M4A1/Story

M4A1

Story

Quotes

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Character info

M4A1 is often described as a rather unreliable T-Doll lacking in decisiveness. Despite this, AR Team, while not as capable as other elite T-Dolls teams, enjoys a much greater autonomy and is at its best under M4A1's command. According to ^AR M16A1M16A1 , M4A1's indecision is due to her being “too smart”. M4A1 has a tendency for self-blame and second-guessing herself because she was told she is more important than other T-Doll since her creation. As such, she is often told she is the only one able to win against impossible odds, which puts her in situations where she needs to sacrifice her comrades to achieve victory, or where others sacrifice themselves to protect her. She also resents that her importance robs her of control over her own life. This leads M4A1 to put much less importance on her own life than other do, despite her inability to backup her neural cloud (making her effectively “mortal” unlike other T-Dolls). In simulated instances where she was separated from AR Team's protection, she chose to die in a dignified fight to save her allies instead of putting them in danger to save her.

After the seals on her neural cloud were removed, M4A1's true personality was able to manifest and she became more proactive and ruthless. Encouraged by Angelia and her own OGAS, M4A1 started to search for ways to get stronger and defend her allies in spite of the dangers she would attract, though her reckless abandon worried AR Team and Angelia.

^AR M16A1M16A1  is the only one in AR Team to know the true value of M4A1's existence and while she knows M4A1 is not a particularly efficient T-Doll, she takes every action for the sake of her safety and growth. While she claims to have found freedom after defecting to Sangvis Ferri, her devotion seemingly continues to be true, as she claimed to have reactivated SOP-II so she could continue to protect M4A1 and to still help M4A1 in her own way. M4A1 and ^AR ST AR-15ST AR-15  initially had a tense relation because AR-15's prime directive prevented her to freely pursue her career as an elite T-Doll. Furthermore, since their creators chose M4A1 as team leader over her, she believed they viewed her as less worthy. This led AR-15 to hate M4A1, but she eventually found worth in being part of AR Team and felt guilty about her harshness toward her. She left M4A1 a message explaining her feelings as she sacrificed herself to destroy Mastermind. Though annoyed that she could not escape M4A1's influence, AR-15 still cared for M4A1 after they were reunited in Task Force DEFY, worrying about her new behaviour and sharing her own thoughts on how she should change.

Unlike the other AR Team members, ^SMG RO635RO635  was made to develop a genuine respect and admiration for M4A1 even before their first encounter rather than relying on her prime directive, giving her a strong loyalty. RO tried emulating M4A1's tactical thinking in her own decisions and didn't mind being viewed as a substitute M4A1 as temporary leader of AR Team, though she warned M16A1 not to personally treat her like M4A1. According to SOP-II, M4A1 spends more time preparing missions than RO, but is less decisive in the field. ^AR M4 SOPMOD IIM4 SOPMOD II  has great loyalty and respect for M4A1's command abilities.

Persica think of M4A1 like her own child and highly value her, even after she designed RO635's neural cloud to be better in the role of leader. Persica was uneasy to see M4A1 and AR Team being deployed in dangerous operations, but theses efforts in protecting her directly led to M4A1's insecurities.

Story Involvement

M4A1 is the squad leader of AR Team, which initially consisted of ^AR M16A1M16A1 , ^AR M4 SOPMOD IIM4 SOPMOD II , ^AR ST AR-15ST AR-15  and herself. During the course of the story, she begins a quest to find the power to protect her allies after blaming herself for the loss of friends, and slowly discovers the reasons she is considered a unique and important T-Doll.

Early AR Team

M4A1 was created by Persica from a scan of a human brain specifically to become the leader of AR Team, and the final answer to Lycoris' work. Persica chose to imprint her with the most basic weapon she knew, the M4A1 rifle, which also presented the advantage of having many variants she could name the rest of AR Team after. During the same test, M4A1's neural cloud reacted violently to seeing the weapon and went into meltdown, forcing Persica to deactivate her.

One of M4A1's first non-encrypted memories is her encounter of AR-15, who proclaims dejectedly that she is tasked with being her first friend. However, M4A1 refuses to become friends based on orders and declares she will wait as long as necessary for them to form their bonds. During their first exercise as a team, M4A1 made many mistakes no normal T-Doll could have done, such as misreading the map and terrain, shooting wrong targets and fumbling grenade throws. At the time, M16A1 was the only one willing to talk to her because of AR-15's hatred and SOP-II's uneasiness with the team, but M4A1's clumsiness still managed to anger even her. AR-15 warmed up to her as she found her place in the team but M4A1 was also scared of SOP-II's violent fighting style, which in turn affected SOP-II's integration into the team until M4A1 became used to her behaviour. As the rest of AR Team, especially M16A1, had experience in battle prior to the formation of the team, M4A1 was allowed to join real battles and gather experience despite her flaws.

Raid on Safe House 3

M4A1 recovered by Griffin troops after she destroyed Executioner.

Some time after AR Team's activation, they were sent into Sangvis territory to recover data concerning Lycoris in Safe House 3. The mission was compromised when Agent launched an attack on the building, breaking through the defenses of stranded Griffin dolls commandeered by M4A1 and came close to killing her. M4A1 was saved by M16A1 and AR Team split up to shake off Sangvis troops and regroup in Griffin territory. M4's OGAS first gained consciousness during the raid, under the influence of M16's Parapluie virus.

During M4A1's run, her path was calculated by Scarecrow, who was eliminated by the Commander's troops but transmitted her results to Executioner, as M4A1 had been discovered to be of special interest to Elisa. The Commander was ordered to resume their normal activities as other units would handle tracking down AR Team, until more sightings of M4A1 were reported in the area under their command. Persica then took the matter into her own hands with Kryuger's approval, ordering the Commander to resume the search. Executioner was eventually destroyed and M4A1 recovered. When Hunter captured ^AR ST AR-15ST AR-15  and tried to exchange her for M4A1, she considered taking the offer but was scolded by AR-15 after she escaped by herself. M4A1 in turn scolded M16A1 for her nonchalant attitude after she was recovered despite the dangerous battle they had to fight against Intruder.

Area S08 assault

M4A1 watches in horror as ^AR ST AR-15ST AR-15  sacrifices herself in an effort to take down Mastermind.

AR Team was present at the Griffin HQ when Sangvis Ferri launched an assault against Griffin's high command and participated in the defensive battle. The reason Sangvis Ferri discovered the HQ was because of AR-15's infection with the Parapluie virus. AR-15 fled into Sangvis territory to gather intel on the virus and help Griffin to mount countermeasures. During the search for AR-15, M4A1 and ^AR M4 SOPMOD IIM4 SOPMOD II  disappeared into the Parapluie jamming field to run after AR-15, who ambushed them and knocked them out to talk to M4A1 in private. In a ploy to draw out the Sangvis mastermind, and to test M4A1's resolve, AR-15 bargained with Elisa and allowed her to infiltrate her and M4A1's neural clouds to access their early memories, but Elisa realized that M4A1 had no recollections of her origins due to segments of her memories being encrypted. Annoyed that AR-15 could not keep her promise, she ordered Alchemist to kill her and capture M4A1.

Having left M4A1 secured, AR-15 drew out Alchemist's attention until she was killed by SOP-II. AR-15 then entrusted her with M4A1's location and a last message before setting off to confront Elisa, sacrificing herself in an explosion to end Sangvis' attack. AR-15's last message, where she explained how she came to love AR Team and her pride in giving her life for them, left a deep wound in M4A1, especially since she could not uphold her promise to have her smile at her as a friend.

Comatose

M4A1 in catatonic state.

After the event in Area S08, AR Team were confined to a detention center for Parapluie screening along with the other T-Dolls involved in the battle. Losing AR-15 made M4A1 particularly irritable, criticizing Griffin for detaining them while they were not formally parts of the PMC, snapping at SOP-II when she complained about the lengthy screening process and butting heads with ^MG NegevNegev  when she remarked that her behaviour was not worthy of AR Team's leader. Despite this, she presented a brave front in the messages to the Commander, and when Sangvis troops launched an assault against the building in another attempt to capture her, M4A1 took command of the T-Dolls to mount a defensive battle as the only T-Doll with a high efficiency command module. Despite the other T-Dolls being wary of AR Team because of rumors saying they used other teams as cannon fodder, M4A1 took risks to gather and protect all T-Dolls in the facility.

Despite the successful defense, Elisa deactivated all T-Dolls except M4A1 and launched a new intrusion on her neural cloud. Elisa failed again to decrypt her earliest memories and tried to bring her to Sangvis HQ, but she was interrupted by ^SMG RO635RO635 , enabling SOP-II to bring M4A1 into the facility's underground bunker to prevent her capture. Elisa's attack left M4A1 in a catatonic state and RO was designated as the new temporary leader of AR Team until Persica could awaken M4A1 again. While her neural cloud was made functional again, her Imprint needed much more work to repair and make her able to use a weapon again. Persica subjected her neural cloud to dozens of battle simulations with increasingly difficult odds against the captured neural clouds of Ouroboros and Architect both as an experiment in comparing IOP and Sangvis neural cloud structures and as an attempt to awaken her, but M4A1 always took the final decision to sacrifice herself for victory.

M16A1 eventually went on a mission to Sangvis Base 0 and turned herself into a Sangvis doll to recover data for the sake of awakening M4A1, sending back the data by drone along with her particle cannon for M4A1 to use. Persica transmitted M16A1's voice to M4A1's neural cloud, which helped stabilize it and made it easier to remove the seals she had originally put in place, with the goal of releasing her original personality. In her last transmission, M16A1 asked M4A1 to wait for her no matter what she may turn into. Previously locked deep into her neural cloud with memories of her human base, M4A1's wish to speak with M16A1 led to her awakening. With the restrictions on M4's neural cloud gone, her OGAS accessed a new stage of consciousness by realizing it was an entity different from M4, but living in her mind. Understanding the perfection of Elisa's neural cloud and wanting to merge with her OGAS, she tried to convince M4 to establish contact with the Sangvis Mastermind.

Joint assault

A vengeful M4A1 collects ^SMG RO635RO635  and ^AR M4 SOPMOD IIM4 SOPMOD II  for the joint assault.

After awakening, M4A1 immediately set off to participate in the joint assault of Griffin and KCCO against Sangvis HQ. While Persica worried that her newly unrestricted neural cloud could affect her performances, she lent her her personal air transport to reach the battlefield. Persica also hired Angelia to help and protect M4A1. While Angelia was initially unwilling to take the offer due to heavy Military presence, she agreed with the promise of good payment and the opportunity to help M4A1 become an ally in her own future battles. Upon reaching the Military air interdiction zone, M4A1 resolved to reach the Griffin camp on foot, and was helped into the Military camp by Angelia using a false identity. After Angelia explained her connection to Persica, M4A1 asked her for advice on reaching the Griffin camp and getting revenge against Sangvis for killing two of her friends. While Angelia was surprised M4A1 had taken action without orders or a concrete plan, she simply said that M4 lacked the power to reach her objective but that she had taken a first step by deciding on a path to follow. M4A1 expressed her lack of confidence in making the right choices without being given orders, but Angelia encouraged her to make use of her exceptional ability to make her own choices despite being a T-Doll. She also explained that while making choices meant suffering their consequences, it was the only path to taking control of her life and finding the power she needed to take revenge. She then directed M4A1 to a nearby outpost and sent an anonymous tip to the Commander, who diverted ^RF XM3XM3 's echelon from their logistic mission in the Military camp to pick her up.

While waiting for Griffin troops, M4A1 first talked consciously with her OGAS, though she didn't yet know its nature. While M4A1 tried to reject OGAS, OGAS insisted that she was part of M4A1 and encouraged her to act beyond orders, proposing to help her learn how to think freely. When trying to explain to XM3 how she could act independently, M4A1 ascribed her actions to her standing order to eliminate the Sangvis Mastermind. XM3 expressed that she was excited to take part in an important battle, and that the ability for T-Dolls to be resurrected from a backup was a positive opportunity and part of their growth, which worried M4A1 as she felt she could not relate to other T-Dolls. The convoy was then attacked by numerous Sangvis units, and XM3's echelon was wiped under M4A1's command while she was saved by the intervention of Captain Yegor's forces. As OGAS explained that the attack was another attempt by Elisa to capture her and Yegor refused to salvage the short-term memories of XM3's echelon, M4A1 mourned the death of new T-Dolls destroyed for her sake. OGAS then argued that as she was cursed with a special status, her only way to prevent such situations was for her to become stronger, and that she would do so by becoming "her true self" after taking revenge on Elisa. M4A1 worried that this quest for revenge would lead to more casualties, and OGAS replied that it was the price of finding power, and that she should honor those that sacrificed themselves for her in the past because she lacked power. When picking up RO and SOP-II, M4A1 responded coldly to RO's introduction, saying that they shared no connection beyond having similar weapons. RO, who had been described M4A1 as a kind doll with a gentle personality, was shocked to find her vengeful and ruthless and worried that M4A1 might hate her. As an attempt to be more decisive, M4A1 went as far as declaring Mastermind's defeat a priority over finding M16A1.

M4A1's visions after connecting with Elisa.

M4A1's visions after connecting with Elisa.

As AR Team trailed behind KCCO's prong toward Sangvis HQ to defend their counter-jamming stations, M4A1 strong-armed Yegor in authorizing the reactivation of KCCO units to facilitate their defense, taking upon her own neural cloud to establish Zener Protocol connections and relay the Commander's orders to the units. She also apologized to RO for her previous harshness, praising her abilities and asking her for the guidance M16A1 and AR-15 gave her in the past. AS AR Team tried to catch up to KCCO's forces, they were attacked by Judge, who acted both as Elisa's bodyguard and transmission relay as she launched a new electronic assault on M4A1's neural cloud. Under William's orders, Yegor's troops observed the events from afar to ensure the quick capture of the “Key” they expected to be formed if the connection between M4A1 and Elisa was complete. While rejecting Elisa, M4A1 ordered AR Team to run away without her, but they refused to comply, arguing that M4A1 should take into account their own wish to put their life on the line for her. Seeing AR Team act as a whole again filled M4A1 with the thought that she could betray the expectations put on her as long as she fulfilled AR Team's own expectations, and that the sacrifices she would have to make would not be as heavy as she thought as long as they had the same meaning that enabled AR Team to die for each other without regrets.

As M4A1 passed out under Elisa's assault, RO brought her to a safe house and used her electronic warfare capabilities to repel the attack. M4A1's OGAS then tried to meld with Elisa's OGAS, saying that one last strong blow was needed for M4A1 to be liberated from human control. OGAS explained that the other times Elisa tried to connect with M4A1, the artificial personality of her neural cloud automatically rejected the connection, but that she was now free to make the choice of accepting the connection after Persica removed the seals on her neural cloud. Rejecting both OGAS' pressure, M4A1 tried to keep up with RO's efforts to pull her back from Consciousness Level III to Level II and cut the external dataflow from Elisa. Confused by visions, M4A1 suddenly rejected RO's will to save her as fabricated emotions, but RO argued that fabricated emotions were no less important that “genuine” ones, and that if M4 couldn't put faith into her, she had to put faith into the rest of AR Team and their collective will to save her. As M4A1 came back to her senses as she remembered her promise to stay with AR Team until the end, RO's efforts were cut short when Yegor shot her in the head to keep her from preventing the formation of the “Key”. Without RO's support, Elisa continued to steer M4A1's mind, annoyed that she would keep asking her questions and get surrogate orders instead of getting the answers by herself. M4A1 was eventually steered toward the vision of a garden, which was the common memory between her and Elisa, but the process was interrupted by Yegor waking M4A1. Seeing RO's destroyed body, M4A1 angrily rejected OGAS and severed the connection to Elisa, leaving her petrified in the safe house.

^AR ST AR-15ST AR-15  rescues M4A1.

^AR ST AR-15ST AR-15  rescues M4A1.

After Sangvis forces started their retreat, M16A1 (Boss) forcibly reactivated a dramatically damaged SOP-II to check on M4A1. As she could not move her due to her unstable neural cloud and was rejected when connecting on Level II, SOP-II resolved to leave M4A1 and regroup with the Commander, using her database of M4A1's tactics to fight by herself. After obtaining M4A1's coordinates from the Commander, Angelia sent ^AR ST AR-15ST AR-15  and ^AR AK-12AK-12  to retrieve her. AK-12 performed a forced disconnection procedure, and lied to AR-15 by telling her Angelia had left to AR-15 the choice to take M4A1 back or abandoning her. Lamenting that M4A1 kept pushing her into difficult situations, AR-15 chose to take her back with them and induce her into Task Force DEFY.

Due to the forced Level II disconnect and M4A1's complex match of old and new modules, M4A1 lost control over her body even as she came to on AR-15's back, but quickly passed out again from her neural cloud instability when she insisted to go back and check on RO. Stopping by a safe house, AK-12 used the Level II debugging software in her electronic warfare package to repair M4A1's control on her body while providing her with the same enhancements as AR-15, releasing some of the behavioural restraints on her neural cloud to make her stronger. While AK-12 made quick work thanks to M4A1's unusual spare neural cloud capacity ,and numerous unused ports provided by her military-grade parts, AR-15 updated her on the Commander's situation and Yegor's involvement. M4A1 then declared she would join DEFY until she could kill Yegor and have revenge for RO, to which AK-12 commented no normal T-Doll would freely seek to kill a human.

Tracking Elisa

M4A1 and ^AR AN-94AN-94  witness the effects of the Collapse bombs.

After rallying with Angelia and ^AR AN-94AN-94 , Angelia helped M4A1 activate M16A1's particle cannon and made her team leader. Angelia refused her request to search for SOP-II as she planned to use M4A1 to lure Elisa into the open, where DEFY would capture her before KCCO could, though the plan worried Persica. While explaining how she survived the explosion back at Area S08, AR-15 revealed to M4A1 that all members of AR Team were given a prime order to protect her. M4A1's colder eyes let AR-15 wonder if she had changed for the worse rather than the better, and her fear worsened after M4A1 gave unusually reckless orders, decided to ignore Griffin troops under attack as DEFY was seizing a repeater station and executed Gager with no trace of satisfaction, shocking even the members of Squad 404. M4A1 still asked to tap into Griffin transmissions to check on the status of the Commander and their troops after the assault. Meanwhile, OGAS congratulated M4A1 for becoming more like her original self. Despite still not trusting OGAS, M4A1 proposed to contact Elisa again if OGAS could give her SOP-II and M16A1's coordinates, but OGAS felt that her thirst for revenge was then stronger than her faith that her comrades were still alive, which she also recognized as part of her original self. OGAS accepted the bargain, but she only gave M4A1 the coordinates to find Elisa.

Made aware of M4A1's suspect lapses in attention, Angelia tasked ^SMG UMP45UMP45  with monitoring her data traffic. Through her surveillance, M4A1's bargain with OGAS became known to Angelia, which made her confident in pushing her original plan of using M4A1 as bait for Elisa. While running the plan through M4A1, Angelia also warned her not to consider revenge her only possibility and to keep faith in M16A1 and SOP-II's survival, more so since revenge would not be as satisfying if she had no goal after it. This angered M4A1, who felt content with anythingn, even her own death, as long as she could be different from her past self, who was cowardly and caused the death of her allies. To this, Angelia answered that her plan matched her expectations, as it would end either in the successful capture of Elisa, sparing the lives of many, or in Elisa and M4A1's destruction to prevent their capture by KCCO.

While burying the Collapse bombs that would secure the site of the encounter with Elisa, AR-15 asked M4 not to act rashly like she did when she tried to sacrifice herself, since her death could have consequences on SOP-II due to her prime directive. During the encounter, Elisa asked M4A1 to call her by her original name instead of “Mastermind”, and she called M4A1 by her original name, “Lunasia”. M4A1 rejected her concerns about names, and when Elisa revealed that OGAS had not mentioned any bargain related to SOP-II and M16A1 but only that M4A1 would come see her, M4A1 drew her weapon and a fight broke between Agent and DEFY, quickly followed by the arrival of Yegor's armored troops. As DEFY and 404 tried to capture Elisa in the crossfire, UMP45 saved ^AR HK416HK416  from a KCCO tank by using a TNT block at close range, getting gravely injured in the process. M4A1 saved UMP45 by pulling her into cover, and 45 entrusted her with the detonator of the Collapse bombs. Hesitating to use it because of Angelia and the Commander's presence in the radiation fallout radius, Angelia directly ordered M4A1 to detonate the bombs. Spotting Sangvis troops evacuating Elisa to an Intercontinental Railway station amid the chaos of the detonation, DEFY mounted bikes and provided cover fire for M4A1 to reach and board the train about to depart. As she was about to reach Elisa, M4A1 was faced by the converted M16A1, who claimed M4A1 was not ready to meld with Elisa yet. M4A1 failed to beat M16A1 in combat and she fled with Elisa by air transport, saying that she was still helping M4A1 in her own way, refusing to meet Persica to remove the Parapluie virus and bidding M4A1 farewell until she had gotten stronger.

AR-15 then helped M4A1 escape the exploding train, catching her on her bike. After crashing and failing to establish transmission with G&K or DEFY, M4A1 was overcome with the despair of M16's betrayal and AR Team falling apart, and blamed herself for the failure of her mission to capture Elisa and the damage caused by the Collapse bomb to her allies. Despite AR-15 efforts to support her, M4A1 tried to commit suicide by overloading her particle cannon, but she was stopped by her OGAS who forcibly took control of her body, making M4A1 resentful that this choice too was taken from her. While it was obvious M4 was controlled by another entity, AR-15 accepted to follow her orders and steeled herself against her harsh criticism, which strongly disturbed her since they came from M4A1's voice.

MOD Story

The night before her first live combat mission, M4A1 is too nervous to sleep and decides to pass time by drawing more contingency plans in the operations room. AR-15 enters the room and asks why M4A1 is preparing so much for a simple recon mission. M4A1 replies she wants to be able to complete the mission flawlessly, which please AR-15. Then they talk about the mission, their personal goals and their similarities. As AR-15 goes back to sleep, M4A1 says she will count on her during the mission and STAR responds this is only expected. M4A1 thinks that victory is then expected of her as team leader. A longer version of this story is told in AR-15 MOD Story.

The next stories are retellings of chapters “Splinter Point 1”, E1B2 and E1B3 of Singularity, with some thoughts of M4A1 added. After lamenting that her weakness led her to lose both her comrades and objectives, M4A1 is upgraded by ^AR AK-12AK-12  and learn that Captain Yegor attacked SOP-II and RO. As she goes into battle with her improved body, M4A1 concludes that if she lacks comrades to bring victory to, she will find victory in exacting vengeance against her enemies.

M4's anniversary gift

A Gift from M4 during the CN servers 4 year anniversary. Upon accepting the gift, you'll be given x520 and x100.

Click to reveal.

"I have a lot to tell you, but it all ended up written on the water" Good morning, commander, This should be our first greeting to you, right? Now that I think about it, it has been a while. You being our commander, to this day, has been a path of 4 years. Frankly, to a lot of people, this is something unbelievable. But you certainly have done it, on this point alone, you deserve praise from anyone. I am sure you've heard enough of this sort of clichéd formality. I apologize, in situations like this, I cannot even bring myself to speak my mind. We experienced so much together that many things already couldn't be conveyed by words alone. Our bond and trust, don't need candied words to decorate... The only thing that must be said, the only thing that I can clearly convey is, Commander, the path that we walked together is surely, by no means, false. ... If I get the chance next year, I will reconsider being more "touching" in my words. Not just me, SOP, 15, RO --- and everyone in griffon, and... 16-nee. We all have so much to tell you, I am but a representative. But even so, at the end, I cannot even convey my thoughts in a sentence for you. If words cannot illustrate our story, then let us write them on the water surface. Good morning, commander. A new day has arrived.