Ok guys, first TF fanfic, not first Valve (c) fic, Not quite sure if I should do One-shots or consecutive chapters, if you like this first one, then tell me in a review if you'd like one-shots or chapters. Anyhoo enjoy!
Assembly
"Why they makin us go all the way out to join up with some radical group? Why can't we just be our own group?" Tiana asked loudly fussing with her seatbelt for the hundredth time.
"Because we have a computer hacker, a chef, a messenger, a pilot and a nurse," Hakku replied bitterly. "Yeah I can see multiple administrators lining up to employ us." The small man rolled his eyes and pulled his cap down over his face.
"Whatever, we could get more training you know, I bet I could be a soldier!" Tiana continued. "I know how to use a gun."
"Properly?" Louis asked with a little yellow-toothed grin.
"Yeah." She snapped.
"What do you think Milo?" The Chef asked swinging his rotten smile and heavy French accent in my direction. "Would we be grand radical group?"
My three companions stared at me expectantly.
I smiled thoughtfully. "Never on our own."
The plane's engines coughed and screeched in the silence that had descended upon us. Tiana was smouldering in her seat as she usually was. Hakku tapped his fingers together, muttering from behind his cap and Louis was reading his favourite book, Of Mice and Men: translated to French.
Me, well, I stared at my hands. I was just as unhappy with our current 'assignment' if you could call it that, as the rest of my team. 'Assimilate Aid and Reconstruct', AAR. That was our job, to 'join up' with military groups that had well fallen off the rail lets say and then 'aid' them in their missions and attempt to fix any problems they possessed. We were the janitors of the army and it sucked.
Our current 'assignments' were a Scout with attitude problems, an overenthusiastic Soldier that talked to the decapitated heads of his enemies, a self/others-endangering demolitions expert, a Russian weapons expert with a very bad communication problem, a possibly schizophrenic Pyrotechnician, an Engineer with no current observable issues, a trigger happy sniper, a French spy with loyalty problems not to mention a philanderous relationship with one of his enemy's mothers, and finally a masochistic medical officer that could very possibly be homicidal and all in all insane.
"Attention mates, we'll be landing in the middle of sodding nowhere in about five minutes." Christian, our paranoid Pilot, was none to pleased about being assigned to an 'off the map' area either.
"Great." Tiana muttered crossing her arms.
"Alright," I said. "Lets go over our PTPs again before we land, Hakku…"
"Fine," the little man sat up straight in his seat, twisting his cap around. "I'll be stationed inside the complex away from all the cool stuff-"
"Stick to regulation please." I said sternly.
"Whatever," he shrugged. "And I'll be granted full access to their computer, security and mechanical systems which I will monitor and control from inside base." He gave me an 'anything else' look that I ignored.
"Good, Louis…"
"I'm a Chef boss, what is there to explain?"
"Just play along Lou." Tiana muttered.
"I'll be stationed in the kitchen where I will make less than gourmet food for the members of the group, and of course will be in charge of nutrition." He grinned yellowishly.
"Right and Tiana?"
The dark skinned Messenger sighed dramatically. "I'll be running around bringing messages and crap to people."
I frowned at her and she slapped her knees.
"What do you want from me man? It's a shitshed assignment."
"Be that as it may we are going to have to survive with this group from an entire year so you'd all better suck it up." I snapped and glanced around at the unhappy expressions.
"What about you?" Hakku asked. "What's your assignment bosslady?"
"You know very well what my assignment is." I growled through my teeth.
"Stick to regulation the please." The Hacker smirked smugly at me.
I narrowed my expression then straightened to compose myself professionally.
"My job will be to assist the doctor of the group with all and any practice on the field or off."
"I hear he's shit-eating crazy." Tiana said joining in the smirking.
"Yeah I mean, we gotta deal with all them wackos on the occasion but you're stuck with the nutty Doc twenty-four-seven." Hakku laughed.
"Qui patronne, you have to know all of them better than any of us." Louis stated.
I opened my mouth to reply but a static ridden voice erupted out of the intercom.
"Would you all bloody well shut it! It's already sodding hard to land a plane in a battle zone I don't need your distracting chatter cloggin up ma brain!"
We sat in silence as the roaring of wind picked up, there was a loud creaking of Chris' top notch piloting landing the plane on top of something and then the thud as it met the earth. The engines slowly whirred then died and I tugged off my seatbelt. Getting to my feet I grabbed my duffel bag off of the floor and headed for the door. I undid the latch and kicked it open, I dropped out and was followed by the rest of my team, Christian a little later when he climbed out of the cockpit window.
"Dude." Hakku said quietly. Even in the dark of night I could see that the base was enormous; it looked much too large to only encompass nine people.
"So uh how do we announce our arrival?" Louis asked. "Do we have communications with them?"
"No." I answered suddenly worried. "Actually I don't think they knew we were coming."
"What?" Tiana barked loudly. "Damn it Milo! If we get shot by some wack-ass I'm gonna-"
Just as she said the words a bullet whizzed passed her face. She froze then flung her arms above her head.
"Don't shoot!" Christian shouted, holding his hands up as well.
"We were sent here by High Administration!" I called out.
"Bullshit!" A far away voice shouted. There was a clink and a round object rolled into the light of the plane's lamps.
"Grenade!" I yelled and body checked Hakku underneath the plane. The others dived for cover and I flung my hands over my ears as the explosion shook the earth. I felt the heat on my skin and searing pain of the flames.
"We come in fucking peace!" Tiana screamed into darkness. The plane creaked and, despite the throbbing from my leg, I dragged Hakku out from underneath it just before one of the wheels collapsed and the whole thing did a little crash onto its side.
"Are you ok?" I asked the Hacker.
"Yeah but you're bleeding." He gestured to my leg.
"I'm fine," I got to my feet, hauling him with me. "We were sent by High Admin! We are the AAR team!"
There was a moment of silence other than the burning plane and Tiana's cursing. Then there were footsteps and four men emerged into the light.
"AAR?" One asked, I couldn't see his eyes, only his squared jaw and gruff frown.
"Awe bloody hell," A dark skinned man said slumping slightly. "That means we been doin something wrong doesn't it?"
"Naw it just means Admin thinks we need to be baby sat," The youngest took a few steps forward and waved a baseball bat in my face. "Don't it?"
"No, we are simply here to assist you in your endeavours," I said calmly trying to sound professional and wincing as I put pressure on my injured leg. "It's only temporary."
"Right." The young one muttered.
"Well I guess you all aint from BLU then…" The dark skinned man rubbed a patch covering his left eye awkwardly.
"No we're bloody well not!" Christian barked. "I sure as sodding hell hope you lot have got a smashing engineer." He gestured to his plane making a weird gagging noise like he was about to throw a tantrum.
"Yeah," said the forth man. "Soon as it's morning I'll get to work on that."
"You'd better all come inside," said the gruff man. "It's not safe out here at night."
"Really?" Tiana stormed up into his face. "What gave you that idea? You must be God damning Sherlock detective obvious! It's not freaking safe with you out here!" She sputtered viciously.
"Tiana calm down!" I snapped. The girl fumed where she stood but backed down.
"Alright," Said the youngest. "Let's go, and uh," he looked at me. "You'd better go see Medic."
I cringed. "I think I'll be fine."
"You've got a burn."
"I'm a doctor."
"Really?"
"Well a nurse but-"
"Go see the Medic." The gruff man ushered us towards the base.
Once we were inside we were escorted to a control room. The gruff man introduced himself as the Soldier, the dark man as the Demoman, the youngest as the Scout and the fourth man as the Engineer.
"And you all would be?" The Soldier asked.
"This is Tiana Bounds our Messanger,"
Tiana snorted.
"Christian Duford our Pilot,"
Chris made a face.
"Hakku Gisa our computer analyst and Hacker,"
Hakku waved lazily.
"Louis VaJean our Chef,"
Louis did nothing.
"And I'm Milo Amsel, the Nurse."
The four men stared at us.
"You have a Chef?" Scout asked excitedly. "Dude this is gonna be awesome, we've just had Heavy's stale ass sandwiches it's time for some real food."
"And our communication equipment is a little out of date," said the Engineer. "It'd be nice to have someone reliable to carry messages."
"And with BLU's security getting tougher we could use the computer intel." The Demoman added.
"Fantastic," Hakku said. "Now will someone take Milo to your crazy ass Medic?"
The wound on my leg was a lot worse now that I could see it in proper light.
"Yeah I'll do that." said the Engineer. He came over to me and took my arm. It hurt like a bitch to walk but out of personal pride I forced myself to keep in normal stride.
"Hey uh, sorry for trying to blow you guys up, we uh thought you were BLU."
"It happens." I replied quietly… no it didn't.
After a few minutes we stopped in front of a door. "It's just in here."
The Engineer knocked on the door.
"You may enter." A heavy German voice called invitingly. I swallowed and the Engineer opened the door. The room was white… well sort of. There were rust and blood stains everywhere, there were multiple shelves, stocked to the maximum with an array of items from medical equipment to jars with body parts suspended in them. There was something massive in the corner covered by a white cloth. But the weirdest part, even stranger than the fact that this doctor's lab looked like a torture chamber, was all of the birds, at least seven that I could see, white and delicate, cooing softly to each other.
"Hey doc, so the-"
"I know." The Medic looked up from a particularly bloody body that he was quite literally 'elbow deep' into. His dark eyes peered at us overtop of his small, rounded glasses. He straightened up and wiped a red covered hand on the front of his shirt.
"You do?" The Engineer asked.
"Yes," he pushed his glasses up on his nose. "Heavy was talking to me earlier from the control room and forgot to turn off the speakers," He stepped around the medical table and came to stand in front of us, hands folded behind his back. "I've heard most of everything."
"Oh well," Engineer nodded towards me. "I'll leave her with you then." And slipped out of the room before I could protest to being left alone with a possibly homicidal physician.
"Did they try to blow you up too?" He asked turning his back to me as he walked over to a very untidy shelf.
"Yeah," I paused. "What do you mean 'too'?"
He laughed. "Well about three weeks ago they tried to explode our supply truck." His thick accent twisted his 'w's into 'v's and his 'th's into 'z's. He snatched a bottle off of the shelf and a jar like container. He turned back around and grabbed a chair gesturing for me to sit. I hesitated.
"Do you know why my team is here?" I asked.
"Yes," he gave me a friendly smile. "We are broken and you are here to fix us."
I eyed his bloody attire, not the most inviting appearance, and sat down in the chair. He knelt in front of me and examined the burns on the side of my leg.
"It really isn't that bad." I said.
"It wouldn't be," he stated. "But this," he pulled on something, which sent small waves of pain up my leg.
"Ow." I muttered, wincing.
"Ow indeed, you seem to have a piece of metal in your thigh." His tone was casual and he opened the bottle pouring a blue liquid over his hands and then twisted off the lid on the other container. He carefully applied a balm of some kind to my burns.
"Well take it out then." I said just as casually.
"It will hurt."
"Better than leaving it in," I said a little impatiently. "Look I'm a nurse, just let me get my medical bag and I can do this myself."
"And how would you reach this?"
His arm jerked downwards swiftly and I grunted with the sudden pain. He made a whistling sound and held up a piece of shrapnel.
"That was in way deeper than I thought it was."
I stared at him. This man had the air of someone who had no idea what they were doing.
"You are a doctor aren't you?" I asked incredulously.
"Yes, yes of course," he pulled a long silver needle out of his shirt pocket with an ease that was almost unnerving and threaded a thin black string. "This is going to be painful."
"It typically is." I muttered gritting my teeth as the small object wove its way through my already sensitive skin. I watched his hands as he worked, they were large and dextrous, his long, thin, calloused fingers moved up and down with each stitch as though he were composing an opera.
"There," he broke off the string and stood up offering me a hand. "Good as new."
"Umm… Thank you I suppose." I said a bit uncomfortably accepting the hand.
"If you apply some burn cream to the rest you should be fine, I assume you've got some?"
"Of course." I answered just wanting to get out of the room.
"Alright well I wont keep you," he turned back to the- well what was left of the body on his table and I turned to go. "Wait a moment please."
I stopped and looked back. He strode calmly over to me fingering a syringe in one hand.
"Yes?" I asked.
"I never caught your name."
I hesitated then carefully held out my own hand, just out of being polite.
"I'm Milo, Milo Amsel."
He clasped my hand giving it a light shake.
"We tend to go by professional titles here but since you offered, my name is Viktor Heilen and I am looking very much forward to working with you and your team." His smile was almost evil, seeming to darken the rest of his face.
"Mutual I'm sure." I returned the smile nervously, retracting my hand.
"Very good," he picked up a clipboard. "Then I'll be seeing each of you bright and early for your medical examinations."
"Sure yeah of c- Wait our what?"
"ATTENTION: BLU SPY IS IN THE BUILDING! ATTENTION: BLU SPY HAS INFILTRATED THE BASE!"
"Oh dear." The doctor said quietly.
