Chapter Two: Castle Crashers, TF2 Edition
It was jarring, really, the difference between the looming Castle and the RED base. On one side, the Castle was tall, dark, and foreboding, and on the other side, the smaller, more modern base was brightly lit, warm and ironically inviting. Scout found himself already wishing he was back inside the familiar, moderately safe territory of the RED base as he and his fellow REDs looked up at the Castle.
From where he stood behind his Sentry, Engineer said, "Now, remember the plan, boys. The charges set, eyepatch?"
Reloading his Stickybomb launcher, Demoman replied, "Aye!"
"Ready to charge, Doc?" Engineer asked, looking at Medic.
"Ja," the German replied, red electricity crackling around the barrel of his Medigun as he kept it trained on Heavy.
"Ready to go, Spy?"
"Oui, Laborer," Spy answered, disguised as a zombified version of himself.
"Alright…mission begins in ten seconds," Engineer announced, taking over for the Administrator for the sake of irony.
The mercs collectively braced themselves.
"Five…"
Pyro cackled as he held his Phlogistinator over his head. Scout blew a bubble from his chewing gum as he cocked his Scattergun.
"Four…"
Spy engaged his cloak, vanishing into thin air with a hiss and a puff of smoke. Medic's finger rested on the Übercharge trigger.
"Three…"
Demoman prepared himself to activate his bombs. Soldier raised his Black Box rocket launcher, ready to add his own ordinance in case Demo's stickies didn't cut it.
"Two…"
Heavy began revving his Brass Beast, aiming at the drawbridge as he growled. Sniper, standing at the far end, his back against the wall of the base, peered through the scope of his Sydney Sleeper towards the drawbridge, ready to start taking headshots.
"One…NOW!"
With a twitch of his empty eyesocket, Demoman activated the remote detonator implant inside it, and all twenty-four of his Stickybombs detonated simultaneously, the force of the explosion making the ground shudder beneath their feet. The drawbridge shattered to fragments, bits and pieces falling all around them. Invisible to all, Spy made his way across Engie's bridge and boldly entered the Castle while the others awaited any sort of response.
Several tense minutes passed, but nothing happened. Engineer breathed a sigh of relief, but before he could say anything, Sniper noticed something through his scope, approaching Teufort from the direction of the nearby town. It almost looked like…
"Head's up, lads!" Sniper cried, pointing towards the fence. "We've got company!"
The other REDs looked towards where Sniper was pointing, their eyes widening at what they saw.
A horde of skeletons was bearing down on the base, the lead ones already beginning to climb the fence. Many of them were carrying femur bones as makeshift clubs, while a handful were carrying knives and other, deadlier kitchen utensils. Clearly the Count had seen fit to reanimate the poor bones of all the civilians interred in the local graveyard.
"Are you freakin' kiddin' me?!" Scout cried.
Engineer pumped his Frontier Justice as he proclaimed, "Let's get 'em!"
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Castlevania, Outer Wall…
Right before his cloak was due to drop, Spy ducked behind a pillar and phased back into view with a quiet hiss. While the cloak would recharge if he had stood still, it was better to be able to move about the area more freely under his disguise. He glanced over his shoulder as he heard the telltale sounds of his companions fighting, realizing that their little stunt had not gone unnoticed. Turning back around to return to the task at hand, he noticed that right across from him was another entryway, this one currently blocked by a heavy, wrought-iron gate.
Might as well do something productive while the others are busy blowing up whatever has captured their attention, Spy thought to himself. The mechanism to open this gate surely lies somewhere in this area.
Looking around, Spy noticed a door to his right. The zombie-disguised Frenchman sauntered over to the door and jiggled the handle experimentally to see if it was locked. It wasn't.
Though this was hidden by his disguise, Spy withdrew his Ambassador revolver as he eased the door open, the ancient, rusty hinges squealing and the gnarled wood groaning from the movement. He then found himself inside what appeared to be a large round tower. A crumbling stairway spiraled its way towards the top, parts of it having broken off long ago.
"Nowhere to go but up," Spy mused to himself as he began to ascend the stairway.
Before too long, the espionage expert encountered his first obstacle. It appeared to be the skull of some reptilian beast, possibly a dragon, if such a creature had ever truly existed. A fell, blood-red light glowed from within it as the Bone Pillar impassively stared down Spy. Trusting in his disguise, Spy made his way past the unsuspecting creature, which didn't even spare him a passing glance as it slowly swiveled its head left and right, searching for any signs of living human intruders.
Hmm, its behavior is almost reminiscent of a Sentry, Spy thought, filing the information away for later.
A few minutes later, Spy came across a gap in the stairway where part of it had collapsed. Adjusting his tie, Spy took a few steps back before running forward and nimbly jumping across the gap, a few loose bits of stone falling behind him. Spy pressed on, passing by another oblivious Bone Pillar, but a short way past that, he stopped suddenly as something fell into his path with a resounding SHINK.
A guillotine? Spy marveled, instantly recognizing the infamous device from his country's history as the blood-encrusted blade slowly rose back up into its default position.
Spy waited a moment before the guillotine fell once more. As it rose again, Spy thought, Hmm, it appears to be set in some sort of automated pattern. About a three second delay between each drop.
As soon as the guillotine was open again, Spy ran under it, clearing it about a second before it fell again. With that obstacle cleared, Spy pushed onward, blinking as he saw a trio of disembodied heads fly past him, snakes writhing in their hair. Medusa Heads? Spy thought. How intriguing.
As the heads vanished, like they were ghostly in nature, Spy came upon his next obstacle. Two platforms sat inside a break in the stairway. Every few seconds, the platforms turned over, revealing their undersides to be covered with sharp, bloodstained spikes, before turning back over to their flat tops. Spy observed their behavior for a few moments before he determined that they were each on a different pattern. The first platform turned every six seconds, the second one every four. With this in mind, Spy waited for the opportune moment when both platforms switched to the top at roughly the same time before he ran across, clearing the second platform right before it turned.
Brushing off an imaginary speck of dust, Spy scoffed. "The outcome was never really in doubt."
Soon he reached the top of the stairway, where he found himself at another door, with a metal engraving of a dragon's skull embossed in its center. Something in the Frenchman's gut told him that something particularly dangerous lay beyond this door, and Spy knew always to trust his gut instincts. With an ominous creak, Spy pushed the door open, bracing himself for whatever awaited him.
An earsplitting, shrieking roar assaulted his ears as he entered the top of the tower, and the assassin gawked at the source of the noise. Coiled around the gate mechanism was a skeletal serpent with two heads, each of which were glaring with ill intent at Spy. That immediately told him something disconcerting; they could see through his disguise.
"Merde," Spy spat as the first head sent a purple fireball hurtling towards him.
Spy dove behind the wall of the doorway, avoiding the attack. The White Dragon roared its anger to the heavens as its quarry hid where it could not reach. He had seen the monster just long enough to know that he would not get that gate open unless he dealt with it. But all he had were his revolver and knife. While both could cause a human target substantial harm, he was not certain the same could be said for a giant, two-headed undead snake. Nevertheless, there was no way he could escape as long as that thing was there.
And then it hit him; his cloak.
Maybe it could see through his disguise, but surely it could not detect him while invisible. Not even Engineer's laser-guided Sentries could do that. With an ominous hiss, Spy vanished and ran out from his hiding place. To his relief, the White Dragon's heads were both still staring venomously at the doorway he had entered from. Quietly, he flanked the angry beast, coming up to the left head's side. He stood still to let his cloak recharge while he investigated the monster up close.
Perhaps, if I am quick enough, I can use my knife to dislodge the head from the neck, Spy strategized.
He quickly took a step back as the left head opened its mouth, unleashing a gout of violet flames that washed over his former hiding spot, indicating that it would not save him from such an attack. Still invisible, Spy adjusted his tie one more time, preparing himself for whatever may come, before he struck.
Fading back into view with a hiss, Spy plunged his knife into the startled serpent's head where the back of its skull connected with its spine, and with a rough twist of his wrist, the bones snapped, the head flying free of the neck. Both the head and the severed neck burst into flames and crumbled to dust as the second head screeched in fury. Spy barely had time to notice several things falling from the crumbling head's remains to the ground before the second head rose upwards, well out of range of his knife, before shooting another burst of violet flames Spy's way.
The Frenchman quickly backed up out of range before whipping out his Ambassador. "Apologies," he mocked before firing off several rounds at the White Dragon's remaining head.
The serpent shrieked as the projectiles punctured its skull in several places, but as Spy feared, this only served to anger the undead beast further as it lunged at him. Spy dodged the serpent, cloaking once more. Furious, the White Dragon set the area it had last seen him ablaze, but Spy had already moved in the opposite direction, noticing two things near where the first head had fallen.
As the undead serpent angrily blew flames all around it, hoping to hit the invisible man out of pure luck, Spy ran over and retrieved the two items; a boomerang in the shape of a crucifix, and a bottle of holy water. Spy grinned. Holy water…let's put it to the test!
The White Dragon screeched, having yet to successfully locate Spy, when it suddenly heard a sharp whistle behind it. The skeletal serpent whipped its head towards the noise just in time to see the decloaked Spy lob something right at its face. Its whole world exploded in white-hot pain as the bottle shattered, spraying its head with holy water. The effect was immediate; the monster burst screeching into blue flames, writhing about as it was consumed by the holy inferno. Within moments nothing remained of the White Dragon, but several more items dropped from its corpse as it disintegrated.
"Nothing personal," Spy intoned smugly. "I just had to shut you up!"
With the threat neutralized, Spy waltzed over to the items that had been left behind and gathered them up; two crosses, and another bottle of holy water.
A gift for the jar man, Spy scoffed to himself as he inspected the holy water. Now, time to get that gate open.
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Outside…
Meanwhile, the other mercs were having a grand old time blowing up the skeleton horde closing in on them. Standing on top of a pile of boxes, Sniper picked his shots, scoring a headshot nearly every time. Engie's Sentry and Heavy's minigun sent a rain of bullet hell into the skeletons, ripping them to shreds. Soldier's rockets and Demoman's grenades sent bones flying into the air with every explosion. Scout ducked and weaved his way through those skeletons that had been lucky enough to get over the fence, taking potshots with his Scattergun or occasionally whacking them with his Three Rune Blade. Pyro was a laughing engine of destruction, setting dozens of skeletons on fire at a time, burning their bones black.
All in all, the skeletal horde was no match for the fury of RED Team, as they were well-suited to battling large numbers of weaker enemies thanks to their experiences in the Robot Wars. And the skeletons were no Gray Mann robots, that was for sure. In all of twenty minutes, the entire undead army was wiped out, their scattered bones littering the area like the latest string of Halloween decorations.
"Well, Ah reckon that's that," Engineer spoke, reloading his shotgun.
"Those babies never stood chance," Heavy rumbled.
"Ja, I never even needed to activate ze Übercharge!" Medic declared.
"Well if dat's the best Count Suckula can do, maybe dis won't be so bad!" Scout laughed, his confidence returning after their easy victory.
"I wouldn't get so cocky just yet, boy."
All of them turned to see Spy decloaking, lighting yet another cigarette. "While you gentlemen were having your fun, I was investigating ze outer wall of the Castle. After battling a gigantic, two-headed undead snake, I have managed to open ze gate that leads into the main part of ze Castle."
Scout laughed in disbelief. "A giant two-headed zombie snake? No way!"
"Shut up, Scout," Spy berated him. "These are for you. I recovered zem from the monster's corpse, strangely enough."
With that, Spy tossed the younger man a pair of silver crosses. "What the?" Scout muttered as he looked them over.
"And this, Jar Man, is for you," Spy continued, tossing a dark blue bottle over to Sniper.
"Holy water?" Sniper asked incredulously.
"Indeed," Spy said. "It's quite potent, monsieur. I used anozzer one against the snake guarding ze gate mechanism, and ze beast utterly burst into flames. I would hold onto it if I were you."
Sniper blinked before depositing it in the knapsack where he kept his bottles of Jarate. "Duly noted, mate."
"So what y'all see in there?" Engineer asked.
"Mostly traps, but I did see a handful of ozzer monsters in there as well. Dragon skulls zat operate similarly to your Sentry Guns, for starters, as well as floating Medusa Heads."
"Medusa Heads?" Heavy repeated, hoping they didn't have the power to turn people to stone like their namesake.
"None of zem saw through my disguise save for the giant snake," Spy explained. "Once the rest of us barge in, though, it is unlikely my disguises will be of much further service."
"So ye managed te get the gate open?" Demoman asked. "Well, that'll save me a few of me bombs, then."
"Indeed," Spy replied. "Let's not waste any furzzer time, shall we? Ze Castle is quite large, and I fear we will be covering a lot of ground before we reach the Count."
"Perhaps we should take food along, just in case," Heavy suggested. "Heavy doubts we will find any in creepy castle."
"Ah reckon you're right, pardner," Engineer admitted. "Ah'll go get an ice chest ready. Heavy, y'all think ya could make us all some sandwiches?"
Heavy puffed out his chest with pride. "Da, Heavy will make us many sandviches and Dalokoh's."
As Heavy and Engineer reentered the base to gather some grub, Scout couldn't help but scoff. "Man, I can't believe ya fought a giant monster and lived ta tell about it, spook."
Spy rolled his eyes. "Brute force is not ze only way to win a battle, even against a so-called 'giant monster', Scout."
Of course, he neglected to mention that the holy water had probably saved his bacon back there.
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Inside RED Base…
As Heavy busied himself with making his sandwiches, humming an old Russian tune to himself, Engineer came into the kitchen, carrying an ice chest about as large as his toolkit with him. The Texan mechanic dropped it on the table and opened the lid. "Make us about eighteen sandwiches, if ya can, pardner. Two fer each of us."
Heavy wordlessly nodded, focusing on his work. Meanwhile, Engineer opened the fridge and fished out a few Dalokoh's chocolate bars, a six-pack of beers, some bottled water, and, with Demoman in mind, an extra bottle of his favorite Scrumpy, and set it all on the table before placing it in the ice chest in an organized manner.
"You know, you cannot carry tools and ice chest by yourself, little man," Heavy suddenly spoke without looking up.
"Pardon?" Engineer asked, quirking an eyebrow at his Russian cohort.
"You will bring tools with you, ya?" Heavy asked, looking over his shoulder. "But each building is in its own box. Too much for any one man to carry."
"Whaddaya suggestin'?" Engineer asked.
"I am giant man. I can easily carry toolboxes and ice chest on my back, if I have pack large enough to fit them all."
Engineer smiled and nodded. "Thanks for the help, big man."
XXXXXX
Soon, Heavy and Engineer came back outside where the others were waiting, with Heavy wearing a harness that had the ice chest and the toolboxes containing Engineer's Sentry, Dispenser, and Teleporter entrance strapped to his back. "Jeez, what took ya so long?" Scout griped.
"Little baby Scout should exercise greater patience if he does not wish for Heavy to beat his ass," Heavy intoned ominously.
Scout petulantly stuck his tongue out in response. "Ooh, yeah, you're real scary."
"Now, none'a that, fellas," Engineer chided. "We got work to do."
RED Team collectively looked up at the Castle, knowing what had to be done. After a quick resupply, the nine mercenaries/Belmont stand-ins regrouped by the entrance. "Alright, fellas," Engineer declared in resignation. "Let's go save the world."
"Mark my words, maggots!" Soldier cried, brandishing his Half-Zatoichi. "Anyone who comes out of this without vampire blood on their hands is a dead man! MOVE OUT!"
Letting loose a war cry, Soldier charged into the castle entrance. Not one to be outdone, Pyro ran after him, his mad laughter muffled by his gas mask. The others rolled their eyes at their comrades' brazenness before following behind.