What's up guys! :D

Yup, it's the RED Team back to bring the insanity! Hope you like it :p

Chapter One – Merasmus Is a Moron and Fails Are To Be Had

~RACCOON SANCTUARY~

Traditionally, raccoon sanctuaries weren't situated in ancient castles once belonging to freelancing wizards, but logic was scarcely considered necessary around the Badlands. In the old building, amidst the odd abundance of sour cream and the small raccoon revolution, a tallish man clad in dark robes and a funky-looking skull hat abruptly jumped up and down on the spot;

"I did it!" the magician, for that's what he was, hurr durr, cried gleefully. Then he realised no one was here nearby to bask in his eureka vibes and rushed to fix that. He casually but clumsily levitated his way down the rather dreary hallways.

Seriously if he chose some nicer colours he could be in business. But I digress.

"Bombinomicon!" the wizard/magician (what even is he) barrelled into the castle library, shout accompanied by haunting echoes.

"What do you want, Merasmus?" a large, worn book on a table grumbled, "I'm reading."

Merasmus paused for a moment, wondering exactly how a book went about reading and if that was remotely normal. He shuddered the unease away and got all giddy again;

"I did it!" he announced loudly, making sure he got directly in the Bombinomicon's face (?) and dominated the book's vision. The bomb manual's pages rustled dryly as they shifted.

"Did what." It asked in such a bored, uninterested tone it doesn't deserve a question mark. Merasmus pouted. Damn book could act like it cared…

"I," he went on in earnest nevertheless, "found out where the Soldier is! THE WORST ROOMMATE EVER WHO RUINED THIS CASTLE. WHO BROUGHT THESE GOSH DARN RACCOONS."

He may not have said 'gosh darn'.

He may also have accidently summoned some random green electricity like he always did when he got a little emotional. Then he wanted cake.

"Anyway," the wizard went on, oddly calm and subdued, "I'm going to get my revenge on that fool." He realised his levitation thing had gone a little out of whack and he was flat against the roof. The Bombinomicon either didn't notice or didn't feel like mentioning it, so the book just went with,

"Yeah you have fun with that, buddy. I gotta date with a cook book, so-"

"No, you're staying and watching this," Merasmus insisted, grabbing the poor book and swooping out of the room (after clonking his head off the doorframe twice.) "The plan," he continued, adjusting his hat-thingy, "is to cast my not exactly stable long range violent explosion spell. It may also be untested."

The Bombinomicon didn't even have time to check if there were two disclaimers in that plan before they arrived at… wherever they were going. It appeared to be a rather clichéd medieval lab complete with cauldron. Merasmus plopped to the floor with all the grace of an anvil from Acme.

"This will teach Soldier to never anger a wizard!" he proclaimed, shooting upright like nothing happened. Of course, it had happened, and that meant he had a slight concussion that slightly inflicted on his judgment.

So he chucked all the safety procedures into the metaphorical shredder in the back corner of his cranium. Envisioning the red coloured, quite crooked building he had found his old roommate Soldier to be in, Merasmus went ahead and made his spell.

~MEANWHILE, IN THE RED BASE~

Peaceful days were a rare luxury in the RED base of nine batcrap crazy mercenaries.

So naturally they weren't having one today either.

"Scout. Stop. Hitting. Me!"

"NO! GO 'WAY!"

Scout continued running in circles, lobbing a seemingly infinite supply of apples at Medic. The poor doctor had his suspicions that baseball-obsessed Scout was occasionally the pitcher. He abruptly forgot the thought when yet another apple thumped him in the head.

"RIGHT, YOU ARE DEAD." He whipped out his bonesaw and gave chase with his 'doctor assisted homicide' expression. Scout yelped and put on a burst of speed, screaming,

"SOLDIER! Soldier you lied! You said apples made doctors stay away!"

Soldier himself suddenly appeared, having dropped through one of many gaps in the roof. The offense class arrived to the not-as-unusual-as-you-might-think sight of Scout and Medic fighting in the kitchen.

"I did?" he asked, sitting calmly on the table and subtly dusting the rubble away. "I meant rockets. Rockets keep most things away. Not tapirs though. That was a weird day."

The nostalgic Soldier zoned out for a few moments, content to ignore the conflict, when the entire base was suddenly enveloped in a massive flash of electric green light.

Once the crackling noise died down and the light faded out, the mercs found themselves standing perfectly still for several seconds, then Scout made a peculiar little squeak and abruptly bolted from the room.

Medic's bonesaw clattered to the ground as he hefted his medigun and hurried after him, sounding genuinely concerned as he called after the smaller merc. Soldier hopped daintily down from the table and flounced after them, humming a sickeningly happy little ditty as he skipped along.

None too far away from whatever that was, Sniper had been chilling out on the sniping platform quite peacefully one minute, then a mere heartbeat later he decided he desperately needed social interaction and all but jumped to the ground to find someone.

He crash landed directly on top of the Heavy, who didn't even react as the Australian bounced off his skull. It took the defence class a couple of minutes before he noticed the man at his feet.

"Oh, good chap!" he cried, the oddest sounding sentence in a Russian accent, "Are you alright?" he helped the Sniper up with a little too much oomph and had to catch him again after he hit the underside of the balcony.

The Engineer popped up at one of the downstairs windows and threw a wrench at the pair of them. Yup; straight through the glass.

"KEEP IT DOWN OUT THERE!" he yelled, making a whole bunch of assorted angry gestures. The Spy, who up until this point had been sneaking quietly behind Engy with the intention of scaring him, farted loudly, surprised himself, and promptly fell over. He spun on the floor blurting some rather odd cuss words.

In the next room, Demo had heard the shouting and jauntily sauntered toward it to put an end to the hostility, when a rather moody-looking Pyro shoved past him and punched the nearest wall, storming off again with a grouchy murmur.

Okay, I'll call it now; something weird was going on there.

~MERASMUS' CASTLE (TECHNICALLY IT'S SOLDIER'S I SUPPOSE LET'S NOT GET INTO THAT NOW~

"Uh oh."

If there was one thing in particular the Bombinomicon did not like Merasmus saying, it would definitely be 'Uh oh' or variations thereof. It waited uneasily for the magician to say more.

"I used the wrong spell…" Merasmus shifted anxiously, turning to the Bombinomicon.

"WHAT?" the book frowned as best as it could.

"That was the personality-switchy spell…"

"… You gotta get new names for these." Bombinomicon replied, as though that was the biggest concern right now. "What's it do?"

"Exactly what is says it does, fool," the wizard said irritably, pacing without pacing because he was floating. "And it's irreversible as far as I know."

"Yeah, but, you don't know anything."

That was a fair point, so Merasmus just pouted and decided he didn't really want to be in this story anymore.

~BACK AT THE BASE~

Heavy had politely called for Medic upon the Sniper-falling-from-great-height-then-getting-hit- upside-the-head-with-a-wrench scenario. The doctor zipped over there in record time, sprinting like the fate of the world and all the doves in it were at stake.

"IS EVERYBODY OKAY?" he seemed truly horrified, "MEIN GOTT YOU'RE NOT DIEING ARE YOU!?" He ran around overhealing all the nearby teammates whether they needed it or not. "It's okay… it's okaaaay," he assured himself as much as the others, keeping a very tense stance with the medigun poised.

The Sniper coughed.

"ARE YOU CHOKING!?" Medic demanded, springing over there and babbling incoherent German. Sniper fought him off awkwardly and firmly established the 'Get This Close and I Hit You' zone. Then after a few seconds of silence the marksman sprung haphazardly into the air, resembling the ending scene of too many mind-numbing musicals, and claimed;

"WE SHOULD 'AVE A PARTY!" he zipped toward the garage, "I'LL GO GET DIP!"

"Make sure you don't trip," Medic called weakly after him, turning to face Heavy. He did a quick double take. "Are you vearing a monocle?"

"Da," Heavy replied casually, surveying their surroundings with an air of importance.

"…Okay zhen."

~REC ROOM~

The Demoman watched on in bewilderment as the rather aggressive Engineer and extremely klutzy Spy romped about the rec room, smashing just about everything. Including limbs.

Maybe one was trying to kill the other, maybe they were attempting to redecorate, but we'll never really know.

What Demo knew, however, was that violence was not the answer. Surely, the way to stop such a thing, was with violence.

Or it would have been. Demo was feeling a little odd today, as though a wizard had gone and messed up his personality. But like that could happen.

Now, he thought the way forward would be some kind of intervention. OOH! There could be hats and everything! Planning time!

~UPSTAIRS~

"It's okay friend!" Soldier called in a soft voice no one previously knew he could speak in, "This is a safe space." He ambled down the hallways, lightly stepping over the alarming number of cracks. Also he seemed to be spawning flowers with his every footfall.

The Scout, though, was hiding in a corner, shyly trying to avoid his teammate. Of course at that point moody-teenager-type Pyro suddenly barged through the wall he was leaning against. Then Pyro got mad because look at that stupid little fluffy cloud right out the window there all happy and such, and dramatically shot a flare at the poor thing.

Incidentally kids, clouds can catch fire in fiction. LEARN.

This is most odd.

Thanks for reading! (And happy Father's Day, Dad!) :)