Clarity.
That was the word that was whirling through his mind as he stood amidst his enemies, watching how they were slaughtering his teammates.
He could perfectly predict they were failing this mission, even though the Administrator's voice had just declared that there were ten whole minutes left for them to capture the intelligence. Everything was clear to him, he felt so calm, so clear.
He was literally clear at that moment. His cloak was keeping him out of his enemies' vision. Out of everyone's vision for that matter. If he were to help his team right now by shooting a mercenary of the opposite team, he would uncloak, which would reveal him to the rest of them, which would send him to respawn almost immediately. He didn't feel like going through unnecessary pain and confusion right now, his team wouldn't even be able to complete their mission this time anyway.
So he just stood still, silently watching the massacre unfold. He couldn't stay here for a very long time, his cloak would soon fail him, he learned that by looking at his watch and seeing only two of the ten bars, indicating cloaking time he had left, illuminated. He reluctantly stepped aside, careful not to bump into the back of the huge Russian emptying his minigun in front of him.
As soon as his cloak had worn off and he had entered everyone's field of vision again, he found himself retreated at a safe distance from any firing guns and swooshing bullets.
"We should cease trying and accept our defeat, gentlemen," he said, barely talking louder than usual. No one paid attention, his fellow mercenaries kept on fighting with bitter persuasion.
He shook his head and took his revolver out of its holster, so that it at least seemed like he was about to contribute to the fight.
The sound of a larger rifle firing made him look up, just in time to notice the sniper on the roof of the nearby building. It was the last thing he saw before he unvoluntarily dropped down on all fours and sudden darkness enveloped him. He heard blood rushing in his ears, faster and faster and...
Nothing.
Then an immense vertigo smashed him against the ground. He opened his eyes, his hands and knees the on cool, white tiles of the respawn room. At first there was an almost unbearable pounding in his head, but it quickly subsided, and he slowly rose to his feet. He couldn't help but crack a slight grin.
"C'était un tireur d'élite très attentif, mon dieu..."
He didn't feel like going back to that battle, that massacre. There were days when he could be found sneaking around near the crossfire, backstabbing enemies whenever he had the opportunity, days when he didn't mind going through respawn nine times in a row just give him team the slightest bit of a chance to carry the briefcase with intelligence straight into victory. But today sure wasn't one of those days. To be honest, neither was yesterday. Actually he hadn't felt like that in months. It was as if his was slowly starting to lose all motivation to continue this war. He didn't want to admit it to himself, but he was growing indifferent.
'Attention. Five minutes left in the mission. Five minutes left in the mission.'
His feet carried him to the crossfire. He quickly disguised as an enemy Scout, sapped a sentry and backstabbed the BLU Engineer trying to defend it. Surprisingly, nobody noticed him and he quickly cloaked to ensure a safe retreat.
He thought they could win, for just a moment, as RED's Heavy was übered by their Medic, and at least five BLU mercenaries were killed by Heavy's minigun.
But then the über-load wore off and the Russian took a bullet to the head, fired by the insanely skilled BLU Sniper. So far their chances for any kind of victory.
'You failed!' The Administrators voice sounded harsh from his earpiece. He nodded calmly and took the little device out of his ear. He knew. It had been clear to him.
RED retreated like beaten dogs.
"Aww man, I can not believe this!" Scout angrily threw his shattergun in his locker and smashed its door close. "This is like, what, fourth time 'a the week that we fail a mission? I sure as hell think th'Admin's gonna be so pissed with us."
He either exactly spoke the feelings of all of the nine mercs, so no one felt they had to add something to it, or they were just all too tired to reply to him. Only Pyro pulled him into a rib shattering hug and uttered a wailing, almost theatrical sigh.
Spy had already headed for their living quarters, stood in front of the heavily secured window that had absolutely no view except for some abandoned oil barrels and other battle-related trash. He slowly lighted a cigarette and watched the smoke rise toward the ceiling, where it slowly vanished. It looked so calming, so majestic, following the same kind of patterns that a drop of ink made in a glass of water. He always wondered if those patterns were some kind of scientifically related, maybe it had something to do with chemical processes? He genuinely didn't know, then again he had never been a man to indulge in science and maths.
Languages however always held his interest, he loved discovering what different languages had in common, he loved discovering patterns. He was fluent in eight languages, and knew how to keep a not-all-too-complicated conversation going in five more. That was one of the many things that led to his employment of more than a decade in the world of secret intelligence and espionage, before... Before he joined RED. There were two clear categories that contained all of his memories, almost labeled if you will, separating them in 'before RED' and 'RED'. The 'before RED' category contained both the very best and the very worst memories of his life. He often liked to forget about all of those, just focusing on the 'RED' epoch, just focusing on the present.
The other mercs had started entering the room, everyone pretending they actually had something to entertain themselves, to keep their mind off of their fresh defeat. Pyro sat down in a corner with a box of matches, lighting them slowly, one by one, and staring at the little flame, sighing each time it died out. Scout repeatedly threw a baseball against the wall, sometimes throwing it from behind his back or from underneath his leg to incorporate some variation in his otherwise way too boring activity. Demoman was... Spy was not too sure whether the Scotsman was awake or asleep, given that he was lying on his stomach in the middle of the room with his bottle filled with suspiciously coloured alcohol-containing liquid next to him, occasionally sobbing or hiccuping.
Suddenly a signal sounded in the room, announcing the arrival of an employee of the main office. Everyone kind of sat up, straightened their clothes and faced the door to be able to greet whosoever was about to enter their living quarters. Spy didn't even bother turning around, he just tapped the excess ashes off the end of his cigarette.
"Good afternoon, gentlemen," the high voice of Miss Pauling sounded. After a slight pause, she continued: "Or I guess I could say a not-so-good afternoon, given your facial expressions?"
"What do you think yourself?", Soldier shouted, "Those maggots from the BLU team don't seem to be playing by the rules exactly! We can barely stand five minutes against them without all being sent to respawn twice!"
Spy turned around. He was not too fond of Miss Pauling, but she was a nice lady, and he sure did not appreciate Soldier lashing out to her like that. But she didn't seem impressed, and Soldier quickly apologized for his unreasonable behaviour, so Spy just let the moment pass.
"Funny that you should mention 'not playing by the rules'," Miss Pauling smiled. She pulled a few sheets of paper from her ever-present clipboard. "We -and with that I mean the Administrator- have observed unfair behaviour being displayed in battle by members of the BLU team. I recall the BLU Demoman using a grenade launcher that had not been provided by Mann Co., or TF Industries for that matter, it had higher accuracy and more explosive material. Normally we would encourage creating new weapons, but this particular weapon had been provided by a third party."
"Those sneaky f-" Scout was about to utter a nice string of expletives, but he managed to contain himself with a quick look at Miss Pauling furrowing her brow.
"I am not someone to judge their behaviour, Scout," she said. "However, the Administrator is. In fact, she has decided to hire someone in team BLU to supervise their actions and plan out their attacks." She stopped briefly to push her glasses, that had slid to the tip of her nose, back up. "That would be unfair to RED, so we want someone to plan out attacks for RED to. I guess that would be appreciated." A quick wink to the team. "So, as both teams will have a new member that essentially fulfills the same role, we decided to introduce a new class."
A few mercs groaned in disbelief. Spy understood their reluctance to accept a new member in the team, but he knew this was inevitable, since they wouldn't stand much of a chance against BLU if they continued like this.
"So," he said, "what is the name you have given to this new mercenary?"
Miss Pauling gave him a silent nod for his support. "We have named them 'Strategist', since it perfectly describes the purpose of this new class."
"Already hired someone?", Soldier asked. Miss Pauling shook her head. "I can't tell you all of the details of course, since it's strictly confidential, but I am allowed to tell you that we have three possible applicants for the function at the RED team, all three of them highly skilled, so you need not worry about that."
"Hire a girl," Scout yelled to no one in particular, "that would make for some eh, fun!"
Miss Pauling put the sheets of paper back in her clipboard. "Actually, one of the applicants is female, but that should not matter to any of you, since all of you are professional, disciplined mercenaries." She made sure to emphasize the latter part of her sentence, which made Scout look down at his shoes, slightly embarrassed.
His reaction was of course totally logical, Spy reckoned, no one of the mercenaries would see a female human being for multiple months at a time, with Miss Pauling as an exception. But everyone held her in high regard, no one except Scout had ever made a move toward her. She was a beautiful woman, everyone would agree on that, but she was really good at her job and trying to flirt with her would be plain disrespectful.
"Anyone have a question?", she asked, looking around the room full of men. A few shook their heads, others had already continued leaving the room or finding some mind-consuming activity to do.
The petite, black-haired woman gave a short nod and silently left the room.
Spy extinguished the stub of his cigarette in an ash tray and took the little metal container out of his pocket to light another one.
Beaucoup de choses changera.
He just knew it. He only couldn't decide whether it would be for the better or for the worse. He just knew there was a new category in his memories about to arise.
A/N: A couple of French sentences are used in this chapter, the translations:
"C'était un tireur d'élite très attentif, mon dieu..." | "That was a highly skilled sniper, my god..."
Beaucoup de choses changera. | A lot of things are about to change.
Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed this first chapter. Please do keep in mind that English is not my native language, and that I can make a mistake every now and then. It would be useful if you would point them out for me. Also, if you like the story, please consider leaving a review. Thank you. :)