...3, 2, 1!

The grill rattled opened and RED poured onto the field.

'Come on men, let's show the new BLU what he's in for!' Soldier bellowed. He'd seemed surprisingly excited about the idea of a new Spy. Sniper wondered if perhaps came from an urge to share his favourite rocket launcher with the BLU.

Sniper didn't join in with Pyro, Demo, Scout and Heavy's cheers. Instead a grim smile spread across his face. 'Bring it on,' he muttered quietly to himself as he headed for his favourite sniping spot.

Despite his determination, Sniper's hands shook more than he would have liked as he raised his rifle. He clenched his jaw, frowning deeply at the enemy battlements. He had no idea what to expect from this newcomer. But they also had no idea what to expect from him.

Two hours and three different sniping spots passed before he got his first look at the new BLU. He spotted a blue flicker behind a barrel as RED Medic and Heavy charged the main entrance to the enemy's base. A rush of adrenaline slammed into him, but he didn't falter. Before the Spy had time to take a single step towards the nearby Medic, his head exploded.

Sniper punched the air with a cry of triumph, and then quickly ducked away from the window in case he'd attracted the enemy Sniper's attention.

Sniper's hands were still shaking, but he was grinning from ear to ear.

Welcome to hell, he thought to himself.

He caught glimpses of the new BLU Spy here and there during the day. It was clear what a disadvantage he was at, not knowing the terrain. Sniper made the most of it, slipping into the top storeys of various buildings that gave him views of the battlefield from odd and unexpected angles. More than once he caught the new Spy crouched behind a crate or hiding around a corner, completely unaware of how vulnerable he was.

Sniper never paused. He wouldn't even allow himself a moment to study the enemy, not even to watch his patterns and behaviour. The only good BLU Spy was a dead BLU Spy and Sniper was loathe to allow him to live a moment longer than necessary.

However, being so quick to act meant that his kills weren't always as clean as they should be. While other BLUs died to quick headshots most of the day, the Spy took a nasty shot to the shoulder or abdomen more than once.

Sniper knew he should feel bad about it. He knew he should be taking the time to line his shots up better, but every successful kill left him dizzy with triumph, no matter how messy.

However, there was one kill that later, much later he would look back on with regret. It came right near the end of the match, as RED Scout raced across the bridge, the final briefcase they needed clutched tightly on his hands.

Sniper spotted the new BLU uncloak behind Scout and level his pistol. It wasn't the fancy, heavy Ambassador that the previous BLU Spy had favoured, but a small, almost delicate gun with a dark wooden grip. All the same, it would only take one shot to stop Scout.

Sniper took aim, catching the Spy in the thigh. The Spy fired but his shot went wide as he collapsed and Scout disappeared out of sight. Sniper watched the Spy try to drag himself up to his knees. His bad leg wouldn't allow him and he collapsed forward, one arm braced to stop himself from landing face down in the dirt.

'Victory to the REDs!' The Administrator's voice shouted, crackling from a speaker behind Sniper's head. Euphoric energy swept through him, washing away the aches and pains of the day's battle, leaving him feeling almost as though he'd been ubered. (Which had happened only once or twice in the past and in Sniper's opinion had probably been a waste of time for everyone involved.)

Sniper didn't move though. He watched as the Spy slowly collapsed onto his side, grimacing in pain. He watched as the Spy clutched at his leg, blood pooling on the ground and soaking into his clothes. He watched as the Spy slowly raised his head to look across the battlefield, straight at him.

Sniper should have killed the Spy. Should have put him out of his misery. But a rage he hadn't known was still inside him, gripped at his chest. He narrowed his eyes and glared back at the Spy, fists clenched and heart thumping in his chest.

Never again. Never again would he be the victim. And if the new Spy had to learn that the hard way, so be it.

Mercifully for the BLU, he died quickly, weakened by the humiliation round, his femoral artery nicked by Sniper's bullet.

Sniper continued to stare at his body until respawn snatched it away.

Smaller than the last one, a voice whispered in the back of Sniper's mind.

Even skinnier than him..

Younger.

Not him at all.

Sniper turned his back on the battlefield, brushing the thought aside as he shouldered his backpack.

Never again, remember?

Never again.

All anyone had to talk about at dinner was the new addition to the enemy line-up.

'He's BLU on the outside but he still bleeds red, same as any other man! I should know, I checked!' Soldier said with satisfaction, as though this had been up for debate. Sniper wondered if he'd expected the Spy to secretly be some kind of robot or alien or something. That seemed like the typical kind of Soldier thought process.

'Medic, Medic! Did you see it when I hit him over the head with my bat?' Scout asked excitedly through a mouthful of jacket potato.

'I did,' Medic said.

'Did you see the way he just crumpled straight to the floor?'

'Yes, Scout.'

'Like, it wasn't even that bad a hit! Maybe I just don't know my own strength!'

'No, Scout.'

'Mrpth-urgh murpth murpth!' Pyro announced with a happy chuckle. Sniper presumed whatever Pyro had said had something to do with burning and new BLU spies.

Engineer crossed his arms, sneering. 'Wonder how desperate BLU must be for new mercs if they're willing to hire the likes of that Spy. Never seen someone mess up a sapping attempt so badly.'

'What happened?' Demo asked with a smirk. He'd already bragged about managing to blow the Spy up twice in the same half hour.

'I was building up my teleporter when I looked up and spotted the newbie uncloaking and trying to sap my sentry! Stupid idiot bungled something up and dropped the sapper as soon as he saw me!'

Demoman burst out laughing. The image of a spy trying to apply a sapper and dropping it instead would have been an amusing one to Sniper too if the story had been told by anybody else.

'Did you kill him?' Heavy asked Engineer.

Engineer snorted. 'Didn't even have to. I'll treasure the look on his stupid face as my baby turned around and shot him full of bullets forever.'

'Caught little man trying to kill doctor. Crushed little man,' Heavy said with satisfaction.

Medic sighed. 'He still got me a couple of times though. He can't be all that bad if he still managed that.'

'Or maybe you're just that bad,' Scout joked.

'Do you want to be healed at all tomorrow?' Medic asked, eyebrows raised in disapproval. Sniper joined in Demoman's laughter that time.

'Don't underestimate an enemy just because they're new,' Spy chided softly. 'We all were once.'

'Well, I shot his head off about six times but he didn't get me even once!' Sniper bragged. Then he stopped to think about that that. It hadn't really registered fully until he'd said it. The Spy hadn't killed him once. But not due to being new to the location, not due to messing up an attack. But because he hadn't tried to kill Sniper even once.

Sniper decided to still put it down to him moving around so much during the match, making it hard for someone who didn't know the map. Because what other reason could there be for it?

Over in the BLU base, no one was eating together. The new BLU Spy sat on the edge a bed that was still foreign to him, half dressed, a hastily made cheese sandwich on a plate next to him. He peeled off his gloves and rubbed at his sore hands. Little tremors shook through them every now and then. He exhaled in annoyance, blue eyes narrowed. They'd been elegant hands once. Lithe and nimble, the hands of a pickpocket and a lock picker and a man of many many other talents

Today they'd shaken so much at one point he'd dropped his sapper, leading to an embarrassing death. His right hand had also cramped up just when he needed to shoot to stop the escaping RED Scout.

Pathetic. Utterly pathetic.

That had got him killed too.

By a…

By a Sniper.

He closed his eyes tight, grimacing, as though that would keep the memories at bay.

It did not.

Three months ago. Another base, another last chance before this, even more final, last chance. Living on borrowed time.

His last favour called in. All his belongings packed up, what few he'd gathered over the last few years.

He'd been hopeful. Almost. He'd buried it under layers of pessimism and reality checks, but hope is like a weed: even when you try and destroy it, it can grow back if the roots remain.

He'd been entering into an impossible war, so why couldn't the impossible be possible this time?

He knew his way around a gun. Had encountered disguise kits before once or twice. The sapper was new, the cloaking device too, though he'd heard of such things before.

It should have been easy. It would have been. Before.

The team had been welcoming, as welcoming as eight suspicious, war-toughened killers could be.

So he'd been hopeful.

That had been his second mistake.

The first had been accepting this damn job in the first place.

I forgot to mention last chapter (and kind of forgot about it entirely) that I now have an ask blog for the Foe Yay cast. Go to ask-the-foe-yay-cast on Tumblr if you'd like to send in an ask! :)