Well, I was unfamiliar with many of the weapons, or at least, the majority of them that could be found/unlocked. One I was very unfamiliar with was the Demoman's shield: "The Chargin' Targe" if I remember correctly. My first encounter with it...well...let me tell you.
It was a nice game of capture the control points. I can't remember the name of the map, but it was desertlike, wth lots of buildings, tunnels and not many wide-open places. In the center, a bridge with a control point, and a dip going deep under it.
I was sucking as the other classes, so I switched to Engineer; my best class. I stayed a little ways away from our final control point right outside our spawn, in what was a mine-like short little tunnel, which had a control point right outside it as well. I built a dispenser, leveled it up to 3, then did the same with my sentry. I had the Eureka Effect wrench, so placing was everything, as you can't pick up equipment with it.
I sat there for awhile. The control point my sentry was guarding was the center of a massive battle. I helped my sentry tank over 2000 damage without breaking, and saved it from two sappers. I'm really good at detecing Spies. They just act so weird, or morph into me. Well, as my team pushed an offensive, they managed to get to the last control point on the map. Fairly far from where I was, and unable to grab my gear and move up I was content with taunting the Frontier Justice guitar while waiting for my team's inevitable win.
As I sat there, the fact my team was so far away made me not really notice something; there were no gunshot sounds. No explosions, no screams...nothing but the beeping of my sentry, the hissing of my dispenser, and the sound of my guitar smashing on the ground repeatedly. I hadn't even noticed that...no one had come through here from respawn. I guess I assumed they went the lower route, but I never saw anyone cross in front of my view. No voice commands were heard, no footsteps but my own. It was really quiet.
This didn't really start making me question anything until I noticed no one was talking. The chat was empty, not even achievements were showing from players unlocking them. But the killboard, as I call it,still displayed deaths. My team was kill ing pretty much everyone on the other team. Bastards must be trolling by spawn camping. Trying to make the game longer to piss off the other guys. That would explain why no one was respawning over here. But why were there no sounds? Wouldn't I still hear at least a faint echo of explosions and such? I dismissed it.
Well, that was a bad idea. Because almost immediately after I said, "Oh well.", an enemy Demoman walked just outside my sentry's range, and stopped to look at me. I looked at him, looking on with the Frontier Justice. He looked like he only had the Persian Persuader (I think that's the name of it, it's a scimitar), and a shield. Demoknight player. I knew that with certain weapons you couldn't use launchers as Demoman/knight. So, I thought to myself, "He won't even make it past my sentry."
How wrong I was...with that insane scream, the enemy Demoman charged at a huge rate of speed, and it looked like his weapons were ubercharged. Completely unexpecting that, I screamed and jumped back from the screen. The Demoman charged right through mysentry, instantly destroying it. At level 3! And proceeded to immediately decapitate my Engi. I was completely frozen. So much so I forgot to change to Medic because I had died.
After recovering, I immediately typed in the chat: "What just happened?"
Now the chat was working again, and some players asked what happened. I explained, and someone said: "Ain't u heard of chargin targe n00b?"
I looked it up on my tablet, and read it's description. That made me a little less scared of what happened, and kinda want it a bit. Well, the game progressed, we won, I logged off.
The next night, after a long day of work, I logged back on. I found a random server playing payload race. The map was Hightower. As I played, I was an amazing killstreak as Spy. Backstabbing everything I didn't like, even got a few disquised Spies (admitedly on accident). I finally got killed by a very skilled Sniper player who had a better killstreak then me. I then was greeted with a message that put a huge grin on my face.
"You have aquired the Chargin' Targe. Go to Loadout?"
Immediately, I pushed the loadout button and equipped to Demoman. I broke my usual class rule, and switched straight to him. I was very happy. Now I could look really badass charging at people screaming warcries.
I found an enemy Heavy, and charged. I hit him, dealing massive damage, and finished him off with my sword. Being clumsy and eager however, he'd been shooting Sasha at me the whole time. I had very little health left, and cried for Medic, as was my natural reaction to low health. A Medic quickly healed me and moved on to his previous route. I said the voice command "Thanks!" as I always do when a Medic heals me, and moved on.
I had killed three Scouts, one Sniper, a Medic, and another Heavy. Our cart was about to finish it's journey. I didn't know if it was a effect of the Targe, but each time I chargedan enemy, I'd gotten faster. I'd done more damage. I saw an enemy Soldier attempt to blast one of my teammates off the rising platform. I charged him instinctively, and mauled him down. I smiled, but noticed...I hadn't stopped running.
Demoman kept screaming insanely over and over, running without stopping. I clicked the mouse 2 button, but he didn't slow. Only sped up. I had a hard time not crashing into things, and I ran down the ramp. Icouldn't turn in time, and my Demoman flew off the large cliff on the side of the map. I expected him to die, and I would respawn as Heavy...but Demoman kept running...on thin air, screaming the entire time.
I figured he'd have to hit the map border sometime, which he did...but...he kept going. Into pitch blackness he ventured loudly. I tried to reverse his direction, but no avail. Under his insane screaming, I heard the announcer say "Victory", but the scoreboard didn't come up. Nothing did. Demo just kept running...kept screaming. My ears were starting to hurt, so I tried to turn the volume down...nothing happened.
"Damn," I thought. "I bet I got some kinda virus."
But from what? I thought.
As Demo kept running, his screams started to mellow. I didn't know there was sound clip of Demo calming down after a fit. He then, without me touching voice commands, said in a choppy, sentence mixed voice: "I'm a f***ed scottish cyclops IN HELL!" Then screamed again.
This was creeping me out. I tried to pause to disconnect, but no menu came up. Demo then screamed one of his voice commands for "Help!".
Then "MEDIC!" Yknow, the famous long, drawn out one.
He then began crying. His drunken sobbing sounds. This was getting weird...I turned the computer off. I restarted it, and reloaded TF2. Everything looked back to normal, so I loaded a random server for Capture the Flag. It was on 2Fort, a very well known map to me, thanks to Garry's Mod.
When I selected a team, I was brought to the class selection. What startled me a bit was there was a space where Demoman should have been. I tried selecting it...nothing.
"A glitch..." I told myself, and chose Scout.
As soon as I spawned, I dashed for the intelligence. I went through the pipe system under the base. In the long pipe leading up to the stairs, I heard very very faintly...what sounded like Demoman.
"If I was a bad Demoman...I'm bloody sorry!" It said in a sentence mixed voice like before.
I stopped, then figured someone used a mic and was watching an SFM or something. I got to the intelligence room, and luckily, a Heavy had taken out the sentries guarding it. I grabbed the briefcase and ran.I ran through the pipes the way I had came, and again heard Demoman, a little louder this time.
"I wasn't huntin' trouble, lad! I didn't need your CRAP, yknow?"
Sentence mixing again. Man, that was getting annoying and creepy. I typed, "Enough with the mic."
Everyone said they didn't have one. I just rolled my eyes.
We had 2 points, and the enemy had 1. I was currently playing as Engi, as Demoman was still M.I.A.
I was defending the intelligence with one other Engineer. All our equipment was level three, and we were taunting each other, dancing, laughing, etc. The announcer said that we'd aquired the enemy intelligence, and I gave a positive voice command. But 2 seconds later, she said we dropped it. I looked at the killboard, and it said:
"Finished off ScoutDude145"
I thought that was odd. Who finished him off? I couldn't remember any deathtraps on 2Fort. Maybe he was on fire? But then it would've said the Pyro player's name killed Scout's player's name.
"What a glitchy day..." I mumbled, a bit irritated.
After that no one was able to grab it for more than two seconds. Somebody kept "finishing them off". I wasgetting annoyed, so I told the other Engi to keep watch, and headed for the briefcase.
I managed to get in through the pipes again...I must really love them, I use them so much...and when I got up the stairs, the briefcase was right there. I picked it up without hesitation. And immediately...spawning right in front of my face...was a Demoknight player. His one eye, shaking violently, an angry expression on his lips...and in his left hand...was The Chargin' Targe.
"I don't think YOU saw that one comin'!" He said in a voice command that sounded like it was from a youtube video: sentence mixed.
He then decapitated my Engi...then vanished. My kill cam didin't even zoom to where he had been. Just focused on me as I dropped the intelligence.
Completely freaked out by that, I went to change classes. Where Demoman was supposed to be...I noticed a tiny little black dot. It looked like it was slowly growing. I heard Demoman's voice say: "I know everything! I SEE the bottle of HELL! I'm gonta liquify ya! Blast ya into juice!"
Each word was getting louder, and the dot was growing steadily. I figured what might be going on, but fear paralyzed me from leaving the menu. The dot slowly started to grow limbs, a saw a faint glow of a sword and shield ubercharged...he was coming. He'd been running this whole time through oblivion, looking for a way back to the game. He started becoming visible; features gaining texture. He was gonna charge the screen...no...he was gonna charge ME!
Before I could close the laptop, he was there, screaming insanely and when his shield met my screen, it cracked, and static went everywhere! I pulled the battery out of the back, and dropped it. I stared at that busted screen. Did that really just happen? How? Why? I didn't mean to anger the Demo. I didn't know that was a thing! That games could be mad at players. I put the broken laptop down...I'd have to get a new one tomorrow.
Next day, I took the laptop in, had it looked at, and turns out something inthe screen's function had blownout. Kinda like a lightbulb. Didn't know that could happen, but sounded better than "a game charcter hit my screen by breaking the 4th wall."
After purchasing a new laptop, I got Steam again, and opened my account. I was a bit scared to open TF2...but I did. The first thing that happened...was freaky.
A black screen. The only thing on it...was Demoman. He didn't look angry though. He was holding a scrumpy bottle, and smiling at me.
"Hey!" He said in his drunken tone.
Not thinking...I replied with a weak: "Hi..."
"Sorry bout YOU com-put-er." His sentence mixed voice said. "I ONLY ONE-ted to make yer eyeballs pop like a GIRL!"
"You're not still mad..?" I asked, questioning why I was talking to him...HOW I was talking to him.
"Nooooo." He laughed. "Let's start a-NEW. Cheers, mate!"
As he said that, he gulped the scrumpy and vanished. The TF2 main menu came up. Everything was normal. I hesitantly joined a random server. It loaded normally, but when I went to the class selection...only Demoman was available. Great...what's he gonna do now? I chose him...and he spawned in the BLU base. He went to third person view, as if he was taunting, and looked at me.
"...W-what?"
He pointed at me with his scimitar. "You're gonta have ta gain me tr-u-st back, mate."
"I didn't mean to send you into wherever you went, Demo!"
"I know." He said. "But imagine if I had let the others live?"
My heart stopped, and he said: "You never woulda picked me..."
I knew that was true. "Where are the other classes?"
"In a soup can, lad." He laughed. "Hahaha nooooo, they're gonta take a BREAK! 'Till you and I are like ONE!"
I just nodded, notbelieving I was talking to a game...that he was giving conditions to play under.
"So..." I gulped. "What happens now?"
Demo smiled. "KILL 'EM ALL!"