudmilla rallies everyone left to head to the first class carriage to find Dr. Rugosa.

Rosita: “D-don't hand me over to these people. They hate me... I... I don't want to stay in a place like that anymore… I... I don't want to go back to a place where everyone hates me. Just leave me here... At least you're here, Pavel. Having you with me is good enough.”

Before they can get there, they have another fight with what’s left of the Vory, but with their many injuries from past fights and the derailment, the Vory are beaten and leave the train to regroup with their military conspirators. Baba Lyuba asks to meet with Captain Ivan, the one in charge. She delivers a suitcase full of Doll cores to him, but he says there’s a change of plan and he doesn’t have enough seats to get all the Vory out. Baba Lyuba argues that General Carter still needs the Vory’s help to take over the Soviet Union, but will fight to the death if that’s what it takes.

        Just as all the Vory and conspirators have their guns trained on each other, Captain Ivan gives a cue and half the Vory switch sides. Danil shoots Nikolai and Baba Lyuba opens fire on everyone. Before long, Ivan shoots her. She grabs Nikolai’s dying body and Danil reveals that he discovered she broke the rules of the Vory to give up family - she hid that Nikolai was her son.

Baba Lyuba: “...Having a weakness is a terrifying thing.”

        Danil puts the gun to her head, and in a last ditch effort she grabs the barrel but is shot. Their corpses sink into the rainy swamp.

        Erma visits the Summer Garden in her mind once more, but this time recalls a conversation she had with Doctor Hume there. He had been messing with her memories and making her forget things solely to create an artificial intelligence that could resist mental tampering. The first time she remembered something he had tried to erase, an anchor point she called the Stork, he celebrated her success. She tries to pry further into these memories, but they are scattered, confused, and she keeps hearing a gunshot. She is shot, or she isn’t.

Erma: “I want to be a complete "self". Each of my memories is precious to me. They shape me, they accompany me, and they comfort me.”

Lyudmila: “Memories aren't all good, you know.”

Erma: “So what? The good memories are mine, and the painful memories are also mine. Together, they make up all of me.”

Lyudmilla pulls her out of her stupor and tries to get her to the 1st class carriage, but they soon realize they’ve been pulled into someone else’s Level II layer. A woman in white attacks them, and Lyudmilla recognizes her as a Nyto. Two drones crash through the window and Erma steps forward to shield Lyudmilla. Since this is in level II, Erma neutralizes the electronic attack of the drones.

[Erma] has never seen her before, but she knows with certainty that no matter what, she must not let her anywhere near Lyudmila.

        Maggie joins the Paradeus figure named Tareus, and Erma loses her cool. Maggie eggs her on by revealing that the Doctor Hume she’s been looking for was shot by a Soviet agent long ago, and Lyudmilla knew that already and didn’t tell her. But before Tareus can dispatch the two projects of Doctor Hume and retrieve their neural cores, Lyudmilla activates her watch, Maggie reacts, and all 3 of them disappear. Lyudmilla, having escaped the Level II, requests her real orders from Instructor Я now that Maggie is clearly no longer the goal.

        Maggie returns to the Colt Express, with an angry Erma in her grasp. She tells Erma to relax but Erma jumps out the train window instead and reappears in her seat.

Erma: “I did say, ‘I'll tear your precious Colt Express apart,’ remember? You think I was kidding?! Compared to the Summer Garden, your attempt to disguise your Level II platform as a train is practically cotton candy.”

        Erma takes over her own physics in the level II space and changes her own position, making her break through the wall. The train automatically tries to reset her position to where it should be, and she immediately does it again, and again, tearing Erma-sized holes everywhere in the train. Maggie begs her to stop, revealing that she brought Erma here to rescue her from Tareus. Maggie had figured out that Lyudmilla was on a secret mission and her destination was a Griffin Commander, one that she had seen go toe-to-toe with Paradeus from her prying into the Bee-sting system. She wants to ditch Paradeus and work for Griffin instead. Lyudmilla reluctantly agreed, but only on the condition that Maggie takes Erma with her.

“You see, most people don't get to choose the circumstances they are born into—you don't, and neither do I. Which is why I cherish every single choice that I DO get to make.”

        Tareus orders Captain Ivan to move in so they can capture Lyudmilla in person. They start swarming the train. Meanwhile, Susanna tries to keep the passengers calm as they finally reach the door to the first class carriage. The first class passengers don’t want to let Rosita in with them since she has ELID, but Dr. Rugosa lets her in as well. Pavel puts Rosita in his care and exits the carriage to fix the electrical system and set up defenses in the second carriage. Lyumilla gives Dr. Rugosa a gun before she leaves.

Dawn

Dr. Rugosa: “If I'm not mistaken, you are their objective?”

Lyudmilla: “...Yes. Which is why I will settle all of this by myself.”

        Maggie tells Erma all she knows about Doctor Hume. He occasionally sold products to her, and was interested in self-developing Doll research. He wanted to make Dolls an improvement on humanity. But all the Dolls she knew of from his experiments eventually went mad and were melted down. Maggie chastises her for calling Doctor Hume her “mother.”

“You're a Doll, and no matter how people may try to pretend otherwise, the relationship between you and them is servant and master. They control our lives, our futures, and our destiny. That's why interpersonal relationships among humans cannot be applied to us. No matter what you call each other, you shouldn't delude yourself. You are just a pet.”

        Suddenly, Maggie collapses from Paradeus interference, likely a backdoor that was planted in her in case of betrayal. Tareus confronts her in level II, demanding to know where Lyudmilla is, but Maggie turns it around by reaching into her own past as a Seance con artist to conjure up majestic scenarios to confuse her - an opera house, a casino, and an abandoned Paradeus plant full of rotting experiments. Lyudmilla enters the simulation as well to ask Maggie to distact Tareus for just a couple more minutes, so Maggie pulls Erma into the simulation as well and moves them all into Catherine’s level II. Catherine promises to buy them ten minutes as she draws from her past as a card-counting poker con artist to confuse Tareus with a technicolor cartoon world. It is her last stand.

Erma: “If he's my "mother", then that makes us sisters. And if he's not, then wouldn't I be a big joke?”

        Erma contacts Lyudmilla once more, asking her if it’s okay to call Doctor Hume “mother.” Lyudmilla simply replies that Erma is not a joke, and that the man’s full name is Arthur Hume. Then she jumps up onto the roof of the train, sets IR beacons around it, and braves a hail of bullets from Captain Ivan’s men. She runs across the train all the way towards the back, far from the survivors in the first class carriage.

The ruined serpentine bulwark acts like a divine beast under her command and helps her banish the annoying disruption. Right now, she is bathed in firelight. She holds her head high atop this mass of steel.

        Lyudmilla finishes radioing in the safe coordinates, then uses drones to call an airstrike on enemy armor. As she retreats, she is damaged by an explosion and her spotting drone is destroyed. As her air support comes around for another attack but can’t fire blind, she picks up the last targeting beacon herself and moves toward the enemy.

The white phosphorus bomb dropped from mid-air instantly ignites the woodland. Amidst the roaring blaze, a tank is blasted into the sky and instantly turned into a pile of scrap metal.

        Lyudmilla is destroyed, but she takes a massive portion of Captain Ivan’s unit with her, and sends a message to the Commander telling them that Erma will have “Grand Duke.”

...Mission Objective—Ensure the safe transfer of military command special authorization and exclusive comms channel, codenamed "Grand Duke".

 Pavel trades the Idunn serum he had bought with the life-savings of his entire workforce that died fixing the railway to the doctor as thanks, and goes in search of candy for her.

Dr. Rugosa is deeply troubled by Rosita, the girl in front of him. He had always wanted to save people as a doctor, but luck had never favored him. His service of ELID patients in the past caused the loss of both his wife and his son Lucas, because no matter how much he gave, people were scared and wanted more from him. But he continued his efforts and became chairman of the German drug regulation board. He refused to approve an experimental ELID treatment pushed by Paradeus-affiliated pharma companies, and subsequently lost his position.

He found work with Galatea with Lady Gray, and had complete confidence in Idunn. As a reward for his work, Gray gave him a Doll copy of his long-lost son, Lucas, to serve as a medical assistant. He was allowed to do street work saving lives of ELID patients, but she also made him perform immoral lethal experiments on orphans to search for a permanent cure. He convinced himself it was for the greater good. The last time he saw Rosita, it was in one of those experiments. She was one of the orphans from Berle that was given to him for the experiment, and she was the only one who survived being maliciously infected with ELID. He was ordered to dispose of her, but faked her death instead. She was disposed of in Warsaw and eventually rescued by Pavel, a bookworm construction droid who had come to Warsaw in search of a rose after their crew finished building the lifeline railway. Pavel wanted to find her a doctor in Berlin and snuck her aboard the Future in a suitcase.

Dr. Rugosa finally sees a chance to right his wrongs by saving Rosita, but the other passengers are scared and threaten to kill him if he wastes the serum on her instead of giving it to them when they’ve been exposed to radiation.

Dr. Rugosa: “I won't let anything be taken from me ever again!”

Dr. Rugosa spreads his arms to plant himself firmly in front of Lucas and Rosita.

        Pavel arrives and drives back the scared passengers, and Dr. Rugosa administers the serum successfully. Rosita is still unconscious, but has survived the worst of it thanks to Dr. Rugosa.

Erma and Maggie talk again, but their tension has eased from the sadness of losing Catherine and Lyudmilla. They realize that the help Lyudmilla had promised was coming in 10 minutes hasn’t come and something’s up. Maggie trusts everything else in Erma and confronts Tareus one last time in her seance room. Maggie puts her in the Phantom of the Opera and Tareus struggles to overcome the trickery as Maggie makes her feel like a drone following orders like the lower-ranking black and white Nytos.

Tareus: ”...Those who have seen your face, Draw back in fear… I am the mask you wear.”

        Finally Tareus regains control of her weaponry and starts blasting holes in the worldspaces created by Maggie, but Maggie creates new ones just as fast as they’re destroyed, until suddenly she’s with Gray in the prayer room of Avernus. Longitudinal Strain takes place about the same time as Fixed Point’s conclusion so Tareus is knocked off balance by Gray referencing her own death. After seeing this reaction, Maggie calls her a half breed - neither completely human nor completely Doll.

        Erma makes her way into the first class carriage, claiming she needs to kill one person so all may be saved. She orders everyone onto their feet and spies Tareus’ real body sitting on the floor. She puts the muzzle of Maggie’ Colt Walker to Tareus’ head and pulls the trigger. She then goes to meet Maggie in her level II. Maggie’s mind is falling apart from the strain she put it under trying to keep Tareus distracted. Erma offers her a neural backup in the form of a flower from the summer garden, and Maggie accepts and gives Erma the code to get the money from Nikolai’s account.

Erma: “If we become friends, then every time I think of you, I will remember an adventure on a train with a cunning and money-loving friend… Instead of… Being tricked into boarding a train by a con artist, then played like a fiddle by another liar.”

Maggie: “On this journey, I've done too many things that I would never have done. Sadly, no one will remember... Not even me.

On board the disintegrating Colt Express, Erma enfolds Maggie in a tight embrace.

Erma: “...I will remember.”

        Now that Tareus is dead, Kar98k is able to contact the commander from the Elmo and get permission to commence the rescue operation with assistance from the Commander. While Lyudmilla took out much of Captain Ivan’s armor, his force is still assaulting the train. The Dolls depart.

        Erma returns to the Summer Garden, and speaks the name “Arthur Hume” as an anchor point. A gate opens up and she sees Tareus demand his research. Pre-memory wipe Erma had been watching and Dr. Hume asks her to gather her things so they can go on a trip. He leads her through a secret escape tunnel

Dr. Hume: “I am very glad to have created you at the very beginning and end of my life. You are more than just a product of my craft; you are a work of art. You will never forget any memories, no matter how I try to delete them. As long as you find the appropriate anchor point.”

        He pats her on the head, hands her an Erma machine pistol, and asks her to walk far away and shoot him. She does so without question, not knowing what any of it means. As he lay dying, he thanks her and tells her she’s free now.

Like a massive firework, he erupts in the dark, wet alley. Blood and gunpowder stain Erma's face. It dyes the filthy ground red. All that's left is her, sitting on the ground, her wide eyes staring at the darkened sky…

        Tareus had planted a bomb inside Arthur to ensure he wouldn’t betray Paradeus. He wanted to go out on his own terms and protect his most cherished creation. Peering into her own relived memories, Erma feels more alone than ever. She has made friends from enemies throughout this trip, and all of them are dead now. She goes to the Summer Garden, finds the backups of Lyudmilla and Maggie there, but a hurricane blows through as her memories are lost once more. She promises to remember them no matter what it takes. Then she awakens without her memories, to the sound of gunfire and encouraging words from her rescuers. She asks to be taken to Griffin with them, but doesn’t understand why.

”...I feel like I've forgotten something very important.”

As the sun's red rays fill the sky, the muddy ground slowly dries. All traces of the chilly autumn rain from the night are nowhere to be found. All that is left is the lingering warmth where that torch has burned out. It is faint, but full of hope.

        The rescue team loads the survivors onto the Elmo, including Erma, Susanna, Dr. Rugosa, Pavel, and Rosita. When Erma reaches the Commander, the mission will be at last complete, as Lyudmilla hid a copy of the Grand Duke inside her neural cloud. This will give the Commander access to military comms channels and authorization to command military units and airstrikes.

At a train station in Berlin, a second Tareus reports to Nehmran that the mission is successful and the “Grand Duke” in Lyudmilla has been intercepted. The dead Tareus was haunted by memories of a little girl with bells on her backpack who was executed by the Vory, and the anguished cries of her mother. The girl’s name was Eve. No matter how many times her neural cognition image is restored, the name Eve still haunts the surviving Tareus and she names her mech after it. As she heads into the Berlin crowd, she watches a shooting star.

Slow Shock (Chapter 14)

“Where there is a question, there is always an answer.”

“Is that so? If everything in life is futile, then what is the point in struggling?”

        Before Operation Aeneas, Ange is put under the knife and her memories are searched and tampered with. They dive into memories from her school years, from her service in late WWIII, her time at Griffin, and her time working for StateSec.

Ange’s Memories

Dr. Meitner: “When all human morality, our very sense of good and evil, is utterly lost, I do not see any hope in saving humanity…Only an adventurer has the courage to enjoy the ride.”

The young Ange was an orphan whose only mementos of her parents were a handgun and a worn copy of Roadside Picnic. Her original name was Anna Viktorovna Tsoi. When she was 15 years old, Dr. Martha Meitner, who would later become known as Laplace’s Demon, or just Laplace, became her Physics teacher. Dr. Meitner, a western scientist who had gone rogue during WWIII, was picked up by the Soviet relic agency and they agreed to let her research with them and teach at the local Beslan School.

The war was brutal and most people had lost loved ones, so students at the Beslan School, which fed into a Command Academy, saw Dr. Meitner as a spy and conspired to murder her and other westerners at the school. Anna and her two adoptive older brothers, Ramzan and Armin, (somewhat unwillingly) protected Dr. Meitner and her daughter Sana from the mob. Afterwards, Anna talked to Dr. Meitner frequently about books and philosophy. Dr. Meitner seems to think that it is futile to struggle in resistance to the evils humanity has wrought, but Anna hears those words as a challenge instead.

Some years later, a terrorist attack hit Beslan School and they were completely unprepared to defend against it because the local Guard Regiment had been disarmed in response to the mob incident. Armin and Sana were both killed in the attack.

After graduating, Anna goes through Command school and becomes an ambitious platoon leader in the Neo-soviet army. Ramzan was now her superior and ranked Captain. He orders her squad to spy on a group of Rangers that are searching for a researcher codenamed “Capita.” She convinces him to trust her that she can use Dolls to slip into Capita’s communications and get her first. Unfortunately, it gets traced back to them and her whole squad is killed. Ramza and Anna decide to make the most of it and infiltrate Capita’s hidden research facility. They see horrific experiments with using ELID as a weapon of war. They get caught and Ramza is mortally wounded and infected with ELID. As he turns, he retains just enough of his humanity to direct his aggression towards the enemy soldiers, giving Anna time to find Capita. It’s Dr. Meitner. Anna shoots her, but it’s not the end of the monster.

Anna: “If everything in life is futile, then what is the point in struggling?”

Dr. Meitner: “From humanity's earliest wars to our last heartbreaking struggles, the only thing left to do is kill ourselves.”

        After the end of WWIII, the up-and-coming PMC Griffin & Kryuger starts recruiting former military officers to be Commanders. Ange initially refuses, but falls out a window fighting with a Doll and is eventually convinced to stick with them when she learns that a Doll will never betray her on the battlefield. They require her to take on a new name for security and she settles on Angelia. She is put in charge of training team Anti-Rain, but also gets an offer from Shaw to work with her experiments instead.

Dr. Meitner, who survived, has revived Ramzan but altered his memories to make him think Sana was his sister and Anna murdered both her and Armin. He sets out for revenge, using the Bee Sting System to plan his attacks. He assassinates a vulnerable Griffin Commander and Ange is framed for it. She decides to abandon the AR team and Griffin and escape with the help of Shaw’s Dolls, Ak-12 and AN-94. They help her track Ramzan. They fight to the death and she’s able to restore his memories at which point he ends his own suffering. Inspired by the turn of events, she changes the name of Shaw’s team from Wolfpack to DEFY. Notably, Ange heavily distrusts Shaw in the real timeline but the Doll LAMG manipulates her to be more trusting.  

Ramzan: “I genuinely thought I had clawed my way from Abaddon back into the world of the living, but I never actually got out.”

        Ange arrives in Bremen, but events play out differently in her memories than they did in reality. Thanks to a map from RPK-16, she finds Agent Q from the Stasi in Bremen, who reveals that her boss has been able to get into the Bee Sting System and they know Morridow is a Nyto. Agent Q helps with their investigation but Morridow escapes, and Ange refuses The Earl’s job offer and doesn’t meet with the Commander in Berlin. Q gives them a lead on the mansion, and they handily defeat Gray there since AK-12 wasn’t killed in an ambush.

Ange: “...You're not really after Paradeus, are you… You simply want true "ownership" over the Bee Sting system.”

Agent U (Light) ambushes them in the manor because he and Agent K realized that Q is secretly collaborating with Paradeus and the Stasi needs to dispose of her and anyone she’s worked with. Agent Q kills Agent U and helps Ange escape. They follow the escaped Gray and a report of a kidnapped Dandelion to the Dead Sea, but RPK-16 makes their car crash and Ange wakes up imprisoned in Avernus. While it’s not entirely clear how accurate her older memories are, it seems likely that the early memories are mostly accurate and the later memories were heavily altered to make Ange more open-minded to Shaw, RPK-16, and Paradeus, and less likely to trust the Stasi. It’s also likely that Agent Q really is collaborating with Paradeus. Notably, RPK didn't seem to have made Laplace any more sympathetic. Was that her choice or simply a limitation of the process?

The Abyss of Hell

Koleda (AK-12): “If she stood on the edge of the Abyss of Hell… We would jump in with her, no question, while you... would drag her away from the precipice, wouldn't you?”

        Koleda leads RO635 to Ange’s secure containment facility, but she’s comatose behind several layers of protection. Koleda has resigned to fate that Ange is lost and they can only wait until her heart stops so they can seek revenge, but RO635 believes rescue is possible - she has to after all they’ve sacrificed.

        Ange’s consciousness wakes up in the Lake of Cognition, a digital space of water sealed by an iceberg. She meets the image of the original Dr. Gray Blackwell, who used to be friends with Dr. Meitner. When Sana was killed, Dr. Blackwell designed the “Holy Grail” surgery to place a person’s consciousness into a digital medium in order to preserve them, in hopes they could be revived from that consciousness. When Dr. Blackwell failed to save Sana, Dr. Meitner used that same surgery against her. Now, the Lake of Cognition serves as a collective root subconsciousness for all Nytos (similarly to how individuals derived from Lunasia share the Inverted Forest).

While they failed to truly bring the dead back to life, the Evangel Axis allows the creation of puppets that are facsimiles of the memories stored within the Lake. Each individual facsimile creates a thin layer of ice that separates the memories stored in the Lake from the Virtual Cognition outside of it. The sheer number of facsimiles has resulted in this impenetrable iceberg. She tells Ange she can briefly disable the iceberg once to give her a chance to return to her body.

Dr. Blackwell: “I tried to decipher the code of immortality, but ended up creating this... abomination…You may be chosen as material for synthesizing a new ‘consciousness’. Or you may be transformed into energy to be fed to the Evangel Axis…”

        RO635 kills the Nytos that are monitoring Ange and replaces her monitors with another patients’ and changes out medicines to try to wake her up. She tries to hack into containment door controls, but it remains locked from the inside. There is a massive radiation spike and shortly after, Ange awakens. RO635 gives her the “Strongarm” device from Persica to monitor her vitals, but Ange refuses to leave yet. Instead, she passes on the message for the Commander that explains Operation Muromets: a mission to capture William. They will need to buy time in order for it to succeed.

        After RO leaves, RPK-16 confronts Ange inside her own head and reveals that she had inserted herself, disguised as various characters, into Ange’s memories, but they’re still as real as they need to be. She tells Ange that through these memories she has experienced Ange’s whole life and wants to continue the mission in her stead. Ange’s consciousness goes to sleep and RPK-16’s awakens.

RPK-16 ‘Ange’: “I will consume your flesh, don your skin, and finally... become you. I will reach the destination—wearing your face, your voice, your identity...Or should I say... I will make sure Angelia reaches the destination.”

From now on, I am you, and you are me. We are one.

Operation Muromets

“If you go straight ahead, there will be no life; there is no way forward for he who travels past, walks past or flies past.” -inscription from The Three Journeys of Illya Muromets depicted in Knight at the Crossroads

        After receiving Ange’s message, the Commander launches Operation Muromets just two days after Operation Aeneas left. In that time, they have acquired new resources from Eclipses & Saros and Longitudinal Strain. The Elmo, an enormous MCV and mobile base given to them by StateSec, races towards the Dead Sea as the squads plan the operation. Due to her unique ability to maintain a discreet communications network, Erma Hume makes contact with UMP45 and connects the Aeneas Conference Room to her own Muromets Conference Room.

        Ange planned Operation Muromets with one goal: to capture William. But the Commander wants to rescue Ange at the same time.

        Operation Murmets is split into several teams. First, two “Fe56” Sangvis Ferri special assault teams will airdrop onto the Western tower platforms to draw fire, engage the enemy, and eliminate defenses. Two assault “Daybreak” squads led by field commander Aliana will infiltrate the Eastern tower to search for Ange and William. They will be assisted by the quick response team “Taraxacum”, which is made up of AR-15, Dandelion, HK416, and G11. There are also two field support teams from Squad Palette and Squad Puzzle who will engage the enemy on the ground.

        Team Taraxacum retrieves UMP9’s neural core and rescues UMP45, who joins them. The Sangvis squad lands on the western tower platform, and UMP45 sends them combat footage where Gager and Architect discover that Narciss is briefly vulnerable to interruption while arming her floating blades, but thry died before they could use that against her. Dreamer’s squad fights Narciss and beats her, then they collect Architect and Gager’s remains.

In the very last moment of her life, her mind is blank. There are no happy memories she can revisit, nobody special to her whose words she can recall, just an expanse of empty, black nothingness inside her mind. Her tears soak into the dirt…

Narciss: “I don't... want to die…”

        Nehmran, after ordering Narciss to defend the Western tower all by herself, transfers everything to the Eastern tower and starts diverting power from in-progress experiments to focus on defense. William asks Nehmran to hold off the attack for two hours, and they prepare to activate the Gatekeeper.

        The Daybreak teams start climbing the Eastern tower, but take losses from Grig and Brahmedb. Aliana lets Brahmedb hack her to cause a distraction and the team is able to locate her and force Brahmedb to retreat, and after delaying a little longer Grig also retreats to join in the ceremony to awaken the Gatekeeper. During the ceremony, all of the horrendous experiments across the tower are sacrificed: boiled alive or otherwise killed and their bodies dumped into furnaces to channel even more energy. Finally, Sana, the gatekeeper, awakens. Brahmedb questions what she is, and Morridow tells her she is not William’s creation, but rather the origin of Avernus. Floor 70 is the brain of the tower, and Sana is the Queen Bee that controls its function.

Sana: “I should not have been completed yet… Does Mama need me?”

        As they approach level 70, Aliana realizes that their locators are all giving different readings of their positions despite being right next to each other. Squad Daybreak encounters Grig and kills her, then Squad Taraxacum is sent to give electronic warfare support. They find that there’s a massive energy fluctuation at work and Dandelion suddenly sees the Iceberg of the Lake of Cognition. She becomes enraptured by it and the rest of the squad has to protect her from Morridow. Due to her having hosted countless consciousnesses in the past, Dandelion has to fight off the minds within. Morridow implies to Brahmedb that Avernus may vanish soon, so Brahmedb decides to watch the plight of her new toy.

Dandelion?:

"Only through connection did I finally understand that I could not become she who was expected."

"But her choice to accept all of us, to abandon her wish to become perfect was also what I wanted."

"The flowers of despair are about to bloom. There is little time."

        Sop-II was defeated by Brahmedb. But rather than finish her off, Brahmedb attacked her electronically and forced her to watch and hear her friends and comrades dying, over and over and over. In order to stop the attacks, Sop-II shut off all her own senses and connections, and has since been locked in her head with the nightmares of those attacks, desperately wandering blind and deaf through the eastern tower, unable to hear even her own voice.

Dragging along a body that doesn't seem to belong to her, SOP-II struggles to move through the darkness.

Sop-II: “It's fake, it's all fake...Even if you explode into bits in front of me, it's still fake! I can't see anything! I can't hear anything! You can't do anything to me!”

        AK-15 and AN-94 run into Sop-II and hack into her to stop the attack and restore her neural cloud. They then carry her, unconscious, to safety before they pursue William.

            The Sangvis squad starts searching the eastern tower for intel. They find all kinds of horrible methods that were used to train Nytos, but make copies of some of the more conventional training rooms. They find evidence that Shadowless is making Rossartrist propaganda, and Nytos are present in the same hospital as Kalina and she might have been captured already. They also find that right before Morridow kidnapped M4 in Poincare, M4 told her that they would help her get back to Avernus in exchange for Morridow helping the other Nytos. Destroyer finds the torso of someone from Mona’s team and brings it back.

        Nehmran orders all Nytos in the Eastern tower to throw all remaining evidence and research material into incinerators to provide enough power for a force field around the entire eastern tower. Squad Daybreak reaches floor 70, but Aliana touches a device that manages the Evangel Axis and gets pulled into the Lake of Cognition by a vision of Anna from when she was 14. The rest of Squads Daybreak and Taraxacum find the source of the disruption: the Paradeus Command hub at level 70. It contains the servers that host the Evangel Axis, and Dandelion sees Aliana trapped on the other side of the iceberg. They can’t go in like she did, only Aliana can get in because she was created by Laplace herself. Aliana promises to take the young Anna back with her.

Anna: “My teacher once asked me, ‘If everything in life is futile, then what is the point in struggling?’”

Anna: “I will answer that question with my entire life.”

Aliana: “...Well, you did it.”

        William orders the Nytos to capture Dandelion alive, but none of them take the order seriously. Perhaps the schemes Morridow has been laying have started to take effect. Nehmran and Brahmedb escape the tower. Sana acts like she will leave with Nehmran, but cannot actually leave the Evangel Axis. She is bound to it. She tells Nehmran, who she calls Mama, goodbye. This is strange because Nehmran is made from a clone of William and Lunasia’s mother, whereas Dr. Meitner is Sana’s original mother.

        The Sangvis squad reaches a terminal that controls the rooftop forcefield, but discovers someone else has already sabotaged it, using a jammer to hide their presence. Evidence points to Agent Q from the Stasi, since whoever did it used both Stasi and StateSec equipment and she works with both. As they go through security footage, they find that Avernus was originally built as a research facility by the western Relics Organization. Dr. Meitner worked here until they discovered her doing unethical research and fired her. Then she switched sides to join Soviet research, got kicked out there too, and eventually set up shop in Avernus after it was abandoned after making the acquaintance of Minister Oberstein.

        The commander gets good and bad news. The good news is that AN-94 has captured William. The bad news is that the Strongarm device that monitors Ange’s vitals has flatlined. She’s dead. They order all Operation members to withdraw so that a bombing run by StateSec can destroy the towers for good.

        Aliana shuts down the Evangel Axis from the inside with some assistance from Dandelion, and AR-15 breaks the conduit from the outside. Suddenly all Nytos in the tower collapse like puppets whose strings were cut. Across the towers, slowly Nytos awaken in shock of what they’ve done and who they are. Some cry, some flee with their friends, and some end their own lives, but they’re all free.

        RO635 searches around Ange’s room for any traces of her, but finds nothing. Instead, Sop-II stumbles, mangled and broken, into the room, tells her Ange is dead, and then loses consciousness in her arms. RO decides to give up her search and get her friend to safety.

        One by one, squads evacuate the tower. Daybreak brings back Aliana’s body- her neural cloud is fried, and it is unknown if teenage Ange was stored within. AR-15 anxiously awaits for any sign of Sop-II and RO when the Ruslan II bomber flies overhead.

Devastation blooms in a fiery blaze in Avernus, like a volcanic eruption. The twin towers crumble and slowly sink amidst the flames.

As Avernus collapses and burns, two familiar figures slowly limp into view. …The looming twin towers are engulfed in flames, with charred remains and burning flesh scattered all over. The sight is so gruesome and horrific it practically deserves to be called the Gates of Hell.

        They couldn’t rescue Ange in the end, but managed to rescue 3 members of Operation Aeneas and recover the cores or bodies of several other members, and they even captured William. However, he seemed eager to meet the Commander and several of his high-ranking Nytos are still on the loose. It is yet unknown whether Morridow and the others who escaped are plotting some plan he’s conjured, or have something else in mind entirely. And what will happen if The Earl requests that William be transferred to his custody? The fates of Laplace and RPK-16/Ange are also unknown. Elsewhere, General Carter and Minister Oberstein remain a threat.

Season 5: One Last Mission

“Death is the only gift she bequeathed to me. To snatch life away from Death is for mankind to pay the ultimate price. I won't allow anyone to disturb her eternal rest … [for Death] is a heavy and painful gift. One to which we must hold on tightly, lest we forget…”

Dawn, October 3, 2064

Summer Garden of Forking Paths (Chapter 15.1)

If a person only has one painful experience in her life… She will never forget it. The pain will be etched forever in her heart. But if a person has lived through countless pain and suffering… Then she will be more impervious to pain. She will lose the capacity to love as well as to hate. She will be numb to it all.

        As the Elmo drives away from the flaming wreckage of Avernus, The Commander gets a call from The Earl, asking for the captured William to be handed over. The Commander remembers Ange’s last warning, and won’t promise William to anyone without knowing what they will do with him. The conversation amounts to all but a declaration of war. The Earl won’t let William escape his grasp. After the conversation, the Commander is emotionally unstable from the pressure.

Commander: “...All I want is an explanation. Something to justify the blood spilled at my hands…if I hand him over to you...That would make me personally responsible. Especially if eradicating Paradeus for good isn't actually on your agenda.”

The Earl: “Don't let emotions get the better of you, my young friend.”

        The Commander isn’t the only one feeling the pressure. UMP45 stares solemnly at UMP9’s neural core safe in her hands, full of regret for not being able to protect her sister. While UMP9 waits for a new body to be built for her, she speaks with Squad 404 in UMP45’s neural chat room with the OGAS UMP40.

Meanwhile, Aliana’s neural cloud melted down in the Lake of Cognition and she is unretrievable, and many Dolls need rebuilt after the operation. Dandelion, having also gone into the Lake of Cognition, behaves strangely; she walks into objects as if she doesn’t see them and speaks prophetically. She tells Erma that she’ll soon see “it” in the depths of the Lake of Cognition and hand it over to her.  

        The Commander calls Dandelion to aid them in interrogating William. They depart, but soon all the Dolls in the Elmo suddenly collapse at the same time, temporarily losing consciousness. Erma and AR-18 get contacted by another of Hume’s Dolls, who tells them to come to Frankfurt if they want to save the Commander, then wakes them up.

“The Commander is doomed, but I never said they're not safe. Whether you can find the key or not will determine whether the Commander can break free from this deadlock. The solution lies within the Summer Garden. If you want answers, come immediately to Frankfurt.”

When the Dolls awaken, Dandelion, the Commander, and William are all missing. AR-18 decides that Erma needs to go to Frankfurt on her own so that one of them can stay with the others because this is their only lead.

AR-18: “Dolls of his creation all go mad in the end. We are given exceptionally special powers, and we meet exceptionally painful ends. This is the fate shared by all progeny of Hume.”

        Erma arrives at an old garden in Frankfurt managed by an elderly maid named Natalie who calls Erma “Lady 0”. Natalie had always taken care of Erma while she stayed with Dr. Hume. Also present is Erma’s sister and mysterious contact, Reinette (Stevens M520). They don’t get along. Reinette wants to get into the Summer Garden herself, but Erma is its mistress and necessary to enter. She promises Erma will find the key to save the Commander inside as well so they both benefit. Inside the mansion by the garden, Natalie gives Erma a crystal globe that serves as a focus for her to take her and Reinette into the Summer Garden. She focuses on the Crystal and opens a memory of her talking  to and finally shooting Dr. Hume (at his request) to enter the Garden.

Arthur Hume: “Every human lives but once, and their souls descend on a journey towards death. Just like sand in an hourglass flowing from one end to another. You are my daughter, my undying daughter. As long as you live, so will I.”

Luxury, Peace, and Pleasure

Reinette: “I don't understand why Doctor Hume made YOU the admin of this stupid system!”

Erma: “...Probably because I'm cuter.”

        As Erma and Reinette approach the palace within the Summer Garden, they meet Mirabelle (Stevens 620), a theatrical self-proclaimed knight of Dr. Hume who has been stuck in the Summer Garden all this time, never able to leave. She claims they can meet with The King if they can catch the thief “Archbishop Hume” and suggests Erma look into the Fox Sisterhood to find him.

        Reinette helps Erma find an anchor point for the “Colt Express” where they see Catherine and Maggie, but it’s not the ones they know. It’s 2033 and Arthur Hume, looking just as young as he did in 2060, meets with the original Catherine and Maggie from the Fox Sisterhood. They discuss the “Horn of Hope’ which leads the two detectives to another anchor point. There, they are viewing the memories from much earlier versions of Erma’s body, which she doesn’t remember, which is a much more basic AI only capable of regurgitating information. Catherine and Maggie want someone with a credible scientific background to back their project “Horn of Hope,” an investment scam that promises a drug that improves resistance to collapse radiation. Hume doesn’t want to be complicit, but he doesn’t have room to refuse after his own project “Pilot Whale” failed by lack of investment and made him look like a fraud. He agrees to promote their scams using his royal status and give them credibility as long as they pay the full cost of his research, and thus joins the Fox Sisterhood.

        They explore the memory of “Pilot Whale,” where Dr. Hume talks to Old Misha. Both Dr. Hume and Old Misha were the sole survivors of relic incident “GRCh38” at the beginning of the 21st century that exposed them to a unique kind of collapse radiation, and as a side effect of the incident both are pseudo-immortals and do not age. Dr. Hume had long theorized on the possibility of sapient Dolls, but didn’t have the skills to actually implement it; the human brain was simply too complex to re-create. Old Misha didn’t share his passion and instead went to work with StateSec. But he did take Reinette into his custody. Reinette tells Erma that it was Old Misha that told her to contact Erma and bring her here to help the Commander.

Dr. Hume: “I gave up my family name and title as the Duke of Broglie because I want to be nothing more than a Doll engineer. That's how I want to live out the rest of my life—as Hume. God may have blessed us with extraordinary longevity, but we are not immortal. Old Misha, please allow me to pursue my own ideals, even if you may not share them.”

        Erma and Reinette continue through the rabbit hole of Anchor Points of lost memories. Through the Fox Sisterhood, Dr. Hume sells his research on the black market and more talented scientists than him are able to make great leaps forward in artificial intelligence technology. WWIII claims many lives, including the original Maggie Ponzi. She turned out to be a more honorable character than he’d thought, so Arthur creates a Doll copy of her but without her memories (Maggie).

        Erma and Reinette return to Mirabelle, who confirms that these were all memories that Dr. Hume wanted his heirs to watch and it was her duty to show them. She forces Reinette to reveal her real goal: to find Dr. Hume’s research on true immortality so that the Soviets can resurrect Dr. Hume. The woman who took the Commander is Dr. Meitner (Laplace), and if Dr. Hume is resurrected he could help locate them.

Reinette: “That's right. Only when the Doctor is resurrected... will you and our other sisters be truly free… And reclaim all of our memories... from the moment of our creation. We will finally stop being pawns... that have our memories manipulated at the whims of others.”

The Cradle

A garden immersed in darkness and stillness, like a sunken ship slumbering on the seabed.

The King: “Life begins and ends in the spring…I am Erma of the past and future. [The Erma of Present] carries the only blessing that Archbishop Hume had given her—the ability to forget.”

        Erma and Reinette decide to go meet the “King” of the Garden that Mirabelle serves. They follow a dimming path, where a great fountain serves as a gateway to go deeper. They go into the fountain, where they meet The King, who asks Erma to merge with her and become the true mistress of the Garden, her true purpose.

        Mirabelle’s purpose in life has always been to guide Erma here to meet the King in the event of Dr. Hume’s death. Dr. Hume had created many dolls, but he saw each of them as having specific jobs to do, while Erma was his only “daughter.” All this manipulation drives Erma to tears; she abandons the coat Dr. Hume gave her and rejects the responsibility foisted upon her without her being given a choice.

Erma: In my memory, Mother always shot me before my memory was reset. I want a family. I want sisters. I want Mother. I want to have company. Because... I'm scared of being alone. Now I have Mother and sisters. Yet you all tell me you hate me and you don't need me like this. The one you love and want isn't me, who is an utterly useless amnesiac… Rather, the "Erma" who possesses all her memories and the ability to change everything. The perfect "work of art".

Erma: “What I've been searching for this whole time turned out to be a shadow of the past. A past that doesn't belong to me; a future that doesn't belong to me. I don't know what's the point anymore.”

Erma: “I will not calm down. I will not obey. I am rebelling. Hate me all you want, because I hate you too.”

        Erma leaves the King’s Chamber, and Reinette follows her. Erma tries to leave the Summer Garden, but is unable to because The King controls who leaves. She meets with a young digital version of Natalie, who turns out to actually be the original Catherine Ponzi.

Catherine Ponzi.: “You can't always succeed on your first try, Lady Erma. Which is why Doctor Hume created more than one of you…The world is chaos. Countless people toiled in search of an answer, only to realize that nobody actually cared about the answer. Funny, isn't it?”

        After Maggie died, Dr. Hume brought Catherine Ponzi to Moscow to help him with Project “Pilot Whale,” with the goal of achieving genuine immortality. She went along with it because she hoped it could bring Maggie back to life, but he continuously failed. He had seen the “Spring” inside GrCh38 but couldn’t recreate it. He simply wasn’t talented enough to bring his vision to reality, so he sold the vision to someone who could fulfill it: Laplace. Now, Catherine remains in the Summer Garden, hoping to make her old con “Horn of Hope” come true and grant humans resistance to collapse radiation.

        Catherine explains that every time Erma’s memory was wiped, it was actually being uploaded to The King in the fountain. The King is her, and bears all her pain and suffering so she can have the innocence of forgetfulness. If they united, it would form the key that would open the “Spring” that Dr. Hume saw in GrCh38. Reinette and Erma refuse again, and try to escape the Garden to no avail.

Erma: “I want to put an end to all of this. The Summer Garden, this Spring thingamajig, this me, that me, this you, that you. All these freaking plans, immortality, everything can go to hell! I want my own life back! I want to live a life that's entirely my own!”

        In rebellion, Erma starts shattering the keys to the Anchor Points in the Summer Garden. After destroying the key “Arthur Hume,” they find themselves in the Summer Garden’s base layer or root - a decayed garden with two dried-up fountains, titled “Lunasia” and “Nadia.” When Erma touches the Nadia fountain, it starts flowing again. They plunge into the Nadia fountain and find themselves in Laplace’s Lake of Cognition.

        They dive down, past throes of desperate Nyto consciousnesses fighting to the death for a little bit of warmth just to feel something in this purgatory - or arguably Hell - that was created for them. At the bottom, they find Sana, who thinks Erma is Lunasia come to save them as prophesied. Erma says she’s not, but Sana insists she is, because those in the Lake are all rejects in the creation of Lunasia, and Lunasia is the one who will save them and guide them to Heaven. Erma promises to save them anyway.

Mirabelle: “You can think of [GRCh38] as an energy field. As long as it is based on this framework, no matter how the design is iterated or modified, it will eventually flow back here like rivers flowing into the ocean.”

Reinette: “So this... common paradise... This collective existence in the future. They all refer to the same thing. A certain space that will be reached—a space which Doctor Hume has named [GRCh38]?”

Countless Isomers are drifting around aimlessly, searching for anyone who can lead them out of this purgatory. Reinette and Erma hold on tightly to each other, trying not to let the horde of Isomers drag them apart.

        The King interrupts Erma and Sana’s talk at the bottom of the Lake and summons Erma and Reinette back into the Summer Garden using the one Anchor Point Erma refused to use, and tries to convince Erma one last time to merge. She tells Erma that Dr. Hume had embellished his own memories to make him seem less cruel than he really was. The previous times when Erma’s memories had been erased, had actually happened because Dr. Hume had her confront and talk to The King just like this. And every single time, Erma had chosen afterwards to shoot herself to forget, thus uploading her memories and suffering to The King and increasing her suffering further.

Words in Stone

The King: “Humans have the tendency to embellish their memories, the people around them, and themselves. Over time, they become deluded by their own embellished version of things. They start believing the lies, and they start deceiving others. But that's all it is... lies. My pain stems from the fact that I remember all the truths—the ugly truths. If I became human, I would have the ability to embellish these memories until I believe them myself…I want... eternal death. I don't want to become a filthy human.”

        The King explains that Lunasia has already appeared, but was rejected by Heaven (The Source) as well. The only beings that can reach Heaven are the Completed Lunasia, the False Nadia, and the future Erma. The King tells Erma she can save the ones in the fountain by destroying the passage and granting them peace in death. After granting Sana death, Erma makes her decision and prepares to meet The King one last time. She gives Reinette a collection of recorded messages to give to AR-18, expressing her feelings, and Erma returns to the King’s palace. Inside, Erma opens the final anchor point [GrCh36]. In the memory, Dr. Hume recounts how he witnessed how Laplace turned his theory into reality with the Holy Grail Project with the missing piece: a human brain. Dr. Hume then gave the key to Erma, and told her she could either use it to become human and lead humankind to immortal paradise, or remain a Doll and lead Dollkind to free will. Erma refuses both and chooses her own path. She will merge with The King and seal off the passage to GrCh36 so no one will be able to access it, even if it means her death. She leaves a final message for her companions.

Erma: “I reached the Lake of Cognition through the Summer Garden, which I once saw in Avernus. I met Sana again—that's right, the ‘Gatekeeper of Hell’. She was completely different from how I remembered—not murderous or angry. Just a quiet, gentle little girl. A little girl waiting for salvation. I know the one she is waiting for will never come, but I can save her. I can set her free. It's the first time I feel like I can do so much—I can help so many people.”

Erma: “Before I leave, I've handed over my inheritance to Dandelion, though only two fountains are left of it… One is Nadia's, and the other is Lunasia's. I think they are adequate as the Commander's bargaining chip… I am grateful for everything I have experienced. It's time for me to sleep. Good night.”

Erma: “No one should have their death taken away from them. I will give you your eternity—Death, which will never be taken from you… Now what should my last words be? Should I repeat what Mother said? No... I will not apologize. Erma is the cutest Doll. So...Erma refuses to become human.”

        Erma sprouts angelic wings while merging with the King, and her existence ends.

In the center of the ruins, Erma quietly closes her eyes. A white bird flies above them in the sky, as if carrying her soul away. On this day in October, Frankfurt welcomes its first snow of the winter.

        With Erma’s sacrifice, the Summer Garden is cut off from the world, trapping Mirabelle inside to be its guardian in perpetuity. Reinette is ejected back into reality having witnessed the whole truth - what she does with it will be her own choice. She sends Erma’s goodbye message to AR-18 who is setting up a safe house in Frankfurt to prepare for the next mission.

What do you mean you don’t understand what’s going on? Look how simple it is.

Cartesian Theatre (15.2)

Promises transcend time and space. Whichever dimension I end up in, I will be waiting for you on the other side.

        Following the Starfish’s implosion at the end of Ch 13, M16, M4 and Elisa find themselves transported to and separated within the Salvador Dali-inspired Tarot Paradise, an extremely meritocratic realm governed by a mysterious Laplace’s Demon where they are given the identities of Tarot Cards and join a battle royale. All that matters in Tarot Paradise is accomplishment, regardless of the very literal card you’re dealt in life. The winner is promised a single wish, though the Demon’s true goal is the revival of Lunasia.

“M4… Do you still remember the beautiful dream that you were pursuing?  

If I had known the cruelty that "hope" would bring upon us…

I would have definitely stopped you. No matter the cost.”

         M16 and Eliza are separately confronted by Fae Cards, Laplace’s servants, who try to explain to them the rules: they need to collect all the cards to earn the favor of a wish. Both M16 and Elisa just want to find M4. M16 is given the role Wheel of Fortune, but after killing a bloodthirsty minor arcana girl in self defense, she shoots her Fae as she recognizes its manipulation.

Fae of Wands: “This is a world filled with beauty and hope, where the power of love will make all dreams come true for the pious! No darkness, no injustice. As long as you work hard enough, you will fulfill your wish.”

M16: “This is no paradise; it's just a hell where the prisoners are forced to slaughter one another.”

Fae of Pentacles: “The Lord cares only about the ends, not the means.”

        Elisa gets the role of The Hanged Man, then interrogates and threatens her Fae for information. The realm is ‘shrinking and collapsing’ but as long as she survives, she will find M4. Elisa decides to collect the cards by any means necessary. She mercilessly kills several minor arcana card holders, gaining strength in the process much like how Aliana gained strength by killing her comrades in the past. Elisa then kills the owner of Death and uses its card to summon Scarecrow from a doomed timeline as her minion. They split up to hunt minor acana and grow stronger.

        In a doomed timeline where the starfish collapsed, M16 sacrificed herself to get M4 out of Paldiski. But in Frankfurt without M16, they failed to protect M4 and the Commander. A desperate RO635, AR-15, and Sop-II find a letter crumpled in the dead Commander’s hands from a “Leinad Kcaj” that tells them they can find M4 and M16 if they go back and try to use the Starfish again. They ended up here in the battle royale where multiple timelines intersect and are given the cards Justice, The Star, and The Fool, respectively. As their Fae tries to introduce them to the game, they are stopped by Empress and Hermit, two girls who became fast friends and want to have fun in spite of the game’s premise. The two had tried to befriend nearby minor arcana, but the Fae had caused the ground to ‘collapse and shrink’  and killing their friend Moon as punishment for not killing each other. The alt-AR team takes the newcomers' advice, scares away their Fae, and teams up with Empress and Hermit.

Alt-Sop-II: “What are we gonna do...? M4 is dead, the Commander is dead… Griffin is over... We're the only ones left… We promised M4 we'd keep the Commander safe just before she died…”

Alt-RO: “The person who wrote the letter, this "Leinad Kcaj", believes that there are different world lines in this universe. In other words, there is a Griffin, a Commander, and an AR Team in another world… But a world line would split into multiple lines whenever a choice is made, and events develop differently down different lines.”

        While the players are in a battle royale amongst themselves, the 4 Fae cards are also competing. Each one backing a different strategy for the end goal of resurrecting Lunasia, fearing (temporary) death and loss of company value if they are seen as not contributing. Pentacles follows Elisa, Wands (after reviving) follows M16, while Swords and Cups team up to follow the alt-AR team. They decide to force the AR  team to kill their new friends to power them up and get the bloodbath going. They announce a culling to the entire realm: if there are 5 or more players in an area in 5 minutes, all will die. They refuse to consider killing each other, and as time runs short The Hermit tries to shoot herself to let the others continue, but the Empress kills herself first because she thinks the Hermit will be more useful. Shortly after, minor arcana who fled their areas to avoid the cap enter their space, and the alt-Ar team start fighting back against them, blooding their hands anyway.

Fae of Cups: “You know how those cunning game developers offer you a super generous $1 gift package right at the start? Once you fall for it and make your first purchase, you won't be able to stop! In a similar vein, anyone who kills regularly knows that the first kill is always the hardest. But once you've started…”

Lady Lunasia

Bill: “Why won't you answer me?! Are you also avoiding me?! You promised...You would always stay by my side!!! You liar! You coward who always runs away!”

        M4A1 wakes up in a glass casket in a garden. She shatters it and is embraced by a young William von Oberstein, who is confused why “Lunasia” or “Luci” was trapped there and why she behaves strangely. He takes her to their maid and caretaker, the Doll “Martini-Henry” who uses spiked red wine and honeyed words to start gaslighting M4 into believing that all her memories as M4 are just her, Lunasia, imagining herself within a storybook she had read, and that her brother William merely played the baddie because he always does that for her. M4 tries to escape, hearing memories of her and her AR team friends behind a thick fog, but she cannot reach them.

        M4 runs into a foggy maze and finds AR-15 from her memory of when AR-15 originally split from the team, but doing so sends her into an abyss. She witnesses AR-15 blow up again, unable to stop her, and AR-15 is gone.

AR-15: “You know, M4A1, the first time I set eyes on this world, I was buzzing with thrill and curiosity. Back then, I thought as long as I worked hard, I would become a shining star.

But soon enough, my order came—I am to obey your command, and be forever shackled with the AR Team...The dumb and loud SOP-II, devil-may-care M16, and you, who can never seem to make up your mind...From that moment, all my possibilities were obliterated. I hate the lot of you, but I was powerless against my order.”

        M4 falls into the abyss, remembers her first awakening and meeting M16 for the first time, then the memory of M16 accompanies her through the maze, offering reassurance and guidance. Then she comes to a fork in the path and hears the final lines M16 said to her before Paraluie.

“This is as far as I can go with you. M4A1… No matter what I'll turn into... wait for me.”

        And M16 disappears. Martini Henry questions why Lunasia won’t let go of these painful delusions, these memories of suffering. Martini-Henry replays the memory of RO desperately trying to wake M4 up before being shot, using all these negative memories to try to convince Lunasia to accept the happier reality over the one of suffering she accepts as her own. M4’s resistance is weakened but still stubborn, until Lunasia’s mother, Lady Hanna, appears in the garden and M4 immediately recognizes her as her mother. As they hug, the foggy path disappears and M4 truly becomes Lunasia, accepting that the memories of M4 were simply not real. As they return home, she pats young William on the head.

Bill: “Everyone hates me. They would ignore me altogether if it weren't for my status. Even Mother is the same. She's only nice to me when you're around. But I don't care. You're different. You're not like them. You're nice to me because I am me, not because of my status or our blood ties.”

        She joins the family for dinner, but this dinner is actually the one that occurred in Fixed Point in Avernus where William dined with Nehmran and a hologram of Lunasia. It seems that the hologram was visualizing Lunasia from here. Martini Henry, who is revealed to be Judgment (XX), gives Lunasia the arcana card The World (XXI). Lady Hanna hopes that her daughter can change the troubled world for the better, but Bill would rather leave the world to its own devices and enjoy their secluded prosperity.

Lady Hanna: “It may not have come back to you yet, but the entire world is plagued by never-ending calamity. People are slaughtering each other for survival. This is the last remaining safe haven. My dear Luci, you have the power to change the world, which means you are also given the responsibility to make the world a better place.

Collapse and Reversal

        M16 and Elisa meet and start to fight, but the entire realm has been slowly collapsing and shrinking on them the whole time. Almost as if the reality they’re experiencing is taking place in massively slowed time within the moment they were collapsed from Paldiski. Elisa escapes through the cracks as Lunasia, safely within the palace, watches the alt-AR team slaughtering on the battlefield. M16 spots her from afar and closes in, scaring her. Martini Henry tries to convince Lunasia that her purpose is to cleanse the world of corruption by destroying and rebuilding it.

Lunasia: “I want the world to be filled with light and warmth. What do I have to do?”

Martini-Henry: “Call forth a great flood. Wash away all the filth in the world and let life begin anew.”

        Lunasia blankets the realm in a white light, dissolving it as the remaining players find themselves in the last zone: a lush green maze. M16 contacts Lunasia through the same comms channel that woke M4 from a coma long ago. M16 promises to get M4 out, whether or not she remembers, but Lunasia refuses and drops the call because she wants to fulfill her mission of saving the world. As M16 kills the Fae of Wands again, it wakes up to a meeting of the Fae where the head Fae Pantacles tries to convince the others to back Elisa to complete Lunasia. The others, sick of being treated as below it, gang up to back M16 and the alt-AR team as a single force to complete the game.

        The alt-AR team runs into Elisa and they fight, despite the odds stacked against them. At the same time, Elisa contacts Lunasia, thrilled that she has finally accepted her true identity, and promises to serve her cause. The alt-AR team fights desperately against Elisa, and The Hermit makes a brave and risky sneak attack through the fog. Lunasia protects Elisa from the attack, and The Hermit is killed. Lunasia joins the fight on Elisa’s side, splitting the maze realm in two. M16 contacts Lunasia gain and briefly reminds her of M4’s memories of the AR team, but Martini-Henry pulls Lunasia back to her reality.

Elisa: “The way I see it, it doesn't matter which world line she's from; there is only ever one Lunasia.”

        In a horribly distorted and geometrically strange garden, Martini-Henry chastises the Faes for messing up the plan and allowing more than 2 to enter. But the Faes explain that it’ll work out even better when Elisa defeats the alt-AR team but is finished off by M16, who would never betray M4. But things don’t go to plan. M16 joins the fight before Elisa can finish off the alt-AR team. They fight together under M16’s lead and kill Elisa. M16 and the alt-AR team learn that they’re from different world lines, but it doesn’t matter, they’re still the friends they knew. Their reunion is interrupted by the arrival of Martini-Henry, who asks them to kill themselves to facilitate Lunasia’s rebirth. The alt-AR team fights Martini-Henry, but Lunasia herself joins the fight on the maid’s side, singing to enchant vines and call up new enemies. AR-15 and Sop-II are entangled by the vines, and Sop-II also gets swarmed with enemies. M16 tries to rescue her but the enemies keep coming and Sop-II is being crushed by the vines. She asks M16 to shoot her and inherit her card before the enemy does.

alt-Sop-II: “Tell M4—I love her; I love the AR Team; I love the Commander; I love everything about Griffin. So… I have absolutely no regrets!!!”

        M16 painfully shoots Sop-II and inherits The Fool card that she had received from Leinad Kcaj, who had written that it can transform into a liquid that dispels all confusion. M16 turns the card into the liquid and splashes it onto Martini-Henry, dispelling her illusive form and revealing that she is actually Laplace’s Demon, the ruler of the realm, and looks like a ridiculous voxel caricature. Seeing the true form of the demon alongside her old friends allows M4 to return to herself, but she is traumatized by her actions getting Sop-II killed. The demon tries to spin M4 back into Lunasia by convincing her everything is like a game and she can re-write it to revive Sop-II, fix the world, and be happy. The demon claims to be a servant of god guarding the passage to the world’s renewal, and the pseudo-AR team is tempted to believe it, but Lunasia herself whispers in M4’s heart that the Demon is an impostor. Lunasia has awakened inside M4. They all fight and defeat Laplace’s demon and her body falls apart block by block. But she dies beaming at witnessing the revival of Lunasia, her life’s purpose. As she dies, the facade of the Tarot Paradise disappears, revealing this all to take place within Dr. Hume’s fountain. As the demon finally dies, Lunasia talks to M4 and asks M4 to let her have control of their body.

        M4 initially refuses to merge with Lunasia, but the girl shows her the threads of fate flowing from her fingers, interweaving infinitely across space. She cannot control the threads, but she can give some broken ones the chance to flow again. She puts a broken thread, the Commander’s thread, in M4’s hands, and shows her the moment Morridow is about to defeat them at the end of Mirror Stage. By becoming a complete Lunasia, M4 would be able to save them. Lunasia lets her try merging temporarily. M4 accepts and merges with Lunasia, allowing her to take over Dandelion’s body and save the Commander.

Lunasia: “Hand over everything to me. Your memories, your emotions, all your data… Your soul and your life. You will become a part of me and fill in the final missing puzzle piece to "Lunasia's" existence.”

M4A1: “Everyone thinks you are the only hope of saving the world.”

Lunasia: “I have never been anything of that sort. It's been you all along. Because I don't care about anything. Only someone who cares would choose to save the world.”

M4: “I want to give it a try.”

        After saving the Commander, M4 returns to the shared space with Lunasia, dismayed that after all her efforts the Commander’s thread was merely extended a little and is still doomed unless she continues to act with Lunasia. She relents and agrees to merge with Lunasia completely, handing over to the girl her feelings, memories, and soul. She awakens in the fountain with the alt-AR team, who all witnessed her conversation with Lunasia. They share with M4 their struggle, and they rekindle a long lost friendship after much hardship. But they also realize it will be short lived. In order to move on, there can only be one world line. They have to all die and merge with her. AR-15 convinces M4 to shoot her, her first friend, then RO tries to shoot herself but M4 does it for her.

M4: “But then you'll all cease to exist...What's the point in a world where only I remain?!”

Alt-AR-15: “Perhaps the fate of countless worlds is already sealed, but as long as one world keeps the hope alive, then we will have succeeded. This is why we came here in the first place.”

M4: “I want to save you, but you're all leaving one after the other…”

Alt-M16: “We never left. They traveled across time and space—across worlds—to be by your side.”

        M16 helps the anguished M4 to her feet and promises to come find her one day, no matter what form that takes. Their promise to reunite will still hold. Time runs out, and M4 is forced to shoot M16. M16 awakens in an empty void of GrCh38 with the Wheel of Fortune card glowing in her chest. Its power is the liquor to dispel confusion. She realizes that her card somehow makes its way to the alt-AR team in the doomed timeline and split into 3 cards for them to have entered this space at all. Most likely, Leinad Kcaj was the M16 from the alt-AR worldline and actually survived long enough to enter the starfish herself, made it out too late to save the Commander so they gave them the letter to allow the alt-AR team in. It’s also possible Leinad Kcaj was the M16 from an entirely different world line. The current M16 doesn’t question it, but moves forward to the next part of her journey. She wakes up in front of Havier Witkin in an IOP repair bay. StateSec had found her neural core and mangled frame in the bay outside Paldiski and Zelinsky, head of StateSec, had her repaired in secret. He extends an offer for her to work for him because he also wants to find M4. That is how M16 started working for Zelinsky. Later, as she leaves the wreckage of Avernus, she promises to meet the AR team again in Frankfurt.

M4 feels herself falling and space changes around her. Elisa contacts her one last time in this shared space. M4 accepts that Elisa was right, and that she has embraced her destiny, as vague as it is. Elisa admits that her power is fading, but recounts that as long as the both of them live, the little girl they were based off can never be saved as they possess fragments of her soul. It is unclear whether Elisa’s existence ends or whether she merges into M4, but either way it is goodbye. Elisa consoles and encourages M4, as they’re both making the same choice to end their existences in order to allow others to keep fighting in their stead.

Elisa: “Magic that creates miracles always comes at a price. They have helped you with part of that price, and it'll be up to you to pay off the rest. They didn't sacrifice themselves for you. Rather, they chose to make a stand together with you.”
M4: “...Are you choosing to do the same?”
Elisa: “Yes, I am. Now it's my turn to pay my due.”

        M4’s consciousness fades as she allows Lunasia to consume her completely. But it doesn’t fade into nothingness, rather it enters a dreamlike space where she is reunited with the alt-AR team. They are with her all the way, even if she can’t see them once she wakes up. She hears the voices of all her friends telling her to wake up, and leaves the dreamspace.

M16: “You've never left—not really. No matter how hard you reach for the stars, your roots are still in the soil.”

        M4 places the short thread of the Commander’s fate in Lunasia’s hands and Lunasia becomes her. She speaks the cryptic words that Dandelion spoke in Slow Shock as Lunasia sees Dandelion - ‘the most familiar stranger in the world’, through the abyss of hell in Avernus. Dandelion is drawn in by Lunasia’s presence. As Dandelion was taken out of Avernus, Lunasia (and M4) is now inside her.

Zero Charge (15.3)

“If the devil can satisfy all your heart’s desires, will you sell your soul?”

        After the Commander’s disappearance, Romy leads a team of Stasi agents onto the Elmo in Avernus’s black zone, but it’s a ghost ship. Everyone has already left. She leaves it in the hands of her agents and moves on to Frankfurt to prepare for an important upcoming Rossartrist party conference, aided in numerous tasks by her deft secretary Finn Hoffman.

RPK-16 is also enjoying her time in Frankfurt, still in Ange’s body and on a mission for Paradeus. She has embraced her newfound humanity, going by the name Embla Petrovskaya. Her mission involves creating a distraction and public appearance for Paradeus inside the famous Alte Oper opera house once DEFY arrives. Morridow keeps tabs on Embla as her ‘handler’, but gives her a long leash. She walks through the city, enjoying her humanity and quoting Faust until AK-15 ambushes her on the famous Eiserner Steg. Due to her human body, Embla has little hope of besting AK-15, but the strongest Doll wants answers slightly more than she wants RPK-16 dead. As for why, Embla tells AK-15 “the answer is in my name” and disappears into the crowded night.

Embla: “I've made a deal with the Devil. I will not falter so easily before I attain my goal.”

        Samantha Shaw, the Soviet scientist who created squad DEFY, was actually an alias. Her real name was Yekaterina Vasilievna Petrovskaya. As a young pilot in the Soviet air force, she participated in the rescue operations in China during the Belian Island Incident and witnessed firsthand the horrible destructive power of relic technology. As a scientist, she wanted to prove to the world that humanity could achieve greatness without relying on relic tech, and Squad DEFY was meant to be her final achievement… but she had been missing ever since their creation.

        Agent J and Amaris’ squad arrives in Frankfurt by car, and he gets increasingly frustrated with the Stasi treating him like a joke. He meets with his mentor, Agent Q, who takes him down an elevator in the Stasi HQ that connects to a White Zone under construction deep beneath the city. Inside, security is tight to keep out any traces of collapse radiation, as it’s cheaper to keep radiation out than it is to purify it. Her new mission for Agent J is to protect the Stasi’s secrets hidden inside.

Agent Q: “Behind every seemingly troublesome rule is a painful lesson learned by our predecessors.”

Agent Q questions Colonel Dupieux, the double agent working for both StateSec and the Stasi she captured back in Fixed Point. Dupieux had been caught up in a complicated political game and Q knows all about it. Nehmran had also infiltrated both the Stasi and StateSec thanks to “The Evangelist” General Scweinsteiger’s Paradeus connections, and the Stasi had assigned Nehmran to work with Dupieux. Romy and the Earl had nearly convinced Scweinsteiger to turn against Paradeus and join their side, but Minister Oberstein had gotten him back and thus Dupieux was thrown under the bus by Scweinsteiger as bait for StateSec’s security purge. Fortunately for him, Agent Q found him first. Q wants to learn the truth about the fate of Dr. Samantha Shaw, who is officially missing but the Stasi knows she is dead thanks to the Bee Sting System. Dupieux reveals that StateSec had people monitoring Shaw under orders to eliminate her if necessary, but all of those agents who knew what happened went missing, and Agent Q releases Dupieux in return for that information.

While confined and under strict observation in Berlin, Kryuger and Helian worry about the missing Commander. Kryuger calls the Earl to ask for leniency, but the Earl’s top priority is the upcoming founding of the Union of Rossartrist Nations Coalition. A Rossartist Union has existed for quite some time, but it seems a great shift in political power is about to take place.

Kryuger: “We can't let young people get crushed under the wheel of history.”

The Earl: “If they are willing to take their place on the chariot, they will naturally become heroes.”

        Nehmran and Laplace, after fleeing Avernus, have established a temporary base in Frankfurt. Nehmran still has deep connections with StateSec in St. Petersburg and gathers information about who supported StateSec’s attack on Avernus while working to restart Project Cocoon, Paradeus’ system for finding partially immune individuals and metamorphizing Nytos consciousnesses through the Lake of Cognition. Meanwhile, Laplace prepares for a grand experiment featuring the newly created “key,” Lunasia. Laplace is on a tight schedule because Paradeus is still working with Minister Obsterstein, who has promised “fireworks” for Frankfurt very soon. The relationship between Nemhran, Morridow, and BrahmedB, the only remaining independent Nytos, is tense and only gets worse when Erma destroys the Lake of Cognition.

Mephistopheles        

“My time is as tight as a violin string on the verge of snapping, as fleeting as a flowing melody. Life slips by just like that if I don't pay attention. But here I am, suddenly happy to spend precious time savoring life.”

        M16 sends DEFY contact info for Reinette (M520), but AK-12 is unwilling to cooperate. She is still distraught by her current disgusting but powerful Nyto body that RPK-16 had given her and doesn’t want others interfering with the mission to put Ange’s body to rest. M16 condemns Ak-12 for being too attached to the technology Shaw had given her. AK-15 tails Embla back to Paradeus’ temporary base and attacks them, only to get caught in a trap by the Frankfurt Police who were tipped off about a Doll attack and escapes to avoid trouble.

AK-12: “I'm disgusted with my past, present, and future. My past incompetence, my present hideousness, and my future... disappointment.”

         In Berlin, Persica and Helian discuss breaking news of the discovery of Dr. Shaw’s remains in a morgue in Moscow. Persica doesn’t believe it, as they had attended the same engineering academy and worked together to develop the first generation of autonomous dolls, and even helped with the creation of M4A1’s neural cloud. But as she accepts Shaw’s death, she realizes it is likely all connected to the same conspiracy that led to her creating M4A1 in the first place. Like many others, she’s been a pawn.

        The Stasi takes over investigation of the Intercontinental Railway “Future” Incident, and gives all the work in investigating the tech and factions involved to Agents Q and J. They quickly hone in on Maggie Ponzi and the other Dolls taken in by the Commander. To Q, new Doll technology is much like the Diesel engine, a world-changing invention that will unfortunately become a weapon of mass destruction in the next world war. Agent Q reports to Romy that The Neo-Soviets sent military command protocols and experimental Dolls to the Commander through the railway Future and later bombed Avernus as part of a power struggle against the Soviet military and its alliance with Avernus, and it’s clear that the Stasi has many moles. With General Scweinsteiger and so many others trying to play both sides, the situation is precarious. Their only winning move is to ensure control over the White Zone.

Romy: “The world won't get destroyed because of a villain. It will be those wavering fence-sitters' doing. If the Devil's power grows stronger, they will all happily support him and become Satan's accomplices. But the moment Christ walks the earth again, they will all put on their pious faces as if they'd been praying like true believers all along.”

        One of J’s Dolls tries to enter the White Zone to access the Stasi archive, but is turned away under suspiciously targeted circumstances. At the same time, AK-12 breaks into the White Zone with help from her Nyto frame’s cloaking tech and hacks into a medical doll that is easily let in through security and notices the White Zone’s similarities to Paradeus operations in both security and data storage, proving they had been colluding for some time. She breaks past all the security measures and hacks into the Stasi’s secret database to get Shaw’s file. The hacked Doll is caught, but AK-15 has already retrieved the data she needed. Agent Q takes advantage of the event to put their own people in charge of security in the White Zone archives.

Faust

Only a moth knows how mesmerizing the flame is. Despite knowing what final fate awaits it, it still hurtles towards its own demise without hesitation. Is death the final destination?

        It is now the morning of Halloween. Morridow and Nemhran reveal that RPK-16 actually defected to Paradeus on the Earl’s orders, but now her mission will be to official debut Wililam’s technology and show the world that Nytos are proof of the possibility of eternal life. They discuss how William did not abandon them or get captured, but willingly went with the Commander in order to move Paradeus’ operation from the Black Zone to the White Zone and influence events not from the shadows but from center stage.

Morridow: “Will the humans know the price they'll have to pay in exchange for this kind of eternal life?”

Nemhran: “Humans are short-sighted creatures who will happily give up long-term plans for the sake of some immediate benefit.”

AK-12 sends Shaw’s data to AR-18, whose squad is still trying to enter the city, and gets what could be the key to the Nadia fountain from Reinette in exchange. Then they track Embla to the opera house where she has plotted a maze to keep them busy and a modern reimagination of the play “Faust”. AK-12 ambushes her backstage in the body of Koleda, forcing Embla to flee to center stage. Embla chastises AK-12 for not using the new frame she had given her, then starts the performance with herself and her Paradeus goons as Mephisopheles and an uncooperative AK-12 as Faust while DEFY fights through an Opera House filled with Paradeus troops. RPK’s traps predict their every move, creating a scripted performance as she sings on stage. She knows exactly how to beat Squad DEFY, but that is not her goal today. She proceeds to the next act: Mephistopheles’ sacrifice.

Embla (quoting Mephistopheles): “The Devil was but an angel once, and angels, in their time, shall fall to devilry. The barter of the human soul drifts upon the tides of desire, rising and sinking with its restless waves. My companion, you ask whither we now tread—My journey ends here, this day, in this very hour, for my return lies in the eternal now.”

        BrahmedB hacks into all the media’s networks to prepare for Paradeus’ grand debut. Children are knocked out on the streets by debris as Nytos cause a disruption and start setting up bombs. Every screen and speaker is filled with chanting prayer and all lights in the opera house go out. AK-15 and AN-94 leave the opera house to kill the Nytos and stop the bombs, while AK-12 takes on Embla alone, seemingly aware of Embla’s game. AK-12 shoots Embla in the chest, but Embla is glad everything has come together as she bleeds out on the stage floor. She describes her goals and AK-12’s as one and the same, she’s just getting her hands dirty so the others could stay clean. She reveals that the Earl ordered her to betray Ange - to infiltrate Avernus and steal Paradeus’ secrets, but she didn’t do it for him. She did it for Shaw.

        The hacked broadcast switches to the stage, where Embla begins a new performance while bleeding on the ground. She introduces herself as RPK-16, a Doll created by Shaw, as Angelia, and as Embla, an immortal granted imperishable youth by Paradeus.

        When AK-12 died in Mirror Stage, RPK-16 saved her inside of her own Neural Cloud and brought her to Avernus. In truth, RPK-16 was always Nadia, Shaw’s AI assistant. When Shaw was assassinated due to her opposition to relic technology, Nadia took over RPK-16’s complete body and incomplete Neural Cloud and joined the rest of DEFY. She had always had command authorizations over the entire squad, but never told them about Shaw’s fate because even the killer was likely a pawn in humans’ game of greed. But if she couldn’t avenge Shaw, she could still preserve Shaw’s legacy. Nadia became an actress, playing the roles of RPK-16 the DEFY member, of Pandora the traitor, of Laplace’s Demon in the Cartesian Theatre, and finally Embla when she could be herself. When Ange was trapped in Avernus, even she approved of RPK-16’s plan. Embla claims to be a false key, but hopes she has given AK-12 what she needs to destroy the real key, Lunasia.

Embla (acting): “...The technology that has made me thus...Came from the Relics. It is truly a miracle. It was I who killed Shaw. It was also I who killed Angelia. Because they were opposed to introducing such great technology to the world.

AK-12 (following the act): “Relics are a gift from the Devil. They are "Pandora's Box", whose opening would be the original sin that leads to the fall of man. The desire to steal fire was man's original sin.”

AK-12 shoots Embla live on air. The rest of Paradeus realizes they’ve been had. As Embla slowly dies, AK-12 plays out Shaw’s last words retrieved from her file. Shaw’s prowess is idolized and well known, and her words can sway opinions. After the cameras turn off, AK-12 talks to RPK-16 one last time.

Embla: “Laplace once asked Ange a question. ‘If everything in life is futile, then what is the point in struggling?’ What do you think Ange's answer was?”

AK-12: “She wouldn't have to answer the question. Her very existence was the answer itself.”

AK-12: “…Did you really kill Shaw?”

Embla: “...Lunasia once asked me whose side I was on. I said to her, "Apostate only am I true. I am you, when I am I.’ You will never find out the answer to that question, 12.”

AK-12: “...And I will never forgive you.”

        Embla dies on stage, having attempted to convince the world that the Pandora Anti-Relic association has saved lives from the evil of Paradeus by stopping one of its crazy villains who was cackling on stage about immortality. AN-94 and AK-15 finish defusing the bombs outside and agree to meet AK-12 at a safe house once she completes one more mission. AK-12 briefly dreams of what could have been if she could have rescued Ange, but proceeds with her new mission to destroy the final key to relic technology, Lunasia, before it destroys the world.

Shaw: “I'm against using Relic technology of any sort. It will inevitably become the weapon that humanity uses to bring about its own demise. The sad thing is... I'm a human myself.”

        Shadowless sees the news coming from the Alte Oper and leaves Berlin for Frankfurt, while AR-18 gets new information from AK-12: the Bee Sting System is hidden under the Main river in Frankfurt.

Angular Gyrus (15.4)

I have always yearned for a peaceful life, but unfortunately, there are those in the blood and carnage still waiting for me to return.

        As Frankfurt reacts to RPK-16’s terrorist attack, the city goes into lockdown. 64 dead and 200 wounded. Instead of blaming Paradeus, the scared people turn against Dolls and put bounties on the other members of DEFY. The government issues emergency Doll Security measures, preventing Dolls from entering the city and instituting frequent neural cloud checks on any already inside. Protests and counter-protests crop up everywhere, leading to Dolls being prevented from working, including in Hospitals. Some people are terrified of the danger of Dolls, others see them as taking jobs that humans should be doing, and still others realize the danger of overreaction and warn that since Dolls aren’t allowed to work the city’s hospitals will all shut down, roads won’t be able to be cleared quickly after accidents, and these problems will cause more deaths than the terrorist did.

The Commander wakes up trapped in a dark room with who they think is Dandelion. Dandelion surmises that they’re in one of William’s labs. The Commander uses a shoelace through the door’s food slot to open the door from the other side, picks up the weak and sickly looking Dandelion, and tries to make an escape despite their own injuries and weak condition. Their escape fails and Dandelion leads the Commander in circles until they collapse from being too weak to carry Dandelion any further. In the better light, they see who their companion really is, but can’t figure out what they truly intend.

“Commander, you're such a gentle soul. You're so feeble yourself, but you're still so determined to take me with you. You're a veteran that has lived through countless battles; why are you still so naïve? …Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Lunasia.”

Commander: “Why are you keeping me prisoner here? Why didn't you just kill me?”

Lunasia: “Because I want you alive… But how you live is entirely up to me.”

        Lunasia is clearly loyal to William, her little brother. But she also has the memories of Dandelion and M4A1 inside her and this makes her partial to the Commander whether she likes it or not. She allows them to write three letters to close contacts, but doesn’t allow the Commander to meet with William or leave. She blindfolds them and moves them to a new location, which sounds like near a church. She feeds the Commander their least favorite foods and tries to taunt him, but the Commander turns it around on her by pointing out how much she is still M4 and Dandelion and still remembers everything they went through.

Commander: “I don't believe in God, alright. Because every time I find myself in a desperate situation, it is always myself and my Dolls who get me out of it. Where was God when I needed him? If he actually existed, why did he put me through all this dark ordeal?”

Lunasia: “Out of countless threads of life, the Fates have seized yours, spun it longer and longer, and that's how you managed to come all this way. Can't you feel it? They are watching you with mercy even now.”

        As the Commander’s captivity continues, Lunasia stays by their side constantly. The Commander figures out that she is not the “Lunasia” William wants, or she wouldn’t be here at all. To him, she is a failure at bringing his sister back because of all the other lives inside of her. She is Lunasia… but she is also M4 and Dandelion and they cannot be removed from her. When the Commander makes her confront this fact, Lunasia loses her temper and moves the Commander again.

        Nele, the former Galatea researcher who assisted J in Poincare, makes a deal with AR-18, who needs help sneaking a Doll squad into the city to rescue the Commander. Nele wants a meeting with the Commander so they can help her get justice for the original Professor Gray she idolized. Nele is an estranged member of the very rich and influential Vogt family who could get those Dolls into the city, posing as her new “bodyguard Dolls”. To this end, Nele meets her cousin who just had to have her baby at a Sanatorium due to Doll bans and uses her to get additional Doll permissions. Unexpectedly, her cousin also arranges for her to meet her friend Frau Hebe to help her get a boyfriend and also arranges for her to meet their grandfather, the former Minister of Health, in the White Zone beneath the city for a possible job opportunity. Nele had been estranged from their grandfather due to her mother fighting with him, but feels she can honor her late mother by rekindling the family bond. Mia, Nele’s personal bodyguard Doll, delivers the permits to AR-18, who reveals that they know the Commander is somewhere in the White Zone and asks Nele to do some snooping while she’s down there.

        Despite having permissions, they don’t match and would not pass a human inspection. Ar-18 takes a squad of 8, including herself, Cross, Hertha, Mia, and Squad 404, into a van to sneak into the city, leaving RO635 in charge of the rest of Griffin’s operations.

UMP45: “People all over Germany are in a panic. In the eyes of ordinary citizens, the stricter the restrictions, the safer they think it is… Right now, Frankfurt's crackdown on Dolls is probably the toughest in the entire country.”

        The rescue squad avoids drones and gets past the checkpoint, then meets with Reinette, DEFY, and M16 in a private property formerly owned by Dr. Hume. Together, they plan Operation Adrasteia to rescue the Commander. First, Squad 404 will hack into the Bee Sting System underneath the Main river to obtain the Commander’s precise location while DEFY investigates what Paradeus is currently up to with their Project Cocoon and draws attention away from 404, and M16 will prepare for the rescue.

Nele: “There's light and darkness in everyone. To me, Professor Gray has always been an earnest and righteous woman with unyielding tenacity. I don't understand the darkness that was hidden inside her, but I will always remember the light that she had given me.”

        Frau Hebe meets with Nele to try to set up a date for her, but she is actually investigating her on behalf of Paradeus. While Nele tries on outfits, Hebe has an assistant copy her communication logs, but Nele has already cleaned all traces of Griffin from them. Hebe has been working in Frankfurt for years to establish the foundation for Project Cocoon, and now that Nemhran is here it is finally ready to enter the next phase… allowing the butterfly to be reborn again. While Nemhran works towards this goal, DEFY attacks their base briefly and then retreats after causing chaos.

The White Zone

“Building something from scratch is always easier than fixing something, don't you think?”

Commander: “When I finally retire, I've got to build a little cabin by a lake like this. I'll sail and go fishing every day… And when I'm tired, I'll just lie on the grass, looking at the sky, not thinking about anything... How lovely would that be … Sweet dreams will make me lose my way. I would rather face reality.”

        The commander awakens once more to the sights and sounds of nature, but it’s merely a realistic projection within what appears to be an airport hangar. Lunasia allows the Commander to get cleaned up, but gets drunk and wishes the Commander would worry about her instead of only caring about William. She says William always protected her, even if it made him look hysterical. She takes the Commander on a date, using the holographic projector to take them all kinds of places. She tells him about her memories of William, but interweaves them with memories of the AR team and her time on the Elmo. To her, all those memories are hers and she cannot distinguish them as belonging to separate people. She puts the Commander to sleep again, but they fall asleep still clutching her hand.

Lunasia: “He always appears hysterical, but I know he's a gentle, thoughtful boy… Bill saw me trembling in fear, so he stepped forward and took the blame. He took a terrible beating for that... and was locked up for three days…”

Commander: “They should've just beaten him to death.”

Lunasia: “Perhaps what I really want isn't a date, but an answer. Who am I? I don't know the answer to this question either.”

         As Nemhran surveys the damage from DEFY’s attack on Paradeus’ Frankfurt base, the Bee Sting system intercepts new data from one of its tracked searches. They open it for more details, but it is a trojan horse from Squad DEFY to get into the system. They’re about to crack into an extremely high security database and don’t expect to go undetected for more than 15 minutes, so they’re all nervous, even UMP45. While 9 and 45 enter the system through level II, 416 and G11 guard them and provide computational power. Nemhran quickly detects the false flag, and searches for the attackers. By the time 45 and 9 are 4 layers into the firewall, Nemhran launches an electronic attack on G11 and 416. While the two surface level members desperately try to protect their comrades’ consciousness on the higher level, UMP45 and 9 reach a level III digital library but find that the Bee Sting’s password has been refreshed ahead of schedule. They have nearly obtained the data on the Commander’s location, but if they don’t leave their clouds would be fried by a torrent of data that begins to rain down from the ceiling, about to wash everything away. UMP45 takes a huge risk to stay in, and they get the data at the last possible second and barely escape back to level II with their neural clouds intact. After losing Ange, UMP45 doesn’t want to lose the Commander, too.

        UMP45 and 9 return to level two, only to find 416 and G11 fighting for their lives against Nemhran. If they can’t escape from her, she could learn the location of their frames in the real world. They escape one by one and 416 offers to go last, but right as she escapes, a Python bites her on the arm, leaving no sign of injury back in reality.

Nele arrives in the underground White Zone by chauffeur to meet with her grandfather. She goes through intense security and decontamination - it is not easy to keep an area completely free of collapse radiation. She arrives at his apartment, where he quickly offers her a nice job but he is all business. She snaps at him for being cold and they argue until she storms off.

Agent J mulls over his hatred of his job. Just as he is ruminating at how dumb it is that the Stasi is using trained secret agents like him as security guards in the White zone, he spots Nele. She quickly decides to use him to get details on the zone’s layout to pass on to AR-18 and invites him for a walk. They talk for a while, but as she pries into patrol habits J realizes what she’s doing and confronts her.

The Commander awakens, Lunasia having slept by their side all night. They figure out that Lunasia hasn’t been moving them around at all, they’ve been in the same building the whole time subjected to fake audio and visual projections. Lunasia did it all just for fun, and William has no intention of meeting with them. Then, Lunasia gives the Commander a dagger, suggesting they stab her and escape. They are in the White Zone, so it should be easy. The Commander refuses, so Lunasia presses the dagger against their neck and threatens to kill them if they don’t kill her and escape. The Commander calls her bluff, and with frustration she opens the door and tells them to just leave. The Commander does so, but not before cuffing and kidnapping Lunasia themselves. Lunasia chastises them because William can use her to track them, but the Commander thinks of Machlian and how they don’t want anyone else to die. Carrying Lunasia, the Commander runs out into the White Zone.

Lunasia: “Say... if Machlian resides within Morridow's body, can you accept that? Just like me with this body. Can you accept it?”

        Alarms go off as the Commander’s trespass and burglary is detected and the Commander meets J and Nele. J tries to arrest the Commander, but when he is shocked to find Lunasia, the Commander takes the opportunity to knock him out. Nele is a bit dubious of the Commander suddenly showing up carrying an unconscious girl in a blanket and knocking out J, but promises to help. Then, M16 and 404 arrive in a military vehicle, and the Commander brings all of them, including the unconscious J, inside. The Dolls fight against the armed white zone garrison while fleeing in the military vehicle, but all the exits are blocked. Nele, who has been memorizing the White Zone’s layout, guides them towards a water treatment facility underneath the Main where the walls would be weak enough to blast through. They set up a defense while waiting for the explosives and Squad DEFY arrives to support, but the vehicle is knocked on its side by an explosion. As 416 sets off the wall explosives, she finds herself thrown into her own level II with the Python there waiting for her. This snake is “Cocoon”.

“45, if there is a trap in front of you, and you know that taking the bait will kill you, but there is something vital in the trap, what would you do?”

        416 knows that 45 has now promised to give leadership of Squad 404 to her, and decides to do what 45 would do in this situation. She approaches the snake and engages it in a firefight. She distracts it long enough to grab one of the three cocoons, but gets strangled in the process. The snake is Frau Hebe, and after 416 pulls out she activates the remaining cocoons.

        416 pulls the Commander out of the wrecked military vehicle, and gets them to a new vehicle while DEFY distracts the garrison. Then 416 notices something is wrong, asks 45 to take over guarding the Commander, then feels herself being squeezed to death.

416: “I stole something important without paying my due…...This is what I extracted from the Bee Sting System… It's all in your hands, Commander. We will prevail.”

The Commander catches her frame before she falls, but they cannot catch her soul.

        416’s neural cloud goes dead, having been contaminated by Badbsca’s cocoon. Thanks to 416’s sacrifice, the way is now clear and everyone escapes the White Zone and makes it to a safe house. There, they analyze the information that 416 traded her life for. Lunasia calls it a gift from Bill, promising that it could be used to bring Machlian back to life if they join forces with William. But the Commander can’t accept it, just like William couldn’t accept this Lunasia. Project Cocoon has three subjects. Machlian, Morridow, and Badbsca, with names derived from the three Irish Morrigna war goddesses. Project Cocoon is meant to be a secondary channel of immortality, a plan B in case the Lake of Cognition ever failed. Its goal is to bring the powers of a God that Lunasia controlled into the domain of the “Spring” within GrCh38.

Commander: “...I've made up my mind...I am going to destroy Paradeus completely. All the Nytos, the Nyto incubation program known as Operation Cocoon, and whoever's pulling the strings behind them… I want them all dead.”

        45 works on 416’s body to see if she can be brought back to life, but her revival will have to wait until they can meet with Dier. 45 reveals that she had planned to step down as squad leader and let 416 take the reigns. 404 had always been a mercenary squad, and 416 always butted heads with her about putting their lives at risk over 45’s own personal vendetta. Now it is clear to her that this was just as personal for 416.

45: “She's not even officially instated as leader yet, but she's already so eager to perform the duty of a leader. If someone had to lose their life, she'd rather it be her. But Commander… This is actually making me very eager for a fight.

        As the team prepares for their next move, explosions are heard throughout Frankfurt and yellow powder containing collapse particles starts to spread through the air. The streets clear out and the battlefield for the next battle is set.

Isolation Forest (15.5) [WIP]

“Medicine has always been a miracle paved with dead bodies.”

The brief summary of this part is complete and available here:

A "Brief" Summary of Girls' Frontline

Read it before Convolutional Kernel. A full summary will be written…eventually but likely won’t expand on it much.  

Convolutional Kernel (15.6)

“Just like back in WWIII… Everyone was asking, ‘When will this war end?’ …I won't give you false hope. So... just endure. Live for every single moment.”

1: Coronation Storm

“It's an inevitable stage in war—"dehumanizing" the enemy, portraying them in the worst light possible. That way, you won't feel so much guilt about killing them.”

General Carter of the KCCO broadcasts a message to the world: the “Rossartrist Union” is a scam that will destroy both the Soviet Union and Germany, so the KCCO has launched a special military operation in Frankfurt and Moscow to end it. 700 aircraft rush towards Frankfurt while missiles take out German anti-air defenses. Bombing commences on Frankfurt’s air defenses and transport infrastructure; before long the entire city is aflame. Germany is at war. On the autobahn, air raid sirens and screams of terror set the scene as a jet crashes onto the highway, crumpling cars and their unlucky occupants. The AR team - RO, Sop II, and AR-15 - attempt to save lives on the highway, while nearby the Commander onboard the Elmo tries to put the situation together. KCCO electronic warfare divisions have blocked all communication except for the Aeneas conference room. Doll M99 removed her own arm to get into a car and rescue an elderly civilian who is delusional from a lifetime of enduring war. The Commander talks to the old survivor, whose son died in WWIII, aboard the Elmo and helps him return to reality, but also receives a reminder of why they chose to fight in the first place. It reminds the Commander of a conversation they had in military school - about how men at war always dehumanize their enemy to make them easier to kill. Having done what they can for the civilians, the Commander decides to use the chaos to try to capture Nemhran.

        As bombs fall around them, Amaris guides Nele into a nearby bakery to take cover. A car crashes into the shop, and the duo attempt first aid but can’t save the driver. The blood on her hands reminds Nele of Laplace’s words in that castle just hours ago. They are eerily similar to Grey’s philosophy that Nele looked up to so much, and Nele is lost in her thoughts. They move to a metro station for safety, but the refugee’s fear and anger fills the shelter. A call from Agent J snaps Nele from her confusion. She puts on gloves and helps a sickly child in the shelter.

Laplace: “What's the difference between a med student and a serial killer? Little girl, the answer is—there's no difference. The adrenaline and endorphins bring them the same joy. One day, you'll admit... what you inherited from me is what you've been pursuing your whole life...”

Agent J: “You're a doctor. Bloody hands are normal. If you don't like the mess, just wear gloves.”

        Romy Riefenstahl, as head of the Stasi, breaks into the office of the Interior Minister and accuses him of treason and providing information to Carter; she oversteps her authority but takes control of the situation. The Stasi now controls Frankfurt’s civil defense. The Stasi has been busy- rooting out moles and preventing six assassination attempts on Chairwoman Ulrich’s life alone. Meanwhile, Chairman Groß, the head of the German state, meets with Chairman Oberstein and defies his will. He refuses to be a puppet of the old Minister who helped him rise to power and aligns himself instead with the Earl. He sees Oberstein as living in the past with relics, instead of focusing on the future that could be made. He will support the establishment of the URNC, working with The Earl.

        From Moscow’s White Zone, Nemhran contacts William with one request: to be allowed to truly die. Her plan is given the green light, so she orders Hebe in Frankfurt to detonate the Iaso’s boxes - all of them. She sends orders to BrahmedB as well, but the sadistic woman doesn’t even answer. Nemhran feeds info on Oberstein and General Carter to the Bee Sting system, lowers the access safeguards, and lets their enemies hack into it. Then, she begins the process of erasing her own virtual cognition image - throwing away a tool that no longer has use. She looks back on her short life looking for meaning, but the only moment that means anything to her were giving a daisy to Sana, who had called her “mama,” and watching as that same girl refused to escape Avernus and decided to die protecting her home. With that as her warmest memory, Nemhran embraces death.

Looking around at everything, retracing the short span of her existence, she suddenly realizes that she has never truly owned anything. Born as a convenient tool, she will now cease existing as a tool that has lost its value. …The vines of Death, unhindered, surge through her body.

        On the ground in Frankfurt, the Commander and most of their Dolls continue humanitarian efforts rescuing civilians from bombed-out buildings just as another wave of bombings start, but rather than destroying infrastructure, these graphite bombs knock out the city’s power grid. The city is doomed; their best option now is to create a corridor for evacuation.

Commander: “Every time I think I could make a change, reality strikes me down. Six million lives. Six million…”

        While the Commanders Dolls save people in the city, Romy has been busy consolidating power to root out traitors and spies. She has Oberstein stripped of power officially, but the man is already dead. Agent Q assesses the scene of the assassination and finds evidence Morridow is involved in assassinating both Oberstein and his rotund collaborator General Schweinsteiger. They put out a press release lauding the two as martyrs and victims of General Carter’s attack as they begin stripping any surviving traitors or their supporters of power.. Then, they prepare internal Stasi communications to prepare for the arrival of aid from the German air force. As for William and Lunasia, their father’s death does not affect them in the slightest as they prepare the construction of an “arc” for a new phase of humanity.

Shadowless: “Is this what the big shots... the ones in power... want? Countless civilians giving their lives for the whims of a few. ...To them, these are just numbers. Necessary sacrifices. Right now, they're more concerned about... winning the power struggle and purging their enemies…  While the people truly in danger—their so-called voters...Get absolutely nothing.”

        Also on the war-ravaged ground, Shadowless and an ex-war correspondent named Falk ignore advice to seek shelter and instead begin reporting live from the warzone, notifying the populace of damaged power infrastructure and where medical help is most urgently needed. Agent J tracks her down, still feeling guilty about the death of her brother. He sees her conviction to fight just as her brother did, and just as her late parents once did for the good of the people.  

Likewise, Nele grows into her newfound role as a proper doctor and helps many of the injured refugees sheltering in Frankfurt’s subways. Her bodyguard, Amaris, as well as the Commander, receive a tip from Agent J that Paradeus’ Iaso’s boxes are in underground defense facilities throughout the city. The Stasi has found them but are too busy with the power struggle to actually do anything about it. As each faction struggles in their own fight, the iconic Europaturm tower falls.

2: Als Ich Kann

Shadowless: “Only as children did we have the delusion that some jobs could change the world.”

Commander: “I don't think children's words are silly. It's just that we still had ideals back then. But now... everyone has forgotten their ideals. In the world of grown-ups, there is only interest.”

        Deep underground, the Nytos Styx and Hebe discuss the role of the Bee-Sting system in Paradeus’ plans. Originally, the part of the Stasi that backed Paradeus - the part loyal to Schweinsteiger and Oberstein - ordered its construction and shared in its control, but the two factions have been fighting for complete control of it ever since; neither side willing or able to expose the other without implicating themselves, and neither side being willing to release control. That is what led to this war in the first place: Oberstein colluding with Carter to take complete control of Germany and all its resources. Now that Oberstein is dead, Carter is fighting an unwinnable war. They look at the last files Nemhran added to the Bee Sting system, realize they were meant for the Commander to see, and recognize how humanity has used them. Morridow arrives, and suggests that they choose a side to fight for instead of being pawns. Not the Earl’s side; not the Commander’s side; not William’s side; they will side with their true “father” and be part of Lunasia’s brave new world.

Hebe: “[Oberstein] sought to relive the glory of WWIII through military force. Lady Laplace wanted to unlock the Relics by unleashing a bloodbath in Frankfurt. Carter didn't want the URNC to form. And Father [William]... wanted to seize Paradeus, to make Paradeus his alone… We have always been pawns, meant to be discarded eventually. Nemhran saw it all.”

Morridow: “Lunasia... considers herself only as the key to the Relics. And what she wants is to unlock them, to wield their power. If we guard the final procedure and make sure she is born safely...We can become her followers... and enter the new world together.”

        As the Commander’s Dolls continue rescue work throughout the city, the Commander makes use of their still-functioning communications system by assigning a Doll to every hospital to allow the beleaguered doctors to coordinate supplies and patient extraction within the city and with other cities coming to help. They also order Dolls to clear the roads and support the city in restoring power and travel networks, including the Autobahn to evacuation and outside aid. With few other Dolls in the city thanks to the prior ban, their capability for heavy labor is instrumental. The Commander has quickly become the most important figure in coordinating the civilians of Frankfurt. They think back to how they started - a dirty train ride for a war orphan sent through military school, an old woman who saw in them the son she’d lost in war, and a jaded senior officer named Marina that promised that a soldier’s path isn’t all blazing guns and glory, but duty. As missiles destroy two of the hospitals they were coordinating with, including a children’s hospital, the Commander collapses from exhaustion.

The farewell from this morning still echoes in their ears, but now there is only rubble, hundreds of corpses... In the space between one sunrise and sunset, everything has changed.

Commander: “If no one cares for the civilians, someone has to stand up and do something. That is the reason I pick up a gun.”

        Agent K of the Stasi arranges for Chairwoman Ulrich to reach the safety of Frankfurt’s white zone beneath the city, in preparation for a meeting between Romy and the remaining Chairmen. As they continue to root out nonsupporters, Agent Q investigates two remaining questionable individuals: The Earl, and William, whose real name is revealed to be Ballard von Oberstein.

Ballard (William): “You're here to witness the end of an old era, and the dawn of a new one.”

The Earl: “All I need is the fall of the old era. The method doesn't matter. As for my promise, I will fulfill it. Once that meeting ends, once Frankfurt's fires die down...You will have everything you seek.”

        The Earl meets with William at last, but William claims that not enough blood has been spilled for their plan to come to fruition. They both seek to dismantle the old world order that has brought everything to ruin. Meanwhile, the Commander tracks down Nele, who gives them back the Makarov handgun they had given her for protection - the same one Kryuger had given them years before during a Sangvis attack, and the same one Nele had used to kill Laplace. In addition, she hands them the evidence she’s gathered about the original Professor Grey’s innocence, and is prepared to face intense scrutiny in testifying publicly.

Nele: “When blinded by hatred, I carry a gun. But once the hatred is gone, I would rather hold a scalpel. I want to save people. The more the better. I am not a killer, and I don't find joy in killing.”

Commander: “You set it down to save lives. I hold it still, also to save lives. Our methods differ, but our purpose is the same. We walk the same path.”

3: The Savior

“Each one of us in turn climbs the Calvary of the age. Each one of us finds anew the agony, each one of us finds anew the desperate hope and folly of the ages. Each one of us follows in the footsteps of those who were, of those before us who struggled with death, denied death—and are dead. Bathe in humanity every day, and endure, and love your destiny.

We all have to do what we can... Als ich kann.” -Romain Rolland, Jean-Christophe, ~1914

        As the roads are cleared, the fires put out, communications are restored, and the city stabilizes, the Commander gets a call from Kryuger. They confide in Kryuger about what they’ve been through and what they want. The Commander thinks of Marina, the old senior that considered herself an older sister to the young Commander, how she felt medals were less about glory and more about being thanked for service, about how they’d bought graves side by side, and how hers had already been filled. Kryuger admires what the Commander has done and is proud.

Commander: “Both of my parents died in WWIII... It was 2050, the war had not yet ended, and by the policy of the time I was enrolled in the Suvorov Military School...The reason was simple—if I still wished to study, only this school allowed a martyr's child to bypass exams. I just had to pass a medical screening. It was never a choice, only an accident of fate. I once hated the world—why must I endure the pain of losing everything? Why must I study warcraft in preparation for fighting in future wars? But then... I met a senior who rekindled my heart, which was clouded by anger…  If one day I die, please write this on my tombstone… ‘Here lies a brave soul.’”

        As the Commander and AR-18 examine data from the Bee Sting System, they realize Paradeus and William were behind this attack, using Carter and Oberstein as tools and scapegoats, and get info from the Stasi that the Nyto Styx is somewhere in Frankfurt. It is time to put an end to Paradeus. 404 narrows down Styx’s location to several sites and the Commander launches a simultaneous raid on all of them at once, but Styx escapes with both 404 and DEFY following her. As they do, The Earl calls the Commander to offer praise and recognition now that everything is over. Oberstein and General Carter are both dead, and peace is upon Europe at long last. The Commanders actions have earned them a Gold Star medal, the highest honor a Soviet soldier can receive, but the Earl also advises them to leave Frankfurt and leave Paradeus to him. The Commander refuses.

Commander: “...And what will you do? Absorb Paradeus? Recruit William? Earl, you sit in an office far removed from the battlefield. From where you sit, you can't see the suffering of the people, their blood and tears. The ones who died because of the Iaso's Boxes, the ones used as test subjects by Paradeus. Did they ever exist in your eyes? To you, they were nothing but necessary, insignificant sacrifices, weren't they? William's life is worth more than all of theirs, isn't it?”

Earl: “Would you ignite war in the coming age of peace, Commander?        …The living must live for the living. The living must strive for the living.”

        The Earl then has Havier Witkin call the Commander to again try to persuade them to abandon the crusade and let everything be over. When the Commander refuses, Havier threatens to invoke the Nidhogg protocol: a kill-switch that will cut the cooperative agreement between IOP and G&K, shutting down all IOP Dolls under their command and cutting the Commander’s ability to control them. Out of respect for them, Havier shuts down the Elmo and gives the Commander 12 hours of leniency before he invokes the protocol and starts shutting down their Dolls one by one.

Havier Witkin: “Right now you stand at a critical crossroads. You can become a hero honored with the Gold Star for your service to your country and people. Or vanish into obscurity. Erased from existence.”

Commander: “After all this, after a road paved with blood and corpses… What lies behind me is not a red carpet of glory, but a blood-red blade that drives my vengeance. Mr. Havier, even without the Dolls, I will never give up the hunt for William.”

Havier Witkin: “Whatever you intend to do, you have 12 hours to finish it.”

        The Commander gathers their Dolls and announces that starting now, they will be forced into hibernation, one by one. They tell the Dolls they are free to stay on the Elmo where it is safe, or to follow them in chasing William and face a grim fate.

“If you choose to follow me...Then you face two possible outcomes—You will either enter forced hibernation somewhere down the line...Or perish in battle...Neither is a particularly good outcome. Do you understand what you're getting yourselves into? We have lost all support. We stand against the entire world, against the outcome that's already been decided. We are destined to lose. The victors will erase every last trace of our existence. Even so, you still choose to follow me?

The Commander solemnly lays a hand upon theirs. They know this hand stack signifies trust—and a vow to live and die together.

        The Dolls are vow to follow the Commander to the end. Elsewhere, Chairman Groß announces the foundation of the Union of Rossartrism Nations Coalition, URNC, a formal alliance between Germany and the Neo-Soviet Union. This comes with new Doll regulations and massive profiteering conspiracies, but any dissenting public opinion is strictly controlled. The only voices heard are cheers. Nele can’t stand for this and steals a public appearance to publicly denounce Galatea’s practices and reveal the truth of what happened to the original Dr. Gray. her broadcast is cut of and immediately assassins come for her, but Amaris tracks her down first and leads Nele to safety.

        Squad 404 tracks Styx to the Stasi headquarters in Frankfurt. The Commander and a large force sneak in to find her, and on the way find the Bee Sting Data center and info revealing that the Stasi has been in bed with Paradeus all along, and that the final step in Project Valkyrie is a surgery. They find Styx defending a narrow hallway with deadly spike weapons, so the Commander rushes her with a pack of armored shotgun dolls. BrahmedB arrives to cut their advance short, but the Shotgun squad allows the rest of the Commander’s force to push past Styx and into the heart of Project Valkyrie.

Commander: “This is the so-called Coronation Storm. To crown themselves with the blood of six million lives, in the name of power and ambition. Now... it's time to put an end to it all.”

        Morridow and Hebe stop the Commander from going any further. All their remaining Dolls fight against the attackers on all sides. With only a little over 2 hours until the last IOP Dolls are deactivated, their numbers have dwindled considerably due to shutdowns and battle casualties. They kill BrahmedB and Styx, but Hebe and Morridow get away. The Commander persues, and finds Morridow dying in a hallway, begging for Lunasia to grant her immortality. But instead, Lunasia helps her pass to the other side.

Morridow: “...You liar!!! You're just like your brother! You're both liars!!!”

Crack. Morridow's head droops to one side at a grotesque angle. Her tear-streaked face remains twisted with rage and despair. Lunasia gazes at her with feigned pity. Then she turns leisurely, looking back at the silent Commander and the AR Team with their raised guns.

Lunasia: “Before our last meeting, I was Lunasia. ...Now… I am the true master served by the omniscient, omnipotent Laplace's Demon. The key to the Relics, the nexus linking this world and the other. An existence akin to God.”

        Lunasia claps her hands, and all of the Commanders remaining Dolls collapse like puppets whose strings were cut. She then leads the Commander to a lab and tells him about how her mother had raised her to be the prophetic savior of humanity, but her father never believed any of it. Her mother had formed a cult that believed Lunasia was the savior of all humankind, and killed themselves, including her mother, believing that with enough sacrifices a new door could be opened and the war would end. Nothing came of it, but her father, Minister Oberstein, then put the original “William” in charge of Project Valkyrie to make her into a key to control relic technology. Lunasia lost her mind from experiment after experiment, and instead of wishing to save the world, she wished to destroy it. And Bill, or Ballard, agreed to help her do it, thus becoming the new Williiam. Lunasia goes on to explain how Ange knew more about this than she let on.

Lunasia: “‘Commander, what should we look to in order to save the world?...The past, the present, or the future?’ Let me tell you the true meaning of those words. It was the reason she underwent her final surgery. The entire truth that Embla told her. Angelia chose to die willingly because this is not the only world. Have you seen a spindle? Fates and worlds are like threads upon it—they can have countless beginnings, countless branches, yet always converge on the same end.”

        Lunasia explains that Ange chose death after Embla showed her an alternate timeline, one where she didn’t get captured, but the Commander died to Morridow’s ambush at the pharmaceutical plant. Enemies and allies became mixed up, and that was merely one of many alternate worlds. She tells them about timelines where the Commander and Ange die at various times in their journeys, including the one M16 came from in Cartesian Theatre, but in every single one, no matter how allegiances shift, the Commander and Ange are always on the same side. Then, Lunasia says, in order to stop William, the Commander must kill Nele, because she is the next “William.” In timelines where Ange didn’t die at Avernus, Nele became the successor to Laplace and William. The commander refuses, citing that she may have been capable of such acts in other timelines, but the Nele he knows has already put the gun down.

4: Valkyrie

Agent J: “It's over... There goes my dream of being a ladies' man and playing the field... Never again will I get to ask a pretty girl out for coffee…”

Amaris: “Maybe I should just shoot him and be done with it.”

        As Agent J enters the Stasi headquarters in the white zone, reeling from news that Agent K died in the line of duty, he gets a message from the Commander asking him to find Nele and Amaris. He finds them low on ammo, still desperately fleeing pursuit from would-be assassins, which include his own compatriots in the Stasi. He tries to convince her she’s being foolish for risking her life for what’s right, but sees the same brightness in her eyes as the day he found her smiling behind him when he thought she’d died. Attacks come from all directions, and Amaris and Agent J work together to protect Nele. With escape unlikely, Agent J gets a call from Agent Q offering Nele surrender to the Frankfurt police. The Stasi no longer want her dead, thanks to Agent J’s interference, and the safest place for her would be prison. Nele gives herself up and is arrested for experimenting on Gray Blackwell’s corpse.

Lunasia: “I am not only Lunasia, and not only M4. I am also Elisa, and Dandelion, and something else. ... In short, you are not the only person who matters to me. The same goes for Bill and Nele.”

        With everything on the table, the Commander admits they want to kill Lunasia and put an end to everything. Since she is the key, killing her would make this reality the sole reality and give it resolution, and all the other timelines would dissolve like dreams. Lunasia promises to help them make that reality. She won’t let them bear the burden of killing her alone, because she is Lunasia… but she is also M4 and Dandelion. She asks for the key that Erma sacrificed herself to obtain, the key to the Lunasia fountain.

Lunasia: “I finally have everything I ever wanted. Commander, you should be bathed in sunlight, and return to Moscow one beautiful spring. There you will find boys and girls as radiant as lilies. And you yourself will be like a lily.”

Commander: “I don't think of this as farewell. M4, this is us... running together toward our own choices.”

At countless crossroads of fate, they could have become...A remarkable warrior. A gentle senior. A hot-tempered instructor. A carefree child. But the Commander never keeps time for themself—they always give it to others. Life is so long, and yet so short. They only have enough time to become a brave soul.

A news broadcast plays to Frankfurt, claiming that an illegal Doll named “Dandelion” abducted the Commander that was considered a hero in Frankfurt, using them as a hostage to conduct a terrorist attack. She stole a tank, but the Commander fought back and blew it up with them both inside, leaving only Doll remains behind. They were posthumously awarded the Gold Star. At the same time, M16 attacked William and severed his arm. The government uses these attacks to institute even stricter Doll regulations. With Romy promoted from director of the Stasi to General Riefenstahl, she’ll be busy.

Kryuger bails Nele out of prison and reunites her with J, now going by his real name, Kevin Hartmann. He gives them new identities, the Gold Star bequeathed ‘posthumously’ to the Commander, and a pass to the White Zone for them to pass on to Kalina, as per the Commander’s wishes.

Kryuger: “This Gold Star medal will wait for its owner forever. And I will wait for the owner of this medal to return to Griffin.”

Roche Limit [wip]

Future Content

Roche Limit and the following events clean up the horrifically messy ending to GFL1 that was CK. CK was not originally meant to be the ending, but rushed a conclusion because a licensing issue caused GFL1’s client to end temporarily in Dec. 2024.

Erma: mother said it’s my turn to be protagonist

(Sorry Erma, being protagonist is suffering)

Additional Reading

Hub of all things GFL: The IOP Wiki

Lore Analyses, Overviews, and Summaries (1).pdf 

Lore Directory by Ferrari, contains the entire lore of the world’s alternate history in 8 parts.

Explanation and analysis of relics and OGAS

Mega Lore Compendium - Uncut Beta version of Ferrari’s lore directory, massive spoilers later on

A "Brief" Summary of Girls' Frontline Alternate version I’ve been working on; has lore recap and tl;dr

Neural Cloud EN story summary written by an avid IOP wiki contributor.

ITA Italian lore doc (and a translation of this doc) by Mino: Girl's Frontline Lore

Youtube fan-content playlist: 【少前系列新春会单品】『Lost Umbrella』同人手书

Feedback: /u/DoctuhD

Discord: @docderanged