WARNING.
THE FOLLOWING DOCUMENT WAS ONLY SLIGHTLY INTENDED TO BE SERIOUS, BUT PROBABLY ISN'T. IT IS ONLY POSTED HERE BECAUSE SOMEHOW THE HEAD HONCHO FOR ONE OF THE REPRESENTATIVE SOURCES (THAT BEING THE FIGHTING CARD GAME BATTLECON WHICH IS EXCELLENT) THOUGHT I SHOULD PUT IT UP HERE AND FINISH IT. SO I DID. NOBODY'S QUITE SURE WHY OR HOW THAT HAPPENED.
ALSO THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS, BUT THAT'S LESS RELEVANT.
WARNING ENDS. FANFIC PROCEEDS.
The time was midnight. The bridge between the two buildings was, in a rare change of pace, not littered with bodies or bullet casings. Nothing was even on fire. Even with the time as late as it was, such a moment of peace was rare. The interior of the building owned by RED was just as lax. Three people sat around a table, holding playing cards, while a fourth was content to roast hot dogs on a campfire. Nobody bothered to tell them off for starting a campfire indoors.
"I raise," declared the one in a white doctor's outfit.
"Ah heck. I fold, I guess." The one in overalls and a yellow helmet put his cards on the table.
"Hm... Ah, why not. I call." The one-eyed one with the vest pointed a challenging finger at the doctor.
The doctor smiled confidently, and turned his cards to face the table. He had a full house: two 5s and three 8s. The one-eyed one barked a laugh in return, revealing his hand of four 6s and a Jack, and eliciting a groan of frustration and the bet from the doctor.
"This is why I don't normally play. You're too cautious, until you suddenly aren't."
"That's what it takes in my line of work, boy-o!"
The one in overalls just chuckled softly. "Demoman's at least fun to play against, even if you lose. You wanna deal us in, Pyro?" he offered, turning to the one at the campfire donned in a gas mask and fireproof suit. The voiced reply was as indiscernible as ever, but the dismissive handwave said enough.
Demoman, the one-eyed one, scoffed. "I'm not even sure the poor lad can read the cards, Engineer."
Engineer shrugged and reached to gather all the cards, but the next match was interrupted by a deafening explosion from a couple of rooms off. All four immediately reached under the table and grabbed their weapons of choice. Demoman barked out an order: "Medic, on me! Engineer, Pyro, take the side paths. Don't let the bastards out!"
The intel room was a mess. Overturned chairs and bits of machinery, which Engineer quickly deduced as the remains of his teleporter, littered the area, and black scorch marks adorned the area where it once was. However, the sentry gun was still completely active and had registered no targets, a fact that was doubly surprising considering the fact that there was a woman coughing up a storm in the middle of the mess. All four mercenaries just stood and stared, unsure of how exactly this had occurred.
"Okay, that was probably not supposed to happen," she muttered to herself once the coughing fit ended. She stood up and brushed herself off, and the mercenaries immediately took note of her strange two-tone tunic and wild pink hair.
"Oi! Does this look like a disco to you? Get out of here!" Demoman shouted, gesturing with his grenade launcher to reinforce the command.
It was only at this point that the woman took note of where she was. "Wait... oh no, this isn't Argent at all. I screwed up the teleport spell, didn't I? Aaaargh, Professor Krane is gonna TANK my score!" The fact that four men with strange weapons were yelling at her to do things appeared not to bother her so much as her grade.
"Hold on." Medic advanced, turning off his medigun for a second. "Excuse me, Fraulein."
The woman stopped wringing her hands in distress and turned to Medic. His accent was strange, almost straight out of a documentary on Jeffrian history. "Who, me? That's not my name."
Medic ignored the comment. "You shouldn't be here. This is a war zone. How did you get here?"
"Probably took the teleporter, doc. Though not intentionally, from the looks of it..." Engineer surveyed the wreckage around the woman in disappointment: that had taken him the better part of the afternoon to get working.
"Uh... yes, that sounds right. I was casting a teleportation spell for a class at Argent University, and I must've gotten the incantation a bit off, and er..." The woman stopped and corrected herself. "What I MEAN is, I was BANISHED here by an evil warlock who was, uh, jealous of the dark eldritch knowledge of Lesandra M-"
"Whoa whoa there, little lady," Engineer interrupted. "No names. Company policy, even for civilians. ESPECIALLY for civilians. Just your profession will do. For example, you can call me Engineer." He tipped his helmet in greeting.
"I am the Medic here," stated the Medic, standing stiffly at attention as he did so.
The Demoman didn't introduce himself, just stared at his teammates incredulously. "...Are you all daft? Why are you introducing yourselves to a witch?!"
"Hey, I'm a SUMMONER, thank you very much!" Lesandra shot back indignantly.
"She is clearly not hostile, Demoman. And even if she turns out to be a spy, there is only one of her and four of us. Manners, please," chided Medic.
"Well now she already knows what you call me, so what's the bloody point?" Demoman took out his favorite bottle and started pulling from it heavily, clearly done with the conversation.
"Nice to meet you too. And uh..." Lesandra gestured at Pyro, hiding in the doorway with both gloved hands on the frame.
Engineer shrugged. "Everybody just calls him Pyro. Nice to meet you, Summoner." He extended his own hand, and Lesandra took and shook it awkwardly.
"So uh... I'd like to get back to Argent soon. Finals are coming up. You, uh... Engineer, you said you had a teleporter?"
Engineer shook his head. "'Had' being the operative word. Afraid your mistake totaled this one. I can get it up and running, and get you back home no problem, but it'll just take some time. Probably be done by sun-up."
"In the meantime, Fraulein Summoner," advised Medic, gesturing for her to follow, "this is still a war zone. I strongly recommend you find a place to hide in the event that the BLU mercenaries choose to attack. We will do our best to defend you-"
"Speak for yourself," muttered Demoman.
"-but we cannot guarantee your safety, and the longer you stay here, the less time we can devote to infiltrating their own base and seizing their intelligence."
"Not that this is on the table anymore," declared a throaty Gesselheimian voice from nowhere in particular.
"Who's there?" Lesandra shouted, starting to summon her familiar in reflex.
"Not an enemy. Which is good for you, Summoner." The voice's owner, a thin man in a suit and mask, appeared out of thin air just behind the Pyro, who waved happily in greeting. "I heard the introductions already. You may call me Spy. Enchante," he finished, with his natural disdain painting his every word.
"Back up a second, mate. What do you mean it's not on the table?" inquired Demoman from the floor.
The Spy lit a cigarette before responding. "I mean precisely that. We outnumber them, but their briefcase is under constant watch by absolute brutes of mercenaries. Even with the help of the doctor here, you and Pyro would be dead in seconds."
"Question," chirped Lesandra, her hand shooting into the air as if in class.
"What is it?" responded the Spy.
"What's a briefcase?"
The five mercenaries in the room stared at her in confusion. Spy was the first to respond. "That is information we can't give you, Summoner, assuming you wish to remain al-"
Engineer interrupted the Spy. "Like that little red number on the desk there, except blue."
"Okay cool, two seconds." Lesandra turned to check out the red briefcase sitting on the desk.
"Laborer, your cheerful helpfulness is about to get our lovely little guest killed." The Spy drew his favorite butterfly knife with an elaborate flourish. "You are a terrible host."
"Spy, you're being a damn lunatic! Cut that out!" Engineer moved between Lesandra, still turned away, and the advancing Spy.
"He's the only one talking sense here!" retorted Demoman, though he wasn't getting up.
The Engineer refused to budge. "Everyone, just calm down and let's talk this over like-"
"Got it!"
All five mercenaries turned to look at Lesandra, whose hands, still emitting tiny red sparks, were holding a blue briefcase, identical in size and shape to the one behind her.
"How..." Medic started to say, but any further words were lost in bewilderment.
"That was easy. Like, REALLY easy. You'd think they hadn't warded it or anything." Lesandra casually threw the intel over her shoulder, landing it on the desk next to the red counterpart.
Spy cocked his head in disbelief, then after a moment, he put his knife away as elegantly as he had drawn it. "You have done well. As long as you don't open either briefcase, I think we can let you live."
Engineer shook his head, though he also relaxed his stance. "That's no way to say thank you. Speaking of, thank you kindly, Summoner."
Demoman stood up uneasily. "Don't get too cozy just yet, ladies. That bit of black magic's going to have the BLUs madder than a bipolar badger. We'll need to shore up our defenses before they know what's happened. Medic, on me! I've got some demolitions to do, hahaha!" His hostility, while it didn't vanish, quickly gave way to a disconcertingly cheery bloodlust, and he took off.
Medic looked to the others. "Engineer. You work on building your teleporter so Fraulein Summoner can leave. Spy, Pyro, keep an eye out on anything out of the ordinary. Doctor's orders," he concluded, chuckling a tiny bit at his joke, which nobody else dared to echo. He then hurried out after Demoman. Spy and Pyro looked at Lesandra for a moment, then at each other, then took off, each silent as they did so.
Engineer was already getting to work, using the scrap from the accident as a starting point. "Get along, Summoner. Find yourself somewhere to hide."
Lesandra folded her arms. "You sure about that? I can fight too, and it sounds like you guys will need a lot of help."
Engineer turned away from his work and fixed her with what she assumed must be a very serious stare. Kind of hard to tell with his goggles. "You ever faced down a pack of ornery mercenaries that don't know fear or mercy?"
"Yeah, that was one of Professor Burman's extracurricular activities. Pretty fun, too."
This response wasn't the one the Engineer had expected. "Oh. Uh... then go hog wild, I guess. Just don't get yourself killed."
