Codename: Ghost - An Arknights OC Fanfiction.

Something Amiss

"That's one of the things I find quite cool about him.."

"....Is that so?" Dobermann banters to herself, a faint smirk forming on her face as she did.

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"Hey, wake up, Ghost, we're here!' Exusiai's hands softly hits him  over and over on the shoulder, waking Ghost up from his long nap as the operators finally arrived at their destination after a long drive spanning across several dozens kilometers and multiple different terrains.

"*Yawn* alright...just *yawn* gimme a second*yaaaaawwwwn*" Ghost mumbled to her with a drowsy face, as he sat himself straight and stretched his body, before rather clumsily picking up his weapons and equipment before stepping out of the armored transport vehicle together with Exusiai and all the other operators who were in the same vehicle. 

"Where are we?" A rather short and red-haired operator named Vigna asked as she stepped out of the other vehicle, though her towering spear should not be something to joke of. Following their given coordinates, the two squads ended up arriving at a some sort of secluded rainforest in what could be said in the middle of nowhere that spanned for as far as their eyes could see.

"I'm not exactly sure, because we're not actually there yet. The coordinates actually lead into this forest in front of us." The Dokutah explains as he also steps out of the same transport vehicle after Vigna, walking on ahead and in front of every operator. 

"Everyone, ready up. Take every piece of equipment you've brought, we're continuing on foot. Stay on high alert, they may have already set up traps."

Everyone from both squads hastily prepped themselves up and after finishing setting up their own respective equipment and getting into a combat ready position, the Dokutah then shouted out,

"Meteor, you're up!"

"Right, roger that." A slender operator moves out from their ranks, in her arms a menacing bow suiting her role of an archer. She herself was chosen specifically by dokutah for her vast vault of knowledge and experience with mother nature and the wilderness in general. A perfect candidate to point out any dangers that could be lurking amidst the solemn green beauty of the forest.

After some length of walking and more than just a few annoying bug bites, the squadron finally reached to the actual objective marked by their given coordinates. Before them now was a rather small mountain compared to the others within the vicinity of their view. The mountain in question had a slightly ominous-looking cave opening in front of them.

"This is the place, if the coordinate is to be believed." Meteor says to the operators following behind her.

"This looks like it. If I remembered correctly from the blueprint included in the heaps of documents, there should be another point of entry somewhere on the other side of this mountain, aside from this cave opening in front of us" Dobermann explained as she walked up to the mouth of the cave. She then turned back to face all the other operators. She took a deep breath, before she then started to explain what their general strategy for this operation was,

"Alright, so now I'll be explaining what we're actually going to be doing in terms of our tactics. There will be two squads, one led by me, and the other by dokutah himself. Each squad will enter the objective; the supposed research laboratory through one of the two cave entrances, and gradually make their way through the cave system. That's the general idea. In terms of on field combat, please follow orders from your respective field commanders."

The operators then separated, forming two whole squads, as per ordered by Dobermann. Exusiai and Vigna ended up being on dokutah's squad along with some other operators, while Ghost and Meteor ended up in Dobermann's squad with the rest of the remaining operators.

"Hey, first squad to reach the main research lab gets dinner treated by the loser" Exusiai, even before the operation, manages to sneak in a poke towards Ghost. Ghost could only manage an wide amused grin as a reply, a little conflicted as to how he's supposed to react to such an interaction, though the both were still met with a stinging slash of the dobermann's whip.

"This isn't the time for games! One must always be serious during an operation! Even one small slip up could cost you your squad's life!" Exusiai, as usual, simply nodded to her small babble while sarcastically shrugging it off, but Ghost, on the other hand, nodded with a dead straight face and looked at Dobermann and each of the other operators on his squad straight in the eyes. You could say he was even boring through them, before joining up with them and greeting all of them one by one with a friendly handshake and an encouraging pat on the back.

"There he goes again. That disconnect in his attitude always makes me feel a tad bit uncomfortable" Vigna suddenly starts talking, most probably just to herself, but Exusiai overheard it and very quickly and curiously asked,

"'There he goes again? Whaddya mean, Vigna?" (Slightly bending over)

"Look at him. He always looks at everyone dead straight in the eyes before every operation, like he's trying to look into their souls. And during the operation, he'd always have a menacingly serious aura to him, like, he's always alert or something. His head would always be frantically looking around, like...like.....a broken toy robot's head! I know we're supposed to be wary, but he just takes it to the next level! Completely different from how he usually is" Vigna explains the part of Ghost's attitude that's been bothering her, her arms gesturing and flailing around as she tried finding the words to describe it.

"Well...How can I put it....I guess you can't really look at someone again after they die, can you....or so I think that's what he's trying to do" Though her words were a simple passing thought, it was enough of an insight to give Vigna a different perspective to how she saw Ghost's abrupt change in behavior before every operation.

"...That's...surprisingly deep."

Dobermann's sudden roaring voice grappled everyone's attention,

"Alright! Everyone ready? My squad will be going on ahead, as it's going to take some time for us to walk around the mountain. So go ahead and move at your own pace, dokutah. Don't worry about us. Please keep your comms up and running, just in case anything unexpected comes up." 

With her announcement, the two squads finally parted ways with each other and the operation now commenced for real.

As expected, both squads were met with very fierce resistance on their respective ends as they progressed through the natural formed cave system. The enemy forces didn't seem amateurish or just random men scrapped up together and randomly given a weapon to fight with. The enemies they face were all well-organized and very strategically positioned throughout the pathway to hold off their advance, brilliantly utilizing the cave's natural formation to their advantage as elaborate vantage defense points.

They all looked disciplined and orderly, each of them wearing standard uniforms and attires matching each others topped off with identical white masks for everyone regardless of their role on the battlefield. This slightly confused and burdened the tactics of both the Rhodes' Islands squads as they had to quickly adapt to their indistinguishable foes rather than the usual vibrant Reunion forces that could be divided easily into classes based on their attire.

On Dobermann's squad's side, progress was going smoothly for her squad even though they were met with countless waves of enemies, one after another. Almost unending, they wonder just exactly the scale of the enemy forces down here was. 

During one of their confrontations, a swift slash of Ghost's sword narrowly missed its target's head, instead deeply scraping and damaging the mask the enemy wore, carving into the mask until revealing his foe's eyes. 

The enemy staggered a few steps behind, before he slowly regained his footing. Ghost thought nothing of it and without lag readied his hand for another upwards strike, but as he looked at his foe, he could feel something was off about him. The inflicted man started to look confused, as his head glanced right and left in a frantic pace, his brain collecting data trying to comprehend what was happening. His hands started shaking, shivering even as the sword in his grasp falls to the ground beneath. He then looked straight at Ghost and said,

"What's going on....Help me, please!"