The war had been luring. Each of the men that ended up there had been pulled in by some aspect of it. For some maybe it was the prospect of immortality, or for others to escape reality of their lives, and possibly, for a few, the craze and bloodlust the battlefield brought. Slowly they flowed into the opposing bases as they finished their trainings. Each found that of the classes they had been assigned, there was one. Two if you counted both teams, but it was not as if they would communicate. To meet with your mirror meant bloodshed, unconditionally and always. It was in the contract.
Everyone lived by it. Although there were not many rules, if you broke them, that was the end of you. No examples of anyone breaking the rules were ever told of, and that only added to the prickling fear.
Nobody was allowed to tell their real names or locations other than nationality. That was the first rule. It was also the loosest, although most of the mercenaries still only used their titles. Almost no one revealed anything about themselves, whether it being from paranoia or the cold feel of war.
Respawn would not be activated after ceasefire officially began. Power would not needlessly be wasted no matter the situation. Nobody had permission to study the machine either. No blueprints were left of the Respawn even with the possibility that it could break down.
Neither team went out of their own territory during ceasefire. If you were not killed by the opposing team, something much worse would be waiting for you, assured personally by The Administrator. All personnel were required present on the battlefield unless they spoke to the Administrator or head of their respective base. Getting permission for anything was not an easy task. After curfew, personnel were required in-base, but not necessarily in their quarters.
Vacations were chosen by the Administrator, if she was feeling generous. To prevent out of job killings, separate teams were let off at different times.
The better team usually got more favors.
The BLU Team never seemed to receive favors.
BLU Team knew that they were not the better team. The poster-boys had always been the RED Team. Advertising the war with colorful illustrations of blood and colored uniforms merged together. They were the underdogs, having only 8 mercenaries in the first place, the dirt under RED's feet. Holding on, but not by much. Some of them blamed it on the Administrator. Others saw through their own battered pride, seeking the true problem. It was obvious if you put it together. There were some small fights amongst each other, some big ones too. This wouldn't have been a problem if BLU was made up of people who generally got together.
This was the exact opposite.
It wasn't that the people of BLU were nasty to each other. Some were, but not all of them. It just seemed there was a brick wall between most of the members. Cold and silence masked the comrades of their worlds. People were there - people who may have been kind if a tiny step was made towards them – but a distance of a million miles still split them despite this.
The Engineer noticed most. He knew that he was who would notice that type of thing, too. He had tried the first couple days there attempting to interact with his teammates. Most were unwilling. So, instead of trying to fight two hopeless battles a day, he watched.
They had no Scout. The Engineer had seen one on the other team, who was hell during intelligence matches. Ran real fast, had a mouth just as quick. The Engineer was a bit happy they did not have a Scout.
The BLU Soldier was slightly less insane than the RED one, considering that he did not keep a collection of severed heads Respawn didn't pick up. He didn't seem to have any verbal connection to inanimate objects either, but instead muttered to himself frequently. He carried a pickaxe around when unsettled, and the rest of the team avoided him on those days. His helmet was also almost always covering his surprisingly bright blue eyes, and the Engineer wondered to himself how he managed to see out from under it. Despite the caution he took around the man, the Engineer found the Soldier's personality was a bit funny, sans his crazy and unpredictable nature.
The Pyromaniac was one of the more social, which slightly surprised the Engineer. He couldn't speak well from under his gasmask, which he never took off, but sometimes he wrote. Other times it was up to the listener to decipher what he had said. He was a vastly more mellow than most of the other members too, venturing out of his room frequently and joining whoever was around, whether it was to listen to the radio in the kitchen or watch the TV in the leisure room. He also went to see the Engineer while he worked in his workshop, which Engineer was happy about. Having company was a nice thing. Sometimes he would bring his flare gun or flamethrower with him to add a new layer of paint or clean them out with the various tools and substances the Engineer kept in his work-area. He was not afraid to interact with anyone it seemed, although he kept a caution around the Spy and Soldier. Neither had much tolerance. Pyro seemed to recognize this, along with the other moods of the team. He could tell when and when not to be communal.
The Demolitions Expert, or Demoman, was relatively friendly, but also usually drunk on whiskey. Despite this and the fact that he only had one eye, he still got his job done generally well. He could be social, but it his speaking usually slurred and it made it hard to figure out what he was saying. His writing was also incredibly messy and slanted. When he wasn't drunk or acting loopy he was a good storyteller and also nice to work with when creating new technology. He knew almost everything about bombs and explosives, at least Engineer thought. Then again, he wasn't in that field of study. The only downside of the Demo was that he had a prickly temper that sometimes would erupt out of nowhere, usually at the Soldier, which never ended well. The Soldier also had a temper similar to this, but while the Demo had an anger of an erupting volcano, the Soldier had one of the sun itself, and wouldn't let things go. The Demo didn't get caught up on the Soldier's lasting spite, though. Maybe he forgot the bad events even happened due to his drinking. The Engineer wasn't sure.
The Heavy Weapons Guy was frightening. Although he was more of the teddy bear type of big guy, Engineer couldn't help being intimidated by his load voice, Russian accent, and stature. He assumed most of team felt this way too, along with the most of RED. The only people he could think of who went out of their way to interact with him were the Pyro and Medic. Engineer felt a little bad for not attempting more than a polite tip of his hardhat towards the fella, but after seeing the temper he held within himself during battle he couldn't help being careful. He had a passion for sandwiches, the Engineer knew. Or all food in general, actually. Mostly sandwiches, though. Nobody touched the sandwich. Nobody. You were a dead man if you did, which he had made clear in his broken English on his first day at the base. The Soldier absolutely despised the Russian, tossing insults about communism at him, seemingly not taking into consideration that the Heavy could snap his neck without much effort. If he could, the Engineer usually tried to usher the Soldier away from the Heavy before things got ugly. On some occasions they did fight, but the Heavy did have some compassion in him somewhere, for he didn't put his whole being into it like he did on the battlefield. He was careful not to hurt anyone on his team, which the Engineer found as a relief.
The Medic and Heavy were close. Engineer wasn't sure how close, but it was pretty tight between them. They were always together on the battlefield. The Medic did not forget his duties however, and made it his top priority to assist his team. He was the sort of uptight all business type of guy, and took his job very seriously. Under his façade however, the Engineer saw the way the Medic smiled while ripping an enemy apart with his bonesaw. It was the crazed smile of a maniac. Soldier also had insults for the Medic about his heritage, hollering about Nazis and World Wars. The Engineer couldn't keep the creeping suspicions away when he thought of that smile. He still did not say anything, for the Medic did his job well and was generally polite, although sometimes he muttered in German what could be assumed as insults.
The Sniper was a flighty man, aloof yet when brought back to reality, stressed and slightly paranoid. His aviators hid tired eyes. Sniper didn't like spending time in the base regularly, usually staying out at his nest until curfew. What he did from there was randomized. Sometimes he would talk to the others, sometimes he would watch television, and sometimes he would brood over cold coffee, sitting at the table in the mess hall. He was eerily silent at times, and at others he would speak in a gruff voice to the Engineer. About the weather, or little snippets about their homes (despite the rules), or how they had been close to winning a match yesterday. His moods were also forever changing, like he had a slight essence to himself that affected the air around him. Some days he was slightly more hopeful and would do better during the round, others he was completely off his game and would end up in Respawn several times due to backstab. Despite this, he didn't stoop down to using jarate as a method in battle, even if it did mean more deaths on the battlefield. The Engineer was grateful, that stuff was downright nasty; just disgusting having piss thrown about out there.
And finally, there was the Spy. He was, like the Medic very professional, but almost never slipped up. He didn't hold the same passion of watching someone suffer like the RED Spy did, and made his jobs quick. Despite his skill on the battlefield, he was not social. He didn't participate in much outside of battles with the team, preferring to seal himself up in his room. Most of the team was cautious of him, and things were held against him that really were having to do with his RED counterpart. The Pyro seemed to like him (He liked pretty much everyone) but the Spy had the same problem with the firebug that everyone else had with the Spy himself, unable to get over his own despise of the BLU Pyro. The Soldier didn't like spies in general, indifferent to the color of uniform. The Sniper had obvious reasons to feel cautious. The Heavy and Medic didn't particularly fond of him either. Both backstabbed in a row one too many times. The Engineer himself was also cautious of him, especially when he slipped into the Engineer's workshop to request maintenance on his cloaking watch. They looked so much alike, the Engineer noticed. But they all did, in a way. It was different when the person could appear to be any one of your teammates.
Engineer saw the RED Team at times, going into their base after a victorious battle. They laugher and messed around with each other casually. The Engineer wished for something like that. Like a family. Something to represent the family he had left to earn the money at BLU. Unfortunately, the future did not seem to hold any hopeful vision of this type of life.
