Author Notes: Hey guys. Been playing a lot recently and this was an idea that took me after an idea for TF2 cosplay for the boyfriend and myself. Not totally happy with it, but I thought it was kinda cute. My original idea was to make it difficult to guess what was really going on, but as I have to add it to the TF2 section, it's kind of obvious...
Let me know what you think! Even if you think it's crap =/
And imagine if you didn't already know what it was about, at what point would you have realised?
Rated T for safety.
Nobody knew.
She knew that for sure. She'd made sure that none of her colleagues had seen her in the changing room. Her voice was muffled by her uniform, and even if it hadn't been, years of exposure to the tools of her trade had left her throat dry and hoarse.
They could never know who she was. Things would be irrevocably changed if they knew. They wouldn't treat her as an equal any more. They would leer and joke, hell, they might even try to make passes at her.
That kind of distraction would be a disaster. Many mechanisms wouldn't reach their destinations, many advances would be pushed back, many points of weakness would be exposed. She couldn't be responsible for that kind of carnage.
She'd been employed by the Company for as long as she could remember. Every day was the same. Go here, deliver this, keep that, try not to die. There was no respite, no escape. She hated it, but it was all she knew. How could she leave? The Company wouldn't let that happen, that was for sure. They'd rather see her dead, than run the risk that she go to the Company's biggest rival and spill all their secrets to them. You sign up with the Company, it's for life.
At the beginning, she had loved it. The secrecy, hiding the truth from the Company and her peers. It made her job more exciting. Now she was jaded. She'd seen so much death. She was lucky to have lived so long, but even that got easier, just like the killing. Sometimes she wished that she didn't have to do the same job every day. She dreamed of training to be a doctor, working with the doctors, removing bullets and treating burns. She was used to high pressure situations, they came with the job, she could have coped with front line medicine for sure. She had learned a little herself, to treat her own injuries where possible, to keep her secret safe.
She didn't have many friends at the Company. Most of her colleagues spoke to her rarely. She had no contact at all with the Ordnance and Artillery department. The secretive corporate espionage department had no contact with anyone but the faceless Company itself. She got on with the engineering department fairly well though. She often helped them protect their equipment.
The day started like any other. The team received a briefing and then they were shipped out to the Dustbowl as it was affectionately known. She hated this place. The air was thick with a superfine dust the permeated everything, even her military grade respirator struggled to filter it out. Defending this place was damned near impossible. She sometimes wondered how her colleagues coped with the dust, but she guessed her already damaged lungs were more susceptible to it.
The attacking forces were well organised today, making it difficult to keep them at bay. They had a heavy force heading up the centre of the complex towards their final defensive position, while a number of their faster or stealthier operatives tried to outflank them. She used to live for battles like this. Where every second could be life or death.
Several times she had to protect the engineers and their equipment, particularly from the many spies they spent disguised as our allies to sabotage the equipment. They made her angry. She hated how much their battles relied on espionage, sabotage and plain old backstabbing. She wished it was only about the fire power, the team and sheer bravery.
After the enemy had taken the first defensive position, they had had to fall back very quickly. The oncoming forces were organised and outnumbered them, if only fractionally. She knew, that sometimes that was all it took.
She sprinted through an enclosed area, a young colleague at her side, periodically spurting small bursts of flame from her thrower, ensuring she didn't run into anything unexpected. Suddenly an explosion shook the room and she realised they'd fallen into a trap. The young scout died instantly as the blast hit him. Shrapnel from the wall ripped through the arm of her suit shredding a large part of her gun arm. She backed out of the room as quickly as she could, turned tail and ran for safety.
Fighting the blackout she knew was coming, she ducked into an alcove, fairly hidden from the main battleground. She pulled her last medical pack from her uniform with one arm, her gun arm useless. Blood was already beginning to pool where she stood. She knew she didn't have long. She bandaged her arm roughly, trying to stop the bleed. She glanced down at the fuel gauge on her flame thrower tank. Damn, nearly empty. She knew she couldn't stay here long, it was only a matter of time before someone found her and finished her off. The heat and her thick suit were making it very difficult to think. She did something she would never normally have done, she removed her mask. The air wasn't so thick with dust here and the movement of the heavy air over her face calmed her senses, allowing her to think. She knew she had to get back to base and fast. In her head she planned the most efficient route back. She pushed herself up and away from the wall and made to leave the alcove.
Suddenly someone grabbed her injured arm and dragged her back to the cover. The searing pain almost knocked her out. Her vision fading fast she looked for her assailant, but could see nothing. Something brushed the hair from her eyes and she heard quiet sounds of comfort just before she passed out.
An unknown amount of time later, as her vision came swimming back, she realised that she was still in the alcove. Obviously her passed out form had appeared dead to any passers-by. But what of her assailant?
"Don't move," came a quiet hiss from the darkness. She froze. "I stopped you from walking straight into an ambush." The voice was oddly accented. She couldn't place it at all, though it reminded her of one of the Company's agents she had overheard after their mission briefing.
"Who are you? Why did you save me?" She whispered hoarsely.
"I should have killed you," he sounded like he was smiling. "But I couldn't. I didn't know. How could I have known? You looked so beautiful, despite the blood and soot on your face."
She tried to back away from the voice, pushing herself into the corner, as far as possible from him. She realised that her flamer was out of reach. She rapidly tried to work out an escape route, then remembering she had one flare left she whipped out the flare gun as fast as her injured arm would allow and pointed it at where she thought the voice had come from.
"I wouldn't do that my dear," the quiet voice was right next to her, and before she could react, the flare gun had been knocked from her hand.
Suddenly a balaclava covered face appeared next to hers and a finger was put to her lips.
"I'm not going to hurt you." The enemy spy pulled his balaclava from his face, and she could barely believe the beauty of the man beneath it. "Will you come with me? We can leave this place, and be safe together" he whispered.
For a fraction of a second she thought about screaming for help, knowing it would likely end her life. She looked him in the eyes and nodded ever so slightly.
"Now follow my lead," the spy said, and helped her up. She jumped as she saw he no longer looked like an enemy spy, but one of her own, a doctor. He put one of her arms round his shoulders and they made their way towards the base.
"You won't be able to enter the base undetected," she said in a worried tone.
"Don't worry, I've got an escape route."
They made their way past the base, her colleagues paying them no attention as the headed towards the battle. The spy lead her down a path she had thought blocked to a railway track. There waiting was a small train. As he helped her on-board, it started to move. He quickly hopped on behind her and changed back to his normal appearance. He pulled her to him.
"My dear, you will be safe now. I will make sure of it."
She relaxed against him and her consciousness started to fade. Just before she slept, she heard him whisper, "My beautiful Pyro, I will protect you."