Recap
Part 1: This is My Mil-Sim Story
Sometime in the near future, a group of first year college girls from different backgrounds get into a online virtual reality military shooter out of boredom. There is Emi, a psychology major who is on the track team and is a natural born leader and tomboy with a deep love for friends and family. Chiara is her best friend, a shy and anxious girl majoring in music and hopes to become a music teacher. She has a lot of pressure from her parents who want her to do well with academics. Mai, a girl raised poor but with a rich intellect and personality, is a mechanical engineering student who is best friends with the nursing student Hikari, a transfer student on a via from Japan who has known Mai since high school and comes from a wealth family.
The girls meet up and are surprised to learn they are from the same university. They pick out their equipment from an NPC called Flint who is a young 80s era Texan gunsmith and shop owner who is highly intelligent and advanced, come with a team name on the fly (Armadillo Squad since Emi’s M4A1 has an Armadillo logo on her receiver as it is made by La Rue Tactical). and are thrown into a match against a local squad to which they lose but were still able to put up a fight. To Emi’s surprise, the team known as Longhorn Squad is commanded by none other than her former childhood friend, Tomio, who she had a complicated history with in the past and hasn’t seen since Middle School. Tomio, pleased to see Emi again, invites her friends to hang out at his family restaurant where he’s now helping running the business rather than going to university like the rest of his peers. His squadmates consist of Fio, a NEET girl with a love of technology, video games, and especially anime. Kimberly and Ramirez are both living in a van together, were both college drop outs, and preform live at Tomio’s family restaurant weekly.
As the group socialize and have some pizza, Tomio suggest to Emi that their squads should team up and compete in the national Mil-Sim Tournament which is on it’s second season. They will establish the team Lonestar, in honor of their home state. Later that week, Mai comes across Chiara on campus who had saved her at the library when Chiara found her sleeping in the library staircase. Mai talks to Chiara about the tournament and how a team known as Raptor Squad won the first season against Flamingo Squad and are expected to compete again this season.
The girls figured it would be best to get some basic training first before they get into their first match in the tournament. They are issued their coyote brown uniforms at Flint’s Gun Shop before being teleported to the training grounds. The girls are introduced to the strict but motivating Drill Sergeant Perry who assigns them their class and callsign: Emi (Trackstar) the squad leader, Chiara (Mouse) the scout, Mai (Boomer) the sapper/anti-armor specialist, and Hikari (Hime) the medic. They go through an obstacle course where they learn the in-game mechanics, overcome their weaknesses, and learn their class abilities all while Longhorn Squad watches from the bleachers.
The next day, the team finally goes into their first match against a team consisting of Glam Squad (A late 80s, Early 90s team lead by the twins Bernadette and Cheyenne, the latter of whom is a former member of Flamingo Squad who went up against Raptor Squad in the last tournament. They are allied with a mercenary group known as Kraken PMC who is lead by a South African immigrant by the name of Zander, who leads a squad of mercs including Sung-Min, a Korean player who was a prominent VR arena shooter player, Squeaker, a young prodigy who came from VR battle royal games, and Andjela, a Serbian girl with a broken mic who is a sniper and Zander’s girlfriend. Mai used to be part of Kraken PMC but was ousted due to her poor performance.
Team Lonestar spawns into the match and begin execution of Operation Nordic Wind (A reference to the Scandinavian map they are playing on.) The two squads split up north and south to keep the opposing team from advancing towards their airport. Longhorn Squad takes position at the northern village where they are suddenly attacked by artillery fire. Emi’s squad comes across a logging camp where they manage to take out some disposable mercenaries but are quickly overwhelmed when Glam’s Squad M1A1 Abrams Tank breaks the squad’s moral and causes Emi’s squad to lose Chiara. With her comms destroyed, she has no means to regroup with her team and is nearly captured by Zander and his squad who are planning to join Glam Squad with their assault on the northern village where Tomio’s squad is located. Chiara makes a choice to return to the logging camp to try to deal with the tank. Meanwhile, Emi and her team take refuge at the gas station to which they retreated to. They hear a distress signal coming from Kimberly who was scouting the woods and is under fire by a sniper. Mai and Hikari go out to answer that call and are able to capture Andjela who’s radio gives away the plans of the opposing team to Emi. Kimberly who is also injured like Andjela are escorted via helicopter and right after, the girls panic as they see the Abrams Tank approaching their position. To their surprise, Chiara has captured the tank along with the one of the crewmen. Zander and his squad receive motor fire and take cover in a bunker. The come across an ammo Cache which is unbeknownst to them is rigged with bad primers. When the motor strike outside is over. Zander’s squad is overwhelmed by Tomio’s ambush and Emi’s team which now wields the Abrams to their advantage. Zander loses some of team and retreats to Cheyenne’s high ground where they are pushed into surrendering by Fio’s drone. Team Lonestar wins the match and the two teams make amends with Cheyenne putting her faith into Emi to take on Seth and his Raptor squad if she’s ever able able to make the finals.
Part 2: The Heart’s Battlefield
Around the same time as Team Lonestar’s match, another match in the tournament occurs between a team consisting of Bronco Squad (An Old West style squad that barely qualified to participate in the tournament) and The Agency (A low profile special agent group, think like 007 or secret service types). They are psychological tormented and defeated by a ruthless team consisting of Vampire Squad, a Canadian team lead by a vengeful, beautiful, and malicious persian girl with mommy issues in her mid-20s named Asura and she is allied with the flamboyant JarPig Squad, a squad of MMO JRPG enthusiast lead by a guy named Kael Valorheart who is a big simp for Asura.
After the first match, Flint introduces Tomio and Emi to Markus, their team manager who works online from home and gives team Lonestar their own base to unwind, brief up on matches, and basically given free reign to manage their squad logistics and finances. It is here where the team is debriefed on their next opponents, Vampire and JarPig Squad, as well as the tactical details of the next match where the fighting will be infantry only where Team Lonestar is to protect a client by the name of Mortimer from being evicted by his former wife who is employing their adversaries to capture and extract him. They are given a few weeks to train for the upcoming match.
On the day Emi was supposed to train with her team, she sprang her ankle during a track and field competition and is hospitalized, leaving Chiara, Mai, and Hikari to figure out the second in line for their leadership. By the fate of a coin flip, Chiara is chosen as the substitute squad leader from which she is given temporarily access by Drill Sergeant Perry to lead her squad. Longhorn Squad is also lacking Tomio on that day because he’s watching over Emi at the hospital. It is there on the training grounds where they are confronted and introduce to Asura and Kael alongside their squad members who insist on them quitting the tournament and decide to have a practice match against them to prove Asura’s point that they are unfit for the tournament.
Team Lonestar, now outnumbered by two members and lead by Chiara and Ramirez are facing off against Asura and Kael’s team in an abandoned mall map with hostile looters roaming around. Ramirez’s team is completely wiped out by Kael’s team who is known to spam spells (an alt name for various grenades such as fragmentation, flashbangs, and emps) and Chiara’s squad is left on their own. They confront Asura’s squad and ruthlessly wiped out, forcing Chiara to surrender at gunpoint. Asura finds Chiara to be somewhat reminiscent of how she used to be before losing in the last tournament season and invites Chiara over to her home base to discuss something with her personally. Chiara against her own instincts takes the invitation to Asura’s Vampire Squad Headquarters where she is confronted by Asura personally. She reveals to Chiara that she has been broken by society and does not share the same innocence as Chiara for her friends. She convinces her that she has a lot of potential that could be strengthen if she were to become part of her team and serve as a replacement for Kael Valorheart. Asura admires Chiara for her cuteness and sees her as a respectable squad leader in the making if she were to follow her example.
Later, Mai gets a replacement upgrade Tapco stock kit for her Type 56 SKS which has received some severe damage back with the practice match against Vampire Squad. Emi confronts Chiara who is emotionally distraught from losing a practice match against Vampire Squad and in a rage of sadness and anger, she quits Armadillo Squad, forcing Emi to make the decision to find a replacement for Chiara. Later on that week, she asks her fellow psychology major and track teammate, Ashley to come play for her as a scout. Ashley also offers Emi a chance to check on Chiara in school via her friend Vicky, a sophomore theater arts major who is a Christian orphan girl who is more than willing to befriend Chiara and help Emi get to the bottom of Chiara’s weird behavior lately. Vicky meets Chiara and learns about the fact that her attendance and academic performance are starting to slip from her depression as well as from her obsession with getting good at Mil-Sim Story. Vicky and Ashley will soon become members of Armadillo Squad alongside Vicky’s political science major friend Joshua (who has his own social anxiety issues), and a Texas Ranger named Trevor who form their own Armadillo Squad with Joshua as the leader, giving Team Lonestar some new members in wake of Chiara’s leave.
Later, Chiara is put to the test by Asura after undergoing training by her minion Vlad who sends the vampire squad recruits on a mission to take on the recruits of Raptor Squad in an assault against an oil rig. It is in this battle that Chiara proves her worth to Asura by being a leader to the recruits and she is officially declared a Vampire. There is some arrangements made by Asura to help Chiara overthrow Kael from his squad. Mai and Hikari register for next semester together if that matters.
Chiara is confronted by Vicky again who is more distraught by her lack of sleep and odd behavior. Chiara also meets Joshua briefly. Vicky then informs Emi of Chiara’s state of mind which seems to be under the influence of somebody else.
Asura interferes with Kael’s MMO session and informs him that he is being challenged for his position. Kael, being cocky as he is, accepts the challenge to where he is confronted by Chiara at Asura’s base where he is defeated in a rigged flintlock style dual against her and is banished from his squad and the base. Chiara is declared second in command from this dual and now rules Kael’s squad under the umbrella of Vampire Squad.
The news of Chiara’s defect comes to Emi while her team is undergoing training at Zander’s kill house training facility with the help of the Glam Squad twins. Emi and Tomio take action and assault Vampire Squad’s fortress on their own and are disappointed to learn that Chiara refuses to make amends with her former friends. From there, Emi and her team, now employing Kael as their new scout make plans for the upcoming battle at the mansion to protect Mortimer and turn the hunters into the hunted. Team Lonestar will go by the alias: Team Van Helsing as a temporary propaganda move to taunt Asura’s team. Meanwhile, there is some discontent with Vampire Squad as Vlad admits his criticism with Asura’s leadership and her overwhelming trust for Chiara. The Vampires plan to assault the mansion by deploying far from the location by jumping from a helicopter and gliding to the mansion undetected while Chiara’s squad assaults from the catacombs.
Emi and Tomio’s relationship becomes more romantic, after coming to terms with their feelings for each other. On a date to the zoo, they realize they have more people rooting for them than they initially believed.
The battle of Mortimer’s Mansion is fierce, Kael sacrifices himself to hold off Chiara’s squad, Asura is taunted and pushed to the edge by Team Van Helsing’s decoys. Tomio saves Fio from Asura’s second in command Lucius but he is taken out by him in a quick draw. Hikari while on the verge of surrendering by dumb luck or misfortune, has her pistol accidentally discharge giving her a chance to escape but loses trust in her P320 Spectre Comp. Emi is ambushed by Asura and nearly captures Mortimer but Chiara has a change in heart after witnessing her friend about to be execute. She takes out Asura and takes the mantle as Team Van Helsing’s second in command after Emi succubus to her injuries. Asura, feeling betrayed and hurt, rage quits and doesn’t stick around for the match. Kraken PMC, Glam Squad, and the new members of Armadillo Squad watch the match unfold live. Chiara reunites with her squad, Mai feeling a lot of distrust and anger towards Chiara makes amends and they work together to finish the fight. Low on ammo and moral, they make the final push and eliminate the last members of JarPig Squad and execute Vlad when he tries to suicide with a grenade at the end of the match.
Team Lonestar/Van Helsing is victorious, Kael is reunited with JarPig Squad and they return as a party once again to their MMO JRPG game. Meanwhile, Asura is coping badly with her defeat and being booted out from Vampire Squad but is confronted by her former squadmate from Leaf Squad to get some fresh air and think things through. Chiara is now in good terms with her academics, her friends, and is even helping Vicky out with an upcoming play the university is hosting at the end of the semester. When everyone is back on Lonestar Base, Mai receives a pair of new Hi Point C9 grips with $100 bills painted on the grips to annoy Hikari, Zander rewards the team with some new equipment and funding after winning a bet from their victory, and Asura returns to make things right with Emi and Chiara. She is retiring from the game but not before offering all of her recruits to Team Lonestar, formerly from Vampire Squad who were reluctant to follow the new leadership under Vlad and were huge fans of Chiara after she lead them to victory against the Raptor Squad recruits. Asura also suggest the team be vigilant as their next opponents: Bass Squad and Charleston Squad are not to be taken likely with Charleston Squad’s leader: Little Joe being described as more ruthless than she’s been.
During these two arcs in the story, we learn more about the fact that Emi comes from divorce parents. She was once angry at Tomio for supposedly talking to other girls while they were in middle school. Asura used to be a rifleman for Leaf Squad, once shy, timid, and as scared as Chiara before she messed up and accidentally did some friendly fire on her commander. We also get a sneak peak at Raptor Squad as they are hosting a live stream with their special forces allies who had fought in the Iranian American War to which he shills for the military industrial complex to Mil-Sim players. Mai’s father perished from that conflict many years ago and is responsible for Mai’s familiarity with the SKS rifle which belonged to her father before being handed over to her for a birthday present, hence why she swears by using the Type 56 SKS in-game.
For more in-depth analysis on the characters, squads, and their equipment, refer to the character page (WIP for some entries atm)