"Hell yeah!" Frederick yelled, attracting the glare of everyone in the room. The RED Scout paused mid yell and looked around sheepishly. "I mean...this is terrible. Or something. Oh come on guys!" He exclaimed, throwing up his arms, unable to keep in his excitement any longer. "This is going to be awesome! I mean, we're gonna be fighting this other team an' we're gonna team up again like in the robot war thing but this time those dumbasses are never gonna guess what hit 'em 'cause if ya mess with us, ya gonna get ya asses kicked so goddamn hard ya gonna be sent to the moon!"

"Scout, this is not like one of your action movies." The RED Spy suddenly interjected. "This is a covert operation zhat calls for stealth and secrecy. We can not let Black Mesa know that we are doing zhis."

"So...does that mean I can use ya spy watch? I mean, that's stealthy, ri-ight?"

"Scout…" Lawrence warned.

"Alright, alright, I'll stop. Jeez, lighten up you guys. I mean, am I right Nate?"

The BLU Scout however, did not answer. His mind was too preoccupied with other things to share his double's enthusiasm.

This 'war' meant that the Commander would return. It would mean that what happened last time could happen again. It meant that–

"Nate? Ya alright pal?"

The Scout was suddenly shaken out of his thoughts by the concerned voice of his friend, suddenly aware that the entirety of the two teams were staring at him.

"I...I'm fine." He stuttered.

"Ye don't sound fine, ya wee laddie." Their Demoman commented. "Maybe ya should leave."

"Ja…" The Medic agreed, sounding slightly worried.

"No! I'm fine...I have to be." Someone tried to put a gloved hand on his shoulder, but he swatted it away.

"ALRIGHT PRIVATE!" The BLU Soldier yelled, grabbing ahold of the Scout's shoulder and spinning him around to face him. "WHAT ARE YOU NOT TELLING US?!"

The Scout froze, unable to speak. He couldn't tell them that he'd failed. Not here, in front of both teams and Miss Pauling. He wasn't meant to fail. Not like this. But at the same time, he couldn't go. Engineer was right, he was a Scout – he had to be alright.

He wanted to run, to get away from the questioning stares of the team, but there was nowhere to run here.

"WELL?!"

He tried to say something, but nothing came out. He didn't know what to say, and his usually fast mind was blank. He felt cornered, with no ammo left and only one way out.

"I...I failed…" He stuttered, taking that only way.

The Soldier in front of him was silent for a long, hard moment, his dark blue eyes staring intensely at in from underneath his helmet.

He couldn't take it.

His body was suddenly possessed by a strength that by all rights should've been impossible, and he pushed past the Soldier, his mind only focused on one thing right now – getting out of that room and away from the judging gaze of his team.

And then, pushing a red clad figure to the side and out of the doorway, he was out.

And then, panting for breath, he stopped.

He was better than this, wasn't he?

Wasn't he?

This wasn't him. He had been hired to be a Scout, and so far, he was failing to be that. He was meant to be nigh-invincible – impossible to follow, let alone pin down and hit.

But yet that man had done just that. He had taken him down with a single shot. He was failing to live up to his own name, let alone the one of Scout.

"Scout?"

The runner spun around to find that someone had followed him out of the room. Miss Pauling stood behind him, a slightly bemused expression on her face. She had known Scout (along with the rest of the team) since they had been hired in the sixties, but she had never seen him act like this.

"Oh christ…" He murmured, bringing a shaking hand to his forehead. He wanted to run again, but while he could run from his team, there was no running from the purple clad women of administration. "I fucked up didn't I? I fucked up real bad an' you're gonna fire me an' then ya gonna kill me 'cause spy Said that's what you're gonna do when we leave–"

"Scout, slow down." The assistant said, but Scout was going to fast for him to even notice her.

"An' then even if ya don't fire me, that Commander guy's gonna kill me again 'cause I ain't good enough an' were at freaking war now and of course he's gonna show up an' an'..." His speech slowed, having finally run out of things to say.

"Scout, why do you think I or the Administrator will fire you?"

"'Cause I failed."

"Failed?"

"Yeah…" His voice trembled as he spoke. "That man nearly went an' killed me an' that means I failed. 'Cause ya ain't meant to hit me. Ya ain't even meant ta see me. I'm meant ta be fast an' shit but I wasn't fast enough an' he shot me an' I did nothing about it."

"Scout, we aren't going to fire you." She adjusted her glasses and looked the Scout in the eye. "Yes, if this had been a mission assigned to you by the Administrator personally and if this was not the first time you had encountered the man and if the attack by Black Mesa had been anticipated, you would have failed. But that wasn't the case – you went off by yourself not knowing who or what you would face and suffered the consequences of that. Yes, she is annoyed that you nearly got yourself killed, an action that cost us time, money and effort, but she won't fire you."

"But...but what if he comes again?"

"He vill not come again." A third voice interjected, as the white form of Medic came into the corridor. "Miss pauling, you vill haff to excuse Scout, but he is suffering from an acute stress reaction..."

"Pardon?"

"Shock. He is suffering from shock."

"From the attack?"

"Ja."

"How will this affect things Hans?"

"First of all, my name is Josef," he corrected, taking ahold of the Scout's arm. "And second of all, I haff no idea. Zhis could go away tomorrow or zhis could turn into something much vorse." He shrugged. "Our best option now iz to hope zhat zhis 'Commander' does not show up and zhat Scout vill return to normal on his own accord."

"Will that happen though?"

"Zhis is Scout vi are talking about. It vill."

"But what now?"

"Now? Vi wait." The German replied, directing the Scout away from the room and its discussion of war.

**BANG**

A single, final shot rung through the training room, hitting its target moments with a crack as the wooden target shook with the impact, threatening to break apart at any moment.

The Scout lowered his pistol and twirled it around on his trigger finger, slipping out its magazine as he did so and replacing it with a fresh one.

"God damn it…" He muttered as he saw that his shot hadn't hit his target dead on, instead hitting slightly off to the left.

Glancing up at the clock in the test chamber, he noted that there was only five minutes left until the match started. Five minutes to go but yet the meeting in the RED intelligence room still had not ended. Hell, he had no idea if they were even fighting that morning, with that meeting and all.

Pulling his focus back to the wooden target in front of him, he aimed his gun and fired. Twelve shots, each one hitting the wooden target, but not a single one hitting centre.

Lowering the gun, he winced slightly and pulled out yet another empty magazine and threw it on the ground. His arms ached from the recoil of the pistol and his ears were starting to ring from the constant noise.

But he wasn't ready to give up right now.

Slipping in another magazine, he trained the gun back on the target. He'd been here all morning since his dismissal, taking down fake enemy after fake enemy, trying to desperately assure himself that he was fine, that he wasn't going to fold in on himself and collapse at a moment's notice.

Taking a deep, slightly trembling breath, he fired off another twelve rounds. The shots hit, glowing with some sort of almost ethereal azure light that crackled along the bullets like lightning, before hitting and finally shattering the target into a thousand splinters.

Match 1 of 6.27.74 begins in five minutes gentlemen!

Jerking his head to look at the speaker located on the training room's roof, the scout lowered his arms and put the gun back away in his bag, before pulling out a wooden baseball bat.

Resting the bat on his shoulder, he made his way to the room's exit, leading him directly to their respawn room, where he found half his team already there, waiting for the game to begin.

Demoman sat against the wall, a half bottle of...something in one hand. Sniper sat on the bench next to the resupply locker, the matte, black form of the machina on his lap. Pyro was rummaging around in the locker for something, while behind it, Spy leant against a wall, watching the firebug with a detached interest.

"So...we fighting today?" He asked, seeing as everyone in the room was preparing for battle.

"Aye." Demo nodded before taking a swig from his bottle.

"Ya think ya gonna be alright mate?" The Sniper asked, glancing up from his rifle in front of him.

"I'm gonna be fine. I always am pal." He gave the Sniper a thumbs up and grinned. But while he acted confident, he couldn't help but feel a twinge of worry. What if he wasn't fine? What if, despite all his assurances to both the team and to himself, he wasn't fine?

Her pushed those thoughts back and turned his mind to the battle ahead of him. No matter if he was or wasn't, he had to be fine.

"Ya didn't seem OK before Scoots. Maybe ya should sit this one out." The Demoman suggested, apparently still sober enough to remember what had happened.

"What! No. Way. I'm fine." He insisted, moving to sit down next to Sniper. Sighing, he leaned back against the wall.

Coo

The call of a dove suddenly jerked his attention away from his internal battle, and up to the room's rafters, where a pristine white bird sat. it watched him from up there, like a minion of some judging deity, black eyes unreadable as it sat there, silent once more.

But it was just a dove, and despite all of Medic's proclamations, he was no god.

The bird let out another coo and flew down to the runner, landing at his feet. And scout swore that it was the same bird that had stood by his bed that morning.

"You're Hippocrates aren't ya?" He murmured, leaning over to be on the same level as the dove. "Well, I'm fine. Ya don't need ta keep watching over me."

The dove remained silent.

The scout let out a hmph and sat back up. The Administrator's voice blared through the PA system, informing them that the match was about to start.

Match begins in 3...2...1...

changelog 11-7-16

+ added chapter

17-8-16

+ edited chapter